A daring idea to end our longest war: Mercenaries for Afghanistan - RICHARD COHEN

The Trump administration, like the several that preceded it, is mulling a new approach. This time, there will be no date certain when American involvement will end — a bit of Obama-era silliness that, in effect, told the Taliban to hold on, be patient and the Yanks will leave. President Trump has reportedly left troop-level decisions to Defense Secretary James Mattis, a retired Marine general and a man of such reckless courage that he refused to fawn over Trump at a cabinet meeting. Somewhere, a medal awaits.

Mattis, however, is reportedly cool to the plan developed by Erik Prince, which would entail turning over a substantial part of the Afghanistan effort to “contracted European professional soldiers” — what you and I call mercenaries. The term has an odious connotation, but there is no avoiding it. Prince is referring to British, French, Spanish and other European soldiers.

They would not, as is now the case with Americans, be rotated out of the country after a period of time so that, in a sense, the U.S. is always starting anew. These contract soldiers would get about $600 a day to command Afghan troops and be embedded with them — much as U.S. special operations forces now are. Trouble is, the U.S. has a limited number of those forces.

The war in Afghanistan is the longest in American history. A loss would allow the country to revert to a terrorist safe haven. A win would require a commitment in manpower that the U.S. is not willing to make.  - Read More

A daring idea to end our longest war: Mercenaries for Afghanistan ...

Could mercenaries end America's longest war? - The Washington Post