Meanwhile in Washington and in Kabul, those who wish to sound knowledgeable fire one phrase to visiting reporters: "This has no military solution!" One hears it from Obama, the Afghan President Hamid Karzai, UN "experts" and diplomats.

But what precisely is the "this" that has no military solution? If pressed, they offer a variety of answers: Afghanistan's poverty; the slow pace of progress towards gender equality; corruption; the drug trade; ethnic rivalries; and intrigues by rival powers such as Pakistan and Iran. None of these problems has a military solution. Some may take years, if not decades, to resolve while others may never fade away.

However, the main problem that Afghanistan faces today is the security of its citizens and infrastructure, which are threatened by insurgents using terror tactics such as roadside bombings and suicide attacks.

This does have a military solution. Indeed, it could only have a military solution. The insurgents must be defeated on the battlefield. Even if Afghanistan is miraculously transformed into a land of plenty, even if a majority of Afghans agree suddenly that women should be treated as equals and even if Afghan rulers stop stealing money, the insurgency could not be crushed without fighting. 

The fact is that although Obama has spoken of a "war of necessity", there is little actual fighting in Afghanistan. Only in a few cases are Nato casualties the result of insurgent ambushes. The majority of casualties are from roadside bombs called improvised explosive devices (IEDs). These devices also kill many non-combatants, the majority of them Afghan peasants. These could just as well be classified as road deaths as war casualties. 

The Afghan experience could be divided into three phases.  In the first (2001-2004), the US, backed by the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, managed to flush the Taliban out of Kabul, gain control of the country and establish a new regime.

In the second (2004-2008), US and Nato forces focused on non-military issues such as the building of a new administrative machine, raising a new Afghan army and police force and creating a new judiciary. This was done under the assumption that the Nato presence had a peace keeping, rather than a peace enforcing, role.