RELATED STORY: Afghan police slow to earn trust of Americans
BAGHLAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan -- Tomorrow, Afghanistan's homegrown soldiers might be ready to take over the fight against the Taliban, so that American forces can begin to come home as President Barack Obama hopes.
But today, they are far from ready. Even the best Afghan units lack training, discipline and adequate reinforcements. In one new unit in Baghlan province, Afghan soldiers cower in a ditch whenever shooting breaks out. Others routinely steal U.S.-supplied fuel, equipment and weapons. And a few are suspected of collaborating with the Taliban against the Americans.
"I do not feel I am a mentor here," said Capt. Jason Douthwaite, a logistics officer with the 73rd Troop Command of the Ohio National Guard who has tried to stop rampant pilfering by the Afghan soldiers his brigade is training. "I feel like I am an investigating officer. It's not, "Let me teach you your job.' It's more like, "How much did you steal from the American government today?'.."
In his speech at West Point last week announcing a surge of 30,000 additional U.S. troops into Afghanistan, Obama said building and training the Afghan security forces would become a pillar of America's new war strategy so that U.S. forces could begin to be withdrawn in July 2011.
Obama's top commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, said the goal is to double Afghan forces to 400,000, and to do so in four years.
But given the unbridled corruption that infests the ranks of the Afghan National Army and national police, as well as a the severe shortage of quality recruits and a gaping void in the Afghan leadership and command structure, many outside experts -- and, increasingly, U.S. trainers on the ground -- doubt that the Afghan forces will be able to stand on their own any time soon.
"You're always going to have this tension of quantity over quality," said Candace Rondeaux, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group in Brussels. "The danger of moving too quickly is that you won't have the cohesiveness, the loyalty, and even the infrastructure to support those soldiers and police fighting. But with the domestic pressure to wrap this up and get it done, it becomes easy to rush it."
Rondeaux predicted that properly training and equipping an Afghan security force of 400,000 will take at least another five years.
"There is no way to do it fast," agreed Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, whose own time estimate runs to a decade. "You've got to keep providing advisers at the maneuver and staff levels, and work with them every step of the way. Otherwise it's not going to work."
By all accounts, the Afghan National Army is a more mature and efficient security force than the Afghan National Police. The force is developing a reputation for facing down the rising insurgency, and NATO training commanders in Kabul say the infrastructure is now in place to build up weaker units in the coming years.
Yet the experience of U.S. forces mentoring Afghan soldiers in Baghlan province last month underlined just how relative that assessment is.
During a Taliban ambush, gunfire was coming at the Americans and their Afghan counterparts from three sides. But the Afghan National Army soldiers of the 209 Corps, 2nd Brigade, 3rd Kandak (battalion), fresh out of training in Kabul, were not ready for a fight.
So after returning initial fire, the Afghan soldiers simply lay in a ditch, refusing to budge.
"They don't have the basics, so they lay down," said Capt. Michael Bell, who is one of a team of U.S. and Hungarian mentors tasked with making this young kandak battle-ready. "I ran around for an hour trying to get them to shoot, getting fired on. I couldn't get them to shoot their weapons."
Bell, with the 1st Battalion, 148 Infantry Regiment of the Ohio National Guard, and another American soldier treated several superficial wounds -- the Afghan soldiers didn't even have bandages, much less a medic -- then finally persuaded most of their Afghan counterparts to get in their pickup trucks and push out.
The experience left the Americans rattled, and exposed just how far NATO coalition forces still must go to ready the Afghan security forces to protect their own country.
Rushing to failure?
The Afghan army currently numbers about 97,000 soldiers, with a target of 134,000 by November 2010 and 240,000 by 2013. Meanwhile, the end goal for the 94,000-strong national police force is 160,000. Currently, an average of 2,500 new soldiers and 2,000 new police officers are recruited each month, but the monthly attrition rate is as high as 25 percent.
To grow the force, NATO is creating incentives, including a recent $45 raise for all police. Starting salary for a police officer is now $165 a month.
The pace of training is also expanding. Army training schools in the five regional commands will soon double student numbers and shorten the courses from 10 weeks to eight. Instructors are being readied and massive building is under way to accommodate 1,400 new students this cycle, compared with 600 in previous ones, said NATO Brig. Simon Levey, commander of the Combined Training Advisory Group-Army in Kabul.
