U.S. policy and troops in Afghanistan

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Washington Post, 11 January 2013
A soft-spoken but dramatic analysis of a tacit US policy change by former US Ambassador to Kabul Ronald Neumann: ‘A presence of 3,000 to 6,000 troops is a counterterrorist policy that gives up on serious support for the Afghan military and focuses on killing our enemies. It offers nothing to Afghans except endless killing’ and ‘such a tiny presence is likely to further empower the very warlords who have done so much to foment corruption’. Neumann’s conclusion: ‘it would be a new policy in the last years before transition [and] I think it would fail’.