New Tactics for the Taliban: US Army Applies Lessons of Iraq to Afghanistan

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In May, Gates dismissed David McKiernan, the commander of US forces and of international troops in Afghanistan. McKiernan's removal demonstrated how serious Washington is about its radical change of course. The last time a commanding four-star general was replaced was in 1951, when then-President Harry Truman removed a general for having opposed his plans during the Korean War.

The new man in Kabul is General Stanley McChrystal, a lanky, 55-year-old ascetic who prides himself on eating only one meal a day to avoid drowsiness and who gets by with only a few hours of sleep every night. Until now, McChrystal tended to be involved with the darker side of the military business. He commanded covert US special forces operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for five years. His men were the ones who hunted down former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before capturing him in a hole in the ground. McChrystal also gave the order to kill Iraqi al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

According to insiders with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul, the general has been given one year to achieve initial successes in Afghanistan, and two years to produce a turnaround. Political support cannot be maintained for longer than that. That's why McChrystal now plans to revise the logic of the war, changing the US forces' objective from fighting the enemy to providing security for Afghans.

Deep Partners

"Why did this happen?" the general asks in his morning meeting in Kabul after learning that civilians were injured or killed the night before. His soldiers have orders to withdraw rather than risk killing innocent people in a gun battle. McChrystal wants them to rethink the approach, and in fact to adopt a new way of thinking.

That will be difficult, says McChrystal, because the Taliban "are gaining ground." His favorite concept these days is "deep partnering." He wants his soldiers to stop isolating themselves behind barbed wire and walls, and the international troops to get out of the cities and go into the villages. And he wants his GIs, from generals to privates, to train, fight, eat and live next to Afghan security forces. "Where we go we will stay," he says.

This roughly reflects the language of the US military's new field manual, "Tactics in Counterinsurgency," written for company, battalion and brigade commanders. The volume sums up the bitter lessons from the Iraq war.

Since McChrystal has taken over, the number of enemy fighters killed in battle is no longer released. "We will not win based on the number of Taliban we kill, but instead on our ability to separate insurgence from the center of gravity -- the people," McChrystal wrote in one of his first commands. Naturally the general continues to send special units to hunt down and eliminate senior Taliban leaders.

Dirty Money

After driving 12 kilometers (7 miles), Captain Tart and his unit have reached a mud farmhouse in the desert. There are several outbuildings, the sand-colored roofs are shaped like domes, and red hollyhocks are blooming in the garden. Two men are sitting in front of the house, and everything seems peaceful.

The informant who led Tart to the farm, a Pashtun with a gaunt face and thin beard, quickly disappears. The farm is supposed to be a hiding place for opium, and the Marines find packets of drugs in holes in the cellar and hidden between double walls. The two men in front of the house, a young man and an older man, claim that they just happen to be here to do work in the garden.

It is already dark, and yet the thermometer still indicates 30 degrees Celsius. Captain Tart has already collected 600 kilograms (1,320 pounds) of opium, with a market value of more than $100,000 in Afghanistan. The identity of the owner of the drugs remains unclear.

Tart has the older of the two men handcuffed and then takes him along to the police station in Delaram. The captain is pleased with his success. "The drugs bring in dirty money, which is used to kill our people," he says. "We took it off the street."

The police station in Delaram is between the bazaar and the cemetery, where green-and-white flags fly over the graves. The Marines have set up camp in a derelict building, and the police officers live in the adjacent house. This is where the US troops are testing McChrystal's new strategy of living with local security forces.

The American soldiers look a bit like pirates, with bandanas and tattoos, chewing tobacco between their teeth. The food is better with the Afghans, they say. They only received the tip-off about the opium because they have set up camp here instead of withdrawing several weeks ago, when suicide bombers attacked the police station several times.

The Afghan police have set up a building for visitors behind the Americans' quarters. The first of the villagers eventually came to the police -- and talked. Others followed, a sign that the new strategy appears to be paying off.

Looking for Combat

Corporal Jacey Marks, on the other hand, looks like someone who would have trouble rethinking the strategy. The powerfully built soldier has close-cropped red hair, high cheekbones and tattoos. Marks served in Haditha, the embattled Iraqi city that acquired a tragic notoriety when a small number of GIs mowed down 24 Iraqi civilians there in 2005. Marks gained combat experience in Haditha, and combat is what the 24-year-old soldier has learned so far. "That's what you look for," he says, reflecting the mentality of the Marines.

Now Marks is driving with a patrol in the border region near the western edge of Helmand. He drives his Humvee over bumpy fields to avoid the omnipresent roadside bombs, expecting enemy fire or an ambush at any moment. But nothing happens. Nothing has happened in weeks. The enemy is merely watching him from afar, and all the energy the corporal has directed against the enemy comes to nothing. Marks is learning that Afghanistan is not Haditha. The Taliban know that they can only lose in direct combat with the Marines, and they avoid them.

"The Taliban aren't challenging us, the Marines, but they are exhausting the American public, which will eventually come to believe that there are no successes and there is no purpose to our effort here," says a first sergeant at the Marines' camp in Delaram. He is sitting under a camouflage tent, fanning himself with a paper plate.

Only 4.5 percent of the Afghan population lives in Helmand, but many Afghans stand to lose a lot if peace were to suddenly break out there. Opium and the war are economically significant for Afghanistan. The drugs fuel the war, and the war protects the drugs. Those who profit from opium want to see the status quo maintained for a while longer.

General McChrystal's goal must now be to take support away from the insurgents and win the backing of as many clans and tribes as possible, so that the Taliban are eventually forced to negotiate -- under the West's terms. But is this even achievable anymore?

A Broader Approach

There is much talk about reconciliation in Kabul these days. United Nations Special Representative for Afghanistan Kai Eide wonders out loud whether talks with the enemy ought to be organized at the district or provincial level, or whether, as he believes, "we should take a broader approach."

Thomas Ruttig of the independent consulting group Afghanistan Analysts Network recommends an intensive process of talks between the government and all the groups that have disassociated themselves from it. He supports nationwide hearings to heal the wounds of 30 years of war.

Anything is still possible in Afghanistan, writes Anthony Cordesman of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies in his recent study "The Afghanistan Campaign: Can We Win?" Cordesman, a respected security analyst, spent an entire month working in McChrystal's team to assess how much additional strength an accelerated buildup of Afghan security forces would provide. He analyzed cooperation within the international community and speculated on a new Afghan government's chances of launching a peace process. His conclusion is that the jury is still out when it comes to victory or failure.

On election day, Mohammed Nader Ashraf, the farmer from Helmand province, waits until it is completely dark before returning to his village near Khalaj. He is not interested in judging the outcome of his election adventure on the question of whether democracy has been advanced, or even whether Afghanistan will finally find peace. There is only one thing that counts for Ashraf: When will he get his land back?

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• Part 1: US Army Applies Lessons of Iraq to Afghanistan
• Part 2: The New Man in Kabul