I did my CTY at Dickinson College, PA.

As far as the Afghanistan 'surge', why does to have to be US forces? Is NATO tapped out? Taking that line of thought a bit further in a different direction, would it be out of bounds for Russian (I know, I know, but there's 2 sides to that coin - pun intended) and/or Chinese troops to be invited to a NATO operation? After all, I would think both have a local interest in stabilizing the country and defeating the extremists. But then, they may have a very different picture than us about what victory should look like. Or, it could be an opportunity to forge civil-military cooperation and relationships with two of our biggest competitors.

Nah - hell will freeze over first. China and Russia are busily establishing the "neo-authoritarian" bloc against the democracy bloc, and would like nothing more than to see a democracy-led hegemonic project fall on its face.

This is why they are pulling the Westphalia (don't question the actions of sovereigns) card at the UN with respect to Zimbabwe, and will do so whenever a dictator's actions to stay in power are questioned at that level.

And it's interesting how events trump politics, and how the changes in Iraq have dramatically changed what Iraq means to the election.

Pardon my naivete, but isn't that the way things are supposed to work? The actual facts of [major_situation] dictate what it means to the electorate, and therefore to its treatment during an election? (For any given major_situation, i.e. war, recession, market crashes, unemployment, etc.)

"As far as the Afghanistan 'surge', why does to have to be US forces? "

Because we want it to work. Britain is the most proactive military force outside the US in NATO, and we saw how they handled Basra.

As I understand it the NATO heirarchy is fractured in Afghanistan, with different nations using different rules of engagement. That isnt tenable in a successful counterinsurgency. You cant have guys sitting in their bases waiting to be raided, which would be the default position of most NATO members, and hence the de facto stance for NATO as a whole without the US leading the way.

We really need to think about what our goals are in Afghanistan. I dont get a good sense that we have a gameplan there, other than kill as many Taliban as possible and hope for the best.

Iraq was similarly adrift a couple years ago. Having Petraeus in charge should help immeasurably. The question is, what do we hope to accomplish and at what point is victory defined and we can get the bulk of the troops out?

I'd say establishing the central government and army to a point where they can protect the borders and keep the country side in check, and i worry that we arent doing as much to accomplish that as we are out hunting Taliban. There are always more Taliban to kill- we will never kill a fraction of the militants the Russians did. Keeping the jihadis in check is important, but we need to remember that that is a means to a greater end, not an end in itself.

If we really get carried away, well there are perhaps 3 million armed men in the Pakistan tribal regions that would be a nightmare if we decided to go play in their sandbox, which we eventually probably would once we got tired of playing wack-i-mole on the Afghan side of the border. That would be a really bad idea.

As I understand it the NATO heirarchy is fractured in Afghanistan, with different nations using different rules of engagement. That isnt tenable in a successful counterinsurgency. You cant have guys sitting in their bases waiting to be raided, which would be the default position of most NATO members, and hence the de facto stance for NATO as a whole without the US leading the way.

That's my understanding as well. I don't mean to derail the thread, but isn't this situation--and the expectation that it will repeat should NATO be called into another counter-terrorism theatre of combat--a good data point for the argument that NATO has outlived its real usefulness in the post-Warsaw pact world?

At times I think the US objectives in Afghanistan have something to do with legitimizing NATO as a relevant force in the 21st century. Sometimes I wonder if this will be the end of NATO.

But really I wonder, what are our objectives? These are certainly not laid out as clearly as in Iraq (and many would say that is not clear).