If a strategy is based on beating the Taliban in a contest of wills - battering away at them over the same ground year in, year out until they cry uncle - then it will fail. We can thump our chests as much as we like, but these are a bunch of fanatic xenophobes inured to death and on their home turf, while we're fighting for democracies continents and oceans away with short attention spans and low casualty tolerances. That's playing their game.
Fact is, it is about terrain - physical and human. Our inability to hold much of the first means we don't have a lot of influence over the second. That is why we're still stuck on the edges of Zhari/Panjwayi and just temporarily manuevering into the heartland after three years of fighting. Victory will come when we can deny the Taliban their sources of support, the most important of which comes from the acquiescence of much of the population to their presence. It's not that most of the population of Zhari or Panjwayi likes the Taliban, but they will continue to acquiesce so long as we cannot guarantee their protection.
Fundamentally, that means we have to be able to hold ground. Once we can, then this will swing very quickly, but until we do then we're stuck fighting over the same villages, year in, year out.
Fact is, it is about terrain - physical and human. Our inability to hold much of the first means we don't have a lot of influence over the second. That is why we're still stuck on the edges of Zhari/Panjwayi and just temporarily manuevering into the heartland after three years of fighting. Victory will come when we can deny the Taliban their sources of support, the most important of which comes from the acquiescence of much of the population to their presence. It's not that most of the population of Zhari or Panjwayi likes the Taliban, but they will continue to acquiesce so long as we cannot guarantee their protection.
Fundamentally, that means we have to be able to hold ground. Once we can, then this will swing very quickly, but until we do then we're stuck fighting over the same villages, year in, year out.
