U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is expected to call for more European contributions to Afghanistan at the NATO Defense Ministers meeting in the Netherlands today and tomorrow. His message to Europeans is according to an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that they should “fulfill the commitments that their leaders made in Riga [at the NATO summit in November 2006].”
Not surprisingly, the NY Sun gets already the first sentence of its article on the NATO Defense Ministers meeting wrong:
The threatened withdrawal of European troops from Afghanistan puts at risk NATO’s mission to eradicate the Taliban.
The term “eradicate” raises quite a few eyebrows to German readers like myself, but that is due to historical connotations of that term. Let’s ignore the fact that there is no such entity as “the Taliban” that could be eradicated. The mistake I am referring to is that it is Canada, not Europe that threatened to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. As The Canadian Press points out:
With wavering European allies showing signs of sticking it out in Afghanistan, Defence Minister Peter MacKay will be in an uncomfortable position Wednesday as he meets with NATO counterparts. (…)
Canada, with its commitment to review the mission under the auspices of an independent panel, could end up being the odd man out if former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley’s group recommends something other than the status quo of continuing the mission. Canada has about 2,500 troops serving with NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, ISAF. Most of them are in Kandahar province, a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan.
I would not blame the Canadians for pulling out due to the lack of solidarity from Germany and many other Western European countries. Has Austria ever increased its contribution of 4 soldiers in Afghanistan?
Moving US troops from Kosovo to Afghanistan? Okay, the NY Sun is not the most reliable news source, but even if the following statement is true, it is not going to sound like a threat to European governments. We rather take over the Kosovo mission than sending more troops to Afghanistan:
Unless European countries can commit more forces and equipment without delay, America will begin to withdraw troops from Kosovo, the troubled province of Serbia, and transfer them to Afghanistan, Mr. Gates will announce.
Besides, the United States appears to be much more invested in Kosovo’s independence than the EU countries are. I doubt that the US would move its troops from Kosovo to Afghanistan.
The NY Sun does, however, present an excellent quote by U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, which I consider believable:
I am not satisfied that an alliance with members who have over 2 million soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen cannot find the modest additional resources that have been committed for Afghanistan.
That’s a very polite way of putting it and typical for high-ranking government officials.
Let’s do a little contest: Please suggest an alternative for the phrase “not satisfied.” How would you translate Secretary Gates’ diplomatic speech into plain English? Surely, Secretary Gates and many Americans must be very frustrated by the insufficient support from France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Afghanistan was supposed to be “the good war” with a lot of European support because of the 9/11 attacks.
Joerg Wolf is a new co-blogger at The Moderate Voice. Together with another German Fulbrighter, he has been blogging at Atlantic Review about transatlantic issues since 2005. Afghanistan has been a frequent topic.
Joerg Wolf is founder and editor-in-chief of the Atlantic Review (http://atlanticreview.org), a blog on transatlantic relations sponsored by the German Fulbright Alumni Association.
He currently works as editor-in-chief of the Open Think Tank atlantic-community.org in Berlin.
Joerg studied political science at the Free University of Berlin and worked as a research associate for the International Risk Policy project at the Free University’s Center for Transatlantic Foreign and Security Policy. He has been a Fulbright scholar at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Washington DC and has worked for the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Cairo and in Berlin.