The Taliban are entering the death-spiral phase of their comeback campaign. This can be seen by sharply reduced activity in the countryside (where the surge in NATO and Afghan troops has broken the fighting spirit of the Taliban), and the increased reliance on high-profile terror attacks. NATO casualties are down from the same period last year, although the media coverage of Taliban terror attacks might make you think otherwise. The fighting through the Winter was particularly damaging to the Taliban, and recruiting for this year's "Spring Offensive" has been difficult. It's been known for over two years that this switch in tactics was coming. It's the same pattern seen in Iraq. Moreover, many Taliban leaders are trying to negotiate some kind of deal with the government. Some of these settlements have already been made, and now the Taliban have one less ally and one more target. The terror campaign could go on, intensely, for a year or two. But eventually, the "fighting" Taliban are going to run out of money, men and places to hide.The casualty comparison is especially noteworthy. Icasualties shows the statistics. For the coalition, it was 166 KIA through April 2010, while this year so far the larger Coalition army has suffered 134 KIA. I'll just focus on American casualties portion of that total since we are the spearhead and most of the surge of fighting forces last year was American. This year, we've suffered 93 KIA through April so far. In 2010, for the first four full months we suffered 104 KIA. Now, we could surpass the 2010 number with a week to go in April. But whether we do or not, the number will be about the same. Isn't that a stalemate showing we aren't making progress under the metric of our battle casualties?
No. Consider that in the first four months of 2010, our surge was just beginning. We probably had at most an average of 75,000 troops on the ground during those months. America started the year 2010 with 68,000 and didn't get to close to 100,000 until August 2010, I believe. So if the fighting is stalemated, we should expect the first four months of combat in 2011 to result in a third more American combat deaths, all other things being equal. We won't suffer 155 deaths (62 more over the next week) by the end of April 2011. Why not if we are losing and the Taliban are "resurgent"? The simple explanation is that we are not losing.
Every spring the enemy thumps their chest and flings poo, and our media dutifully soils their armor to report our impending doom. We keep smashing the Taliban up, and with our troops holding the Taliban at bay, the non-Coalition military means of defeating the Taliban in the south and east are finally starting to take hold.
Don't panic about the war in Afghanistan. Watch the enemy panic. We're winning this war.
