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March 04, 2010

Everybody Calm Down
Posted by Patrick Barry

I’m sympathetic to arguments that the stakes in Afghanistan are higher than some of the war’s critics will commonly admit, particularly for the future of NATO.  But this comment, from former NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson crosses the line:

“Be assured, if the Taliban and their allies can defeat the most successful defense alliance in history, why would they stop at Afghanistan? And they won’t. And we all know all that. So why can’t we join the dots between going in and coming out? ... We are going to be the next target set for the extremists.”

I can understand the need to bolster support for the mission in Afghanistan among NATO allies, particularly in light of the collapse of the war-supporting Dutch government.  But there’s little reason to think that following withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban will unleash hordes of militants on the streets of Prague or London. 

A less hysterical argument would be to point out that Europe arguably faces a greater threat from the ungoverned areas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border than the United States, with more than half of the major plots or attacks in Europe between 2004 and 2009 connecting back to the region in some fashion (Thanks Paul Cruickshank).  But it’s pretty hard to see how demonstrating ‘toughness’ or ‘resolve’ in Afghanistan will magically solve the problem of disaffected immigrants cavorting with jihadis and then returning to their European homes to hatch terrorist plots. 

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