US President Barack Obama is expected to hand down soon his decision on the war in Afghanistan. The decision at this point is no longer whether to send more troops to Afghanistan or not, but how many tens of thousands of additional US soldiers should be sent to the wartorn country to fight a long-drawn war.
U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal wants to put U.S. troops as close to the Afghan people as possible. His strategy in Afghanistan is ‘ultimately built around the principle that the United States and its NATO allies are capable of protecting Afghans prepared to cooperate with Western forces.’
McChrystal’s strategy is the US traditional counterinsurgency strategy: military forces would fight their way into regions where a large portion of the population lives and where the Taliban currently operates. The same strategy will be applied in remote areas where the Taliban have a heavy presence and can be pursued through drone strikes.
The strategy will bear heavily upon the Afghans. Logically, ‘local inhabitants will experience multilevel conflict as coalition forces move into a given region.’ The presence of these massive forces might or might not demonstrate to the local population that foreign soldiers spell their national security in the face of armed clashes. Therefore, ‘to convince locals that Western forces enhance their security, the coalition will thus have to be stunningly successful both at defeating Taliban defenders when they first move in and in repulsing subsequent Taliban attacks.’
Via STRATFOR
