Democracy is not something that can be forced upon, that cultural issues must be taken into account, and attempting to make Afghans fall in love with democracy is rather absurd. To my mind, the strategy must be more about allowing ordinary Afghans to benefit from the presence of foreign troops, and the will power of the international community to be involved in Afghanistan. Afghans must be given concrete opportunities to experience progress, such as farming a different product other than poppies, that will bring in just as much income and free them from the control of the militia, insurgents or others.
As for the difficulty in deploying more soldiers, of the 60 000 Canadians soldiers, one must bear in mind that most soldiers cannot be deployed in combat operations. One should also consider the logistical and command support required for any deployment, as well as the difficulties inherent to rotation. Canadian forces members also need to come back home after six months or one year to rest, and not be asked automatically to return to duty.
As regards recruitment, the biggest difficulty is the lack of instructors. To my knowledge, and according to my information, many Canadians want to join the Canadian Forces, but applications are not processed quickly enough for lack of instructors to train them. Because of this, soldiers are not being trained fast enough in order to be integrated into the armed forces, thereby allowing soldiers who are already deployed more rest time.