Tie troop request to a broader strategy
The war in Afghanistan is not going well. At best, it’s a stalemate. At worst, it’s a war seemingly without end — the longest in U.S. history — that is shifting slowly in favor of the Taliban and other Islamic extremists.
Afghan security forces are fighting harder than ever, but an average of 20 police or soldiers are killed each day. The government in Kabul is barely able to gather enough new recruits to make up for the mounting dead and wounded. Last month, a mother in Kabul lost three sons, all police officers, to a single attack. Territory is slipping from the government’s grasp, with just 57% of districts nationwide controlled by Kabul, down 15% from November 2015.
Americans have sacrificed a lot since the war began in 2001 in retaliation for the 9/11 terror attacks plotted by al- Qaeda leaders, who had safe harbor in Talibancontrolled Afghanistan. Beyond 2,247 military deaths and 20,000 wounded, the U.S. has spent more in inflation-adjusted dollars to reconstruct Afghanistan than it did to rebuild Europe after World War II — and the nation remains far from self-sustaining.
The main upside is that the U.S. has prevented Afghanistan from being used as a base for another 9/11-style attack on American soil. “We believe ... that our operations in Afghanistan direct- ly protect the homeland,” Army Gen. John Nicholson, commander of the U.S.-led international military force in Afghanistan, told senators this month.
Other accomplishments include shrinking territory held by the Islamic State’s Afghan affiliate down to a few districts and, in October, killing an al- Qaeda leader who was planning an attack on the United States.
Nicholson conceded that the war is a stalemate. He’d like to add perhaps 1,400 U.S. troops to the 8,400 already in Afghanistan, with 2,000 more contributed from NATO and other coalition allies who already have 5,000 on the ground. The additional manpower would improve battlefield surveillance and move trained advisers further down into Afghan forces to bolster leadership.
Nicholson’s request for more U.S. troops appears reasonable, but troop levels have to reflect a broader strategy. America needs to know President Trump’s position on Afghanistan. More than a month into his administration, there’s silence. Trump has offered conflicting views in the past, arguing against nation-building but telling Fox News last year, albeit reluctantly, that he’d stay in Afghanistan.
President Obama was moving toward a complete withdrawal, which might have successfully pressured Kabul into assuming more responsibilities. But by announcing troop levels well into the future, divorced from the situation on the ground, he also left the Taliban and other terrorist groups to bide their time until the United States was gone.
The U.S. troops serving valiantly in Afghanistan deserve clarity of purpose. The choice is whether to stay in Afghanistan — with an active counterterrorism role and assisting the government’s fight against its enemies — or whether to leave. Only when the Taliban realizes that the U.S. commitment is unwavering, and that it cannot retake Kabul, will this longest war come to a resolution.