Last week the British-led Helmand task force closed its operations after eight years of continuous military engagement. This action marks the end of the UK combat mission in Afghanistan, even though British forces will continue to assist Afghan counterparts in the region. It also marks the end of an era in which we were willing to intervene militarily. It is unlikely that we will see such a deployment of British troops in an international theatre of war for a long time.
The year 2006, when we embarked on military intervention in Helmand, seems like a distant memory. Then our economy was expanding at nearly three per cent a year, as it had done for the previous 13 years.
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