Faced with military stalemate and declining popular support at home and in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal is proposing a major shift in emphasis that aims for results in just six months.

US-led counter-insurgency theory has moved beyond the idea of killing Taleban fighters as a goal in itself and become ever more focused on protecting the populace.

It is quite clear that in many areas Taleban insurgents are not much liked by the locals — notably where the insurgents oppose education and Western reconstruction projects — and are at worst deeply feared.

The problem is that Western forces and Afghan security forces, particularly the Afghan police, are often no more popular. This is principally because of the incompetence, corruption and criminality of the Afghan authorities and because the presence of Western forces usually brings with it high levels of fighting.

The shift in strategy accepts that some territory will be ceded to the Taleban, but has calculated that these will be remoter areas of limited value. The payoff would be a much denser concentration of Western troops around areas of higher population.

It was with saturating numbers of troops that US forces produced dramatic improvements in security during the 2007 “surge” in Baghdad. And it is in the more educated towns and cities that the message that Western troops can deliver security and economic benefit stands the best chance of finding a receptive audience.

Set against this, however, is the general disillusion of a population in the south of Afghanistan who have been fed this message of hope for the past eight years. To date, they have seen precious little evidence of it and, in fact, have experienced greater instability.

Do they have any patience left, or is the insurgency on the cusp of becoming a full-scale insurrection? Ominously, the Soviet Army attempted a similar shift in strategy during its disastrous occupation in the 1980s. Also, the particular Helmand model now being considered, a refocusing on the central areas of the province to the possible exclusion of outlying towns and districts, appears remarkably close to the original strategy envisaged when British troops first arrived in 2006.

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