The problem with this is numeric, you don’t have nearly enough Marines (or anybody for that matter) to get everything done that you need. Lacking ANA and ANG is symptomatic of the thinking under the Rumsfeld tenure for both Iraq and Afghanistan, not enough time was spent training competent and proficient forces to take over in the wake of coalition success.

You’re also right in the fact that the tribes don’t trust the central government worth a darn, it’s pretty bad when they trust Infidels (however well armed) over their own politicians. Stabilizing the local leaders is paramount if you expect to have any security outside of Kandahar/Kabul.

One program the Marines did in Vietnam (and not without a lot of success) was CAP platoons. Basically you took a squad of Marines and had them train local villagers to fight the Viet Cong. The program was noteworthy in the sense that it made good usage of manpower and enabled locals to repel intimidation/murder campaigns. Of course Vietnam had more of a village mentality as opposed to tribal affiliations (unless you were in the Cambodian highlands). Perhaps a similar program would work better in Afghanistan, if they don’t have one already. This program, as it was originally used, does not guarantee you the humble, competent force with universal training and equipment to hold their own against hundreds of Taliban, but it does help keep the smaller bands away and is a valuable source of HUMINT.

This of course is all academic until you can get enough troops and supporting assets into place to make this plan work. I see there being some static between the Secretary Gates and Jim Jones. My guess is that if it comes to anything, Gates will win out if he wants more troops. Similarly very few more troops will be coming after we reach 68,000 if Iraq takes a dump.

Let the Marines do what they proved extremely adept at in Anbar: forging strong and flexible relationships with local tribes/elders/sheiks and using the Commander’s discretionary fund to empower the tribal leaders to hand out jobs and recruit local fighters who can secure their own villages from the Taliban.

As time goes on, no doubt some of these local, tribal militia ( “Sons of Afghanistan” ?) can be trained up to do local police work— supplying more local jobs and injecting money into the local economy and giving yet more incentive for the locals to keep out the Taliban who have little or nothing to give to the people except death threats.

Obviously, the critical point is to convince the tribal leaders that the U.S. is going to back them up and be there for the long haul– central government be damned if necessary– and that means the rapid reaction forces necessary for the locals to call upon if they face a concerted Taliban attack. Maybe this is one way to “stretch” the number of available Marines, by clearing an area, forging the local tribal agreements and then move the Marines on to the next trouble spot with a focus on air mobility and rapid response time.

Is this stuff really beyond the comprehension of CENTCOM or the NSC?