President Hamid Karzai's statement in his inauguration speech, that he expects Afghan security forces to be running operations across the country within five years, is the latest sign that an exit strategy is being formulated.

In itself Mr Karzai's statement might seem like little more than a pious hope - given the fact that his forces lose so many to desertion (around one quarter each year) that they are struggling hard enough just to maintain their current strength.

But his words follow those of Gordon Brown on Tuesday in his Mansion House address, when he hinted that an international conference might be held in London which might begin to set a timetable for the transition to Afghan control.

In between the Brown and Karzai statements came one from Barack Obama, saying that he did not intend to make the US military presence an open ended commitment that would need to be solved by his successor.

Combine the recent words from these three players and what starts looking likely is a conference at which the US troop reinforcement could be presented as part of a wider package that includes charting a pathway to Afghan security control, sets out reforms to the government of Afghanistan, launches an anti-corruption drive, possibly the formation of a new more broadly based government, and coordinates all of this with pledges of development assistance.

This may well mean that early next year there could be a big international moment - a conference of Afghans, donors and troop contributors that would set the future course in a way that has not been done since the 2001 Bonn Conference.

Mr Brown said on Tuesday that he was offering London as the venue. Whether this will appeal to the other participants is a moot point, since it smacks of Downing Street trying to set the international agenda in the run up to an election.

So will the US troop announcement have to wait until this conference, possibly in January? The ominous possibility that President Obama might leave it five months between receiving the McChrystal Report and endorsing the reinforcements needed to make it work seemed a little more real yesterday when he said that he would be announcing his decision in the next 'several weeks'.

Equally, it may be that Mr Obama (as many are predicting) makes an announcement after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend near the end of this month, or indeed before it upon his return from his Far East tour.

However, if the precedents of this long and tortuous policy re-think are followed he may well want to know more about how the international conference is taking shape, even if he does not wait for the event itself, before announcing his reinforcements.

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As the US and UK continue to debate how they might succeed in stabilising Afghanistan, most attention has focused on practicalities such as troop numbers, battling corruption, or improving the local police force.

However, on Sunday the British Army rolled out its new blueprints for how UK forces might work to stabilise a foreign country and what steps the forces should take to do so.

Some see a preoccupation with doctrine or strategy as a profane thing - a game of power point and smooth talking while the ugly reality of war blasts its way across Helmand.

But in truth, the sacrifice of those fighting an insurgency is likely to be in vain unless commanders and politicians know what they are trying to achieve and how they might reach what the soldiers call their "end state".

The bitter fight against the Iraqi insurgency provides simply the most recent and vivid example of what happens when a coalition trying to stabilise a situation proceeds via a series of blunders to make things worse and worse.

The US military however showed an ability to learn from its early mistakes, set out a new doctrine for counter-insurgency (in 2006, co-authored by General David Petraeus and General James Mattis), and implement it, bringing about a dramatic turnaround in security.

For the British the experience was doubly painful, because for quite a time in Iraq, their approach to the Americans was frankly patronising.

But after a while, with militia power growing under the British in Basra, while the Americans began to turn around some of the toughest places in Iraq, the "we wrote the book on counter-insurgency" attitude started to wear a little thin.

So now they have re-written the book, or rather put out two weighty volumes designed to make use of those difficult recent experiences and chart the way ahead in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Major General Paul Newton, who oversaw the writing of the manual Security and Stabilisation: The Military Contribution, had to put forward theories about how to deal with chaos and conflict.

Since most authorities agree, these situations require an ad hoc approach, the very idea of a manual on how to do it is tricky.

"Clausewitz had it about right", said Maj Gen Newton on Monday, referring to one of history's great military theorists, "warfare is the realm of the uncertain".

He also conceded that, "there's no such thing as a pan-Whitehall doctrine" on stabilisation.

Some worry that this is still the problem - the UK government is still not good enough at putting together what the forces do with what other agencies such as the Department for International Development or World Bank do.

The manual reflects then the Ministry of Defence's view about how this tricky business of stabilisation is best done.

