Afstan: Obamasurge

Latest reports on the day the announcement will be made, from Foreign Policy's "AfPak Channel Daily brief":

Note: New America Foundation president and Ghost Wars author Steve Coll will be taking questions about Afghanistan in a New America/Politico online chat today at 12:00pm EST (chat).

Today's the day

After more than three months of deliberations, U.S. President Barack Obama has reportedly issued the orders to send some 34,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan and is preparing to address the nation tonight at 8:00pm EST from West Point (New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, BBC, AFP, Pajhwok). Eight U.S. allies have agreed to send some 5,000 additional troops as well, including 500 just announced yesterday from the U.K. to bring the British total in Afghanistan, including special forces, to around 10,000 (Telegraph, Guardian, Times of London, Reuters [more here]).

Obama has spent the last day and a half informing top military officials and world leaders about his decision, including heads of government in France, Britain, Germany, Russia, China, India, Denmark, and Poland (AP, Los Angeles Times, Financial Times). Obama also reportedly spent an hour this morning in a videoconference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai discussing the expected troop increase, and also placed a call to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari (AP). A briefing for dozens of lawmakers is scheduled for this afternoon.

A man, a plan, Afghanistan

The U.S.'s strategy in Afghanistan will reportedly focus on training the Afghan security forces so that the U.S. can eventually pull out of the country, and Obama is expected to specify political and military benchmarks for the Afghan government (Washington Post). The deployment of new troops "will be accelerated," according to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, with at least one group of Marines deploying within a few weeks of the announcement tonight [more here], in an effort to reverse the Taliban's momentum (New York Times, AP). A political fight is brewing over how to pay for the expected troop increase, with Democrats coalescing around the idea of a war surtax while Republicans generally favor borrowing or reallocating other funds (Wall Street Journal).

Top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who had reportedly advocated a troop increase of around 40,000, told politicians that a U.S. drawdown could begin as soon as 2013, and the White House said it expected U.S. forces out of the country by 2017 or 2018 (Al Jazeera, AP). After the increase in troops, there will be around 100,000 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, in addition to some 45,000 NATO troops (CNN)...

Update:Spector Vision on the Canadian angle:

In this morning’s Globe, I see that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was not on President Barack Obama’s list in advance of tonight’s Afghanistan announcement, and that he had to settle for a phone call from Vice-President Biden. I’m not sure whether some Canadians will be insulted, but, for Mr. Harper, this is unalloyed good news, since the President was calling around to ask NATO allies to send more troops. The omission of Canada from his arm-twisting list suggests that the Americans have accepted that our combat mission will end at the end of 2011...

And from the LA Times:

...
One European official, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with diplomatic protocol, said that as many as eight countries could add troops in the coming months and that some countries may delay planned troop departures.

The official did not say whether Canada, which plans to withdraw its 2,800 troops by 2011, is among those...