The Road Ahead in Afghanistan

After a thorough review, President Barack Obama has determined that the deployment of an additional 30,000 troops is necessary to break the stalemate in Afghanistan. Despite the costs, he is clear that this is a war of necessity because the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan is "the epicentre of the violent extremism practised by al-Qaida".

No one, least of all President Obama, would deny that the challenges we face in Afghanistan are enormous.

Decades of conflict have torn it apart and left it stricken by poverty. And the Taliban's resort to asymmetric warfare is extracting a heavy price in terms of innocent Afghan lives and on the international forces.


However, the resources that will come on stream in 2010 offer a genuine opportunity to break the back of the insurgency. The extra US troops will start to arrive early in the new year. The additional UK military commitment to Afghanistan represents an extra 1,500 soldiers in just over a year. We hope it will encourage others to step up their efforts. And then there is the Afghan National Army, which is set to go from 94,000 today to 1,34,000 by the end of next year.