This week, the last convoy of U.S. troops in Iraq drove noisily across the border into Kuwait and shut the gate behind them. The next drawdown comes in Afghanistan, where American forces are scheduled to disengage from most combat by the end of 2014.
But the Afghanistan withdrawal won't be anywhere near as final as the one we just saw. U.S. military leaders are working on a new slimmed-down strategy that would keep some American troops in combat against the Taliban for years to come, long after 2014.
The heart of the new strategy is a shift in the U.S. mission from fighting the Taliban directly to serving mainly as advisors and support forces for the new Afghan army. But some Americans would still be in the combat business, not only as frontline advisors, but also as special operation units and a quick reaction force to rescue Afghan fighters who got into trouble.
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