As to the specifics, best follow the link, but if I tell you that the manual's definition of "stabilisation" alone runs to 54 words, you'll understand that it's no simple matter.

It is about bringing about a more orderly society without actually nation building.

The other publication - Field Manual Volume 1 Part 10, Countering Insurgency - is full of the more practical stuff about running military operations in places like Iraq or Afghanistan.

It is not on the MoD website yet, but you can read it here.

For those who seek it out, it actually provides essential context to why the forces fight the way they do in places like Helmand.

These two publications then represent a shedding of some past confusion or complacency about how the British military should attempt to leave ungoverned space a little more orderly by the time it departs.

How well these ideas will work, we will see in the unforgiving atmosphere of Afghanistan during the coming years.

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Prime Minister Gordon Brown's speech on Friday morning was intended to make the case for a continued British combat role in Afghanistan after another grim week of casualties.

But although he did lay out some new ideas, such as setting five benchmarks for improved performance by the Afghan government, the prime minister was limited to spinning the rhetorical rotors without actually taking flight.

The thing that has grounded him and other Nato leaders is the continued absence of a clear line from Washington.

How could Mr Brown have been more adamant about the current counter-insurgency strategy or the need for more troops to execute it, if he knows that at any time the White House might change its mind?

President Barack Obama received the McChrystal report calling for a troop surge on 30 August, and with each week that passes without a decision the political difficulties of his allies across Nato multiply.

When Britain announced in mid-October that it would, if certain conditions were met, send another 500 troops to Afghanistan, Whitehall felt it was on a promise from the Obama team.

As Newsnight reported at the time, one top insider suggested not just that Britain had been promised there would be a substantial US reinforcement, but that it would be General Stanley McChrystal's option of around 45,000 troops, and that its announcement was imminent.

So what does he say now? When asked recently, my contact characterised the continued lack of a clear statement of the way ahead from Mr Obama as, "disgraceful".

These views, given non-attributably, are simpler a stronger version of what one can see in the public domain.

Back in October Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, Britain's senior serviceman, insisted that the Allies were still all committed to the counter-insurgency strategy and that he was, "confident" he knew which way the US would go on the troop increase question.

In the absence of an announcement, confidence in ministries from Ottawa to Berlin is faltering.

"What is the goal? What is the road? and in the name of what?" asked French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner earlier this week, adding menacingly, "Where are the Americans? It begins to be a problem".

Field Marshal Lord Inge, speaking in a defence debate in the House of Lords earlier on Friday said the US' delay sent, "a very bad message".

Talking to Nick Horne earlier this week, home after several years working as an official for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in Kabul, he reckoned the Obama administration had carried out seven different reviews of Afghan policy.

From their electoral victory one year ago to the present, Afghan policy has been in a state of flux.

The criticism is not simply code for "Why doesn't Obama just get on with the troop increase"?

There are plenty in European governments who would be delighted if the president announced that the US intends to withdraw from Afghanistan as quickly as possible.

What people want is a decision.

Now the White House is suggesting that there could be an announcement in a fortnight's time. So the present limbo is set to continue.

It is all the stranger because Mr Obama has not yet endorsed the strategy set out in the McChrystal report, something Nato defence ministers did at a meeting two weeks ago.

The US' own defence secretary, Robert Gates, has called publicly for the matter to be resolved swiftly.

Some Obama supporters have stressed the importance of measuring such vital life and death decisions carefully.

Gen McChrystal himself has been loyal enough to his commander in chief to echo them, remarking that it is better it be done properly than rapidly.

The shambolic outcome of the Afghan presidential elections has complicated matters politically, but it hardly de-railed some great policy juggernaut that had been careering along smoothly until then.

Looking though at the succession of reviews and the tangled logic in the one definitive presidential statement on "Af-Pak strategy" given back at the end of March, it is evident that the administration has had great difficulty deciding what it thinks about the Afghan conflict.

Instead we have witnessed what people in Whitehall describe with increasing frankness as a failure of leadership.

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