Caveat first... the stated end state was more or less articulated to CENTCOM leadership in May '02 in response to a question in a briefing, but let me take some of these on...

What is the alternative to a legitimate government described as such by recognized as legitimate by its citizens? I didn't specify form - our sensibilities would prefer a mini-me democracy, but I agree that isn't in the cards... the government does need to be legitimate in order to avoid creating large swaths of ungoverned areas from which terrorists of all sorts of ilk can take refuge and plan future attacks. This seems self-evident, but if it needed stating so be it.

Why did you limit the term adequate to mean only quantity of security forces? Isn't adequacy in any situation a function of quality and quantity. Not sure why you would assume that a million man army unwilling to security its own territory would be deemed "adequate" because its large...

Something other than a narco-economy is tough but not a bridge too far? I'll note I didn't say poppy cultivation reduced to zero, I simply said it can't dominate economic activity, otherwise it prejudices all other activities to the point of irrelevance. Of course this means something other than a military solution -- imagine that..

As for able to resist military adventurism - this is important. The vestigages of the old grand game is that in some cases it is best to create instability in the neighboring nation to mitigate it as a threat, or to create instability on a rival's border to create another challenge for the rival. In any case Iran, Pakistan, India, and Russia all have a history of doing so -- ungoverned areas, failed state etc etc...

Now I'm not wedded to these by any stretch. To be honest I had to stretch to remember them in paraphrased form, but I don't think they are nearly as far off as you. You might ask why we chose to declare war on the Taliban, but once in these aren't so bad...

Now as for Pakistan and their ability but unwillingness to do something in the FATA, that is debatable and is really a US centric view. Could/should/would we like them to do more? Yep Is it necessarily feasible for them to do a lot more -- room for disagreement.

Live well and row