Word: nato
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...Germany currently has 4,000 troops serving as part of the NATO-led international force, most based in northern Afghanistan, away from the violent southern provinces. An additional 200 soldiers are heading there in the run-up to the Afghan presidential election on August 20, bringing the total number to 4,200 - still below the limit of 4,500 set by Germany's strict parliamentary mandate. But on Thursday, the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, gave the green light under a separate mandate to deploy up to 300 more soldiers to support NATO's AWACS surveillance aircraft in Afghanistan...
Even though he says it's too early to predict success, General Stanley McChrystal, the new commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, is satisfied that the Helmand mission is moving in the right direction. "The operations are not aimed at the enemy force. They are aimed at taking away the population from the enemy," he told TIME. "What we are trying to do is change the dynamics in the area where we are operating." In order to do that, Marines are leaving their armored humvees and sitting down with village elders and tribal leaders to assess their needs...
...longer treated as a concern secondary to Iraq, the Afghanistan theater will see the number of American soldiers serving there increase by 17,000 by this fall. And under McChrystal, they'll be waging a different kind of war. Limited troop availability in the past meant that while NATO forces could clear an area of insurgents, they were unable to hold the terrain. Now the plan is for the Marines to set up combat posts in villages to provide the residents with lasting security. Still, some Afghans are skeptical. "I hope this operation gives a positive result," says Haji Nimatullah...
...According to Dieter Krüger, a military historian at the Institute for Military History in Potsdam, it was only after France left NATO in 1966 that Germany's military role became stronger. "In the past, there was no idea of deploying German troops abroad, except in specific cases, like helping in natural disasters," he says. "Up until the end of the Cold War, Germany had a well-trained army, but it was more used to bureaucratic procedures...
...meantime, General Schneiderhan may have to steel himself for more complaints. U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to beef up the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, but will he be able to persuade NATO allies, including Germany, to increase their own efforts there? The German parliamentary troop mandate that limits the army mostly to peacekeeping and reconstruction efforts runs out in December, after the federal elections. When that happens, German soldiers could find that uncomfortable sleeping bags are the least of their problems...