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In the wake of the Australian drawdown in Afghanistan there has been much discussion about what was achieved, whether it was worth it and whether the US-led involvement has made a long-term difference.

My sense is that if I went back in 2015 I would find some changes, but probably not of the substantive kind sought by the US and its coalition partners.

My experience of Afghanistan, apart from following it externally as an analyst, was being there with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in 2009 and 2012.

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In 2009 I was in Kabul with ISAF, and in the south in Kandahar Province with the US Army and a Canadian Provincial Reconstruction Team. In 2012 I was there again in Kabul with ISAF, in the north at Mazar-e-Sharif with the German Army, and in the northwest at Herat with the Italian Army.

I met with the American ISAF Commanding Generals, McChrystal in 2009 and Allen in 2012. I also went to Afghan military and police training facilities, met with Afghan generals and ministers, and spent time with the very capable Afghan Special Forces. One of my more unusual meetings was with Professor Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf, the namesake of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group in the Philippines.

Needless to say my impressions were mixed. I found the usual optimism at the top that all would be well in Afghanistan after the inevitable US drawdown, but there was always scepticism at the working level that national development could be sustained after the drawdown.

The political reality is that Afghanistan is a loose "federation" of sometimes adversarial ethnicities (mainly Pashtun Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek) and local tribes, with not much central control from Kabul below the province level. Nearly 80 per cent of the Afghan population lives in rural areas where local warlords often wield almost feudal power rather like the 14thcentury England portrayed inWorld Without End.

One common feature of Afghans is that they are xenophobic, including towards people from outside their own ethnicity: infidels are generally distrusted.

Democracy is not a good fit for Afghanistan because, as in Iraq, it encourages official corruption and discrimination against minority groups. Much of what Westerners have done in Afghanistan has been selfless and praiseworthy, but we should not expect gratitude from Afghans, or the kind of future outcomes that would be our preference. We are more likely to be remembered by Afghans for the war's heavy toll on civilians.

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The great game of Afghanistan