The spring has arrived and, with it, so has the season for the Taliban's new wave of offensives. Over the past few days, tens of Afghans have been killed and injured in various bombings throughout the country. In the west, the relatively peaceful Herat province was the scene of a number of suicide bombings that shattered the façade of peace and quiet that was seen throughout the winter.

The Taliban and other insurgent groups allied with them are determined to push for a more forceful demonstration of their presence and capabilities as the warm season starts. This year would be more significant for the Taliban.

In their strategic calculations, they are bent on conquering the hearts of minds of people through projection of a soft power they believe would enable them to win ever greater numbers of people to their own side. On a broader scale, the conflict between the insurgency on one hand and the government and the international military coalition on the other has been gradually turning into a conflict with the either side's soft power being the main denominator.

The Taliban might be indeed incapable of matching the extent of hard power that the other side is able to deploy throughout the country. But, what has kept the morale of the Taliban high and made them optimistic as to the outcome of this conflict is the extent of soft power that they are able to project.

To a significant segment of the population in the eastern and southern belt, Taliban are gradually gaining in legitimacy in the eyes of the local populations. If until a few years ago, people had a somewhat unfavorable view of Taliban, today you can find a greater number of people who tend to have a neutral to favorable view of them.

Of course one reason has been Taliban's ability to take advantage of the government of Afghanistan's failure in consolidating its legitimacy and credibility in far-off areas and regions. While economic conditions of people in many far-off areas have not considerably changed in recent years, people are finding it more difficult to cope with rising prices and a host of other economic problems that were much more manageable until a few years ago.

The major challenge before the government of Afghanistan and the international military coalition is to focus on ways and means to strengthen and expand the soft power of the government of Afghanistan. Socially, culturally and even politically, the government should adopt the rights strategies in order to condition the perceptions of local populations towards a more favorable view of the government.

Efforts should also be made to ensure that the public have the correct understanding of what the state and the government should do. Currently, this understanding is flawed, entangled in a web of misunderstandings and the public's ignorance of what the proper role of the state and government should be in their lives.

In Afghanistan of today, the nomenclature "citizen" has not found a wide acceptance yet. In official documents used by the government of Afghanistan, instead of "citizen", what you encounter is the word "subject".

Maintaining the archaic notions of state-people relations in terms of a state-subject, relationship has been one of the gravest failings of the government of Afghanistan in recent years.

We need to move towards a political culture where people are given lawful rights as citizens of the country and not merely subjects and beneficiaries of the state.