Robert D. Billard, Jr.
Four years after the Taliban’s return to power, Afghanistan’s regime faces deepening economic collapse, ethnic alienation, and persistent internal and external pressures. The United States now possesses an ideal opportunity to subvert Taliban rule and deny Afghanistan’s further usage as a terrorist safe haven. While the past quarter-century has seen overt investment into Counter Insurgency Operations, this article explains how the United States can enable and empower a current insurgency to achieve strategic goals that went unrealized during 20 years of sustained ground operations.
Drawing directly on T.E. Lawrence’s “Twenty-Seven Articles,” this article examines how fragmented anti-Taliban forces could adopt a mobility-focused, population-centric campaign to exploit these vulnerabilities and progressively erode Taliban control. It outlines a practical strategy built on unified command, indirect warfare, parallel governance, and targeted information operations. The article then specifies low-footprint Western support measures – such as intelligence sharing, precision weapons, exile training, and deniable funding – that could enable victory without reintroducing conventional forces. Finally, it addresses proliferation risks, Pakistani reactions, and moral hazards, concluding that calibrated external enablement offers the most viable path to deny the Taliban permanent consolidation.