Peak Taliban?

The war in Afghanistan looks better.

One, Taliban influence may be overstated because of government corruption that encourages provincial rulers to claim problems in order to gain resources to fight that influence.

Two, American air power is dramatically more involved. And Afghan air power is taking part.

Three, British special forces have returned.

And four, Afghan forces are on the offensive more often.

As I noted last year, we decided to pull in Afghan forces from scattered vulnerable outposts, which I hoped would allow them to go on offense more effectively.

I worried that move could be the start of real collapse if things were worse than they appeared.

There is more.

It appears that we survived the nadir of our fortunes in Afghanistan. Hopefully we have a winter offensive that seeks out the Taliban and other jihadis as they try to hunker down and survive the winter.