

Want a good measurement of "NATO's enduring commitment" to Afghanistan even after combat forces depart? The Afghan soldiers and cops NATO trains to secure the country are going to need $6 billion from international donors every year to keep operating.

Right now, the plan is to build up a force of 305,000 soldiers and police by next October, up from the 250,000 that NATO's currently got in uniform. U.S. taxpayers have financed that force, paying $9.2 billion during 2010, and the Obama administration wants Congress to provide another $11.6 billion for them in the spending bill currently before Congress. That money doesn't just help pay troops' salaries. It purchases all the gear they need, like the Ford Rangers, armored Humvees, and Russian MI-17 helicopters they use for transport.

Col. John Ferrari, the deputy commander for programs at NATO's training mission, estimates that "sustainment" for the Afghan forces will cost $6 billion annually – at least. In response to a question from Danger Room on a blogger conference call Thursday, Ferrari said that those costs include "fuel, repair parts, salaries, uniforms, individual solider equipment," as well as $300 to $400 million per year for "capital equipment." And that's if the Obama administration and NATO decides early next year that 300,000 soldiers and cops are enough. If not, then NATO will need more cash from Congress to fund the plus-up – and, presumably, sustainment costs will accordingly rise.

To put that number in context, the CIA estimates Afghanistan's gross domestic product is around $27 billion. Keeping soldiers and police fed, clothed, billeted, armed and equipped, realistically, will be a job for international donors for the foreseeable future.

Getting Afghanistan economically self-sufficient enough to pay for its own security depends on how fast it can develop its "mineral wealth" or "take advantage of being at the crossroads of Asia and the Middle East and can get revenue from the trucking industry or gas pipelines," Ferrari said. "Frankly, I don't know what those estimates are and anyone who says that they know is taking a guess as to what that might be." It's worth noting that some security experts believe that injecting large amounts of foreign cash into Afghanistan's tiny economy contributes to its economic and corruption woes.

And this is a security force facing no shortage of challenges already. Building on recent assessments from NATO's training chief, Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, Ferrari pegged the literacy rate in the Afghan ranks at around 15 percent. (That's one of the reasons NATO's buying them familiar Russian-made guns and helos.) And NATO's still waiting on U.S. allies to provide about 900 troops to train Afghan cops, a force plagued by internal corruption.

Providing $6 billion for sustaining such a force "seems like a lot of money, [and] it is a lot of money," Ferrari said. But building up the Afghan security forces is the Obama administration's linchpin for getting U.S. troops (mostly) out of Afghanistan. It costs $8 billion per month to keep 98,000 U.S. troops in the country, Ferrari pointed out, and their Afghan counterparts aren't scheduled to assume full combat responses until 2014.

But neither the U.S., NATO nor any international donor group has a "sustainment fund" designated for the Afghan security forces, Ferrari said. Watch to see if they establish something like that in the new year. Unless Afghanistan becomes one of history's great economic miracles, U.S. taxpayers are likely to bankroll soldiers and cops on the other side of the world for a long time to come.

Photo: U.S. Army Special Operations Command

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