WASHINGTON — Top U.S. military commanders, who only a few months ago were planning to pull the last American troops out of Afghanistan by year’s end, are now quietly talking about an American commitment that could keep thousands of troops in the country for decades.
The shift in mindset, made possible by President Barack Obama’s decision last fall to cancel withdrawal plans, reflects the Afghan government’s vulnerability to continued militant assault and concern that terror groups like al-Qaida continue to build training camps whose effect could be felt far beyond the region, said senior military officials.
The military outlook mirrors arguments made by many Republican and Democrat foreign policy advisers, looking beyond the Obama presidency, for a significant long-term American presence.
“This is not a region you want to abandon,” said Mich?le Flournoy, a former Pentagon official who would likely be considered a top candidate for secretary of defense in a Hillary Clinton administration. “So the question is what do we need going forward given our interests?”
Senior American commanders have been surprised by al-Qaida’s resilience and ability to find a haven in the Afghan countryside as well as the Taliban’s repeated seizure of large tracts of contested territory.
In November, the U.S. military sent a company of elite U.S. Rangers to southeastern Afghanistan to help Afghan counter-terrorism forces destroy an al-Qaida training camp in a “fierce fight” that lasted for several days.
The training camp was “absolutely massive,” said Brig. Gen. Wilson Shoffner, a military spokesman in Afghanistan.
“No matter what happens in the next couple of years Afghanistan is going to have wide ungoverned spaces that violent extremist organizations can take advantage of,” Shoffner said. “The camp that developed in southeastern Kandahar is an example of what can happen.”
In Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, U.S. officials said they have a willing and reliable partner who can provide bases to attack terror groups not just in Afghanistan, but also throughout South Asia for as long as the threat in the chronically unstable region persists.
The new American mindset also marks a striking change for Obama, who campaigned on a promise to bring American troops home and has said repeatedly that he doesn’t support the “idea of endless war.” And it highlights a major shift for the American military, which has spent much of the last decade racing to hit milestones as part of its broader “exit strategy” from Afghanistan and Iraq. These days, that phrase has largely disappeared from the military’s lexicon.
In its place, there’s a broad recognition in the Pentagon that building an effective Afghan army and police force will take a generation’s commitment, including billions of dollars a year in outside funding and constant support from thousands of foreign advisers on the ground.
“What we’ve learned is that you can’t really leave,” said a senior Pentagon official with extensive experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. “The local forces need air support, intelligence and help with logistics. They are not going to be ready in three years or five years. You have to be there for a very long time.”
There are now 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, some of them advising local forces and some focused on hunting down al-Qaida and other hardline militants. Current plans call for Obama to halve that force by the time he leaves office, but he could defer the decision to the next president.
The U.S. military’s current thinking reflects its painful experience in Iraq, where Iraqi army forces collapsed less than three years after American forces left in 2011. Senior American commanders who spent nearly a decade and hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money building the Iraqi army have been shocked at how little of that force remains today.
The Afghan units lack effective midlevel officers and sergeants, foreign officials say, who can lead troops in combat and aren’t captive of patronage networks that dominate the country and sap soldier morale. Seeding the force with midlevel officers often requires bringing in young leaders from outside of the current system and training them from scratch.
“I think a generational approach has value,” Shoffner said.
Senior U.S. military officials and some former Obama administration officials increasingly compare U.S. plans for Afghanistan with its approach to South Korea, where the United States has maintained tens of thousands of troops for decades. Other top officials cite the example of Colombia, where the United States has long provided training, money and contractors.
