Proposals All Involve Sending Thousands More Troops to Afghanistan
The latest in a series of Pentagon proposals on changing US policy in its assorted wars, a series of options are expected to be delivered to President Trump next week on Afghanistan. The options being presented, according to the Pentagon, are meant to “break the stalemate” in Afghanistan.
By “stalemate,” what the Pentagon really means is mounting losses, which have left the Taliban with more territory now than at any other point in the 16-year US occupation. The Pentagon has previously indicated the most ambitious escalation will involve some 5,000 more US troops and 13,000 NATO troops being deployed.
But either way, wars don’t get deescalated by the US these days, so all of the plans being offered are escalations, with the least of the deployments being 3,000 US troops and everything just going up from there. The details beyond that are not all public knowledge.
President Trump is expected to announce his decision later in the month, sometime around the NATO summit. It’s not at all clear which plan President Trump is leaning toward, but given the limited range of options presented, it’s going to involve more US troops.
