This piece is based on a policy paper by Thomas F. Lynch III entitled "The 80 Percent Solution: The Strategic Defeat of bin Laden's al-Qaeda and Implications for South Asian Security," published on February 3, 2012 by the New America Foundation's National Security Studies Program. To read the entire 30-page paper, please click here.

With the death of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, the United States and Western governments scored a major but still underappreciated victory in the nearly decade-and-a-half-old war against al-Qaeda. Bin Laden's death did not eliminate all of the features of al-Qaeda that make it dangerous as a factor in terrorism internationally. Its role in assisting regional jihadist groups in strikes against local governments and by inspiring "lone wolf" would-be martyrs in acts of violence will remain with us for many years.  Yet the manner in which U.S. intelligence and military operatives found and eliminated bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was devastating to three of the five most critical features of bin Laden's al-Qaeda:

• Its legitimacy as a core organization capable of choreographing catastrophic global terrorist events;
• Its brand name rights as the ultimate victor should any of its loosely affiliated Salafi jihadist regional movements ever achieve success in a local insurgency;
• Its ability to claim that it was the base for certain victory - much one able to less reestablish a credible unfettered training area for global jihad - in the area most critical to its own mystical lore: Afghanistan and western Pakistan;

Bin Laden's demise also degraded by half - but did not eliminate - the fourth and fifth elements of al-Qaeda's essence: its role as a "vanguard" of a wider network of Sunni Salafi groups and its ability to serve as a key point of inspiration for "lone wolf" terrorists around the globe. As a consequence, the death of Osama bin Laden has produced an 80 percent solution to the problems that this unique terrorist organization poses for Western policymakers.  

This 80 percent solution has multiple, important implications. Globally, it means that al-Qaeda's growing isolation from alternative, nonviolent approaches to political change in the Muslim world must be reinforced - and is best reinforced - with a deliberate and visible reduction in the U.S. military footprint in Islamic countries worldwide. Washington can best isolate al-Qaeda and limit its ability to reclaim relevance in the struggle for reform in the Islamic world by quietly enabling security forces in Muslim states to counter al-Qaeda affiliates while simultaneously providing judicious and enduring support for Muslim voices for nonviolent political change.

Yet the most immediate implications of this historic development matter to the trajectory of U.S. policy in South Asia.  Bin Laden's demise fundamentally alters the current framework of U.S. and coalition strategy in Afghanistan, and challenges the underpinnings of U.S. policy toward Pakistan.

Al-Qaeda's earliest conception of itself - developed in the late 1980s - included the bedrock function of serving as the base for continuing guerrilla warfare in Afghanistan. Its largely Arab and Egyptian core leadership shared a bond forged in the fight against the Soviet Union and felt the victory over the Soviets in Afghanistan to be of Allah's will and making.  Since late 2001, al-Qaeda has shared with the Afghan Taliban a view that Pakistan is the natural location for vital efforts to free Afghanistan from foreign rule - to validate the victory over the Soviet Union in Afghanistan by another successful guerrilla war.      

At the same time, the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda's core leadership have long diverged in goals and aspirations. These differences were papered over by the personal history between bin Laden and key Afghan Taliban figures - especially the late Younis Khalis, Jalaluddin Haqqani and Mullah Omar.  With bin Laden's death, the glue that papered over these fissures is gone. His personal oath (bay'a) to Mullah Omar has no analog with Ayman al-Zawahiri or the cohort of Egyptians and Libyans now at the helm of al-Qaeda's remaining core elements in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda may continue to drape itself in the Taliban flag and proclaim allegiance to Mullah Omar, but with bin Laden's death the Afghan Taliban faces one stark certainty. While it shares a loose but important Salafi jihadist credo with al-Qaeda, it remains dependent on all manner of support for its insurgency from elements within and beholden to the Pakistani security services.  Afghan Taliban leaders must calculate their futures based upon this dominant reality. As they do, al-Qaeda's ability to repeat its propaganda performance following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan - taking credit for any (unlikely) defeat of the United States or any important role in the (more likely) successes the Taliban may have in carving out political space in the country - will wither rapidly.

Absent bin Laden, the risks of al-Qaeda's return to unfettered sanctuary in Afghanistan or western Pakistan have dropped dramatically, while the risks of a devastating proxy war between India and Pakistan - nuclear armed nations that have fought three shooting wars and indulged in several other martial crises since 1947 -- over their relative positions in Afghanistan continue to grow.  Absent the onset of a stark proxy war between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan, Pakistan's military and intelligence leadership will have very little interest in seeing al-Qaeda again set up shop from which to wage a bloody campaign of international terrorism and will utilize the tools at their disposal to constrain this possibility.

American policy must wake up to the fact that the risks of devastating proxy war between India and Pakistan now dwarf the risks of al-Qaeda's return to unfettered sanctuary and recalibrate its diplomatic energies and military priorities accordingly.  The United States must reduce its present focus on killing off every last al-Qaeda affiliated leader or mid-level Haqqani Network operative in Pakistan and pay far more attention to the factors necessary to inhibit proxy war in Afghanistan: a tense but enduring U.S. diplomatic relationship with Pakistan designed to calm its fears that growing Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) will become an Indian-directed dagger aimed at Pakistan's back, and diplomatic engagement with Pakistan and India on an acceptable political and security framework for Afghanistan into the next decade.  NATO force planners then must devise processes to draw down to the residual  U.S./coalition military stabilization forces necessary to stay on for the rest of the decade, enforce this essential Indo-Pakistani framework agreement, and serve as a buttress against points of friction or violence in Afghanistan that could descend into the chaos of a proxy war conflict.   These vital outcomes will require earnest and difficult negotiations with the Pakistanis, Indians, Afghan Taliban, and northern ethnic groups in Afghanistan.   Negotiations focused on these outcomes have not even begun.   It is time that they do.

Dr. Thomas F. Lynch III is Distinguished Research Fellow for South Asia and the Near East at the Center for Strategic Research, part of the National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies.  The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.

On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta stated that the United States would take a step back from its combat role in Afghanistan by mid-2013.  Newspapers and news shows alike are reporting that this is a major milestone towards ending our decade long war in this troubled country.

This is a significant announcement - but not for the reasons that one might think.

At the strategic level (where heads of state, Foreign Ministers and 4-star generals play), Secretary Panetta's pronouncement will shock no one.  His statement gives voice to what the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) is already doing, namely taking the steps needed to end their mission in Afghanistan on 31 December 2014.  To get from here to there, ISAF will transfer lead security responsibility to the Afghans at the Province and District level in a measured fashion - a process that is already underway.  In other words, NATO is already "pulling back" from combat operations.

Where this statement will have impact is - oddly - at the tactical level, where U.S. Combat Brigade Commanders will be compelled to stop taking the lead in fighting the enemy and instead support their Afghan National Security Force (ANSF) counterparts as they assume battlefield responsibility.

And this is important. It may mean the difference between winning and losing.

Left to their own devices, U.S. Army and Marine Colonels - Brigade Commanders in charge of 3,500 men and often given responsibility for one or more of Afghanistan's 34 Provinces - will relentlessly hunt down the Taliban (or Haqqani Network, etc), only nominally bringing their Afghan partners into the process. 

And why should they?  After all, their bosses usually made them responsible for security, governance, development, and rule of law - rating them on the progress that they make in their "battle space." 

