Word: troop
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Obama administration will have to make up its mind in the next several weeks on the recommendations of the McChrystal Report, which argues for sending in 40,000 or more additional soldiers. The choice comes down to whether America wants to focus on counter-terror operations—keeping troop levels constant and instead using target bombs and drones to prevent al-Qaeda from fully reconstituting—or counter insurgency, which is what we did in Iraq and involves a far greater investment in troops, time, and money but might one day result in a stable Afghan state...
...things stand, the United States spends $60 billion a year waging war in Afghanistan, and, depending on whose estimates you trust, a surge would cost between $10 and $40 billion all by itself. In 2008, there were 32,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan; now there are around 68,000. A troop surge on the scale that General Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, is asking for would push us past the 100,000 mark in a war that has been going on for longer than America fought in the Civil War and World War II combined...
...problem with trying to restrict troop levels and focus instead on accelerating the training of Afghan forces, as many skeptics of escalation have proposed, is that it offers the worst of both worlds. It would deny McChrystal the reinforcements he believes are essential to avoid defeat ("Resources will not win this war, but under-resourcing could lose it," says the general). But at the same time, it would do little to shield the President from criticism on the left that he is squandering American lives and treasure on an unwinnable...
...violence in the deep south bloomed into a full-scale insurgency in 2004. Overtly Buddhist targets like monks and teachers have been murdered by shadowy perpetrators, while Muslims thought to be collaborators with the government have been killed as well. In recent months, the Thai government has unleashed a troop surge to try to quell the violence, which has, in turn, spawned criticism of the military's heavy-handed tactics like torture and arbitrary detentions of Muslims, according to human-rights watchdog Amnesty International. (Read "Despite Outreach, Violence Is Up in Southern Thailand...
...successful sweep of the Taliban who dominated the Swat Valley in the northwest, army morale is cresting. Revulsion against the militants' brutality has also sent antimilitant sentiment to an all-time high. But it remains to be seen whether that resolve will hold up in the face of expected troop losses and further bombing attacks across the northwest and in major cities; security is being beefed up outside government buildings, Western targets and civilian areas. There is also fear that moving against the militants in one area may simply prompt them to relocate to other regions. Nor does the army...