Should your friend and humble Pentagon correspondent live for another 50 years, you can expect to read a Pentagon Run-Down in 2069 about how many U.S. troops President George P. Bush III plans to leave in Syria. (Assuming, of course, that Joe Biden doesn't run in 2068.)
That's because current President Donald Trump had vowed to pull all U.S. troops from Syria back in December, but since then has agreed to leave some U.S. service members there. The White House initially said about 200 U.S. troops would remain in Syria, but government officials have since pegged the number at several hundred.
Now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that up to 1,000 U.S. troops could make up the residual force in Syria. The Pentagon pushed back on that story unusually hard, presumably because defense officials are terrified that Trump will think the military is trying to force him to commit more troops to Syria.
So, what's new in Afghanistan? Nothing. Every day is exactly the same, and it's been like that for near a generation. With no prospect of an actual victory on the horizon, two senators want to declare a symbolic victory so U.S. troops can leave. (This is how the British quit Afghanistan two centuries ago and it's been smooth sailing for Afghanistan ever since.)
The bill proposed by Sens Rand Paul (R-Ken.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) would give the U.S. government 45 days to come up with a plan for an "orderly withdrawal" and lay the groundwork for the warring sides to reach a political accommodation. The U.S. military would then have a year to leave Afghanistan.
Now in his third year in office, it is clear that President Donald Trump thinks he can will the world to finally be at peace. But when it comes to his grand proclamations of victory versus actual conditions on the ground, the president's reach often exceeds his grasp.
There is a great disturbance in the Force. Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan's relationship with Congress is going through a rough patch and your humble correspondent has neither the wisdom nor the clairvoyance to see how all of this gets resolved.
Being in the Pentagon now feels a lot like the unsettling aftermath of listening to your parents fight as a kid. After the yelling comes that awful silence, broken only by the BOOM! of slammed doors.
Let's talk about love – and not the type of love that results in sailors getting an injection of antibiotics after a port call in Thailand. I'm talking about a deeper, spiritual kind of love: The Pentagon's passionate love affair with great power competition.
Nearly a decade ago, the Defense Department was betrothed to an idea called "counterinsurgency;" but the Pentagon ditched COIN at the altar after a Jody named Afghanistan ruined the romance. Now the U.S. military is head over heels in love with countering Russia and China – so much so that the Pentagon has named a cockroach "The Global War on Terrorism" after its ex so it could be fed to a Meerkat.
Somewhere deep in the bowels of the Pentagon – probably near the Fighter Pilot Bar – there is likely a black-and-white picture of the building being dedicated in January 1943 that includes your friend and humble narrator in the background being scowled at by Army Col. Leslie Groves.
Even though your spry correspondent was technically born decades later, if you work at the Pentagon long enough, you develop a special relationship with the building, much like Jack Nicholson's character in "The Shining."