George Will's next column will reportedly call for U.S. ground troops to withdraw from Afghanistan.

According to Politico, Will's column will argue later this week:

[F]orces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent special forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters …

One of the preeminent conservative public commentators, Will's column comes at a time when the war in Afghanistan is in a precarious state. August was the bloodiest month for U.S forces since the war began in 2001.

Reuters reports that President Obama's "top advisers on Afghanistan agree with military commanders that more troops are needed" in Afghanistan. About 110,000 allied soldiers are expected to be in Afghanistan by year's end, more than half of which are American. Public support for the war is also steadily eroding. Fifty-one percent of Americans now think the war was not worth fighting, according to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll.

Will's views on war generally harken back to another era of pre World War II conservative isolationism.

Will is a longtime skeptic of nation building and what he would call Wilsonian idealism abroad. In GOP circles, his column is one more vocal volley against neo-conservative thought, which dominated Washington during George W. Bush's presidency, and comes at a time when the GOP is digesting the extent to which it should champion traditional conservatism in order to recover from W's presidency.

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