Quora Answer: Is the Taliban as Strong as It Has Ever Been, or Can They be Stopped Anytime Soon?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “The Taliban is as strong as it has ever been.  Can or will they be stopped any time soon?”

The Taliban is a name given to scattered groups with a loose affiliation to each other that have a nominal shared ideology based on the Deobandi-brand of Sunni Islam.  They have widespread support as defenders of the religion and the country against imperialist occupiers.  The US has lost control of the narrative.

Just as it is with previous American misadventures overseas, the US military is a sledgehammer good at demolishing infrastructure but totally unsuited for the process of nation building.  Killing more people simply creates recruits for the Taliban because the American policymakers do not understand the tribal nature of Afghan society.

To defeat any insurgency requires defeating the underlying ideology and reasons for it.  The very nature of the American occupation, and the perceived disrespect for Afghan traditions, whether Pashtun or otherwise, actually fuels the insurgency.  It would actually make more sense for the US to pull out completely, and hand power over to a local proxy.  This way, they save on manpower and deployment costs, and allow a client state to develop by bringing the Taliban into the power structure.  People who have a stake in the system have no reason to destroy it.  This is why the British were able to maintain an empire across the world for hundreds of years, and Americans are still pretending they are a benevolent sponsor for democracy.  Nobody except the American public buys that nonsense.