In nearly six years of violence, there have been over 8,800 terrorist related violent incident, and 3,500 deaths. There are believed to be about 8,000 Moslems carrying out the violence, and (mostly) providing support. The government has brought down up to 90,000 additional troops and police to the south, and recruited nearly as many local defense volunteers.
We have a victory building there. And note the use of local defense volunteers who appear to represent nearly half of the force involved in winning.
I'll admit that the threat there was much lower in sophistication or numbers so the Thais could probably rely more on such volunteers than we can in Afghanistan. We never relied on them to that extent in Iraq.
But local defense forces are useful in defeating insurgencies. Remember that when considering the amount of force needed to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, we don't need that entire force to be American.
