The decision by US President Barack Obama to undertake a much bigger troop withdrawal from Afghanistan than his military commanders wanted is one of the most important of his presidency. It marks the authority of his strategic leadership.
Most particularly, it marks the end of the dominance of the counter-insurgency paradigm for the West and the new triumph of the counter-terrorism paradigm.
Instead of trying to pacify populations, we will simply kill our enemies.
It also confirms the deep strategic pessimism about Afghanistan, which is belied by the tactical brilliance and local successes of US, Australian and other Western troops there. Afghanistan cannot be won while Pakistan supports the insurgency. Pakistan cannot be convinced to change its behaviour.
The cost of Afghanistan in lives and treasure - $US120 billion for US taxpayers this year alone - is too great to bear any longer for no strategic purpose.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
The only strategic purpose now in Afghanistan for Australia is to maintain US military credibility.
Obama, much better than his generals or most of his advisers, has understood for some time now the essential futility of the Afghanistan mission.
He wants to get out as soon as possible with as little damage as manageable to US credibility, and to give as much chance of survival as he can to Washington's friends in Afghanistan after the Americans are gone.
The size of the Obama withdrawal - 10,000 troops out by the end of this year and more than 33,000 all up within a year - means the counter-insurgency phase is coming definitively to an end.
By the middle of next year, the Americans will have barely 70,000 troops in Afghanistan. You can't run counter-insurgency with that number of Americans.
The other NATO troops, apart from the British, basically don't count. The Americans have a nickname for the International Security Assistance Force: I Saw Americans Fight.
The US withdrawal removes any remaining military rationale for Australia to stay in any aggressive posture. We should only withdraw over the next year or so, in tandem with the US.
The only strategic interest for the Australian contribution in Afghanistan now is alliance management. But this alliance commitment needn't involve any more Australian deaths.
Protecting a withdrawal, and making it orderly, is an important military task. But there is no reason for Australians any longer to be killed on patrol with the Afghan National Army. We can and should complete our training mission from behind the wire.
It will be a long time before a US-led Western coalition of troops ever again undertakes a large-scale counter-insurgency mission.
This has big implications for the Australian army, which has become perhaps overfocused on counter-insurgency.
This is the beginning of the long goodbye. Obama was right to make this call.