1) He appoints a new field general in Afghanistan,
2) His army will use less firepower and adopt a more targeted counterinsurgency strategy,
3) He will engage in diplomacy with Pakistan in a effort to close the border and cut off support to the insurgents,
4) He orders a major effort to strengthen the Afghan security forces, in order to prepare for the withdrawal of his army from the country,
5) His commanders institute a tribal engagement effort, focused around Kandahar and along the Pakistan border,
6) The client government in Kabul will push a "national reconciliation" agenda in an attempt to increase its legitimacy and to weaken the insurgent movement. This agenda will include offers of amnesty for insurgents who reintegrate into Afghan society.
The new strategy for Afghanistan succeeds well beyond the expectation of the president and his advisors. Through a combination of military pressure, tribal engagement, political alliances inside Afghanistan, and international diplomacy, violence subsides and the client government in Kabul achieves growing authority. The president negotiates an international agreement on the future of Afghanistan and successfully withdraws his army from the country. To the amazement of outside observers, the client government in Kabul survives on its own for four years, outlasting the president's time in office.
Commentary
Is this a forecast of how President's Obama's plan for Afghanistan will play out? No -- it is a description of how Mikhail Gorbachev extracted Soviet forces from Afghanistan between 1986 and 1989, in a study written by four U.S. military officers for the U.S. Naval Institute's Proceedings journal. These officers, three of whom have direct experience in Afghanistan, reached several interesting conclusions.
1) After 1986, the Soviets adopted many of the military, political, and diplomatic strategies the United States is currently attempting,
2) Although the Soviet Union had far less capacity to implement these strategies than does the U.S. today, its efforts still succeeded.
3) Gorbachev's goal was to get the Soviet army out and leave behind a friendly government in charge in Kabul. He succeeded. We will never know whether this government would have survived longer had the Soviet Union itself not collapsed.
4) Under Obama, the U.S. is "following the Bear" -- and is correct to do so.
The conventional wisdom is that the mujahideen defeated the Soviet army and chased it out of Afghanistan, which eventually led to an Islamist takeover. This perception (true or not) had crucial implications. It may have energized the willingness of people inside the Soviet empire to resist Soviet control. And Osama bin Laden used it to bolster his reputation and build his own organization.
If the Soviet client government in Kabul had lasted for ten years instead of just four, would the conventional wisdom about Soviet defeat in Afghanistan have taken hold? The answer to this question matters greatly for the U.S. regarding its post-withdrawal outcomes in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Should, after U.S. military disengagement, the governments in Baghdad and Kabul quickly collapse due to factional fighting or military coups, the impression may very well develop that insurgencies successfully ejected the U.S., as is the impression for the Soviet experience in Afghanistan.
The U.S. government intends to prevent such outcomes from happening by establishing robust country teams in both countries, combining strong diplomatic, economic, and security assistance missions. What remains to be seen is whether these efforts will be a match for variables beyond anyone's control.
The post-war reputation of the United States rides on the ability of its post-war country teams to prevent success from slipping away. Only when that happens will the U.S. control the post-war narrative -- the last but most important battle of the wars. Will the U.S. country teams in Iraq and Afghanistan be ready for these battles?