Yes, I know. We're doomed, right?
Strategypage, in their latest always worthwhile state of the world's wars post, says of Afghanistan (in part):
The media also has a hard time keeping score. For years, Iraq was portrayed as a disaster until, suddenly, the enemy was crushed and the war was won. Even that was not considered exciting enough to warrant much attention, and that story is still poorly covered. Same pattern is playing out in Afghanistan, where the defeats of the Taliban, and triumph of the drug gangs, go unreported or distorted. ...
Meanwhile, there hasn't been a "Taliban Spring Offensive" for the last five years. The key Taliban financial resource; heroin in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, has been under heavy attack for over two years now. The opium crop has been hammered by drought and disease, and drug gang income has suffered. The Taliban expected drug gang profits, al Qaeda assistance, and Pakistani reinforcements to help them out. But al Qaeda is a very junior, and unpopular, partner, and the death of Osama bin Laden last year was a big blow to morale. Pakistani Taliban are mostly sending refugees, not reinforcements. In the last half of 2011, the Taliban were much reduced, and for the year their attacks were down 20 percent. Losses for foreign troops were also down 20 percent from the peak year of 2010 (711 dead). Foreign troops lost 295 dead in combat during 2008, and that increased 76 percent, to 519, in 2009. That's about half the casualty rate for foreign troops in Iraq during the peak year of 2007. Foreign troop deaths began to rapidly decline in the second half of 2011. The higher foreign troop casualties in 2010 were because there were more foreign troops in action during that year, and those troops were much more aggressive.
Not that there aren't problems in Afghanistan. But the corruption and tribalism is something that would tear at Afghanistan if the Taliban were as quiet as the ACLU when addressing the Obama administration. If we define victory as leaving Afghanistan with a centralized state run from Kabul, we are bound to lose.
I still think our objective of keeping Afghanistan from being a jihadi safe haven is possible but we have to work with the decentralized Afghanistan that exists rather than fight the Taliban and the forces of fragmentation:
The end result in Afghanistan, if all goes well, will be a nominal national government that controls the capital region and reigns but does not rule local tribes and which actually helps the locals a bit rather than sucking resources from the locals, who in turn do not make trouble for the central government or allow their areas to be used by jihadis to plan attacks on the West. We press for reasonable economic opportunities, with bribes all around (I mean, foreign aid), to keep a fragile peace.
And we stick around this time, unlike after the Soviets left Afghanistan when we ignored the place, for a generation or two to see if we can move Afghanistan into the 19th century (hey, let's not get ahead of ourselves).
Hopefully our military surge recedes by the end of 2011 and we can get down to a single combat brigade plus air power that function as a fire brigade and a hammer for the central government should a local difficulty exceed Afghan military capabilities.
Our surge--which went higher than I thought it would--did start to recede by the end of 2011. By 2014, we may be down to a "fire brigade" plus supporting units to keep Afghan units in the field. And our problem of Pakistan will continue, as I also wrote.
We've fought a long time there--for a reason. Don't lose heart. Work the problem. If we don't fight these enemies, they'll hit us at home again. And nearly as bad, we'll see our domestic security ratchet up until we forget what it is like to live and work without ever-present security theater mucking up our lives.
