Obama Turns Focus to War in Afghanistan

What's not, it seems clear, is the Pakistan piece. Many U.S. officials consider Pakistan's ungoverned border tribal areas a key obstacle to peace in Afghanistan. The border is porous, and even a considerable increase in U.S. force levels in Afghanistan will have limited impact, they say, until the Pakistani sanctuaries are cleared out. Platoon-size U.S. outposts along the Afghan border are vulnerable and are having little success stemming the flow of insurgents, according to senior U.S. military officials, who have quietly begun closing some of these bases.

Senior Pentagon officials say that they want to see more military cooperation with Pakistan. The big debate, though, is how to go about it. One point of contention is how much intelligence to share at joint border coordination centers since some members of Pakistan's powerful intelligence service have close ties to the Taliban and Pakistani officers have been discovered passing along plans about future operations. For these reasons, the U.S. military is sharing only "local intelligence at this point," says Maj. Gen. John Macdonald, deputy commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan during an interview earlier this year.

Confidence. Since then, U.S. military officials say they have been pleased with aspects of the Pakistani military offensive operations in the contested tribal region, after Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen had noted in the past that conditions in Pakistan "continue to move in the wrong direction." Mullen had said then that he was "increasingly both concerned and frustrated by the progression of the danger" there. Largely as a result, the Pentagon has been a vocal proponent of economic aid for Pakistan in an effort to ameliorate some of the poverty that encourages many young men to become radicalized foot soldiers in the first place. This aid will be tied to Pakistan's progress in tracking down insurgents within its borders, which U.S. military officials consider a vital mission. In Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country with a population six times the size of Afghanistan's, "the stakes are as high as they can get," says Flournoy.

In both countries, people continue to lose confidence in their governments. And there is only so much that U.S. forces or NATO can do to bolster local authorities, even in Afghanistan. They might fund a school in one village, only to find that there are no teachers to staff it. Or they hire local contractors to dig wells requested by tribal elders, then discover neighbors down the road up in arms months later because the wells deplete their water supply.

When U.S. troops move in to a particular area, they bring along significant Pentagon money to pave the way for their arrival. If they spend it well, these funds can win local support and trust. But officers say that figuring out the right projects, while simultaneously working to uncover the competing interests of local leaders, is not their forte. For years, they have been asking for more civilian experts, including engineers, agricultural specialists, and diplomats, to help them avoid rookie mistakes. But while Obama has promised hundreds of civilians to fill such central roles, the State Department is struggling to find skilled personnel, once again forcing the U.S. military to address the shortfall by bringing in reservists.

Despite the strain, such efforts to strengthen the Afghan government are vital. Ask most Afghans what their biggest gripe is these days, and they are not likely to say the rising number of suicide strikes or roadside bombs but corruption within the government, which they find humiliating and enraging. "Every single interaction with the government" involves a financial transaction, says Sarah Chayes, a former journalist who is a founder of a development cooperative in the restive city of Kandahar. "To pay your electricity bill, you have to go to eight different desks in two different buildings and you have to pay bribes." In exchange for this disheartening drill, Afghans get about four to five hours of power every two to three days in Kandahar, more than seven years after the U.S. invasion.