EU Says Afghanistan Shows Need for Rapid-Reaction Force
Voice of America
ROME - EU governments must push ahead with a European rapid reaction force to be better prepared for future crises such as in Afghanistan, the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.
In an interview published on Monday, Borrell told Italian paper Il Corriere della Sera the short-notice deployment of U.S. troops to Afghanistan as security deteriorated showed the EU needed to accelerate efforts to build a common defense policy. "We need to draw lessons from this experience ... as Europeans we have not been able to send 6,000 soldiers around the Kabul airport to secure the area. The US has been, we haven't," he said. Borrell said the 27-member EU should have an "initial entry force" of 5,000 soldiers. "We need to be able to act quickly."
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