UPDATE 1: You Took Your Time - We're Taking Ours

Update 1: Good news from Secretary Clinton: NATO appears to be pledging up to 7,000 troops from twenty-five member nations. NPR is reporting that WH staffers state that these commitments were made prior to the president's speech. Germany and France are standing pat on waiting for the January conference before committing to any troop increase. It will be interesting to see 3,000 more troops can be whistled up between now and the end of January. If so, Gen. McChrystal's plan would be almost fully staffed. President Obama now seems to accept that the surge plan from Iraq is transportable to Afghanistan.

Previously Posted:
While the Pentagon and President Obama have requested 10,000 additional Afghan-bound troops from NATO members, primarily for training purposes, NATO is likely to provide, at most, 5,000 troops. If the war has lost support here in the United States (to 50% or just under), support in the European public is far lower, and NATO governments have lost patience with President Obama's long decision-making process. Germany and France seem unwilling to answer the president's call until at least January:

'German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm welcomed Obama's timeline for withdrawal saying it was "correct and sensible." But on the question of whether Germany would send more troops, he preferred to point to the Afghanistan conference set to take place at the end of January in London. After the conference, Germany will decide "whether and if so what kind of additional efforts we might undertake." ... German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle also pointed to the January conference. "Obama also took his time to work out the speech and his strategy and we will take our own time to assess what he said and discuss this with our allies," he said. Indeed, the only countries which immediately offered to up their troop contingent were Britain, Poland and Italy. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that the UK would send an additional 500 troops with Poland likely to up its contribution to 2,600 from 2,000. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said his country would send more as well, but avoided a concrete pledge, saying only that Rome would "do a lot."'

Reaction to the President's speech at West Point was mixed, and the latest major polls were taken prior to the speech, making it difficult to gauge it's effect on the American public. Spiegel Online has openly reflected Europe's disenchantment with Obama Administration leadership. One can only hope that they'll pony-up in the long run, or the new Afghan strategy will prove just as flawed as the old.

Updates: Obama's War

Update 1: The most recent Gallup poll shows support for Obama's handling of Afghanistan at 35%, and it's really not surprising. Tonight is the third strategy address the President has made (the first was when he was a candidate). Each time, he has: 1. blamed Bush (fair enough the first time or so, but old once you've been in charge for awhile) and 2. tried for something new, claiming it was a restatement of the same strategy. Tonight, he spent the first eleven minutes giving a short synopsis of the history of our involvement since September 11, 2001, the obligatory swipe at the Bush Administration, and a defense of the time the review took (stating that the troop request was not slated until 2010). Obama stated twice that he believes our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that new attacks are being plotted from the border region with Pakistan. He then went on to state that we must strengthen Afghanistan and Pakistan, and prevent Pakistan's fall.

He gave three ways to pursue the new strategy in just 18 months: 1. break the hold of the Taliban in certain regions; secure civilian population centers; increase training of Afghan forces. He believes that we'll be able to then begin withdrawal in July 2011 (this is a purely bogus date - if he truly intends to withdraw 'responsibly,' and only if the on-ground conditions are 'right,' he can not promise this date). 2. Improved civilian and political centers by combating corruption and helping with agricultural development. 3. We will act in Afghanistan with the knowledge that we must prevent the spread of the Taliban further into Pakistan. (One wonders how we do this without moving into Pakistan - something we would need far more than 100K troops for). "We can not tolerate a safe haven for terrorists whose location is known and whose intention is clear." (Sounds a great deal like the Bush doctrine of preemption, laid out at West Point in 2002, to me).

He did give a decent explanation of why he doesn't want to commit to a long-term, nation-building program, leaning on the 'it's not in our national interests' argument, but it's hard to see how that fits in with his statements a few minutes earlier that we owe it to the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan to secure them from the Taliban. He then sequed into a statement that an open-ended troop commitment would be too difficult economically (true enough), and that he wants to 'build' our nation (how?). He is clearly committed to extending the idea of a war strategy into all kinds of areas (getting rid of nuclear weapons, setting an example by stopping torture, etc.). Much of these areas have little to do with his Afghanistan policy, and did not add to the speech; rather they detracted from the details of the strategy (of which there was none given barring the troop number and the July 2011 date).

Published earlier:
As all now know, the President will be addressing the nation shortly on his new - new strategy on Afghanistan. The President plans to announce that he will be sending 30,000 troops to Afghanistan on an accelerated deployment schedule beginning this month, bringing the total US commitment to just over 100,000 troops. Somehow, he also intends to squeeze blood from a stone, and get the Europeans, who have steadfastly refused his requests to date (barring the additional 500 approved by the UK this week), to make up some of the difference between the 30,000 and the 44,000 requested by Gen. McChrystal. The NPR live blog from West Point can be followed here, and live streaming is here. HuffPo states that while the President won't pick a particular exit date, he plans to state the commitment will not be 'open-ended.' In the press conference with Gibbs today, vague statements about a draw-down within three years ("well before the end" of the President's "first term") were made.

Via the Telegraph: Will the Real Man Step Up?

I'm back (sort of) early in light of the President's Afghanistan address tomorrow. The Telegraph is asking the poignant question: "Will the true Barack Obama stand up on Afghanistan?" The answer is likely, no. He's more likely to try to find some sort of a balance point between all positions, and in so doing, may very well fail on one of the cardinal issues of his campaign. The President's decided tendency, when confronted with hard decisions (not unlike many commentators), is to vacillate, waiver and appease. Here is the President's policy statement on Afghanistan in February. Having found that he can't easily accomplish that policy, he is likely to announce tomorrow that he will increase troop levels by 34,000, with an exit strategy pegged at an 8 to 9 year commitment. The President seem likely to set his 'victory' bench marks at what he simply deems achievable. Jake Tapper (ABC News) pulled plenty of this magical-type of thinking out of Gibbs at today's press conference (although he got little in the way of concrete answers). Stay tuned for live blogging of the speech tomorrow.