NATO's Afghan Plan: Stable Instability

-Many Americans think we’re winding down in Afghanistan by the end of next year, for better or for worse. We’re not. Despite America’s evident desire to extricate itself from the nation’s longest war, Taliban fighters, criminal gangs, and other insurgents continue to terrorize much of Afghanistan, making travel around the country as difficult as it’s ever been. And the grim bargain that has dogged U.S. efforts in Afghanistan since the beginning of President Obama's “surge” still holds: The United States must find a way to supply and support an Afghan national army and police force that Washington has largely built but which is barely in its adolescence, although it is already 10 times the size of the fierce Taliban insurgency it is fighting.