"We've built both infrastructure and training bases which are absolutely key, and are just coming on line now," Levey said. "The Afghans are recruiting more vigorously. It's something we couldn't do before because the pipeline was not adequate."
But mentors in Kelagay, for example, say the Afghan corps commanders for their unit refuse to allot adequate training time, regularly sending Afghan army companies out on patrols and operations without a basic knowledge of fighting.
Maj. Jeffery Leslie, whose unit of 58 U.S. mentors and support staff is embedded with a Hungarian Operational Mentor and Liaison Team at the ANA's Camp Kelagay, wondered if unqualified recruits were being signed up in the push to build up the Afghan army so quickly.
"We suspect the ANA have bad guys in the ranks, whether they are known or unknown to anybody," Leslie said. "There are ANA units out there that are very capable. I think it's just too much too fast for the manpower of the country to sustain."
Leslie said 100 new recruits were sent to Kelagay to replace dozens of deserters, but many of them ran off, too.
"I think they are hitting the bottom of the barrel and pulling in guys who just don't want to be here," he said.
Raiding the cookie jar
At Kelagay, the growing pains of a young force are apparent.
After a series of problems, the corps changed out the kandak commander and his executive officer in October for a commander who had run a top-rated Afghan army command before. Mentors say it's a big improvement, but you can't change an entire battalion by changing one man.
The mentors report missing vehicles, weapons and other military equipment, and outright theft of fuel provided by the U.S. Then there are the AWOL rates -- up to 60 percent, far higher than the average for the Afghan army -- and death threats leveled against two different U.S. officers who tried to stop the Afghan soldiers from stealing.
"This kandak would not be ready in five years," said mentor Sgt. 1st Class Sam Livingston, 35,
a guardsman from Cleveland. "I see so much waste and corruption. Even though it's on a small scale,
it's an indication of what's going on. Everyone has their hand in the cookie jar."
Discouraged, he added: "At some point, you begin to question, "How much good am I personally doing here?'.."
Douthwaite, the logistics officer, said he was threatened twice after he began trying to control the steady pilfering of U.S. supplied fuel.
"It's a corrupt system all the way from the corps level on down," he said.
That's not to say that there are no successes. At the squad level, Staff Sgt. Eric Schabell, an Ohio National Guardsman from Independence, Ky., and a former flight instructor, said he's happy with small achievements, like teaching the Afghan soldiers how to zero a weapon -- a first step in aligning its sights.
"I've been pleasantly surprised several times by what they already know," Schabell said. "The [executive officer] and platoon leaders tell me they want their soldiers to be trained. They are happy we are here. They understand the soldiers don't know their jobs. And I see that they care, and I think that keeps me from getting frustrated."
Trust, but verify
The death threats and recent attacks by Afghan forces on U.S. and NATO soldiers make for an uneasy relationship.
In March, an Afghan soldier guarding the tower at Camp Shaheen shot three U.S. soldiers, killing two.
In Wardak province, soldiers from Company A, 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment say they've come across more than 70 bombs since they arrived in the hostile Tangi Valley last summer.
Two soldiers have been killed and dozens wounded. But their Afghan army partners have never been hit.
"The cold hard facts are that in the Tangi valley, the ANA have not been attacked," said Staff Sgt. Jim Putman of Company A's intelligence support team. "Yet here we sit, we've had [70]-something IED incidents since July. One would have to assume they're dirty or paying off the Taliban."
The Afghan soldiers frequently find improvised explosive devices and snip the command wires instead of marking them and waiting for U.S. forces to come detonate them. The Americans say this just allows the insurgents to return and reconnect them.
Capt. Hayhatullah Adil, the Afghan company commander in the Tangi valley, said his soldiers don't get hit because they are good at looking for bombs and command wires. Plus, he said, there is a higher Taliban bounty for blowing up U.S. troops, and the villagers know there will be trouble if his soldiers are blown up. "I will light up the whole village," Adil said.
Despite the concerns, Marine Staff Sgt. Benjamin Ricard, part of a training team working with the Afghan army, defended the Afghan soldiers last month.
"I walk in front of them, I walk behind them and they all got loaded weapons," he said. "I don't question it at all."
On Nov. 13, Ricard and another Marine were severely injured when a bomb went off under their Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle. Army Spc. Christopher J. Coffland and a 20-year-old interpreter were killed. U.S. soldiers said they were leading Afghan soldiers to a recently discovered bomb site."I have no choice," Ricard said days before the blast. "It's my job to trust them."
