networks to observe and report.  The US and Afghan forces, heavily laden with excessive body armor and equipment, are reluctant to leave their vehicles.  They are blown up on the same roads and paths they entered the area on.  The Taliban will use feints and lures to draw our forces away from caches and leaders in an attempt to buy them time to relocate, or into a lethal ambush.  After the attack the Taliban will disperse and blend into the village.  The village will usually sustain civilian casualties and the information or propaganda will be spread of US and Afghan forces using excessive force.  The US and Afghan forces will leave or set up an outpost nearby, but the attacks will continue because the forces are not in the village, do not truly know "who's who in the zoo", and aren't able to effectively engage Taliban personnel or effectively interface with the village nodes of influence to their benefit.

We say one thing but our actions are different.  Locals are reluctant to help because to be seen talking with the Americans and Afghan security forces will result in a visit from a Taliban member to determine what they talked about and to whom. The local villagers know the government has no effective plan that can counter the Taliban in their village and will typically only give information on Taliban or criminal elements to settle a blood feud.  The Pashtu people are patient to obtain justice and will use what they have to pay pack "blood for blood" even against the Taliban.

Countering the Taliban in the Village

Countering Taliban subversion of the populace is not done effectively with just more troops located at outposts.  The troops must coordinate their activities with the local population and establish security through and within the village.  When US and Afghan forces do this the fight will typically take on a particularly violent aspect, and involve the population as the Taliban attempt to maintain control.

The US and Afghan forces and Government will need to identify individuals to use lethal and non-lethal targeting.  This requires in- depth knowledge of tribal structure, alliances and feuds.  Viable alternatives or choices need to be available to village leaders and villagers. Just placing US and Afghan soldiers at an outpost and conducting token presence patrols and occasionally bantering with locals and organizing a shura once a month are not going to work.

Our military forces go into an area facing unknown personalities. Often Taliban leaders are misidentified or not known. Troops go into villages "looking" for contact to draw out the insurgents. The result is most often an ambush with an IED against an armored vehicle.  The Taliban know that to destroy one vehicle is a strategic victory.  The destruction of a Humvee is the loss of $250k worth of equipment and casualties. The IED ambush is filmed, for several reasons; to replay as demoralizing propaganda for Americans to see our soldiers and equipment destroyed and killed, proof for payment of the IED team, propaganda of victory to the Taliban for recruitment, training video to show "how to", and proof to other Taliban that success can be achieved.  The video is important to the Taliban in that the vehicle is destroyed and its occupants killed or injured over and over again as it is replayed. If it had not been filmed it would have been a one-time only event, known only by word of mouth to others. The Taliban will attrite our forces slowly by ambush, and continue their business of subverting the local populace unchecked.

Mirror imaging: we think we would like to have services, so they become a priority, but lack of services does not determine who controls or influences a village.  Services just make life more comfortable.

Afghan identity is not primarily national, i.e. belonging within a geographic boundary with a centralized national government.  Afghan identity is tribal in nature. Americans view identity as a national government, in the villages Afghans do not. The tribe is most important. The country "Afghanistan" running things from Kabul does not mean very much to the Afghan people in the villages under duress from the Taliban.

US and Afghan forces must be able to infiltrate and shape the village nodes of influence and then target individuals.  Right now our military embraces a centralized, top-driven approach that prevents our military and US - trained Afghan counterparts from doing so.  Current US procedures and tactics attempt to identify the Taliban without regard to their influence or social role at a village level.  Instead we attempt to link individuals to attacks and incomplete network structures through often questionable intelligence.  The individuals in nodes of influence must be identified as neutral, pro, or anti Afghan government and then dealt with.  To target any other way is haphazard at best and does not gain us the initiative.

US and Afghan forces must also devise and utilize tactics to fight outside and inside the village. This requires true light infantry and real counterinsurgency tactics employed by troops on the ground, not read from a "new" COIN manual by leadership in a support base. The tactics must entail lightly equipped and fast- moving COIN forces that go into villages and know how to properly interact with locals and identify Taliban insurgents.  They must have the ability to take their time and stay in areas they have identified at the local level as worth trying to take back.  Being moved from place to place and using armored vehicles while hardly reengaging local leadership will not work. Targeting identified high value targets will only result in the "whack-a-mole" syndrome. It's demoralizing for US and Afghan troops, the American public, and the Afghans who just want to live in peace. A light infantry force conducting specialized reconnaissance in villages, and using proven tactics like trained visual trackers to follow insurgents into and out of villages, proper ambush techniques on foot outside the village, and knowing the local village situation are the key.  Infantry tactics should use also vertical envelopment of Taliban fighters by helicopter and parachute to cut off avenues of escape.  Troops should foot patrol into villages at night, talk with and document compounds and inhabitants for later analysis, and have a secure patrol base locally from which to operate.  Mega bases or FOBS are only for support and units and tactics should be decentralized.

Written by Mark Sexton                                                      

This analysis is the opinion of the author and does not represent the Department of Defense, US Army, or any other state or federal government agency.