The timeframe may reflect continuing tensions between Cameron and the military over the scale of troop reductions.
He is also said to have differed sharply with Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador in Kabul, over the scale of troop reinforcements.
His secretary of defence, career civil servant Robert Gates, recently announced reinforcements on the scale of 30,000 troops.
All this is an argument for doing considerably less than what we are doing, by transitioning rapidly (by mid- or late 2012) to a relatively small, sustainable, strategically-warranted deployment, one I would estimate to be on a scale of 10,000-25,000 troops.
Despite Pakistan's insistence on talks and a scaling back of troops, India has no intention of either fully demobilizing or joining negotiations anytime soon, officials here say.
More recently, only a short period of time passed between President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize and the scale-up of troops in Afghanistan.
On 3 April the squadrons were issued Hotchkiss machine-guns, on a scale of one per troop, which replaced the regiment's three Lewis guns.
The Gore campaign was quick to note that the United States has already sharply scaled back the number of troops it has on the ground in the Balkans.
She did not wrestle directly with many of the other challenges the next president will face, including managing a large-scale deployment — or withdrawal — of troops abroad, an overhaul of the intelligence agencies or the effort to halt the spread of nuclear weapons technology.
WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to announce his decision on the scale and pace of troop withdrawals from Afghanistan in a speech from the White House at 8 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday evening.
