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Has War Really Changed?   By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

What unites al-Qaida and the Taliban is a shared murderous radical Islamic ideology, one antithetical to our own. Americans should hear that without politically correct euphemisms.

The president must explain what victory in Afghanistan means. Are we there until we destroy the viability of the Taliban and their terrorist allies — by fostering an elected government that will eventually secure the country? If so, we need to hear exactly that.

If not, the president can instead talk of deadlines, troop withdrawals, cruise-missile attacks and Predator-drone bombings — all efforts to now and then bother, but not end, the Taliban and al-Qaida.

War typically concludes when one side cannot fulfill its political objectives. Sometimes both sides quit, as in the Korean War. But usually, as in Vietnam or the Balkans, violence ceases when one side is tired of losing more than it hopes to gain — and admits defeat.

Nation building may be fine and even necessary. But war always involves "a military solution." How can there be economic prosperity or political stability if civilians are afraid of getting killed by enemy terrorists?

President Obama talked of many things in his recent Afghanistan speech. But he never once mentioned the words "victory" and "win." All that may seem like an out-of-date idea to postmodern Americans. But it is still a very real one to the premodern Taliban, who seem to understand the ageless nature of war far better than we do.