No pressure here, time or otherwise. Before not committing any new troops to Afghanistan, Germany wants to take all the time it needs to say no more thoroughly and convincingly and much, much later (around February or so). And why not take your time? They’re in the best of company here.

As German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle put it: “President Obama held a very important speech. He also took his time to work out the speech and his strategy and we will take our own time to assess what he said and discuss this with our allies.” 

In other words, “no”, like I said. Westerwelle did indicate that Germany is prepared to increase police trainers in Afghanistan, however. That German police training in Afghanistan has been a catastrophe up until now is another question altogether, but still.

“We Germans are ready to do more in the area of police training, because that is the only route to self-sufficient security, to a handover of responsibilities.”