By this time next month, the war in Afghanistan will be deep into its eighteenth year. The milestone will likely come and go in D.C. as a nonevent, overlooked by the daily storm of partisanship that hovers over the capital like a permanent storm cloud.

But in reality, it should serve as a significant reminder of how muddled and strategically counterproductive U.S. policy in Afghanistan has become. Indeed, the war has lasted for such a long period of time that fresh Marine recruits — some of whom were not even alive when U.S. military first pounded al Qaeda and the Taliban in the fall of 2001 — are being lectured by their drill sergeants about why the U.S. is operating in Afghanistan to begin with.