The experience of Afghanistan and Iraq compels Washington to rethink its model of 21st-century warfare. Its evolving focus, already visible in the widespread use of drones and special forces, also has profound political implications.
As Afghanistan looks to a future beyond international intervention, regional support will become ever more important.
The emphasis on armed-drones is transforming the United States's counterinsurgency strategy. But their capacity for proliferation carries acute and so far unrecognised dangers for Washington and its allies.
A new phase of violence in Iraq and the dynamics of the conflict in Syria provide fertile conditions for the re-emergence of the al-Qaida idea.
There will be a very large number of Afghans – primarily, but not only, women – who will be left to pay a heavy price for their “collaboration with the enemy”. This, above all, will be the inevitable legacy left by the hurried, unwise and poorly planned invasion of 2001.
The Taliban assault on key sites in central Kabul highlights the strategic predicament of the United States and its Nato allies in Afghanistan. The forewarnings were present a decade ago, in ways that still cast a shadow on the present and future.
The complexity of local and regional conflict dynamics in Afghanistan and Pakistan would be well served by the revivification of the Jirga system, the only convincing institutional base through which to build lasting peace.
The alarming pace of events in Afghanistan is forcing United States and Nato strategists to adjust their strategy and timetable to end the war. But they cannot acknowledge the flaw at the heart of their efforts.
The military-political interplay in Afghanistan is taking an alarming new tilt for Washington. The possibility of a more precipitous exit is rising.
Washington's military withdrawal from Iraq and problems in Afghanistan are forcing a change of strategy. Barack Obama's political fate will determine how far it will go.
When we call for greater security, the soldiers tell us they are here for rebuilding. When we call for rebuilding, they state they are here for the security. In the end, they guarantee neither.
Several new elements are added, almost daily, to worsen the complexity of the situation, and rumours of an imminent military coup in Islamabad do little to clarify matters.
