Preventing a race for the exits in Afghanistan

NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen and German chancellor Angela Merkel appeared together in Berlin today and they signaled their committment to keeping NATO on its planned 2014 schedule for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Via Deutsche Welle:

The leaders of NATO and Germany said on Friday that they were sticking to the current timeline for a military withdrawal from Afghanistan, irrespective of the outcome of Sunday’s presidential election runoff in France.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and NATO Secretary General Andres Fogh Rasmussen appeared in tandem after a meeting in Berlin, primarily to prepare for the next NATO summit in Chicago in later this month.

"Germany will suggest that we act in exactly the way that we NATO members have previously agreed," Merkel said after the meeting, when asked whether the current withdrawal timetable would hold.

Socialist candidate Francois Hollande, currently the frontrunner ahead of Sunday’s French presidential election, has said he wants to withdraw French troops from the ISAF coalition in Afghanistan at the end of this year, 12 months ahead of schedule. France is the fifth-largest contributor to the ISAF mission, with roughly 3,300 troops stationed in Afghanistan.

Assuming Hollande prevails, NATO’s upcoming summit may force him to decide whether to stick with that campaign plank, and Merkel and Rasmussen appeared to be strongly suggesting that he reconsider. They have a strong interest in doing so. It is highly unlikely that Afghanistan will be remembered as a NATO success. But whether it’s seen as a disaster for the alliance will depend in part on whether it can prevent a chaotic exit in which members race to ensure that their soldiers aren’t the last to die for the Karzai government.