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Afghanistan to top agenda of Chicago NATO summit

By Matthew Rusling: 0 Comment(s)Print E-mail Xinhua, May 18, 2012

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[By Zhai Haijun/China.org./cn]

The U.S. war in Afghanistan is expected to dominate the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit to be held in the U.S. city of Chicago this weekend, analysts said.

The talks come as Afghanistan is scrambling to prepare its forces to overtake security duties in time for the 2014 withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops. NATO's mission in Afghanistan will be central to the summit, according to the U.S. Defense Department, with clarifications to its plans for the coming years in the war-torn country topping the list.

The level of Afghan troop readiness will also be part of that discussion, and while there remains much debate on the issue, some analysts believe the embattled country's forces have made much headway.

"Afghanistan is this time, I think actually, pretty much a good news story before the summit," said Bruce Riedel, a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, at a panel discussion in Washington Wednesday.

"That is not to say that we are on the edge of nirvana ... but I think the (NATO) leaders will be able to point to substantial progress over two, three or even four years ago," he said.

NATO leaders will note that the NATO troop surge over the last two years has succeeded in "halting the Taliban's momentum," Riedel said, adding that during the five years prior to the surge, the Taliban steadily grew stronger. "That, I believe, is no longer the case," he said.

The Afghan security force now numbers roughly 350,000 troops -- more than double its size three years ago -- and is large and competent enough to contain the Taliban threat without large numbers of foreign combat forces, he said.

Al Qaida's core has been "severely damaged" and much of its senior leadership has been either scattered or killed in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"This is a much diminished organization, and that would not be possible without Afghanistan as a base for operations," Riedel said.

Critics, however, maintain that a 2014 deadline leaves too little time to prepare Afghan forces to stand on their own, and that most units are not yet fully ready.

NATO forces, however, will likely maintain a substantial number of advisers, special operation units and perhaps even aircraft artillery, said Nathan Hughes, director of military analysis at global intelligence company Stratfor.

NATO does not expect the Afghan National Security Forces to be fully trained and ready, at least not by Western standards, Hughes said, as only 18 of the country's 293 battalions have been deemed by the Americans to be capable of independent operations.

Still, NATO's objective is to shore up Afghan forces enough to be able to handle the Taliban with increasingly limited outside support after the bulk of NATO forces leave, a scenario that NATO believes is possible, he said.

Who will fund Afghan forces?

Also high on the NATO summit's agenda will be reaching an agreement on post-2014 funding for Afghanistan's armed forces -- NATO is expected to contribute at least 3.6 billion U.S. dollars in addition to Kabul's 500 million dollars, and Afghan officials hope the United States might contribute even more.

But getting European nations to open their wallets and split the costs with Washington may prove difficult amid the eurozone financial crisis.

Indeed, as the European Union faces the ongoing Greek financial crisis and a Spanish banking sector burdened by a heavy load of bad debt, Europe may not be able -- or willing -- to cough up billions of euros every year to support the Afghan military and police.

The summit also comes as a number of European countries including France, Britain, and Spain are slashing their military budgets.

Those countries are restructuring their armed forces according to their own particular imperatives, but European nations will seek to pool some of their resources and pursue increased integration and interoperability in order to maintain capability, Hughes said.H One of the biggest questions is what course France will decide to pursue. During his election campaign, newly-elected French President Francois Hollande pledged to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan before the end of 2012, but there are signs that he may now take a more nuanced line, Hughes said.

Either way, Hollande will try to reassure NATO allies that France remains committed to the alliance, Hughes said.