AFP Photo / Str / Files

CNN recently reported that the militancy, on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, is making dramatic tactical shifts. The old Quetta Shura Taliban (Mullah Omar's organization), the Haqqani Network, the Tariki Taliban, and the rest of the insurgent separatists have made an informal agreement to perform cooperative violence starting this spring fighting season.

We should take away three major ideas from these recent revelations:

1.)The Taliban has been withered down due to the coalition military surge.The Taliban’s own youtube channel acknowledges that the Taliban are seeking new recruits because as they say, “The other mujahidin have gone for their rewards in heaven” (meaning they have been killed by a drone missile, or US Marine’s spraying lead rain) As a result, the Militants are making changes to their battlefield tactics, and their daily modus operendai.

This new move is an obvious effort to force more cooperation and control inside the tribal areas, as well as the South and the East provinces of Afghanistan.

Most of people thinking about the Af-Pak region might think this is not a major deal, but I would urge you to rethink those ideas.The new efforts to unite the militants in Pakistan shows us that some of the old internal fighting amongst these non state actors is not as relevant as the anti-American sentiment in

Pakistan.As a result, we can be sure that the Taliban dislike us more than the tribal grievances amongst that they have with each other. The idea of splitting up the insurgency and brokering a peace deal is probably moving less than likely by the day.

2.) The second major point to pull from the story is, the Taliban has made a command shift, and they are beginning to halt the killings or capturing of innocent people.Human rights activists will celebrate this new phenomenon, but this new revelation identifies a giant shift in the behavior of the insurgents within the battle space.Recall what occurred inside Iraq. One of the major reasons the insurgency inside failed was because the brutal measures that AQI, and the Sunni's Salafi's used against normal Iraqi's. It was not the US that killed all the bad guys, but it was the Iraqi’s who finally agreed to support the new Iraqi government. If this new Taliban alliance actually can control the behavior of the insurgents to be less radical and intimidating, it means that they (the insurgents) are more likely to have the domestic Afghan support, making the American/coalition pro-government side of the "hearts and minds" campaign extraordinarily difficult.Even if we do everything perfect from this point forward, the Taliban will still have control over the popular support.That is a huge problem. Even if the American forces pull out in 2014, the support of the Taliban might as well make all our efforts thus far meaningless.The center of gravity in the fight is the hearts and minds, and our inability to win it (hearts and minds) means we lost the war.In other words, the Obama surge in Afghanistan is a colossal disaster, perhaps worse than the outcomes of the Iraq war.

3.) 2012 is going to be an ugly fighting season, and the Afghan army is still not equipped to handle the fight. Meaning, more Americans are going to die in 2012.

Anyway you see this story, its all bad news.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.