Winning in Afghanistan

I fear, with the new administration’s people-to-people (or, let’s talk with everyone) approach to things international (like war), we have forgotten a basic definition that I learned many years ago at West Point; the objective of warfare is to defeat the enemy’s will to make war. The “proper thinking” military officer in Afghanistan may well be measuring victory by how many times their troops are breaking bread with village elders—and not the fruit of such effort (can you say actionable intelligence?) and numbers of patrols conducted. We certainly can win in Afghanistan, but only if warriors are running the war.