Search

The article focuses on concerns surrounding the possibility that American troops will leave Afghanistan as part of a peace deal with the Taliban. Topics covered include the belief by experts that a hasty withdrawal would erode the authority and legitimacy of the Afghan government, the risk that the ruthless militants that the U.S. went to war to dislodge could recapture control of the country, and the progress in direct peace negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban.

The article discusses U.S. national security adviser John R. Bolton's sudden task of withdrawing 2,000 troops from Syria as per President Donald Trump's abrupt decision as of January 8, 2019. Topics covered include the move's rattling of allies and U.S. Middle East policy, and Trump's assertion of a proper pace of withdrawal and continued fighting against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Also noted are Trump's erratic style and habitual undermining of advisers.

The article focuses on U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw 2,000 American troops from Syria in 2018. It notes that the move has brought a storm of protest in Congress, both from Democrats and even from Trump's Republican allies. Also discussed are the arguments by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and other top national security officials against the withdrawal of troops.

The article focuses on a report that U.S. President Donald Trump is considering reducing American troops in South Korea, just weeks before he holds a landmark meeting with North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un about his weapons program. Topics covered include the belief of Trump that the American military presence had not prevented the North from becoming a nuclear threat, and the worry by the Defense department and other agencies that the reduction could weaken the U.S. alliance with South Korea.

The article explores the strategy employed by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama in the Afghan War. It assesses the capability of the administration to stabilize Afghanistan and preserve the president's goal to pullout all troops before his tenure ends. The challenges encountered by the U.S. military in countering terrorism are discussed, particularly his effort against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The article discusses U.S. president Barack Obama's May 27, 2014 announcement that all American combat troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of 2016. Topics addressed include plans to leave a residual force of 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through 2015, Obama's efforts to shift counterterrorism policy away from Afghanistan and towards nations such as Syria, and concerns that the precise deadline for the removal of troops will leave Afghanistan vulnerable to security risks.

The article discusses U.S. president Barack Obama's decision to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 given a lack of a signed bilateral security agreement (B.S.A.) with Afghan president Hamid Karzai. Topics addressed include the April 2014 presidential election in Afghanistan and the possibility that Karzai's successor will sign the agreement, as well as Obama's claim that any residual forces in Afghanistan will continue to shrink as the agreement goes unsigned.

The article reports on the decision of Russian President Vladimir V. Putin to withdraw his military forces in Syria along with the insights of U.S. President Barack Obama not to intervene with Syria.

The article reports on the decision of U.S. President Barack Obama to remove American troops in Afghanistan in 2013 which was viewed as a careful act of balancing military and political interests.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Obama, speaking to an American television audience on Tuesday night from Bagram Air Base, declared that he had traveled here to herald a new era in the relationship between the United States and Afghanistan, ''a future in which war ends, and a new chapter begins.'' Mr. Obama's address, during an unannounced visit to sign a strategic partnership agreement with President Hamid Karzai that sets the terms for relations after the departure of American troops in 2014, was a chance for him to make an election-year case that he is winding down a costly and increasingly unpopular war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- The killing of two American servicemen and the eruption of deadly anti-American protests in Afghanistan confronts President Obama with a potential political weakness in a foreign policy that has so far offered few easy targets to Republican candidates eager for an opening. But the White House and the Obama campaign believe that, if anything, the bloodshed in Afghanistan will reinforce the sentiments of a large majority of Americans who want to get the troops out of there as soon as possible. This, the president's aides said, will constrain Mitt Romney or other Republicans seeking to benefit from a perception that Mr. Obama's Afghan strategy has gone awry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- President Obama declared Wednesday that the United States had largely achieved its goals in Afghanistan, setting in motion a substantial withdrawal of American troops in an acknowledgment of the shifting threat in the region and the fast-changing political and economic landscape in a war-weary America. Asserting that the country that served as a base for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks no longer represented a terrorist threat to the United States, Mr. Obama declared that the ''tide of war is receding.'' And in a blunt recognition of domestic economic strains, he said, ''America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WASHINGTON -- President Obama plans to announce his decision on the scale and pace of troop withdrawals from Afghanistan in a speech on Wednesday evening, an administration official said Monday. As he closes in on a decision, another official said, Mr. Obama is considering options that range from a Pentagon-backed proposal to pull out only 5,000 troops this year to an aggressive plan to withdraw within 12 months all 30,000 troops the United States deployed to Afghanistan as part of the surge in December 2009. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- The United States will not be able to protect its diplomats in Iraq adequately if it sticks to the plan to withdraw its last 50,000 troops by December, potentially hindering American efforts to reach out to the Iraqi people, according to a new report by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The report, to be released Tuesday, contends that if the Obama administration leaves only a token contingent of troops behind in an advisory role, as currently planned, ''security and political gains could be jeopardized.'' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

TALLINN, Estonia -- Setting the stage for a gradual withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States and other NATO countries adopted a plan here Friday that sets conditions for beginning to remove troops from a lead role in Afghan provinces by the end of this year. The plan, which NATO hopes to turn into a formal agreement with the Afghan government in July, would transfer authority to Afghans when they have met three criteria: a competent local police force, a durable civilian government and signs of reconciliation with the Taliban insurgency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

WASHINGTON -- The deadly suicide bombings in Iraq on Wednesday highlight the central quandary facing President Obama as he tries to fulfill his campaign pledge to end the war there: Will parliamentary elections, scheduled for Sunday, throw the country back into the sectarian strife that flared in 2004 and delay the planned American withdrawal? Senior Obama administration officials maintained in interviews this week that Mr. Obama's plan to withdraw all American combat troops by Sept. 1 would remain on track regardless of who cobbles together a governing coalition after the election. Under the plan, no more than 50,000 American forces would stay behind, mostly in advisory roles. (Now there are slightly more than 90,000 troops in the country, down from 124,000 in September.) [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

President Obama sent his top diplomat, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, to Europe on Thursday to press sometimes balky NATO allies to contribute thousands of additional troops to his new strategy for turning the tide in the Afghanistan war. Mrs. Clinton acknowledged that some countries were confused by Mr. Obama's plan to begin bringing home American troops in July 2011. But she said that, over all, ''The response has been positive,'' and that she would work to clear up doubts over the American timetable. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses Afghan President Hamid Karzai's demand that U.S. President Barack Obama draft a letter admitting to past U.S. military errors in Afghanistan in exchange for the approval of U.S. military counterterrorism raids in Afghan homes that would take place after the planned 2014 withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan. Topics addressed include an ongoing negotiation process between Afghanistan and the U.S. and a potential unwillingness of the U.S. to issue an apology.

The article reports on the plan of Ukrainian government to withdraw all military personnel and their families from Crimean Peninsula to the country's mainland in March 2014 after the region has been occupied by Russian forces.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the nation's top military officer on Wednesday laid out a muscular defense of President Obama's decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, but they made clear that his plan to begin withdrawing those forces by July 2011 was flexible. At two hearings on Capitol Hill, where they faced deep skepticism about different parts of Mr. Obama's war plan from both parties, they also said that the arrival of the additional forces, while speedy, would not be as fast as Mr. Obama suggested in a speech to the nation on Tuesday night. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]