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US troop reduction to test Afghans

Allen told reporters in Kabul this week his successor faces big challenges in completing the drawdown.

“He has to shrink the basing platform as he retrogrades war materiel that has accumulated for over 10 years, as he sends home a couple hundred thousand folks, leaving the coherence of the campaign intact, which is moving the ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces], keeping them in the lead, supporting them as they take the fight to the enemy, doing all of that in same space and time with less than 23 months remaining. It is a daunting task,” said Allen.

Most of the coalition forces are to be out of Afghanistan by the end of next year. Analysts say what happens in the country beyond that is a big question.

Ahmad Majidyar, of the American Enterprise Institute, said setting deadlines like the 2014 pullout date could be helping the insurgents.

“The Taliban have a mantra that 'the coalition forces, they have the clock, but we have the time.' So their strategy right now is to just wait out the foreign troops, and, once the foreign troops are gone, then they will just try to come back with vengeance and more power to regain some of the territories they’ve lost,” said Majidyar.

The U.S. has yet to announce how many troops it may leave beyond 2014 to advise and assist the Afghans as they continue the fight against insurgents. That will be decided in a bilateral security agreement being negotiated now by the U.S. and the Afghan.