Центр воєнної політики та політики безпеки

With U.S. President Barack Obama’s announcement of his strategy in Afghanistan, the U.S.-jihadist war has entered a new phase. With its allies, the United States has decided to increase its focus on the Afghan war while continuing to withdraw from Iraq. Along with focusing on Afghanistan, it follows that there will be increased Western attention on Pakistan. Meanwhile, the question of what to do with Iran remains open, and is in turn linked to U.S.-Israeli relations. The region from the Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush remains in a war or near-war status.

U.S. President Barack Obama announced the broad structure of his Afghanistan strategy in a speech at West Point on Tuesday evening. The strategy had three core elements.
First, he intends to maintain pressure on al Qaeda on the Afghan-Pakistani border and in other regions of the world. Second, he intends to blunt the Taliban offensive by sending an additional 30,000 American troops to Afghanistan, along with an unspecified number of NATO troops he hopes will join them.

NATO’s new training mission for Afghanistan is activated in Kabul
Less than nine months after NATO’s Heads of State and Government announced the establishment of the NATO Training Mission for Afghanistan (NTM-A), at the Alliance’s Summit meeting in Strasbourg-Kehl, the NATO Flag was raised today at Camp Eggers in Kabul marking the start of NATO’s mission to enhance training and mentoring of the Afghan National Security Forces.