The U.S. is neither winning nor losing in Afghanistan, said Gen. John Nicholson in his Thursday testimony before the Senate Committee on Armed Services.
Arizona Sen. John McCain immediately pressed Nicholson — who wants more troops — about whether the U.S. was winning or losing in Afghanistan. Nicholson flatly declared that the U.S. and the Afghan government were “in a stalemate,” noting that the Afghan Security Forces are suffering a tremendous number of casualties, preventing them from operating at full capacity.
When pressed further about his ability to fulfill his current mission of training, advising, and assisting Afghan forces, Nicholson told the committee that “we have a shortfall of a few thousand.” The current threshold for U.S. troops in Afghanistan is approximately 8,400 troops, bolstered by approximately 5,000 NATO forces.
Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, echoed Nicholson’s comments in September congressional testimony, saying, “on balance, I would call what is going on right now between the Afghan national defense security forces and the Taliban [as] roughly a stalemate.”
Nicholson conceded that the Taliban now control 15 percent more territory in 2017 than they did in 2016. The Taliban’s territorial acquisitions come amid extraordinary casualties among the Afghan forces. On the eve of Trump’s ascension in December, Nicholson’s command estimated the Taliban controlled 10 percent of the Afghan population, and contested the U.S.-backed Afghan government for another 20 percent. The report noted that the government had been adept at keeping control of the major cities, while continuing to face a “resilient insurgency” in rural areas.
President Donald Trump has previously indicated his openness to more troops in Afghanistan, in a call as president-elect with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. “President-elect Donald J. Trump said he would certainly continue to support Afghanistan security forces and will consider a proposal for more troops after an assessment,” an Afghan official told The Wall Street Journal after the call.
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