Afghan forces newly in the lead for combat are dishing out heavy punishment to the Taliban:
In September security forces lost about 400 personnel but killed nearly 600 Islamic terrorists (most of them Taliban) and arrested about 300. The army and police have become more aggressive this year in following up civilian tips about terrorist activity.
This isn't exactly how the Taliban expected the hand over of fighting responsibilities from America and our Western allies to the Afghan security forces:
A growing number of senior Taliban and pro-Taliban tribal leaders are speaking up about really making some kind of peace deal with the government. The effective performance of the Afghan police and soldiers this year may have played a part in all this. For years the Taliban encouraged its battered followers to hang on until the foreign troops left, then the country would belong to the Islamic radicals. But it is not working out that way and the effectiveness of the Afghan security forces has been demoralizing for the Taliban. Although a lot of police and soldiers have died, so have a lot more Taliban and other malefactors. While most Afghans are illiterate, most can do the simple math here and realize sticking with the Taliban may not be a good long-range plan.
Of course, the pain inflicted on the Taliban still requires key American capabilities that I hope we stick around after 2014 to provide until the Afghans can supply their own (effective enough) versions of those capabilities to go along with their own effective enough ground forces:
Military and police commanders are very much aware that a lot of this success is due to NATO air and intelligence support. The foreign intel troops are particularly useful because they maintain large databases of Taliban and other terrorists as well as constant UAV, satellite, and manned aircraft monitoring of Taliban communications and movements. NATO warplanes and smart bombs can quickly follow up on intel. The Afghan commanders want some of this to stay after most NATO troops are gone at the end of 2014.
Afghan intelligence people are getting good intelligence from civilians who can safely report Taliban activity with cell phones, but our capabilities are important, too.
As I wrote back in early 2009, my objectives for Afghanistan aren't that high:
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.
I was a bit off when the surge would recede, but keep in mind we decided to add a second surge at the end of 2009, too.
We can keep Afghanistan from becoming a sanctuary for terrorists again with relatively little additional effort. Then there's our problem child Pakistan, of course. But I don't expect our foreign policy to solve all problems at once.
