The Sea Lords may well give Captain Aspden something of a shoeing but " .. political will for the campaign has clearly departed stage left. The issue for the military of course is legacy, residual footprint, getting out with good grace and not being seen to have cut and run, to have sacrificed such blood and treasure to no avail .. " seems to me to be a plain statement of obvious fact.
Indeed the army is going to have to grub around for a justification once we are out of Afghanistan and that, I suppose, is why General Richards appears to be trying to poach some of the hearts and minds stuff from DfID, and trying to persuade the suits that, post-Af, his Army will not be sitting on its arse twiddling its thumbs.