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What the Taliban's response means for US Afghanistan strategy

The Taliban was quick to respond to President Barack Obama's December 1 announcement of a new strategy for Afghanistan. It's worth studying the response to learn about the Taliban's propaganda themes, at least as directed toward the outside world. The response shows that the Taliban pays close attention to American political debate, echoing US politicians and aware of splits in the president's political base.

Points to consider:

• The Taliban opened its statement by taunting President Obama with the word that former Vice President Dick Cheney used: "dithering." 
• The Taliban is trying to show that President Obama is not able to make decisions on his own, but is acting under pressure from those outside his natural support base.
• Obama is portrayed as being under political pressure from military generals, "neo-conservatives" (a term that critics use as a euphemism for Jews and for Jewish-oriented national security hawks close to President George W. Bush's administration, and specifically to Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Ironically, the Taliban is correct in saying that Obama's strategy is similar to the Bush policy; Cheney told the Center for Security Policy in October that he personally provided the Obama team with the policy options that President Obama was adopting in Afghanistan.
• Echoes of Soviet propaganda: The Taliban shows a Marxist analysis of US strategy, saying that the Obama policy is on behalf of "the wealthiest few . .. of America and for the protection of their interests. Hence is a strategy of colonialism aimed at securing interests of the American capitalists."
• The Taliban says that Obama is trying to appeal to two opposing constituencies: the military and political conservatives on one hand, and anti-war liberals on the other.

The point here is to show that the Taliban is becoming increasingly sophisticated about American politics and the president's own political base. The group is no longer as insular and provincial as it had been. 

This development follows the Taliban's declaration in August that it was going to lessen its abuse, torture and deliberate killing of civilians (a.k.a. become more respectful of human rights), recognizing that such methods smothered its possibility of winning significant support - as well as tactical allies abroad.

It will be interesting to see if fringe elements of the American "anti-war" movement end up reaching out to the Taliban, just as they have done with other US adversaries such as the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein. Or if the new and improved Taliban reaches out to them. Once this connection occurs, we should expect to see an organized "anti-war" movement in the United States in which American activist leaders coordinate their political action at home with enemy action abroad. Just as we saw in Vietnam and elsewhere in the past.

Click here for the full text of the Taliban's statement as issued in English.

By the way - hats off to the White House for so quickly providing official transcripts of the president's speech (plus fact sheets) in other languages, including in Arabic, Dari, Hindi, Indonesian, Pashto, Persian and Urdu, and in the languages of other Coalition forces including Czech, Estonian, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Spanish, Turkish and so forth.

Between counterinsurgency & counterterrorism

A winning strategy in Afghanistan isn't as black-and-white as advocates of counterinsurgency versus counterterrorism would have us believe. The solution is a hybrid - and the Army is already putting it in place. All the Army is waiting for is for the president to hurry up and make a decision.

David Ignatius of the Washington Post shows how solidly he understands the issue in his recent column from Afghanistan. The column is titled,"The Real Afghan Strategy: Will Obama Give It a Chance?"

Ignatius looks at the quizzical look on the face of an Afghan farmer who is speaking with US troops who understand his culture. Perhaps the farmer is wondering, Ignatius writes, "Can these pleasant, tea-drinking American soldiers really be the same people who are assaulting Taliban fighters in this region of eastern Afghanistan?"

"The answer is yes. Even as US forces show a gentler side with their new stress on people-friendly counterinsurgency, they continue to conduct devastating attacks on the enemy. It's this mix of hard and soft that's the essence of the US battle plan here, but this reality is not well understood back in America.

"The Washington debate about the Afghanistan war - pitting advocates of a broad counterinsurgency strategy against those who favor a narrower counterterrorism approach - has sometimes been misleading, at least in terms of what actually goes on here. The fact is that U.S. forces are doing both missions every day and night - and indeed are becoming increasingly effective at each one."

There's a danger, though, as Ignatius observes. "A strategy that combines stroking your friends and pounding your enemies runs the risk of sending mixed messages. The public, here and around the world, may conclude that for all their new talk about drinking tea, the Americans are ruthless killers. Meanwhile, the enemy may conclude that whatever its firepower, the United States is impatient and will eventually go away. The wires may get crossed, in other words, with people getting the opposite message from the one intended."

Very true. Ignatius is in Afghanistan to discover what he calls "both sides of this complicated and ambitious strategy."

