In spite of the commitments made at Tuesday's conference on the future of Afghanistan in Kabul, the current US counter-insurgency strategy (Coin) is likely to fail. The Taliban cannot be sufficiently weakened in Pashtun Afghanistan to coerce it to the negotiating table. America cannot win over sufficient numbers of the Afghan Pashtun on whom Coin depends. President Hamid Karzai's deeply corrupt government shows no signs of improvement. The Afghanistan army cannot stand up to the Taliban for many years, if ever. Pakistan's military continues to support its Afghan Taliban proxies. And the long-term Coin strategy and the far shorter US political timeline are incompatible.
盡管各方上周二在喀布爾召開的有關阿富汗未來的會議上做出承諾，但當前美國的反叛亂戰略仍然很可能失敗。盟軍在阿富汗普什圖地區無法有效削弱塔利班勢力，迫使其坐到談判桌前。美國爭取不到反叛亂戰略所依賴的足夠數量的普什圖人。哈米德?卡爾扎伊(Hamid Karzai)總統的極其腐敗的政府毫無改進跡象。阿富汗軍隊在未來多年將一直不是塔利班的對手，也許永遠都會如此。巴基斯坦軍方繼續支持其阿富汗塔利班代理人。此外，長期的反叛亂戰略和短得多的美國政治時間表不能相容。