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The White House says its renewed effort to fight the war in Afghanistan will include more involvement from India and Pakistan. Video provided by Newsy Newslook

United States General John Nicholson, commander of the NATO Resolute Support Mission attends a press conference with Hugo Llorens (not in picture), the US ambassador to Kabul, in Kabul, Afghanistan Aug. 24, 2017.(Photo: JAWAD JALALI, EPA)

The top U.S. general in Afghanistan on Thursday vowed to annihilate the Islamic State andcrush what remains of al-Qaeda after President Trump announced a renewed effort inthe war that has dragged on for nearly 16 years.

Gen. John Nicholson said thenew strategy is a sign of a long-term commitment.

He told reporters in the countrys capital,Kabul, that additional troopswill further train Afghan forces and promised more air support. Nicholson also urged the Taliban to pursue diplomacyand said that Afghan commandos and special forces were strong.

President Trump said Monday that he was lifting restrictions on commanders in the field imposed by the Obama administration and increasing pressure on Afghanistan'sneighbor Pakistan to stop providing a safe haven to militant groups along its border.

The U.S. will sendup to 3,900 moreU.S. troops to Afghanistan as part ofthe strategy, according to media reports.

"The Taliban cannot win on the battlefield;it's time for them to join the peace process," Nicholson said, according to Reuters.

"We will not fail in Afghanistan, our national security depends on that as well."

More: Pakistan's ambassador: We want to work with Trump to end war in Afghanistan

More: Afghanistan endorses Trump's revised strategy; Taliban warns of 'graveyard'

More: Cautioning against 'hasty' pullout from Afghanistan, Trump clears path for more U.S. troops

Russia on Thursday warned thatmilitary force will notresolve the conflict.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the U.S.strategyputs emphasis on force and that we believe that this path offers no prospects.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Moscow is ready to cooperate with the U.S. and others to help endthe war.

Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have vowed to step up pressure on Pakistan to work harder with its neighbor to end the conflict.

Aizaz Chaudhry, Pakistans ambassador to the United States, pledged Wednesday that his countrys government is willing to work closely with the Trump administration to find a political solution to end the war.

Chaudhry told USA TODAY that the government will help promote peace talks between the U.S.-backed Afghan government and theTaliban "in whatever manner it can."

He said Pakistan would use its considerable influence over the Taliban to prod the insurgent group to the negotiation table.

Pakistan has its own struggle against the Taliban, but some agencies, such as the Intelligence services, have been accused by the U.S. and other governments of supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Taliban spokesmanZabiullah Mujahid dismissedTrump's strategy earlier this week.

"If America doesn't withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, soon Afghanistan will become another graveyard for this superpower in the 21st century," he said, according to Al Jazeera.

Contributing:Waseem Abbasi, Associated Press

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Top US general in Afghanistan vows to annihilate Islamic State - USA TODAY

On Monday, President Trump finally reaffirmed the commitment of the current United States administration to fight the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria-Khorasan(ISIS) and other extremist elements currently operating in Afghanistan. His principled realism approach rejects hard and fast timelines and troop levels and recognizes and adapts to the conditions on the ground. Trumps strategy directly confronts the Taliban and terrorist organizations and calls on regional partners for enhanced cooperation.

An explicitly announced timeline for withdrawal without a concluded peace process would have catastrophic consequences, allowing the Taliban and other violent organizations to bide their time before unleashing yet another series of assaults on human rights and life; thus undermining the impressive gains Afghanistan has made towards democratic governance and an inclusive society.

After decades of playing the spoiled spoiler, Pakistan will now face intensified pressure by the U.S. to end its support of the Haqqani Network and Taliban leadership a decidedly welcome and necessary development. The signal that the U.S. would seek to engage India as a key economic development partner in Afghanistan, in tandem with the threat of withdrawal of billions of dollars of aid, will hopefully serve as the impetus for Islamabad to finally jettison the extremist elements that have, for far too long, sowed instability in its northwestern neighbor.

