U.S. military must adapt to far less financing

WASHINGTON, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- There has been an avalanche of news in recent weeks about more and more rescues within the U.S. domestic economy: the banks, the auto sector, homeowners and almost everybody else has required emergency bailouts on a gigantic scale, followed ominously by deeper and deeper Wall Street dives.

Almost overlooked in all these tidal waves of woe was the announcement that the Obama administration has decided to send additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan -- 17,000 in all.

This significant boost in ground forces falls short of the 30,000 additional troops requested by U.S. military commanders on the ground in Afghanistan, but it is still an important increase in commitment. And it should not come as a surprise. President Barack Obama repeatedly indicated during his long election campaign that Afghanistan was and is the place on which the U.S. armed forces should focus. Obama also repeatedly stated that the Bush administration had squandered resources in the misguided Iraq campaign.

The commander of the Afghanistan NATO force, U.S. Army Gen. David McKiernan, indicated these reinforcements were welcome and badly needed, in the light of the precarious and, in fact, deteriorating security environment. And so it goes. The United States already has 38,000 troops in Afghanistan. Now an additional 17,000 will be sent, and there probably will be more to come, depending in part on the drawdown timetable from Iraq, where the United States currently has about 140,000 troops deployed.

How are the rest of the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization -- that is, wealthy Europe plus Canada -- and assorted non-NATO friends doing in terms of deployments in Afghanistan? Not so great, in terms of numbers. The total non-U.S. force in Afghanistan comes to about 19,000, coming from 42 countries. While this is unfair, some countries -- Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and France -- contribute a lot more than others.

If one averages this grand total, dividing 19,000 by 42, one comes to 452 soldiers per ally. Again, this is not a correct representation of country-by-country contributions. Some allies have sent dozens of troops, others thousands.

Still, the overall disproportion is immense. Soon the United States will have almost 70,000 soldiers in Afghanistan; while the others -- 42 countries -- do very little for a mission deemed to be important by all.

Let us note that, while all countries are experiencing significant financial constraints, the Afghanistan deployments disproportion goes back quite a while. It is a matter of political will, rather than resources constraints.

No matter how messy Afghanistan is today, imagine for a moment the consequences of a U.S. decision to scale down its military commitments to the average of all the other countries that have contributed forces. Would this be a good thing for regional and global stability?

So we have a significant new U.S. government commitment for the "good war" in Afghanistan.

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(Part 2: The increasingly unsustainable costs of nuclear-powered aircraft carrier battle groups and advanced combat aircraft)

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(Paolo Liebl von Schirach is the editor of SchirachReport.com, a regular contributor to Swiss radio and an international economic development consultant.)

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(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)