New Counterinsurgency Strategy Reflects Change in Taliban Structure

Posted: Thursday, December 10, 2009
Author: Kelly Doffing

General David Petraeus, the chief of the regional U.S. Central Command, testified in a hearing today before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that U.S. forces will be increasing their counterterrorism and counterinsurgency activities in Afghanistan. While this initial statement seems unsurprising, given President Obama’s newly announced strategy for the war and commitment of 30,000 additional troops to the country, the nature of the counterinsurgency activities reflects a distinct shift in U.S. understanding and policymaking.

Previous efforts to counter the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan relied largely on capturing or killing high-value targets, leaders deemed important to the organizations’ functions. This strategy was based on an understanding of the Taliban as an unified, centralized, hierarchical organization with a clear chain of command. By removing several of the top leaders, it was assumed that the Taliban would collapse on itself and dissolve. However, despite eight years of leadership targeting and hundreds of Predator drone missiles, the Taliban remained active and had even strengthened.

Petraeus’s comments mentioned high-value targets only briefly. Instead, he devoted a significant amount of time to increasing the size of Afghanistan’s Army and police forces, establishing “reintegration” programs to encourage Taliban members to defect, raising the Afghan forces’ salary to dissuade corruption and compete with the Taliban’s wages and launching a civilian front to bring more diplomats to the country. These efforts reflect a marked shift from a counterterrorism operation of high-value targeting to a broader counterinsurgency strategy more in line with the realities of Afghanistan.

The Taliban in Afghanistan crumbled following the U.S. invasion in 2001. No longer a centralized organization, it is no longer a singular entity but a group of disparate cells scattered across the country, many of which do not communicate with each other. The new Taliban does not have the resources or structure of a hierarchical organization. Instead, its groups take on different forms and pursue different goals. The new U.S. counterinsurgency strategy reflects an understanding of the changes in the Taliban, and is specifically designed to counter the new Taliban entity. After eight years of war, the new strategy represents a change in direction and an improvement in understanding.