I’m flying over western Afghanistan at 35,000 feet, just heading out of the country. We’re passing over the Caspian Sea and soon will be over the Caucuses.  This is a complicated part of the world.

In three busy days in Afghanistan, I focused on Helmand province and the British and U.S. Marine Corps forces. Over the course of lunch with the provincial Governor – a man in his early 60s and a survivor of many challenging events in Afghanistan – I talked with him about the needs of the district.

“First is security,” he said. “It is the mother of all development.” When I pressed him for what comes next on the list, he said, “Education, health, and electricity.” With us at the table was the leader of a British Provincial Reconstruction Team, a group of civilian aid workers focusing on development. He seconded the view, and spoke about the programs they are putting in place in this agrarian part of Afghanistan where sadly the principal crop is opium poppies.

The conversation reinforced my oft-stated view that in the end we will not deliver security in Afghanistan from the barrel of a gun. We’ll need a few guns along the way, no doubt; but the key is getting the right balance of civilian and military work done in concert together.

My time at Forward Operating Base Shawquat, where British troops are working across the southern Helmand valley, was particularly illuminating. Their approach is clearly one of reaching out in positive ways to the surrounding communities in the heart of the Pashtun south.

I stood in a Sanger, an elevated guard tower built on the ruins of an old British fort from the second Anglo-Afghan war of the 1880s. The young soldier with me had plenty of firepower; but in talking to him, it was clear he’d been carefully briefed on holding back. “The most important bullet is the one you don’t fire,” one senior leader has said about Afghanistan. The restraint that allows the building of trust between our ISAF forces and the Afghan people is crucial.

After leaving the British operating base, I flew to the U.S. Marine enclave, the headquarters of Task Force Leatherneck, where the commander, Brigadier General Larry Nicholson briefed me before turning me loose to talk to his Marines and Sailors. Larry is a stocky Citadel graduate who has seen plenty of combat, and took serious shrapnel wounds in Iraq. He used a dried poppy stalk as a pointer as he outlined the area for me on a map tacked to his plywood wall. It’s a long way from the Pentagon and laser pointers and power point presentations, I thought.

General Nicholson talked about the need for more Afghan troops in the fight alongside coalition forces, and I strongly agree. In fact, my key focus area going forward in my NATO command will be exactly that: training the Afghan security forces, both Army and Police. How does this end? It ends when we train the Afghan people to take care of their country. But they’ll need us as a “bridging force” for several years to come, I think.

After a day in the south, I moved on to the capital. In my conversations with Army General Stan McChrystal – the leader of our NATO / International Security Force Afghanistan force of about 70,000 soldiers from 28 NATO nations and 14 other countries – it is clear that he is passionate about getting the civilian-military balance right, and also training the Afghan forces. His new assessment puts the Afghan people at the “center of gravity,” and he is looking for the right ways to partner with the international civilian community.

I also met with Ambassador Kai Eide, the UN High Representative. He and Stan sound like solid teammates. Each is seeking the right balance of civilian and military effects, and each is a good-hearted and transparent partner to the other from all that I can see. And each clearly has a strong relationship with the international Ambassadors in Kabul, including Karl Eikenberry of the U.S., an old friend of mine.

The challenges are extraordinary, but so are the people in charge of meeting them. This is my third trip to Afghanistan in the past four months, and I’m cautiously – very cautiously – optimistic. I think the approach laid out – civil military balance, training the Afghan security forces, putting the Afghan people at the heart of the equation, smart communications that tell the story both in country and in capitals around the world – will move us in the right direction.

As the NATO Commander for operations and SACEUR I am very focused on this challenge; and as U.S. European Commander, I am equally aware of the international military partnering that must occur among all the nations involved, the majority from Europe. We really are “stronger together.”

Adm. James Stavridis
SACEUR and Commander EUCOM