The United States expects to spend about $6 billion a year training and supporting Afghan troops and police after it begins withdrawing its own combat troops in 2011.
The estimates of U.S. spending through 2015, detailed in a NATO training mission document, are an acknowledgment that Afghanistan will remain largely dependent on the United States for its security.
That reality could become problematic for the Obama administration as it continues to seek money for Afghanistan from Congress in a time of increasingly tight budgets.
In Brussels, a NATO official said Monday that alliance commander Gen. David Petraeus had asked for 2,000 more soldiers, with nearly half to be trainers for the rapidly expanding Afghan security forces. The NATO official requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the subject.
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A couple of things with these stories. Will Petraeus get these extra troops if NATO cannot scrape the bucket and get them on the scene? Because politically and economically, sending more troops to Afghanistan is a hard sell in all the countries participating, and not just the US. How will this look during the coming elections in the US if more troops are asked for on top of the already thousands of troops requested for the surge? Hell, some countries are backing out last minute (like the Dutch) and these actions always cause ripples in the planing and operations of the war effort. So as I have said before, as NATO falters, contractors will be taking up the slack.
I also continue to see plenty of training job ads, and according to the second article below, the money will be there for training in Afghanistan well into the future. The only thing though is politically, this administration and probably the next will continue to have problems with sending troops or getting congress to sign off on that training money. As the troops get more limited in presence, and money becomes more scarce, contractors will continue to be an important tool to execute these training duties.
The other thing I could see happening is more hybrid training programs popping up. Where military folks mixed with contractors will be used to train the Afghans. We already see a little bit of this, and I think this combination works because the customer (US government) can ensure there is military oversight on these projects. It would also ensure that there is consistency in the training programs, and a metrics can be maintained by the military itself.
All of this is just speculation, but given what is already on the ground, the military and contractor relationship will become even more important as time goes on. –Matt
NATO eyes 2,000 extra troops for Afghanistan: official
US expects to spend big in Afghanistan for years
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NATO eyes 2,000 extra troops for Afghanistan: official
By Laurent Thomet
09/08/2010
US General David Petraeus, the commander of the war in Afghanistan, has requested 2,000 extra troops to bolster a crucial mission to train Afghan security forces, a NATO official said Monday.
The mission would come on the heels of the deployment of tens of thousands of soldiers who were sent as part of a surge strategy aimed at crushing a resilient Taliban insurgency, the official said.
“There is now a discussion under way for additional resources, principally trainers, that could be sent to Afghanistan to bolster the mission,” said the official, who requested anonymity.
At least 750 of the new soldiers would focus on training Afghan forces, he said, refusing to give more details about the rest of the mission. He said it was premature to say when the 2,000 extra troops would be deployed.
Getting Afghan security forces trained so they can take over security responsibilities is a paramount condition for the withdrawal of foreign troops from the nation, worn down by war.
The US general’s request was relayed to the transatlantic alliance’s 28 members and it is up to individual governments to decide on whether to make contributions, the NATO official said.
“That discussion will play out over the coming weeks and months and will be led by NATO’s military authorities,” he said, knocking down a CNN television report that the troops could leave in the coming weeks.
“The idea of 2,000 new soldiers leaving in the next few weeks is not realistic,” the official said.
The request for additional troops to join almost 150,000 already on the ground faces a war-weary public in Europe and the United States, nearly nine years after the invasion launched in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
US President Barack Obama has already deployed 30,000 extra US troops as part of a new counter-insurgency strategy aimed at speeding an end to the war.
Nearly 500 foreign soldiers have died in the Afghan war so far this year, compared to 521 deaths all of last year.
NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who will meet Obama at the White House on Tuesday, said last week he hoped that foreign troops could begin to gradually hand security responsibilities to Afghan forces next year.
The secretary general said the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has trained more than 140,000 Afghan security forces so far, and the number would more than double by October 2011.
The international community has endorsed plans by the Afghan government to take responsibility for security by 2014.
