The security situation in Afghanistan is as bad as it has been since the 2001 U.S. invasion, according to a government report that casts new urgency on a stalled White House effort to determine how – and, perhaps, if – America should proceed in its longest war.

From January to May 8 of this year, more than 2,500 Afghan soldiers and federal police died fighting insurgents from the Taliban and other extremist networks, according to the latest report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, exceeding the total number of U.S. deaths from the war at 2,400 and yielding a staggering average of 20 combat deaths per day. By comparison, in the summer of 2010, during the bloodiest fighting season for the U.S. in Afghanistan, the average number of American deaths per day never exceeded 1.3. The latest casualty numbers are consistent with the same period last year, demonstrating how fighting conditions for the 330,000 Afghans currently in uniform have not improved as expected.

Now, the White House and top leaders across the government are struggling to come to a consensus on what the U.S. could do to achieve greater stability in the war-torn country. Reports emerged Monday morning that some parts of the White House, perhaps even President Donald Trump himself, are considering extracting the U.S. entirely, refusing to keep putting American money and lives at stake for what may be an intractable problem, ultimately failing to prevent the country from yet again becoming a terrorist haven.

The discussion has reportedly caused a rift among the president's closest international advisers, with Politico reporting that a faction in favor of a new plan for Afghanistan that includes troop increases, led by national security adviser H.R. McMaster, has clashed with skeptics like chief strategist Steve Bannon as well as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who believe the president needs clear markers of success to sign off on a plan.

For those on the ground, something has to change – and soon.

"The Afghan forces have shown great courage and perseverance against a ruthless enemy, but the casualties they're facing may be unsustainable. Such heavy losses can have a big impact on force strength and morale," John Sopko, the inspector general, tells U.S. News. His office, created by an act of Congress to track the billions of dollars the U.S. has invested in rebuilding Afghanistan, released its latest quarterly report to Congress that describes a country and U.S. presence completely under siege.

The Taliban continues to seize territory across the country, controlling as much as 10 percent or more. The inspector general report cites "extreme risk aversion and avoidance" among U.S. employees in Afghanistan, where an absence of security undercuts other efforts critical to creating stability, like reforming rampant corruption across all levels of government and finding sources of income more lucrative for Afghanistan's farmers than the poppy that Taliban forces insist they grow.

"We don't just lose government influence in areas overrun by insurgents, we lose our ability to deliver food and medical supplies," Sopko says. "Schools we've built are overrun and the young Afghans we built them for cannot go to school. Women may lose their ability to leave the house and go to work again. All the progress that has been made in 15 years of reconstruction is at risk of being rolled back."

This instability, in part, has contributed to what U.S. war planners now consider a stalemate in Afghanistan and a battlefield on which the U.S. is not winning, Mattis told Congress in a dramatic disclosure in June.

"We will correct this as soon as possible," Mattis testified, adding the Taliban appeared to be "surging."

He later added, "We recognize the need for urgency."

Members of Congress agree that urgency is required. In a statement on Monday, Sen. John McCain, the chairman of the powerful Armed Services Committee currently undergoing treatment for brain cancer, criticized Trump's failure to release a strategy six months after taking office.

"Eight years of a 'don't lose' strategy has cost us lives and treasure in Afghanistan," the Arizona Republican said. "Our troops deserve better. When the Senate takes up the National Defense Authorization Act in September, I will offer an amendment based on the advice of some our best military leaders that will provide a strategy for success in achieving America's national interests in Afghanistan."

However, it's not even clear how the Pentagon will advise the president to proceed. Mattis originally indicated he would be able to give the president a strategy proposal for Afghanistan by the middle of July, which the White House could then use to form final decisions on things like the total U.S. forces dedicated to the region.

That process has derailed over the reported disagreements in the White House on the conditions for offering more U.S. forces to the embattled Afghan central government in Kabul. The Defense Department now says it first will focus on developing a strategy for the entire region, to include India and neighboring Pakistan, before it will then develop a strategy specifically for Afghanistan. Only then can Trump determine U.S. troop levels and make other key tactical decisions.

"We want to get the strategy first, and that's what we're working on first," Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday. When pressed about the devolving situation on the ground and whether Mattis had ruled out withdrawing all U.S. forces, Davis said, "he has ruled out making a decision before the strategy."

"What he's articulated is he wants to have clarity first before making tactical decisions on troops," Davis said.

But time is scarce, amid threats not only from Taliban forces on the ground but also their reported Russian backers now providing weapons. The Islamic State group has created a nascent threat, claiming responsibility for a failed attack on the Iraqi embassy in Kabul on Monday reportedly as retribution for its losses in Iraq and Syria. Domestic dissension is also threatening to undermine the Afghan government's ability to concentrate on battlefield victory. Warlord-turned-vice president Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum unsuccessfully attempted to fly back to his homeland from exile in Turkey last month to confront the government after forming a coalition of influential figures who feel they have been similarly marginalized by the political leadership in Kabul.

Even when the U.S. comes to a decision and dedicates more troops, the outcome likely won't have immediate effects.

"It's simply going to be a gap-filler in many respects," David Barno, the U.S. commander for the war in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005, told NPR in June. "I don't think it's going to be some type of decisive increment of troops, and all of a sudden it's going to turn around the battlefield results and make this a war that we're suddenly winning when those troops get deployed."

First, he said, the U.S. would have to determine what outcomes in Afghanistan it expects and how it plans to achieve them.