Fearing Another Quagmire in Afghanistan | NYT quotes PCR Project Co-Director Karin von Hippel

Flikr photo by Army.mil used under a Creative Commons license.   In the Sunday New York Times on January 25, PCR Project Co-Director Karin von Hippel was quoted at length on the issue of additional troops in Afghanistan.

One question for Mr. Obama is whether 30,000 more troops are enough. “I think that this is more of a psychological surge than a practical surge,” said Karin von Hippel, an Afghanistan expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She said she favored the troop increase, but only as a precursor to getting the Europeans to contribute more, and to changing America’s policy so it focuses more on the countryside, as opposed to the capital.

In Afghanistan, the number of troops, if you combine NATO, American and Afghan troops, is 200,000 forces versus 600,000 in Iraq,” Ms. von Hippel said. “Those numbers are so low that an extra 30,000 isn’t going to get you to where you need to be. It’s more of a stop-gap measure.”

But something, she said, is better than nothing.