To support the efforts of the ANSF instead would require a Brigade Commander to assume risk, as the ANSF:

- may not be there in great numbers;

- may be lead by corrupt or incompetent leaders;

- may not have the staff or battlefield processes to conduct full scale military, police, and civilian operations across the area of a province;

- may not be exceptionally proficient at military or police operations.

The list goes on and on.

So rather than risk failure (and soldiers hate to fail) many (not all) commanders take on the responsibility of fixing and doing everything themselves.

Don't get me wrong - the Afghans are there - but the weight of success or failure seemingly rests on the back of the U.S. commander.

The problem with this is that if the U.S. Brigade Commander succeeds, he also fails. 

Because in this counterinsurgency, the only way you ever really move towards a "win" is if you enable the Afghans in their efforts to foster security, governance, development and the rule of law in a way that makes their efforts sustainable - meaning that after we leave, the Afghans can secure their gains and hopefully make even more progress.

But to do that, you have to back away and put the ANSF and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) in the lead. You have to let them feel the weight of the responsibility of success or failure.  You cannot do it for them.

And that is why Secretary Panetta's statement is important.

In the coming year, field commanders will be told that their main responsibility is not to ensure that "they" make progress in "their" province, but rather that they support their ANSF and GIRoA counterparts' progress.  U.S. units will go from being supported by the Afghan military to supporting the Afghan military. 

Nuanced? Sort of.  But to a military commander, this results in a change of mission and a change in mindset.

As an example, it will affect how a commander prepares his forces for their mission in Afghanistan. Instead of conducting pre-deployment training that focuses on unilateral or even partnered combat and counterinsurgency operations, the commander will have to get serious about training for Security Force Assistance (SFA), a mission set that involves training, advising and assisting the military and police forces of a Host Nation.

We may even start to see units arrive in Afghanistan that have been cobbled together to conduct SFA.  These units might include officers and enlisted men who speak Dari or Pashtu and are experienced in training Host Nation forces and delivering critical enablers such as air support, medical evacuation and advanced communications.  (Sadly, the spadework necessary to determine what an effective Advisory and Assistance element will look like has not yet been done.  There are some models in practice that are less than optimal; and there are some rather good ideas floating around out there; but the SFA model that will best allow the coalition to manage the transition from combat to an advisory and assistance role has yet to be solidified.  Expect added pressure to the Department of Defense to figure this out in the wake of Secretary Panetta's proclamation.)

To be sure, there are commanders out there who get it.  At the strategic level, General Allen, the Commander of ISAF, and his team certainly do.  And at the tactical level, I can point to old hands like former Task Force Yukon's commander COL Mike Howard and newer ones like Task Force Duke's COL Chris Toner (both of whom patrolled the environs of Khost Province near the Afghan/Pakistan border) who have taken the steps needed to make sure that the Afghans in their area of operations are prepared to take the lead.  But not all have changed the cognitive gears necessary to ensure ANSF and GIRoA success.

So at the end of the day, the Secretary's announcement may not seem like news to a lot of people who live and breathe Afghanistan.  But his statement is welcomed in that it requires a needed change of mindset for those Brigade Commanders who will be tasked with making strategic statements work at the tactical level.

Roger D. Carstens is a retired Special Forces officer who served in Afghanistan from 2009 - 2011 as the Senior Civilian Advisor on the COMISAF Advisory and Assistance Team.

Insurgency and counterinsurgency have become topics of great debate recently. The end of our adventure in Iraq, the drawdown in Afghanistan, and the hovering budget axe have created a perfect storm in the defense establishment as competing worldviews, ideologies, and interests jostle for position in the post-Global War on Terror years. The debate over counterinsurgency has become particularly heated, as various parties not only conduct a postmortem on the tactics and operational art of recent conflicts, but also seek to find closure (and perhaps fault for mistakes made and incredible losses of life and treasure over the last decade). The wounds, real and recent, inject vitriol to the debate.

More importantly, however, the tactical focus of the debate mirrors the incredible myopia of our conduct of these wars. The most astute participants in these debates understand that our errors start and end at the strategic level, but this is often lost in the fray. What are not discussed sufficiently, if at all, are the bureaucratic and political determinants of strategy and policy failure and success. Before arguing about counterinsurgency as a tactic or a strategy, we must first acknowledge a key point: America did not enter any of these wars (going back to Vietnam) as a counterinsurgent or a nation-builder. America entered these wars with ill-defined strategic goals, the result of lowest common denominator bureaucratic negotiations. These goals were not sufficiently thought out, clearly stated, or properly subscribed to by the government writ large, resulting in nearly immediate drift. This fact should point us toward the true roots of the problem.

When it comes to small wars, American national security decision-making institutions predispose the nation to failure. America tends to involve itself in conflicts with insufficient resources and ill-defined aims, expand its commitments based on continually changing policies, and run out of public support before these adventures have run their course. This familiar trajectory has played out most prominently, and tragically in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.  But the model applies to many smaller interventions, such as those in Somalia in the 1990s and Lebanon in the 1980s, as well. This tragic arc results in large part from the interaction between the messy reality of bureaucratic and domestic political wrangling. And while the military professes detachment from politics, military leaders are charged with advocating policy in their role as military advisors to civilian leaders and public figures in an age of immediate, global media coverage. Thus, military plans are created without considering the political realities that will shape their implementation and are doomed to failure once churned through the sausage machine that is government. 

Adding to the confusion is that the barrier to entry in these "small wars" is relatively low.  Combat power stands ready in the form of an unparalleled, standing volunteer military with nearly instant global reach. As long as no significant reserve call-up or economic mobilization is needed, the commander-in-chief is relatively unhindered in committing this force to combat.  Despite the War Powers Act of 1973, the constitutional validity of which no President has ever acknowledged, Presidents have been relatively unhindered in initiating hostilities. At the same time, the widely accepted "end of history" worldview of policy elites of all stripes (here I refer not only to Fukuyama's work, but the much broader legacy reaching back to Hegel, Kant, and even St. Augustine) gives American policy a liberal interventionist bent. This narrative suggests that sovereignty can (and in some cases must) be abrogated in order to set states on the road to liberal democracy and thus a peaceful "end of history." While America's professional volunteer military is removed from politics, its narratives as a "Global Force for Good" and the nation's "Force in Readiness," for example, predispose leaders to liberal interventionist impulses. In any case, when policy-makers ask military advisors what can be done to deal with a given problem, these action-oriented people are loath to say there are no good military options.

Thus, for all the stock elites put in the democratic peace theory, the United States enters small wars by fiat, sidestepping the democratic peace theory's prediction that democracies will eschew war to solve their problems. The President is torn between the dictates of national security, the cautions of domestic politics, and the often expansive outlooks of policy advisors.  The imperative to "do something" is often strong, but so is the imperative to retain freedom of action by keeping the opening gambit low. While the military has an incentive to reduce operational risk by opening as decisively as possible (think "shock and awe"), military leaders are often quite optimistic about their ability to use technology and tactics, especially overwhelming air and missile capabilities, to offset the risk presented by low force levels. Faced with these competing imperatives, the negotiations of the President, the military, Congress, and the other elements of the national security decision-making apparatus result in a lowest common denominator solution.  Despite these constraints, once we cross the Rubicon, decision-makers' mindsets make a switch to a more aggressive, optimistic, and risk-accepting mode: if we are going to implement the plan, we must implement it aggressively and we will prevail.  This implemental mindset results in accepting minimalist options with optimistic assumptions. 

