New York Times – Prize on the Battlefields of Marja May Be Momentum

Any historian, or any general, would tell you the same: Lose the initiative on the battlefield, and it’s awfully hard to get it back.

US Naval Institute Proceedings – Follow the Bear

A joint team of active-duty U.S. military officers takes a second look at what worked in Afghanistan for the Soviet Union in the late 20th century and suggests that the United States could learn a thing or two from what transpired.

Foreign Affairs – The Soviet Victory That Never Was

Could the Soviet Union have won its war in Afghanistan? Today, the victory of the anti-Soviet mujahideen seems preordained as part of the West’s ultimate triumph in the Cold War. To suggest that an alternative outcome was possible — and that the United States has something to learn from the Soviet Union’s experience in Afghanistan — may be controversial. But to avoid being similarly frustrated by the infamous “graveyard of empires,” U.S. military planners would be wise to study how the Soviet Union nearly emerged triumphant from its decade-long war.

New York Times – Welcome to ‘The Mansion’

With CJ Chivers and the Marines at Combat Outpost Sullivan, the home in Helmand Province for much of Weapons Company, First Battalion, Third Marines.

US Naval Institute Proceedings – Afghanistan: Connecting Assumptions and Strategy

Three well-known military thinkers re-evaluate what we’ve assumed to know-that just wasn’t so-about a country where we’ve been fighting for eight years.

Washington Post – Newly deployed Marines to target Taliban bastion

Days after President Obama outlines his new war strategy in a speech Tuesday, as many as 9,000 Marines will begin final preparations to deploy to southern Afghanistan and renew an assault on a Taliban stronghold that slowed this year amid a troop shortage and political pressure from the Afghan government.

PBS Frontline – Obama’s War

Excellent documentary overview of the current situation in Afghanistan. You can read the Transcript but I also recommend you read the Interviews and Analysis.

The Atlantic – Time for Decisiveness on Afghanistan

Robert D. Kaplan writes that Obama needs to get behind his chosen general and put the spectacle of indecisiveness behind him. Otherwise, in the coming months, the Democrats may be seen as having lost a war. And if that happens, not even the Nobel Peace Prize will rescue his reputation.

The Times – Morale dips for American marines in Afghanistan

In a remote part of Helmand troops are dismayed by the ambivalence of locals and a sense that the Taliban can outlast them.

New York Times Magazine – Stanley McChrystal’s Long War

Is it just too late — politically and militarily — for the general to win in Afghanistan?

Washington Post – Obama Wanted a Petraeus. Buyer Beware.

Greg Jaffe writes that it is hard not to look at Stanley McChrystal without seeing David Petraeus.

Washington Post – ‘Almost a Lost Cause’

Greg Jaffe writes that one of the deadliest attacks of the Afghan war – the Battle of Wanat – is a symbol of the U.S. military’s missteps.

New York Review of Books – The Afghanistan Impasse

Ahmed Rashid updates the current situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Washington Post – McChrystal: More Forces or ‘Mission Failure’

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict “will likely result in failure.” Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”

New York Times – A War Won Less by Force Than by Persuasion?

CJ Chivers comments upon the latest counterinsurgency guidance for the American and international units fighting the Afghan war that was released this week.

New York Times – Marines Fight Taliban With Little Aid From Afghans

Lack of support from Afghan officials has hindered US Marine efforts to win over residents in a region where the Taliban remain a menacing presence.

Washington Post – Pentagon Worries Led to Command Change

How General McKiernan’s ouster reflected new realities in Afghanistan – and Washington.

Washington Post – In Afghanistan, A Test of Tactics

The new U.S. strategy for Afghanistan, as articulated in military headquarters and congressional hearing rooms, puts the emphasis not on killing Taliban fighters but on winning over the local people. But in this highly contested swath of Helmand province, US Marine Corps Sgt. Anibal Paz’s squad is likely to be ambushed before he has time to sit down for tea.

Esquire – The Long Walk: Afghanistan (and Its Future) as You’ve Never Seen It

C.J. Chivers writes that eight years into the war we were compelled to wage, the ground mission in Afghanistan remains just as brutal as war there has been for centuries. And now, after years of inattention from Washington, this war begins again. On the hunt with the men of Viper company.

Washington Post – Marines Face Stiff Taliban Resistance

Marines pushing deep into a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province battled insurgents in a day of firefights around a key bazaar Sunday, as an operation designed as a U.S. show of force confronted resistance from Taliban fighters as well as constraints on supplies and manpower.