Afghanistan: war by troop numbers

The analysis that went with my Times story on Afghanistan today: Ending the war in Afghanistan has been all about numbers. US troop numbers. Barack Obama sent thousands more but set a deadline for their deployment and Donald Trump wanted to pull them all out by Christmas. Joe Biden, president for ten days, now has a dilemma: does he stick with the Qatar deal signed by the US and the Taliban on February 29 and withdraw the remaining 2,500 American troops by May, the timetable set by last year’s agreement, or should he impose new conditions? The background into the numbers game provides an insight into how the politicians and the military often argue at different ends of the spectrum. When Mr Trump declared during the presidential election campaign that all US troops would be home for Christmas, he did so without any consultation with General Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, his principle military adviser. According to senior US defence sources, General Milley was the only one who stood up to Mr Trump and argued against not just the Christmas pull-out but also the eventual compromise of reducing the force level to 2,500 by January. None of the big cabinet players took the general’s side. That included Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, Robert O’Brien, national security adviser, and Mark Esper, then defence secretary. “Esper just rolled over and supported the president,” one source said. General Scott Miller, US commander in Afghanistan, had made it clear he needed a minimum of 4,500 American troops to fulfil his top priorities: counter-terrorism operations against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, maintaining coordination with senior-level Afghan commanders, providing intelligence capabilities and ensuring availability to the Afghan government of US air power. Sources said he felt this troop number was crucial until there was an enforceable ceasefire. General Milley went to Qatar on at least two occasions to confront the Taliban negotiators about the spiralling violence against Afghan security forces. Sources said he told them that the Afghan people were overwhelmingly against them regaining power and that if they continued to kill and maim they would never get voted into government. However, Washington politics was against the chairman of the joint chiefs. Mr Trump had ordered his negotiator, Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, to get a deal come what may. There was no clause committing the Taliban to a ceasefire, just an agreement not to attack US troops. Mr Biden also wants to end the war in Afghanistan. But if he goes ahead with withdrawing all 2,500 troops in May and there’s no ceasefire, it will be seen as his first foreign policy failure, and a terrible omen for the Afghan people.