WASHINGTON: Hanging in a corridor outside the Pentagon press office, a blow-up of a Time magazine cover shows a weary US soldier drawing deeply on his cigarette. Barbed wire and snowy foothills loom behind him.
The headline: “How Not to Lose in Afghanistan.” The date: April 20, 2009.
More than eight years later, the Pentagon finds itself in the same quandary.
Again.
This time round, it is President Donald Trump looking for answers, just as Barack Obama and George W. Bush did before him.
Having given Afghanistan little more than a passing mention as president, he is now being forced to confront the issue by a grim drumbeat of bad news and warnings from his generals.
Almost any year from its turbulent recent past can serve as a showcase for Afghanistan’s dire predicament.
Take 2016, which marked 15 years since the US-led invasion. Nearly 11,500 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded, according to the UN.
Adding to the carnage, local officials say, the Taliban and other insurgent groups killed about 7,000 Afghan security force members — many of whom had been trained and supported by US and NATO experts.
Dan Coats, Trump’s director of national intelligence, hammered home the depressing point this week, warning that the political and security situation will “almost certainly” continue to worsen.
“Meanwhile, we assess that the Taliban is likely to continue to make gains, especially in rural areas,” he said.
Trump, who campaigned on an “America First” platform and a pledge to reduce US overseas involvement, must now decide whether to approve expected requests from the military’s top brass to send thousands more US troops back to Afghanistan.
Administration advisers are reportedly urging him to green light some 3,000 to 5,000 additional troops, adding to the 8,400 already there.
The president is expected to make the decision this month, and Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said his own recommendation would come “very shortly.”
US troop levels peaked at around 100,000 under Obama, who later embarked on a steady drawdown aiming to completely end America’s combat role in the country.
The US and NATO handed security responsibility over to Afghan forces at the start of 2015, but the outcome has been brutal.
Local troops have been slain in their thousands, corruption remains endemic and as the Taliban continues to gain ground, even US commanders concede the situation is a stalemate at best.
“Unless we change something ... the situation will continue to deteriorate and we’ll lose all the gains that we’ve invested in over the last several years,” Defense Intelligence Agency chief Gen. Vincent Stewart told lawmakers this week.
However, a new troop commitment would stir resentment in America, which has seen about 2,400 troops killed in Afghanistan since 2001 and another 20,000 wounded.
Plus the US government has already spent around $1 trillion on fighting and rebuilding, much of which has been squandered on wasteful projects.
Trump is expected to announce a decision while he travels to NATO in Brussels and a G7 summit in Sicily later this month.
He will need to outline a coherent Afghanistan policy and explain how a few thousand extra troops will win — or at least not lose — there, when 100,000 troops could not.
“What we will have at the end of this next few weeks here is an opportunity for a much more effective strategy for the problem set in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the region broadly,” said Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster.
Administration officials acknowledge military gains can succeed only if reforms take place in the heart of the Kabul government.
Mattis this week sounded an optimistic tone on the country’s current leaders, President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.
Officials say the government is working to root out the corruption and bad governance that defined Hamid Karzai’s decade in power.
They are “committed to working in a responsive way with their citizens, and therein lies the path forward,” Mattis said.
“When a government wins the affection, the respect and the support of their people, then no enemy can stand against them.”
NATO currently has about 13,500 soldiers in Afghanistan, including the Americans.
They do not typically fight the Taliban, serving a “train and advise” role for the local forces instead.
Extra troops could free up Western advisers to get closer to the fight. While that would help them gain better battlefield understanding, it would also put them at greater risk.
But Americans have little appetite for more deaths in a war that many view as unwinnable and would rather forget.
Trump weighs further US troops for Afghanistan
Trump weighs further US troops for Afghanistan
Hungary PM Orban says Europe cannot finance Ukraine war alone
- Viktor Orban: ‘The Americans will quit this war, first of all they will not encourage the war’
“The Americans will quit this war, first of all they will not encourage the war,” Orban said. “Europe cannot finance this war alone ... some still want to continue sending enormous amounts of money into this lost war but the number of those who remain silent ...and those who cautiously voice that we should adjust to the new situation, is growing.”
United Nations warily awaits Donald Trump’s return to power
- Concerns at UN about Washington’s budget contributions
- Trump expected to withdraw from climate deal again
- UN has done ‘prudent planning’ ahead of Trump return
GENEVA: The United Nations has been planning for the possible return of Donald Trump and the cuts to US funding and engagement with world body that are likely to come with his second term as president.
