Josh Foust and Paul Meinshausen promote an effort in Afghanistan called the Local Defense Initiative, an effort led by Special Forces units to build Afghan capacity:

So why is LDI the best hope for success in Afghanistan? The concept behind LDI was to embed autonomous, 12-man teams of Special Forces soldiers with Afghan communities in areas where the Afghan government has limited or no presence. The teams, known as Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) units, would help re-establish security in the area by patrolling with groups of local men, thereby allowing the Afghan government to establish a stable presence and begin to function again. The program is distinct from the recently announced, and so far unnamed, local defense forces that will be funded by the Interior Ministry and function more like local police.

The LDI is based on the belief that combat is not the answer. Instead, its goal is to create space for Afghans to solve their own problems, peacefully. It is small and focused on building local capacity, rather than imposing external capacity. That also means it is sustainable for the long run.

The ODA teams’ constant presence — something other local initiatives lacked — is what makes the LDI so successful. The teams’ size offers a manageable and personally accessible scale for local populations. Most of their time is spent walking around their area, talking to locals, meeting with influential persons, and coordinating small-scale projects. By contrast, they do very little fighting.

I respect Josh’s effort to think through a way in which to support organic Afghan structures from the ground up, rather than impose U.S. organizational structures on them, with all the attendant disruptive impact that has. And I’m sympathetic to the idea of doing so with progressively smaller units with less of a combat focus, as a path to sustainability. But I came away from the piece less than clear about what the LDI actually does. For instance:

Still, if fighting can’t be the focus of these programs, it is inevitably a part of them, and the Special Forces are the only group capable of deterring insurgents while maintaining a minimal footprint. They have set up LDIs in insurgent safe havens that had never seen a permanent coalition or Afghan government presence. Soon after, villages that were violently feuding only months before began to work together on development projects regulating their communities. In southern Afghanistan, one team persuaded insurgents to safely return 6 kidnapped villagers without any violence.

What LDIs show is that in Afghanistan, smaller is better. LDI teams themselves do not “solve” problems or impose massive projects on Afghan communities. Instead, they provide local populations the space and responsibility to participate in solving their own problems. That makes talking easier and more effective than fighting. Quite literally, it replaces conflict with politics. And more politics is what Afghan communities need.

I’d like to know more about how that actually works. Maybe when I’m Afghanistan next week I’ll be able to do some reporting on it.