Fred Kaplan continues his string of great articles with a very good explanation of the motives behind the leadership shakeup in Afghanistan and how it will play out. Well worth the read.
Bringing in a new set of brains (and General McChrystal and his deputy General David Rodriguez have two of the best) is certainly not a bad thing to do. And it would appear that McChrystal has an affinity and knowledge of small wars that McKiernan simply lacked. However, a change in leadership is not a substitute for a strategy and so in the coming weeks it will be important to look for concrete changes at the national and regional level in how US and Coalition forces are reshaping the focus on counternarcotics assignments, roadbuilding and other infrastructure projects, and whether they are utilizing tried and true population-centric COIN tactics. If that's the case, then perhaps attacks will go up, like in Iraq, for a while, but by the end of the year progress will have been made.
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