Some standard GG insights from Afghanistan in a recent article by Kaplan in Slate:

Co-opting infrastructure. The brand new $100 m Kajaki hydropower plant in southern Afghanistan (contrast this to the lack of new infrastructure in the US) is being co-opted by the Taliban. They are charging locals for the power (via door-to-door visits) and redirecting it to private uses. Not only does this provide them funding, it provides them legitimacy.

Resilient power? To get more credit for the benefits of the new infrastructure, the US military wants to build local power systems, which is very much in line with resilient community thinking. The problem is that they want to install diesel generators in each locality (which substitutes another form of dependence that can be co-opted). They should be thinking in terms of systems that are completely local and they should broaden their thinking on what energy means.

GG political goods. The Taliban have set up an effective (free and fast) justice system in areas that they control. As Kilcullen points out: if you show up at an Afghan police station with a complaint, they'll beat you up for bothering them. If you take someone to an official court, it takes months to get a judgment, and it will go to the guy who pays the biggest bribe. This is classic. The first political good that GG groups provide is almost always justice. It also demonstrates that the Afghan government is a hollow, illegitimate, corrupt shell and that counter-insurgency efforts that support it are akin to pushing on a string.

Open source counter-insurgency. The first move by Petraeus in Afghanistan was to get Karzai to sign off on local militias. A move towards a large collection of autonomous militias is the hallmark of an open source counterinsurgency and was the secret sauce behind the limited success in Iraq. Of course, to fully replicate that in Afghanistan would greatly weaken Karzai. As a result, they have watered down the proposal: they new militias would be "police" and get uniforms and pay from Afghanistan's Interior Ministry.

All of the above appear to be classic open source warfare dilemmas. They should be thinking in terms of autonomous resilient communities that are protected by local militias.