Word: nato
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Afghan Army? The U.S. and additional NATO reinforcements will include between 5,000 and 10,000 soldiers dedicated to training new recruits to the Afghan National Army, the growth of which is the key condition for eventual coalition withdrawal. McChrystal hopes to double the size of the Afghan security forces to about 400,000 men. But the time and money needed to generate and maintain an army and police force whose combined size would be close to that of the 550,000-strong U.S. Army is a daunting task in impoverished and war-torn Afghanistan. So don't look...
...persuaded to lay down their weapons in exchange for cash and jobs, usually as part of local militias fighting their former al-Qaeda allies. Building on that example, General Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander of international forces in Afghanistan, wrote in his recent assessment of the Afghan war that NATO "must identify opportunities to reintegrate former mid- to low-level insurgent fighters into normal society by offering them a way out." Lieut. General Graeme Lamb, a former head of Britain's special forces who was asked by McChrystal to head the program, which was announced in September, says insurgents need...
...There's a lot at stake: the Central Asian country has the world's fourth-largest reserves of natural gas and substantial oil reserves, putting it in the same energy league as Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iraq. Plus, its position just north of Afghanistan could be hugely beneficial to NATO as it seeks more reliable supply routes to its troops on the ground there. But the West isn't being welcomed with open arms. "They just don't understand us," one businessman tells TIME in the capital, Ashgabat...
...uproar in parliament and in the media overshadowed a visit to Berlin by the General Secretary of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who was in town to make the case for increased efforts by European allies in Afghanistan. Chancellor Angela Merkel, at a press conference with Rasmussen, criticized the handling of the affair, saying: "If we want trust, we also have to have full transparency." Rasmussen pleaded that it was of the "utmost importance that an American announcement of an increased troop number in Afghanistan is followed by additional troop contributions from other allies." But that's likely to fall...
...Afghan strategy next week after nearly three months of debate. Following the President's anticipated speech to the nation, General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, will testify before Congress along with other Obama national-security heavyweights. They'll have to convince skeptical Americans - as well as NATO allies at a Dec. 7 meeting - that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is a solid partner in the war effort. That's a daunting task in light of allegations of corruption enveloping him, including the disputed August election that gave him a second five-year term...