Is US and NATO-led Security Policy Compatible with the Multiple Frameworks Model of Peace-building in Afghanistan?

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1 Is US and NATO-led Security Policy Compatible with the Multiple Frameworks Model of Peace-building in Afghanistan? Dr. Katsumi Ishizuka Kyoei University, Japan Introduction Security-building measures in Afghanistan have been handled mainly by two types of international forces led by the US and NATO. They are Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) which is the official name used by the US government for the War on Terror in Afghanistan, and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) which was started as a peacekeeping force under the framework of the Bonn Conference in December OEF was a joint US, UK and Afghan operation, and therefore was separate from ISAF which consists of troops from NATO and 37 other countries. The main purpose of OEF is to conduct warfare against the Taliban, al Qaeda and like-minded warlords. Whereas ISAF, which has been authorized by the UN Security Council, has conducted operations in Afghanistan not only to reduce the capability and will of the insurgency but also to support the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). Although ISAF initially operated only in Kabul, it was authorized to expand its mission throughout Afghanistan in October Many US forces originally deployed in OEF joined ISAF in ISAF, facing mounting challenges from the insurgents, has been involved in more intensive combat operations in southern Afghanistan since Meanwhile, the United Nations (UN) has been in charge of peace-building and reconstruction in Afghanistan with a longer-term view than NATO. UNDP has carried out aid and development work in the country since the 1950s. Following the Bonn Conference, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) was also authorized by the UN Security Council, mandated to support the Afghan Government in its efforts to improve critical areas, including security, governance and economic development, and regional cooperation. The mandate also identified the importance of monitoring and coordination of efforts to protect civilians and support wider human rights, in particular, the rights of women and children. 2 In this sense, enhancing the sectors of justice, the rule of law and the national police force would be a significant task for UNAMA. The UN is also in charge of oversight of social recovery processes including disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR), and reconciliation in Afghanistan. Therefore, it can be generally accepted 1 ISAF Home Page. accessed on 21 May UNAMA Home Page. accessed on 21 May

2 that peace-building in Afghanistan has adopted the multiple framework model. It is also to be noted that UN-led peace-building in Afghanistan has been based on one operating principle, that of a light-footprint approach. The light-footprint strategy was in fact officially encouraged by the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan 3 and his Special Representative in UNAMA, Lakhdar Brahimi. 4 This approach has been applied in the case of Afghanistan due to several factors such as a negative image among the Afghan people of a foreign presence because of British and Soviet incursions and lessons learned from heavily-involved peace-building in Kosovo and Timor-Leste. However, Afghanistan has been long labeled as a "failed state, despite the US and NATO s significant involvement in Afghanistan s security problems and the UN s long-term commitment to peace-building in the war-torn state. This paper examines the serious question of the compatibility of the two missions; one, led by the US and NATO, an intensive and coercive security mission; the other a UN-led, extensive, integrated, and light-footprint mission. This paper will start by referring to the peace missions in Afghanistan as difficult and unique cases. It will then identify several issues in US and NATO-led security policy in Afghanistan. It will then examine several cases indicating the difficulty of compatibility between US and NATO-led operations and the UN-led peace-building efforts in the sectors of DDR, justice, police-force training etc. A Peace Mission in Afghanistan as a Difficult and Unique Case ISAF can be categorized as a peace-enforcement mission. Traditionally, Chapter VII-led peaceenforcement is considered to be a difficult mission. For example, in 1994 Adam Roberts pointed out four dilemmas in the use of peace-enforcement: increasing risks to lightly armed peacekeepers in vulnerable positions; the killing and injuring of civilians as well as armed adversaries; undermining the perception of the impartiality of the peacekeeping force; and the deterioration of the decisionmaking system. 5 Shashi Tharoor argued in 1995 that the problem with peace-enforcement was its characteristic of the gamble that one can drop bombs from the air and at the same time negotiate 3 UN Document S/2002/278, Report of the Secretary-General: the situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security, 18 March 2002, para Speech of the SRSG of UNAMA Lakhdar Brahimi at the Opening of 55 th Annual DPI/NGO conference, Rebuilding Societies Emerging from Confect: A Shared Responsibility, New York, 9 September Roberts A. The Crisis in UN Peacekeeping, Survival, Vol. 36, No. 3, Autumn 1994, pp