The effect of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 on the diversity of military advice plays into these negotiations, as well. In making the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff the singular voice of military advice to the President, the act made dissent far more difficult. While the legislation specifies that service chiefs may register dissenting opinions, the reality of bureaucratic politics is such that dissent may be unwelcome, especially as people switch into an implemental mindset. Additionally, the act removes the chairman and the Joint Chiefs from the operational chain of command, which runs from the President, through the Secretary of Defense, to the combatant commander. These issues played out in the run-up to war in Iraq in 2003. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Central Command Commander General Tommy Franks were happy with a transformational, light-footprint invasion of Iraq. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Meyers, an Air Force officer, agreed with the "shock and awe" campaign design and its transformational light footprint. Only Gen Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff of the Army, publically disagreed during Congressional testimony, suggesting that a much larger footprint of several hundred thousand troops was required to deal with the aftermath of regime decapitation.  Shinseki's testimony was disavowed by the administration and he soon retired, but subsequent events would suggest that more attention should have been paid to this dissenting view.

Bureaucratic and political factors are driven well into the background when the gravity of the situation and the dictates of core national interest illuminate the way ahead. For example, the attack on Pearl Harbor turned skepticism about U.S. involvement in the Second World War into virtually universal agreement on decisive commitment and, ultimately, unconditional victory. In more peripheral cases, such as Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and other small wars, bureaucratic and political factors are far more likely to be dominant.

What is more, the general public is less informed and aware of the issues surrounding these small wars, leading to passivity. These factors predispose a low level of commitment sold to the public by understating the likely costs and overstating the prospects for success. In small wars, the press transmits this overselling to foreign audiences, severely impairing the messaging required to "win hearts and minds." Almost inevitably, escalation is soon required. The state sheepishly returns to the populace again and again to explain the new way ahead and to ask for more time, more resources, and more patience. This sales method ensures that policies change frequently and desperately, with each shift in course seemingly based on a previous failure. McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, said as much of perceptions of Vietnam policy. There should be little wonder in the fact that the populace begins to lose patience and register its discontent. This, after all, is what the democratic peace theory is all about. Democratic nations are not fond of protracted wars they can avoid.

Once the public begins to wake to the level of commitment being made without their informed consent (it is important here to note that this is not only due to the manipulations of the political class, but to the apathy of a public not invested materially or personally in the wars America has fought recently), the clamor for accountability and withdrawal is inevitable. This adds to the disparate forces pulling policy in different directions and is the root of the now-familiar strategic drift.  While the tactical, cultural, and historical circumstances of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan are quite different, the policy muddle has been quite consistent.

The problem is that even if consensus could be reached regarding how to conduct small wars, these steps would likely not be faithfully implemented. The mistakes we make in these wars, after all, are not for a lack of knowledge, but an inability to produce coherent and logical strategy and policy due to the inherent defects and conflicts in our national security decision-making bureaucracy. In an ideal world, we would be able to use diplomatic and military instruments to predictably manage complex human interactions. Even with perfect institutions and unitary, enlightened decision-making, this would be a questionable prospect at best. Given the inherent tensions built into America's institutions, the ability to successfully wage small wars of peripheral interest is nil. It took months, if not years, for these institutions to admit that America was even facing an insurgency in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan, much less begin to implement a strategy designed to counter the roots of these insurgencies.

Given this analysis, the most logical way to deal with this conundrum is to raise the bar for entry into conflict. If American leadership is forced to make a more honest accounting of the costs, it will enter fewer conflicts. While perceptions of natural interest can be manipulated, those conflicts entered after truly counting the costs are likelier to be of greater interest to the nation, and the nation will, in theory, provide something much closer to the ways and means required to meet the desired ends.

As George Kennan wrote in Foreign Affairs in 1985, "A first step along the path of morality would be the frank recognition of the immense gap between what we dream of doing and what we really have to offer, and a resolve, conceived in all humility, to take ourselves under control and to establish a better relationship between our undertakings and our real capabilities."

Politicians and the American public are today far more acutely sensitive to budgetary issues than they were a decade ago, which may make them more cautious about the propensity of mission creep in the future. However, while this mindset may circumscribe the ways and means, the ends sought are, if anything, more expansive than ever before. The liberal ideals of the postwar order, the quest for the end of history in a utopia of democratic peace, and the imperative of human rights and dignity have policymakers turning more frequently to military force to remake societies and politics. This abrogation of sovereignty in the pursuit of universal ideals harks back to the pre-Westphalian wars of religion, which explains some of the fervor behind conflict today. Strategic thinkers both inside and outside the military must give more consideration to the constraints laid out here, rather than assuming or wishing away their crippling effects. This is not an invitation for the military to become involved in politics, but only to understand and account for how politics will affect their freedom of action. Ignoring these effects is like ignoring the terrain or weather, marching thousands of miles into a barren plain while ignoring the reality that winter is soon to come.

Peter J. Munson is a Marine officer, Editor of Small Wars Journal, and the author of Iraq in Transition: The Legacy of Dictatorship and the Prospects for Democracy. The views here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Marine Corps or Department of Defense.

Audiences around the world were horrified to see the image of Bibi Aisha, a young Afghan girl whose nose had been cut off by her husband and his family, on the cover of an August 2010 issue of TIME Magazine. Western media outlets largely attributed Aisha's case to the Taliban, and portrayed it as a warning ofwhat is to come for Afghan women once the international community withdraws from Afghanistan.  The unfortunate reality is, though, that there are many other cases like hers happening today in Afghanistan, despite the presence and efforts of foreign troops and the international community over the last decade. The most recent case to make headlines was that of 15-year-old Sahar Gul, who had been locked in a basement and tortured for five months by her in-laws, allegedly because she refused efforts to force her into prostitution. These crimes were not perpetrated by the Taliban, but instead some of the most extreme manifestations of domestic violence in Afghanistan.

As former Taliban Minister of Foreign Affairs Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil said to me in an interview a year ago when I asked what he thought about the case of Bibi Aisha: "Even when the West are in Afghanistan, these things are still happening. It seems to me to be a family matter, what happened to this woman."In Afghanistan, everything is a family matter, and familial ties will continueto govern Afghan society long after international troops have left the scene. While attention is focused in Kabul on signing documents ensuring women's political participation and securing women's rights, there is very little trickle down from such progress to the majority of Afghan women living in rural areas. Instead of working from the top down, sustainable progress that can take root in conservative Afghan households can only be made by accepting the realities of rural Afghan society and working within existing cultural boundaries.

Read on

The Pentagon has just quietly released the redacted results of an inquiry into allegations of human rights abuses by U.S.-sponsored armed groups in Afghanistan. They were investigating allegations made in a report I co-authored while working for Human Rights Watch, about the Afghan Local Police (ALP) and other government-backed security forces, Just Don't Call it a Militia, published this past September. It's unusual for NGOs to elicit such a response -- 21 officials spending five weeks in 45 locations -- and tempting to think it signals how seriously they took the report.

Read on

When the U.S. Army and Marine Corps released their FieldManual (FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency, in2006, key military leaders and civilian advisers promised a different kind ofwarfare. Written as Iraq crumbled, the manual institutionalized key tacticaland operational methods that were geared to fighting against irregular armedfoes, rather than the maneuver warfare most of the U.S. military had preferred.The new theory was based around several key principles, including proportionateand precise use of force to minimize civilian casualties, separating insurgentgroups from local populations, protecting populations from the insurgents, theimportance of intelligence-led operations, civil-military unity of effort, andsecurity under the rule of law.

