“…. In Kandahar Province, stabilization teams, or “stab teams”, are deployed into the villages along the key routes into Kandahar City to secure and stabilize them. The result will be to deny the insurgents the use of their traditional staging, resting and transiting areas, thus ensuring a more secure environment in Kandahar City ….” (More here: http://is.gd/1jBuz )

“…. Dand District is one of the areas where my unit, the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (KPRT), is introducing the “Key Village Approach” to counter-insurgency operations. The idea is to secure and stabilize the villages near Kandahar City to make them better places to live, and much less accessible to the insurgents who use them as staging areas for operations in Kandahar City ….” (More here: http://is.gd/1jBx2 )

( A single .pdf of both articles also available here: http://is.gd/1jBxJ )

I wonder how many of those in rural areas, some of whom may not already like the foreign presence, have already started thinking, “I get it – they fight here to keep the big city safe”?

Also, the latest rationale for the pull-out from Panjwai, from Canada’s Chief of Defence Staff, courtesy of CanWest News Service:
“Chief of Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk told Canwest News Service in an interview this week the Mushan strong point did not have its intended effect, which was to help clear the area of Taliban. Instead, the installation drew insurgents to Mushan like moths to a flame. “The Taliban hate our guts,” noted Natynczyk. “So if we’re in there, the Taliban will come. You have the Taliban who can move into some areas and intimidate people, which makes it very hard on them. The folks out there are really on the edge. I mean, I think they’ve been banged up a lot by the Taliban.”….”
More here:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Taliban+hate+guts+Canada+soldier/1577839/story.html

I think you lay out the limitations of forward outposts pretty well. The thing is, I look at that and see the urgent need to have more of them, deployed to more choke points; RC-South, it seems, sees that and thinks it should try something much more limited in scope.

Which brings us back to the mega-fortress problem.

How about a more optimistic view/spin: with all these other surge troops coming in, and (in the case of Canada’s announced “end of the military mission” by 2011), the Afghans and the surgers can deal with the outrider districts now.

I like the idea of more out in the hinterland, but the problems with the “platoon house” idea of having troops all over the countryside include:
1) you need LOTS of troops to sustain the model;
2) you need a longish timeframe (both in deployments and overall commitment) to make it keep working; and
3) you still need some honkin’ assembly of troops as QRF if the troops in the boonies are at risk of being overrun.

I agree on the “you can’t keep the place safe from a few big fortresses” idea – Dien Bien Phu anyone?

Then there is the larger issue: are the people of Kandahar better served by hunkering down in defensive crouches around KAF? Or are they better served by having an expeditionary force out in places like Panjwai (which isn’t a “penninsula” since it’s nowhere near a major body of water) stopping the insurgents before they ever get there.

Indeed, the biggest issue with this policy — which, as you point out, is not new — is that it reeks of assuming the old Soviet approach of focusing on the cities and assuming the countryside will take care of itself. Sending the message to rural Kandaharis that troops will leave if the going gets too hard is a pretty good way to undermine whatever small amounts of support we have been building there.