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At 15 years and counting, the war in Afghanistan is by far America's longest war and among its most costly. We're draining our resources, sustaining military casualties and spending huge amounts of money as the conflict grinds to a stalemate.

No U.S. official seems to want to talk about our policy in Afghanistan and where we are going. The media has largely forgotten it. Basic questions about our national interests in that country, our objectives and how we are going to meet those objectives are largely ignored.

As our policy drifts, the situation in Afghanistan is dire.

The Afghan government is divided, ineffective in fighting corruption and in unifying and governing the country. Among many Afghans, we are not welcomed in their country. In denouncing the American military's recent use of a giant American bomb on an Afghanistan cave cluster occupied by ISIS militants, former president Hamid Karzai vowed to try to oust the U.S. from the country.

Much of the economy is illicit, driven by drugs and criminality.

As the war intensifies, the military situation is bleak. The Taliban are resurgent. They may not represent anything close to a majority of Afghans, but they have strong support in parts of the country and are not going away.

The Afghan military commanders have not been truthful about the readiness of their troops. They have been almost entirely on the defensive while the Taliban gain more territory. There are record casualties, including more than 100 deaths in a deadly attack this month that lead to the resignation of the defense minister and the Army chief of staff.

Our ally Pakistan is supporting elements of the Taliban. Iran and Russia remain active in the region. Russia sought unsuccessfully to gather representatives from China, Iran, Pakistan and India (but not the United States) to participate in peace talks.

There is talk of starting a peace process in which all the major players try to negotiate the end of the conflict. But the talk is vague, and nothing significant seems to be happening on the diplomatic front.

Under these difficult circumstances, Gen. John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. Forces, has called for a surge of several thousand additional American troops.

One can understand why more troops, and more economic and political aid, would be sought. But from my point of view, we should know the answers to the basic questions about Afghanistan before we send more troops into harm's way and expend many more dollars.

We have about 8,400 troops in Afghanistan, down considerably from previous levels, but still a significant number. We have spent scores of billions of dollars, much of it to equip and train the Afghan National Defense and Security forces. But those forces have deep internal divisions and have been ineffective.

Under U.S. law, aid is subject to Afghanistan making progress in preventing corruption, fighting drug trafficking and improving human rights and women's rights. But the certifications are routinely approved every year, and the funds are made available, even though progress is by no means apparent.

We need to reassess where we are in Afghanistan. We need to demand answers to a series of questions. What are our interests in Afghanistan? What are our objectives? What is our strategy for meeting those objectives? In short: What is the end game? How long are we prepared to stay there? And for what purpose?

If we decide to stay in Afghanistan, we have a full plate. We need to find ways to fix the frictions that are rampant within the Afghan government. And the Afghan government must demonstrate a sense of urgency and support for reform.

The Pakistanis have to decide whose side they're on. We have to stop sending money and equipment to the Afghan forces that end up in the hands of our adversaries because of corrupt Afghan leadership. We must insist the government deal with corruption, act with basic competence and govern the country effectively.

Without doubt, President Donald Trump inherited a tough, messy situation in Afghanistan. But he has said little about the situation and has done nothing to clarify objectives and policies. We should not expect miracles or quick solutions, but we should demand clear objectives and goals. The lack of clarity in U.S. policy and strategy is not fair to our military forces, not fair to the American people and ultimately not fair to the people of Afghanistan.

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After Years Of War, U.S. Policy In Afghanistan Is A Mystery - Huffington Post

NATO is considering sending additional military personnel to Afghanistan and increasing the timeframe of the deployment in the view of the challenging security situation, the alliances secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, told the German Die Welt daily.

The additional troops are expected to join the NATO Resolute Support mission which it says is aimed at training, assisting and advising Afghan security forces in their fight against violent insurgents and various extremist groups.

The training mission, after the majority of combat troops were withdrawn, currently involves 13,000 servicemen, with around 8,400 of them being from the US.

The decision concerning further troops deployment is to be taken by June, Stoltenberg told Die Welt.

The military alliance is also expected to approve a new prolonged deployment procedure, he said. Instead of extending the mission every year, NATO would prolong it for a longer term to be able to develop long-term strategies.

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NATO would like to take more initiative and responsibility in the fight against global terrorism, Stoltenberg said, noting however, that operations aimed at training local troops and security forces are the best way to fight terrorism.

We already do it to some extent, for example, in Afghanistan and Iraq but we have a potential to do even more, he said. In such a way, we make them capable of stabilizing their land on their own. It is better than sending NATO troops that have then to defend those countries.

NATOs new strategy announcement comes as the situation in Afghanistan becomes increasingly tense.