There was a sense of “déjà vu and some trepidation” at the 193-member world body, said one senior Asian diplomat, as Republican Trump won Tuesday’s US election over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
“There is also some hope that a transactional administration will engage the UN on some areas even if it were to defund some dossiers. After all, what bigger and better global stage is there than the United Nations?” said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A US retreat at the UN could open the door for China, which has been building its influence in global diplomacy.
Trump has offered few specifics about foreign policy in his second term but supporters say the force of his personality and his “peace through strength” approach will help bend foreign leaders to his will. He has vowed to solve the war in Ukraine and is expected to give strong support to Israel in its conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza and southern Lebanon.
Among the top concerns at the UN are whether the United States will decide to contribute less money to the world body and withdraw from key multinational institutions and agreements, including the world Heath Organization and the Paris climate agreement.
US funding is the immediate worry. Washington is the UN’s largest contributor — with China second — accounting for 22 percent of the core UN budget and 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget.
A country can be up to two years in arrears before facing the possible repercussion of losing its General Assembly vote.
’Extremely hard’
Trump came to power last time proposing to cut about a third off US diplomacy and aid budgets, which included steep reductions in funding for UN peacekeeping and international organizations. But Congress, which sets the federal US government budget, pushed back on Trump’s proposal.
A UN spokesperson said at the time the proposed cuts would have made it impossible to continue all essential work.
“The UN secretariat has known that they could face a Trump comeback all year. There has been prudent planning behind the scenes on how to manage potential US budget cuts,” said Richard Gowan, UN director at the International Crisis Group.
“So (UN Secretary-General Antonio) Guterres and his team are not totally unprepared, but they know the next year will be extremely hard,” he said.
Trump’s team did not immediately respond to a query about his policy toward the UN after he takes office in January.
During his first term, Trump complained that the US was shouldering an unfair burden of the cost of the UN and pushed for reforms. Washington is traditionally slow to pay and when Trump left office in 2021 the US was in arrears about $600 million for the core budget and $2 billion for peacekeeping.
According to UN figures, President Joe Biden’s administration currently owes $995 million for the core UN budget and $862 million for the peacekeeping budget.
“I don’t want to pre-empt or speak about policies that may or may not happen, but we work with member states in the way we’ve always worked with member states,” Guterres’ spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Wednesday.
In 2026, the UN Security Council will choose Guterres’ successor, a decision in which the Trump administration will hold a veto power.
’Great news for China’
During Trump’s first term, he was critical of the United Nations and wary of multilateralism. He announced plans to quit the World Health Organization, and pulled out of the UN Human Rights Council, the UN cultural agency UNESCO, a global climate change accord and the Iran nuclear deal.
When Biden succeeded him in 2021, he rescinded the US decision to withdraw from the WHO and returned the US to UNESCO and the climate agreement. Trump’s campaign has said he would quit the climate deal again if he won office.
“It will survive. But, of course, it will probably survive severely undermined,” Guterres told Reuters in September of a second withdrawal from the climate pact by Trump.
Ahead of the US election, a senior European diplomat said a Trump win would be “great news for China,” recalling that during Trump’s first term “the Chinese influence in the UN increased a lot because it was an open bar for the Chinese.”
The diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that if Trump again cuts UN funding and withdraws from international pacts “it will just give China the opportunity to present itself as the supporter number one of multilateralism.”
US funding for some other UN agencies is also in question. One of the first moves by the Trump administration in 2017 was to cut funding for UN Population Fund (UNFPA), the international body’s agency focused on family planning as well as maternal and child health in more than 150 countries.
Trump’s administration said UNFPA “supports ... a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” The UN said that was an inaccurate perception. Biden restored US funding for UNFPA.
If Trump again cuts funding, UNFPA warned that “women will lose lifesaving services in some of the world’s most devastating crises” in places like Afghanistan, Sudan and Ukraine.
Under Trump’s first presidency, the US also opposed long-agreed international language on women’s sexual and reproductive rights and health in UN resolutions over concern that it would advance abortion rights.
A senior African diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up the impending return of Trump for multilateralism and the United Nations: “The heavens help us.”
