While most of the media attention to NATO's Afghanistan operation has been on the kinetic operations, the war has no chance of ending successfully unless Afghans can provide their own security.  Largely neglected until two years ago, that "other side of COIN" is showing promise.

Fred Kaplan notices something about that whole COIN strategy in Afghanistan - it ain't working and the US military is moving on

The confirmation of General David Petraeus as the new commander in Afghanistan has sparked renewed debate on the efficacy of counterinsurgency and the likelihood of success in Afghanistan. Though there will be a new commander in Kabul, we should not expect a new strategy.

The battle for the Helmand provincial town/city (population around 80,000) is now well underway. It has been advertised as the center of the current “surge” in Afghanistan, an entirely unveiled reference to and comparison with the 2007 exercise in Iraq that lowered the level of violence there sufficiently.

As the Obama administration’s internal debate over what to do in Afghanistan has publicly clarified, two prerequisites for the success of the American effort have risen to the top: good governance and the emegence of effective Afghan security forces.

Assume for argument’s sake that the war in Afghanistan can be “won”: objectives can be formulated that are acceptable to all parties and through a combination of political and military actions, the opposition can be vanquished. If the war is won, however, will the peace be won or lost?

The military dimension of the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan requires establishing a high enough degree of security in the country that the Afghan people will transfer their loyalty away from the Taliban (or will feel adequately unthreatened by the likelihood of a Taliban return to express opposition to the insurgents).

Assuming the counterinsurgent partners (in this case, the Afghan and American governments) can agree on a desired outcome that consititutes its version of the better state of the peace (BSOP), the next question is how to achieve that condition?