3 co-operation on the ground with the same party. 6 One of the unique characteristics of the peace process in Afghanistan lies in its co-existence of UNand multi-national operations. In UN history, many of its peacekeeping operations had been established after the successful implementation of more highly armed multi-national forces. For example, the UN Mission in Haiti (UNAMIH) took over the multi-national force in In Somalia 1995, a highly coercive group of non-un peace enforcers, UNITAF, took the lead in creating a secure environment in the short term for the following UN Operation in Somalia II (UNOSOM II). Likewise, UNTAET in Timor-Leste would not have been successful without the total suppression of militia forces in 1999 by multi-national forces, namely, INTERFET. In these cases, the multinational forces and the UN missions were not deployed during the same periods. In the case of Afghanistan, although UNAMA is simply a political mission, UNAMA and ISAF have been simultaneously deployed and been authorized by the same UN Security Council resolutions. Arguably, regional forces or multi-national peace operations cannot be substitutes for the UN; the former have not had to take responsibility for any human rights abuses or war crimes in their region while the latter, which should have moral authority as the sole international organization, has the ultimate duty of protecting international peace when any other organizations and great powers refuse to do so. One can identify the case of the simultaneous deployment of UN and multi-national forces under a similar Security Council resolution in Kosovo. In fact, the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) and the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) were both authorized by UN Security Council Resolution 1244 of 10 June KFOR was a peacekeeping force, responsible for establishing a safe secure environment in Kosovo. UNMIK was required to assure the safe and unimpeded return of all refugees and internally displaced persons to their homes to Kosovo. However, the cases of Kosovo are different from Afghanistan in military operations themselves and in the matter of local consent. In Kosovo, as the NATO air strikes against Serbia were achieving success, Slobodan Milosevic, President of Serbia, inevitably accepted foreign military presence in Kosovo commanded by NATO, followed by a UN Security Council Resolution Therefore, the objective of KFOR was to end the NATO air campaign 7, and KFOR got the local consent in its operational area. Therefore, although the use of force was applied in KFOR, it was not common and it was conducted only on a tactical basis. However, in the case of Afghanistan, US-led air strikes as well as other combat operations intentionally intensified after the commencement of both ISAF and UN missions. It is partly due to the participation of OEF in a peace-making measure in Afghanistan. ISAF as well as OEF did obviously not get local consent from the Taliban, which was 6 Tharoor S. Should UN Peacekeeping Go Back to Basic?, Survival, Vol. 37, No. 4, 1995, p Yannis A. Kosovo Under International Administration, Survival, Vol. 43, No. 2, Summer 2001, pp

4 regarded as an enemy by the peace-enforcers in Afghanistan. Therefore, the use of force has been frequent and has been conducted not only on a tactical but also on a strategic basis. Therefore, the Afghan operation is more unique and proving to be more difficult to implement than that of Kosovo. Another unique characteristic of the case of Afghanistan is the timing of peace-building. Almost all peace-building processes have been initiated after ceasefires were agreed and political settlements were completed, generally known as post-conflict peace-building. It is because the sectors of peacebuilding such as the rule of law, justice, human rights, governance, DDR, police- and military force training etc., can potentially enhance their capacity and capability when social stability and security are guaranteed. However, in Afghanistan, the peace-building process has been initiated while belligerence between anti-government elements and US and NATO-led peace enforcers continues. In other words, peace-building and war on terror have co-existed in Afghanistan. To use the words of Shashi Tharoor mentioned above, the problem with the case of Afghanistan was characterized by the gamble that the same organization drops bombs from the air and at the same time tries to build the state on the ground. One may call the case of Afghanistan mid-conflict peacebuilding, not post-conflict. Issues in US and NATO-led Security Policy in Afghanistan In fact, there have been several issues in terms of the strategies and tactics adopted by US and NATO-led security policy in Afghanistan. The first and essential issue is troop numbers. For example, Adam Roberts pointed out that the size of troops of security operations was too small for the entire population of Afghanistan. He claimed that past exponents of counter-insurgency doctrine have generally placed heavy emphasis on achieving force ratios of about counter-insurgents for every 1,000 residents in an area of operations. If the entire country with its 31 million inhabitants were to be viewed as the area of operations, a staggering 775,000 counter-insurgents would be needed. At the time of writing in March 2011, the total strength of ISAF including ex-oef is 132,203. There appears to be little chance of achieving such number in Afghanistan. 8 The issue of a lack of personnel in ISAF is also significant when one compares them to peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and Kosovo. The ratios of peacekeepers to citizens in the missions in Bosnia and Kosovo were 1:48 and 1:58, respectively. For the first three years in Afghanistan, the ratio was nearly 1:2,000. Therefore, it means that ISAF represented the lowest per capita commitment of 8 Roberts A. Doctrine and Reality in Afghanistan, Survival, Vol. 51, No. 1, February-March 2009, p. 36 4

