afghanistan. and they come from 49 member countries. the international security and assistance force, or, i sat, that's the nato force, they tell us that. britain, italy, germany, they are all major contributors. but it will come as no surprise that u.s. sends the most number of troops there. 54,500 american troops. that according to the latest pick jury. now the highest number of troops was an awful lot more than that, so you can see how many have come home, as its height it was 101,000. that was just after president obama's spur of troops and that was in 2011. the extra 33,000 u.s. troops that he sent in the surge to afghanistan have now been withdrawn. and washington is going to continue to wind down, right the way to about february of next year, and this is the target for the white house. 34,000 troops, now of that there should be there in february, they are gradually going to bring out about half of them, until the end of 2014, there is around 15,000 troops on the ground. maybe a bit more, maybe as many as 20,000. it will be a mix, though, including turkish troops. but, john, most of the troops will be american. >> john, good to see you, thank you very mu