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1 1 (February 1, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govyhh0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional ~ esearch Service Evaluating Possible U.S. Troop Withdrawals from Hostile Areas February 1, 2019 On December 19, 2018, President Trump announced his intention to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria within 30 days, although Administration officials subsequently suggested that the process could take several months. Subsequent press articles indicated that the White House is also considering withdrawing up to half' of U.S. forces in Afghanistan in the coming months, although at the time of writing the Trump Administration has stated it has not yet ordered any such withdrawal. More recently, the United States has been negotiating with Afghan Taliban representatives regarding the conditions upon which, if met, American forces might withdraw from Afghanistan. Opinions vary as whether these negotiations might lead to a successful settlement. Regardless, the suggestion that the United States might curtail its military operational commitment to those theaters raises a number of issues which may be of interest to Congress. In particular, from a strategic perspective, when is a withdrawal from a military operation appropriate? Operational Context The strategic question of when to withdraw is particularly complex due to the nature of the contemporary conflicts in which the United States is involved. Unlike World War II, for example, when all parties mutually agreed to cease hostilities in the wake of an overwhelming allied victory, identifying clear winners and losers in these military campaigns is often problematic. For one, there are often a multiplicity of parties to these conflicts-in Afghanistan alone, belligerents have included al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, the Islamic State, the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the International Security Assistance Force coalition, and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Syria is comparably complex. As each party has its own objectives and priorities, winning agreement amongst all to cease hostilities is an inherently challenging endeavor. Further, defining and measuring success in these campaigns has bedeviled military and civilian leaders alike, in large part due to the at times amorphous nature of the strategic goals of the campaigns themselves. Seizing and occupying terrain is generally a more straightforward military objective than, say, building legitimacy and local popular support for a centralized government or permanently eliminating terrorist safe havens. Without a clear understanding what success looks like, understanding whether enough has been done, or whether additional forces and resources might be required, becomes educated Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov IN11032 CRS INSIGHT Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress

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