Redefining the war

There are more than 100,000 American and Allied troops in Afghanistan. That is, there are more than 1,000 troops for every suspected al-Qa’eda ‘operative’. Not for the first time in Afghanistan means, ways and ends appear to be out of kilter. There are more Nato troops than are needed to combat al-Qa’eda but not enough to build a proper, ordinary country. No wonder Afghanistan has become a grimly expensive halfway house — neither wholly occupied, nor treated with a light touch.

Tim Bird and Alex Marshall’s brisk, broad survey of the war is drily un- impressed by American strategy. It is sub- titled ‘How the West Lost its Way’, and its authors, who are academics — King’s College, London and Glasgow University respectively — imply that western policy has been based on a Micawberish view that, with sufficient persistance and perspiration, something will eventually turn up to solve, or at least pacify, the Afghan Question.