The Pentagon is considering several options to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan, including one that would shift to a narrower counterterrorism mission, the top U.S. military officer told Congress on Wednesday.
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not disclose any potential troop totals, but he agreed that leaving a minimal U.S. footprint in Afghanistan to battle terrorists is a potential move.
“We have multiple options, that's one of them,” he said. The U.S. currently has about 13,000 troops in Afghanistan. About 5,000 of them are doing counterterrorism missions. The remainder are part of a broader NATO mission to train, advise and assist the Afghan security forces.
As I've noted before, counter-terrorism requires the web of intelligence that counter-insurgency provides:
Yet there seems to be stubborn thinking in our government that counter-terrorism is a job separate from counter-insurgency, so we can wage war with special forces and drones against terrorists who target us without paying attention to a wider war.
This is a mistake because counter-terrorism relies on counter-insurgency if we want more than a strategy of drive-by dronings, even though the special forces may kill disproportionately despite their small size compared to total forces involved[.]
We cannot carry out counter-terrorism missions to kill jihadis if the Afghan government collapses around our special forces and air bases. The Afghan security forces need to be conducting COIN to provide the in-depth security and the information to direct the counter-terrorism missions. So we need to be involved to keep the Afghan security forces out in the field fighting and defeating the enemy.
Aim for victory and end the search for some cheaper alternate way to define victory.
My advice doesn't change with administrations.
UPDATE: I'm worried:
The Trump administration is expected to announce plans to withdraw around 4,000 troops from Afghanistan, according to US media, after peace talks resumed a week ago between the US and the Taliban.
Esper told reporters Monday that Austin Miller, the head of the NATO mission and US Forces Afghanistan, "is confident that he can go down to a lower number" of troops.
If the troops withdrawn aren't needed to carry out missions against the Taliban this is okay. Miller says--implicitly--that he can carry out his missions without them.
Is that true? Or is it only "true" because the mission is being redefined to counter-terrorism only.
