Have the British learned anything from the past 3 Anglo-Afghan wars?

An interesting BBC article outlining the three unsuccessful attempts by the British to subvert Afghanistan and similarities/differences between now and then. Click here to read the article. The author, a Kings College professor, differentiates today from previous three Anglo-Afghan wars stating that now there is much more focus on "understanding the culture, traditions and customs of the Afghan population."

I would love to see the reflections of such understanding in practice. Mounting civilian causalities is certainly not one of them. Nor is breaking open the doors of people's houses in remote villages. They have yet to learn the basic fact that in Afghanistan, a man does not enter his own house without knocking first and allowing the people inside, especially the women, to prepare themselves to receive someone at the door. Now imagine the kind of an image it leaves in people’s minds when armed foreign soldiers forcefully break into people’s homes just because they are “suspects” in their “fight against terror.”