article today. he decided to escalate troop levels. the president pinballed between his militaristic and anti-interventionist impulses he campaigned on not getting involved in any foreign wars, he campaigned on getting out of afghanistan. it s one of the most consistent things he s said over the years. he admitted this was a reversal last night. talk to me about how he came to this decision. i don t want to describe it as a slap in the face to steve bannon? well, it is. steve bannon had advocated for trump s core belief, which was to try to get out of this conflict in afghanistan, what you saw in tillerson s remarks, this is a complicated issue, and it took president trump many months of sessions with his
side of it, i would defer to the department of defense to answer that one. i know the approach is going to be similar to what we have had success elsewhere it s a by with and through approach. that s part of why the need for step up in troop levels is so weakened at the battalion level organize and help the afghan army fight in a different way. with respect to the comment about russia, to the extent russia is supplying arms to the taliban, that is a violation, obviously of international norms and a violation of u.n. security council norms if anyone s going to supply arms it needs to be through the afghan government in
suits the needs of its people as long as it rejects terrorism never provides safe haven for terrorists. and accommodates all of the groups represented inside of afghanistan. how they want to organize themselves is up to them, but we have to recognize that their culture is a tribal culture, and their history accommodates the nature of those relationships. there s no reason their form of government cannot accommodate that as well. we want to reconcile a peace process much that s really the essence of the strategy. before taking your questions. i do want to make one comment on north korea. i think it is worth noting we have had no missile launches or provocative acts on the part of north korea since the unanimous adoption of the u.n. security council resolution.
a question that braces the military side and diplomatic side. in the short term at least, our forces will be more at risk because they will be potentially doing night raids against the taliban again not just training, but supporting interactive role because the afghan troops are not all up to par here, to push back against the taliban on the diplomatic side, why didn t the president mention russia s rearming of the taliban which general nicholson is talking about very openly. do you have enough people given the fact that there are not trump confirmed diplomatic appointees in many of these positions in the region? on the military operation