Future Of US Foreign Policy In Afghanistan: The First Phase
Future Of Us Foreign Policy In Afghanistanthe First Phase Of
Topic: Future of U.S. Foreign Policy in Afghanistan The first phase of the Afghanistan War was the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. On October 7, 2001 the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom, to remove the safe haven to Al-Qaeda and its use of the Afghan territory as a base of operations for terrorist activities. The aim of the invasion was to protect US national security and to find Osama bin Laden and other high-ranking al-Qaeda members to be put on trail. Early in his presidency, Obama moved to bolster U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan.
He announced an increase to U.S. troop levels of 17,000 in February 2009 to "stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan", an area he said had not received the "strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires. To facilitate the use of counterinsurgency tactics in the war, On December 1, 2009, Obama announced the deployment of an additional 30,000 military personnel to Afghanistan. He also proposed to begin troop withdrawals 18 months from that date. Despite gains toward building a stable central government, a resurgent Taliban, and continuing provincial instability - particularly in the south and the east - remain serious challenges for the Afghan Government. The estimate for the cost of deploying one US soldier in Afghanistan is over US$1 million dollars a year.
On June 22, 2011, President Obama announced that 10,000 U.S. troops would be withdrawn by the end of 2011. An additional 23,000 troops will leave the country by the summer of 2012. Canada withdrew all its troops in 2011, and other NATO countries pledged to reduce their military presence. In the UK, prime minster David Cameron pledged to end British combat operations in Afghanistan by 2015. "I believe the country needs to know there is an end point to all of this," he said, "so from 2015 there will not be troops in anything like the numbers now and crucially, they will not be in a combat role." In a covert operation, US Navy SEALs (a special operations force) and CIA operatives killed Osama Bin Laden on 2 May 2011, in his residential compound in Abottabad, Pakistan.
Al-Qaeda swore to avenge Bin Laden's death. A statement posted on jihadist websites stated: "We will remain, God willing, a curse chasing the Americans and their agents, following them outside and inside their countries." Source: Links to an external site. President Obama has since stated that all U.S. troops will be out by 2014. During his 2013 State of the Union Address Barack Obama announced that 34,000 US troops will leave Afghanistan by February 2014, but did not specify what the post-2014 troop levels would be. "Beyond 2014, America's commitment to a unified and sovereign Afghanistan will endure, but the nature of our commitment will change," Obama said.
"We're negotiating an agreement with the Afghan government that focuses on two missions - training and equipping Afghan forces so that the country does not again slip into chaos, and counter-terrorism efforts that allow us to pursue the remnants of al-Qaeda and their affiliates," he added. As of February 12, 2013 Barack Obama had not made a decision on the post-2014 U.S. force. The Obama Administration intends to keep some troops in the country in 2015 and beyond, but the number is still being debated at the White House and must be approved by the Afghan government. Unnamed U.S. officials said there was a reluctance to go public with a final number of troops and a description of their missions while still in the early stage of negotiating a security agreement with the Afghans over retaining a U.S. military presence after 2014.
The New York Times reported that the post-2014 force is likely to number no more than 9,000 or so troops and then get progressively smaller. The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon is pushing a plan that would keep about 8,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2015, but significantly shrink the contingent over the following two years, perhaps to fewer than 1,000 by 2017, according to senior U.S. government officials and military officers. Afghanistan and US Public Opinion: Read and analyze November 20-22, 2009 Gallup Poll results which shows a slight increase in Americans favoring the U.S to send more troops to Afghanistan. Read: President Obama’s 2009 5-point strategic plan involving Afghanistan.
Read and analyze nationwide survey results on the issue of Afghanistan: 'More Americans Now View Afghanistan War as a Mistake; Republicans most likely to say the war was not a mistake' (Links to an external site). During the 2016 presidential campaign Donald Trump stated that it was a mistake for the US to get involve with Afghanistan. As president, Trump has pivoted on that view, stating that the War in Afghanistan was necessary and that he supports keeping a limited number of troops in the country.
Topic: Crimean Crisis of 2014 On Friday, April 25, 2014 U.S. President Barack Obama spoke as South Korean President Park Geun-hye looks on in a joint news conference at the Blue House, in Seoul, South Korea. The U.S. and Europe are laying the groundwork to sanction broad sections of Russia's economy if Moscow invades eastern Ukraine, Obama said Friday, even as he acknowledged those sanctions may fail to deter Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainian forces killed up to five pro-Moscow rebels on Thursday April 24, 2014 as they closed in on the separatists' military stronghold in the East and Russia launched army drills near the border in response, raising fears its troops would go in.
Under an international accord signed in Geneva last week, illegal armed groups in