The first is the soft, "population-centric" approach, which Ignatius demonstrates in a pilot project to improve local governance. The US hopes to show that the locals won't see the central Afghan government as "a distant and corrupt force in Kabul" but as a better-than-Taliban local presence. The problem, Ignatius correctly notes, is that the illusion defies reality: "the Kabul government is distant and corrupt."

Representatives of the first wave of a US "civilian surge" that President Obama promised are already on the scene (though this stability operations initiative predates the Obama administration by several years). The US Agency for International Development, Department of Agriculture, State Department and other agencies have been at work on this for quite a while, with valiant - and often very successful - efforts that remain almost unknown here at home.

The "hard" side of the US strategy consists of widespread use of special operations forces: the lethal "black" side that kills or neutralizes enemy forces, and the soft "unconventional" side consisting of "A-Teams" to work among the towns and villages with Afghan soldiers, police, and tribal leaders.

"These are creative operations, employing some of America's best soldiers," Ignatius notes. "They reflect a growing understanding of what counterinsurgency experts call the 'human terrain map.'" And mastery of the human terrain, as this blog constantly notes, is key to winning the war.

"It's like all the instruments in an orchestra," a US military commander tells Ignatius of the battle plan's varied parts. "You have to know how to play them together." (This is the very approach of the Institute of World Politics, the graduate school where I teach.)

So the choice between counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, Ignatius notes, "is a false argument. What the United States actually has in Afghanistan is a mixture. Obama must now decide whether to provide the resources - and take the risks - to test whether this combined strategy can succeed."

Photo: Human Terrain Team at work. An Afghan interpreter, left, and Jared Davidson, with Human Terrain Team, both attached to Regimental Combat Team 3 (RCT-3) and the Afghan National Army (ANA), talk with a villager during a mounted patrol in Nawa district, Helmand province, Afghanistan, Sept. 23, 2009. The ANA and RCT-3 Marines are talking with village residents to try to gain public assistance in ridding the area of enemy forces. The Marines are deployed to conduct partnered counterinsurgency operations with Afghan National Security Forces in southern Afghanistan. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Gunnery Sgt. James A. Burks/Released)

Empowering Afghan locals is key to winning

If we learned anything from the war in Iraq, it's that big-government solutions will fail when imposed on a tribal society with century-old local power structures that we have usurped. Afghanistan is very different from Iraq, but the turnaround in the latter country came only when the US military sought to restore power to traditional local leaders. Those leaders rapidly switched from some of our worst enemies to our best local allies. And with their crucial help, we wiped out Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Afghanistan is even more deeply rooted in local tribal power culture. And we have been alienating local leaders across the country with our made-in-Washington, cookie-cutter approach to governance there. By forcing a weak, ineffective and corrupt central government authority on the provinces, we have angered a lot of already cranky people. Their anger at us is understandable.

So it's exciting to hear that the White House is actively exploring a new strategy to empower local leaders in Afghanistan. (Let's hope they ask good questions without micromanaging.) I have long been arguing for a plan that the US military and civilian policymakers from both parties intensely disliked because it's not all nice and neat, but some of our senior military leaders appear to have similar views on parts of it. Here's a stripped-down version of what it looks like:

1. Empower local tribal leaders, warlords and village elders with their own militias (now being discussed at the White House);
2. Arm, equip, train and mentor the local militias (required if the White House opts for local empowerment);
3. Pay the locals more than the Taliban and drug traffickers can to hunt down and kill all Al Qaeda and Taliban members who refuse to submit, defect, or abandon the fight, and to help us do the job if the locals can't (we're doing some of this already and it's cheaper than sending more troops);
4. Empower the locals to turn Taliban factions against one another, encouraging defections and intra-Taliban fratricide (already being done but needs a big push);
5. Peel off and marginalize certain Taliban factions, to splinter and weaken the movement (already being done but needs momentum);
6. Reward local leaders who demonstrate a continued commitment to fight narcotics production and Islamist extremism, and to fight corruption that goes beyond the traditionally generous cultural norms (already being done, but locals are undermined by the Big Government strategy);
7. Provide logistical and emergency combat backup to ensure the basic security and humanitarian needs of the people in the cities and countryside (in progress, but much more is needed);
8. Penalize local leaders who play both sides or turn against us by treating them as we would an enemy (difficult to do, but necessary if we are to promote local empowerment);
9. Defeat the enemy at the propaganda game (we're chasing our tails here and seem pretty helpless without real political leadership); and
10. Hold other countries accountable for any harm they inflict on American and Coalition troops and our Afghan allies, and take the war to them (not being done, as our guys continue to die).