Stars and Stripes reporters Leo Shane III and Geoff Ziezulewicz contributed to this story.
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Editor's note: Col. Ann Wright, who served for 29 years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves, was one of the first State Department officers to open the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in 2001. She resigned from the State Department in protest the day the Iraq War began. She had served as a diplomat for 16 years and received the State Department's Award for Heroism. Paul Kawika Martin is Peace Action's political director and the founder of the Afghanistan Policy Working Group.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/OPINION/12/02/wright.martin.afghanistan.against.more.troops/index.html
Don't escalate a failing war
Wright and Martin say economic aid and negotiations can succeed instead of troops
Allies should plan to withdraw troops but put pressure on for negotiations, they say
We recently returned from a CodePink study trip to Afghanistan, and our expertise and experience points to a strategy of transitioning from military to political and economic solutions that will help Afghans while making Americans safer.
The first step in providing Afghans security and weakening the Taliban and violent extremists is to remove recruiting incentives. It's time to stop air and Predator drone strikes that tend to kill, injure and terrorize civilians. It's time to stop arbitrary detentions and harsh treatment of prisoners that would be unacceptable here.
While those in major cities live in relative security, rural Afghans fear violence from insurgents or U.S. and NATO forces. Many fear civil war or the return of the Taliban. Afghanistan requires more trusted Afghan police and security forces. These forces are paid only $110 dollars a month -- not a living wage -- and payments are regularly late. Little wonder these forces are corrupt, poorly motivated and have a high rate of desertion. The Taliban pays its foot soldiers far better.
Investing in a living wage and pressuring Hamid Karzai's government to punish corruption swiftly will pay more security dividends than the $1 million a year it costs to send one U.S. soldier.
There is no reason to believe the U.S. military is in the best position to train Afghans, given huge cultural differences and past abuses by U.S. forces. The United Nations is expert in training security forces in ways that are culturally sensitive. The U.S. should ask (and help fund) the U.N. to take over the training of Afghan troops and police, with a focus on training Afghan trainers.
With Afghan unemployment above 40 percent, job creation is critical to security. Vocational training, infrastructure construction and assistance to farmers will help.
We can pay for this economic development by spending current funds more wisely. A criminally small amount of the international aid and development money spent over the last eight years has trickled down to Afghans. Instead, foreign contractors, subcontractors and importers have profited from Afghan misery. USAID's new mantra of "Afghans first" is a start, as long as actions match the rhetoric.
One successful program that deserves full funding is the National Solidarity Project, an Afghan-run community development program administered by the well-regarded Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development.
Obama, NATO commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon should all mandate that where possible, Afghans -- including their businesses, NGOs and products -- should implement and directly benefit from aid projects.
Obama didn't mention Afghan women in his speech. Funding women-led NGOs, women's education and job training and hiring women can help raise their status. Outside the capital, not much has changed for Afghan women.
Because of cultural traditions, many rural women stay home for lack of security or because of their husbands' demands. The U.S. could transition resources to the Afghan justice system to properly enforce laws about rape and domestic violence, and ensure that girls younger than 16 are not forced to marry.
The president rightly mentioned the importance of the Pakistan border. More resources must be transferred to securing the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. This is easier said than done, as U.S. border guards know from their own difficulties of securing the Mexican border. Nonetheless, the international community can increase political pressure on Pakistan to strengthen their border patrols and rid their country of violent extremists such as al Qaeda.
Despite assurances by the president, more troops will not provide more security to Afghans. The mere presence of foreign forces and some of their actions have created more Taliban recruits and violent extremists.
Instead of starting to bring troops home in 18 months, U.S. and NATO forces must tell internal and regional stakeholders -- publicly or privately -- that there will be a range of time, say 12 to 24 months, when their military presence will cease.
Then, they must apply significant pressure and concrete support for a public, comprehensive peace process. This process must include all interested parties, including the Karzai administration, tribal leaders, the Taliban, women leaders, as well as neighboring Iran, Pakistan and India.
The U.S. mission in Afghanistan can then focus on rebuilding the country the U.S. partly destroyed eight years ago (through air strikes and funding warlords in the Northern Alliance), lifting Afghans out of poverty and making the country less of a haven or recruiting center for extremists.
