It's good to see the fundamental misunderstandings about the Afghanistan Campaign which have dogged and inhibited the military response. It started with Rumsfeld who wanted to showboat the fact that he felt small, light forces could do so much if backed by airpower. It is only recently that we have come to terms with the fact that dictating force levels through available budget screws us over. That was the case in 2006 when the British deployed to Helmand where manpower caps meant that a muddled mission was never going to be enacted, and instead we had some of our finest troops fighting for their lives on a daily basis. Only slowly did our Government come to terms with the fact that if you want to take and hold ground, you need enough troops who are suiatbly equipped and supported for the task. War costs a lot of money and it is oone thing for PMs to feel a surge in their trousers when they send us on our way to war, but it is another thing entirely for them to come to terms with the cost of it. The Americans cottoned on quicker while we still made out Budget Managers more powerful than the combatant commanders.
To out it simply, if you're going to do war, do it properly. As a nation we have become so used to cuffing it and doing things on the cheap it's amazing that our troops aren't patrolling in second-hand pimped up Corsas.
It's all too easy to say that we could see the writing on the wall, but instead we are victims of having accountants instead of leaders.