NATO Chief Recommends 352,000 Afghans in Uniform Until 2018

The NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has recommended that the Afghan force should be funded at the 352,000 level until 2018 to ensure that it has the capability to fight the Taliban. Over the past year many have been indicating that the combined force of Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) should shrink to 230,000 in an effort to save money. What many have not considered is that the difference between 230,000 and 352,000 is only $700 million dollars per year. While that sounds like a lot it is a drop in the bucket when one considers what we have been spending there. It has cost an average of $1 million per deployed U.S. serviceperson. In another comparison the war has cost the U.S. on average $6 billion a month. So it is much cheaper to finance the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) than keeping U.S. servicemen in that country.

To read more about the NATO chief's recommendations see "NATO chief backs larger Afghan force through 2018", Yahoo! News, March 5, 2013.
http://news.yahoo.com/nato-chief-backs-larger-afghan-force-2018-142543132.html

For more information on the cost of the Afghan war see "Pentagon Says Afghanistan War Costs Dip as Surge Troops Leave", Bloomberg Businessweek, February 8, 2012.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-08/pentagon-says-afghanistan-war-costs-dip-as-surge-troops-leave.html