Britain’s Nato forces in southern Afghanistan have weathered a testing and dangerous six months. They have had to fight strenuously, often with inadequate or faulty equipment, logistical problems and insufficient air support, against concentrated attacks by regrouped Taleban fighters and associated mercenaries. They have also had to endure the mismatch between the near-anarchy that they encountered in Helmand, and their misleadingly bland mission of providing “peace support” for development in the province.

The Armed Forces should not have been given a mandate so dangerously detached from reality. They should not have had to listen to their Defence Secretary saying that Helmand could be secured without firing a shot. They have risen to the challenges of this difficult, muddled assignment. They have endured casualties with stoicism. They have been highly effective. In Helmand and neighbouring Kandahar, British, US and Canadian troops have repulsed wave after wave of Taleban offensives, forcing them to revert to guerrilla warfare.

The Taleban’s fiercest attempt at a military comeback since 2001 has ended, for now, in defeat. British soldiers are clear about why they are there; they did not need Tony Blair to tell them, as he briefly surveyed the wastes around Camp Bastion, that “this extraordinary desert” is a crucial 21st-century battleground. They do need to be listened to more attentively when they tell their political masters what is needed for success.

Lieutenant-General David Richards, the British overall commander of Nato’s 31,000-strong force in Afghanistan, believes that the autumn’s military successes can be converted into enduring gains only if life improves markedly in southern Afghanistan during the lull in fighting that the winter snows impose. To win over the people of southern Afghanistan, the Taleban heartland, he insists that Nato has to show “not just that we can win, as we have done, but also that it’s all worth it”. That means, he insists, job creation first and foremost. Young men without jobs will take the Taleban shilling.

The Department for International Development takes a more conventional view of reconstruction — so conventional that it has spent almost none of the money committed to Helmand. The DfID talks about “quick impact” projects, but hardly any have got off the ground and policy continues to favour the “long term”. Its officials have kept a discreet distance from the province. Afghanistan without doubt poses “health and safety” hazards; but the department needs to be at least as energetically engaged as US aid agencies. What the military sees, with mounting frustration, is the waste of an opportunity that might not, if lost, return. There are job-intensive projects in the pipeline, such as canal-dredging and well-drilling, that have been delayed for far too long. Let Afghans get on with it now, whether or not the paperwork meets DfID standards.

Nato’s greatest asset is that most Afghans want it there. Its job is to help to create the stability that will give Afghans a better tomorrow. The Taleban is out to demonstrate that Nato’s presence will mean war without end. The soldiers have done well. Their civilian counterparts must do very much better. Back from Helmand and Kabul, Mr Blair must translate what he has seen and heard into a demand for “action this day”.