Will 40,000 more troops in Afghanistan support a successful surge?

Gen. Stanley McChrystal has been urging the administration to commit to sending an additional 40,000 troops to Afghanistan for weeks now. He wrote a “now famous” memo saying that a failure to send that many troops could result in our mission failing in Afghanistan.

But inside the war room, some of Obama’s top advisors are said to be expressing skepticism that sending in the additional troops will result in the type of success seen in the Iraq surge.

The advisors are repeating what we have heard many times now; Afghanistan is not Iraq. The extreme landscape there, coupled with the fact that the terrorists primary camps are in Pakistan create different challenges.

"Afghanistan is not Iraq," one senior administration official said. "To say that we can take what we did in Iraq and Xerox it and send it to Afghanistan is obtuse."

A second administration official confirmed this viewpoint has real currency inside Obama's war council.

"With 40,000 more troops, you cannot do an Iraq-style surge," this official said. "It's totally different than Iraq. The strategy is not easily transferable -- there are unique challenges in Afghanistan."

Officials are saying that Obama, who of course, will be the ultimate decision maker, has not yet made up his mind about troops level for Afghanistan. But this will be one of the primary topics of discussion at this week’s sixth meeting.

Obama is being pressured to make a troop increase decision soon. Senator John McCain appeared this week on CNN’s State of the Union With John King. On that show, McCain said that the proposal to increase troops by 40,000 was long ago suggested by General Petraeus. McCain went on to say, "Should we risk going against the advice and counsel of our best and strongest advisers, those we've given the responsibility?”

Senior officials within the Obama administration say that in order to achieve the “COIN strategy of 20 to 25 troops per 1,000 residents in Afghanistan, there would have to be 600,000 U.S., NATO and Afghan troops and police -- which is basically impossible. It would require either a major infusion of U.S. troops that is just not available right now because of a taxed military, or a massive training of new Afghan soldiers that is too ambitious to reach in a short time.”

At the height of the Iraq surge, there were approximately 29 troops per 1,000 residents in Iraq. Currently there are 260,000 U.S., NATO and Afghan troops on the ground. This equates to only 11 troops per thousand residents. The addition of 40,000 troops will bring the ratio up to only 12.5 troops per 1,000 residents.

Still other advisors are suggesting that while 40,000 troops is unlikely to achieve a successful surge, "marginal increases" in troops "can have a dramatic effect" on security if the troops are used properly.