Afstan: US "clear and hold" approach

A major part of how the surge will be implemented:

U.S. Strategy in Afghan War Hinges on Far-Flung Outposts

SERAY, Afghanistan -- The attacks usually begin in the afternoon, just after the soldiers of Combat Outpost Seray return from patrol. One recent day, Taliban fighters shot at the base from a nearby mountain range. In response, Apache attack helicopters launched rockets at the mountain, kicking up plumes of mottled smoke.

"Day comes, day goes," said Spc. Trey Dart, taking shelter under a makeshift roof of green sandbags. "Firefights are just another part of the routine."
President Barack Obama is hoping to boost the flagging war effort in Afghanistan by sending 17,000 reinforcements. Most of them will be deployed to small, remote bases such as Seray, a walled compound of trenches and fortified buildings near the Pakistan border. Many of these new outposts will be in eastern and southern Afghanistan, the most violent parts of the country.

But will the troops in these tiny redoubts be able to carry out the often conflicting missions of fighting insurgents and building relationships with local villagers, or will these soldiers and Marines merely be easy targets?

Last year was the bloodiest yet in Afghanistan for U.S., North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Afghan forces -- as well as for Afghan civilians -- since the start of the U.S.-led war in 2001. American and Afghan officials expect 2009 to be worse; 30 American soldiers have already been killed in Afghanistan this year compared with 155 in all of 2008. The violence has been triggered by the resurgent Taliban, which is expanding its operations with revenues from the country's flourishing opium trade. There are currently about 52,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, including about 35,000 U.S. troops.

To accommodate the new troops, U.S. forces in Afghanistan are already digging ditches, filling sandbags and building basic infrastructure at close to a dozen new combat outposts. Senior American commanders estimate at least a dozen additional bases will be built in the two regions by the summer [emphasis added]...

But I find the following a bit curious, given the major Canadian and British military presences respectively in the two cities named:

David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency expert who has long advised Gen. Petraeus on Iraq and Afghanistan, supported the outpost strategy in Iraq. But he says the U.S. is making a mistake by deploying so many troops to remote bases in Afghanistan.

Mr. Kilcullen, a retired Australian military officer, notes that 80% of the population of southern Afghanistan lives in two cities, Kandahar and Lashkar Gah. The U.S. doesn't have many troops in either one of them.

"The population in major towns and villages is vulnerable because we are off elsewhere chasing the enemy," he said.

First, Mr. Kilcullen has his facts very wrong. The (estimated) population of Kandahar province is around one million, that of the city 325,000; Helmand province is around 800,000 with Lashkar Gah at just 36,000.

Second, the problem in Regional Command South seems the inability to stabilize the countryside, rather than the cities:

...
Nato’s most senior commander in Afghanistan, David McKiernan, an American, has conceded that the British are locked in a stalemate in Helmand. Privately, British officials admit they do not have enough soldiers to control the ground [similar to the situation in Kandahar province--more here]. “We clear an area and the Taliban run away,” said one official. “But the soldiers can’t stay, so the Taliban creep back. It’s pointless.”..

There's also a major terrain difference between the largely hilly/mountainous east and the fairly flat south. What that means in terms of forward bases I'm not sure. But in the east the US Army has mainly used light infantry airborne brigade combat teams since vehicle use is quite constrained. Whereas the Stryker brigade combat team (SBCT) going to the south will have lots of light armour:

...Senior ground commanders in­tend to use the SBCT’s unique blend of fast-moving firepower and light infantry structure to help tame the hundreds of square miles of open country that make up portions of southern Afghanistan...