"It will be late summer before we see the results that would cause us to make some decisions like that," Casey added, referring to the prospect of reducing the overall size of the American force, which stood at 132,000 troops at the time Bush announced he was sending reinforcements.
The troop buildup is scheduled to unfold in phases, with the full contingent of five extra brigades not in place until May.
I've argued that the key to winning is recognizing that the new phase of war we are in and adjusting our strategy to that reality. New troops could help, but are not necessary in great numbers if at all. My worry about a surge is mostly about the expectations it might breed in our people more than the actual stress on the ground forces (though that stress will be real if not fatal).
The gradual build-up and the talk of late summer draw down seem to indicate that it is not the troops so much as the strategy, as I've argued. And my worry about increased expectations are also soothed by the gradual nature of the "surge."
Which begs the question of why there has been an emphasis on describing what we are doing as a "surge." We've overlapped troop rotations to increase strength to higher levels than this so-called surge will achieve. And we've added new troops before. Our strength rises and falls. This very ordinary measure has been raised to the level of an "escalation" of the war.
So I have to ask, did the President head fake the war opponents? As one commentator said recently, the main debate now seems to be holding the line on troop strength versus the so-called surge. Last month it was about holding the line on troop strength versus how fast do we withdraw? But I'm not even talking about this.
War opponents focus on troop strength while uttering nary a word on the new strategy (I mean, other than blindly insisting there is no new strategy). With troops dribbling in over five months, has the President bought time to get some results as the opposition screams about the additional troops even as they are powerless to stop them? If so, the debate over the impact of the extra troops might not begin until early summer, by which point the far more important strategy will have had six months to show some results.
Still, it is usually a mistake to read deep plans into actions. Even if I am right about the practical effect of the slow surge, it probably is just a byproduct of a decision that has more to do with logistics than out-flanking war opponents.
Something to think about, anyway.
