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"Trump had made clear to his advisers earlier this year that he wanted to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by the November 2020 election."

The U.S. military told VOA Monday it has not received orders to reduce troop levels in Afghanistan and remains fully committed to Afghan partners to achieve security objectives.

Officials in Afghanistan confirmed Sunday the United States plans to withdraw thousands of troops from the country, insisting the move stemmed from a mutual understanding between the two allied nations.

"Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday threatened to close two strategic military bases used by the United States in Turkey, after Washington warned of sanctions over Ankara buying Russian arms."

"This revived interest in great power politics (and the attending risk of major war) comes with an important, if oft unstated, corollary: the problem of small wars, waged between asymmetric adversaries and through low-intensity but often prolonged campaigns, is now of secondary importance."

"Eighteen years after the invasion of Afghanistan, the same question faces people touched by the war in Tampa and nationwide: What now?"

"Secretary of Defense Mark Esper wants to drastically expand the foreign military training program despite fallout stemming from the deadly shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, that claimed the lives of three service members and wounded eight others."

"The Trump administration plans to publish a new U.S. strategy for Central Asia as China and Russia fight for influence in the energy-rich region and militants from Afghanistan threaten to destabilize it, a senior State Department official has said."

"A dozen members of Saudi Arabia’s military remain restricted to Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla., as federal investigators continue gathering information about last week’s mass shooting on base, Pentagon officials said on Thursday."

"Another bloody year of fighting in Afghanistan is almost in the books as peace negotiations between the U.S. and Taliban seek an end to America’s longest war. But Pentagon officials won’t provide any metrics to highlight whether Afghan forces made any battlefield progress in their fight against the Taliban and other militants across the country in 2019."

"Congress wants the Air Force to consider transferring some funding allocated for light attack planes to U.S. Special Operations Command — a provision that could allow the service to quietly quash its light attack efforts and allow SOCOM to step in to run a program of record."

"The Pentagon is considering several options to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan, including one that would shift to a narrower counterterrorism mission, the top U.S. military officer told Congress on Wednesday."

"A series of airstrikes were called in following a failed attempt by the Taliban to breach Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, on Wednesday, according to a Resolute Support spokesman."

"Afghanistan’s former president argued Tuesday that Washington helped fuel corruption in his nation by spending hundreds of millions of dollars over the past two decades without accountability."

"American commanders have requested guidance on dealing with an attack from those armed groups and others from Iran and the Syrian government, but officials say they have received muddled direction."

NPR's Audie Cornish talks with Douglas Lute, former Afghan War czar for the Bush and Obama administrations, about a Washington Post report, which claims the public wasn't told the truth about the war effort.

"The outgoing Pentagon senior enlisted adviser and his incoming replacement weighed in on reporting Monday that military leaders have been misleading the American people about the direction and success of the war in Afghanistan since within months of U.S. troops hitting the ground in October 2001, roundly denying that they ever felt lied to about the mission and touting the progress the country has made in the intervening years."

"Russian and Ukrainian leaders agreed to implement a ceasefire and a prisoners' swap by years end, following four-way talks in Paris on Monday that also included France and Germany."

I found a foto today and it brought back a lot of memories as well as a reflection on life in general and how much life is just an agglomeration of luck and timing. Fortunate and unfortunate are mere millimeters of time and whimsical at best.

"All told, the cost of nearly 18 years of war in Afghanistan will amount to more than $2 trillion. Was the money well spent?"

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, are meeting for the first time in Paris for long-awaited talks on resolving the military conflict in eastern Ukraine that has left more than 13,000 people dead since 2014.

"U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad on Saturday held the first official talks with Afghanistan’s Taliban since President Donald Trump declared a near-certain peace deal with the insurgents dead in September."

"... war metrics that have been used to push positive public sentiment and stay the course in a war U.S. officials have acknowledged as unwinnable were manipulated to tout successes and emphasize particular strategies were moving in the right direction, according to a an explosive story from the Washington Post."

A recent military escalation by Russian and Syrian government forces in the rebel-held northwestern Syrian province of Idlib is likely to continue in the coming weeks, experts say.

"As jihadist violence escalates in Mali, analyst Paul Melly considers if France can persuade the rest of Europe to join the deadly fight."