Counterinsurgency and security bubbles

By Fester:

The Taliban and Pashtun insurgent groups are becoming significantly more active in southern Afghanistan and they are achieving negation victories over the counter-insurgency campaign that is being waged against it.  The Washington Post reports that several villages near Khandahar have fallen to Taliban fighters which are operating in battalion strength.  This is a major set back even if US, NATO and Afghan government forces are able to retake these towns and villages within the next week while decimating the forces that stand and fight.  The security bubble and the credible promise that is the premise of any counterinsurgency effort has been popped yet again.  And despite any probable future Taliban losses, this campaign is a win for them as I explained multiple times in the past:

the counter-insurgent task is a very complex task of seperating the population from the insurgent, and creating credible guarantees of security from any retaliation from the insurgent force....

The counterinsurgent force has to generate a bubble of security that negates the ability of the insurgent force to target informers, cooperators and neutrals. This bubble must be very strong for if the insurgent force can routinely penetrate the bubble, the promises of reward for cooperation with the counter-insurgent force become meaningless, for cooperation credibly means death.

The level of violence is up in Afghanistan and complex operations are being pulled off by the Taliban as they penetrate and pop the bubble of the credible counterinsurgent promise. Expect more violence, and more empty bluster and threats from the Kabul government as the Western forces are stretched too thin with few credible reinforcements in the pipeline and a nasty economic wallup of higher wheat prices and lower opium prices increases suffering and the need of previously neutral Afghanis to trade their allegiance for assistance.