5 peacekeeping personnel to any post-conflict environment since the end of World War II. 9 The second issue is on the balance of contributing states. The total number of participating troops of 132,203 includes the number of 90,000 US 10 and 9,500 UK troops among 48 troop-contributing states in total. 11 Therefore, the counter-insurgency troops, which were excessively represented by the US, have given the impression that the purpose, doctrine, and tactics of these troops included a significant US self-interest. In fact, the financial contribution of the US to the operations in Afghanistan has been enormous. US funding for the Afghan security forces nearly quadrupled, from $1.9 billion in 2006 to $7.4 billion in 2007, and aggregate US spending on security assistance increased fivefold. 12 It is also estimated that each US soldier costs $1 million a year to sustain in Afghanistan. 13 However, some point out the issue of cost-effectiveness in US involvement in Afghanistan. The CIA estimates that there are now only 50 to 100 al Qaeda guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan. That is between 1,000 and 2,000 soldiers and perhaps a billion dollars per terrorist each year. It is considered far beyond any reasonable expenditure of US resources. 14 There is also the issue of a lack of NATO unity in certain operational matters. Different contributing states have different visions of ISAF s role. The most obvious difference is that the US, Britain and Canada tend to consider their mission in Afghanistan as encompassing a counterinsurgency operation, while Germany and some others tend see it rather as a stabilization mission. 15 The disparity in perception towards ISAF became significant in 2005 when ISAF absorbed many of the US forces originally deployed under OEF. ISAF has adopted full-blown counter-insurgency with the intensification of the insurgency since However, many of the countries participating in ISAF maintained that they had signed up for a peacekeeping and reconstruction mission, not counter-insurgency efforts, and inevitably imposed various restrictions on the participation of their troops in the operations. 16 There is a disparity in their visions in terms of how to treat prisoners in the Afghan operation. The lack of NATO unity is symptomatic of deep 9 Johnson T. H. and Mason M. C. Understanding the Taliban and Insurgency in Afghanistan, Orbis, Winter 2007, pp This figure represents Washington s third largest military deployment since the Vietnam War. 11 ISAF Home Page, Accessed on 7 April Miller P. D. Finish the Job: How the War in Afghanistan Can Be Won, Vol. 90, No. 1, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2011, p The Economist, 21 August 2010, p Backwill R. D. Plan B in Afghanistan: Why a De Facto Partition Is the Least Bad Option, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 90, No. 1, January/February 2011, p Roberts A. p Felbab-Brown V. Peacekeepers Among Poppies: Afghanistan, Illicit Economies and Intervention, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 16, No. 1, February 2009, p