Petraeus’s request for 2,000 more troops comes ahead of a NATO summit in Lisbon on November 19-20 during which the Afghan campaign will feature prominently.
“I hope that the NATO summit in November will decide that the process of progressive transfer of responsibilities to Afghans begins in 2011,” Rasmussen said.
But Rasmussen stressed that NATO would stay on the ground as long as Afghan forces are not ready to fight on their own.
“We must stay committed until our job is finished and our job is finished when the Afghans can take full responsibility,” Rasmussen said.
Story here.
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US expects to spend big in Afghanistan for years
By DESMOND BUTLER
09/07/2010
The U.S. government’s financial commitment to Afghanistan is likely to linger and reach into the billions long after it pulls combat troops from the country, newly disclosed spending estimates show.
The United States expects to spend about $6 billion a year training and supporting Afghan troops and police after it begins withdrawing its own combat troops in 2011.
The estimates of U.S. spending through 2015, detailed in a NATO training mission document, are an acknowledgment that Afghanistan will remain largely dependent on the United States for its security.
That reality could become problematic for the Obama administration as it continues to seek money for Afghanistan from Congress in a time of increasingly tight budgets.
In Brussels, a NATO official said Monday that alliance commander Gen. David Petraeus had asked for 2,000 more soldiers, with nearly half to be trainers for the rapidly expanding Afghan security forces. The NATO official requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the subject.
The training mission document outlines large-scale infrastructure projects, including a military hospital and military and police academies, aimed at “establishing enduring institutions” and “creating irreversible momentum.”
Spending for training is projected to taper off from $11.6 billion next year to an average of $6.2 billion over the following four years. Much of the reduction reflects reduced spending on infrastructure.
The Obama administration recently announced that it intends to ramp up the total Afghan army and police force from nearly 250,000 today to more than 300,000 by late next year. The mission will be largely paid for by the United States, with smaller contributions from NATO allies. The projected multibillion-dollar cost of maintaining those forces would be inconceivable for Afghanistan’s small economy without foreign aid.
One of the arguments against dramatically increasing the size of Afghan security forces, even during George W. Bush’s administration, was that the Afghan government would be unable to pay for them for the foreseeable future. The NATO document shows that the U.S. will end up footing most of the bill.
The Obama administration has boosted the training mission in preparation for next year’s drawdown. The United States spent over $20 billion on training between 2003 and 2009 and expects to spend about the same this year and next alone.
The head of the NATO training mission, U.S. Lt. Gen. Bill Caldwell, said bolstering Afghanistan’s security forces is cost-efficient.
“It will always be more expensive to have a coalition force doing something than an Afghan counterpart,” Caldwell said in a written response to questions from The Associated Press.
Caldwell said he is sensitive to the concern that the United States is creating dependence and is looking for ways of cutting costs.
“This dependency is something that we think about all the time,” he said. “We know the sooner the Afghan systems are up and running the sooner coalition forces can transition responsibilities to the sovereign government.”
Todd Harrison, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said it will be difficult to wean the Afghan security forces quickly.
“We really do have a long way to go before this winds down,” he said.
Caldwell has said he aims to have Afghan security forces at sufficient numbers by Oct. 31, 2011, three months after President Barack Obama’s deadline to start U.S. withdrawals. The mission has had to deal with illiteracy, corruption and desertion among Afghan forces.
Caldwell has said he aims to have Afghan security forces at sufficient numbers to begin a U.S. withdrawal by October 2011. The mission has had to deal with illiteracy, corruption and desertion among Afghan forces.
With much skepticism in Congress, the levels of financing outlined in the document are not guaranteed. While the roughly $6 billion annual cost would not be an enormous line in the defense budget, the administration is facing pressure to shrink the federal deficit.
Even Caldwell has predicted that desertion and injury rates are so high among Afghan forces that NATO will have to recruit and train 141,000 people to ensure it has the 56,000 additional personnel needed next fall.
As money for infrastructure tapers off, most of the projected spending is to retain forces by paying salaries, food and housing.
Story here.