Military sees Obama as key to victory in Afghanistan
Democrat's popularity abroad will make European nations less reluctant to contribute more troops, generals believe
DOUG SAUNDERS
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
LONDON — In normally hawkish military and diplomatic circles, it is being called an "Obama boost": a widespread belief that the war in Afghanistan may be winnable only if Barack Obama is elected president tonight.
To a surprising degree, military and government officials in the United States and Europe have pegged their hopes for victory in Afghanistan or a reduction in violence to Mr. Obama's ability to win over skeptical European audiences and persuade them to contribute large numbers of troops to a war that is widely seen to be in serious trouble.
Amid fast-increasing violence and declining public support in Afghanistan, many top U.S., British and Canadian military commanders and government officials involved with the war say in private discussions that they believe the Afghan war will be lost unless a large number of additional soldiers and civil workers - a number that ranges from 60,000 to more than 100,000 - is sent to Afghanistan by the end of next year.
There are currently about 64,000 troops in Afghanistan, including 2,500 Canadian soldiers. To bring about this effective doubling in troops at a time when NATO has had difficulty getting its member countries to contribute even 2,000 additional soldiers, officials are counting on an Obama victory.
The Globe and Mail
"The Europeans are likely to be more accommodating of the next administration to increase their own troop presence," said James Dobbins, who was President George W. Bush's envoy to Afghanistan. "And I think Obama, if he becomes the next president, is greatly more popular in Europe. So I think there's a honeymoon, and he'll have more leverage to increase troops ... the effect is there, and it's not negligible."
Mr. Obama, whose campaign has focused on the war in Afghanistan far more than that of his Republican opponent, John McCain, has pledged to remove all U.S. soldiers from Iraq within 16 months and shift the military focus to Afghanistan.
This would contribute as many as 40,000 soldiers to the Afghan war, though some analysts say that in practice the contingent would be more in the range of 25,000 to 30,000, or about half the required number.
The other half would have to come from North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries, including Canada and most European countries, which have been reluctant to contribute more troops.
This is where the military is putting its hopes on Mr. Obama.
A British general said in an off-the-record briefing last month that he believes "a five-figure number" of soldiers can be made available by Western European countries including Britain, but are being held back because of a desire to avoid seeming to support the Bush administration.
An Obama victory, he said, would provide an even greater number of troops.
"I would say that there is a reasonable prospect of Obama getting the Europeans to do more," said Charles Kupchan, a former U.S. National Security Council director who is now a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
"One reason has to do with discomfort with President Bush, the war in Iraq, and U.S. foreign policy during the past eight years. And the discomfort with U.S. policy creates a domestic environment across Europe which makes it harder for European governments to step up to the plate in Afghanistan. Having Obama in the White House will engender goodwill, which will buy European governments more room for manoeuvre, more latitude to act."
Also, European and Canadian voters, and to some extent governments, are seen to have lost any sense of purpose in the Afghanistan war, and to have developed a skepticism toward U.S. motives in the war. Because Mr. Bush has done so little to sell the war, there is a widespread sense that countries are seeking excuses to withdraw from the conflict.
"That's an area, I think, where Obama will be able to work with his European allies to do a better job of selling the war to skeptical publics," Mr. Kupchan said.
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