US-led forces invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban from power more than 15 years ago, following the attacks of September 11, 2001. However, the extremist group, which advocates hardcore Islamist rule, is still active and continues to attack Afghan military targets and carry out terrorist attacks.

US Army General John Nicholson recently described the situation in Afghanistan as a stalemate as he briefed the US Senate Armed Services Committee.

Lately, the US has concentrated on fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorists in eastern Afghanistan while also supporting Afghan National Security Forces against the Taliban.

In an unprecedented show of force on April 13, the US dropped an 11-ton mother of all bombs in the eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, killing 94 IS terrorists, according to the latest estimates.

Meanwhile last week, some 140 Afghan soldiers were killed and dozens injured in a Taliban attack on a military base in northern Afghanistan, according to Afghan officials. Taliban fighters also overran the Sangin district of Helmand province in late March.

On Saturday, it was reported that the US Marines returned to Afghanistans southernmost Helmand province amid the deteriorating security situation in the area. The arrival of the Marines comes a day after the Taliban announced this years spring offensive, pledging to keep the pressure on Afghans security forces.

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NATO may boost its presence & prolong 'training' mission in Afghanistan Stoltenberg - RT

Two U.S. service members were killed late Thursday and a third was wounded when they came under attack during a raid against Islamic State fighters in southern Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, a Defense Dept. official confirmed to Fox News.

The soldiers were battling ISIS-K in partnership with Afghan defense forces in the same area where the "Mother Of All Bombs" was dropped earlier this month.

ISIS WEAPONS CAPTURED BY CANADIAN WOMAN WORKING TO DISARM TERRORISTS

"The fight against ISIS-K is important for the world, but sadly, it is not without sacrifice," said Gen. John W. Nicholson, Commander, U.S. Forces-Afghanistan. "On behalf of all U.S. Forces and our coalition partners, I offer our deepest sympathies to the families, friends and fellow service members of our fallen comrades."

Next of kin have been notified. In keeping with U.S. miltary policy, the names and of those killed will not be released until 24 hours after next-of-kin notification.

Eighteen ISIS militants were killed in the firefight.

A source with the Afghanistan army told Fox News that ISIS hasn't been considered a major threat in the country, where the local army and U.S. forces have been more focused on routing the Taliban. Still, the U.S. has been battling ISIS in Afghanistan for months and estimates that it now includes about 800 fighters there.

The bombing came just days after a U.S. Army special forces soldier was killed in the region. The bomb is the largest non-nuclear weapon ever used in combat by the U.S., and it killed several dozen militants, U.S. officials said.

Fox News' Jennifer Griffin, Hollie McKay and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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2 US Army soldiers killed fighting ISIS in Afghanistan

The operation was targeting ISIS-K, the terror group's Afghanistan affiliate. A US official told CNN the wounded soldier's injuries are not considered life-threatening.

The Pentagon identified the two slain soldiers Friday as Sgt. Joshua P. Rodgers, 22, of Bloomington, Illinois, and Sgt. Cameron H. Thomas, 23, of Kettering, Ohio. They were assigned to 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, based in Fort Benning, Georgia.

"The fight against ISIS-K is important for the world, but sadly, it is not without sacrifice," said Gen. John W. Nicholson, commander of US Forces-Afghanistan. "On behalf of all US forces and our coalition partners, I offer our deepest sympathies to the families, friends and fellow service members of our fallen comrades."

Achin District is the primary base of operations for ISIS in Afghanistan and has been the site of multiple joint US-Afghan counterterrorism missions. A US Army Special Forces soldier was killed fighting the terror group there earlier this month.

It is also where the US dropped one of its most powerful bombs earlier this month, killing close to 100 ISIS fighters, according to Afghan officials.

Nicholson has pledged to eliminate ISIS-K from Afghanistan this year.

"We're going to keep going until they're defeated in 2017," Nicholson told reporters in Kabul this month.

Beginning in 2016, Afghan security forces backed by US military advisers have launched a major offensive against ISIS, with Nicholson saying that the terror group has lost about half of its fighters and been ejected from two-thirds of its territory.

The latest counter-ISIS push began in March of this year.

US officials estimate that ISIS has about 600 to 800 fighters in the country, largely formed from former members of other regional terror groups, including the Pakistani Taliban and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. ISIS is believed to be behind a series of terror attacks, including the recent deadly attack on a hospital in Kabul.

There are about 8,400 US troops in Afghanistan. The US counterterrorism mission is separate from the NATO-led effort to train, advise and assist the Afghan army and police force in its fight against the Taliban.

US and coalition casualties in Afghanistan are rare, having fallen dramatically since the Afghan government assumed responsibility for combat operations in 2014.

