Has Britain learned from its failures in Afghanistan?

As the Americans prepare to leave Afghanistan, and in the UK we hold our own Defence Review, should we not be asking: have we really learned from the lessons of our failures there?

I was in Afghanistan for a brief and intense time in 2007 when I was filming for Channel 4 Dispatches and CNN. We saw a country that had been brutalised for decades by the Russian occupation, the ensuing civil war and then American carpet bombing to ensure US troops met no resistance. A country which was becoming restive as the allies seemed increasingly unable to help them rebuild, or for that matter interested in doing so once they had been distracted by Iraq.

It was a pivotable moment. In the first five years after the 2001 invasion, only a handful of British troops had died in Afghanistan. This had bred complacency.

Tony Blair had then made a momentous decision not long before we started filming.