IN FEBRUARY the commander of the 15,000 American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, asked for reinforcements. Within a few days Donald Trump is expected to provide them. His military and foreign-policy advisers have come up with a plan to send up to 5,000 more troops, both special forces and trainers to advise the Afghan army. The rest of NATO, too, will be expected to come up with additional troops.

All this marks a reversal of Barack Obama’s policy, which was to pull nearly all the remaining American troops out of Afghanistan. In the end, faced with a rapidly deteriorating security situation, he backed off a bit, leaving 8,400 American soldiers and around 6,500 from other NATO countries. It was not enough, General Nicholson told Congress. The Taliban insurgency is making steady territorial gains and the Afghan army and police are suffering an unsustainable number of casualties. Sounding as upbeat as he could, he described it as a “stalemate”.

That was generous. The proportion of the country reckoned to be under uncontested government control fell from 72% to 57% during the 12 months to November last year. Since then, as part of a review of the administration’s Afghan strategy, Mr Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, and his defence secretary, Jim Mattis, have travelled to Afghanistan. So too, it is believed, has the director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo. Both General McMaster and Mr Mattis (a former general who served as head of the regional command encompassing both Afghanistan and Iraq until being pushed into early retirement by Mr Obama in 2013) know Afghanistan well. Neither would have been comfortable with Mr Obama’s habit of setting rigid timetables for troop withdrawals unrelated to conditions on the ground, or with the speed with which the NATO force, which had over 130,000 troops in 2011, was cut.

As well as calling for an increase in troop levels, the review also recommends allowing trainers to work at the sharp end with Afghan combat troops, rather than at the command level. Such trainers are far more useful than those restricted to barracks, but the risk of casualties rises. The generals also want to give American commanders in Afghanistan more flexibility in the way they provide air support for their Afghan allies. Mr Obama relaxed the rules last year, but not enough to allow the use of air power for offensive operations. One reason for the increase in special forces is that they will be needed to spot targets from forward positions. The new plan will not set any deadlines for force reductions and may also give commanders some latitude to call on additional resources if they prove necessary.

There is no doubt that the new plan is needed to check the Taliban’s momentum. But on its own, it is unlikely to be enough to force the Taliban to the negotiating table. Getting the divided and dysfunctional Afghan government to do more to fight corruption is another crucial step. Most important, argues Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer now at the Brookings Institution, a think-tank in Washington, will be a concerted attempt to change neighbouring Pakistan’s behaviour. As long as Pakistan’s “deep state” continues to see the Taliban as a strategic asset and to provide it with sanctuary and material support, it will have no incentive to negotiate. Given the failure of Mr Obama’s policy of bribing and cajoling Pakistan into becoming more co-operative, it would not be surprising if the new administration tries something different.

General McMaster has recruited Lisa Curtis from the Heritage Foundation, another think-tank, to be the White House’s adviser on South and Central Asia. In February Ms Curtis co-wrote a report calling for a range of measures aimed at ending Pakistan’s ambivalence towards terrorism. These would include ending its status as a “major non-NATO ally”; making military aid contingent on the strength of its action against all terrorist groups and stepping up unilateral military action, such as drone strikes, against the Taliban on Pakistani territory. It may not just be America’s policy towards Afghanistan that is on the brink of a big revision.