Some of these methods had already been practiced in Iraq byinnovative commanders, but Gen. David Petraeus, who oversaw the process of writingFM 3-24 and later went on to command U.S. forces in the country, was key to theirinstitutionalization and broad implementation in the context of an overalltheater-level strategy.

As President Barack Obama decided to "surge" forces intoAfghanistan in late 2009, former Joint Special Operations Command head Gen.Stanley McChrystal was tasked to follow the Petraeus playbook in Afghanistan.When he was relieved, Petraeus, the man many saw as having helped bringstability to Iraq, was called upon to do it again in Afghanistan. However,success has eluded the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), whichhas been unableto translate operational progress into strategic success. A number oftriumphant obituaries for counterinsurgency have since emerged, as it becomesclear that the campaign in Afghanistan is failing to deliver on its promises.

There are five inter-related drivers of this cauldron ofdiscontent with COIN: First, the rise of counterinsurgency as a standardpractice in the U.S. military left skeptical American officers and institutionswho preferred emphasizing conventional capabilities (large-scale armoredwarfare, for instance) feeling disenfranchised. Second, the common narrative ofthe war in Iraq viewed (and somestill view) Gen. Petraeus as the hero who brought counterinsurgency (andsubsequently stability) to the country. This narrative alienated some officerswho had already been using some counterinsurgency methods effectively beforethe introduction of FM 3-24. Third, among the commentariat, the caustic domestic political divisions from thefirst phase of the Iraq War, divisions that were aggravated in the lead-up tothe Afghan "surge", remain unhealed. Fourth, the military officers and thinktank scholars who became most closely associated with COIN's rise developed apartially-deserved reputation for cliquishness, self-reference, and conceit.And finally, there has been a dearth of clarity on the goals of the Afghancampaign on the policy and strategy levels.

Col. Gian Gentile (who represents the first, second, andfinal strands of anti-counterinsurgency discontent) presents one of his standardarguments in "COINis Dead: U.S. Army Must Put Strategy Over Tactics." He argues the UnitedStates military has failed in Afghanistan and Iraq because it allowed afascination with the tactical and operational methods of COIN to supersedeimplementation of an actual strategy in those conflicts. In fact, looking atoperations in Iraq and Afghanistan for lessons is a fundamentally misguidedventure, he argues. Rather, we can only view our experiences of the lastdecade as lessons in failure and return to embracing our conventionalcapabilities.

Others are preoccupied with the political battles behind counterinsurgency.Michael Cohen, a vocal critic ofthe war in Afghanistan, refusesto acknowledge that counterinsurgency lessons are worth keeping andinstitutionalizing until advocates of the population-centric approach inAfghanistan "loudly acknowledge - indeed even shout to the hills - that everytime someone recommends fighting a counterinsurgency this is [a] really,really, really bad idea...." This seems akin to arguing that we cannot updateour doctrine on nuclear warfare, expeditionary warfare, and other capabilitiesthat are far more costly until we "shout to the hills" that to use these wouldbe a "really, really, really bad idea." Advocates of maintaining counterinsurgencycapabilities have been happyto acknowledgethese campaigns tendto be long, hard slogs, but Mr. Cohen's criticism does not address the military'sneed to be able to adapt to contingencies as ordered. We cannot wish away theagency of our enemies.

Still others see those who support counterinsurgency's place inthe toolbox of American power as being part of a new "military-industrialcomplex." Major Mike Few, an armor officer (like Colonel Gentile) and editor ofSmall Wars Journal, arguesthat some think tanks and defense contractors have formed a "cottage industry"that champions counterinsurgency for ego and profit at the cost of "trillionsof dollars, thousands of lives and abandoned security projects elsewhere thatcould have benefited our republic exponentially more..."

For one thing, the weaponssystems, equipment, and capabilities necessary for modern "conventional"campaigns are far more costly and more lucrative for defense contractors (the2009 defense industry-subsidized congressional debateabout the F-22 reminded the world that the original military-industrialcomplex is alive, well, and costing the U.S. taxpayer for over-budget,malfunctioning weapons systems of questionable utility). Further, the use ofconventional capabilities against a major power may well take more militarylives than those we have lost in Iraq andAfghanistan. But this aside, our abilities to conduct counterinsurgencyoperations and major combat operations are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, aspeople like Maj. Few understand, John Nagl's Centerfor a New American Security -- the unnamed bogeyman in his critique andothers -- did not decide to go to war in Iraq or Afghanistan. Nagl was merely oneof many in the U.S. Armed Forces who sought to make the campaigns of twoconsecutive Commanders-in-Chief work.

Indeed, the debate surrounding counterinsurgency has becomehighly personal, emotional, and angry. This has been most recently demonstratedby the snideand personalrejoindersto a recent articleteasing out the lessons of Iraq by Dr.David Ucko of the National Defense University. Increasingly for somecritics of counterinsurgency, their opponents are not just wrong, but immoralliars. Yet for all of the heat this debate, it has produced little substantivediscussion of the future of counterinsurgency after the wars in Iraq andAfghanistan, or more broadly the appropriate uses of limited funds andmanpower.

Before declaring the death of counterinsurgency and maligningthose who see value in some of its precepts, analysts should ask if insurgencyis dead. Indeed, the most significant failure of these anti-COIN arguments istheir shared focus on the response to a problem -- counterinsurgency tacticsand strategy -- at the expense of the problem itself. None of these articlesproclaim that "insurgency is dead" because to do so would be absurd. Insurgencylives, and has proven itself throughout history as the best means by which tooppose established political and military power. AsAndrew Exum recently observed, about 80 percent of all conflicts since theend of the Napoleonic Era have been insurgencies or civil wars. Futureinsurgencies are all-but-certain to challenge American interests to the pointthat our civilian political leadership will need to decide if our military willbecome involved in countering them. And if insurgency lives, then so must counterinsurgency.

Critics also make the mistake of particularizing a form of counterinsurgencydesigned during a specific historical period meant to counter a distinctiveform of insurgency known as popularprotracted warfare. If anything, the key failure of counterinsurgency inthe past decade has been the myopic view of the military and key counterinsurgencyproponents that counterinsurgency could only take the form advocated byscholar-practitioners like the French officer David Galula (who developed histheories in Asia before implementing them in Algeria) and the British officerSir Robert Thompson in Malaysia, who were both grappling with different, lessevolved forms of violent struggle than what we have seen in Iraq andAfghanistan. Thus, for critics to proclaim the death of counterinsurgencymakes them guilty of the same error that they often pin on their opponents: relyingon an expired intellectual framework.  

The real question is: what form will American counterinsurgencytake in the future? It seems reasonable to argue that "big footprint," "population-centric"counterinsurgency is dead, but "small footprint" counterinsurgency that focuseson security force assistance, Special Operations, and/or foreign internaldefense lives on (see Yemen,the Philippines,and Somalia).But is it really inconceivable that we will ever again conduct another large-scalepopulation-centric counterinsurgency campaign? Those who think it impossible mightconsider how the United States would respond to violence spilling over theborder from catastrophic state failure and humanitarian crisis in Mexico, forinstance.

