The Way Forward in Afghanistan

Watch the "Obama Plan in Four Minutes" video to understand the basics:

• Watch the full video of President’s December 1, 2009 speech.
• Read the transcript of the speech in the following languages: English | Albanian | Arabic | Chinese | Croatian | Czech | Dari | Estonian | French | Georgian | German | Hindi | Hungarian | Indonesian | Italian | Japanese | Korean | Latvian | Pashto | Persian | Polish | Portuguese | Romanian | Russian | Spanish | Slovenian | Turkish | Urdu
• Read the December fact sheet in the following languages: English | Albanian | Chinese | Croatian | Dari | Georgian | German | Italian | Japanese | Pashto | Portuguese | Slovenian |  Spanish | Urdu

The President’s strategy, as laid out in his address of December 1, 2009, maintains the core goal laid out in the beginning of his administration: to disrupt, dismantle, and eventually defeat al Qaeda and to prevent their return to either Afghanistan or Pakistan.

The President has decided to deploy an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan.  These troops will deploy on an accelerated timeline to reinforce the 68,000 Americans and 39,000 non-U.S. ISAF troops already there, so that we can target the insurgency, break its momentum, and better secure population centers.  These forces will increase our capacity to train effective Afghan Security Forces, and to partner with them so that more Afghans get into the fight.  And by pursuing these partnerships, we can transition to Afghan responsibility, and begin to reduce our combat troops in the summer of 2011.  In short, these resources will allow us to make the final push that is necessary to train Afghans so that we can transfer responsibility. 

The United States will maintain this increased force level through July, 2011. During this time, we will regularly measure our progress.  Then, we will transfer lead security responsibility to Afghans and start to transition our combat forces out of Afghanistan.  As Afghans take on responsibility for their security, we will continue to advise and assist Afghanistan’s Security Forces, and maintain a partnership on behalf of their security so that they can sustain this effort.  Afghans are tired of war and long for peace, justice, and economic security.  We intend to help them achieve these goals and end this war and the threat of reoccupation by the foreign fighters associated with al Qaeda.

We will not be in this effort alone.  The U.S. will continue to be joined in the fight by the Afghans, and the aggressive partnering effort envisioned by General McChrystal will get more Afghans into the fight for their country’s future.  There will also be additional resources from NATO.  These allies have already made significant commitments of their own in Afghanistan, and we will be discussing additional alliance contributions – in troops, trainers, and resources – in the days and weeks ahead.  This is not simply a test of the alliance’s credibility – what is at stake is even more fundamental.  It is the security of London and Madrid; of Paris and Berlin; of Prague, New York, and our broader collective security.