NATO looks to seize momentum in conflict

16,000 total US troops seen

BRUSSELS, Nov 9, (Agencies): Defence ministers from the NATO alliance met Thursday in Brussels to review the next steps in the Afghanistan conflict and brainstorm ways to make gains in the 16-year-old war.

NATO this week announced it would be sending some 3,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, bringing the Western military footprint up to about 16,000 soldiers.

The additional troops, most of them American, will help train and advise local Afghan forces who have struggled to hold Taleban and Islamic State extremists at bay while suffering heavy casualties.

“Our allies and partners have committed to sending more troops,” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday. “Today we will review progress and discuss what more needs to be done, to enhance Afghan combat capabilities in the fight against international terrorism, and to establish the environment to achieve Afghanistan’s ultimate objective of peace and reconciliation.”

NATO leaders are optimistic that 2018 could see Afghan forces start to gain momentum against the Taleban, thanks to renewed training efforts, a growing air force and thousands of extra Afghan commandos.

Plus US President Donald Trump has given American forces greater leeway in how and when they can hit the Taleban, and Afghan forces are increasingly going on the offensive.

Stoltenberg

Jihadists

Immediately following the summit, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis will host a separate meeting with partners from the coalition fighting the Islamic State group in the Middle East, where the jihadists continue to lose territory.

Mattis said coalition partners are looking to the United States for a clear plan about what follows the physical defeat of IS.

“Maybe three-quarters of the questions I am getting asked now is (about) going forward. It’s not about are we going to be able to stop ISIS, are we going to be able to overcome ISIS. They are now saying: ‘What’s next? How is it looking?’” Mattis told reporters this week using another acronym for the group.

Following back-to-back losses, including of their Syrian and Iraqi strongholds of Raqqa and Mosul, IS fighters are down to defending their last holdouts along the Euphrates River valley.

America’s military involvement in Syria has until now been focused solely on fighting IS, but with the jihadists on the ropes, Washington must articulate its longer-term interests and what role, if any, US forces will play in Syria.

A French source said allies were keen to hear what Mattis had to say about the role of Iran – a key supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – following Trump’s tough rhetoric against Tehran.

“We are wondering how the speeches by top US officials on the need to push back the Iranian presence in the region is going to manifest itself in real terms in the military strategy,” the source said.

Weaponry

NATO members agreed Wednesday to increase the use of cyber weaponry and tactics during military operations, with the alliance also upgrading other capabilities to combat a resurgent Russia.

The changes are part of NATO’s biggest shakeup since the Cold War, with defence ministers backing the creation of two new command centres to help protect Europe.

The revamp reflects the “changed security environment” of recent years, Stoltenberg said.

The threat to the alliance’s eastern flank has grown as a concern after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

“We are now integrating cyber effects into NATO missions and operations to respond to a changed and new security environment where cyber is part of the threat picture we have to respond to,” Stoltenberg said.

After years of stripping back its command structure since the end of the Cold War, NATO wants to add the new command centres – one to protect lines of communication across the Atlantic and one to coordinate the movement of troops and equipment around Europe.

The North Korean nuclear crisis has also been high on the agenda in Brussels.

Tensions have soared since Pyongyang carried out its sixth nuclear test – its most powerful to date – and Stoltenberg said the crisis demanded a united international effort.

Meanwhile, the expected deployment of hundreds more US Army trainers to Afghanistan early next year will probably increase the total number of American forces there to almost 16,000, according to US officials.

Efforts

At least 15,000 US forces are in Afghanistan, after President Donald Trump decided to send about 3,800 troops to the country this fall to strengthen efforts to advise Afghan forces and conduct counterterrorism missions. All those extra troops are already in the country, US defense officials said.

The Army’s new security force assistance brigade is being built and trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, and will head to Afghanistan early next year. Senior US defense officials cited ongoing discussions about whether other American forces would leave when the training unit arrives or whether the trainers would add to the US military footprint already there.

The officials said Pentagon leaders, primarily US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, had initially set a tentative cap of about 15,000 US troops in Afghanistan. But they said Mattis has made clear he is committed to a force level based on military needs, not an arbitrary number. As a result, the officials said they believe the trainers will add to the total US force number in Afghanistan, and not come in as replacements.

The officials weren’t authorized to publicly discuss the troop numbers and insisted on condition of anonymity.

Calculating the actual number of US forces in Afghanistan has been an ongoing problem.

The Pentagon in August acknowledged having about 11,000 American troops there, after long camouflaging the total in misleading accounting measures and red tape. Under the Obama administration, troops were capped at 8,400. But that limit was routinely exceeded. Commanders shuffled troops in and out, labeled many “temporary” and used other personnel accounting tactics to artificially keep the public count low.