As always, our choices will be structured by the agency ofour competitors. Therefore, we would be foolish to avoid learning the tacticaland operational as well as the policyand strategic lessons of the last ten years. We must maintain our capabilities and competencies for counterinsurgency,if only because history has shown that they will come in handy again.

How we do this is what we mustdebate and discuss.

Ryan Evans is anassociate fellow at the International Centre for the Study ofRadicalisation and Political Violence and served in Helmand Province, Afghanistan as a Human Terrain TeamSocial Scientist. The views and opinions expressed here do not represent those of theDepartment of the Army, Training and Doctrine Command, or the Human TerrainSystem.

At the International Afghanistan Conference in Bonn, Germanylast week, 85 countries affirmed their commitment to Afghanistan for the decadefollowing the 2014 transition, and highlighted gains over the past 10 years inthe areas of security, women's rights and the capacity of governmentinstitutions. They also acknowledged the reversible nature of this progress, aswell as the significant work left to be accomplished. Previousdiscussions on Afghanistanwithin the international community have exclusively addressed the transitionperiod between now and 2014. This conference introduced the concept of a muchneeded blueprint for the years following the transition: the "transformation decade"of 2015-2024. This blueprint details two initial milestones: the May 2012 NATOsummit in Chicago, where an announcement is anticipated regarding long-term AfghanNational Security Force funding (ANSF), and a July 2012 conference in Japan, wheremore details regarding international economic support will be announced. Thoughthe December 5 Bonn conference, eclipsed in part by Pakistan'slast minute withdrawal, fell short of announcing major breakthroughs in thepeace process (against high expectationscreated by Bonn 2001), it was an important first step in acknowledging themagnitude of the task that remains unfinished. Now that we have affirmed our longterm commitment in spirit, tangible demonstrations are essential in order tobuild momentum and avoid the perception of empty promises. The internationalcommunity and Afghanistanshould proceed to the next step of defining the first concrete details in theblueprint's foundation. 

As the 2011 Bonn conferenceconclusions stated, "this renewed partnership between Afghanistan and theInternational Community entails firm mutual commitments in the areas ofgovernance, security, the peace process, economic and social development andregional cooperation." The United States should demonstrate this long-termcommitment to Afghanistan in the form of a formal strategic partnershipendorsed by both nations and announced as soon as possible.  It should reflect planned troop reductions (33,000by the end of summer 2012), but maintain U.S. advisory and counterterrorismcapabilities beyond 2014, through the next Afghan political administration in2019. This force would sustain the tempo of counterterrorist operations andprovide professional advice and enablers to the Afghan army and police. Itshould number 10,000 to 25,000 personnel and could be reduced as the ANSFdemonstrate their post-transition competence through the 2014 elections andinto the next political administration. U.S. personnel numbers could alsobe reduced by coalition contributions. Counterterrorist operations should focuson al-Qaeda's attempts to relocate in remote areas of Afghanistan, aswell as target the leadership of insurgent groups who refuse to reconcile andcontinue to challenge the stability of the government. Advisory and enablingforces should focus on the professional development and training of the Afghanarmy and police, as well as their effective performance in the field. 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,in her openingremarks at Bonn stated: "...the United Statesis prepared to stand with the Afghan people, but Afghans themselves must alsomeet the commitments they have made, and we look forward to working with themto embrace reform, lead their own defense, and strengthen their democracy."Afghans should consider improving their government by empoweringprovincial-level authorities and reducing corruption. Both measures areessential to the condition-setting that must take place prior to seriousnegotiations with insurgents. Each province should be granted the right toselect its own governor and to employ independent fiscal, legislative, andconflict resolution powers. Provincial government employees should be hiredfrom within the province and should answer to provincial leaders. Internationalfinancial aid for projects like medical clinics, roads, schools and electricityshould be funneled directly to the provinces in order to create rapid publicsupport. These measures, over time, would bring the power and resources of thegovernment to parts of the country where Kabul'sleadership is viewed as corrupt and incompetent as a result of nepotism,cronyism and its management of funds.  Atthe same time, anti-corruption efforts from within the government must beintensified. Afghans should enact laws consistent with The Afghan NationalAnti-Corruption Strategy.  Continuedcoalition and international assistance through this decade in the form ofadvice, investigation, and prosecution is essential. More effective localgovernance and courts would also serve to undermine the appeal of localconflict resolution currently offered by insurgents.

Some reforms empowering provincialand district governance have already been planned. In the spring of 2010, theAfghan Government's Independent Directorate of Local Governance published its Sub-nationalGovernance Policy. This policy is comprehensive and, if resourced,supported, and given time, would significantly enhance the contribution oflocal government to Afghan quality of life. This will take time and require thecontinued commitment of the UnitedStates and the coalition to educate Afghancivil servants. This policy appropriately calls for and schedules elections ofprovincial, district, and village councils and should be modified toincorporate the election of provincial and district governors. Should Afghansdesire these measures, the constitution would have to be modified through theassembly of a constitutional loya jirga. This initiative could be a part of Afghanistan'snational dialogue in the run-up to the 2014 election and perhaps lead to apost-election loya jirga. 

Without U.S.and international commitment through the end of this decade, Afghanistan will likely fall backinto the civil war it experienced in the early 1990s. As fighting spreads, India and Pakistan will back their Afghanproxies and the conflict could intensify. This situation would not only createopportunities for safe haven for extremists, but also invite a confrontationbetween adversarial and nuclear-armed states. The potential for such an outcomeruns counter to U.S.and coalition interests.

Bonn 2001 began a journey toward Afghanistan'sstability and representative government that has demanded great sacrifice byAfghans, Americans, and other members of the coalition. Bonn 2011 continues thejourney and acknowledges the requirement for long term international commitmentand Afghan resolve. The journey has come far from its humble beginning, butrequires sustained international support and American leadership to remain oncourse.

COL Mark Fields is aMilitary Fellow at the Center for Strategic Research, part of National DefenseUniversity's Institute for National Strategic Studies.  He has served in Afghanistan and is theauthor of "AReview of the 2001 Bonn Conference and Application to the Road Ahead inAfghanistan." The views expressed are his alone, and do not necessarilyrepresent those of National Defense University, the Department of Defense, orthe U.S. Government.

You would think that, after ten long and bloody years, there would be little new the Afghan war could offer in terms of brutality. But Tuesday's twin suicide strikes on Shi'a Muslim processions in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, leaving 58 dead and more than a hundred wounded, marks an unprecedented insurgent assault on civilians. Never before in the current war have Afghanistan's Shi'a been deliberately targeted, and rarely has an attack been so completely devoid of a military target.

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After a week of delay, as anger against the United Statesmounted inside Pakistan over the November 26 attack by U.S. forces that killedtwo officers and 22 soldiers of the Pakistani army at border posts Volcano andBoulder in Mohmand agency, the President of the United States finally enteredthe picture directly. He called Pakistan on Sunday to express his sorrow atthis incident that is threatening to take the teetering Pakistan-U.S. allianceoff the precipice. According to the White House:

Earlier today the President placed a phone call to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to personally express his condolences on the tragic loss of twenty-four Pakistani soldiers this past week along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The President made clear that this regrettable incident was not a deliberate attack on Pakistan and reiterated the United States' strong commitment to a full investigation. The two Presidents reaffirmed their commitment to the U.S.-Pakistan bilateral relationship, which is critical to the security of both nations, and they agreed to stay in close touch.

