David Kilcullen, a former senior counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq, says the U.S. must change its policy in Afghanistan from chasing the enemy to protecting the people.
"We need to get into the business of making people feel safe and making them feel willing to participate in a political process that doesn't involve violence," Kilcullen says.
The Obama administration is expected to release its Afghanistan review soon and Kilcullen, author of The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One, may be behind some of the thinking in the review.
"The review that the new administration has gone through has been a very detailed and sensible approach to what is an extremely difficult problem," Kilcullen says. "We need to make some fairly significant changes if we do want to win it."
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