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February 19, 2009

Troops Before Strategy?
Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

There has been a lot of concern about the fact that President Obama announced the 17,000 troop increase in Afghanistan prior to completing his 60 day strategy review.  These concerns are valid and at NSN we have argued for a focused strategy that attempts to achieve limited ends using comprehensive means and move far beyond a military centric approach. 

But it is worth pointing out that the first of the 17,000 troops won't make it into Afghanistan until late spring - long after the strategy review has been completed. In fact, many won't be in place until the summer.  So, before these troops hit the ground in Afghanistan, hopefully we'll have a much clearer policy.  And if the 60 day strategic review finds that more troops won't help the situation or that things are basically doomed and that we just need to go into containment mode, there will be time to make adjustments.  If Obama holds off on even starting any additional deployments until after the review is complete, he might unnecessarily delay the implementation of a new approach.

Still the skeptic in me understands that troop deployments have a self perpetuating nature.  At this point, it would be politically difficult for Obama to walk back the deployment.  So, although the die has not yet been cast, it has clearly been picked up and is on the verge of being thrown.

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I knew it all along.

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Great comments! You are so nice, man! You never know how much i like'em!

I heard the officials said that Mr. Obama may deploy one or two additional brigades, between 3,500 and 7,000 soldiers.

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