It is undoubtedly a military failure - the military put themselves in a position whereby progress in the Helmand campaign was measured by non-military metrics, of which heroin production was one. That's sort of why the entire Afghan campaign made less sense the longer it went on - metrics are usually bodybags etc. The UK took on the lead role within G8 in late '05 for tackling narcotics production - in fact, the entire Helmand campaign was framed as a reconstruction and counter-narcotics effort by the then Defence Minister John Reid, hence his gaffe of saying he hoped we would succeed in Helmand without a shot being fired...oops. Also, the British Army and UK Govt reps in the country allied themselves with drug lords to fight the Taliban. So they'd spot a poppy field, ask the locals to interdict, then a while later find their Governor of Helmand had several hundred tonnes of smack in his property. Suffice to say, they don't talk about heroin much any more.
