How Long?

Geopolitics: How long will the Long War last? US Army doctrine calls for clear, hold, and build in regards to taking territory away from the Taliban. The clear stage for the Battle of Marja took two weeks. But Marja is still mired in the hold stage as Taliban fighters keep infiltrating the region and killing Afghanis who cooperate with NATO. Building projects have moved forward at 1/10 the pace originally envisioned and are now coming to a virtual halt. The Taliban’s kill ratio of Afghan citizens participating in NATO building projects is very high but its kill ratio of NATO soldiers is tiny. Taliban intelligence is good; it only kills citizens that play ball with the good guys. NATO intelligence is iffy.
We can tell how weak intelligence gathering is from the following. The New York Times has dug deeper into what was originally reported to be a rogue CIA spy/assassination ring a couple months ago. The Times is now saying that the ring is not connected to the CIA even though it is run by ex-CIA officers. The US Army is outsourcing Afghan intelligence/assassination to a private sector entity because the CIA is stretched so thin it can’t help the Army in Afghanistan. The CIA has its hands full. It is running an entire war in Somalia, which is now locked in huge battles and saw the Somali parliament overrun by Al Shabab fighters over the weekend. And the Agency is running its own air war in Pakistan, stepping it up in Yemen, probably Thailand, probably Kyrgyzstan, you get the picture.
And while there is plenty of good news (like the Pak Army slaughtering another 5 dozen bad guys over the weekend) it is an inescapable conclusion that the Long War is going to last much longer than the American public even dimly appreciates. How does this affect the stock market? I will cautiously draw one conclusion: At a minimum we aren’t at a 1982 moment when investors could see that a US victory in the Cold War was inevitable. Yes, the good guys are winning but here is the broader question: What does it mean for stocks if the US is in a more or less constant state of forward progress in a war that will last for centuries?