The enemy tells you what’s most important in an insurgency. AQ says it’s in Afghanistan/Pakistan, then that’s where it is. Based on outmoded geopolitical thinking, there is no apparent strategic value to Afghanistan, other than to hem in Iran. So outmoded thinkers cry out, “let them stew in their own juices!”

Afghanistan is important because it is the dark corner where the roaches hide. If we accomplished our mission, as the first poster here says we did, then why is AQ so robust that they can form Shadow Armies? We have done nothing but build the ANA into a fairly capable force and buy time for the Afghans to produce a fairly viable Constitution while screwing up its implementation. The State Department phones their work in, and the Army… the de facto lead agency in all of this… is interested in only two things; building the ANA and killing bad guys.

Blame the Army… I’m totally serious… and put the blame where it belongs. Our execution of COIN is verbal-only in most cases. We don’t even train COIN to junior NCO’s, but we send them on what should be COIN missions every day. They take their kinetic skills and apply them to counter-guerrilla warfare, which is a minor part of COIN. They can’t do what they don’t know.

Most Staff Sergeants can tell you who Clausewitz was, but they have never heard of Galula and think Trinquier is an Afghan boy on Thursday night.