“A good plan, applied now with vigor is better then a perfect plan applied tomorrow”
-Gen George Patton Jr.

There is no American military Commander today that is fit to polish Georgie’s boots.

I see Afghanistan as a trap. Logistics is the king of War. Stalin called artillery the god of battle, but without powder and shot, it’s a weak and puny god.
Standard for a serious insurrection, where every mans hand is turned against the invader is 1 troop per 20 citizens. If the resistance is hard core, but without outside support and some internal help for the invaders, 1 in 40 is considered minimal. If there is just a small minority fighting guerrilla then 1 to 90 is an acceptable ratio.
Figure 20 million ‘gani’s and a medium level of resistance. 20 million divided by 40 is 500,000. Divided by 20 is 1 million. Divided by 90 is about 225,000 or so. None of the established, time honored ratios gives the figure 40,000. So the Army is bullsh1ting POTUS.
Not an unusual thing. JFK didn’t support the Bay of pigs because the Commandant of the Marine Corps BS’d him out of it, thereby putting the screws to the CIA, which was his objective. He also F%^&#D over the Nation he was sworn to protect, but that is a different issue.
The reason the USA has military forces in Afghanistan is to keep the Taliban from providing AQ with a place to plan ops and train warriors to carry out those ops. That mission DOES NOT require nation building.
Not sure nation building is possible or even desirable in the ‘stan. The people don’t want it. So you have a bunch of liberals trying to force democracy on people at gunpoint. Isn’t that sublime? NOT.
So forget the nation building that the ‘gani’s don’t want. Contract with certain warlords for basing rights, build forts and hunt bugs (terrs). Treat the ‘stan as a post AIT course with live fire and targets that move around and shoot back. Then sublet to our allies that want to get their ‘elite’ units blooded. In a few generations the ‘gani’s that get tired of the game can come in and get civilized. Sort of like what we did with the American Indians.