You can bet that the reason for David Cameron's visit to Afghanistan this week was more than simply wishing frontline troops a happy Christmas. He will be listening attentively to military commanders and officials to determine if progress is really being made after the recent surge of troops and resources.
The outcome of this trip will shape his views on Britain's role up to end of the combat operations in 2015, and will probably be the most important visit to the country he will make as prime minister. Decisions taken now will determine Britain's legacy in Afghanistan. This is why commanders will be telling him we must stay the course, keep British troop numbers at significant levels until the end of 2014 and continue with transferring responsibility for security to the Afghans.
On 12 May 2010 the war in Afghanistan became Cameron's war. As leader of the opposition he saw that the previous strategy wasn't working. He was a believer in the McChrystal plan and had the foresight to support it long before Gordon Brown or Barack Obama.
He has also injected a bit of realism into the mission in a way that his Labour predecessors were either unwilling or unable to do. He has rightly brought Britain away from the nation-building rhetoric used by the previous government, and made the reason for Britain's involvement in Afghanistan first and foremost about national security.
The strategy in place is finally working, and progress is being made. There is a lot to be optimistic about. The people that represent our ticket out of Afghanistan, the Afghan National Security Forces, are for the first time reaching a standard of capability required to carry out autonomous operations. The ANSF are far from being perfect, but that was never the goal. The goal is to get the forces to a level where they can handle the insurgency themselves, without tens of thousands of western troops on the ground. Paraphrasing TE Lawrence on the Arabs, it is better that they do it tolerably than we do it perfectly.
Levels of violence are also lower across the country, and we should not let recent attacks in Kabul discourage us. Although Kabul accounts for almost 15% of the country's population it accounts for less than 1% of its violence. Nationally, the level of enemy-initiated attacks during the last three months is 24% lower compared with the same period in 2010. This is a result of the relentless pressure exerted on the insurgency by Isaf and Afghan forces since the surge was started last year.
While there is some movement on the political front there is still a long road ahead. The transition process is working better than most expected. The recent announcement on transition means that 50% of the population will soon be under the security control of the Afghans. We are on target for full security transition by 2015.
As with all counter-insurgencies, the conflict in Afghanistan will be brought to an end when there is a political settlement. There was much alarm over the fact that neither the Pakistanis nor the Taliban were at the recent Bonn conference. As westerners we tend to attach far too much importance to these huge international conferences, staged in some of the most glamorous cities in Europe and the US.
The political problems we face in Afghanistan will be settled in Kabul, Kandahar, Quetta and Islamabad – and not Bonn, London, Paris or Washington. In central Asia, history and culture dictate that we need local solutions for local problems. In fact, the next major international conference should be hosted in either Afghanistan itself or in Pakistan.
I realise that there are economic pressures at home, and that the war in Afghanistan is largely unpopular, but the point of a war is to win it – not to leave it as quickly as possible. The commanders on the ground need the tools to get the job done. If you give a commander half the resources, he cannot deliver half a victory. If Afghanistan is about national security, as we have been told, then the decision to keep significant troop numbers there until 2015 should not be a problem for Downing Street.
British military forces have not been defeated in Helmand – far from it. In the last two years these British forces have turned into a relatively stable area a part of central Helmand that has only 1% of Afghanistan's population but, at its peak, accounted for about 20% of the country's violence.
This is testament to the leadership and capabilities of the British military. We owe it to those on the frontline to let them finish the job. They must be given the chance to succeed. An unnecessarily early withdrawal could undo all the hard work and sacrifice already made.
It would also send the wrong signal to others in the region – the signal that we do not have the fortitude to see a mission through. If Britain fails in Afghanistan, historians will show that it was lost in London, and not in Helmand. The prime minister has shown real leadership on cutting the deficit, on Europe, and on Libya. I hope he will support our commanders and do the same for Afghanistan.
By Luke Coffey, a special adviser in the MoD where Afghanistan was one of his main policy areas. He has travelled to the country many times and served one year there in the US army in 2005.