This is not a solution for a western-style democracy. But Afghanistan is not a western country. And the "democracy" we have built has discredited itself in ways that should shame us and will certainly come back to haunt us. 

Our strategy to date - building and imposing a corrupt central government on an independently-minded , localized populace, while depending on that alienated populace to be our eyes and ears in the counterinsurgency fight, while doing nothing substantive against Iranian involvement in the conflict - is doomed to fail. Yet this is still a war that we can win.

Photo: US Army paratroopers prepare to load into a CH-47 Chinook helicopter during an air-assault mission to detain a known militant in the Bermel district of Paktika province, Afghanistan, Oct. 13, 2009. The paratroopers are assigned to the 25th Infantry Division's Company B, 3rd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team. US Army photo by Pfc. Andrya Hill

Listen to this anti-war protester. He has a point. Now he should get back in the fight.

It's easy to dismiss the Washington Post's breathless, over-the-fold, front-page story that a "US official" had resigned in protest of Afghan war policy. The prominently placed headline implied that a senior figure in the Obama administration had quit. In reality, the official was a very low-level operational person on the ground who had been with the State Department for barely a year.

Anyone who remembers Post correspondent Karen DeYoung's shamefully biased reporting from Central America during the 1980s could hardly be blamed for disregarding her story about the resignation of Marine-turned-diplomat Matthew Hoh.

But they would be mistaken this time. Hoh has many valid concerns. Many of the most knowledgeable people are low-level operators on the ground. Hoh is a very well regarded public servant. He's no peacenik. He's worked in one of the most troubled parts of Afghanistan. If his resignation can do any good, it will be to highlight problems in Afghanistan and help us win the war.

As with many Post articles, the real meat of the story is buried deep within the text. In this case, it's in the next-to-last paragraph, which reads,

"[Hoh] also would suggest providing more support for Pakistan, better U.S. communication and propaganda skills to match those of al-Qaeda, and more pressure on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to clean up government corruption -- all options being discussed in White House deliberations."(Emphasis added.)

Excellent ideas! This is where Hoh can still make his contribution to the war effort. Rather than withdraw from the fight completely, he should use his newfound fame to hammer away at the continued US inability to counter enemy propaganda - tactically, operationally and strategically.

General McChrystal and the White House are revising the Afghan strategy. They need the insights of operators like Hoh. (See the text of his resignation letter: Download Hoh letter)

I know what it's like to be on the ground helping a war effort, getting demoralized at how it's being carried out, getting extremely frustrated with the bureaucrats and the process and with less-than-stellar allies, and being worn down by lose-the-war reporting from journalists like Karen DeYoung - who, in the 1980s, was biased heavily in favor of the communist enemy. But we didn't quit. We stuck with the fight in one way or another. And our counterinsurgency effort in El Salvador succeeded, along with our support for the democratic insurgency against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

Hoh's frustration is understandable. I don't agree with all his points. But he's right on the matter of how to deal with local Afghans and on our nation's dysfunctional counterpropaganda capabilities. He should be helping with the new strategy instead of sniping out of the Washington Post's turret.

[Photo: U.S Army Spc. Zackery Cely, of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment provides security for an air assault mission, after being dropped off, above Tacome Valley, in Zabul province, Afghanistan, Oct. 13, 2009. U.S. Soldiers, from 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, U.S. Army Europe (USAEUR) are deployed throughout southern Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Tia P. Sokimson/Released)]

Firepower culture will not bring us victory in Afghanistan

The US-led effort in Afghanistan will fail as long as the Coalition is wedded to its culture of superior firepower and inferior psychological power. That's the assessment of a US officer in Afghanistan, and I agree with his conclusion.

"I think it is fair to say the US has fire superiority over just about any insurgent force anywhere.  It is hard to convince my colleagues and superiors to plan from a different perspective.  In the world of political warfare we are the inferior opponent. If we continue to rely on our ability to bring fire power to bear coupled with a contingency based top-down antiquated IO [information operations] structure it is feasible we will not accomplish our objectives here," the officer said in an email from Afghanistan today.

I am not revealing the officer's name, rank, unit or geographic location. He appears to have breached no protocol and has given me permission to post his comments on this blog.

The remainder of this posting is in the officer's words (I broke the text into smaller paragraphs, inserted explanatory notes in brackets [ ], and highlighted some of the text).

