With good news regarding Afghanistan few and far between lately, I found this story though small, refreshingly positive. The Spanish government has decided to send an additional 220 troops to the Central Asian state. This would make Madrid’s total to around a 1,000 soldiers assigned to the NATO effort, but 450 of them were sent there just to provide security for the presidential election process, and it is likely these may be headed home soon. The main point here is that the Spanish government has put in more chips into an effort that has suffered lagging support on both sides of the Atlantic and one can hope that other NATO members may follow suit. Spain has lost 87 soldiers so far in Afghan conflict.
On an interesting side note, I found out that until recently Spain’s parliament had a 3,000 oversea troop level limit, and it was lifted for the Afghan troop deployment. For a country that is a key NATO member, storied military, modern economy, and a population of 47 million, that number is amazing low. It personifies to me the post-realist or postmodern worldview that parts of Europe live in today.
