NATO officials are negotiating with Russia and several Central Asian states to open a "Northern Corridor" into Afghanistan. The move comes after recent repeated attacks on NATO's main supply base in Pakistan that have so far destroyed more than two hundred trucks bound for Afghanistan. Lack of security along the route through the historic Khyber Pass (the gateway between Pakistan and Afghanistan) has stranded nearly another 1,000. The attacks have NATO officials worried that they won't be able to keep troops deployed in Afghanistan properly supplied, hence the talks with Russia about an alternate route into the country.
You have to wonder though how NATO can expect to run an operation to drive the Taliban and al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan when they can't even protect their own supply lines? (It seems to me like another example of NATO's utter ineffectiveness as a military organization these days) Past that, if NATO now has to rely on a supply line that runs through Russia, it's hard to imagine that either Georgia or Ukraine will be joining the alliance anytime soon, since Russia is dead set against their membership.
Meanwhile the United States is planning to increase its troop strength in Afghanistan by as many as 20,000 this summer.
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