The expanded presence of American forces may reduce the need for deadly airstrikes that can be effective in smashing Taliban fighters but all too frequently kill or maim civilians.
McChrystal is due in the capital, Kabul, this weekend, replacing Gen. David McKiernan, whom Gates fired. McChrystal stopped at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Friday to join Gates in consulting with allied defense ministers about NATO's role in Afghanistan.
Gates emphasized the imperative of avoiding civilian casualties, calling the deaths "one of our greatest strategic vulnerabilities." In his few public comments, McChrystal also has highlighted the problem.
McChrystal says he intends to run a classic counterinsurgency campaign. That means another of his key objectives will be to create distance between local Afghans and the hardcore Taliban fighters in order to win local support and gain better intelligence.
And he will aim to make better use of nonmilitary tools such as U.S. and other foreign civilian resources to improve basic government services.
Robert Scales, a retired Army two-star general who has advised U.S. commanders in Afghanistan, said in an interview Friday that he believes McChrystal will focus mainly on shifting emphasis from killing Taliban and al-Qaida fighters to protecting Afghans from those fighters
- and from unintended U.S. bombings.
"The metric has changed. The metric is no longer how much territory in Afghanistan do we control, but how effective are we in securing the people," Scales said. "Not how many bad guys do we kill or how many American casualties do we suffer, but how few Afghans are killed
- by both the bad guys and by us."
Just how McChrystal refocuses the military's mission may become more apparent when he completes the two-month assessment that Gates asked him to undertake upon his arrival in Kabul. With that assessment, McChrystal will then be expected to spell out how he intends to run the war.
Some broad elements are already clear. Among them:
-A revamped U.S.-led command structure. Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, believes it will give McChrystal additional authority and more ability to implement the strategy that President Barack Obama announced in late March.
For the first time, the U.S. commander will have a three-star American deputy to take more of the day-to-day burden. The three-star is Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, who has been serving as Gates' top military assistant.
-More use of civilian experts, including U.S. agricultural specialists, to develop viable alternatives to the illicit poppy-growing business that Washington and its allies say is helping finance the Taliban resistance. Obama promised a "civilian surge" to help the Afghan government build democratic foundations. And he said the U.S. would seek a "new compact" with the government to crack down on corruption.
