Obama On Afghanistan: I Will Not ‘Simply Assume That More Troops Always Result In An Improved Situation’

Since President Obama announced his new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan last week, he and his administration have been careful to distinguish it from President Bush’s surge in Iraq. Today on Fox News Sunday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates stressed that the focus of the mission in Afghanistan has been “narrowed”: “I think what we need to focus on…is making headway and reversing the Taliban’s momentum and strengthening the Afghan army and police, and really going after Al Qaeda.”

Today in an interview with CBS’s Bob Schieffer, Obama underscored this point. He pointed out that the reason he has increased troops in Afghanistan is because levels there are “greatly underresourced.” However, he is not going to “simply assume that more troops always result in an improved situation”:

OBAMA: What I will not do is to simply assume that more troops always result in an improved situation. [...]

But just because we needed to ramp up from the greatly underresourced levels that we had doesn’t automatically mean that, if this strategy doesn’t work, that what’s needed is even more troops.

There may be a point of diminishing returns in terms of troop levels. We’ve got to also make sure that our civilian efforts, our diplomatic efforts and our development efforts are just as robustly encouraged.

Obama added that it this strategy doesn’t work, the answer won’t necessarily be more troops. “It’s not going to be an open-ended commitment of infinite resources,” he said. Watch it:

The 17,000 additional U.S. troops will be focused on fighting the Taliban in the south and east, allowing the U.S. to “partner with Afghan security forces and to go after insurgents along the border.” Later this spring, Obama will also be sending another 4,000 U.S. troops to help train Afghan security forces.

While the increase in U.S. forces has received the majority of media attention, Obama’s Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy is actually a “comprehensive civil-political effort to improve basic services, accountability, and overall governance in order to defeat the hard-core Taliban and al Qaeda fighters at the heart of the insurgency,” as CAP’s Peter Juul has written. The President has also ordered an increase in humanitarian aid and civilian support, recognizing that the effort there cannot be won solely by military means.

Transcript:

SCHIEFFER: Are you concerned at all — because some people say the more troops you put in, it’s just going to inflame the situation; it’s going to make it worse. What do you say to them?

OBAMA: I’m very mindful of that. Look, I — I’m enough of a student of history to know that the United States, in Vietnam and other countries, other epochs of history have overextended to the point where they were severely weakened.

And the history in Afghanistan obviously shows that that country has not been very favorably disposed towards foreign intervention. And that’s why a central part of our strategy is to train the Afghan National Army so that they are taking the lead, increasingly, to deal with extremists in their area.

That’s been one of the few success stories we’ve seen over the last several years, is the Afghan National Army actually has great credibility. They’re effective fighters. We need to grow that. And that’s part of the reason why we want to make sure that there are trainers there.

But the last point I would make, you know, a request was made for increased troop levels in Afghanistan. I have already authorized 17,000. We’re now adding 4,000 trainers, specifically designed to train Afghan security forces.

But what I’ve also said to the Department of Defense and what I will say to the American public is that, you know, we now have resourced properly this strategy. It’s not going to be an open-ended commitment of infinite resources. We’ve just got to make sure that we are focused on achieving what we need to achieve with the resources we have.

SCHIEFFER: What you seem to be saying is we have to win; there’s no choice here. So does that mean, if more is needed; if the commanders come back to you and say, we may need more troops, Mr. President, to do this, you’re going to be ready to do that?

OBAMA: What I will not do is to simply assume that more troops always result in an improved situation.

I think there was a good argument, after us scrubbing this very hard and talking to a lot of our allies in the region, including the Pakistan and Afghanistan governments, the Europeans and our other NATO allies, that this was the best strategy.

But just because we needed to ramp up from the greatly underresourced levels that we had doesn’t automatically mean that, if this strategy doesn’t work, that what’s needed is even more troops.

There may be a point of diminishing returns in terms of troop levels. We’ve got to also make sure that our civilian efforts, our diplomatic efforts and our development efforts are just as robustly encouraged.

And, so for example, in the budget that I’ve presented to Congress, I’ve said we’ve got to increase foreign aid in Afghanistan and we’ve got to increase foreign aid in Pakistan. And I’m going to be really pushing Congress, because sometimes foreign aid is a, you know, juicy target, particularly during tough times.

I’m going to tell them, this is central to our strategy. And it can save lives and troops if we properly execute it.