Suppose the threat of al-Qaida were eliminated in the region. Would that make Afghanistan, Pakistan or the United States a great deal safer? The answer is no because it is the Taliban, defined in the larger sense, that are the greater danger. And because the Taliban are so culturally integrated into Pashtun and large swaths of Afghan and Pakistani society, eliminating, containing or marginalizing them is an extraordinarily difficult task.

The Obama administration surely understands that AFPAK is the strategic center of gravity in this battle, a great improvement over the Bush administration's preoccupation with Iraq. And if only an equivalent amount of resources that went into Iraq could be directed to AFPAK, the world would surely be a better place. That is not going to happen. The reality is that the United States will under-resource what needs to be done for many reasons, not the least of which is the dire economic and financial condition of this country and its deficit spending.

In Afghanistan, Monday's surprise replacement of Army Gen. David McKiernan with Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal as commander of U.S. and NATO forces and the appointment of retired Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, who spent two earlier tours in Afghanistan and just left the post of deputy chairman of NATO's Military Committee, as ambassador underscore the White House's appreciation of the need for fresh leadership. Eikenberry is backed up with the unusual appointment of three Foreign Service officers who held ambassadorial posts prior to this assignment.

The principal critical flaws in the Afghan strategic road map have been two-fold. First, the so-called civilian surge is a trickle, if that. Second, employment of these additional forces was to carry out the current strategy that is a variant of search and destroy modified to try to hold more territory. McChrystal may well correct the second deficiency.

Success in Afghanistan rests on what happens to the civilian sector. The Rand Corp. estimates that about one-quarter of the effort expended by U.S., NATO and other military forces goes to civilian as opposed to combat operations. By that standard and using other insurgencies as approximate models for estimating the size of a civilian effort aimed at reconstruction, development and institution- and infrastructure-building, thousands of people are needed. At best, the size of the civilian surge might barely reach 1,000 and probably will be less than that. The conclusion is clear: As Napoleon famously remarked, quantity has a quality of its own.

Hence, without the civilian manpower likely to be needed, the fallback position must be to reshape the military strategy to compensate. The question is whether that can be done or not and if any military strategy can fill this huge void.

In Pakistan, much rests on how successful the Pakistani army will be in defeating the Taliban in the Swat Valley. There are three major realities that will determine this answer. First, the Pakistani army is organized to defeat India's ground forces, not to take on a major insurgency in which firepower in the form of artillery, tanks and jet aircraft can create far more political damage through indiscriminate destruction than whatever losses are inflicted on the Taliban.

Second, the Pakistani army has been reluctant to attack fellow Pakistanis -- even those of Taliban persuasion. Given a decade or more of isolation from interaction with the United States, a substantial slice of the officer corps is, if not anti-American, certainly not impressed with our policies. How much stomach the army will have for this fight will be determined and is not by any means assured.

Finally, there is no certainty that once the fighting is over, Pakistan has the capacity for maintaining law and order as well as rebuilding Swat. Unfortunately, for all the assistance given to Pakistan, the need for follow-on capacities post-hostilities is far from being met.

President Asif Zardari of Pakistan has been very convincing in his understanding of the existential nature of this threat and his commitment to defeating it. President Obama likewise says that he agrees with this assessment. But if that is true, why then do the stunning flaws in our strategy persist, and why has no one in the administration tried to fix them?

(Harlan Ullman is a senior adviser at the Atlantic Council. His last book was "America's Promise Restored: Preventing Culture, Crusade and Partisanship from Wrecking Our Nation.")

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

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