Afghanistan: Trump planning to deploy more troops, end ‘nation-building’ strategy
President Trump outlined a revised vision for the U.S. war in Afghanistan on Monday night, pledging to end a strategy of “nation-building” and instead institute a policy aimed more squarely at addressing the terrorist threat that emanates from the region.
Trump’s plan involves a modest increase of several thousand troops — he did not specify how many more soldiers will be sent to Afghanistan in his speech, but congressional officials said the administration has told them it will be about 4,000.
“I share the American people’s frustration,” he said. “I also share their frustration over a foreign policy that has spent too much time, energy, money — and most importantly, lives — trying to rebuild countries in our own image
instead of pursuing our security interests above all other considerations.”
Trump’s decision to further commit to the nation’s longest war, rather than withdraw, reflects a significant shift in his approach to Afghanistan since taking office and marks a new willingness to take greater ownership of a protracted conflict that he had long dismissed as a waste of time and resources.
The president said success would be determined by conditions on the ground and not dictated by a specific timeline. The change in policy laid out during a prime-time address from the Fort Myer military base in Arlington, Va., is the result of a lengthy policy review within his administration over how to proceed with the war.
“Our troops will fight to win,” he said. “From now on, victory will have a clear definition: attacking our enemies, obliterating ISIS, crushing al Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over the country, and stopping mass terror attacks against Americans before they emerge.”
The president’s decision to endorse a Pentagon plan to boost troop levels reflects mounting concerns among military leadership that battlefield setbacks for Afghan government forces against the Taliban and al Qaeda have led to a rapidly deteriorating security situation.
An increase in the 8,500 U.S. service members currently in Afghanistan represents a bow to reality for a president who, before taking office, called for a “speedy withdrawal” from a war that began in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In his speech, Trump said his calculus as president is different than it was as a candidate.
“My original instinct was to pull out, and historically I like following my instincts,” Trump said. “But all my life, I’ve heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office.”
After taking office, Trump announced that he would delegate authority to the Pentagon to set troop levels. That raised fears among some lawmakers and foreign policy analysts that even a modest initial increase could escalate rapidly and plunge the United States more deeply back into a conflict that already has resulted in the deaths of 2,403 Americans.
Though former President Barack Obama fell short of fulfilling his campaign pledge to end the war, his administration vastly decreased troop levels from a high of more than 100,000 and shifted the remaining U.S. forces to a less dangerous training and advisory role.
Inside the administration, Vice President Mike Pence and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis have advocated for the Pentagon plan to add troops, along with broader diplomatic and economic pressure on regional players, especially Pakistan.
Trump’s task Monday night was magnified by his need to convince his core supporters, many of whom responded to his campaign calls to put “America first” by reducing foreign interventionism in the Middle East and Central Asia. His speech took place days after the departure from the White House of chief strategist Stephen Bannon, who had advocated replacing U.S. troops with private security contractors.
The president has framed his decisions to use military force — including Tomahawk missile strikes on an air base in Syria in April after President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons — around his pledge to be tough on terrorism and direct threats to American security.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a statement Monday noting the fourth anniversary of a previous chemical weapons attack by Assad. In that instance, Obama decided not to follow through on his pledge to strike the government for violating a “red line.”
“We must speak with one voice and act with one purpose to ensure that the Syrian regime, and any other actor contemplating the use of chemical weapons, understands that doing so will result in serious consequences,” the statement said.
But foreign policy analysts said Trump’s decision on Afghanistan is tricky because the strategy does not represent a radical departure from the past.
“To be honest, it’s probably pretty close to what a Hillary Clinton would do,” said Derek Chollet, an assistant secretary of defense in the Obama administration who now serves as a defense analyst at the German Marshall Fund.
Chollet added that for a president who has measured success by decisive and dramatic action, the Afghanistan strategy “is about incremental success, if any.”
Even before his presidential campaign, Trump was skeptical about the war. “When will we stop wasting our money on rebuilding Afghanistan?” he tweeted in 2011. “We must rebuild our country first.”