One down, two to go

By Dave Anderson:

Last September, I wrote the following:

The international forces are the primary effective backers of the Karzai government in the Pashtun dominated regions of Afghanistan.  They are the strength and the vulnerability of the Karzai government, and this is where the Taliban should focus their efforts next year.  2010 will be a good year if the Taliban is able to force the withdrawal of at least three national contingents by the start of 2011. 

The New York Time reports that the Dutch are pulling out because their political system does not see any discernible reason to stay:

A day after his government collapsed, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said Sunday that he expected Dutch troops to come home from Afghanistan before the end of the year.

A last-ditch effort by Mr. Balkenende to keep Dutch soldiers in the dangerous southern Afghan province of Oruzgan instead saw the Labor Party quit the government in the Netherlands early Saturday, immediately raising fears that the Western military coalition fighting the war was increasingly at risk.

Even as the allied offensive in the Taliban stronghold of Marja continued, it appeared almost certain that most of the 2,000 Dutch troops would be gone from Afghanistan by the end of the year. The question plaguing military planners was whether a Dutch departure would embolden the war�s critics in other allied countries, where debate over deployment is continuing, and hasten the withdrawal of their troops as well.

 


One down, two to go, and I would expect several other nations to go because the costs are high for fairly small security gains.  The Germans and British governments are backing the unpopular war and deployment.  The British Conservatives have been moving to the left on their Afghanistan policy for almost a year now and there is now public talk about the value of the Special Relationship (tm) from the British perspective.  

As nations enter into austerity, leaving the expense of Afghanistan behind them becomes extremely tempting and viable as they know that the US will be unable to hand out as many policy and economic goodies or security guarantees as we have in the past to gain cooperation.  It is much easier for any politician to sell a cut in an unpopular foreign adventure than a cut in basic and popular government services.  I expect to see more announcements from NATO nations of significant force reductions in the next six to nine months.