David Kilcullen is one of the intellectual forces behind the Petraeus strategy in Iraq which has transformed the situation there. It was Kilcullen, an Australian and an anthropologist by training, who grasped the pre-eminent importance of population security. So, Kilcullen’s thoughts on Afghanistan, relayed to George Packer of the New Yorker, are well worth reflecting on.
Kilcullen sees four crucial challenges the mission there must rise to:
“(1) We have failed to secure the Afghan people. That is, we have failed to deliver them a well-founded feeling of security. Our failing lies as much in providing human security—economic and social wellbeing, law and order, trust in institutions and hope for the future—as in protection from the Taliban, narco-traffickers, and terrorists. In particular, we have spent too much effort chasing and attacking an elusive enemy who has nothing he needs to defend—and so can always run away to fight another day—and too little effort in securing the people where they sleep.
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