"Summary:  The Taliban offer at least four critical services to the people of rural Afghanistan.  They maintain control of the rural areas by following a simple three step process.  The main line of effort for these services and process is supported by a sophisticated messaging apparatus that paints our efforts as the 'proof' of their ideological tenants.  A shift in resource allocation may offer a dynamic counter argument.

"The Taliban’s soft power in the rural areas in stems from at least four critical services they provide. 

1. A system to resolve local disputes such as land ownership and water rights. For example, many communities share wells and use a primitive – yet effective – ditch work system to move water to their land.  The Taliban offers an accepted and speedy settlement on these types of issues based on their interpretation of Islam – they serve as the judge and enforcer. 
2. Protection from the criminal element; crops, property, and family members are protected so long as the Taliban enjoys the support of the locals.  In areas where theft, extortion, and kidnapping for ransom are common place this is huge.
3. A system of government.  Open source reports cite a 'shadow government' down to the district level.  I imagine it mirrors the previous Taliban governmental structures...but not sure exactly.
4. A means of redress.  The Taliban have a system in which people can report 'corrupt' Taliban to higher levels – a quasi 'tip line' if you will.  To be sure, deviation from the Taliban’s ideology or activity that threatens to reduce TB [Taliban] strength/credibility will not be tolerated within their ranks.

"The Taliban does at least three things to maintain the status quo – keep the government de facto out of the rural areas, keep the criminal element alive but weak in order to ensure an enduring problem set it can resolve, and manufactures just enough instability to prove that the 'corrupt government' cannot meet the needs of the community - i.e. spectacular attacks, IEDs, baited ambushes which facilitate collateral damage and civilian casualties/loss of life. 

"The Taliban enjoys a sophisticated propaganda campaign to exploit these by linking the corrupt Afghan National Security Forces, Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and NATO/US forces together as THE blight on the purity of Islam and Afghanistan.  In this regard highlighting the existing corruption serves this end very well. 

"In this environment an abandoned District/Community Center serving as a ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces] outpost becomes a billboard advertising the problem rather than the solution.  We call/label the Taliban 'insurgents.' Those who benefit from the TB’s soft power identify them as their champions; the protectors of Afghan culture, identity, and social order.  This is not a new phenomenon, the old adage rings true here 'one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.'  The victor will be the element that can provide the greatest stability in the eyes of the rural people.

"If we want to affect change in the rural areas we have to provide a 'purer' form of what they are getting from the Taliban.  Currently, the rural Afghan has no incentive to withdraw support from the Taliban.  A sub-governor who cannot live in the area he is supposed to govern will be as ineffective as the police officers who cannot live in the precinct they are suppose to protect.  Neither are viable options for the rural people of our AO [area of operations] however both are the status quo.

"This interpretation of the environment solicits an alternate course of action.  The Taliban and other ACF elements are entrenched in the rural areas and ANSF/GiROA [Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan] stands little chance in rooting them out in the short term.  We must still continue to partner with ANSF counterparts but we must be weary of validating TB/ANSF propaganda.  Shift resources and effort to city.  Concentrate our various shades of money and manpower on making the population centers more stable.  The cities are the economic hub.  Commerce is the link between the city and the farm.

"This approach is like the 'City on a Hill' argument that provides a dynamic counter argument to the TB’s propaganda.  The TB would have to consider a transition to 'hard power' techniques.  If we showcase this well it holds the potential for separating the populace from the TB.  I would offer the 'Sons of Liberty' and the co-option of the Northern Alliance as examples of the success of illustrating how the hard power tactics of extreme ideologues are outside the tolerance of decent human behavior."

(Photo: Afghan National Policeman and US Army soldiers with 118th Military Police (Airborne) Company, 3rd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 10th Mountain Division, hand children school supplies, radios and a flier with a tip line for calling in information about the Taliban. Logar province, September 2009. Photographer: PFC Richard W. Jones, Jr/US Army.)

Fear of public opinion might prompt Obama to help Taliban survive

President Obama's adminstration is seriously considering a new Afghanistan policy that in effect would leave the Taliban to survive and fight another day.

From an insurgent's perspective, that means the Taliban will win.

That's not the intent of the policy option. But it would be the net result. A variety of factors is at play, including concerns about over-stretching the US military, troubles with Pakistan, the fact that we're stuck with crummy allies in Afghanistan, a philosophical unwillingness to commit the necessary force, and budget issues that would take dollars away from healthcare and other big-ticket spending programs.

