WASHINGTON (AP) - Alongside the exodus of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, soldiers who hail from countries like Singapore and Slovenia, Mongolia and Malaysia have been packing up too, leaving behind an ever-shrinking NATO coalition.
The coalition has been fighting the war for more than a decade, but that combat mission ends in 17 weeks. On the agenda at this week's NATO meeting in Wales is nailing down which countries will contribute how many troops to the post-2014 mission to continue training the Afghan forces and who will pay the salaries of the Afghan policemen and soldiers going forward.
"There already has been so much blood and treasure invested no one wants to see this turn into what is happening in Iraq right now," said retired Adm. James Stavridis, who was NATO supreme allied commander from 2008 to 2013. "I think people realize we need to continue to advise and mentor the security forces for several more years."
There are about 30,700 U.S. forces still in Afghanistan, and President Barack Obama has said he wants to keep 9,800 American troops in the country after the end of the year. The number of non-American troops stands at roughly 14,400 - down more 65 percent from a peak in May 2011 - and is shrinking fast.
Some countries like Britain with 3,936, Germany with 2,250 and Italy with 1,653 still have a sizeable number of troops in the country. But 17 countries - representing about a third of current 48-nation coalition - have just 25 or fewer troops still deployed. They are: Austria, Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, El Salvador, Estonia, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Montenegro, New Zealand, Slovenia, Sweden, Tonga and Ukraine.
At its peak, about 50 nations were contributing troops to Afghanistan. Stavridis, who is now dean of the Fletcher School, a graduate school of international affairs at Tufts University in Massachusetts, predicted that the number of troop-contributing countries will drop to between 15 and 20 after the end of this year.
Starting next year, the U.S. has committed to keeping 9,800 troops in Afghanistan as part of a new NATO mission dubbed Resolute Support, which will train, advise and assist Afghan soldiers and policemen. About 4,000 to 5,000 non-American troops - mostly from Britain, Germany, Italy and Turkey - will be deployed as well, although the actual size of the new mission has not been finalized.
Formalizing those deployments are contingent on the U.S. and NATO signing formal agreements with the Afghan government, which is in the throes of a bitterly contested presidential election. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign them, leaving the job to his successor.
The winner of the election was supposed to have been announced by now, but the two candidates - Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai - have alleged widespread election fraud and are fighting over a recount of votes.
Besides troop numbers, a key unresolved issue is which countries will make good on financial commitments to pay the salaries of Afghanistan security forces in the future, something the Afghan government will not be able to do on its own for years.