More than a decade into the conflict, the Afghan war isn’t going well. Politically, Afghanistan is a mess. While some analysts still say the American counterinsurgency strategy works, Afghans beg to differ. Their country was safer ten years ago than it is today.  The problem wasn’t the invasion itself, but rather the aftermath. The mission to deny terrorists a vacuum was essential, so where did the United States go wrong?

Here are the seven key mistakes the United States and its allies have made:

Rapidity of Reform. Cynics may say Afghanistan never changes, but that is nonsense. Afghanistan today is far different than it was 30 years ago, let alone a century ago. The fact is, Afghanistan changes: Just very slowly. The experience of Amanullah Khan in the first decades of the twentieth century and the Saur Revolution in 1978 demonstrate the correlation between rapidity of reform and insurgent backlash. 

This article is available in full on CNN's Global Public Square blog: America's 7 mistakes in Afghanistan