Back in the days when The Captain’s Journal was arguing with General Rodriguez about the badly devolving security situation in Afghanistan it was difficult to see around the bend to a brighter future.  But General McKiernan is showing the way.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan offered a grim view Wednesday of military efforts in southern Afghanistan, warning that 17,000 new troops will take on emboldened Taliban insurgents who have “stalemated” U.S. and allied forces.

Army Gen. David McKiernan also predicted that the bolstered numbers of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan – about 55,000 in all – will remain near those levels for up to five years.

Still, McKiernan said, that is only about two-thirds of the number of troops he has requested to secure the war-torn nation.

McKiernan told reporters at the Pentagon Wednesday that the extra Army and Marine forces will be in place by the summer, primed for counterinsurgency operations against the Taliban but also ready to conduct training with Afghan police forces.

McKiernan said what the surge “allows us to do is change the dynamics of the security situation, predominantly in southern Afghanistan, where we are, at best, stalemated.

“I’m not here to tell you that there’s not an increased level of violence, because there is,” he said.

The 17,000 additional troops, which President Barack Obama approved Tuesday to begin deploying this spring, will join an estimated 38,000 already in Afghanistan.

Another 10,000 U.S. soldiers could be headed to Afghanistan in the future as the Obama administration decides how to balance its troop levels with those from other nations and the Afghan army. The White House has said it will not make further decisions about its next moves in Afghanistan until it has completed a strategic review of the war, in tandem with the Afghan government.

Whatever the outcome of the review, McKiernan said, “we know we need additional means in Afghanistan, whether they are security or governance-related or socioeconomic-related.”

The estimated level of 55,000 troops needs “to be sustained for some period of time,” he said, adding that could be as long as three to five years.

Actually, we have called for more.

Properly resourcing the campaign will require at least – but not limited to – three Marine Regimental Combat Teams (outfitted with V-22s, Harriers and all of the RCT support staff) and three Brigades (preferably at least one or two of which are highly mobile, rapid reaction Stryker Brigades).  These forces must be deployed in the East and South and especially along the border, brought out from under the control of NATO and reporting only to CENTCOM.

The command has been changed as we had hoped and U.S. troops now report to CENTCOM, but we still need more troops.  John Nagl has called for as many as 600,000 troops.  So how can all of this be considered a “brighter future?”  Simple.  We are now being honest with ourselves about the campaign.

General McKiernan then makes the following head-turning statement.  “We’re not going to run out of people that either international forces or Afghan forces have to kill or capture.”  He adds that “ultimately, the conflict will be solved not by military force – but through the political will of the Afghan people.”

McKiernan is right of course about the will of the Afghan people being determinative in the campaign, and of course counterinsurgency experts are right to note that the application of soft power is a necessary corollary to kinetics.

But take careful note of the General’s sobering words: “We’re not going to run out of people that either international forces or Afghan forces have to kill or capture.”  Reliance on cheap, manufactured copies of the Anbar awakening, splitting off the “moderate” Taliban from the irreconcilables, and new electrical distribution systems is whistling through the grave yard.  There are hard core kinetic operations that await us, and this is going to get a lot harder before it gets easier.