OEF: a lingering Afghan small war for the West (catch all)

[davidbfpo]

After the end of ISAF and for many a change of role (to advise & assist) we now have the request for 3more troops, from NATO & USA, as indicated by General Nicholson.

I was struck by this Afghan veteran's article, with this sentence:

But one can virtually guarantee that by repeating the military strategies we’ve used since 9/11, our efforts will fail.

Link:https://warisboring.com/how-to-lose-...f95#.fseu4opt9

Or does this call mean more contractors?

The vast majority of those troops have returned home; there are 8,400 troops in country now (plus 26,000 military contractors, 9,474 of whom are U.S. citizens).

Link:http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/bei...in-afghanistan

Can there be a 'victory' or is a 'stalemate' enough - for the USA? As another observer remarked in 2015 are we 'losing' or 'lost'. Horribly fitting is Ahmed Rashid's remark:Afghanistan is probably worse off today than when foreign forces intervened in 2001

There are 300 threads in this arena and some IIRC have debated the issues involved. Perhaps President Trump and his advisers have better answer.