By Fred Kaplan
President Barack Obama's decision to pull 33,000 troops out of Afghanistan by the end of next summer—10,000 of them by the end of this year—reflects a scaling back of U.S. goals and strategy in the war. Either that, or it doesn't make much sense.
The decision, which the president announced in a 15-minute national TV address Wednesday night, means that, over the next 15 months, all the "surge" troops that Obama ordered into Afghanistan in December 2009—one-third of the total number of U.S. forces in the country—will be going home. Their tours of duty would have been up by then anyway, but now they'll be replaced not by a fresh rotation of American soldiers or Marines but rather by Afghan security forces. And over the subsequent months, Obama said, the U.S. drawdown will continue at a steady pace—until the end of 2014, when Afghan troops will provide the mainstay of their country's security in every province.
President Barack Obama's decision to pull 33,000 troops out of Afghanistan by the end of next summer—10,000 of them by the end of this year—reflects a scaling back of U.S. goals and strategy in the war. Either that, or it doesn't make much sense.
The decision, which the president announced in a 15-minute national TV address Wednesday night, means that, over the next 15 months, all the "surge" troops that Obama ordered into Afghanistan in December 2009—one-third of the total number of U.S. forces in the country—will be going home. Their tours of duty would have been up by then anyway, but now they'll be replaced not by a fresh rotation of American soldiers or Marines but rather by Afghan security forces. And over the subsequent months, Obama said, the U.S. drawdown will continue at a steady pace—until the end of 2014, when Afghan troops will provide the mainstay of their country's security in every province.
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