The Next Battles for Marja

The Next Battles for Marja – Joshua Foust, New York Times opinion.

This year will be the third in a row that tens of thousands of new United States troops have arrived in Afghanistan with plans to “clear, hold and build” areas controlled by the Taliban. Those previous surges have achieved little success at holding or building, as the international coalition and Afghan government have inevitably failed to come up with realistic plans for what happens after the fighting is done. Is the campaign in Marja destined for the same fate?

The international coalition’s strategic goal for Afghanistan is to build “an enduring stable, secure, prosperous and democratic state.” Only by focusing on the messy medium-term stages of reconstruction – those months, and possibly years, after the fighting dies down – do we have any chance of achieving such a goal. In this regard, Marja presents us with four distinct hurdles…

More at The New York Times.