Obama Holds Europe to Its Word on Afghanistan

The cuddling between the United States and Europe is over: one day after the United States announced its intention to increase troop strength in Afghanistan, Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, requested an immediate like gesture from its other NATO partners. But Gates wants more than just military help.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has asked his NATO allies to send additional troops to Afghanistan and to increase their civilian reconstruction efforts as well. “Our expectation is that our allies do more,” he said just before departing for a NATO defense ministers’ meeting in Kracow, Poland.

Gates was referring to U.S. President Barack Obama’s announcement that he would be sending an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan.

Gates said the United States wanted to offer the additional troops in advance of presidential elections in Afghanistan planned for August. Germany has already announced a temporary troop surge of 600 soldiers. They will augment the 3,500 German soldiers already stationed there for three to four months.

Long term engagement of NATO allies needn’t take the form of military assistance, said Gates, adding that efforts to improve government leadership, train police forces, and fight corruption and the drug trade were also necessary.

Secretary Gates said that there was a lot of talk about a comprehensive approach in Afghanistan and added, “We really need additional help on the civilian side. There needs to be a civilian strengthening on the civilian side as we are strengthening on the military side.”

He also asked again for deployment of the NATO Response Force (NRF) to Afghanistan. Several NATO countries, Germany included, have thus far resisted doing so.

Original plans were that the NRF was to be a force of 25,000 troops, but it has not reached this strength even though it was officially commissioned in November 2006. Future plans call for it to have only a “core” number of troops that could be quickly increased when necessary. Detailed plans are not yet available.