Afghan army may grow even larger

Reuters:

The United States and NATO may need to increase their goal for expanding Afghan forces significantly to better support President Obama's strategy for stabilizing the country, officials said on Friday.

The current goal is to boost the Afghan army to 134,000 soldiers and police to 86,000 by 2010 to ensure the U.S. and NATO security mission has what officials have described as "an Afghan face."

But officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said top defense and military officers have discussed plans to double the goal for Afghan soldiers to nearly 270,000 to better combat insurgents and avert the possibility that Western forces might come to be viewed by Afghans as foreign occupiers.

"All of that has been discussed," said one official.

Obama administration officials have examined the possibility of increasing the Afghan army and police to 400,000 personnel. But no decisions have been made.

...

They certainly need to grow it, but the reason they were not expanded initially was the belief that Afghanistan could not support a military of that size after the NATO forces left. But that was also before there was a real commitment to counter insurgency operations which need to have Afghan forces to hold the area after it has been clear and also work with the locals to get better intelligence on enemy movements. The Marine General in charge of the Helmand operation has complained about the lack of Afghan troops to participate.

The Washington Post has more on Gen. McChrystal's plan for more Afghan troops.