The 2002 Bali bombings and the flow of drugs from Afghanistan are often cited as reasons for our troops to be serving in that country but, dreadful as both events were, and are, from a policy perspective they are not the basis for Australia's participation in that war.
Those responsible for the Bali attacks have been apprehended and had their organisation broken up by Indonesian authorities, with some help from the Australian Federal Police and Australian intelligence. The vast majority of opiates from Afghanistan go to Europe, and if the Government is serious about stemming the flow of illegal drugs to Australia via military action then it should consider beginning hostilities elsewhere.
The reason Australia is fighting in Afghanistan is to assist the ongoing management of our defence and security alliance with the United States. This began with the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US and the Howard government's invocation of the ANZUS Treaty. Despite apparent reluctance on the part of some to acknowledge that fact, the US alliance is a valid reason for Australia to fight in Afghanistan, as it forms the long-term bipartisan bedrock of our national security and defence posture.
However, the bottom line for this conflict that is costing us lots of money and too many lives is whether or not we think we can win. If yes, then the Government needs a policy that spells out what ''winning'' means and how we will achieve it and outlines our exit strategy. If the judgment is that we cannot win, then just the exit strategy will do.
What are Australia's war aims in Afghanistan? Are we trying to help create a democratic utopia in a country that is largely stuck in the 14th century, or will we settle for a state governed by something at least resembling the rule of law?
Whatever the war aims are determined to be, how are they going to be achieved? Do we have to kill every last Taliban fighter and resolve tribal area governance issues with Afghanistan's nuclear-armed and turbulent neighbour, Pakistan, or will we settle for a negotiated solution with whatever moderate and remotely trustworthy powerbrokers can be found?
What are the benchmarks by which progress will be measured? What will Afghanistan look like when we have ''won'', and when might that be? There are no easy answers to these questions and no shortage of work for the policymakers whose job it is to find them.
There is a wide variety of opinion expressed from a range of well-respected sources on Afghanistan. At one end of the spectrum is the former commander of British Special Air Service troops in Afghanistan, Major Sebastian Morley, who resigned in protest late last year over the use of lightly armoured Land Rovers in combat zones.
''The operations that we are conducting are so worthless,'' he said recently. ''We hold tiny areas of ground in Helmand [province] and we are kidding ourselves if we think our influence goes beyond 500 metres of our security bases.
''We go out on operations, have a punch-up with the Taliban and then go back to camp for tea: we are not holding the ground. The Taliban know where we are. They know full well when we have gone back into camp. The level of attrition and casualties is only set to rise. This is the equivalent to the start of the Vietnam conflict there is much more to come.''
At the other end of that spectrum is recently retired Australian Major-General Jim Molan, who wrote in a newspaper article late last year that, ''The Afghanistan war is winnable. We are not being asked to do the impossible. It is not going any worse than just about any other war. No wars go well initially and the average length of a counter-insurgency is nine years. We are really in only the second year and, just as we did not get serious about the Iraq war until its fifth year, we are not yet serious about the Afghan war.''
One of the few things that most seem to agree on is that, while military action has been and remains necessary, an acceptable end state will not be delivered by military means alone.
In Munich last month General David Petraeus, who is now overseeing the US military effort in South Asia, said there were no purely military solutions in Afghanistan. He suggested that prevention of the downward spiral in the country would require far greater civil aid contributions, together with a new approach to addressing cross-border issues with Afghanistan's neighbours.
A vital part of any reconstruction and nation-building effort in Afghanistan is the battle for public opinion, both in Afghanistan and in those countries with troops fighting there. So far Australian public opinion has been generally supportive of our efforts. Largely on the back of ongoing bipartisan political support, the public seems to accept our involvement while at the same time sympathising deeply with the family and friends of those killed and seriously wounded. It can be surprising what people will accept in terms of anguish and sacrifice if the reasons for it have been properly and convincingly explained.
Even with political and media backing, positive public opinion of the Afghanistan war cannot be expected to last indefinitely. A New York Times poll in February indicated that just 27 per cent of Americans thought the war in Afghanistan was going well. This was down from 93per cent recorded in a similar poll conducted in December 2001.
Sooner or later the Australian public will want to know when our soldiers are coming home. The greater our military commitment and the more casualties we incur, the sooner that day will come the sooner we will need a detailed and well-thought-out policy. Former Australian commander in the Middle East Major-General Mike Hindmarsh recently attempted to define what would be needed to allow for the withdrawal of most Australian troops from Afghanistan in three years' time via Operations Plan 2012. I think the proposed timing is ambitious, but the plan's boldness was matched only by the speed with which the Government backed away from it distancing itself from one of the few serious efforts yet to draw any sort of line under our apparently open-ended commitment in Afghanistan.
The new Obama Administration has now thoroughly re-evaluated its conduct of the Afghanistan campaign, and it's possible the US will again ask Australia to make a greater military contribution. It would certainly have been in Australia's best interest if better long-term policy work on Australia's position on Afghanistan had been done in anticipation of a US request for more Aussie troops. Let's hope that our Prime Minister is well prepared to outline what extra Australia is ready and willing to do, and for how long, or to tell President Obama why we cannot or will not increase our forces.
It is very likely that Rudd will agree to any request from President Obama for Australia to boost our military commitment in Afghanistan, but it is just as likely that he will remain unable to clearly define our war aims, outline what will constitute victory or give any idea of how long that will take.
Australian soldiers are doing a great job in Afghanistan, but unless we are content for them to stay there indefinitely our politicians and our policymakers need to lift their game.
Daniel Cotterill is director of defence and security at Hill & Knowlton and a former chief of staff to Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon. This is an edited version of a speech he gave at a national security conference in Sydney last week.