Afghanistan

Came across a very informative interview in Newsweek by Dan Ephron with Thomas Johnson, a research professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/160439
A couple excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: What is flawed about our approach in Afghanistan?
Thomas Johnson: It's the same problem the Soviets had in their engagement from 1979 to 1989 …The United States, just as the Soviet Union, controls all the urban areas and especially provincial capitals and Kabul. But this is a rural counterinsurgency, just as the mujahedin's conflict against the Soviets was also a rural insurgency.  ....
Some of this sounds familiar from General Petraeus's counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq. Are you talking about replicating the model in Afghanistan?
Afghanistan and Iraq are really very, very different. Iraq has traditionally had literacy rates of well above 90 percent of the population, Afghanistan you might have 15 percent of the population. Iraq is basically an urban society with some very major urban centers that have driven the traditional intellectual and social and economic life of the country. Afghanistan is 80 percent rural. The cities have never mattered that much. A rural insurgency is very, very different than an urban insurgency, which we're facing in Iraq, and you have to pursue different policies. Plus, in Iraq you've had a very dynamic pattern of sectarian violence between the Sunni and Shia. And while there are differences between the Afghan Sunni and Shia, it's never been one of the driving historical epics in the country.
Some of this sounds familiar from General Petraeus's counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq. Are you talking about replicating the model in Afghanistan?
Afghanistan and Iraq are really very, very different. Iraq has traditionally had literacy rates of well above 90 percent of the population, Afghanistan you might have 15 percent of the population. Iraq is basically an urban society with some very major urban centers that have driven the traditional intellectual and social and economic life of the country. Afghanistan is 80 percent rural. The cities have never mattered that much. A rural insurgency is very, very different than an urban insurgency, which we're facing in Iraq, and you have to pursue different policies. Plus, in Iraq you've had a very dynamic pattern of sectarian violence between the Sunni and Shia. And while there are differences between the Afghan Sunni and Shia, it's never been one of the driving historical epics in the country.
You believe that a surge in Afghanistan might actually be counterproductive. Why?    I think the influx of large numbers of troops isn't the solution. ...I think we basically have a manpower distribution problem in Afghanistan. ...many of the rural Pashtuns...continually talked about how new large bases...established brought the Taliban into these areas. ...one argument that can be made that more soldiers coming into the country will be [countered] by more Taliban insurgent fighters that can cause problems ...Pashtun society as well as Afghanistan in general. ...Soviets had hundreds of thousands of troops in Afghanistan...distributed in the urban areas...not quell the mujahedin insurgency. ...bring more troops into the country, ...have them located at the district level...more impact on the insurgents.