Comment is free - In Afghanistan the west suffered from institutional failure. Let’s learn from it --- As the final British troops leave Afghanistan they do so with several hundred military personnel still in post supporting the Afghan National Army. They must now continue the fight against rural insurgency and terrorism the best way they can. It is easy to be pessimistic when a clear-cut victory failed to materialise, and not just for our brigade of troops but for the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) mission of more than 100,000 troops too. It is also possible to be positive. Afghanistan remains a decentralised and rural society so there is ample data across this rich and varied land to support either a conclusion of failure or one of tentative success. -- Notwithstanding my own view that it was incredibly naive of Isaf to entertain the idea that a nation state built up in Kabul could within 10 years extend its writ over the whole country, overall the troops who served there deserve our unflinching credit and admiration (which does include me and, yes, the irony of such a self-serving statement does not escape me). But we know from our own counter-insurgency doctrine that for the security forces (the west) to win, they must defeat the insurgents (those who are loosely classified into three distinct groups: the Taliban, the Haqqani Network and Hekmatyar’s Hizbi-Islami), and for the insurgents to win all they need do is survive. This is what has happened. -- Numerous reports show active insurgent presence and resurgence in many regions. So if there has been failure, whose is it? It certainly is not the failure of the military who have served despite many political, equipment and planning failures. -- What we have witnessed in Afghanistan, and Iraq too, is a failure of Nato institutions that were not fit for the task of counter-insurgency. Nato, like too many elements of the western strategic-level structures, remains more suited to the cold war than current military interventions requiring stabilisation, policing and counter-terrorism. -- Read More, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/28/afghanistan-west-institutional-failure-iraq-syria