Trump rightly put the Afghan government on notice if the U.S. is going to continue to expend lives and treasure on Afghan soil, then the leadership in Kabul must do its part to increase the capacity of its security forces, expand the reach of its territorial control, increase implementation of basic services, eradicate the culture of corruption and ensure that it creates an inclusive political process. However, he also affirmed that the U.S. would utilize every implement in its foreign policy toolbox to facilitate sustainable stability in Afghanistan diplomatic, economic and military aid.

While the president asserted that the U.S. will not undertake further nation-building, American and international economic and capacity-building assistance has undeniably led to phenomenal strides in all facets of life, particularly for Afghan women and girls in their ability to overcome the gender inequality, discrimination and collective trauma systemic in Afghanistan after decades of conflict and Taliban rule. Girls have gone back to school. Women work as government ministers, judges, lawyers, soldiers, doctors and engineers. A new generation is being raised in a country that recognizes womens rights as human rights.

The U.S. has worked closely with the Afghan government to make these achievements come to fruition. If it now decides to turn its back on the initiatives that have given rise to these dramatic changes which address many of the social ills that have allowed radicalization to exist and expand in the first place it will significantly handicap the military engagement America has vowed to undertake in this revamped strategy. If the U.S. is to achieve victory against the terrorists, it must address the root causes away from the battlefield that give rise to terrorism.

To make this approach truly effective, the administration must resist the presidents isolationist inclinations and pressure regional actors including Pakistan, Russia, China, Iran and the Gulf states to reject material, financial, technical and all forms of support to the Taliban and extremist entities operating within the national borders of Afghanistan.

In addition, the State Department must be populated with competent experts at its leadership posts in southeast Asia and funded enough to be able to effectively exercise its institutional expertise.

The Afghan government should be heartened that U.S. assistance will persist, despite the presidents former campaign pledges. However, more details must be enumerated to truly determine whether or not this is simply a repackaging of previous administrations policies, or an approach that has the power to turn the tide towards peace and stability.

After 16 years, outright victory and defeat have remained elusive. The U.S. must more clearly articulate what constitutes a win, and work closely with its NATO and regional allies, the Afghan government, and most importantly the Afghan people to ensure its definition aligns with their own.

Manizha Naderi is an Afghan American and executive director of Women for Afghan Women (WAW), the largest womens non-governmental organization in Afghanistan. The organization operates 32 facilities in 14 provinces providing vital protection and services to victims of gender-based violence, including pro bono legal, vocational, educational, mediation, healthcare, childcare, counseling and housing assistance. WAW also works in New York and Washington to promote womens rights to self-determination and representation in all areas of society, and to ensure that the hard-won social, political and economic gains of women and girls are preserved. Naderi was born in Kabul and currently lives in New York.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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In Afghanistan, security interests outweigh ideology - The Hill (blog)

China's Foreign Ministry defended its ally Pakistan earlier this week after President Donald Trump said the United States could no longer be silent about militants using safe havens on Pakistani soil.

On Monday, Trump committed the United States to an open-ended conflict in Afghanistan, signalling he would send more troops to America's longest war and vowing "a fight to win."

He insisted that others - the Afghan government, Pakistan, India and NATO allies - step up their own commitment to resolving the 16-year conflict, but he saved his sharpest words for Pakistan.

Yang, who outranks China's foreign minister, told Tillerson on Wednesday that China was willing to coordinate with the United States on Afghanistan and make joint efforts to realize peace and stability there and in the region, according to a Chinese statement issued late that night.

"We must value Pakistan's important role on the Afghanistan issue, and respect Pakistan's sovereignty and reasonable security concerns," Yang told Tillerson.

Pakistan has been battling home-grown Islamists for years.

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Key China diplomat defends Pakistan's role in Afghanistan in call to US Secretary of State - CNBC

US marines on patrol in a poppy field in Helmand province, Afghanistan, in 2010. Photograph: Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Images

Was the 2001 US-led invasion and subsequent ongoing occupation of Afghanistan never an illegal war, as the Guardian asserts (Editorial, 23 August)?

