The incumbent US President Trump orders the withdrawal of further US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq. By January 15, the number of soldiers will be reduced to around 2500 each. This is what the acting Secretary of Defense Miller explains at the Pentagon. The USA will reduce its troop strength in Afghanistan by around 2,000 soldiers to 2,500 soldiers by mid-January. The current Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller announced in the Pentagon. The number of soldiers in Iraq should also be reduced to 2500 by January 15. Five days later, the newly elected US President Joe Biden is expected to take over office in the White House.

Plan brings Republicans to Trump confidants strictly against troop withdrawal

Around two months before the end of his term in office, the elected US president redeems one of his key campaign promises. The plans have been causing open criticism in the ranks of Trump’s Republicans for days – and put the allies on alert. NATO and the armed forces are preparing for an emergency – a large-scale US withdrawal this year. Almost at the same time as Miller’s announcement, Senate Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell warned that a hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq would be a “mistake”. It is “extremely important” that there are no “world-shaking changes” in terms of defense and foreign policy in the coming months. McConnell had already warned Trump the day before that he would take hasty actions to undo his successes in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger told Fox News that Trump seemed more about numbers than mission.

New staff in the Pentagon Nato fears a quick US withdrawal from Kabul

In October, Trump even announced that he wanted to withdraw all remaining US soldiers by Christmas. This had caused considerable unrest in the alliance, since the units of the other NATO countries in Afghanistan are dependent on the logistical and security support of the USA. Concerns grew when Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who was critical of his withdrawal plans, and replaced him with Miller. Its chief adviser is the former army colonel and declared withdrawal proponent Douglas Macgregor, who said in a high-profile interview with Fox News that it “makes no difference” when the US withdraws from Afghanistan. “Everything will fall apart” in the country anyway.

Consequences for the Bundeswehr unclear

The USA signed an agreement with the militant Islamist Taliban at the end of February that promises the gradual withdrawal of all US and NATO forces by the end of April 2021. The Taliban committed to peace talks with the government in Kabul, which began in September. However, the process stalled in the dispute over procedural issues. Trump had already promised in the 2016 election campaign to bring troops home. In particular, he pushed for the withdrawal from Afghanistan. According to US media reports, he was recently increasingly frustrated with the pace of the withdrawal. At the beginning of August, the US had informed its NATO allies that it wanted to reduce its troops from around 12,000 at that time to below 5,000 by the end of November. In mid-September, Trump then announced that the troop strength should be quickly reduced to less than 4,000. Almost four weeks before the US election in early November, Trump wrote on Twitter that he believed the soldiers should be home by Christmas. The war in Afghanistan is the longest in US history. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, US-led troops marched there.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned urgently of the “very high price” of a “too early or uncoordinated withdrawal” from Afghanistan. The country then threatens to become a “platform for international terrorism”, he said in Brussels. The jihadist militia Islamic State (IS) could then “rebuild the terror caliphate that it lost in Syria and Iraq”.

Fear of return of sharia US deal with Taliban threatens women in Afghanistan

Many in Germany are also looking at developments with concern. “With a view to the further progress of the Federal Armed Forces deployment, we are prepared for all options,” said a spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Defense before Miller on Tuesday. A “complete withdrawal by the end of April 2021” is “an option that cannot be ruled out,” the spokesman said. Around a hundred other soldiers are already at the Bundeswehr base near Mazar-i-Sharif in preparation for a possible pending relocation of the Bundeswehr. Federal Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer emphasized, referring to the Doha Agreement concluded in February between the US government and the radical Islamic Taliban, that the reduction in NATO troops in Afghanistan was “subject to conditions, to a peace treaty”. At the same time, she admitted “political uncertainties in connection with the transition process in the USA”. The top priority is the “security of the soldiers on site”, she stressed.

Bundeswehr “not able” without US soldiers

It is still unclear what effects the recent US cuts could have on the Bundeswehr’s engagement. Around 1230 German soldiers are currently stationed in northern Afghanistan. The current mandate of the Bundestag provides for the use of up to 1,300. The Bundestag only extended the deployment of German soldiers in Iraq by a further 15 months at the end of October. In doing so, Germany is making its contribution to the fight of an international coalition against the terrorist militia Islamic State (IS). A premature relocation of the soldiers would be time-consuming – and expensive for the Bundeswehr. It is clear that the “non-American troops could not stay in Afghanistan without the US soldiers,” said Afghanistan expert Thomas Ruttig. The Bundeswehr and the units of other NATO countries are not in a position to carry out “certain logistical and operational functions” without the US army. In addition, NATO had always emphasized that the alliance partners had started the operation in Afghanistan together and that the withdrawal would therefore also take place together.

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