"Don’t confuse liquidating al-Qaeda with liquidating the Taliban"

Defense and the National Interest has probably the most thought-provoking and damning assessment of GEN McChrystal's proposed Afghanistan strategy.

Slide 4 of Doug Macgregor's presentation is the major selling point.

The centerpiece of General McChrystal's "new" counterinsurgency strategy of "clear, hold, build" is the accelerated training and expansion of the Afghan Army and Police Forces (ANSF) (along with a major increase in the size of our forces by as much as 45,000 troops) to support clear/hold/build.

The strategic goal is to establish an expanding zone of security for the Afghan people that would enable a steady build up of aid and development efforts to improve the Afghan populace’s well being with jobs, new infrastructure, new education systems, new agricultural techniques, etc., thereby winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.

There is nothing new in General McChrystal's strategy, it is merely a rehash of the failed oil spot (tache d'huile) strategy, first tried by French colonialist General Louis-Hubert-Gonsalve Lyautey in Algeria; then tried again under various guises by the US in Vietnam.

The problem is clear/hold/build cannot be executed on behalf of another government (particularly a weak and corrupt government) by a foreign army (unless the foreign army plans to permanently and ruthlessly occupy on the old European or Ottoman colonial models). Americans don’t want that!

Buying off the Pashtun Tribes with hard cash as Petraeus did in Iraq won’t work! Incentive structure does not exist.

I partially disagree with the last bullet. The concept that "you can rent a militia but not buy one" is evident from the 2001 invasion.

Download the full presentation here.