Written in 2010, the official House of Commons Library briefing paper on the subject makes interesting reading: The military campaign in Afghanistan was not specifically mandated by the UN, but was widely (although not universally) perceived to be a legitimate form of self-defence under the UN charter.

The paper goes on to explain that article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. The accepted exceptions to this are when the security council authorises military action or when it is in self-defence under article 51 of the charter.

Writing a month into the invasion, Marjorie Cohn, a professor of law at Californias Thomas Jefferson School of Law and a former president of the US National Lawyers Guild, described the US and British attack as a patently illegal use of armed force. The bombing was not a legitimate form of self-defence under article 51 for two reasons, according to Cohn.

First, the attacks in New York and Washington DC were criminal attacks, not armed attacks by another state. Second, there was not an imminent threat of an armed attack on the US after September 11, or the US would not have waited three weeks before initiating its bombing campaign. Ian Sinclair London

Donald Trump declares that he will win the Afghan war that you say is both unwinnable and unlosable. If the war is to continue indefinitely, then the world faces a miserable future, because the war on terror is one of the main drivers of Islamic terrorism.

But there is a way of bringing the misery to an end. To win a war we need to win the hearts and minds of the people. We cannot do this while the most valuable crop they are growing is illegal. Afghanistans economy is now heavily dependent on opium, and at present the trade is run by the Taliban, who are sustained by its profits, and export it to feed addiction and crime in the west. The illicit opium trade is one factor in the endemic corruption that is holding the country back. Meanwhile, about 6 million Africans die of cancer each year, their agony unrelieved by morphine or heroin.

Five problems, one solution. Buy the opium crop from the Afghan farmers, medicalise it, and use it in Africa. Everyone benefits, except the Taliban and the drug barons.

When asked why this is not done, the stock government reply is that some of the medical morphine might leak on to the drugs market.

So sad, as Trump would say. Dr Richard Lawson Churchill, North Somerset

Join the debate email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

Read more Guardian letters click here to visit gu.com/letters

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The lack of legality in the US-led invasion of Afghanistan - The Guardian

The USS John S. McCain was left with a hole on its port side after a collision with oil tanker earlier this week, one of three such incidents this summer. Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

The USS John S. McCain was left with a hole on its port side after a collision with oil tanker earlier this week, one of three such incidents this summer.

A heartsick surface Navy is vowing to find answers after a series of incidents that could make the peacetime Western Pacific deadlier for U.S. troops this year than Afghanistan.

The Navy began, as it often does, with accountability: On Wednesday, it fired the three-star admiral whose command in the Western Pacific suffered at least four big accidents this year, two of which may have killed a combined 17 sailors.

An officer aboard the destroyer USS Stethem also was lost overboard near the Philippines on Aug. 1.

That compares with 11 service members killed in Afghanistan details are available from the Military Times and icasualties.org. President Trump on Monday authorized a big new deployment of American forces to Afghanistan, according to senior U.S. officials.

Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, head of 7th Fleet, was relieved "due to loss of confidence in his ability to command," the service announced. He had been expected to retire soon. Rear Adm. Phil Sawyer, who had already been confirmed as his replacement, will take over immediately.

Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Scott Swift told reporters in Singapore that divers and the Malaysian navy have discovered some remains of 10 missing crew members after the destroyer USS John S. McCain collided with a merchant tanker on Monday.

The Navy has not officially declared the missing 10 lost, but the White House issued an official statement of condolence on Tuesday evening that alluded to "United States sailor fatalities" following the collision.

It was at least the third such incident this summer, following the collision of the destroyer USS Fitzgerald with a merchant container vessel off Tokyo and the collision of the cruiser USS Lake Champlain with a fishing vessel off the Korean Peninsula.

The Fitzgerald collision killed seven sailors; the Lake Champlain was not seriously affected and continued its deployment.

The latest deaths on the John S. McCain have devastated the surface Navy family as it continued grieving after the losses aboard the Fitzgerald.

"We owe it to sailors that man 7th Fleet and their families to answer the questions that flow from the uncertainty of what happened," said Swift, the head of U.S. Pacific Fleet. "How could it happen and what can be done to prevent such in the future? We owe it to each and every one of them to pursue answers to these questions."

