Afghanistan

In today’s Times, and on the occasion of George Osborne and William Hague’s visit to Helmand, the Tories are publishing proposals for how to improve the Government’s approach to post-conflict operations. Their central idea: to create a stabilisation force in the military, complete with the necessary expertise, training and so on to win the peace after combat. If it was not already abundantly clear, the Iraq Inquiry has shown how ill-prepared the British state – civil service, military and government – was for post-combat reconstruction. Though much has changed since the Iraq War – e.g. a dedicated department, the Stabilisation Unit, has been set up in Whitehall, and General David

In a few weeks time, a slew of foreign ministers will descend on London to attend a conference on Afghanistan. No.10 will use the event to sell Gordon Brown as a statesman, confidently dealing with the nation’s threats. The Conservatives, in turn, will probably try to score the usual points about Britain’s failure, alongside its NATO allies, to make any in-roads in the fight against the Taliban. Together with Tony Blair’s evidence to the Iraq Inquiry, the conference may create one of the few moments in the drawn-out election campaign when the three party leaders stop talking about the NHS and focus on national security issues instead. Too bad, then,

Back in July, Lord Mandelson added defence to health and education as an area of spending that Labour would protect from cuts. But looking at page 97 of the Green Book, defence is conspicuously absent from the list of areas of public spending that are protected in 2011-2012 and 2012-2013. The only areas mentioned are NHS spending, schools, sure start, policing and overseas aid. As some of these are only receiving funding increases in line with inflation, it seems reasonable to assume that everything else – including defence – is likely to be cut in real terms.    (There is a commitment to spend up to £2.5 billion from the

As Anthony Wells says over at his UK Polling Report, there are plenty of reasons to doubt whether Labour could convert a third of Lib Dem voters over to their cause.  But the article in today’s Times on Labour’s new strategy will still give Team Clegg pause for thought. The problem for the Lib Dems is that they haven’t yet managed to hit on an attention-grabbing issue to make their own – their favourite, perhaps only, election strategy.  The cause of Parliamentary reform could have done the trick, but – beyond Nick Clegg’s call to prevent MPs from taking their summer holiday – very few of the Lib Dem proposals

So there we have it.  Gordon Brown has confirmed what we all expected: that 500 more British troops will be sent to Afghanistan, bringing the total UK presence up to around 10,000.  The “surge” will be rounded off when Obama announces something like 35,000 extra US troops tomorrow. Although greater manpower is A Good Thing for the mission in Afghanistan – and the mission in Afghanistan is certainly an important one – I can’t help but have some qualms about the twin UK and US announcements.   For starters, there’s the simple issue of numbers.  500 more UK troops and 35,000 more US troops falls short of the bar of