President Obama’s decision to deploy 12,000 more combat forces and 5,000 support personnel to the Afghan mission has drawn huge attention. USA Today’s front-page headline blares “Obama’s war: Deploying 17,000, the president raises the stakes in Afghanistan.” But the US soldiers were already planned to rotate into the theatre and, though the White House is keen to portray this as a Commander in Chief moment and the President making good on his campaign promises, it does not represent a new US Afghan policy. That policy is still being drawn up by Bruce Riedel, the former CIA analyst and Iran expert.
In the end, more troops will be needed. But they won’t be enough. New tactics will also be required. If the aim is to win over the population, the primary objective of the military must be to secure the population and its activities, to counter intimidation from insurgents, to allow reconstruction to take place, and to secure legal economic production and exchange.
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