It would be impossible to defeat the Taliban without denying them sanctuary in Pakistan. That's the lesson of the anti-Soviet war.

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New America Foundation CEO Steve Coll was key source for the recent Frontline special, "The War Briefing." The program, which first aired on PBS Oct. 28, focuses on the war in Afghanistan, and asks: "What are the next president's options."

A transcript of Coll's interview is available, while the full program can be viewed on the Frontline web site.  

Selected excerpts from Coll's analysis are included below:

Can you describe Afghanistan in terms of the fronts where the war is being fought and where it's becoming more dicey?

The field of combat in Afghanistan has been expanding steadily over the last couple of years. When the insurgency first began to revive, it was concentrated primarily in the deep south, around Helmand and Kandahar provinces, which is the historical heartland of the Taliban and also one of the centers of the opium economy.

Gradually the war has expanded along the Pakistan border, almost in its entirety, from the southern areas around Ghazni and Paktika provinces in Afghanistan all the way up to the mountainous northeastern territory of Kunar.

The most important recent developments are the encroachments that the Taliban are making around the capital of Kabul, in Wardak and Logar provinces. They are gradually squeezing the territory that the federal government can operate in, in the environment of Kabul. That means that national transportation is pressured. It means that the political reach of the government is constrained.

There are still large sections of the north and northwest that are inhabited by non-Pashtun allies of President Karzai, where the war is essentially not present except in occasional suicide bombings or assassination attempts. Those territories promise to be stable for an indefinite time, because the Taliban simply do not have the ethnic identity and language identity required to operate effectively in those areas. But that is the only part of Afghanistan today that is untouched by the war. 

What progress has been made since 9/11 to bring the tribal areas into Pakistani society?

Very little. By and large, since 9/11, the tribal areas have gone in the other direction. They have essentially separated themselves from Pakistan through a Taliban takeover. ...

What's required now -- and what the Pakistani government, by and large, has in mind -- is a different project of ... economic development and political change that would gradually change the constitutional status and the economic circumstances of these tribal agencies. There is a national consensus, more or less, in Pakistan -- including among residents of the tribal agencies -- to change their relationship with the government of Pakistan, to eliminate this special status that's a hangover from the British colonial period.

But that's a 10-to-15-year project. And right now, the Taliban are in control of this territory, and they're not about to hand it over to Pakistani political parties or to some new system of constitutional commissioners who are there to reincorporate the tribal areas into Pakistani national life. 

There is talk from both candidates about the need to move troops out of Iraq and increase the number of troops in Afghanistan. ... Is there a lot of discussion within the military about the need or the opportunity to move troops?

There's a consensus within the military that more troops are required in Afghanistan, at least a brigade or two, possibly more. It's difficult to really know what military advice about troop levels in Afghanistan would be if it were unencumbered by the reality that only a limited number of brigades is actually available in the foreseeable future. 

So what do we do?

In the long run, American policy in Pakistan ought to be clear. We're invested in the success of a stable, democratic, constitutional Pakistan. There is every reason to be hopeful about Pakistan's success, looking out 10 or 20 years.

India is rising. In 50 years, India may be one of the most prosperous and significant countries on the planet, and Pakistan is right next door. It has every reason to succeed as India succeeds if it is able to organize its political and constitutional affairs to benefit from this historical change that's going on in South Asia.

The United States, in its own interests, ... ought to be investing in a stable, democratic, constitutional, strong, modernizing Pakistan at the level of civil society, at the level of democratic politics, at the level of media, at the level of economics and meeting the basic needs of the many tens of millions of Pakistanis who live in poverty. That, along with security and stability in Afghanistan, has to be a part of American strategy in Pakistan.

It has been a neglected aspect of American policy. Virtually all of the financial investments that we have made in Pakistan since 9/11 have been military investments, security investments. Those investments now have to be rebalanced by a broader approach.

Having said all of that, we have to be clear-eyed that there is a short-term threat to American lives and interests in the form of the Taliban and Al Qaeda operating on Pakistani soil. ... Addressing that threat is not going to be easy at the same time that you're building this long-term strategy to support Pakistani democracy.