It's time for a transition from military investments to an economic and civic strategy that supports reconciling and reintegrating Taliban fighters, reducing poverty and rebuilding infrastructure. Obama outlined escalation rather than the needed transition.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ann Wright and Paul Kawika Martin.
"Since 2002, the United States has expended billions of dollars and deployed thousands of advisors to Afghanistan in order to build the Afghan National Army. Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A), the US-led organization tasked with creating the ANA, has made great strides in developing five geographically dispersed Corps, a Capitol Division, and an Air Corps all totaling over 93,000 Afghan soldiers.
Despite CSTC-A's phenomenal achievements, the ANA has not been allowed or required to assume a decisive role in the security and stability of Afghanistan. While numerous Western experts discuss strategies and US troop numbers for Afghanistan, few consider the ANA in any detail and even fewer actually understand its strengths and weaknesses. Most experts typically call for the rapid expansion of the ANA, believing that a larger Afghan army will increase capacity leading to the ANA assuming an ever greater responsibility for the security of Afghanistan. That is naive. The rapid expansion of the ANA will likely undermine the fragile success that has been achieved to date. It will also set back not hasten its assumption of the lead role in defeating a resurgent Taliban. Unfortunately, too many of the people who are developing Afghan security strategy have never worked with the ANA and do not have
a clear understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.
The reality is that ANA effectiveness is already suffering because of an inadequate number of competent leaders and staff officers from the kandak (battalion) through the Corps level. Growing the army too fast will only exacerbate this leadership deficit. However, where the ANA has had strong leadership, for example with the 3d Brigade, 201st Corps, they perform well, sometimes better than the coalition. There is untapped potential within the ANA, which we must leverage now to be decisive in our battle with the Taliban. However, it is not going to be achieved through its rapid expansion.
There is no doubt that we urgently need an expanded and more capable ANA. We also need the ANA to assume a greater role in the fight. That is because, until a larger more competent Afghan National Army assumes ownership of the security situation, a meaningful NATO withdrawal is off the table. Indeed a surge of Coalition troops alone may actually undermine popular support for the fight still further, reinforcing Taliban propaganda, which portrays the coalition as an occupying force."
(Colonel) Haynes continues, "Growing the ANA too fast will result in poorly trained, less effective units on the battlefield. Lacking adequate leadership, ANA soldiers are much more likely to engage in criminal activity. Corruption and AWOLs will increase, and the reputation of the ANA will decline, as more allegations of abuse against the Afghan people surface. With poorly led, quickly manufactured units, the chances increase of ANA units breaking and running on the battlefield--it has happened before with a few brave advisors preventing disaster. Collaboration with the enemy could also increase. Worst-case scenario - entire formations could switch sides, as ANA units have occasionally done throughout Afghanistan's history, a point ANA officers shared with the author in confidence. These problems are, indeed, a recurrent theme in the history of counterinsurgency. As Moyar noted in his recent New York Times article, "Past counterinsurgents who tried to expand under similar conditions, like the British in Malaya (1948 to 1960) and the Salvadorans (1980 to 1992), discovered that too many inexperienced officers took command and the experienced officers were spread too thinly. In addition to fighting poorly, badly led troops usually alienate the population by misbehaving and they often desert or defect."
The US Afghan Plan for buildup of the Afghan National Army calls for rather rapid increases in troops. According to (Col.) Haynes, "As of Sept. 09, ANA troop strength was approximately 93,000 with approved growth set to reach 134,000 by Dec. 2011. Based upon the ISAF September assessment, ISAF and CTSC-A are requesting the ANA reach 134,000 by Oct. 2010. This unsustainable growth rate will exacerbate the current dearth of ANA quality leaders and is highly unlikely to result in an increase in ANA operational capacity and effectiveness. A larger Army does not equate to a more effective army.
Recommendation -- the author therefore advocates initially increasing the number of rank and file soldiers in existing units instead of generating new ones. This approach provides more time for current leaders to improve, while the larger troop population provides a deeper pool from which to select future leaders.
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Instead of including more troops in existing Army units the Afghan Army did just the opposite.
