Victory v Stability
If someone wants a debate here, let's throw in a few thoughts.
Maybe the EU regards "victory" as a term that related to former conflicts that were based on inter-state wars - not many of these around these days, thankfully.
Maybe the EU sees "security and stability" as the only sensible way for multinational/multiethnic people to live together in certain regions where history and tribalism doesn't sit well with border lines that have often been drawn up by Western countries.
Globalisation is a fact, not something we can sit and ignore from our island state - much as it gives us better natural border protection than others enjoy.
Certainly, the level of EU ambition does not stretch to ops such as Afg - yet. And indeed some nations appear reticent to consider body bags, but they're having to become ever more used to the idea in the interests of creating stability and security in certain areas - NL's contribution is just such an example. And it's certainly not about victory in the historical sense of one side beating another to reign supreme.
General Rupert Smith's "The Utility of Force - The Art of War in the Modern World" is an enlightening read, and offers the suggestion that conflicts now (and in fact since Korea) are between peoples - not states.
Can ethnicity and beliefs be subjugated by victorious armies? Maybe the EU thinks they can't.
As for someone stopping to take time to think about globalisation, demography and future recruitment issues - well that is a serious 20-year issue, unlike so many "visions" that assume just more of the same, but different somehow.
And maybe, just maybe, the journalist chose to pick out some provocative bits from the report .....