Training observations

[Red Rat]

Is there any doubt that come the end of 2014 when all but a few 'advisors' have left what is going to happen in places like Helmand?

Certainly the end result is going to find the Taliban and the drug trade remaining intact and in place and claiming victory.

A viable scenario, but that does not equate to the tactical defeat of Coalition Forces on the battlefield, more to a flawed strategy. If the strategy had however remained one of simply Counter-Terrorism at arms length then the endstate you infer would be a strategic success.

Reading Company Commander one is able to see clearly how the Brits had no idea how to take the war to the Taliban and were mainly confined to Beau Geste forts rather than operating out of a growing and expanding 'ink spots'.

That was 2008. It is hard to inkspot if your pen has run dry. We all know that the UK was overstretched in Afghanistan in 2008, even at the time it was recognised, but the Main Effort remained in Iraq. To expand from inkspots the UK would have had to collapse in to focus combat power and then to expand out. Collapsing in was not a politically viable (in UK or by Karzai), sending more combat power was not politically viable so the only option was to slog it out. Was it a mess? You betcha - but then the Coalition reorganised refocused, surged and 'inkspoted'.

Afghanistan has proven to be a sad and tragic experince for the British military.

I think they view it more as immensely frustrating at the operational level and disappointing at the strategic level. Corporately I am not aware of any feeling of sad or tragic.