The administration also appears paralyzed by a lack of self-confidence on military matters, and a fear about what people will think. "One phrase that always comes up in the administration's strategy sessions is 'public opinion,'" a US official tells McClatchy news service.

If that's the case - and my sources in the military, intelligence community, and administration agree with the McClatchy report - the administration is doing next to nothing to muster domestic support for a victory in Afghanistan. Nor is it doing much to support allies, win neutrals, or defeat opponents in the infosphere abroad.

The administration seems more concerned about implementing its social agenda at home than winning the war. McClatchy, in interviews with 15 mid- and senior-level military, intelligence, defense, diplomatic and administration officials, says that internal discussions are worried about "a lack of political and public support at home, which they fear could also undermine the president's domestic priorities." 

Shades of LBJ. For those of you lucky enough to be too young to remember, President Lyndon Baines Johnson didn't want the Vietnam War to detract from his marvelous Great Society domestic program. So he didn't escalate against Hanoi, didn't destroy the North Vietnamese military, and allowed the enemy to grind us down through protracted conflict and skillful propaganda warfare. And his Great Society program wasn't much more successful.

As of today, the administration has done NOTHING to try to enlist the support of pro-defense groups in Washington who might be critical of his domestic agenda, but who would enthusiastically support a sound strategy for victory in Afghanistan.

"Now the White House is downplaying the dangers of doing the only thing that they think Congress and the public will support - a limited war against the guys who hit us on 9/11," one source tells McClatchy. That jibes with what I'm hearing from talking to people in the administration. The president is considering a very dangerous move. A gamble based on wishful thinking and lack of confidence.

The Taliban must be thrilled. No doubt they will escalate the killing of our troops in order to put more psychological pressure on our indecisive, dithering commander-in-chief.

Child's play: Explaining why we're in Afghanistan

Some of our key allies are losing heart in Afghanistan. A sizable chunk of the American public is wondering why we're still there. Even some of our troops deploying there don't know exactly what their mission means for the nation. 

Somebody in Washington should explain why the US and its allies are in Afghanistan.

Fortunately, someone is. It isn't the president. And it certainly isn't the public diplomacy shop at the State Department. No, nothing like that. That someone is KidsPost, the children's section of the Washington Post.

KidsPost frames the issue nicely in a headline: "Why the US Fights in Afghanistan." The subtitle: "The President Must Decide If More Troops Should Be Sent to Country Where 9/11 Terrorists Trained."

Margaret Webb Pressler of KidsPost and Post correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran do a nice job asking and answering the following questions for the kids:

• Why are US troops in Afghanistan?
• Is there a war in Afghanistan?
• Why has the situation gotten worse there?
• Why does it matter to us what happens in Afghanistan?
• What happens now?
• What about Iraq?

Pretty easy, no? Isn't it something that, say, the State Department's under-worked public diplomacy machinery could be telling our friends and allies around the world? Or that the president could be explaining to the public, now that he's actually met with General McChrystal?

Time is running out. A new BBC poll shows that 56 percent of Britons now oppose their country's military presence in Afghanistan. What meaningful thing has the US done to try to keep British public opinion up? Nothing that I've seen.

Thanks are due to my nine year-old who showed me the story tonight. If a child gets it, can't the president and the secretary of state?

A swell way to declare an Afghan victor

Here's a terrific way for the United States to settle the Afghan presidential election controversy: Have the Voice of America broadcast an "exclusive interview" with the CIA director who says the US-favored candidate will win and that a vote recount won't matter.

Not!

Yet that's just what the VOA and CIA Director Leon Panetta have done. Here's what the VOA reported on September 18:

Official preliminary final totals in Afghanistan's recent presidential election have incumbent president Hamid Karzai the winner, but the election was marred by allegations of massive vote fraud. A U.N. electoral oversight group has ordered a partial recount. But the head of the Central Intelligence Agency believes that will not make much of a difference.

In an exclusive VOA interview, CIA director Leon Panetta says that even if suspect ballots are discounted, President Hamid Karzai will in all likelihood win re-election.

"It's clear that there was some degree of corruption and fraud involved in the election," Panetta said. "It's being viewed now by the commissions involved in counting those votes. I think what appears to be the case is that even after they eliminate some of the votes that resulted because of fraud, that Karzai will still - still looks like the individual who's going to be able to win that election."

The preliminary final results have Mr. Karzai with enough votes to avoid a runoff with former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah. Mr. Karzai has angrily denied major fraud and denounced the media for what he says are exaggerated reports of electoral corruption.

