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Western governments are pouring more troops into Afghanistan.

But this strategy is doomed to fail unless they can master the far harder tasks of counterinsurgency, state-building and development. Winning the Afghan war is about politics, people and jobs.

Although the success of the surge in Iraq and the recent military victory by Sri Lankan government forces over the Tamil Tigers may have emboldened those favouring the military as the principal providers of stability, this is a chimera. In Afghanistan this approach will create at least as many problems as it might solve.