Non-US ISAF surge has some smoke and mirrors

As mentioned earlier, some troops will simply be kept in place rather than withdrawn:

More than 1,500 of the extra troops pledged by Nato allies yesterday to back up the US surge of 30,000 additional soldiers for Afghanistan are already in the country and have been counted before, it emerged yesterday.

They include 700 soldiers sent by Britain to boost security for the period leading up to and beyond the August 20 presidential election. Gordon Brown announced on October 14 that the 700, sent initially for four months, would stay as a permanent additional force.

Other countries which also contributed to the election support force and made the same decision to keep them there permanently have, like Britain, counted them as part of the Nato reinforcements to go alongside the pledged surge announced by President Obama last week.

Nato agreed in April to send between 3,500 and 5,000 troops for a temporary period around the time of the summer election. But, subsequently, a number of countries have agreed for them to stay. “It is true that of the additional troops now being pledged by Nato members, some of them are already in Afghanistan but they were formerly only a temporary force and now they are permanent,” a Nato official said.

Forty-three countries attended a force-generation conference for Afghanistan at Mons in Belgium yesterday to find an extra 7,000 troops for the alliance’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf). Washington had hoped for 10,000, and by the end of yesterday, even the figure of 7,000 had yet to be reached. Early calculations produced a total of about 5,500, but at least 1,500 of those have been serving in Afghanistan as part of the election support force [emphasis added].

Nato officials said that it was “perfectly legitimate” to count the election-force soldiers as part of the 7,000 because they could now be deployed in other roles in Afghanistan.

The extra troops pledged by Nato included: Britain, 1,200; Turkey, 60; Poland, 680; Italy, 1,140; Czech Republic, 100; Albania, 125; Croatia, 40 for training police; Lithuania, 20; Portugal, 120 and 1 gendarmerie unit; Romania, 100 and Slovakia, 240.

Non-Nato nations included Georgia, 923; Australia, 120; Armenia, 40; Finland, 25; the Former Yugsolav Republic of Macedonia, 80; Sweden, 125; Ukraine, 22; South Korea, 400; Mongolia, 40, and Montenegro, 40.

However, the new troop pledges have to be offset against the force withdrawals being planned by Canada and The Netherlands [emphasis added, more on the Dutch here]. Canada is currently planning to pull out its 2,800 troops by 2011, and The Netherlands 2,100 soldiers by next year...