US troop commitment to Afghanistan looks open-ended
A president who denounced his predecessor's Afghan policy has come round to a similar approach
US President Donald Trump's strategy statement yesterday set out a continuing military commitment to Afghanistan that placed no deadline for troops to leave. He admitted to abandoning his original preference for removing troops and said there would be no "hasty withdrawal", promising to give the US military the flexibility it needed without specifying whether more troops would be added to the present contingent of 8,400. He made harsh comments on Pakistan, saying the policy of paying billions of dollars to a country sheltering "the very terrorists that we are fighting" would change.
Our judgement
Trump's long-awaited Afghanistan policy looks similar to that of his predecessor Barack Obama: providing Afghan ground troops with air strikes, special forces and training to help them win battles against the Taliban and re-occupy territory where possible. Trump's promise to "fight to win" is thus overstated, and the troop presence may be open-ended. The Pentagon is likely to request and receive the 4,000 extra soldiers discussed in recent months. Trump will find it as hard as Obama simultaneously to pressure Pakistan and secure its security cooperation.
See AFGHANISTAN: Taliban schisms reduce scope for peace - July 4, 2017