U.S. Marines provide security for fellow Marines during a security patrol in the Nawa district in the Helmand province, Afghanistan, Oct. 20, 2009. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Artur ShvartsbergFrom DoD Buzz:
How best to measure success in Afghanistan remains a question in search of an answer. The debate over which metrics best chart the path to a successful campaign wasn’t advanced much when South Asia special envoy Richard Holbrook threw out the fairly hazy measure of success: “We’ll know it when we see it.” To be fair to Holbrooke, guerrilla warfare doesn’t lend itself to simple measurement equations.
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My Comment: I am definitely living in a bizarre world when I see articles and discussions like this one.
Victory can be summed up like this. You know who the leaders of the Taliban are .... you then go out and kill them and their commanders. And if others decide to take their place .... you kill them. You keep this process going onto you end up with people who do not want to take such a role, or are only interested in suing for peace.
This tactic (and metrics) was used with brutal effectiveness in Iraq. I suggest the same "metrics" be applied to Afghanistan.