I'm more concerned now after the administration announced a counter-narcotics strategy. That sounds like our main effort is now the symptom of societal breakdown, rather than the cause.

Nicely put. I was a platoon commander of Marine grunts during two deployments (Iraq for the invasion in '03, Afghanistan in '04), and a rifle company XO in Iraq in '08. We carried our kinetic mindset from the first deployment into the second. To borrow from Steve Coll's book, we really were chasing ghosts in Afghanistan. When we did have good opportunities to properly conduct COIN in Afghanistan, such as during a two-month rotation with SOF in eastern Afghanistan, it seemed clear to me that CT operations were the focus of effort. The PRT at our mission support site was an afterthought. The GPF, SOF, PRT and OGA met every night for a BUB, but there was no unity of effort. In Iraq last year, we were finally able to pull together all the elements of our national power to create the desired effects in our battlespace. I say "nearly" because the one element that was left out of our loop were SOF. Despite our mutual efforts (we met more than a few times during our 7 months in country to help them learn about the personalities in our AO), we often first learned about their activities when frantic Iraqi Police alerted us about being attacked. Adding that final piece of the puzzle can save us all from tremendous pain as we prepare for the road ahead in Afghanistan.