Hi Ken, thanks for the discussion.

You say:
"Quite problematic, though, when the opponent truly cannot negotiate because he is too disparate and amorphous to provide, much less enforce, a binding resolution..."

Well, I think that the opponent is not desperate. The word "oppoment" usually relates to a visible and organised element. In current conflicts an opponent can be a politician, a local policeman, a governmental rep, .... and so on.
Referring to Afghanistan the Western population often think that the opponent is Taliban. Well, I think that Taliban is the high leadership and some midlevel leaders in the provinces and that 80% of what we refer to as Taliban are not more than people who try to earn a living for their family, people who fight out of hatred because of ten years of Russian violence and years of Taliban supression (although the population embraced the Taliban in the first year of their power) and others who to things for the Taliban because they are intimidated to do so. Taliban as a name is sometimes also used to cover up drugscrime .... not only people in Afghanistan earn a lot by trading drugs.
So, what do the Afghanis want for themselves and for their children?