Where is the COIN strategy going to be centered? A helpful map of Afghanistan’s population density can be found here. Despite my repeated calls to do a better job sealing the border, I’m beginning to think we don’t have nearly enough troops to do even a halfway adequate job.
We had a chance to win this war and secure the peace, immediately following the fall of the Taliban and through 2004-2005. But instead we invaded Iraq for absolutely no reason. And here we are today.
There’s a reason why the Taliban is going to be hard to flip to ‘our side.’ It’s because the Afghan war is already over. The Taliban and its allies won. They’re just waiting us out at this point.
