The Pentagon’s senior military leaders are worried that the security situation in Afghanistan is stalemated or deteriorating, and now are preparing a far-reaching plan that would prepare the U.S. military for a war that could last three to five more years, officials said. The effort, which is being coordinated by the Joint Staff and is still in its early stages, is designed to create an experienced cadre of officers and senior enlisted soldiers, who would rotate between assignments in Afghanistan and at their home stations until the end of hostilities.
By doing so, the Pentagon hopes to end a problem that has plagued the effort in Afghanistan—the lack of familiarity with local conditions by U.S. forces who rotate in and then depart after a year, just when they are beginning to understand the area or the mission where they are assigned.
“These would be small groups who would deploy together for shorter periods, going back and forth to the same place and the same mission again and again, so they would know the culture and the terrain,” said a senior Pentagon official briefed on the plan, who said the teams could be asked to conduct training or other specialized counterinsurgency missions.
Until now, officers involved say, the Afghanistan war has been a secondary concern for the Pentagon, which has tended to view it as a short-term mission that took a back seat to the war in Iraq. “This is about finding an alternative scheme that allows us to provide continuity in Afghanistan without burning people out,” said the senior military official.
The plan envisions adding hundreds of personnel to the effort – on top of the 21,000 additional troops that President Barack Obama has ordered to Afghanistan.
But the Joint Staff ideas may conflict to some degree with Obama’s timetable. He has seemed reluctant about getting involved in a long-term effort in Afghanistan, though he not yet to made explicit his own timetable for the war. In announcing his strategy last month, he made clear his desire for turning over the lead combat role as quickly as possible to Afghan Army and police units.
When the plan was briefed to military services and combatant commands earlier this month, senior Joint Staff officers bluntly declared that the security situation across Afghanistan is “poor, stalemated, or deteriorating,” according to an official who was present. They also warned that the military ought to prepare for the conflict to last another three to five years.
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