Neglect of history

Those who know nothing of history are condemned to repeat past mistakes. It would seem that the Ministry of Defence has neglected its historical studies. The Guardian reports:

"Britain will deploy nearly 6,000 troops to Afghanistan - more than expected - over the next few months in the biggest and most hazardous military operation since the invasion of Iraq, the cabinet agreed yesterday.
Most of the troops will be based in Helmand province, hostile territory at the heart of the country's opium poppy area, in a three-year deployment costing £1bn...
There are already some 1,000 British troops in Afghanistan. The total will peak at 5,700 in the summer, falling back to about 4,700 when engineers have built the British base at Lashkar Gar, capital of Helmand province. The British taskforce will consist of the Colchester-based 16 Air Assault Brigade, including 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment. For the first time, US-designed, British-made Apache attack helicopters will be deployed.
The brigade is part of Afghanistan's Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), to be
commanded by a British general, Sir David Richards, with the support of some 1,000 British soldiers based in Kabul. Isaf's job is peacekeeping and "nation building", including training a new Afghan army and helping to restructure the country's economy...
[Dr Reid] said British troops would also be involved in counter-narcotics, further complicating their mission with potentially dangerous consequences. Though President Hamid Karzai recently got rid of the governor of Helmand because of his links to the drug trade, the Ministry of Defence told MPs last week: "The narcotics trade influences senior levels in the [Afghan] government and effectively controls some of the provincial administration".

I have enormous sympathy for the British forces who are being asked to undertake a mission in which, successively, forces from the USSR and the USA failed. Indeed, it could be argued that the British Army itself failed in earlier centuries to bring peace and nation-building to Afghanistan.

If more than 100,000 troops from the coalition of the willing cannot pacify Iraq, what hope do the considerably fewer numbers of NATO and US troops have in Afghanistan?

And to those who ask - what is the alternative? - I have no answers. It would be nice to think that the current proposals would lead to a competent Afghan national army, as well as the elimination of the warlords, of the Taliban and of the narcotics industry, but it's not going to happen.