Pentagon Revamps Afghanistan Deployments

[Robb]

Source: Wall Street Journal

New System Would Return Troops to Same Parts of Country to Develop Better Expertise and Cultivate Local Relationships

WASHINGTON—The Pentagon is revamping the way it deploys troops to Afghanistan, putting in place a new system that will return units to the same parts of the country so they can develop better regional expertise and closer relationships with local Afghan power brokers.

Senior military officials say the “Campaign Continuity” initiative will determine the specific provinces and regions where many of the 30,000 soldiers and Marines who are being sent to Afghanistan as part of the Obama administration’s retooled war strategy will end up serving. The plan represents a significant change for the military, which has long rotated its combat forces through both Afghanistan and Iraq. Under the new system, the Pentagon will essentially be assigning responsibility for the Afghan war to the same small number of Army and Marine units.

“They’ll be going back to the same place and seeing the same faces, so they won’t need to relearn everything from scratch,” said a senior military official familiar with the plan. “It will allow for continuity of effort in a given location.”

The new system is the latest example of the military’s continuing effort to remake itself for the long war in Afghanistan.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704094104575144213461384460.html

[elias49]

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