I SHARE Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith’s short-term analysis of the situation in Helmand (War on Taliban cannot be won, says army chief, World News, last week ) given the fierce tribal and ethnic loyalties at play, but not the official Whitehall pessimism that has sanctioned his comments. I have worked among the mujaheddin on the North West Frontier with British forces in Helmand this year and recently returned from a professional visit to India.

Until recently, modern communications have been all but unknown outside the principal Afghan towns. Anyone who has witnessed the extraordinary creativity and cultural energy now emanating from the various “Ollywoods” in India will appreciate that it is only a matter of time, albeit years and decades rather than months, before the satellite-borne digital wave of cultural modernisation and social enlightenment sweeps up from the Punjab and across the Khyber and purges the fundamentalism that blights the lives of the people of the Pashtun border provinces.

With our cultural, linguistic and historic links to the subcontinent, and a patient, farsighted, evenhanded and supportive approach to dealings with Pakistan and India in the coming years, I suggest the Great Game is all but in the bag. David Rew Consultant General Surgeon Southampton University Hospitals

Political stalemate At last it’s dawning on the military that the Afghans cannot be beaten by force, nor do we have any reason to attempt to beat them. We may not like their form of government, but that puts them in the same boat as most of the rest of the world – and for sure they don’t like ours. Clement Hall Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Tragic history lesson In the 1980s the Russians lost thousands of young lives in Afghanistan. Why do you need to step on the same rake? Valery Bogan Moscow

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