Insurgencies are indeed resolved in the capitals rather than won on the ground.
The old adage of "we must establish security first" only applies to those tactical efforts on the ground. All those efforts on the ground, the security and the development and governance efforts that follow, are supporting efforts to the larger resolution.
In the old days, when the mission was to secure the place of illegitimate governments so that they could continue to support the national interests of the intervening powers the mission was different. Suppression was indeed enough then, it was the mission. Suppress the people and secure the illegitimate government.
Today that mission has flipped. We in fact have no critical national interests in Afghanistan that require us to establish or secure such an illegitimate caretaker government as we have created in the Karzai regime per the old model. Today the U.S. interest being pursued in Afghanistan and Pakistan both is the security of America. America is best secured when we support the people of Afghanistan in their pursuit of good governance.
Other states have other interests that they too must secure. Our NATO allies have different interests than the US does. Pakistan has different interests than the US does. All of Afghanistan's neighbors have different interests than the US, many of those neighbors cling to the cusp of devolving into full-blown insurgency within their own borders as well, and the prevention of this is the primary interest they seek to service in Afghanistan.
When all of the governments and politicians from these various stakeholders come together to balance and negotiate their shared, neutral and conflicting interests we move forward. When the US assumes our interests are what drives solutions we do not.
When we turn our main effort to put pressure on the Karzai government to either include all of their populace in governance and opportunity, and not just those of the Northern Alliance, we move forward.
Intel driven strategy does not help, as it focuses on threat suppression, and that is the old model. The thinking behind the Small Wars Manual was sound when it was written, but it was already beginning to turn. The last 100+ years have been dominated by popular efforts to throw off illegitimate governments, and the efforts of the foreign supporters of those governments to prevent that from happening.
The thinking behind the Small Wars Manual has been fully obsolete for at least 20 years, probably 50. We can't look at the issues with the Pak government and the Taliban, and the Karzai government and the Taliban and see it clearly when we use that old lens.
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