.America yields in battle for Nato troops
AFTER repeated rebuffs, America is preparing to abandon its insistence that Nato allies commit more combat troops to Afghanistan, despite fears the Taliban are gaining strength.
The climbdown comes after Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, made a last-ditch appeal for more troops at a two-day meeting of Nato ministers in Krakow, Poland, last week, and received a cool response.
“I think he was going through the motions,” said Steven Clemons, a foreign policy expert at the New America Foundation in Washington.
Gates was obliged to appeal to America’s allies to help with more “soft power” projects such as rebuilding roads, combating the drugs trade and training the Afghan national army and police. “I hope that it may be easier for our allies to do that than significant troop increases, especially for the long term,” he said.
President Barack Obama’s administration announced last week that it was sending an extra 17,000 troops to join 32,000 already in Afghanistan, but European countries have yet to pitch in more than a few hundred.
“The price of defeat on the military requests will be disproportionately greater requests for financial assistance and help with civilian projects,” Clemons said. “We’re not going to say we’ll just shoulder it all.”
American security and defence officials have been laying the ground for a U-turn in advance of Nato’s 60th anniversary summit in Strasbourg in April. Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer based at the Brookings Institution, has been appointed to lead an interagency review of policy on Afghanistan at the White House ahead of the summit.
The review is expected to provide creative, face-saving ways for the allies to offer considerably more civilian and military help, without providing many more combat troops. It would free US forces to concentrate on fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
“They are not going to ask countries for things they are not going to be able to do,” said a Foreign Office source. Britain has been asked by America to join in identifying “capacity gaps” in Afghanistan and to help persuade Nato allies to fill them.
John Nagl, president of the Center for a New American Security, who is close to Obama’s national security team, said a priority was to increase the size of the Afghan army and police.
“The fundamental mistake we have made in Afghanistan is not building an Afghan army sufficient to protect the population. That is going to be the primary task of the next several years and it’s an area where the allies can help.”
Germany is expected to provide more training for the national army, which is intended to double in size to 120,000 troops, while the Italians may help train paramilitary police.
Obama insisted on the campaign trail that he would oblige Nato to do more. “You can’t have a situation where the United States . . . and Britain are called upon to do the dirty work and nobody else wants to engage in actual firefights with the Taliban,” he said.
However, the Germans refused to accede to Gates’s request last week to deploy the Nato rapid response force to help stabilise Afghanistan ahead of the August presidential elections.
Britain was only marginally more helpful. John Hutton, the defence secretary, said it was up to the rest of Nato to do more before the UK could increase its 8,000 combat troops, although plans are underway to divert several hundred special forces to Afghanistan from Iraq.
“There is a strong feeling we are doing more than our fair share,” a Foreign Office source said.
The series of rejections has marked the end of Obama’s honeymoon with European governments, which had braced themselves to meet the president’s demand for extra troops when he was elected last autumn.
Now that Obama’s electoral glow is fading, they have found the confidence to say no.
“They’re taking their cue from the Republicans,” said Clemons, referring to the Republicans’ near-unanimous rejection of his economic plan. “Obama’s mystique of infallibility has been punctured.”
TimesOnline
Putin still very scary, Bambi not so much.
The climbdown comes after Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, made a last-ditch appeal for more troops at a two-day meeting of Nato ministers in Krakow, Poland, last week, and received a cool response.
“I think he was going through the motions,” said Steven Clemons, a foreign policy expert at the New America Foundation in Washington.
Gates was obliged to appeal to America’s allies to help with more “soft power” projects such as rebuilding roads, combating the drugs trade and training the Afghan national army and police. “I hope that it may be easier for our allies to do that than significant troop increases, especially for the long term,” he said.
President Barack Obama’s administration announced last week that it was sending an extra 17,000 troops to join 32,000 already in Afghanistan, but European countries have yet to pitch in more than a few hundred.
“The price of defeat on the military requests will be disproportionately greater requests for financial assistance and help with civilian projects,” Clemons said. “We’re not going to say we’ll just shoulder it all.”
American security and defence officials have been laying the ground for a U-turn in advance of Nato’s 60th anniversary summit in Strasbourg in April. Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer based at the Brookings Institution, has been appointed to lead an interagency review of policy on Afghanistan at the White House ahead of the summit.
The review is expected to provide creative, face-saving ways for the allies to offer considerably more civilian and military help, without providing many more combat troops. It would free US forces to concentrate on fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
“They are not going to ask countries for things they are not going to be able to do,” said a Foreign Office source. Britain has been asked by America to join in identifying “capacity gaps” in Afghanistan and to help persuade Nato allies to fill them.
John Nagl, president of the Center for a New American Security, who is close to Obama’s national security team, said a priority was to increase the size of the Afghan army and police.
“The fundamental mistake we have made in Afghanistan is not building an Afghan army sufficient to protect the population. That is going to be the primary task of the next several years and it’s an area where the allies can help.”
Germany is expected to provide more training for the national army, which is intended to double in size to 120,000 troops, while the Italians may help train paramilitary police.
Obama insisted on the campaign trail that he would oblige Nato to do more. “You can’t have a situation where the United States . . . and Britain are called upon to do the dirty work and nobody else wants to engage in actual firefights with the Taliban,” he said.
However, the Germans refused to accede to Gates’s request last week to deploy the Nato rapid response force to help stabilise Afghanistan ahead of the August presidential elections.
Britain was only marginally more helpful. John Hutton, the defence secretary, said it was up to the rest of Nato to do more before the UK could increase its 8,000 combat troops, although plans are underway to divert several hundred special forces to Afghanistan from Iraq.
“There is a strong feeling we are doing more than our fair share,” a Foreign Office source said.
The series of rejections has marked the end of Obama’s honeymoon with European governments, which had braced themselves to meet the president’s demand for extra troops when he was elected last autumn.
Now that Obama’s electoral glow is fading, they have found the confidence to say no.
“They’re taking their cue from the Republicans,” said Clemons, referring to the Republicans’ near-unanimous rejection of his economic plan. “Obama’s mystique of infallibility has been punctured.”
TimesOnline
Putin still very scary, Bambi not so much.
posted by madtom at 8:04 PM
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