The fighting in Ghazni has highlighted the fact that the U.S. has now entered its seventeenth year of war in Afghanistan and that there is no clear end to the war in sight. At present, there seems to be little prospect that a combination of Afghan government, U.S., and allied forces can defeat the Taliban and other insurgent and terrorist forces, or will be defeated by them. The conflict has become a war of attrition which can drag on indefinitely and can only be ended through some form of peace negotiation, U.S. withdrawal, or the collapse of either the Afghan government or threat forces – a transition from a war of attrition to a war of exhaustion by one side.