Word: mcchrystal
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...have melted away when pressured, only to pop up and attack elsewhere. In Helmand, U.S. troops will set up small outposts instead of pulling back when the operation is done. They'll live near the locals and offer protection in advance of Afghanistan's Aug. 20 presidential election. Then McChrystal's forces and civilian advisers will begin trying to build economic and governmental institutions...
...will be no success to measure. So part of the Obama Administration's strategy is to increase the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, from 57,000 now to 68,000 by the fall. The extra troops should help bring security to parts of Afghanistan that lack it, but McChrystal is clear that security alone is but a means to an end. "The point of security," he says, "is to enable governance ... My metric is not the enemy killed, not ground taken: it's how much governance we've got." Decent governance, the thinking goes - providing the rule...
...tech-heavy force that then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sent into Iraq to stumble and falter for four years - hewed to the American way of war, one that was equal parts laser beams and hubris. But the military has rethought its strategy. "You can shock and awe human beings," McChrystal says, "but it doesn't last. I've seen operations where kinetic strikes would go in on a target, and the enemy would come out shooting. They weren't awed...
Instead of relying on brute force, McChrystal has to find more subtle ways of dealing with an Afghan insurgency that grows out of a patchwork of motivations based on tribal allegiances, Islamic fundamentalism and the strategies of warlords eager to keep what has been theirs for generations. "I am not sure," McChrystal says, "there are two different people out there with the same reason for the fight." He has to untangle the various threads in this skein and then determine what action - economic development, strong government, death - works best in each case. (Read "Why the Pentagon Axed Its Afghanistan Warlord...
...diplomat too. Perhaps the most important military action in the region isn't happening in Afghanistan but across the border in Pakistan. Afghanistan and Pakistan, McChrystal says, are "unique situations that are linked inextricably." Islamabad's fitful offensive against the Taliban in Pakistan has successfully drained resources from the Taliban in Afghanistan. "Money is drying up," Colonel John Spiszer, commander of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, along the border, said on June 23. Over the past year, the going prices for guns and ammo "have almost doubled," he noted. "That's a great sign." Such pressure...