Quote Originally Posted by Madhu View Post
David,

In your reading did you come across anything on the relationship between numbers of troops post 2014 and planned elections? What can be the status of any agreement in that background?
Thanks to a FP mailing I can cite what COMISAF said in an interview with WSJ (behind a pay wall):
...Gen. John Allen is calling for a "substantial military presence" in Afghanistan through next year's fighting season.... "We'd like to maintain our campaign so we're as pervasive in our touch this fighting season, because this fighting season Afghans are going to be moving into the lead operationally... We'd like to be with them through the fighting season and then you'd see our numbers come down and then stabilize across the election."

There are about 66,000 American troops in Afghanistan now, and the White House has not announced a withdrawal "slope" yet. But the command is expected to want as much of that force as possible for the last leg of the war in Afghanistan.

Allen is arguing for as robust a presence as possible, citing the lessons learned from the Soviets years ago. Allen: "What we've sought to do is learn from the post-Soviet experience.... It was as the Soviet Union began to come apart, when the advisers first were withdrawn and...when the resources were ultimately withdrawn, that's when we first began to see that [Afghan security] force polarize along ethnic and tribal lines and then everything began to come apart."
Fascinating to see him cite the lessons of the Soviet exit (which is a later part of a SWC thread:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=9483 ).