The 80s are calling, they want their foreign policy back.
Via KDH
For the first time in 13 years, the conflict was not on the meeting agenda as the alliance’s defense ministers gathered in Brussels Thursday.
Instead NATO members focused on the latest military conflicts facing the alliance — the threat of Islamic extremists flowing out of North Africa and the Russian-backed separatists battling Ukraine’s government forces along the country’s eastern border.
One reason the Afghanistan war was not included on the agenda, according to U.S. officials, was that the fledgling government in Kabul has yet to appoint a new defense minister. So there was no local minister to provide allies with an update.
Also missing from the NATO session was the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. John Campbell. As generals have rotated through the job, they have been a constant presence at these meetings. But his absence in Brussels was still another reminder of how much things have changed, and that the war has slid down NATO’s priority pole.
The U.S now has only slightly more than 10,500 troops in Afghanistan, down from more than 100,000 at the war’s peak. And there are only few thousand troops from a handful of other coalition nations participating in Operation Resolute Support, which is aimed at advising and assisting the Afghan forces.[…]
U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, the top NATO commander, told reporters the U.S. plan to reduce its forces in Afghanistan to less than 10,000 is very close to completion. He said that allied troops, who were delayed in their arrival in Afghanistan, are now almost all in.