My take is the that people who live within what is now called Afghanistan have an ancient and accepted system of local governance; a flegling and unproven attempt to apply centralized "state" governance; a Taliban led insurgent challenge to that central role; and a mix of competitors for regional influence in the midst of all.

At the local level I think the best you can hope to do is enforce the ancient local systems, and then work to help connect them effectively to the fledgling centralized systems to a degree and in a manner that is acceptable to that populace. There is nothing simple about that task; but I think the key is to see it as bringing the two together, vice imposing one upon the other. Some of those informal competitors, be they labled "warlord" or "taliban" etc may well be essential connectors in many areas.