Monday 16 January 2012

Nation Building Budget Runs Out - Strategy Ran Out Years Ago

Pentagon spokesman George Little suggested it was premature to predict what changes might be made. "Absolutely no decisions have been reached by anyone on the final size of Afghanistan's security forces," he said.
Last year Obama administration quietly put forward the idea of a "transition dividend," which would reinvest some of the military savings created by Western troop reductions, to its NATO allies. But the concept has not gained much traction been toiletted.
Last week, Poland's defense minister said that Afghanistan shouldn't expect NATO nations to 'subsidize its security forces indefinitely.'

This is all codespeak for 'we're looking for the cheapest option available that doesn't make this clusterfuck look like a total failure.' Full article (ISAFspeak Warning)

1 comment:

  1. Notice no winter review. WH is trying to keep as low a profile as possible for as long as possible. Initial troop withdrawals didn't redeploy until after summer and were composed of support/auxiliary units. Rest of the surge won't come out until election time, leaving some 60,000 troops into 2013. Karzai is allegedly on board with a post-2014 force but should be popular resistance as well. We know the Pentagon lobby hard for a big force after Iraq.

    How all of this fits with the Taliban remains up in the air - I don't think it does.

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