One thing I'll say is that the old focus on controlling the ring road would be a good first stage for a renewed effort to roll back Taliban control.
As I wrote 7 years ago in regard to the map above about our plans:
The green and yellow shaded areas are the overall focus while the yellow in the south is our main effort right now.
I outlined this broad picture back in January 2009 when I guessed what we would do. Close to a year ago, I noted that the ring road that provided the basis of my guess was indeed the geographic feature of focus for the surge. I also think that just in terms of numbers, we have enough to win.
But there is a reason we are saying we need a regional effort to win. A map of just Afghanistan fails to note the Pakistan sanctuaries that Pakistan policy support. So we need to operate inside Pakistan:
Yet even major success in Afghanistan to defeat the Taliban and other "international" jihadis runs into the jihadi safety net that sanctuary in Pakistan provides.
In light of the idea of options in the broader South Asia region, I will revive my suggestion that our efforts to win should include a major effort to create friendly forces on the ground inside Pakistan the way we have done inside Syria[.]
Add to another effort inside Afghanistan--this time relying on the Afghan security forces built (and which we are still building) since the Obama era surges that ultimately put 100,000 American troops on the ground--an effort inside Pakistan to make it a regional effort, and we'll have a better chance to make enduring gains with a reduced presence.
