-- the U.S. administration is trying to increase the number of ground forces in Syria. Can you comment on that? 

MR. RHODES: Sure. Over the course of the last weeks and months, as we pursue the counter-ISIL campaign, what we've done is where we see that there are efforts that are making progress, we are willing and committed to accelerating those efforts. And if that demands additional resources, we will provide them.

So, for instance, last week, we announced additional support to the mission in Iraq in terms of some specific equipment, including Apache helicopters that can make a difference for Iraqi forces on the ground, a substantial amount of support to the Kurdish forces who are fighting in the north so that they have the budgetary basis to continue to make progress against ISIL, as well as a U.S. role in supporting Iraqi forces who are on the offense through our Special Forces capability in Iraq.

Today what the President will be announcing is his decision to introduce 250 additional U.S. Special Forces into Syria. This brings the number of U.S. Special Forces in Syria to roughly 300.

What we've seen is the small team that we put into Syria several months ago has been very effective in serving as a force multiplier because they are able to provide advice and support to the forces that are fighting against ISIL on the ground in Syria. And we've seen across parts of northern and eastern Syria progress as ISIL has been pushed out of some strongholds.

We want to accelerate that progress, and we believe a commitment of additional U.S. Special Forces can play a critical role, again, as serving as a force multiplier and helping to organize those local forces that are fighting against ISIL on the ground. They will be the ones in the fight, not the U.S. Special Forces. But our Special Forces, again, can provide critical expertise and make them more capable as they have demonstrated that they can take back territory from ISIL.

Q  Does local forces mean that Kurds in the north of Syria, or other places as well?

MR. RHODES: So we don't, as a matter of practice, specify the specific geographic area that U.S. Special Forces may be present in. What we have said is that we have worked with both Syria Kurdish and Syrian Arab forces who have been fighting against ISIL. So, again, it's not simply Syrian Kurdish forces; there’s also a Syrian Arab force that we have been working with on the ground. And we've seen them making progress in areas along the border in north and eastern Syria and the area of -- well, I'll leave it at that. 

Q  Can you talk a little bit about how this announcement figures into the President’s speech today, and also the meeting he'll have with the Quint leaders today -- if the remarks are going to be focused on this multilateral approach? Is that something he’s also going to seek additional commitments from the other countries as well?

MR. RHODES: Sure. First of all, I think we're at a moment where we have seen the relentless nature of our campaign against ISIL has begun to bear significant results in terms of taking back territory. And we've been committed to providing the resources necessary to continue to get this job done. 

And so the Syria announcement today, coupled with the announcements that we made regarding our support to Iraq in recent days, I think indicates exactly the model that we see working, which is airpower from the coalition, arming, equipment and training from the coalition, and, as needed, a Special Forces capability that can help them make progress on the ground. 

So I think the President will put this in the broader context of what we see working on the ground against ISIL. He will also make the point that just as we are willing to commit more to the fight against ISIL, we think it's important that our allies are also committing more to the fight against ISIL. We've seen them do that in recent months. We've seen increased contributions to the air campaign in both Iraq and Syria. We've seen support in terms of financing and arms and training for forces that are fighting on the ground in Iraq.

But again, we do believe that as we see what works, that there are additional things that our coalition partners can do. And that's something that he'll talk about publicly and privately -- again, with the spirit that everybody is in this fight and we have had important contributions from our European allies. But again, as we diagnose what is working, we see areas where we can provide additional support, and as we see challenges that emerge we want to make sure that we're providing support.

He had the same message, frankly, at the GCC summit recently in Saudi Arabia where those coalition partners can also support our mission in a variety of ways. So, yes, I think his point will be, we will do our part, but this will only succeed if we are working together as a coalition and as a global community to stamp out the threat of ISIL.

