War in Afghanistan Weighs on Washington’s European Partners

As the U.S. prepares a second troop increase towards the war effort in Afghanistan within a year, Washington’s European partners are growing ever wearier of a mission many consider to be hopeless and without end. Public skepticism, struggling economies and burgeoning public deficits are all combining to make participation within, and sustainment of, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) effort a burden for European nations.

Calls by NATO Secretary General Fogh Rasmussen for a greater Alliance commitment of troops have been met with piecemeal responses, resulting in about 7,000 additional soldiers – 2,000 of which have been pledged by non-Alliance members Australia, Armenia, Finland, Georgia, Macedonia, Mongolia, Montenegro, South Korea, Sweden and the Ukraine.

Yet the total number of additional non-U.S. troops being provided by coalition partners is deceiving as some of these forces (around 1,500) have already been stationed in Afghanistan since last summer as part of a collective security boost for the period before and after the Afghan presidential election of August 20. Instead of being withdrawn at the end of the year as originally planned, these troops will instead remain deployed in Afghanistan on a permanent basis and be counted by ISAF as part of the parallel Alliance response to the U.S. ‘surge.’

Also dampening the spirit of allied support for Washington’s fresh Afghan initiative is that these extra allied forces have to be weighed against the impending withdrawals of 2,160 Dutch forces in 2010, and 2,830 Canadian troops in 2011. So while 7,000 additional troops are going into theater during 2010, by the end of 2011 almost 5,000 will have come out. Subtract the estimated 1,500 already in-theater that are counted as part of the NATO total and you have a projected net boost of 500 non-U.S. troops between 2010 and 2011.

While that slender total is perhaps sobering enough to Pentagon officials, another figure also stands out: once the additional 30,000 American forces are fully deployed in Afghanistan the U.S. will have 98,000 troops stationed there against less than 45,000 from the combined 43 other countries participating in the ISAF mission. Thus the Alliance effort in Afghanistan increasingly bears an American visage.

This, no doubt, is unsettling for Washington when it considers that Europe has some 2 million combined soldiers in uniform. Yet while NATO members voted to invoke Article 5 of the Alliance treaty in regards to Afghanistan days after 9/11, the issue of troop commitments is more properly viewed through a national – instead of collective – lens. Most Euro-NATO nations are subjected to legal and constitutional restrictions regarding external deployments of troops. As a result, many of the governments of these countries wishing to participate in a multi-national mission must seek parliamentary approval for the deployment of forces abroad.

Other factors also contribute to the difficulty in bolstering the size and scope of the Afghan missions among Euro-NATO partners. With few exceptions most European publics remain dubious of any government sentiment promoting the line that their national security hangs in the balance in Afghanistan, while still others are increasingly uneasy with participation in what they perceive to be an American war.

Unfortunate timing is also an issue. NATO has absorbed twelve new members into its Alliance since 1999, many of whom embarked on modernization efforts early in the decade right as the ISAF mission in Afghanistan first unfolded. Such reforms were launched with the goal of bringing each new respective member’s armed forces up to Alliance standards. The ongoing war in Afghanistan, though providing valuable experience for troops deployed there, has served in part to divert financial resources desperately needed to outfit their armies with modern weaponry and equipment.

These newer NATO members, largely composed of ex-Warsaw Pact states, are not only in need of newer, more sophisticated military technologies to replace their older, Soviet- and Russian-legacy hardware, but now must also repair and replace material utilized in the Afghan theater that has been atrophied or destroyed. Blunting the prospect of this happening in the near-term are the financial realities, including defense budgets that continue to be allocated on a peacetime – not wartime – basis, and reduced government spending necessitated by economic recession and IMF loan requirements.

The requisite political willpower for sustaining an ongoing combat-theater deployment also remains shaky. Some European governments simply do not see an expanded troop presence in a distant country with a longstanding tradition of resistance to outside forces as the tonic for what is ailing the NATO-led ISAF effort. More importantly, the risk of increased costs and casualties stemming from an unpopular campaign in Afghanistan is politically untenable for these governments. Others, such as Greece, are suffering from severe economic circumstances which hinder further involvement.

The Netherlands – which has been one of the NATO partners that has borne the greatest brunt of the Alliance’ mission creep in Afghanistan – is readying to depart. France and Germany both have declared that they will commit no more troops to the Afghan campaign, though there remains the slight possibility they will change their tone following a January 28 conference on Afghanistan in London. While the Afghan campaign is unpopular with the French public, it is even more the case in Germany where political consensus regarding participation within the ISAF mission threatens to crumble.

As for the United Kingdom, the largest contributor to ISAF after the U.S., it has become increasingly vocal concerning the unequal burden-sharing within NATO over the Afghan mission. The ballooning budget deficit is causing British officials of all political stripes to reexamine public expenditures, and with the cost of the U.K. contribution to Afghanistan reaching $14.5 billion since 2001 how much longer the British will be willing to sustain a 10,000-strong force in the Afghan theater comes into question. Helping matters even less has been the near-doubling of British casualties over the course of the past year.

There have been some exceptions among European NATO partners, including recent announcements of additional troop commitments from Italy (1,000), Poland (680) and Spain (500). These deployments will likely mirror the U.S. ‘surge’ as described by President Obama on December 1, meaning the extra troops would begin entering the Afghan theater in early 2010 and then draw down in 2011. Otherwise these countries, particularly Italy and Spain where economic recovery has been spotty at best, will strain to continue their deployments.

When President Obama approved 30,000 of the 40,000 additional forces requested by General Stanley McChrystal the idea was that the difference would be made up by Washington’s coalition partners. Some of the commitments it has received from its European partners were perhaps made with the intention of pleasing a new administration that has adopted a different tone than that of its predecessor. Others may have been made out of the belief that Europe must show the U.S. that it is a willing security provider if it hopes for the NATO Alliance to endure. Regardless, the question needed to be asked is just how much longer many European nations intend to remain in Afghanistan.

Photo by isafmedia.