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson ordered an "operational pause" for ships around the world and a specific review for those posted in the Western Pacific.

But the collisions at sea, as well as an incident early this year in which the cruiser USS Antietam ran aground off Tokyo, are only superficially similar. They took place in different waters, at different times of day, under different conditions.

These aren't situations in which the same type of equipment a radar, for example, or a propulsion system common to each ship failed under similar circumstances. The Navy can't simply recall and replace a widget in order to be able to increase safety across the fleet.

The main thing that each case has in common is what makes the Navy's task so difficult: the human element.

Navy mishaps often emerge from judgment calls: A commanding officer, or CO, misjudges which young officers or sailors are ready to stand a crucial watch by themselves, putting people into positions of authority who aren't ready.

A captain becomes overconfident to the point of complacency, inured to risks that he should take more seriously.

Or crew members reach a point where they feel they can't question the orders they're getting or ask for help and instead resign themselves to go along.

"There was a fog on the bridge, a sort of zero-defect mentality that conveyed 'don't say anything or the CO would get upset,' " as one officer on the Antietam later told investigators. "The CO liked to get underway on time, and things would get inflated in the moment."

The military newspaper Stars and Stripes described the investigation into the Antietam's grounding after obtaining it under the Freedom of Information Act. It depicted an angry captain, unqualified watch standers and poor preparation. The commanding officer was fired, and other crew members were reprimanded.

But a military unit needs military discipline it's difficult to strike a balance between a constructive culture and a dysfunctional one in a ship where men and women must work for months in close quarters while covering huge stretches of the empty Pacific.

All the same, Swift said the Navy will implement a "deliberate reset" for the units based in Japan that will focus on navigation, machinery and "bridge resource management" in other words, training crew members on watch how to use their eyes and ears, both human and electronic, to help drive their ships.

With the USS John McCain docked in the background at Singapore's Changi naval base, Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Scott Swift (left) heads to a press conference on Tuesday. Wong Maye-E/AP hide caption

With the USS John McCain docked in the background at Singapore's Changi naval base, Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Scott Swift (left) heads to a press conference on Tuesday.

This is not the Navy's first broad look into the practices of the surface force. In 2009, having been stung by a series of embarrassing reports that revealed some of its warships were rusting, broken or otherwise unready, the Navy commissioned retired Vice Adm. Philip Balisle to head a "Fleet Review Panel" and study the problem.

Balisle's report, issued the next year, not only confirmed that systems aboard the Navy's high tech warships were breaking down more often and the ships themselves were in less-than-ideal shape but also warned about problems with crews' shipboard culture acceptance of problems, too little training and too much work.

One problem was years of Navy penny-pinching, in which ships sailed with smaller crews, creating more work for the sailors who remained, which meant less time for hands-on training and more rust, broken equipment and other such problems.

"It appears the effort to derive efficiencies has overtaken our culture of effectiveness," the report said.

Navy leaders said they were taking those insights to heart adding sailors back to crews and renewing their focus on training and competence. Richardson's task is to determine whether that hasn't been enough or whether it hasn't actually been filtering all the way down to the fleet and what else he might not know about the workings of today's fleet.

Adm. Philip Davidson, head of the Navy's Fleet Forces Command, will lead the effort that Richardson has set into motion. He is a Naval Academy graduate and career surface warfare officer who's commanded a frigate, a cruiser and an aircraft carrier strike group, in addition to his other assignments.

Richardson said in a video statement that the Navy would look at everything it needs to across the board in order to get a sense of how to be of the best help to crews.

Meanwhile, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., whose father and grandfather were the namesakes for the destroyer damaged in the deadly Singapore collision, said the Navy must get this right.

"Our sailors who risk their lives every day, in combat and in training, deserve no less. I expect full transparency and accountability from the Navy leaders as they conduct the associated investigations and reviews."

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Navy Navigation Errors May Have Killed More Troops Than Afghanistan So Far in 2017 - NPR