Afghanistan's spiralling death toll from terrorist attacks is lending a new urgency to questions about whether the UK, US and their allies should do more to prop up the country's fragile government.
A car bomb in Kabul on Monday killed up to 35 and wounded more than 40, reports Reuters and The Guardian says civilian deaths in the 16-year civil war are at a record high with the Taliban resurgent.
There are 13,000 Nato troops currently in the country, 8,400 of them American; the UK, with 500 service personnel in Afghanistan, plans to send 85 more in training capacities, Politics Home says.
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More troops are a "tactical necessity", claims former Nato commander James Stavridis writing in Time. He highlights estimates that Taliban influence could now extend to some 40 per cent of the country.
US media reported in June that almost 4,000 more American troops will be deployed. But Rebecca Zimmerman, policy researcher at RAND Corporation, told Bloomberg TV that "if 100,000 troops (the number under Obama in 2010) weren't able to be decisive in a combat sense I don't think we can say a few thousand extra troops are going to be able to do that… we really need to focus on building a more stable Afghan government."
An unpopular influx of foreign soldiers could even be "adding wood to a fire", says Al Jazeera - particularly as the Taliban refuses to come to the negotiating table until alien troops are out of the country.
But the real problem, according to the National Interest website, is that since invading in 2001 America's objectives remain unclear. "How is it that Washington still does not have an achievable strategy? And worse, why aren’t elected officials debating and voting on policy?" Asks retired brigadier general Rob Givens.
Last week, President Donald Trump finally appointed an ambassador to Afghanistan - longtime diplomat and current Turkey ambassador John Bass.
That might finally give US policy a focal point and mouthpiece in a country so difficult to handle it has become known as the "Graveyard of Empires".