About time, many would say, that the President got involvedin saving this relationship. The signaling effect of his personal interventionis huge, especially since it follows a "business as usual" approach to thepromised investigation up until now. The U.S. Central Command had said it wouldtake threeweeks to produce a report on this incendiary incident that has led to theformal closing of the ground line of communication into Afghanistan and theremoval of U.S. personnel from Shamsi air base in Balochistan -- a delay thatallowed the wounds to festerinside Pakistan.

But why did President Obama call President Asif Ali Zardariand not Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani? Pakistan has had a parliamentarysystem of government since April 8, 2010, when President Zardari was reducedto a mere constitutional figurehead. Prime Minister Gilani now heads thegovernment, and indeed has been the point-man in denouncing the United Statesin the days following the Mohmand attack. He should have been the one thatPresident Obama called. By calling President Zardari, President Obama may havebeen led to the source of political power in the Pakistan Peoples Party towhich both Zardari and Gilani belong. A pragmatic move perhaps in light ofZardari's tight hold over the party he took over from his murdered wife BenazirBhutto, but also one that downgrades the prime minister. This call will likelybe seen in the eyes of many Pakistanis as a snub of their constitutionalsystem.  By this logic, they might ask,would President Obama call President Pratibha Patil or Mrs. Sonia Gandhi inIndia rather than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh?

The United States has been trying to forge a long-term andconsistent relationship with Pakistan during the Obama administration. But 2011has been the annus horribilis betweenthese two estranged allies. The Pakistani government has used the recent attackto stoke public anger and garner support for its tough stance against theUnited States, partly to counter the power and prestige of the military in thepublic's eyes. The feedback loop created by government and the army's own toughlanguage against the United States will make it difficult for either to resilefrom its position. The signaling effect of President Obama's call to thePresident of Pakistan and not to the Prime Minister may well magnify thatdivide and be felt in Pakistani politics and on the street, where every nuanceof words coming out of the White House is parsed and debated.

Recall that President Zardari's personal popularity has beensinking, and with it his ability to affect public opinion in Pakistan. The PewGlobal Survey of June 2011 had his popularity at 11 percent. A later GallupPakistan poll of July 2011 had his negative rating 39 percent. Gilani cameout better, with 29 percent negativity rating overall, but also in the red. Inthe same Gallup survey, the Pakistan army got an approval rating of 15 percentin fighting terrorism. But the people of Pakistan also gave it a negativerating of 12 percent in running the country and a 3 percent negative rating inits political activities. Yet the military seems to be calling the shots onforeign policy, especially after its recent losses at the hands of U.S. forces.

If the United States is to mend its relations with Pakistan,it must recognize the need to heed the wishes of the people of Pakistan and toconnect with them more than the political leaders who appear to have lost theconfidence of their citizens. Turning back the clock to the Musharraf regime,when the President of Pakistan was the be-all end-all of decision making, isnot the best move. President Obama can retrieve the situation by acceleratingthe investigation into the November 26 attack and sharing credible evidencewith Pakistan of what happened and why. And, if it turns out that it was amistake on the part of the coalition and U.S. forces that caused the tragedy atVolcano and Boulder, an apology would be in order. Better that than having toput together a new policy for the troubled South Asian region without Pakistan.

Shuja Nawaz isdirector of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC

On December 5, an international conference on Afghanistan will open in Bonn, Germany, 10 years after the first Bonn conference set up the political system that would help govern Afghanistan for the next decade. The AfPak Channel asked a group of experts and practitioners what should have been done at Bonn 10 years ago, what might happen at this conference, and what Afghanistan needs in the future.

-- Peter Bergen and Andrew Lebovich

• Eklil Hakimi, Building on the past, securing the future
• Karl F. Inderfurth and Chinmaya R. Gharekhan, No more proxy wars in Afghanistan
• Omar Samad, The problems and promise of Bonn II
• Scott Worden, The elephants in the room at Bonn
• Francesc Vendrell, A decade of mistakes
• Caroline Wadhams and Brian Katulis, The big loser at Bonn will be Pakistan
• Barbara J. Stapleton, Afghanistan's bleak horizon
• Daud Khattak, Calling Pakistan's boycott bluff
• Khalid Mafton, Much ado about nothing

In response to a NATO airstrike on a Pakistani border outpost last week in which 24 Pakistani soldiers troops were killed, the Pakistani government announced that it would boycott Monday's conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, Germany. This announcement set off a flurry of diplomacy aimed at bringing Pakistan back to the table -- and at the time this article is published, it remains unclear whether Pakistan will change its mind. 

Pakistan has a clear interest in demonstrating its powerful role in determining Afghanistan's future and publicly signaling the costs it can exact on the United States if continued unilateral military action -- intentional or otherwise -- continues on its territory. But its decision to disengage from the multilateral effort carries risks for Pakistani interests in Afghanistan and worldwide, beyond the confines of Bonn. 

The conference, which aims to bring together more than 100 countries, is being held approximately ten years after the first major post-conflict conference in Bonn in 2002, which laid the groundwork for the current Afghan state. The odds of any breakthrough at the conference, with or without Pakistani participation, were already slim, and its agenda and objectives remain unclear. A series of recent diplomatic and political initiatives at various levels -- inside Afghanistan, in the region, and at the international level, are not as interlinked as they could be to produce tangible results. 

Conference planners have hoped to provide a forum for countries to demonstrate their long-term commitment to Afghanistan, to coordinate a regional economic integration plan -- the so-called "New Silk Road strategy" -- and to discuss a political settlement for Afghanistan. Taliban representation at the meeting was vetoed early on by President Karzai, however, and the conference now appears to be largely about countries making statements in support of Afghanistan, but without ponying up concrete pledges. 

The absence of Pakistan will further diminish the chance of meaningful outcomes at Bonn.  While Pakistan's ability to deliver insurgent groups to a peace process remains untested, it possesses significant spoiler powers both for a political settlement and regional economic integration through its ongoing support for Taliban insurgents and ability to curtail significant trade with Afghanistan. With the exception of Afghanistan itself (whose current political system remains highly centralized and not amenable to reforms that could entice insurgent reconciliation), Pakistan, more than any other country, has an ability to determine whether Afghanistan can experience long-term peace or war.

Pakistan is playing a risky game by sitting out the Bonn talks, however. First, it fuels an increasingly strong impression among leaders in the United States, Afghanistan and other countries that Pakistan is not a constructive player in Afghanistan and that it should be confronted directly rather than accommodated. While the deaths of the soldiers in Mohmand is a tragedy, the deaths of American and Afghan soldiers fighting Pakistan's proxies is no less so, and mistrust of Pakistan is already high in both the U.S. Congress and Afghan public opinion. If Pakistan chooses to remove itself from constructive discussions about how to fashion a political settlement in Afghanistan, it may find those discussions dominated by arguments for a containment and isolation strategy of Pakistan worldwide.  

Moreover, the breakdown of Bonn would strengthen the argument for rapid disengagement from the mission in Afghanistan, which is increasingly seen as a futile and expensive endeavor with little hope of progress. Publics around the world, especially in Europe and the United States, are increasingly opposed to pouring more money and lives into an endless quagmire. Because most analysts and policymakers see Pakistan as being essential for long-term peace in Afghanistan, Pakistan's rejection of Bonn makes prospects of failure appear even more likely, and thus the patience for engagement less. 

