Obama’s Afghan Hedge Undercuts Clinton’s NATO Ask

Sally McNamara / December 02, 2009

Outlining his strategy to “bring this war [Afghanistan] to a successful conclusion” in a nationally televised address last night, President Obama stated that he was confident of securing additional military and civilian contributions from America’s NATO allies in the days and weeks ahead. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will travel to Brussels later this week to meet with NATO Foreign Ministers, and will stand alongside countries like Britain and Slovakia which have already announced additional troop deployments for Afghanistan. Other nations, such as Poland and Italy will likely pledge additional contributions too, fulfilling a total projected increase of 5,000 European troops to complement 30,000 additional U.S. troops.

However, Hillary Clinton will not have an easy job convincing Europe that America is serious about winning in Afghanistan. Having only partially filled his commanding officer’s request for up to 80,000 additional troops, President Obama’s speech did not represent an unflinching endorsement of Gen. McChrystal’s recommended counterinsurgency strategy. And the commitment of the Commander-in-Chief to victory in Afghanistan is crucial to convincing Europe to do more. Obama’s repeatedly stated determination to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan by July 2011 is likely to have a chilling effect on Europe’s various commanders-in-chief: they managed to stave off repeated requests from President Bush for additional troops and equipment; so, why not just wait the clock out on President Obama? And there has long been lag-time between what Europe has promised and what it has actually delivered. (more…)