Posted by Ilya Somin:
Obama's Popularity Not Enough to get European Allies to Send More Troops to
Afghanistan:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_02_15-2009_02_21.shtml#1235088497
Many people,[1] myself included, hoped that Barack Obama's popularity
abroad would enable the administration to get increased cooperation
from our allies, thereby making key US foreign policy objectives
easier to achieve. These hopes took a major blow recently when
[2]European NATO allies rejected the Administration's calls for
sending more troops to Afghanistan:
US hopes of securing more troops for Afghanistan from its Nato
allies were disappointed on Thursday as European countries refused
to offer up many more soldiers despite pleas from Robert Gates, US
defence secretary.
At a two-day meeting of Nato defence ministers in the Polish city
of Krakow, Mr Gates said the new US administration �is prepared to
make additional commitments to Afghanistan. But there clearly will
be expectations that the allies must do more as well�....
However, other Nato allies, which have about 30,000 soldiers in
Afghanistan, were prepared to offer only several hundred more to
help secure the country during forthcoming elections...
During the campaign, Obama repeatedly emphasized that the Bush
Administration had dropped the ball in Afghanistan and argued that it
was imperative to send more troops there. He has made an Afghanistan
"surge" the focal point of his War on Terror strategy. The fact that
the European allies felt free to reject his pleas on this major
priority at the very time when his popularity abroad is at its
post-Bush peak is a very bad sign.
It's important not to paint the allies with too broad a brush. Some of
them, such as [3]Canada (2700 troops) and [4]Poland (1600), have
contributed combat troops out of proportion to their relative
resources. It's understandable that these states don't want to give
more. However, the big continental European states, including
[5]France (3300) and Germany (3500), have contributed very small
forces relative to the size of their economies and populations, and
have refused to allow even these limited contingents to actually be
used in combat. Note that Canada and Poland (whose troops are deployed
in the more dangerous eastern part of the country where combat
operations are ongoing) have contributed almost two thirds as many
troops as France and Germany, despite the fact that the latter have
more than double the combined population of the former.
The allies' refusal to heed Obama's plea for more troops highlights
the limitations of personal popularity as a tool for influencing
allied policy. It also suggests that US-European differences over
defense policy go beyond understandable anger over the flaws of the
Bush Administration.
References
1. http://volokh.com/posts/1225861213.shtml
2. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4ca851e0-feaa-11dd-b19a-000077b07658.html
3. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/02/200921920282151108.html
4.
http://www.afghanconflictmonitor.org/2008/10/polish-troops-take-charge-of-ghazni.html
5.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090207/ap_on_re_eu/eu_germany_security_conference
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