OBAMA'S BIGGEST CHALLENGES IN AFGHANISTAN

Just Sending More Troops Can't Solve Such Tough Problems As Getting
Militants to Lay Down Arms and Allies to Send More Soldiers, and
Eliminating Extremist Havens.

President Obama's war strategy began to take shape with his
announcement last week that 17,000 additional U.S. troops are headed
to Afghanistan. But the thorniest problems still await him: persuading
militants to lay down their arms, coaxing help from allies and
eliminating extremist havens on the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Many officials believe Obama has one primary shot at remaking
Washington's war strategy and overhauling its policy in the region.
The administration said last week that it would open that review,
which is due in April, to Afghans, Pakistanis and European allies.

Administration officials hope that a deliberative, and inclusive, look
can turn up new ideas, even for seemingly intractable problems.

"We have learned that Obama is not going to make policy on the fly,"
said Karin von Hippel, a former United Nations and European Union
conflict expert now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

But the administration already has confronted a pair of unsettling
realizations: America's allies are unwilling to supply many additional
troops, and a deal between Afghan authorities and militants, even the
Taliban, is necessary for stability and peace.

The obstacles in Afghanistan are compounded by other well-known
problems: a weak government, widespread public corruption and an
economy that is bound to heroin. Meanwhile, U.S.-Afghan tensions have
risen over civilian casualties.

Still, military commanders and strategy experts said the extra U.S.
troops, used carefully, could help shift impressions in the country by
making residents feel safer and militants more fearful.

"You can't look like the likely loser of the war," said Stephen
Biddle, a Council on Foreign Relations scholar who has advised the
military's Middle East headquarters on Afghanistan. "No warlord is
going to change sides to join the loser."

In the wake of Obama's troop deployment announcement, military
officials began to sketch out how extra units would be used.

Army Gen. David D. McKiernan, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan,
said the additional troops would apply variations of counterinsurgency
strategies that proved useful in areas in Iraq -- first studying an
area, then clearing it of militants.

And Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, at NATO meetings in Poland last
week, said troops then will establish a fixed presence in population
centers. Previous military "clearing" operations have faltered after
U.S. forces moved on to other areas.

As the U.S. learned in Iraq, such counterinsurgency campaigns are not
painless. Violence in Iraq increased for months after the troop
buildup began, as new units entered previously uncontested areas
controlled by insurgents.

Laying Down Arms

But, as every review of Afghanistan has showed, there are major
differences between that war and the one in Iraq. Crucial to the U.S.
success in Iraq was the decision of the Sunni Arab minority to largely
end its armed resistance, switch sides and aid the American war effort.

The U.S. hopes that it can also persuade some of Afghanistan's
militants to lay down their arms. Gates said again last week that
eventual peace will require accommodation with militant groups.

"Ultimately, some sort of political reconciliation has to be part of
the long-term solution for Afghanistan," he said.

There is no civil war in Afghanistan. Opponents to the American
presence include Pashtun dissidents, Taliban fighters and other
extremists. The country does not face the sectarian rivalries that
propelled Iraqi Sunnis toward accommodation.

That means the U.S. military will have to provide incentives for
militant groups to stop fighting, Biddle said. That will require
carrots -- such as promises of regional political power -- as well as
sticks, including a threat of military action, he said.

More U.S. Fighting

It also became clear last week that almost all of the new fighting
will be done by American units.

There now are 38,000 U.S. troops in the country, along with 32,000
troops from other nations. At last week's NATO meeting, 20 countries
pledged additional troops, fighter jets and cargo planes for the
Afghanistan elections this year.

But the troop commitments were small. The largest boost, 600, came
from Germany.

Gates has said that the administration will not seek specific forms of
help until after completion of its review. But the Pentagon has
largely given up on prospects for new military commitments. Instead,
Gates said the U.S. would push allied governments to send civilian
expertise.

Given opposition by Europeans to military deployments, Gates said they
could provide a valuable long-term contribution in the form of
non-military advisors to help train Afghan officials and police and
develop counter-narcotics programs.

However, even those commitments have been modest, with five countries
last week offering additional police trainers, reconstruction teams
and development aid.

But U.S. officials hope that if allies have a say in the strategy
development, they are more likely to make commitments.

"Frankly, I hope that it may be easier for our allies to do that than
significant troop increases, especially for the longer term," Gates
said last week before the NATO meeting.

Pakistani Border

Perhaps the most difficult problem facing the administration strategy
review is Pakistan's volatile border region. Obama has called militant
havens in Pakistan's tribal areas his chief regional worry.

Under the Bush administration, U.S. strategy revolved around
pressuring Pakistan to do more while striking suspected militants with
missiles launched from Predator drones.

But the airstrikes, said Von Hippel, the former U.N. official, can be
counterproductive, alienating residents.

"Even if they do kill some wanted terrorists, they are also used as a
recruiting tool for a number of the militia-terrorist groups operating
in the region," she said.

One alternative, though difficult, Von Hippel said, would be to
quietly increase aid efforts, work with the Pakistanis to improve
services in the tribal regions and take steps to integrate them into
the government.