General Powell, who spent 35 years in the military -- several of them as its most senior commander -- said today that the Bush administration was constantly looking for ways to reduce the number of American combat troops, and to transfer their responsibilities to what he called paramilitary or police units.
And, will the international troops be able to transfer all authority to the Afghans at the end of 2014, when the International Security Assistance Force mission ends?
"President Obama was intentionally vague last December when he said that American troops would begin to transfer out of Afghanistan by July 2011," the Times writes.
Mr Shoigu said the checks will be carried out across all military districts, with particular emphasis on troops to be transferred across long distances.
To transfer troops from Iraq is not a likely option in the short term, as scaling back the operation there may turn out to be a rather prolonged affair.
Commercial jets touching down at the airport taxi past dozens of sleek US Air Force cargo planes parked on the tarmac, part of the Manas Transit Centre used by US forces to transfer troops and cargo to nearby Afghanistan.
The prospect of capturing the summer harvest of Ukraine along with the oil fields of the Caucasus led Hitler to transfer troops driving toward Moscow to reinforce those operating in the south.
The ensuing peace negotiations were complicated: on the one hand, Germany wanted peace in the east in order to be free to transfer troops thence to the Western Front, but Germany was at the same time concerned to exploit the principle of national self-determination in order to transfer as much territory as possible into its own safe orbit from that of revolutionary Russia.
Already, the units brought in for the so-called surge last year have left, and the Bush administration has in recent days acknowledged the need both to transfer troops from Iraq to an ever-more-volatile Afghanistan and to recognize that a broader withdrawal is an "aspirational goal" for Iraqis.
Before long the fall of Capua enabled Rome to transfer troops from Italy to Spain; and in 210 the best Roman general of the day, the young son and namesake of Publius Scipio, was placed in command by popular vote, despite his youth and lack of the prerequisite senior magistracies.
