Weighing the options as Obama vows to 'finish the job' in Afghanistan

AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills

Yesterday, speaking alongside Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, U.S. President Barack Obama reinforced the need to "finish the job" in Afghanistan. The BBC quoted Obama as saying

After eight years, some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy to get the job done, it is my intention to finish the job [...] I feel confident that when the American people hear a clear rationale for what we're doing there and how we intend to achieve our goals, that they will be supportive.

President Obama went on to ask for world support in the current Afghan conflict. That "world support" is a critical factor as the Obama administration continues to weigh its options in Afghanistan. On November 12th, the BBC published an analysis of the administration's four troop increase options by Michael Codner, Director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute. Codner summarized the plans as follows:

1. 40,000 additional U.S. troops - NATO and U.S. Commander Stanley McChrystal's proposal, which centers on winning "short" and "long" battles against the Taliban. Winning the "short" fight involves a troop increase to take initiative from the Taliban militants. The "long fight," on the other hand, involves the NATO and U.S. forces developing Afghan security forces into a capable entity and focusing on improving civilian quality of life.
2. 30,000 additional U.S. troops, 10,000 additional NATO troops - U.S. Secretary of Defense Roebert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen reportedly favor this option, which will follow McChrystal's strategy but with a different force mix dependent on European involvement. Whether NATO nations would follow through with troop commitments would remain to be seen. Britons and Germans, for example, are intensely divided over their respective roles in Afghanistan. Codner commented that NATO countries see themselves as "'helping out the U.S.'" and that this is "[not a motivator] for increasing troop levels, particularly in the present economic crisis."
3. 20,000 additional U.S. troops - This number would reflect a shift in strategy to what Codner calls "specific roles and missions" such as "specialist forces targeting terrorism" or "developing Afghan security capability."
4. 10,000 - 15,000 additional U.S. troops - Codner identifies this as a low-ball figure that would encourage Afghan President Hamid Karzai to "sort out corruption" and affect "real change in the culture and organization of the government" before further commitments.

Even once Obama decides on troop numbers and strategy (or a combination of options), U.S. and NATO forces will still have to sort out their relationship to existing strategic dispositions and command structures, teething issues that accompany every major military operation.

Rumor has it that President Obama will announce his decision next week in a special televised address.