Afghanistan War: does anyone have an accurate count of US troops there?

Reuters provides a new (for me) set of numbers on NATO and US troops in Afghanistan in U.S. backs plan for engaging Afghan tribes by Sayed Salahuddin 12/30/08:

The United States backs a proposed Afghan government plan to engage tribal elders in the war against the resurgent Taliban, a move seen by critics as reviving militias, its top envoy said on Tuesday.

Although, seven years on from the Taliban's ouster, there are nearly 70,000 NATO-led troops in Afghanistan - to be boosted by up to 30,000 extra U.S. soldiers by the summer - alongside tens of thousands of Afghan forces, William Wood said this was not enough to protect all Afghan villages from the militants.

Called the "Community Guard Programme," the pilot project will cover southern and eastern areas where the al Qaeda-backed Taliban are most active, said Wood. [my emphasis]

The last I recall hearing, we had 30,000 US troops there, give or take a couple of thousand. And the Pentagon was talking about adding another 30,000 over 18 months. Now, we're talking about 30,000 more by summer of 2009?

It sounds like the Pentagon will try to pawn off an "Afghan Surge" as a new approach there. This business about buying off the tribes will be part of that.

But based on recent history in Afghanistan, it seems unlikely that this will lead to positive results. For one thing, we've been doing some of that all along. Rummy's model "light-footprint" blitzkrieg in 2001 was largely based on that. A blitzkrieg that leaves us still stuck there seven years later, with fighting escalation, the mission expanding and no end in sight.

And check out the last two paragraphs of the article:

For some, the project is reminiscent of the forming of militia groups by the ex-Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The militias were regarded then as a "divide and rule" policy of Moscow and were involved in many of the bloodiest battles that continued for years after the Red Army's withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Great. We're now recycling Soviet counterinsurgency approaches. I guess the fact that the Soviets lost that war is just an incidental detail.

Tags: afghanistan war