America will best serve its interests in Afghanistan and the region by shifting to a new strategy of off-shore balancing, which relies on air and naval power from a distance, while also working with local security forces on the ground. The reason for this becomes clear when one examines the rise of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan in recent years.
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Then, in 2005, the United States and NATO began to systematically extend their military presence across Afghanistan. The goals were to defeat the tiny insurgency that did exist at the time, eradicate poppy crops and encourage local support for the central government. Western forces were deployed in all major regions, including the Pashtun areas in the south and east, and today have ballooned to more than 100,000 troops.
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But in 2006, suicide attacks began to increase by an order of magnitude — with 97 in 2006, 142 in 2007, 148 in 2008 and more than 60 in the first half of 2009. Moreover, the overwhelming percentage of the suicide attacks (80 percent) has been against United States and allied troops or their bases rather than Afghan civilians, and nearly all (95 percent) carried out by Afghans.
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The picture is clear: the more Western troops we have sent to Afghanistan, the more the local residents have viewed themselves as under foreign occupation, leading to a rise in suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks. (We see this pattern pretty much any time an “outside” armed force has tried to pacify a region, from the West Bank to Kashmir to Sri Lanka.)
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The presence of our troops also works against the stability of the central government, as it can rely on Western protection rather than work harder for popular support.
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Fortunately, the United States does not need to station large ground forces in Afghanistan to keep it from being a significant safe haven for Al Qaeda or any other anti-American terrorists. This can be achieved by a strategy that relies on over-the-horizon air, naval and rapidly deployable ground forces, combined with training and equipping local groups to oppose the Taliban. No matter what happens in Afghanistan, the United States is going to maintain a strong air and naval presence in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean for many years, and these forces are well suited to attacking terrorist leaders and camps in conjunction with local militias — just as they did against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in 2001.
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Changing strategy does not mean that the United States can withdraw all its military power from Afghanistan immediately. As we are now seeing in Iraq, changing to an approach that relies less on ground power and more on working with local actors takes time. But it is the best strategy for Afghanistan. Otherwise we will continue to be seen and mistrusted as an occupying power, and the war will be lost.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/opinion/15pape.html?pagewanted=2&ref=opinionWe will never build a nation in Afghanistan as McChrystal has viewed as a goal. We need to target Al Qaeda and the most militant Taliban leaders.
McChrystal is supposed to be connected to the black ops part of the military. He should be very familiar with quick strike tactics on certain targets and other methods to take down certain people.
We need to back off massing troops in Afganistan and use the method described in this piece.
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