It looks like the White House is circling in on a new strategy in Afghanistan that focuses on protecting major population centers like Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz, Herat, Jalalabad, and a few other large villages.
If endorsed, it would adopt the major elements of General McChrystal’s proposed counterinsurgency strategy, albeit on a more limited scale that perhaps acknowledges that 40,000 additional troops aren’t enough to effectively pacify the entire country. Or, as the New York Times put it:
At the heart of this strategy is the conclusion that the United States cannot completely eradicate the insurgency in a nation where the Taliban is an indigenous force — nor does it need to in order to protect American national security. Instead, the focus would be on preventing Al Qaeda from returning in force while containing and weakening the Taliban long enough to build Afghan security forces that would eventually take over the mission.
This strategy would certainly prevent the Taliban from regaining control of the country, thereby denying al Qaeda the petri dish it needs to reconstitute an ability to attack the U.S.
Furthermore, this is a realistic approach about what we can achieve, even with increased — but finite — resources. It may simply not be a sensible use of resources to deploy tens of thousands of American forces to Helmand, a massive southern province that has 20 percent of the land, but only three percent of the population.
However, the fundamental question is whether this strategy effectively cedes control over large swaths of the country to the Taliban where al Qaeda elements could re-enter and rebuild its abilities. One senior administration addressed that point, saying, “We are not talking about surrendering the rest of the country to the Taliban.”
But under this scenario in Helmand, field commanders would compensate for the lack of a full-time troop presence by keeping pressure on insurgents with drone strikes, aided by intelligence from local populations about pockets of Taliban. But by ceding control to the Taliban, we could be alienating the local population — the eyes and ears necessary to target the drones.
And finally, a potential side effect of protecting select urban areas is that as the only stable regions, they might be flooded by rural villagers that don’t want to live under the Taliban. Would this increase the burden on troops to the point that their presence has diminishing returns as the cities swell with refugees?
Consider me cautiously optimistic, but nervous.
