Where to get 600,000 troops?

Yes­ter­day, Rep. John Murtha, D-Penn., chair­man of the Sub­com­mit­tee on Defense Appro­pri­a­tions, said the cur­rent plan for the U.S. in Afghanistan lacks a goal and that 600,000 troops are needed to get things under con­trol.

“That’s what I esti­mate it would take in a coun­try that size to get it under con­trol,” Murtha said in an interview.

Now, that’s all well and good, but where on earth are 600,000 troops going to come from? NATO and other Euro­pean coun­tries have nei­ther the troops nor the will to com­mit to any­thing like that. The U.S. is still tied up in Iraq, despite Pres­i­dent Obama’s pledge to bring the troops home by the end of 2011.

In short, counter-insurgency is hard and it requires a lot of troops. But it’s not like big num­bers haven’t been thrown around before.

The pre­vi­ous NATO com­man­der in Afghanistan, U.S. Gen. Dan McNeill … told a Pen­ta­gon press con­fer­ence last year that if com­man­ders were to go by U.S. coun­terin­sur­gency doc­trine, for exam­ple, and apply the fac­tors of land mass and pop­u­la­tion, the num­ber needed might be well over 400,000, includ­ing inter­na­tional forces and indige­nous forces.

The Afghan secu­rity forces are about where the Iraqi secu­rity forces were in 2003–2004, between “hope­less” and “bless their hearts, they try.”

But wait! Some­one has had an idea. China.

“NATO may ask China to pro­vide sup­port for the war effort in Afghanistan, includ­ing pos­si­bly open­ing a sup­ply link for alliance forces, a senior U.S. offi­cial said Mon­day.” Super-smart-guy Thomas P.M. Bar­nett approves of the idea and moves the idea that this NATO request is tied to Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit. “Finally!” he writes. “A sec­re­tary that actu­ally moves the pile now and then instead of just deliv­er­ing talk­ing points! What a change from Pow­ell and Rice.”

At the moment, how­ever, the plan is just for a logis­ti­cal route. But, as Claude Rains said in Lawrence of Ara­bia: “Big things have small begin­nings, sir.” What if China could be per­suaded to get some skin in the game and pro­vide some troops? It would show them as a respon­si­ble emerg­ing Great Power and cre­ate greater trust between the U.S. and Chi­nese mil­i­taries. It would also reas­sure them on energy issues in Cen­tral Asia and else­where, which is China’s main con­cern these days.

But why stop there? Since we’re think­ing out­side the box, what about ask­ing … wait for it … India for help, too? Why not? They have 1.3 mil­lion active troops.

You’re now think­ing I’m crazy. “Pak­istan would never agree to that,” you charge. “They’d be tar­get No. 1 for jihadists,” exclaims you. Yes, and yes. But what a tremen­dous way to pres­sure Pak­istan to get its own house in order. With Indian troops in Afghanistan, the U.S. gets to say to Islam­abad: “You know, we’re get­ting some real bad apples cross­ing that bor­der — your bad apples. So we’re going to plop down a lot of Indian troops there and let them shoot back. Don’t like it? Clean up your back­yard. The sooner you do that, the sooner the 1^st Gorkhas go home.”

Admit­tedly, this is pretty pie in the sky, but let’s have some dis­cus­sion on this…