" We're not going to win this (Afghan) war", Brig Mark Car leton-Smith, the former British commander in Afghanistan's Helmand province, told London's Sunday Times in 2008.
Almost two years later, the NATO and US commander General Stanley McChrystal appears to be reaching essentially the same conclusion as his British predecessor.
Here are a few excerpts from a report about Gen McChrystal's latest admission that "nobody is winning" in Afghanistan: "The US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who was boasting of military progress only three months ago, confessed last week that `nobody is winning'. His only claim now is that the Taliban have lost momentum compared with last year.
"Pentagon officials increasingly agree with the Afghan villagers that the Marjah operation failed to end Taliban control and put the Afghan government in charge. This puts in doubt General McChrystal's whole strategy which also governs the way in which 10,000 British troops are deployed. He is being held to account for earlier optimism such as his claim at the height of Marjah offensive that `we've got a government in a box ready to roll in'. Three months later, people in Marjah say they have yet to see much sign of the Afghan government.
"The one development over the past year which has hit the Taliban hardest happened not in Afghanistan but in Pakistan. Prodded by the US, the Pakistan Army has been taking over the federally administered tribal areas along the border where the Afghan Taliban once had safe havens. Soon the Army may assault North Waziristan, one of the last Afghan insurgent enclaves and one which is already under repeated attack by US Predator drones. These find their targets because Pakistani military intelligence provides detailed information.
But loss of these safe havens in Pakistan may not be such a blow to the Afghan Taliban as it would have been three years ago when they controlled less of Afghanistan. It is impossible to seal the 2,600 km frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan, supposing the Pakistan Army wants to do so.
"The semi-official Pakistani view is that the US, Britain and NATO forces have become entangled in a civil war in Afghanistan between the Pashtun community, represented by the Taliban, and their Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara opponents who dominate the Kabul government. They expect the Pashtun to go on fighting until they get a real share in power. One Pashtun, a former colonel in the Pakistani Army, said: "It will be difficult for the Americans and British to win the hearts and minds of the people in southern Afghanistan since at the center of Pashtun culture is a hatred of all foreigners."
Many an empires have walked into Afghanistan before the US, which gave them a false sense of invincibility to try and maintain domination. Each has been ejected by the ferocious Pashtuns.
"They should get out as soon as possible. Or they'll be picked off like clay pigeons in target practice."
The above words of warning to America are attributed by the NPR radio to former Soviet Afghan war veteran, Lt. Sergei Maximov, on the 20th anniversary of the humiliating defeat of the Soviet empire twenty years ago.
Because of America's overwhelming economic strength (27% of global GDP, US dollar as reserve and trade currency, etc), unquestioned technological superiority (most innovative people, top universities, etc.), ingrained political power (as architect of the biggest international institutions) and unparalleled military power, the US does have a much bigger margin of error than other previous empires did or currently competing nations or ideologies do.
But the margin of error currently enjoyed by the US is not in finite, however large it may be. It's gradually eroding with out-of-control war spending, mounting debt and deficits, and the emergence of other powerful nations around the globe.
A recent book "The Godfather Doctrine" paints the United States as a power in relative decline, and forecasts the emergence of a new, multi-polar world, with US being one of many power centers. In all likelihood, America will still be quite strong and powerful for a while, but its writ will no longer remain unchallenged. It will have to rely on support from other powers to deal with the Solozzos (Iran, North Korea, al Qaeda etc.) of the world, as the authors Hulsman and Mitchell explain in their book.
