More than 10K Troops Needed for Afghanistan

Now that the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) is signed between Afghanistan and the United States (as well as the NATO Status of Forces Agreement or SOFA) observers are assessing the current security situation. The conclusion that some draw is that 9,800 U.S. troops is not enough to conduct the "train, advise, and assist" or SFA mission. While ISAF thinks it can cover down on 4 of the 6 ANA corps and the security ministries and agencies (MoD, MoI, and NDS) it is not really going to be able to conduct the "assist" part of the mission very well. A good chunk of the "assist" mission should be to provide air support in the form of close air support, aerial surveillance, air transport, and medical evacuation - something the Afghan Air Force (AAF) is just not ready to do on a big enough scale. But ISAF would need about 5,000 more troops to be able to do that. Read more in "Don't let history repeat itself", The Economist, October 4, 2014.