a map recon and then apply some basic METT-TC considerations.

The US, NATO, other Coalition Members and the Afghan government do not and will not have enough force to do the population centric COIN thing.

Moving Coalition Forces to the population centers will cede those Afghans, predominately Pushtuns who do NOT live in the centers and are the bulk of the population in the south where the problems are, to the opponent.

Platoon and Company sized outposts can always be overrun by the ability of the opponents to mass flexibly and covertly.

If you apply adequate force in Area A, the bad guys will simply go to Area B, knowing you do not have enough people to cover the region. Move to Area B and they'll go to C, cover all three and they go to City X -- they will always be more flexible than you and they will always have people who know the terrain intimately.

Thus, other than continued pointless frittering away of troops in overrun outposts there are two basic options. Fewer outposts with massive backup forces a short helicopter ride away (with all the military and political problems and shortfalls that entails) or careful selection of choke points to interdict the movement of the opponent -- we and they can only do so much with given terrain -- and a whole lot of foot and light vehicle mobile hunting teams on our part.

My perception is that the we will do neither. We do not have the force to do the first and the force we do have is inadequately trained to do the second.
Sixty years of over emphasis on Armor has had an adverse impact on us. We have forgotten how to fight on foot.

We've also forgotten, unbelievably, that installations and that's what we're building -- installations in a COIN fight, fer chissakes, -- are static and invite attack and that if they are located in a Valley, the bad guys will simply occupy the high ground and nail you while you cannot see them. We should've figured that out at Ticonderoga 232 years ago (among other places ...).

We are playing to the strengths of our opponents.