In Afghan Troop Buildup is Key U.S. War Strategy by Rahim Faiez and Deb Riechmann,
Dec. 5, 2009, AP, "Afghan Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak told Associated Press in an interview Saturday that he's already assigned one brigade to a new three-brigade seventh corps of the Afghan National Army Corps 215 Majwand is based in the Helmand capital of Lashkar Gah, where most of the 30,000 U.S. reinforcements will be displayed."
According to (Col.) Haynes any new corps or brigades require new officers and other personnel that will lead the many troops in an efficient manner. I wonder where the Afghan Army will get such people, and if the new corps will be able to support or serve along side the new 30,000 reinforcements in a safe and secure way. Has Gen. Stanley McChrystal consulted with (Col.) Jeff Haynes about this new development in the Afghan Army? If not, then perhaps it would be advantageous for him to do so in order to protect his troops from possible troubles with the new reinforcements in the new division of the Afghan Army. And will a new corp have the training and experience to fight effectively in helping to defeat the Taliban?
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The United States has set a goal to train four lakh personnel by 2013 in Afghanistan, of which 240,000 would be for Afghan National Army and 160,000 Afghan National Police.
Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said by July 2011 he expected the combined strength of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police to be around 300,000.
"I believe that we need to significantly increase the Afghan national security forces.
I recommend that we stay on a very aggressive timeline to try to reach that, but adjust those goals on two things: One, if the insurgency size decreases, it might be able to be adjusted, and also the ability of the Afghan government to provide recruits, retention and those things, which enable the growth," McChrystal said.
Top US military and diplomatic leaders along with the US lawmakers during a two Congressional hearings at the US Capitol ( House Armed Services Committee) felt the need to make it a top priority to strengthen and increase the size of the Afghan national security forces which is capable enough to transition security responsibilities from the American forces beginning July 2011, a date set by US President Barack Obama last week.
"There is not yet enough Afghan National Armour or Afghan National Police," McChrystal said, adding that there are not yet an Afghan National Army to meet everyone's requirements.
"There is still a need, in my opinion, for a very credible Afghan National Army,
because it helps bind the nation together," he said.
McChrystal said the main focus of the coalition element strategy has recently been in the South.
"In the Helmand area, it was about one Afghan security force participant to five coalitions. That's now one to 3.6. By the end of January, we'll have it one to 2.3," he said.
McChrystal said together the Afghan national security forces are just about 190,000 people assigned or on the rolls right now.
"The Afghan national army is significantly ahead -- in terms of professionalization, capacity -- than the Afghan national police, because we started earlier.
We started in 2002. At the battalion and company level, they fight pretty well.
Organisationally there is much development to do," he said.
However, the Afghan national police have much further to go.
"The percentage of policemen who have actually received formal training is fairly low. We are increasing our partnership and our focus on them. But we are starting at a much lower level," he said.
"There must be an Afghan national army and police with a strong neighbourhood fabric that is part local security and part just governance, neighbourhood watch and trust for each other," he said.
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Afghan Troop Buildup is Key US War Strategy, Sunday, Dec. 6, 2009
By RAHIM FAIEZ and DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writers,
KABUL
Slideshow:AfghanistanPresident Barack Obama has his troop surge. Afghanistan's beleaguered security forces have theirs.
While the new U.S. war strategy was unveiled with worldwide fanfare, Afghan's defense force has been quietly planning its own troop buildup to break the Taliban's tightening grip on swathes of the nation. The
Afghan surge is the one to watch because the success of Obama's new war plan is inextricably hinged to Afghanistan's ability to recruit, train and retain security forces that can eventually take the lead in defending the nation.
Afghan Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday that he's already assigned one brigade to a new three-brigade seventh corps of the Afghan National Army. Corps 215 Maiwand is based in the Helmand capital of Lashkar Gah, where most of the 30,000 U.S. reinforcements will be deployed.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says the Afghans have promised to send 5,000 members of the new corps to partner with British troops in Helmand. Wardak insists that will be achieved with ease. He said he's already begun staffing the command's second brigade.
Moreover, he said nearly 44 additional companies of Afghan soldiers are being added to battalions in the south and east. Another Afghan commando battalion, which will graduate in January, is also headed to Helmand -- the scene of a major weekend offensive by 1,000 Marines and 150 Afghan soldiers.
"We are bringing the strength level of every unit in the south to 117 percent of its authorized strength so there will be a significant increase in the number of troops," Wardak said in his office at the Ministry of Defense.
