U.S. Requests Allied Countries to Increase Troops in Afghanistan

American President Barack Obama scheduled a speech for next Tuesday, in which he will indicate how the U.S. will eventually withdraw troops from Afghanistan. However, its premise is actually that the U.S. wants to increase troops first, and moreover that the U.S. wants its allied countries to take action as well. The United States Department of Defense spokespeople said that if President Obama decides to increase troops in Afghanistan, the U.S. expects allied countries to also take similar action. McChrystal, the U.S. and NATO’s military commander in Afghanistan, has stated that, due to the Taliban’s resurgence, he needs even more troops; otherwise, the joint action in Afghanistan will face defeat. This evaluation, as well as related secret requests for increasing troops, has prompted President Obama to consider this strategy for Afghanistan. 　

America’s situation in Afghanistan can be described as “holding the wolf by the ears” (or “riding on a tiger, there is no way to back down”). There are nearly 100,000 soldiers in Afghanistan: the U.S. military presence numbers nearly 70,000; NATO’s contingent nearly 30,000; and yet they are unable to defeat the Taliban’s 20,000-man “amateur army.” This is not because the U.S. military and NATO’s weapons are inferior, but because the American and NATO soldiers do not have fighting spirit and do not know for whom they are fighting. This problem can not be solved by sending more troops.

Some reports have stated that the U.S. has continuously been seeking Chinese participation in Afghanistan’s peace-keeping mission. In the final analysis, the U.S. wants to take advantage of China to fight the Taliban. Originally, as Afghanistan’s neighbor, China’s participation (as well as that of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization) in Afghan peacekeeping is both necessary and possible. The question is, if the Chinese army enters Afghanistan, how would it coordinate with the U.S. army and NATO, whether or not the United Nations adopts the corresponding resolution? The U.S. military obviously does not want to engage in any joint actions with the Chinese army in Afghanistan (or anywhere else); this is to prevent the Chinese from learning American command and communication systems and techniques. Therefore, the U.S. can only continue to send more troops to Afghanistan, and Obama must continue to carry out an impossible task: to choose a warpath in Afghanistan. To establish an effective government, the NATO allied countries have no choice but to continue dispatching troops until all their armies grow weary.