for that we turn to bill riggio. he is a senior fellow at the foundation for defense of democracies and the editor of their "long war journal." bill riggio, thank you for joining the "newshour". you have been watching this rapid succession of taliban victories. we have a map that shows the regional capitals they now control, those nine black squares you see in the north and the west. the pink areas are taliban-controlled. the lighter yellow is government-controlled, and you can see, bill, the darker yellow is a huge chunk of the country. those lands are currently under taliban threat. what do you see as the insurgent strategy and objective? >> yeah, the insurgents -- the taliban's objectives is to seize control of afghanistan, to reestablish islamic emirate of afghanistan, that's the name to have the government prior to the u.s. invasion, they will do it by force or diplomacy, and via diplomacy means the taliban will accept the afghan government surrender. the afghan government has not surrenders so the taliban is ta