Exit and transition are words with the same meaning when used in Gates context. If (a big ‘if’) we can successfully 'transition' our relationship with the Afghans then we can 'exit' the country. But as we all know if perchance we don’t do transition well then we still exit anyway. I am waiting for the day in this era of mega deficits when Gates starts calling the fabulous expenses of this war an ‘investment’.

Exit strategies are the type of thing that should be developed behind closed doors at the higher levels of government but generally should not be discussed in public. One would hope that they could be discussed at the White House, National Security Council, and State and Defense Departments without well-intentioned ideas about freedom of information requiring that the records and transcripts be disclosed to the public.

I know that it’s impolitic to talk about access to oil & gas as being one of our objectives, but keep your eye on Gwadar, which China envisions as a pipeline terminus; they won’t appreciate our messing with their plans.

The correct words to use in english are defeat and withdrawl. Besides, who cares what DC people like Gates thinks anyway. He will leave and join the looting, like the rest of his species.

I actually agree with Sec. Gates, and with Tom Ricks, about the phrase "exit strategy," which has come to mean a plan to deal with a politically difficult foreign entanglement in such a way that at some point it is not politically difficult any more.

Where I part company with Ricks is in my conviction that the tangible costs of such entanglements -- costs in blood that he acknowledges, and costs in treasure that he does not -- need to be part of our calculation as to whether their benefits to us are worth it and to how long we can afford to sustain them. At some point the costs can get to be so great that America just has to drop everything and leave. This is just a fact of life, and would be for any country. A responsible American government will recognize it, and adjust policy so that we never get to that point.

Whether Gates, in charge of the one government department least sensitive to the expense of its activities, sees the matter in quite this way I do not know. I appreciate his not wanting to repeat the first Bush administration's errors after 1989, but at that time all we needed to do was to be an honest broker between Afghan tribes and factions, helping them to find a way not to kill one another. We didn't need to serve as a kind of mother hen incubating the egg of an Afghan state. This vastly more difficult and expensive role is one America can afford to sustain for a finite period only.

Pete, I see your point and it makes sense to me in a more conventional conflict such as that which generated Grant’s famous statement. Obama’s remark seems to me a statement designed to accommodate a political necessity which always trumps mere military factors. In fact, and more than likely, the reality of initiating an exit strategy after eighteen months could take years to implement.

All in all I don’t see the Taliban shaking in their sandals over an American escalation. They are not going anywhere and don’t seem to be the slightest bit intimidated by fighting American troops or any others for that matter. Whether we say we may begin to leave in eighteen months or eighteen years is probably all the same to these people who are not accustomed to immediate gratification and know how to take a punch.

Pete, I think basically we are both on the same page. The British had a bit of an advantage in the 19th century in that pundits did not scrutinize their operations every evening on TV and chair bound bloggers critique them on the internet. Additionally, usually their campaigns actually included a majority of British officered (who also spoke the native language) indigenous troops whose reliability and performance were none too different from some of the British regular formations. The South Vietnamese Army, the Iraqi Army and the rag tag Afghan Army are far removed in quality from these carefully recruited and trained British colonial regiments.

I thought the best line was in response to Republicans remark that the talk of pulling back in 2011 would cause the Taliban to simply lay low for 18 months. Gates response:
"That would be terrific news"

"We will not repeat the mistake-we must not repeat the mistake of 1989, and turn our backs on these folks."

Oh, why not? I mean, do we have any real long-term reason for alliance with either Pakistan or Afghanistan once the whole "war on terror" thing dies down? The Pakistani alliance was largely about the Cold War, and as soon as that was over the US retreated to a less active position (although they still favored the occasional dictator, like Musharraf).

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