A few problems show themselves here. First, the CIA director should never try to declare the winner of a US-backed election in another country. Even if the CIA wasn't involved in trying to manage the outcome of the Afghan election (and shame on the US for not using the CIA for that purpose, given that the Saudis, Pakistanis, Iranians and others are meddling plenty in Afghan political affairs), an official CIA comment simply looks bad and taints the favored candidate.

Second, why in the world is the Voice of America, as a major public diplomacy instrument of the United States government, eliciting and promoting such statements from the CIA Director?

The CIA-VOA electoral pronunciation has other negative effects, too, but I'll end with just the above pair of thoughts and the following question: Who is in charge of US strategic messaging on Afghanistan?

Taliban targets German public opinion to oust Merkel government

The Taliban has reportedly targeted German troops to be killed in propaganda attacks in the hopes of causing a public opinion to backlash to unseat the conservative-led coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"We are facing a critical challenge at this time," German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung tells journalists. "We are aware of Taliban declarations targeting the German army due to the election."

Germans go to the polls in three weeks.

Jung made the comment in response to reports - still in dispute - that a NATO air strike killed scores of people near Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan, where German troops operate. The Germans called in the airstrike in response to intelligence that the Taliban had hijacked fuel trucks that were to believed to be used in a sensational suicide bombing of German soldiers. A US Air Force jet responded to the call for help and bombed the tanker trucks.

The German commander on the ground said he feared the trucks would be used as improvised bombs to hit his troops. While German military officials say all those killed were Taliban, local reports indicate that many may have been civilians who had been been looting fuel from the tankers. The US is criticizing German response time, among other factors, according to AP.

German military participation in Afghanistan is unpopular at home, and though it hasn't become a campaign issue of significance yet, it could if the Taliban succeeds in provoking incidents to inflame German opinion.

The German Social Democrats and Greens should publicly denounce the Taliban's attempt to unseat Merkel's coalition in their favor. To their credit, the Social Democrats say that Germany should continue its military presence in Afghanistan.  (And as we should expect, the European Union's foreign ministers criticized the NATO operation.)

US retreat from PSYOP helps Taliban gain 'psychological ground'

At a time when the US military has inexplicably moved away from psychological operations, the Taliban in Afghanistan has been gaining "psychological ground."

"There are periods when an enemy does well and seems better trained and fights harder," a senior defense official tells Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post. "The number one indicator we have out there now is that they think they're winning. That creates an attitude, a positive outlook, and a willingness to sacrifice."

This is the exact opposite effect that US policy should be having. US strategy must be to demoralize the Taliban and its commanders, fighters and supporters. US strategy must break their spirit, cause the people to turn against them, and cause the commanders and fighters to turn against one another. US psychological strategy must be to cause the Taliban to implode from within, to induce its leaders to betray and kill one another - not to unite together as has been happening.

If we can't physically hunt down the Taliban commanders, we can accomplish the same objective psychologically by demoralizing the enemy and inducing its self-destruction from within.

One of the problems, of course, has been that the US abandoned the concept of psychological strategy decades ago. And since the 1990s it has given short-shrift to a well-established, successful element of military power: psychological operations or PSYOP.

PSYOP has taken the back seat to a new replacement concept, "information operations," and a larger, nebulous-sounding concept of "strategic communication."  Yet the military is not united in its concept of info ops, or IO, and the shift from psychological dominance to information dominance has left us full of information but with little to show for it.

Several senior US commanders have told me that the PSYOP now being waged is "juvenile," "infantile," "embarrassingly basic," "elementary," and so on. But I know for a fact that many of our PSYOP people have devised sophisticated products that the military no longer has the means or worldview to employ.

The US military leadership must re-think its drift away from PSYOP, and restore what's needed to master the psychological battlespace.

"The positive outlook has a basis in fact, the official said, as areas of Taliban influence have expanded," deYoung reports. "They have enough of the landscape that they control to be able to train more and in closer proximity to where they're fighting. And the people [living] there actually believe the Taliban can do something."

"To the Taliban, winning is, in fact, not losing," a US official tells the Post. "They feel that over time, they will ultimately outlast the international community's attempt to stabilize Afghanistan. It's really a game of will to them."

It's time for National Security Advisor Jim Jones to dust off old US military psychological warfare manuals and strategies and order the development of a national-level psychological strategy - and for military commanders to strengthen and empower PSYOP and all it has to offer the warfighter and the nation.