Seth Jones, an Afghanistan expert at the Rand Corp., a Santa Monica-based think tank, said he did not expect the withdrawal of 10,000 U.S. troops to cause security conditions to worsen in southern Afghanistan. He said the U.S. and the Afghan government were recruiting local police units that, along with Afghan army units, could help fill the gap.
“With the increasing…[U.S.] move toward a strategy that involved local security forces, I think that the U.S. can make do with a smaller force,” said Jones, who was an advisor to special operations units in Afghanistan until earlier this year. “I don’t think 10,000 is going to have a meaningful impact on the strategy.”