For Pakistanis, a complete breakdown of the Afghan state and all-out civil war may be more dangerous than the status quo; rapid international withdrawal and dramatic funding cuts will increase the risk of both. Afghanistan's instability has long-term security implications for Pakistan, including large refugee flows and growing security vacuums where militant groups can operate. The Pakistanis have already complained that Pakistani insurgent groups are using Afghan territory to increase their attacks on Pakistani soil; this would only increase if chaos were to ensue on Pakistan's border following the international withdrawal. 

The Pakistani absence from an international forum also prevents them from presenting a set of demands or engagingin a constructive dialogue on Afghanistan. Pakistan has real concerns about the coordination of military operations in Afghanistan, that military operations are not synched with a diplomatic strategy, that Pashtuns are not sufficiently represented within the current power structure in Afghanistan, and that India is utilizing Afghan territory to advance their strategic interests. But ceding the debate to other actors, most of whom have less at stake in Afghanistan than the Pakistanis, will be to the detriment of Pakistani interests in the region.   

It is also not clear that their leverage is advanced by such a maneuver. The Obama administration has already elevated Pakistan's centrality in its strategy toward Afghanistan. It has argued that Pakistan is one of the main players in Afghanistan, reducing its pressure on the Pakistanis to mount direct military operations against insurgents based in the frontier areas while asking for their assistance in bringing them to the negotiating table. It has pushed back against Congressional calls to isolate Pakistan further and made the case for engagement, not isolation. But the administration's strategic patience with Pakistan, already strained by mutual mistrust, is not unlimited.

While the Pakistanis have legitimate concerns about the Mohmand attack, taking the ball and walking off the field does not assist them in advancing their desired future in Afghanistan and the region. Rather than presenting a strategy in opposition to NATO, the United States and the 100 countries that are attending, the Pakistanis would be wise to clarify their demands and outline concrete steps that would assuage their fears and advance their interests. Bonn could have been an opportunity for such a presentation; instead it has been used as another way to obstruct. 

Caroline Wadhams and Brian Katulis are Senior Fellows at the Center for American Progress.

1. While the upcoming Bonn conference on Afghanistan coincides with the ten-year anniversary of the Bonn Agreement that formally ended the Afghan conflict and formed the basis for a new Afghan government in 2001, its sponsors have spent the past several months stressing that it is neither an assessment of the past ten years, nor a forum for a "Bonn II Agreement" to end the current insurgency. This downplaying of expectations is appropriate, given the recent setbacks to the peace process. But this changed set of goals does not diminish the need for both an honest assessment of how the Bonn Agreement has fared for Afghanistan and a path toward a political settlement that would address its deficiencies.

   Read on

Starting Monday, 85 countries and 15 international organizations will gather in Bonn, Germany, to mark the 10^th anniversary of the international conference that convened after the overthrow of the Taliban government. This convening provides an important opportunity to remove Afghanistan as a pawn from the region's chess board.

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After spending last month in Afghanistan on my fourth trip this year, the situation can best be described as a glass half full. A multifaceted effort in the south, led by a "surge" of U.S. and Afghan troops, has increased security in the southern Pashtun heartland this year. But a steady drumbeat of high-profile attacks, including a brazen assault on the U.S. embassy and assassinations of key Afghan officials, has had an outsized impact on the population by eroding already weak confidence in the Afghan government and the forces supporting it. As I was ending my trip with a few days in Kabul, an SUV packed with 700 kilos of explosives rammed an armored "Rhino" bus, killing a dozen Americans and inflicting horrific burns on others in a targeted, planned attack reminiscent of the worst days in Baghdad. The U.S. military has adopted the line that these "spectacular attacks" are in fact signs of the Taliban's weakness, and points instead to a notable decline in the number of enemy initiated attacks.

But numbers matter less than perception in these wars -- and shaping perception is precisely how terrorist groups fight and win. The dominant narrative in Afghanistan is: the Americans are leaving, the government is weak, the Taliban is still strong, and Pakistan is the problem. And though the details of the cross-border NATO bombardment Saturday, which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, are still murky, it will undoubtedly send U.S.-Pakistan relations into a further downward spiral. Unless the reality underlying these perceptions about the United States in the region are addressed, sustainable momentum on the government side cannot be generated. The U.S. surge may have started to turn around the momentum that is currently favoring the Taliban, but Afghan political and military actions are required to create a perception -- and the reality -- that the Afghan government is capable of surviving and prevailing. Addressing several factors bedeviling the Afghan campaign between now and next summer, when the traditional fighting season resumes and more troops go home, might turn perception and thus momentum in the Afghan government's favor. Six are most critical:

Promptly reaching a strategic partnership agreement in which the United States pledges to continue providing security and economic assistance after 2014 could go a long way toward reducing Afghan fears of abandonment. The U.S. and Afghan governments have been negotiating such an agreement for over a year, and the general idea of a partnership (albeit with a 10-year limit on American forces in Afghanistan after 2014) was approved at President Hamid Karzai's Loya Jirga this week; both sides hope to finalize it before the Bonn summit next month. The sticking points are night raids, which Karzai would like to end, and the transfer of detainees to Afghan control, despite a recent U.N. report cataloguing abusive practices in Afghan intelligence detention centers. The first issue can be postponed or finessed, but the United States is bound by international convention not to turn over detainees if it believes they will be tortured or mistreated. In the run-up to the Bonn Conference, Karzai will hopefully stay focused on the need to reassure Afghans of ongoing U.S. support and assistance as coalition troop levels decline over the coming years.

Forging a common front with his main backer, the United States, would help Karzai repair some of the image of weakness that plagues his government. Veteran U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)'s top commander Gen. John Allen have worked hard to "reset" the relationship with Karzai since they arrived this summer. One of his frequent interlocutors notes that Karzai "is exhausted, and he knows he is irritable and unpredictable." Nader Nadery, a commissioner of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, chides Karzai for his "lack of firmness. There is no clarity on where he stands." And, like many Afghans I spoke to, Nadery sees the president's tolerance of corrupt activity as a major weakness. Yet despite these failings, many Afghans I've talked to still see him as currently the only leader who can balance the myriad rivalries and swirling tensions that beset Afghan national politics, in particular the concern that Tajik leaders may be girding for an all-out civil war once the U.S. departs. The assassination of former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, the Tajik head of Karzai's High Peace Council, significantly ratcheted up those concerns.

Afghan security forces need to move demonstrably into the lead. The U.S. plans to push Afghan forces out front in more and more operations, if only to determine just how ready they are to take the lead and where the weak links are. To get them ready, U.S. forces must make partnering with and mentoring their Afghan partners its top priority, which it is not. By the military's own count in the latest DOD report mandated by Congress, 95 Afghan units in critical areas have no coalition partner whatsoever, and many others are only loosely mentored.

Afghans will have to step up if the three stated objectives of the military campaign are to be accomplished -- namely, to secure the south, the populated corridor along Highway One up to Kabul, and key areas of the east, especially the crucial provinces of Paktia, Paktika, and Khost. The south has been greatly stabilized over the past year, but the job is not yet done. I spent ten days in Kandahar province, where the longtime Taliban strongholds of Zhari, Panjwayi and Maiwand are still heavily contested. Returning from Maiwand, which is mostly still Taliban dominated, I passed through the Panjwayi district center, where a car bomb detonated a short while later. We stopped in Kandahar city for dinner -- one of the few times I have been with a U.S. military unit that felt comfortable dining at night in an Afghan city. The company commander ordered roast chickens, pilaf and delicious nan bread for all his men, and we picnicked amid the city's bustling nightlife, surrounded by curious Afghan men and children. Yet that reality coexisted with a frontal assault, hours earlier, on the Kandahar provincial reconstruction team, located just across from the provincial governor's office.

