The strategic situation in Asia over the past four months has been generally stable, despite continuing struggles of various degrees of severity between different flavours of Islamic fundamentalism in South and South-East Asia, and some (surely temporary) increases in tension between China, Japan and the United States.

In South Asia the fighting between Islamic factions continues in both Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, with, however, some recent changes in the way the war in the former is being waged. While General McChrystal has been told that he can plan on being reinforced by a further 30,000 men, this is not just to win the war against the Taliban: it is also to enable him to prepare the ground for a pacification process, and even peace.

The military objective is to occupy the Taliban’s sanctuaries, and to stop the latter returning when NATO troops withdraw.  This is the experiment which is currently under way following the Battle of Marjah.⁽¹⁾ The civil power and its native security forces (often of doubtful quality) have been reinstalled in the province. This is a major challenge for those who must try to gain the confidence of a population whose existence has been torn between the power of the Taliban and that of the central administration, depending on which has been locally dominant at any given time. In order to consolidate the lasting restitution of power of the central government, a second objective is training the troops of the Afghan National Army (ANA), (particularly its command element), and the police.