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2 US service members killed in Afghanistan - CNNPolitics.com

KABUL, Afghanistan Afghanis marked the 25th anniversary Friday of their victory over Soviet Russian troops and the birth of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan with parades and speeches.

The public holiday celebrates todays date in 1992 when the Mujahedeen rebel forces overthrew Mohammad Najibullah's pro-Soviet Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

The occasion, referred to locally as Hashte Saur, is a day in which former Mujahedeen fighters and present-day soldiers and supporters march on bases or streets, history is recited, national songs traditionally sung by the "holy warriors" in the trenches are brought back, mosque prayers are directed to those who lost their lives and iconic green Mujahedeen flags are flown.

"Over 13 years, we lost two-and-a-half million of our people, 7 million refugees fled and many were maimed," Commander Ahmad Muslem Hayat, a former Mujahedeen military chief proudly told Fox News in Kabul. "Today we are celebrating our struggle against and defeat of the communists and Russian occupation."

Chaos was kindled in 1978 after Afghanistan's self-proclaimed prime minister, Mohammed Daoud Khan, was assassinated during the Saur Revolution, which was led by the socialist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). The PDPA then promptly seized power. But as more and more groups emerged in opposition to the communist leanings of the leadership, the PDPA government sought help from the U.S.S.R.

The following year, the brutal Soviet warstarted and soon thereafter,the seemingly intractable U.S. involvement in the country started, too, as American officials covertly armed andaided the Mujahedeen against the Cold War enemy.

For the soft-spoken and multilingual Hayat, the memories leading up the conflicts outbreak remain vivid. He said growing up his father always feared communism as the "monster of the world," one that would deprive them of their freedom and force them into atheism. At just 17 years old in 1979, Hayat was a student at the military academy in Kabul but a vocal opponent of that monster, the PDPA leadership. After his activism against the regime was discovered, he was expelled.

A few days later, forces surrounded Hayat's family home and broke down the door in the dead of the night. He was arrested and taken into a torture cell at Sadarat by the secret spy police, the NDS, where his sternum was shattered by the knee of an interrogator and his body was endlessly barraged by electric shocks that "felt like a thousand bullets," he said.

"All day you would hear constant screaming. Dead bodies were everywhere. The rooms were filled with prisoners -- girls and boys -- all educated, professional people," Hayat recalled. "The communists told us that listening to the BBC was a crime. They told us they did not care how many people they had to kill because Afghanistan only needs 3 million, not 30 million, people to keep them in power."

Hayat was "luckily" released weeks later when Afghan politician and founding PDPA member Nur Muhammed Taraki was killed. More determined than ever, the young Hayat finished his military training over the border in Peshawar, Pakistan, and joined his distant relative -- the widely hailed hero and perhaps most powerful Mujahedeen leader Ahmad Shar Massoud -- north of Kabul in the north-central Panjshir Valley, by the Hindu Kush mountain range.

"Massoud was the true leader of the freedom fighters. He trained fighters but also believed in justice and formed his own council to build schools and roads," Hayat said.

But Hayat himself led groups of fighters against the Soviet and communist forces in the Panjshir Valley and other areas of Afghanistan. His efforts are credited with killing more enemy forces than most others rebel groups. He frequently ambushed the feared Spetznaz, Soviet special forces, and even he is still amazed that he survived the war.

Two days before Sept. 11, 2001, Massoud, who was deemed friendly to the West and a natural future leader of Afghanistan, was assassinated in a suicide bombing by Al Qaeda operatives. In the view of some regional experts,Massoud was anathema to Usama bin Laden's xenophobic extremism and the then Al Qaeda leader was calculated in ridding Afghanistan of a U.S. ally less than 48 hours before directing planes into New York and Washington buildings.

Hayat insisted that such extremists have since corrupted the significance of what it truly means to fight in the name of jihad, which is what mujahedeen literally means. He said it is often the most stable and secure pockets of Afghanistan that are that way because they are protected by devoted, unpaid former Mujahedeen.

"Former Mujahedeen are very popular with the people, and the Taliban despises this," Hayat noted. "The Taliban has two enemies: Mujahedeen and the Americans."

Over the last decade, the Afghanistan government has been forced to cancel public celebrations of April 28 due to security concerns and Taliban threats. Hayat said this year was no different, but they refuse to be silenced. Even in Taliban strongholds like Helmand Province, smaller-scale celebrations and marching took place before Friday prayers.

"We will not let them stop us from celebrating this day," Hayat added with a shrug and a smile. "On this day, we won."

Hollie McKay has been a FoxNews.com staff reporter since 2007. She has reported extensively from the Middle East on the rise and fall of terrorist groups such as ISIS in Iraq. Follow her on twitter at @holliesmckay

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Afghanistan's people celebrate nation's 25th birthday, victory over Russia - Fox News