Building up the Afghan army, plagued by inefficiency, a lack of trainers and corruption, is a precursor to a U.S. troop pullout. While Obama set July 2011 as the date for the beginning of a withdrawal, he said it would happen "taking into account conditions on the ground."
That caveat was what Afghan leaders needed to hear.
"It is in the speech," Wardak said. "I don't believe the international community will just leave us like they did once before -- after all these sacrifices. This enemy is not only terrorizing Afghanistan, it is terrorizing the whole international community. The nature of the threat is such that no one country will be able to deal with it."
Initially, the size of the Afghan army was scheduled to swell from 85,000 to 134,000 by 2013. That target now is expected to be reached earlier -- by Oct. 31, 2011.
"We are increasing our level of recruitment and there are going to be improvements in retention," he said. "We are going to go at a very fast speed."
However, even the defense minister acknowledges that 134,000 will not be enough. He agrees with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, who has recommended a 240,000-member Afghan army.
Getting there will be a steep uphill battle, says retired. Marine Col. Jeff Haynes, who in 2008 headed a command that advised the Afghan National Army.
"The rapid expansion of the Afghan National Army will likely undermine the fragile success that has been achieved to date," Haynes wrote in an essay on the Web site defpro.com. "It will also set back, not hasten, its assumption of the lead role in defeating a resurgent Taliban. Unfortunately, too many of the people who are developing Afghan security strategy have never worked with the Afghan National Army and do not have a clear understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.
"The reality is that ANA effectiveness is already suffering because of an inadequate number of competent leaders and staff officers. ... Growing the army too fast will only exacerbate this leadership deficit."
Candace Rondeaux, senior Afghan analyst for the International Crisis Group, said the army is facing a a shortage of military trainers and is fighting endemic corruption. The question is how many troops can the Afghan government sustain in an aid-dependent country where the annual budget is under $10 billion.
"If the goal is to build a quality force of some 134,000 Afghan army soldiers by the end of 2011, then the addition of some 4,000 U.S. military trainers under the new troop levels will certainly help," she told the Council on Foreign Relations Web site. "But when it comes to expanding the Afghan National Army to 250,000 ... then stress on the system is inevitable and may blunt the positive impact that extra U.S. troops will have in the long term."
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Jeff Haynes recently retired as a Colonel from the United States Marine Corps after 24 years of service. During 2008, he commanded Regional Corps Advisory Command-Central where he advised the Afghan National Army's 201st Corps Commanding General and staff. Concurrently, Colonel Haynes commanded 23 Embedded Training Teams consisting of over 600 advisors and support personnel from all US services and 5 contributing nations distributed throughout central and eastern Afghanistan. He is currently the Vice President for Operations of Glevum Associates, which conducts extensive face-to-face social science research in Afghanistan and Iraq on behalf of the Department of Defense and other clients. The views expressed are the author's and do not represent the policy or judgments of any organization of the United States Government.
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Mark Moyar is professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Marine Corps University and author of three books on counterinsurgency, most recently A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil Warto Iraq
How to Whip the Afghan Army Into Shape, by Mark Moyar, December 22, 2009
"In Afghanistan, poorly led soldiers and policemen have often proved useless or worse. For the past eight years, the lack of leadership in Afghan police and militia units has resulted in egregious abuses of power that have helped convince thousands of Pashtun tribal elders to support the Taliban and other insurgent groups. Those abuses have too seldom offset forceful action against insurgents. Increasing the number of Afghan troops, which some analysts believe must be the top priority, will not solve any of these problems without sound leadership
Of the potential remedies for inferior Afghan leadership, the replacement of bad Afghan commanders with better ones is an obvious choice, but not an easy one. Numerous commanders in the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) hold their positions because they have friends or relatives in the upper echelons of President Hamid Karzai's government and those patrons have been known to demonstrate resolve and guile in protecting their prot????g????s.
While continuing to encourage the process of removing incompetent and corrupt officers, the U.S. and Afghan governments must also invest heavily in developing more good ones. By all accounts, the Afghan officer corps does not have enough capable officers to lead the security forces already in existence, let alone an expanded force. A U.S. Defense Department Inspector General's report published in September states, "The ANA has historically been and continues to be critically short of trained and qualified junior officers and NCOs, personnel essential to providing sound unit leadership."
Past experiences in countries such as Vietnam, El Salvador, and Iraq suggest that dev
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