Putin: NATO should stay in Afghanistan
Some unsolicited advice from Russia’s president: NATO forces should stay in Afghanistan until their job is done, Russia President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, suggesting they should stay beyond a planned withdrawal of most combat troops in 2014. "It is regrettable that many participants in this operation are thinking about how to pull out of ...
Some unsolicited advice from Russia's president:
Some unsolicited advice from Russia’s president:
NATO forces should stay in Afghanistan until their job is done, Russia President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, suggesting they should stay beyond a planned withdrawal of most combat troops in 2014.
"It is regrettable that many participants in this operation are thinking about how to pull out of there," Putin said at a meeting with paratroopers in the Russian city of Ulyanovsk. "They took up this burden and should carry it to the end."
Perhaps the position of America’s "number one geopolitical foe" can help Mitt Romney’s campaign better articulate a position on the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
It’s not quite clear from the Reuters story why exactly Putin wants NATO to remain in Afghanistan, though from a strategic perspective, the allies’ reliance on the Northern Distribution Network for supplies certainly gives Moscow some international leverage. Russian officials have also repeatedly urged the U.S. to pursue a poppy eradication strategy to wipe out Afghan heroin, which has helped fuel a growing drug epidemic in Russia.
Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating
More from Foreign Policy

No, the World Is Not Multipolar
The idea of emerging power centers is popular but wrong—and could lead to serious policy mistakes.

America Prepares for a Pacific War With China It Doesn’t Want
Embedded with U.S. forces in the Pacific, I saw the dilemmas of deterrence firsthand.

America Can’t Stop China’s Rise
And it should stop trying.

The Morality of Ukraine’s War Is Very Murky
The ethical calculations are less clear than you might think.