At least 25 wounded as apartment building hit by Russian missile
- 12-story residential building was struck by a bomb that partially destroyed the first and third floors
- A barrage of drones also struck Odesa and its suburbs in south of the country, wounding at least two people
KYIV: At least 25 people were wounded in an overnight Russian strike on an apartment block in Kharkiv, the mayor of Ukraine’s second city said Friday.
The 12-story residential building was struck by a bomb that partially destroyed the first and third floors, Mayor Igor Terekhov wrote on Telegram.
“The number of injured keeps increasing. As of now, there are 25 of them,” he added.
Rescue efforts were under way for inhabitants trapped on the third floor.
The Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, accused Russia of “deliberately hitting an apartment block.”
“The Russians are also attacking Kyiv with missiles,” he added.
Separately, Kyiv’s military office said that anti-missile air defenses were operating in the capital.
A barrage of drones also struck Odesa and its suburbs in the south of the country, wounding at least two people, the region’s governor Oleg Kiper said.
Kyiv was targeted on Thursday by another “massive” Russian drone attack that wounded two people, damaged buildings and sparked fires in several districts, Ukrainian authorities said.
Russia has systematically targeted the capital with drone and missile barrages since the first day of its invasion launched nearly three years ago on February 24, 2022.
Ukrainian authorities have been seeking air defense systems from their allies to fend off Russian aerial attacks.
At least 2 dead and 12 missing after a fishing boat sinks off South Korea’s Jeju island
- Nearby fishing vessels managed to pull 15 crew members out of the water, but two of them were later pronounced dead
- 27 crew members were on the 129-tonne boat, which left Jeju’s Seogwipo port late Thursday to catch mackerel
SEOUL: A fishing boat capsized and sank off the coast of South Korea’s Jeju island Friday, leaving at least two people dead and 12 others unaccounted for, coast guard officials said.
Nearby fishing vessels managed to pull 15 crew members out of the water, but two of them were later pronounced dead after being brought to shore. The other 13 did not sustain life-threatening injuries, said Kim Han-na, an official at Jeju’s coast guard.
She said 27 crew members – 16 South Korean nationals and 11 foreigners – were on the 129-tonne boat, which left Jeju’s Seogwipo port late Thursday to catch mackerel. The coast guard received a distress signal at around 4:30 a.m. Friday from a nearby fishing vessel that conducted rescue efforts as the boat sank 24 kilometers northwest of the island.
At least 11 vessels and nine aircraft from South Korea’s coast guard, police, fire service and military were deployed as of Friday morning to search for survivors. They were being assisted by 13 civilian vessels.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol called for officials to mobilize all available resources to find and rescue the missing crew members, his office said.
South Korea holds missile drill after North Korea launches
- The nuclear-armed North had test-fired what it said was its most advanced and powerful solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile
- Hyunmoo surface-to-surface short-range missile was sent into the West Sea in the exercise
SEOUL: South Korea fired a ballistic missile into the sea in a show of force after North Korea’s recent salvo of missile launches, Seoul said Friday.
The nuclear-armed North had test-fired what it said was its most advanced and powerful solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) as well as a number of short-range ballistic missiles in separate drills over the last two weeks.
South Korea’s military command said its live-fire exercise was aimed at demonstrating its “strong resolve to firmly respond to any North Korean provocation.”
It also underlined its “capability and readiness for precision strikes against the enemy’s origin of provocation,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff added.
A Hyunmoo surface-to-surface short-range missile was sent into the West Sea in the exercise, the military command said.
South Korea started domestic production of short-range ballistic missiles in the 1970s to counter the threats posed by North Korea.
Hyunmoo are a series of missiles which are key to the country’s so-called ‘Kill Chain’ preemptive strike system, which allows Seoul to launch a preemptive attack if there are signs of imminent North Korean attack.
In early October, the country displayed for the first time its largest ballistic missile, the Hyunmoo-5, which is capable of destroying underground bunkers.
Last Sunday, South Korea, Japan and the United States conducted a joint air drill involving a US B-1B bomber, South Korean F-15K and KF-16 fighter jets, and Japanese F-2 jets, in response to the North’s ICBM launch.
Such joint drills infuriate Pyongyang, which views them as rehearsals for invasion.
Kim Yo Jong, sister of the country’s leader and a key spokesperson, called the US-South Korea-Japan exercises an “action-based explanation of the most hostile and dangerous aggressive nature of the enemy toward our Republic.”
The drill was an “absolute proof of the validity and urgency of the line of building up the nuclear forces we have opted for and put into practice,” she added.
