Brown & Obama Praying For Extra Allied Troops In Afghanistan

By Steve Hynd

Today, the UK prime minister Gordon Brown pledged 500 extra British troops for Afghanistan. But as the Spectator's Peter Hoskin notes, Brown seems to be jumping the gun on his own promises to the British people.

Brown seems to be using this announcement to tell a story of progress in Afghanistan.  Last month, he said that he agreed to a troop increase "in principle," provided three conditions could be met: that the Afghan government would provide assurances about its own troop commitment and their capacity to tackle terrorism and corruption; that any extra British troops would be adequately equipped; and that any further troops would be part of a coalition-wide deployment.  Today, he said that all those conditions have been met – which could be true.  But there will be doubts about the first two pre-conditions, in particular.   

The third precondition is dodgy too. Brown had previously said that he'd only send more troops if NATO and other allies could scrape up 5,000 extra troops to complement Obama's surge. He may be saying that he's reached that magic number but public announcements by other allies fall well short.

So far, the non-U.S. commitments amount to: UK 500, Poland 1,000, Italy 500, Macedonia 80, Georgia 700, Germany 150, Slovakia 200 and South Korea 300. Some of those are, like the South Korean promise, heavily mission-restricted to purely training or to protecting their own civilians. And they still only amount to promises of 3,430...eventually, in good time, one day.

Which leaves Brown relying on Turkey, Spain, Germany and France to step up and offer 1,600 more troops between them - highly unlikely given public anger in Germany over a botched airstrike that might even bring down Merkel herself and Sarkozy's October promise that "France will not send one more soldier" to Afghanistan. Worse still, Germany and France have just agreed to try to cut their deficits to under 3% of GDP by 2013 - and they will know that's an improbable hope if they're pouring money down the "troops for Afghanistan" drain. Sarkozy has said that the French troops currently in Afghanistan will stay there for now, but apparently Hillary Clinton has asked for an extra 1,500 from France. The response seems to have been "we'll see in January"

Obama is in an even worse bind that Brown. Apparently, he's looking for 10,000 additional allied troops to make up the shortfall between what America has available and what McChrystal's pony plan asked for. Best of luck with that, Barack.

Of course, there's a perfectly valid argument in country that the number of troops doesn't matter as much as what is done with them. That's true, but it misses the political wood for the strategic trees. Brown is hyping his success to justify escalation. Lying to make the case for a continued and escalated occupation of Afghanistan and slavishly following American foreign misadventures should have political consequences - and with over 70% of the British public disenchanted with Brown's policy on the occupation already, it will do.

For Obama, any perception of a "coalition of the unwilling" or allies leaving a sinking ship is likely to be just as politically damaging - and rightly so. The War on (some) Terror in Afghanistan (i.e. not Kazai's terrorizing warlord backers) is becoming more widely seen as an occupation without end domestically, in Afghanistan and among America's allies. Saying we'll leave eventually while refusing to commit to a timetable to do so and escalating our military presence isn't the answer. Obama, too, should pay the penalty for being a wuss when faced with hawkish pressure from the military-industrial complex and its supporters.