Mike,

The General's estimates are, if anything, conservative for a mission of "nation building, US-led COIN for Afghansitan coupled with CT on AQ." If he were to be given a redefined mission he and his staff would provide a new plan with a different estimate.

Even in a "countering AQ UW" approach, Afghanistan remains important, and it would have a Deter mission on Insurgencies in those two countries (AF/PAK), Disrupt on the UW Network nodes that are critical to AQ's support of those insurgencies; and an appropriately tailored Defeat of AQ senior leadership (done in a fashion so as not to actually increase their support and effectiveness in other regions of the globe, or to destabilize the fragile governments of Afg or Pak further than they currently are.) This would still require a significant number of US troops, but by changing the context of the operation and the ways we pursue our ends you can begin to right-size both the footprint AND the public perception of the importance of this particular AOR in the context of the global mission-set and US interests as a whole.