In Afghanistan, IEDs (Improvised Explosive Device, a roadside, or suicide car bomb) now cause over 70 percent of NATO casualties. It has also been discovered that there was one big difference between the IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan; the explosives used. In Iraq, there were thousands of tons of munitions and explosives scattered around the country after the 2003 invasion was over. This was the legacy of Saddam Hussein, and the billions he spent on weapons during his three decades in power. The Iraqi terrorists grabbed a lot of these munitions, and used them for a five year bombing campaign.
Traditionally, defeating an insurgency requires the insurgents to be cut off from the outside world so they can't easily be supplied. As I argued during the Iraq War insurgency, it was a waste of resources to put too many troops on the Iraqi border to interdict supplies because the supplies were already in Iraq courtesy of Saddam Hussein.
On the other hand, I've been very concerned about controlling the Afghanistan border to prevent weapons from entering Afghanistan because there is no massive stockpile of weapons to be unearthed. So I've had worries about abandoning our frontier positions to focus on population control.
However, if the Pakistanis can sustain their increased campaigns on the border, they may seal the border for us enough to reduce outside support for Afghan insurgents.
The fact that we won in Iraq despite the major handicap of Saddam's ammo gives me more confidence that we can beat the Taliban in Afghanistan who lack that type of major internal supply source.
