[R-G] Is this the change Americans voted for?

[Sid Shniad]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090406.wnato06/BNStory/International 





  

Globe and Mail                                                                                                                                   April 6, 2009 





  

U.S. set to take far greater role in Afghanistan 





  

As world leaders met in Strasbourg at a high-level NATO summit, it became apparent that the rest of NATO's nations are increasingly wary of getting any more deeply involved in Afghanistan despite Obama’s entreaties. 





  

Doug Saunders and Brian Laghi 





  

Strasbourg, France — The Afghanistan war is set to become a far more U.S.-dominated project, with Canada and major European participants shifting to a lesser role after NATO countries failed this weekend to meet U.S. hopes for substantially more troops. 





  

While President Barack Obama impressed members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization with his multilateral approach to the war and his willingness to address their concerns, those gestures were not reciprocated with an anticipated boost in troops to match Mr. Obama's "Afghan surge." 





  

The United States will be sending 21,000 new troops, most of them combat soldiers, to join the U.S. force of about 38,000 soldiers this year, a huge boost to the current 42-nation fighting force of 58,390 troops. 





  

In January, Mr. Obama and his aides had expressed hope that NATO's 26 member countries would match this gesture by supplying as many as 10,000 combat soldiers to provide a force of sufficient size to liberate most Taliban-held areas in the Afghan south. 





  

Vice-President Joe Biden had told European leaders in February that he hoped for a "more for more" approach, in which the United States would put an end to practices unpopular with Europeans such as rendition flights, torture policies and the Guantanamo Bay prison, in exchange for a larger European role in the Afghan conflict. 





  

But as world leaders met on the French-German border this weekend to mark the 60th anniversary NATO's creation with a high-level summit, it became apparent the rest of NATO's nations are increasingly wary of getting any more deeply involved in Afghanistan. 





  

While Mr. Obama and NATO's leaders were able to boast on Saturday that they had received contributions of 5,000 new troops to Afghanistan, including a number from Britain that could approach 1,000, virtually all of these troops are either trainers for the Afghan National Army or, more often, temporary forces meant to provide security for the national elections in August. 





  

At least 3,000 of the 5,000 new troops will be temporary election guards; the rest will almost all be trainers. 





  

In addition to "200 to 900" soldiers from Britain, this includes 600 each from Germany and Spain. Canada added 300 more troops last year to bring its commitment up to 2,800 soldiers, the fourth largest. 





  

What the United States has failed to gain is the central plank of Mr. Biden's bargain: a matched contribution from NATO to make Europe and the United States nearly equal partners in the war. 





  

Instead, U.S. forces will be nearly double the size of all other contributions - and this will seem even more asymmetrical because many of the larger European contributors, including Germany and France, are in Afghanistan under "caveats" that prevent them from entering active combat or fighting in the Taliban-plagued south. 





  

Canadian officials said that Regional Command South, which Canada commands from Kandahar, is likely to become a U.S.-run operation in practice, simply by dint of the sheer number of American troops who will be entering the area, which is among the most violent in Afghanistan. 





  

While Canadians were quick to point out that the U.S. places Canada in high regard and has learned from the Canadian approach to nation-building and counterinsurgency, the combination of the unmatched U.S. surge and Canada's withdrawal of all combat forces from the war in 2011 have effectively shunted Canada out of the centre of the war - and, some say, away from the centre of NATO. 





  

Although Mr. Obama had made it clear in February that he did not expect Canada to contribute more forces to Afghanistan, NATO diplomats from several countries said that Canada's role has been marginalized. 





  

It was clear from his remarks that Mr. Obama did not leave the summit with everything he wanted. After providing an optimistic gloss on the troop commitments, Mr. Obama expressed frustration with the share of the Afghanistan burden being taken by the United States. "This is not an American mission; this is a NATO mission, this is an international mission," he said at a town-hall meeting on Saturday. 





  

Of the 58,390 NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan under the United Nations-ordered International Stabilization and Assistance Force, 26,215 are from the United States (Mr. Obama's "surge will almost double number with 21,000 extra soldiers), 8,300 from Britain, 3,465 from Germany and 2,830 from Canada. 





  

The rest consist of small contributions from 42 ISAF member countries, more than half of which are NATO members. 





  

German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested that the retraining of the Afghan National Army would be a substitute for adding troops. 





  

"What we need to do is to understand Afghanistan is a test case for all of us," she said Saturday afternoon. 





  

"We need to promote Afghanization." 





  

But she said that Germany would "do its bit," without suggesting the possibility that Germany might consider removing caveats that prevent its soldiers from fighting in combat-ridden areas. 





  

And while Mr. Obama attempted to put a congenial diplomatic face on the shortfall, other American officials and observers were more outspoken. 





  

"If the Europeans do not step up to the plate and commit to a more aggressive and effective counterinsurgency strategy, it will make it all the more challenging for President Obama to prevent the war in Afghanistan from becoming the foreign policy crucible for him that Iraq was for president Bush," wrote Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of defence in the Bush administration and a long-time U.S. NATO figure.