Q  I'm wondering if you can just kind of talk about -- obviously the President has stated that there would not be ground combat operations, and a kind of a sticking point was Special Forces -- if you can provide any more clarity on why these are not combat troops, especially since the Pentagon has referred to them as such. And when we brought up this issue I think back in October, whenever the 50 first went in, Josh, you said that if you were envisioning a ground combat operation we would see more than 50 Special Forces. We've quadrupled that number now, so is that the transition that's happening here?

MR. RHODES: Let me be very specific about this, Justin. Obviously any Special Forces troops that we deploy into Iraq or Syria are going to be combat-equipped troops. They may be in circumstances where they find themselves in harm’s way because these are dangerous places. The question is, what is the mission that they’re being given? And the mission that they’re being given is not to go into Syria and to engage the enemy, to engage ISIL. So they’re not being sent there on a combat mission; they’re being sent there on a mission to, again, be advising, assisting and supporting the forces that are fighting against ISIL on the ground. 

And again, that’s rooted in our belief that ultimately, lasting progress and the ability to push back ISIL and to hold territory that’s reclaimed from ISIL is going to have to depend upon those local forces. So, yes, any Special Forces capacity that we put into a country like Iraq and Syria is going to have a combat capability, but our point has been that their mission is not to be out on patrol or out to engage the enemy, it is to support these forces that have been doing the fighting.

And I think the proof of that is in what you’ve seen, which is that over the course of the last several months, the forces that have been fighting in Ramadi and Sinjar and Kobani in northern Syria have not been U.S. forces. They have been Iraqi and Syrian forces that have been taking the fight to ISIL, again, with the exception, of course, of when we have a leadership operation which we have shared with you all.

On numbers, specifically, what was the question?

Q  Yes. Well, Josh said that if you were envisioning combat operations?

MR. RHODES: Well, I think it’s -- yes, it’s in numbers and nature of the troops. And again, even a number like 300 Special Forces, we’re saying they’re there on a support mission for those forces fighting on the ground. We’re not deploying ground combat units to be out on patrol in places like Iraq and Syria. 

And in order to have, again, a U.S. ground combat mission in one of those two countries, it would be substantially more than we have today. What you see is we have roughly just over 4,000 troops deployed in this theater now, but they’re dispersed in difference places. They’re dispersed among different Iraqi forces and Syrian forces that we’re supporting. In Iraq, they’re in different bases and facilities. In Syria, again, we don’t comment on their location, but they’re in that support role. 

So we’re not deploying large ground combat units to take the place of those local forces. And again, I think the proof that we’ve been consistent in that point is that anybody who has been following the progress of this campaign can see that the forces that have been fighting on the ground are the local Iraqi and Syrian forces.

Q  And the last one on the speech. A lot of people described it as a bookend to the speech in Berlin eight or nine years ago. I know that you wrote that one, so I’m wondering if you can talk about some of the parallels or how you see this as sort of a partner or pairing to that speech.

MR. RHODES: Sure. That does seem like long time ago. But first of all, what I’d say is it’s important that we’re giving the speech in Germany in both cases. Germany is both at the center of Europe and the center of the European project, and it’s also a demonstration of the value of the transatlantic alliance, and a demonstration of what nations can do together when they sustain a commitment to shared security and shared values.

The point that the President made in the Berlin speech is that when the world stands together and acts through collective multilateral action, we will be able to deal with the challenges that confront us. And I think that the last seven years bear that out. If you look at the areas where we’ve been able to make the most progress in our foreign policy, it’s in areas where we’ve been able to mobilize collective action, particularly including our European allies. That was necessary to get the Iranian nuclear deal. That was necessary to stamp out Ebola. That was certainly necessary to get to the Paris climate accord.

So what we’ve seen is when we’re working collectively, we can make progress against these challenges. Now, as the President was coming into office, those challenges included the fact that we were on the verge of a global financial crisis that hit right after his Berlin speech. Again, it was collective action -- including very close coordination with Angela Merkel -- that helped us climb out of the global financial crisis.

