CFR Update: NATO Announces Decision to Restrict Ops

Top of the Agenda: NATO Announces Decision to Restrict Ops

A series of rogue insider attacks on foreign troops in recent weeks has prompted NATO commanders to announce restrictions on joint operations with Afghan units smaller than 800-troop battalions. The decision raises new concerns over plans to hand off security responsibilities and train Afghan forces (Reuters) ahead of a 2014 withdrawal. NATO officials said the move would affect the "vast majority" of Afghan forces, who will now be forced to function without NATO troop support. However, NATO officials say more limited training operations will continue on a case-by-case basis (BBC). More than fifty NATO personnel have been killed in "insider attacks" by members of Afghan security forces this year.

Analysis

The next 28 months of the war in Afghanistan, between now and the planned drawdown, will be defined in part by the process of handing over security responsibility from ISAF (the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force) troops to Afghan soldiers and police. Without a successful transition to Afghan control, the strategy is likely to fall apart, leaving the country without security," writes Joshua Foust for the Atlantic.

"Afghanistan's importance to the U.S. is situational, linked largely to the threat that, under the right conditions, al-Qaida might try to reconstitute its former network of assets there. But much of al-Qaida's operational network has already shifted to more fertile locations elsewhere in the world. And to be perfectly frank, if Afghanistan does not again become the main safe haven for an international terrorist network determined to wage war on the U.S. and its allies, the country will return to the level of attention it held in U.S. strategic planning during the 1990s: overlooked and peripheral," writes Nikolas Gvosdev in the World Politics Review.

As US Troop 'Surge' Ends, Setbacks Are Piling Up  - S&S
US Military Suspends Combat Patrols with Afghan Forces - LWJ
US, NATO Scale Back Missions with Afghan Forces after Attacks - WP
Coalition Sharply Reduces Joint Operations With Afghan Troops - NYT
NATO Curbs Afghan Joint Patrols Over 'Insider' Attacks - BBC
NATO Scales Back Afghan Partnering After Attacks - AP
NATO Says Afghan Operations Cutback Could Be 'Temporary' - Reuters
Panetta: US Concerned About Afghan Insider Attacks - AP