Mattis Given Authority to Set Troop Levels in Afghanistan

President Trump today delegated to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis the authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan. Reuters:

U.S. President Donald Trump has given Defense Secretary Jim Mattis the authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan, a U.S. official told Reuters on Tuesday, opening the door for future troop increases requested by the U.S. commander.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said no immediate decision had been made about the troop levels, which are now set at about 8,400. [….]

It has been four months since Army General John Nicholson, who leads U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan, said he needed “a few thousand” additional forces, some potentially drawn from U.S. allies.

Current and former U.S. officials say discussions revolve around adding 3,000 to 5,000 troops.

President Trump made a similar decision in regards to Iraq and Syria in April. As we wrote at the time, the ability to deploy American soldiers overseas is one of the greatest powers and carries with it some of the greatest responsibilities of the commander-in-chief. President Obama was accused of micromanaging troop deployments and engaging in semantic arguments about whether or not non-combat special operations forces constituted “boots on the ground” in Syria.

That President Trump is moving past that, in and of itself, may be a good thing. But the consequences of American military actions, including ultimate responsibility for American military casualties, still lie with the President. That’s particularly salient for Afghanistan, a conflict that is not going well. The satirical site DuffelBlog perhaps best captured the irony of National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster’s support for a mini-surge in Afghanistan with the headline “‘Dereliction of Duty’ author urges escalation of unwinnable, never-ending war.”

Afghanistan is not Vietnam, and the costs of maintaining a few extra thousand troops in the country might end up being pretty low compared with the blood and treasure we’ve already spent there. But whatever number of troops we have in Afghanistan, and whether that number is picked by the President or the Pentagon, it seems unlikely to accomplish anything beyond a preservation of the status quo in this seemingly interminable conflict.

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