Why the struggle continues, and how to tell who is winning

People ask why the war continues.
Better to ask why the insurgency continues.
They are not the same.
We make a lot of progress, but there is little reporting
in the news of what we accomplish.
But the insurgency continues because both sides understand fighting.
When you are weak, you attack the weakest part of the enemy.
You combine all your forces and smash their smallest element.
When you are strong, you attack the enemies largest element,
you hunt it down and smash it, then move on to the next.
That's the nature of fighting an insurgency:
they attack the weakest spot we have. Right now
that mean they don't attack us, they don't attack the Afghan National
Army, they attack the Afghan National Police.

Let me emphasize this:
They are so weak they cannot fight our military, they are so weak they
cannot even fight the Afghan military. They fight the police.
And each night, we go out, and we hunt down their largest groups,
and we smash them. Each night, we come in the dark, and snatch their
leaders, their planners. These are not big leaders: there are no
big leaders any more. But when they gather in groups of more than
around twenty, we find out, and we take them down.

Why does the insurgency continue? Because there will ALWAYS be a weak place
for them to attack. If they cannot attack American forces, and they
cannot attack ISAF forces, and they cannot attack ANA forces, and they
cannot attack ANP forces, and they cannot attack ABP forces, and the
cannot attack ANCOP forces, because we are all too strong, they will
attack civilians in the night. And if they are afraid to attack civilians,
they will kill children, because children will be the only people left
weak enough for them to attack. The will continue to fight, against
whomever they have the strength to fight.
And there will always be someone for us to remove. Tonight, we raid a
group of twenty. Next year we raid groups of ten.
The year after, we take out groups of five. Till, in the end, if two
people meet and plot against us, we take them down.

Look at who the enemy targets and you will know how strong they are.

And who are they targeting? Afghan National Police. So they are strong enough to,
with extensive planning, the element of surprise, and having chosen the field
of battle, they are strong enough to attack a couple of dozen relatively untrained
police officers with crap equipment. And even then, they lose men in their
attacks.

That's why the insurgency continues. That's the nature of the insurgency
today. You cannot win an insurgency instantly, quickly, in a pretty way.
You can win, but it takes time.