These post-2014 options seem obviously pre-determined to allow President Obama to choose the middle, "moderate" option:
General Allen offered Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta three plans with different troop levels: 6,000, 10,000 and 20,000, each with a risk factor probably attached to it, a senior military official said. An option of 6,000 troops would probably pose a higher risk of failure for the American effort in Afghanistan, 10,000 would be medium risk and 20,000 would be lower risk, the official said.
Perhaps I'm cynical, but I'm sure the Pentagon knows that 20,000 was the upper limit that the White House would allow to be suggested. The fact that 10,000 as the middle option was the sadly insufficient number the administration suggested for Iraq (and which Iraq would not stick their necks out to ask for, knowing how inadequate it was) does not fill me with confidence about our sincerity to win the war.
I'm also sure that the Pentagon can count as well as the people at the Institute for the Study of War (tip to Defense Industry Daily) who judge we need more than the high-end force General Allen is suggesting.
ISW suggests 23,000 to 31,000, including one ground combat brigade for Regional Command East.
It is possible that we expect (or claim to expect) NATO to contribute enough forces to reach this higher level with an American commitment of only 10,000. But the logistics and combat support elements alone would seem to exceed what we might need to commit before we even get to special forces and air power support.
And non-American NATO forces, depending on their "caveats" imposed by national governments restricting their use in the field, may make non-US forces less valuable because they just aren't inter-changable with US forces. Few of our allies offered troops essentially equivalent to our forces. Britain is the only one left who might retain sufficient forces to fight with us.
And honestly, I'm uncomfortable having so many troops in Afghanistan with only a single ground combat brigade there. Sure, that's fine for combat forces in the field, but we need plenty of separate infantry battalions to provide base security, route security, and reaction forces.
I know the outer layers of base defenses will be provided by locals and contract security, but I wouldn't want to rely on them if things go really bad, really fast. We need bases that are little death stars that our forces can retreat to in an emergency and wait for the cavalry to be sent in to counter-attack or help our people get out.
Are we trying to protect Afghanistan or the president's reputation by pushing responsibility for failure on to the Afghan government and perhaps our NATO allies?