The current priority is to expand the security bubble beyond Kabul to Wardak, Logar and then Ghazni and Zabul provinces, thus securing the country's major highway all the way down to Kandahar. After that, the campaign plans to shift to the east, but it needs to tightly focus on the key population areas. There is a danger of focusing too much on sparsely populated provinces and neglecting the Khost to Gardez corridor, which has a large population and has been both an insurgent stronghold and transit route from the beginning of the war. Attempting to cut every ratline in the country is a sure fire way to fritter away forces. The only way that the campaign objectives can be achieved is if coalition forces focus on the important areas, and if Afghan security forces take more of the lead.

The expanding self-defense initiative may increase security. Security out in the countryside, where the insurgency is based, is starting to get a lift from the year-old Afghan Local Police program, but it is too early to judge the net effect of the program. It now has 8,500 recruits, mostly farmers who have volunteered and been trained to do checkpoint security and patrols in their villages. I've visited a half dozen of the 57 sites, where Special Operations Forces train and mentor the ALP and work with the district police chief, who is the Afghan official charged with their formal command and control, as well as providing them with salaries, trucks, weapons and ammunition. The program, strongly backed by ISAF, is funded and approved to grow to 30,000 in 100 districts, but the painstaking process of gaining community support and ensuring that the government exercises proper oversight means it will be another year or more before the program is fully implemented.

Thus far, RAND quarterly assessments done for the Special Operations Forces command in Afghanistan say that the program is broadly supported by local residents and that security in the sites has improved. The principal concern expressed by the program's critics is that these small groups (limited to 300 per district) will become militias, which historically have been armies of 30,000 or more under the command of a single warlord. The ALP program aims to prevent that by creating a strong link to district and provincial police chiefs from the outset. A recent Human Rights Watch Report catalogued allegations of abuse, disputes and ethnic tensions in some areas, although U.S. officials dispute some of the claims, which are under official investigation.

The ALP program features greater oversight and vetting mechanisms than earlier similar efforts, but continuing vigilance is necessary, as with all security forces. The Special Forces team in Maiwand told me about an ALP member who went AWOL, and along with his brother, started holding up cars for bribes on Highway One, the highway linking Kandahar to Kabul. The Taliban shot him dead. ALP commanders have fired numerous members they feel are not up to snuff. One of the sites, in Baghlan, is a unique case in that the Afghan government asked SOF to form a local police unit out of former insurgents from the small Hezb-e Islami faction; insurgents are not the recruiting base for ALP, unlike the Sons of Iraq program. The tensions in the area are increased by the fact that the area is a pocket of Pashtuns surrounded by a larger Tajik population. The Afghan interior ministry official who has national oversight of the program, Brig. Gen. Ali Shah Ahmadzai, told me that he has put the ALP commander, who is under investigation, on notice that he will be arrested "if he does not behave."

Promises to rural Afghans should be moderated but honored. The reality is that the dysfunctional Afghan bureaucracy cannot deliver funds to individual provinces, let alone the district level where 76 percent of the Afghan population ekes out a subsistence living. At present, most district governments are fig leafs for the distribution of international aid projects. I sat in the Khas Kunar district governor's office as he talked to the provincial governor's secretary about getting funds for a backhoe to dig out canals damaged in recent floods. A U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) official had suggested he seek to tap the $25,000 "performance based" fund that USAID provides each month to provincial governors. The district governor smiled and nodded as the conversation concluded, then turned to us and said, "It will take a year for the necessary paperwork and to get approval from Kabul." Yet there has been progress - in many areas district governors did not even visit, let alone live in, their districts last year. Many areas have now been pacified sufficiently for them to return. During the week I spent in Maiwand, I saw the governor preside over four meetings, although he still returns to Kandahar city each weekend where his family lives. Prioritizing needs is essential, since USAID funds and staff are slated to decline significantly, and the civilian state-building effort will focus on the provincial level rather than the districts. The district delivery program, for example, will end next year after reaching only 45 of the country's 398 districts. This program, which supports training and salary increases for district officials, is current under way in only 12 districts. A number of civilian officials and nongovernmental organizations believe dispute resolution, primarily through the traditional local mediation practices system, should be the highest priority in conflict-ridden areas where land and other disputes often fuel insurgent violence.

Pakistan is the glaring problem that has dramatically worsened and must be addressed. A senior U.S. official in Kabul declared flatly to me, "We will not succeed unless the Pakistan safe havens are reduced." He does not believe Pakistan will come around, despite countless U.S. pleas for more action. Pakistan balks at getting tough on the Afghan insurgent groups that are the central cards in its hedging strategy -- particularly the deadly Haqqani network, based in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal agency. And U.S. officials recognize that an assault into the agency simply is not going to happen.

The United States and Afghanistan will have to neutralize the threat from Waziristan through their own efforts, and indeed these efforts have stepped up dramatically. Operation Knife Edge rounded up many Haqqani operatives last month. A senior Haqqani facilitator, Mali Khan, was nabbed as he crossed the border, and another, Janbaz Zadran, was killed by a suspected CIA drone attack on October 13. During the week I spent in Paktika, U.S. forces dropped 33,000 pounds of bombs on the border to close mountain passes that the insurgents use. A U.S. commander there pointed out a dozen "POOs" or points of origin, of artillery or rockets fired from Pakistan into Afghanistan. They were all within sight of Pakistani Frontier Corps outposts - leaving little doubt about active or passive support for militants among some Pakistani forces. U.S. and Afghan forces are under direct attack from Pakistani territory, and Lieutenant General Curtis Scaparrotti assured me that when they take "effective" fire, U.S. forces shoot back. The dilemma, however, is that Pakistan holds a critical trump card, as it demonstrated this week by its ability to close major commercial crossings in retaliation for Saturday's cross-border strike. When I visited that part of the border area last month, Special Forces soldiers told me that an insurgent camp near the two border posts was a major source of attacks in the region.

If the Afghan and U.S. governments can agree on a common plan, backed by a lower but sustainable level of U.S. troops, they just might start winning the battle of perceptions. Given the insurgents' lack of popularity -- they rely on intimidation -- the Afghan government should be able to prevail in either defeating the insurgency or forcing them into a political accommodation if the United States remains willing to lend a hand. It might take five or ten years. But the alternative is not a pretty one to contemplate: the U.S. departs, Afghanistan crumbles, and the war fought to avenge the 9/11 attacks is perceived to be a failure. As I wrote in my last book on the Iraq war, Americans need to be prepared for wars to last a decade. The Afghan war, which the United States attempted to fight largely through a counterterrorism approach for the first seven years, has only begun in earnest in the last three. There is a third choice between the current large-scale U.S. counterinsurgency campaign and reverting to a counter-terrorism approach, and that is an Afghan-led counterinsurgency effort that that the United States can support in a sustainable way.

Linda Robinson is Adjunct Senior Fellow for U.S. National Security and Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is writing a book on the war in Afghanistan.