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quagmire. you mentioned, what if the troops increased to even greater numbers. is that what do you see a potential track for that, or do you think this is just long-term u.s. presence in afghanistan? well, there are two distinct missions in afghanistan. there s the counterterrorism mission. we ve got enough troops in there, enough aircraft to take strikes when we need to. this increase is really focused on training the afghan army so that the afghans can do for themselves what we can t do for them, which is fight back against the taliban, try to build a functioning state. and prop up the state and and prop up the state. but part of the problem of afghanistan, there s no state. there s never been a state. and so, what we really need to do is get the afghan security forces into a position in which they re capable enough that the taliban says we can t make any more advances, let s go to the negotiating table. the pentagon seems to say another 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 will get us ther

Counterterrorism missionAfghan armyAfghan security forcesFunctioning statePresident obamaNegotiating tableLets goLets see