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| Image: Flickr User - ResoluteSupportMedia |
By Catherine Putz
As the war moves into its 15th year, Afghanistan’s stability remains tenuous.
The plan was to be out of Afghanistan by now, but reality rarely matches timetables. Now, NATO is looking to maintain troop levels through next year and extend its funding of the Afghan security forces to 2020.
In 2011, the plan was to steadily drawdown U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan and hand over the mission in 2014 to the Afghans. While U.S. and NATO troops managed to shift into a supporting role and a new mission with a new name took over in 2015 the timetable continues to stretch along. In May 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama stood in the White House’s Rose Garden and announced that by the end of 2016, only a vestigial force of Americans would remain in Afghanistan. A year and a half later, the plan changed again. In October 2015, Obama announced that the U.S. would maintain the 9,800 U.S. forces currently in country through “most of 2016” and 5,500 through 2017.
According to Reuters, NATO says it will have about 12,000 troops in Afghanistan through 2016 — 7,000 U.S. forces and 5,000 from NATO and non-NATO partner nations.
Read the full story at The Diplomat