Germany to send more soldiers to Afghanistan?

German policy towards Afghanistan, in particular its apparent reluctance, despite its military capability, to get involved in any of the hard fighting against the Taliban has attracted so much criticism, including from amongst NATO allies, that it is routine now.  It's Afghan commitment is highly unpopular with domestic opinion.  The announcement, picked up in numerous news agencies, said that the new maximum level for German forces would increase from 3,500 to 4,500.  In addition, some 40 communications troops are to move to southern Afghanistan.  Superficially this looks like a significant shift in German policy towards Afghanistan but, as usual with such announcements, the wording will have been carefully crafted and the detail bears some scrutiny.  It does not appear that 1,000 German soldiers are to be sent to Afghanistan any time soon and it was noted by the German Defence Ministry that any additional troops that did deploy would remain in the relatively benign area of north east Afghanistan focusing on reconstruction with the bulk of the existing Geman forces.  Defence Minister Jung noted that the new ceiling  - and this a ceiling, so presumably not a definite commitment to add 1,000 new soldiers - is intended to give "more flexibility to respond".   To be fair, this may imply a future potential to get involved in combat operations and/or in other parts of Afghanistan, but it doesn't seem a particularly strong statement.  The current German parliamentary mandate for no more than 3,500 soldiers expires in October.  Interestingly, it appears that at the same time, the German troop ceiling for its separate Operation Enduring Freedom mandate has been reduced from 1,400 down to 800.  In terms of pure troop numbers, a cynic might note that not much has actually changed...