[ad_1]
Tuesday 17 November 2020
Current US President Trump orders the withdrawal of additional US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. By January 15, the number of soldiers will be reduced to around 2,500 each. This is what Defense Secretary Miller explains to the Pentagon.
The United States will reduce the strength of its troops in Afghanistan from about 2,000 troops to 2,500 troops by mid-January. This was announced at the Pentagon by the current Defense Secretary Christopher Miller. The number of troops in Iraq is also expected to be reduced to 2,500 by January 15. Five days later, newly elected US President Joe Biden is expected to take office in the White House.
About two months before the end of his term, the elected US president redeems one of his major election promises. The plans have sparked open criticism for days in the ranks of Trump’s Republicans and have alerted allies. NATO and the military are preparing for an emergency: a large-scale US withdrawal this year.
Almost simultaneously with Miller’s announcement, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that a hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq would be a “mistake”. It is “extremely important” that there are no “world-shaking changes” in terms of defense and foreign policy in the coming months. McConnell had already warned Trump the day before that he would undo his successes in Afghanistan and the Middle East with hasty action. Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger told Fox News that Trump seemed more about the numbers than the mission.
Concern since the defense minister left
In October, Trump even announced that he would withdraw all remaining US soldiers by Christmas. This had caused considerable turmoil in the alliance, as units of other NATO countries in Afghanistan depend on US logistical and security support.
Concerns escalated when Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who was critical of his retirement plans, and replaced him with Miller. Its main adviser is former army colonel and avowed withdrawal supporter Douglas Macgregor, who said in a high-profile interview with Fox News that it “makes no difference” when the United States withdraws from Afghanistan. “Everything will fall apart” in the country anyway.
Unclear consequences for the Bundeswehr
The US signed an agreement at the end of February with the Taliban Islamist militants that promises the gradual withdrawal of all US and NATO forces by the end of April 2021. The Taliban have engaged in peace talks with the Kabul government, which began in September. However, the process got stuck in the procedural dispute. Trump had already promised to bring the troops home during the 2016 election campaign. In particular, he pushed for a withdrawal from Afghanistan. According to US media reports, he has recently been increasingly frustrated with the pace of the withdrawal.
In early August, the US had informed its NATO allies that it wanted to reduce its troops from around 12,000 at the time to less than 5,000 by the end of November. In mid-September, Trump announced that troop strength should be rapidly reduced to less than 4,000. Almost four weeks before the US election in early November, Trump tweeted that he believed the soldiers should be home by Christmas. The war in Afghanistan is the longest in US history. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, US-led troops marched into the area.
It is not yet clear what effects the recent US cuts could have on the Bundeswehr commitment. There are currently around 1,000 German soldiers stationed in northern Afghanistan. The current mandate of the Bundestag foresees the use of a maximum of 1,300. The Bundestag only extended the deployment of German soldiers to Iraq by another 15 months at the end of October. With this, Germany is making its contribution to the fight of an international coalition against the terrorist militia of the Islamic State (IS).
.
[ad_2]
Source link
