US Expands Afghan Base to Accommodate Ongoing Surge

President Trump announced a surge in Afghanistan in August of 2017. While the military’s decision to keep troop levels classified has made it hard to track the specifics of this, the surge is continuing, and places like Camp Dahlke West continue to expand rapidly to house all the new troops.

60 miles south of Kabul, and barely on the map when the surge was announced, the camp has experienced a five-fold growth in the number of troops being housed there, and construction is still ongoing.

This is drawing attention in particular because of how many new buildings are going up in these bases, just a few short years after the US spent billions closing bases it decided it no longer needed during the last draw-down.

This means that instead of the costly bases of the past, the US is scrambling to assemble the costly bases of the future, hastily thrown together to accommodate the most recent change in direction for America’s longest war. Coming amid discussions of another course change, the US may soon find these new buildings similarly surplus.