The commander of U.S. forces there lays the first major war decision on Donald Trump’s desk.
Fifteen years after the U.S. invasion, Afghanistan is in a “stalemate” that will require several thousand more Western troops to break, the war’s top U.S. commander told Congress.
Gen. John “Mick” Nicholson’s testimony laid on Donald Trump’s desk the first major war decision — surge troops or not? — just three weeks into his new and tumultuous administration, which so far has focused more intently on U.S. border security than overseas military engagements. The commander of NATO’s Operation Resolute Support said he expected Defense Secretary James Mattis to present the request to alliance defense ministers when they meet next week in Brussels.
“I believe we are in a stalemate,” Nicholson told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. He said the current Western coalition has a “shortfall of a few thousand” troops. But rather than the 30,000 combat-brigade soldiers sent by President Barack Obama in 2009, Nicholson said he wants more “advise and assist” troops to help Afghan forces, who incurred heavy losses in 2016 as they beat back various terrorist offensives. The general said his forces have enough equipment and resources for the mission but needed more “expeditionary packages” of advisors to deploy across Afghanistan. The desired troops would come “below the corps level” and could be American or come from allied nations of the NATO training mission.
“We’re going to be able to discuss this in greater detail,” at NATO next week, Nicholson said.
The general said one reason for the resurgence of insurgent and terrorist fighting was that enemy groups still have “safe havens and external support,” including from within Pakistan and the Haqqani network. That group, along with the war itself, has largely disappeared from American reporting, but was a crucial focus during the height of the war early in the Obama administration, especially by former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen. After Obama unilaterally declared an official end to the war, downsizing to roughly 9,000 American troops, the security burden has been shifted to Afghan forces and elite U.S. special operations counterterrorism units, which have been given stricter rules of engagement.
Read the rest at Defense One.
