"The approach seems to be that transient patrols, haphazardly driving around and visiting villages in giant bomb proof robot trucks, is a substitute for thousan

"The approach seems to be that transient patrols, haphazardly driving around and visiting villages in giant bomb proof robot trucks, is a substitute for thousands of years old strategies of taking, holding and controlling territory." I suspect it wouldn't be that hard to get the Army to take and hold territory in Afghanistan, because that's the kind of thing that armies naturally do and they're good at. We've been un-training the Army in that respect, because we don't want the territory. We've always had one foot out the door. It must be plainly obvious if you happen to be there that Afghanistan is not a good piece of real estate to invest in. The impression I get is like of a blighted neighborhood, perhaps like something you might find in the poorest part of the US, say, somewhere in the rust belt or the deep south. The comparison only goes so deep. But my point being that there are areas here at home that we can't save from decaying and becoming havens for criminals. Even if there was some price for which Afghanistan could be saved (gentrified?), it smells to us like a bad business deal and we have no intention of getting too deeply involved, not to the point that we can't get back out. It's been obvious for a while that the Afghanistan mission hasn't been going well and it's equally obvious that, in spite of all that we have spent and done, we haven't literally exhausted everything we could try if we really, I mean really, wanted to. I've tried to imagine this scenario, where failure is truly not an option -- what might we try, then? The biggest problem looks to be the economy, which looks like it's based on dead-ends like subsistence farming, and on criminal enterprise, like opium cultivation and trafficking in sex slaves. The most valuable resource Afghanistan has to offer foreigners, at present, is being a lawless no-man's land where crime goes unpunished. Afghanistan seems to hold little to reward investors, or any kind of business. In the failure-is-not-an-option case, the best strategy may be to basically create a welfare state and start sending out checks. A well-run welfare state apparatus would create a lot of good will and loyalty very fast, and start to free people from the survival-level concerns that drive them to ally with the Taliban. The bureaucracy involved would get people interacting with government and start to create a favorable impression of what government is, as well as provide jobs. Welfare checks could allow some people to get away from manual labor long enough to acquire education, and start to lay the groundwork for a self-sustaining economy. A direct infusion of money would provide the incentive to individuals to take our side and abandon the Taliban, which up till now has been missing. Of course, we'd also have to convince people of our intention to stay for the long term, but I have a feeling Afghans would be less inclined to doubt it if we actually started sending out checks. I'm not saying this would ever happen, or even that I'm advocating for it. In the hypothetical scenario where nothing was off the table, it's my best guess as to what could work.