The Redhunter

Gen. Keane told The Times he has witnessed in Afghanistan the same shift in fortunes: Taliban fighters are changing sides, villages are being cleansed of the enemy and protected, and intercepted communications show flagging Taliban morale.

"Overall, we can see now that the surge forces are starting to make a difference," he said. "And you have to be encouraged by some of the progress that's being made. All that said, we're in a tough fight, and I believe we will continue to gain momentum."

Gen. Keane offered two observations as evidence. First, most commanders with whom he spoke said they are encountering Taliban who want to stop fighting and reintegrate into Afghan society. "That's a big deal," he said.

Second, "There's evidence of erosion of some of the will of the Taliban. We pick it up in interrogations, and we also pick it up listening to their radio traffic and telephone calls in terms of the morale problems they're starting to have," Gen. Keane said.

I've written not a little bit about Gen. Jack Keane (Ret) and he is an impressive figure. Keane was Vice-Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army at the time Operation Iraqi Freedom was initiated in March of 2003, and admitted straight up later that they had not anticipated the insurgency. Rather than give up, however, he (now retired), Frederick Kagan, and a few others developed the idea of a "surge" in 2006, and Keane presented the idea to Bush later that year. The surge, of course, worked, and while not out of the woods yet Iraq is a better place than it has been in decades.

Bottom line here is that over the past 6 or 7 years I've learned who gets military matters right and who doesn't. There are are analysts (StrategyPage.com) and retired generals (Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney) who got a lot wrong and who I no longer trust. Yes, Keane did not anticipate the insurgency. MacArthur also didn't anticipate the Japanese attacks on the Philippines in Dec 1941 or the Chinese invasion of Korea in 1950. But as MacArthur learned from (most) of his mistakes, so did Keane.

Next up is the liberal newspaper:

In Afghanistan, the first hints of success
The Washington Post
By Michael Gerson
Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Success in Afghanistan is beginning to come in the first muddy trickles after a long drought.

Small groups of Taliban fighters -- sometimes a dozen with a leader -- are approaching local Afghan government officials, asking what kind of deal they might get. "First, they want to be taken off any list, so they are not targeted," explains a NATO official in Afghanistan. "Second, they want protection from the insurgency. Third, some kind of economic opportunity."

In counterinsurgency doctrine, this is known as "reintegration." The official admits it is "spotty" in Afghanistan but spreading in all regions. "It is happening in small numbers -- drip, drip, drip. It has not yet changed the battle space. . . . It is not a tipping point, at this point." The goal is to push these numbers much higher, with more insurgents driven to negotiation and exhaustion, so they "put down their weapons and go home."

Many Americans ask: What would victory look like in Afghanistan? It would look like this -- except more of it.

Eighteen months ago, Afghan insurgents had the morale that comes from momentum. But the surge in NATO operations, particularly Special Operations, has started to change the psychological battlefield. Special Forces now go after eight to 10 major objectives each night -- perhaps three-quarters of these raids result in the death or capture of an insurgent leader. Two Taliban shadow governors -- a key position in the leadership structure -- were killed in the last week. Such roles are quickly refilled, but replacements tend to be less seasoned and more frightened.

"We hear a lot of chatter," says the official, "from networks inside of Afghanistan." Some fighters don't feel "a moment of peace. They can't sleep. They keep moving all the time. They can't plan attacks because they are planning to survive." And this is opening up a "real rift" with Taliban "bosses leading from the relative comfort of Pakistan." While some units are well supplied, others are "not supplied, not paid, but told to keep fighting."

Reintegration of low- and mid-level fighters is based on their concern for survival. Reconciliation between the Afghan government and higher-level Taliban leaders is a political matter, gaining much recent attention. President Hamid Karzai has convened a "high peace council," open to Taliban overtures but insisting on certain conditions: repudiating al-Qaeda, laying down arms, accepting the Afghan constitution. The most ideological of Taliban leaders will never reconcile. Others may calculate, as many Sunni leaders eventually did in Iraq, that their rejectionism is undermining their long-term political influence.

In a national settlement, some kind of power-sharing arrangement is probably inevitable. But sharing power in a united government is very different from the concession of Taliban control over any portion of Afghanistan's territory.

Indeed. Just as the arrival late in the day of Gebhard von Blücher's IV Prussian Corps at Waterloo demoralized the tired French, the surge in operations by the United States showed the Taliban that far from giving up we were redoubling our efforts. Just as what happened in Iraq is happening in Afghanistan.

As the official says, we're not quite at the tipping point yet, one reason why President Obama's announcement of a withdrawal date was so ill-advised. As I said so often during the surge in Iraq, if we stop too soon we risk losing all that we had gained. Likewise with Afghanistan.

All successful counterinsurgencies involve some sort of negotiations with at least some of the insurgents and at least some sort of political settlement.

Obviously there are still huge challenges ahead. There are naysayers on the right and left. Yet we cannot throw up our hands and ignore these signs of progress. If we lose Afghanistan, jihadists worldwide will take it as a sign from Allah that he is on their side. The ruling Taliban will invite in the al Qaeda, who will use it as a base from which to launch attacks. The stakes are high, we must press on.