NATO defense ministers acknowledged that operation in Afghanistan was not working and agreed that they needed a new approach to seize the initiative from Taliban and al-Qaeda in a recent meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia. NATO defense ministers also backed a plan to shift towards a full-fledged counter-insurgency strategy without elaborating how the new plan will be made to work, or commit troops to the move.

While addressing to reporters, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said:

It does not solve the problems in Afghanistan just to hunt down and kill individual terrorists. What we need is a much broader strategy, which stabilizes the whole Afghan society. I have noted a broad support from all ministers on this counter-insurgency approach, but let me stress, without discussing the resource implications of these recommendations.

McChrystal’s strategy puts protection of the Afghan civilians at the epicentre of the military action, forcing the fighters to come to the military alliance and its partners.

US Defense Secretary Roberts Gates indicated that a number of his European allies appeared ready to provide more resources to carry out the plan, drawn up by the top commander in Afghanistan, US General Stanley McChrystal. Gates said:

There were a number of allies, who have indicated they were thinking about or moving towards increasing their military or their civilian contributions or both, and I found that very heartening.

NATO’s aim in Afghanistan has been to foster security, democracy reconstruction in a country wracked by more than 30 years of war by leading a force of some 70,000 troops drawn from 43 nations. The US forces separately conduct operations to root out al-Qaeda. The reports suggest that currently the Taliban and other networks hold the initiative, 8 years after the Taliban were ousted from power in Afghanistan.

The success of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan depends on how swiftly they can help the Afghans to build the infrastructure and assist in providing basic amenities.   Once the Afghan people observe that foreign forces are there to help and not to conquer or invade their cultural norms, they will start to cooperate with the operating NATO forces. Eventually it will not only speed up the rehabilitation process but also weed out the extremist elements responsible for all the destruction,  and deaths of Afghan people.