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.