Word: successer
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...would you define success? What we are trying to do is change the dynamics in the area where we are operating. The current operations that you are hearing about in the Helmand River valley are aimed at areas that are major population centers. They were also areas under Taliban control. They are also a nexus of the poppy trade. So if you describe the Helmand River valley as the breadbasket of the poppy trade and where the Taliban gets a lot of resources and support, what we are trying to do is take the area away from...
...concerns by any force that says, If you limit their range of operations, then they are going to have to naturally rethink how they operate. For some, that is no change from where they have been going with this. And I think that is evident in some of the success they have had. But others may have to maybe rethink a conventional approach that they might have had before. It's a tough war, a very tough...
...there, with the clear idea that when you respond, you are going to create collateral damage. He's going to blame that on you. Even if you kill the insurgent there - and in many cases you don't, you just destroy a lot of things - you get a tactical success and near-term satisfaction because you went after the fly with the sledgehammer. What happens is, you have made the insurgency wider. You are going to run into more IEDs (improvised explosive devices), you are going to run into more insurgents, you are going to run into a more difficult...
...doing a lot of good work - and that means the ANSF, parts of the Afghanistan government, UNAMA [United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan], NGOs, doing a lot of good work - that said, I don't think it has been as well coordinated and unified as it needs to be successful. And so I wasn't surprised by that, but I was struck by the challenge of the task to pull it all together into a unified international effort. And that to me is an absolute prerequisite for success...
...going to the peace table. And you end up with a completely different outcome than you wanted. Counterinsurgency is an ongoing argument. Everything you do in an operation or influence is trying to convince the population in one way or the other. So my metric is our success in the argument. It's not the enemy killed, it's not ground taken. It's how much governance we've got and where governance goes. It's people's willingness to conduct normal lives. But here you have to know what normal is. It's not the same in Kabul...