Member Login Become a Member
Advertisement

Civilian, Military Officials at Odds

  |  
10.08.2009 at 09:41am

Civilian, Military Officials at Odds Over Resources Needed for Afghan Mission – Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post.

In early March, after weeks of debate across a conference table in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the participants in President Obama’s strategic review of the war in Afghanistan figured that the most contentious part of their discussions was behind them. Everyone, save Vice President Biden’s national security adviser, agreed that the United States needed to mount a comprehensive counterinsurgency mission to defeat the Taliban. That conclusion, which was later endorsed by the president and members of his national security team, would become the first in a set of recommendations contained in an administration white paper outlining what Obama called “a comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Preventing al-Qaeda’s return to Afghanistan, the document stated, would require “executing and resourcing an integrated civilian-military counterinsurgency strategy.”

To senior military commanders, the sentence was unambiguous: US and NATO forces would have to change the way they operated in Afghanistan. Instead of focusing on hunting and killing insurgents, the troops would have to concentrate on protecting the good Afghans from the bad ones. And to carry out such a counterinsurgency effort the way its doctrine prescribes, the military would almost certainly need more boots on the ground…

More at The Washington Post.

About The Author

  • SWJ Staff searches the internet daily for articles and posts that we think are of great interests to our readers.

    View all posts

Article Discussion: