"...[O]nly economic superpowers or dictatorships can drive foreign policy independently of domestic considerations — and Britain was neither in 1967. America is an economic superpower, but also a democracy, which explains both why foreign policy can be pushed beyond domestic considerations for long periods of time, but also why it can all too suddenly come crashing down."

"...[W]e now know that the notion that regime change leads to a better democratic or a humanitarian outcome is decidedly false. From Iraq, where the West tried a heavy footprint strategy, to Libya, where it opted for a light one, the idea that Europe or the United States can actually execute democratic change by force has been exposed as a fallacy."

"Kunduz is potentially a game changer because it exposes the gap between the paper plan for the defense of Afghanistan and the reality on the ground, particularly in two key areas: first, the capability Afghan ground forces; and second, the credibility of their NATO back-up."

"In Afghanistan, as in Iraq, when the conventional phase was over and the mission became indistinguishable from enforcing the writ of a relatively corrupt government over disillusioned parts of its own population, the notion that a decisive outcome was even available is illusory: first, because that task is endless — as it's about changing people's political affiliations, which are liable to evolve (as we have seen quite spectacularly in Iraq since the surge); second, because there was not a single coherent enemy force to be rendered powerless in the first place."

"Can the US 'degrade and ultimately destroy' the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or Isis, as President Barack Obama promised on Wednesday, without being drawn into another open-ended conflict?"

"The UK should not repeat the mistake of committing to open-ended conflict with a vaguely defined enemy that ultimately blurs the very line between war and peace that the use of force is supposed to uphold."