The Next Move in Afghanistan?
By Rob Anderson - Sep 22nd, 2008 at 1:09 pmAt this point, President Bush, John McCain, and Barack Obama all agree that a surge of troops is needed in Afghanistan to ensure that the Taliban and/or al-Qaida don’t use the country as a base for launching terrorist operations throughout the Middle East–or the rest of the world, for that matter.
Slate’s Fred Kaplan isn’t so sure. Kaplan doesn’t believe boosting foreign troop levels in Afghanistan is the right thing to do. He has two reasons. First, he argues, we don’t have enough troops to do it effectively. Kaplan estimates that we would need to send 500,000 troops to Afghanistan to secure the population. (The highest number floated up to this point is around 12,000.) Second, Kaplan argues that Afghan army is perfectly capable of securing the country itself. “Given the right resources,” he says, “it could do the job.”
So instead of sending troops, Kaplan proposes we send a ton more money to the country so it can defend itself:
[P]our lots and lots of money into Afghanistan, so the government can equip, train, and pay a much larger national army. … Some foreign troops would still be necessary, to train, advise, and provide intelligence and air support—but this is, and can only be, the Afghan people’s fight.
I don’t know enough about Afghanistan to pick a side (although I’ll look around to see if other more knowledgeable people have weighed in), but Kaplan’s advice certainly does goes against the conventional wisdom on Afghanistan in Washington at the moment.
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