Spencer Ackerman has some detailed reporting on how many troops would be available for an Afghan surge given current policies. Via the Armchair Generalist I’ve also got a clip of him discussing it on Rachel Maddow.
This makes sense. After all, troops have been fairly slow to leave Iraq and extended deployments showed that we were already at capacity. None of this is to say that we couldn’t leave Iraq faster or consider pulling back from some of our other global bases, I think either could be done responsibly. Alternately we could decrease the dwell time troops get at home or call up more reserves, which I think would be a terrible idea.
Since I do try to run a datablog here, I’d like to highlight two terrific charts on Ackerman’s piece. He’s got a breakdown of Army National Guard and Army combat brigade deployment data. I think he really raises the bar with those tables, check them out.
[Update: Clarified headline to signify that I’m discussing what Obama could send, not how many troops he’s likely to send.]
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