Today, what he’ll say is that we’re dealing with a set of challenges from migration, from the civil war in Syria and ISIL and from Russian aggression. And if you look at each of those issues, they, too, require us to work together so that each of us is bearing our share of support for refugees, so that all of us are doing our fair share against ISIL, that we’re sticking together in standing up to Russian aggression.

So, once again, he’ll be making the point that we should not go it alone, we should not walk away from the values and institutions that allowed us to make such progress. We should be redoubling our efforts to work together to confront those challenges. And again, here in Germany at a time when there are lots of questions that you’ve all covered over the course of this trip about the European project, about European unity, I think the President is coming as the strongest ally of Europe to say that we have complete confidence in Europe’s ability to deal with these challenges; that Europe itself has demonstrated over the years that it’s more than capable of rising to the occasion when it works with us, when it works together as a European Union, and when we are both committed to the values that we’ve stood for since World War II.

Q  Do you expect any new initiative or pledge to fight ISIS in Libya as well, sustaining the Government of National Accord? And on immigration issue, giving them NATO assets?

MR. RHODES: So with respect to Libya, we’ve been concerned about the ISIL presence. We don’t see it on the scale that we have in Iraq and Syria. But we do believe that the most important effort right now is to support the Government of National Accord so that there can be some governing authority in Libya that’s been missing over the last recent years, even as we’re also going to have targeted counterterrorism efforts when we see an ISIL target that needs to be taken off the battlefield.

I do think Libya has been a feature of the discussion that the President has had with each of the leaders along this trip. At the Gulf summit, with Prime Minister Cameron, yesterday with Chancellor Merkel. I’d expect Libya to be one area of focus of the Quint meeting today. I think that there will be discussions about how to support that Government of National Accord, what are the different resources that can be brought to bear from Europe and the United States. 

There will be discussion of what are the counterterrorism concerns regarding ISIL in Libya. But also, there will be a discussion of the refugee flows and what are the best ways that we can work together to manage and deal with those refugee flows. We’re certainly doing that, of course, in the Aegean.

I think more broadly, we will want to be making the point, as the President has done in his meetings, that as we get to the NATO summit in July, we’ll be wanting to look at how we are reinforcing NATO’s eastern flank through our reassurance effort in the face of Russia’s aggression. We also want to make sure that we’re reinforcing our southern flank. And that’s something, of course, that Prime Minister Renzi has raised repeatedly, and President Obama certainly agrees that NATO has to make sure that it has a strategy and resources that are dedicated to supporting all of our allies, including our southern allies.

Q  Two questions, one on Syria. Obviously, the President has talked a lot about wanting to have less of a footprint in terms of a military presence in general. I wonder if you could just offer a little more insight about how he weighs that against the decision to send more personnel into Syria. And more broadly, he talked on Saturday a little bit about his legacy, and I wonder how he would assess his foreign policy legacy at this point, just whether he’s been able to kind of effect the change around the world he thought he would be able to in his presidency.

MR. RHODES: Those questions are somewhat related. I think, to your first question, it’s important to remember when he spoke in Berlin in 2008, the United States had 180,000 troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. We were, for all intents and purposes, providing the security in those countries. We were losing troops at a tragic and regular pace in both of those countries. And the war in Iraq had dominated American foreign policy.

We have significantly changed the nature of American foreign policy over the course of these last seven years so that it is not overwhelmingly focused on a project like the war in Iraq that we believe had distracted us from the fight against terrorism and many other global priorities, and it is now addressing a much broader set of issues in regions. 

Specifically on the footprint issue, again, we are fighting terrorism because we always said -- and we said back in 2008 -- that we would be relentless in pursuing strategies to root out terrorist networks. But we’re doing it in a different way. As I said, we have just over 4,000 U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria. We’ve got just under 10,000 in Afghanistan. That’s significantly lower; that’s a fraction of the 180,000 that were there when the President took office. And, importantly, their mission is very different. They are in a support role. They are conducting airstrikes through our air campaign. They’re supporting local forces who are doing the fighting on the ground and who are on the front lines. And that is a different model from what we were pursuing when the President took office.