Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times
Retired U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal in his office on Saturday.
WASHINGTON — As the Obama administration weighs how many troops to keep in Afghanistan after 2014, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal cautioned that the United States still needs to keep forces there to help stabilize the country and urged a continued effort to advise the Afghan military that appears to be more extensive than the White House has in mind.
“If we allow Afghanistan to become completely unstable, Pakistan’s stability is really difficult,” the former American commander in Afghanistan said in a recent interview. “So I think there’s a geostrategic argument for it.”
General McChrystal offered his analysis of Afghanistan in the interview, which coincided with the release of his book “My Share of the Task: A Memoir,” published by Portfolio/Penguin.
The general, who is retired from the Army, was fired by President Obama from his post in 2010 after an article in Rolling Stone quoted him and his staff as making dismissive comments about the White House.
His comments come as Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, is scheduled to begin a series of high-level meetings this week in Washington.
Regarding Afghanistan, some analysts have urged that the United States rely mainly on small numbers of commandos to carry out raids against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
But General McChrystal asserted that such “counterterrorism” operations work best when they are coupled with “counterinsurgency” efforts to build up the ability of the host nation to govern and bolster the capability of its forces.
He also noted that to carry out commando raids, the American military needs bases, an intelligence network and arrangements for medical evacuation. “But if you don’t have the support of the Afghan people, if you are just in there doing what you want to do on their terrain, there’s no reason for them to be supportive of this,” he said. “We’d be fighting our own war on their territory, and they’re just not that interested in that.”
On troop numbers, General McChrystal declined to say how many troops the United States might need to keep in Afghanistan after 2014. (The White House is considering retaining a force of 3,000 to 9,000 troops, which would be complemented by a much smaller number of troops from other NATO nations).
General McChrystal agreed that the American force, currently 66,000 troops, should be substantially reduced. But he cautioned advised against retaining too small a force.
“We had 7,500 in Afghanistan in the summer of 2002 when I was first stationed there,” he said. “And 7,500 wouldn’t do much.”
An important question for the NATO mission after 2014 is what level of the Afghan military hierarchy would allied nations advise. Under the largest of the troop options under consideration by the White House, it is generally expected that NATO would advise seven regional Afghan Army corps and several regional Afghan police headquarters.
It is unlikely that NATO officers will advise Afghan battalions on the battlefield under this option as that would require many more advisers than the alliance is likely to muster.
But General McChrystal suggested that a more extensive advisery effort was needed to make the Afghan military more effective. “My personal tendency would be to get advisers a little bit lower than corps; I’d want them down to battalion level,” he said.
General McChrystal said he voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 but declined to say whom he had voted for in 2012. He would not discuss the Rolling Stone article in detail but insisted that he had intended no disrespect for the president or his aides.
After the article was published, General McChrystal said that he arrived at his fateful meeting with Mr. Obama on June 23, 2010, with his resignation in hand. The decision whether to accept it was up to the president.
