McChrystal Endorses Senior NATO Civilian Leader For Afghanistan
Adm. James Stavridis made it sound like a fait accompli this morning when he told a blogger conference call that NATO will soon announce a new senior official
Jul 31, 2020470.3K Shares8.7M Views
Adm. James Stavridis made it sound like a fait accompli this morningwhen he told a blogger conference call that NATO will soon announce a new senior official for coordinating allied civilian contributions to Afghanistan. The new position will be filled by a civilian. Perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise: Gen. Stanley McChrystal is also backing the effort, which would give the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan a civilian counterpart.
“Because of the importance of civil-military integration in counterinsurgency operations,” McChrystal spokesman Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis told me, “ISAF supports the concept of a stronger NATO senior civilian representative position in Afghanistan.” ISAF is the acronym for International Security Assistance Force, the NATO military command in Afghanistan.
Just to be clear about something: McChrystal is what the military calls “dual-hatted” as both the commander of the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, known as USFOR-A, and ISAF, the NATO mission. Amb. Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. envoy to Kabul, is McChrystal’s civilian counterpart for the USFOR-A side only. ISAF currently has no top civilian. This position would rectify that imbalance.
(Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, is Gen. David Petraeus’civilian counterpart, a level up from McChrystal. Just in case you were wondering about him.)
Hajra Shannon
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