6 divisions within the alliance. 17 There is also the controversial issue of the excessive use of air power in US-led counter-insurgency campaigns. This tendency became more significant as the conflict escalated. From 2006 to 2007, the number of air strikes increased by over 50 per cent, from 1,770 to 2,740 sorties. 18 The notable result was large-scale displacement of villagers in the contested areas an estimated 20,000 (extended) families in three southern provinces in the autumn of 2006 alone. 19 Another result was a large number of civilian casualties. Thus, the increasingly common doctrine of the counter-insurgence campaign, that is, the combination of light ground forces and overwhelming airpower, received intense criticism of US and NATO forces by Afghan political leaders and the general public. On 5 November, 2008, Afghan President Karzai pleaded with U.S. President-elect Obama to put an end to civilian casualties in Afghanistan when US warplanes bombed a wedding party, killing 37 people, including 23 children and 10 women. Karzai demanded an immediate end to US air strikes, saying, Our demand is that there will be no civilian casualties in Afghanistan. We cannot win the fight against terrorism with airstrikes. In the southern provinces, the opinion poll found that nearly two-thirds of the respondents rated the US negatively, and only 45 per cent supported the presence of NATO forces. 20 There is the issue of legitimacy of the US economic and military support for the anti-taliban militias, called the Northern Alliance, for the purpose of receiving military assistance from them in the counter-insurgency campaigns against the Taliban. Some raise a question about such a one security policy in which only the Taliban should be targeted by the US and other armed factions are fully protected. In short, the US has marginalized the history of Afghanistan which includes human rights violations and war crimes conducted by the militia factions during and after the Soviet invasion. It is highly probable that several anti-taliban factions take advantage of their current protected status, and propose various deals to the US and NATO for their survival and strengthening of their forces. It is to be noted that a number of ex-militia have been supporting the US and ISAF by their reconstitution as Private Security Companies (PSCs). PSCs here employ 26,000 people under US contracts, and 19,000 of those are employed under military contract. 21 They have contributed to the 17 Roberts A. p Suhrke A. A Contradictory Mission? NATO from Stabilization to Combat Afghanistan, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 15, No. 2, April 2008, p Suhrke A. Reconstruction as Modernisation: the post-conflict project in Afghanistan, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 7, 2007, p Suhrke A. A Contradictory Mission? NATO from Stabilization to Combat Afghanistan, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 15, No. 2, April 2008, p McClatchy Washington Bureau, 2 March Accessed on 14 April

7 security of construction projects and of supply routes into Afghanistan. The existence of PSCs such as Louis Berger Associates and US Protection and Investigations enables ex-militias and warlords to remain armed legitimately. Michael Bhatia argues that ISAF virtually provided militia commanders a formal title in the Afghan Military Force (AMF) as well as a poorly-monitored monthly salary, which enabled commanders to reinvigorate decrepit local militias. 22 As a former community militia leader in the Salang put it: It is so sad that ISAF/Coalition is sitting with these commanders, and not sitting inside society. Why are they sitting with Fahim, or Massoud s brother or Sayyaf? No one in the village likes them. ISAF and the Coalition must sit with the village people and the poor combatants who made jihad not in the name of power and money. It s not good for us when they sit with these criminals. 23 One of the strategies of survival of ex-warlords is to prolong the US and NATO war campaigns against the Taliban during which their military assistance to the US will continue being demanded. The US and NATO also ask for information and intelligence sources on the Taliban from the militias. However, it has been reported that several civilian casualties by the ISAF s airstrikes by mistake were due to the militias intentionally wrong information to ISAF. They have given inflated reports of the threat of the Taliban, and exaggerating the significance of their contributions to Afghan security. In fact, militia commanders prioritized their own local power struggles over fighting against the Taliban. This propaganda is considered to be an excuse for them to be exempt from the DDR process. 24 One can raise a question about the effectiveness of ISAF to improve security situations in Afghanistan. Table 1 indicates the average ISAF forces, the average monthly security incidents, and civilian casualties in the entire territory of Afghanistan from 2007 to Bhatia M. The Future of the Mujahideen: Legitimacy, Legacy and Demobilization in Post-Bonn Afghanistan, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 14, No. 1, January 2007, p Ibid. 24 Isezaki K. Disarmament (Tokyo: Kodansha, 2004), p

8 Table 1 Security Situations in Afghanistan years Average ISAF Forces Average Monthly Security Incidents Civilian Casualties , , , , , , ,673 1,626 2,777 Sources: ISAF: Troop numbers and contributions. UN Documents S/2008/159, 6 March 2008 UN Documents S/2009/135, 10 March 2009 UN Documents S/2011/120, 9 March 2011 Afghanistan Annual Report 2010, Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflicts Ideally, security should improve as international peace forces are provided in conflicted states. However, the fact that the average monthly security incidents and civilian casualties have increased strongly supports the position that security has deteriorated in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the increase in security incidents and civilian casualties have coincided with the increase in the number of ISAF forces. How can this fact be explained? There are two hypotheses. The first hypothesis is that ISAF has inevitably strengthened the size of its troops as security has been deteriorating in Afghanistan. In this case, the deterioration of Afghan security came first, and ISAF tried to solve the situation by increasing the number of troops, but it has not been capable of suppressing the Taliban s insurgency and of preventing subsequent security incidents. The second hypothesis is that strengthening ISAF forces came first, which resulted in an increase in the number of security incidents and civilian casualties in Afghanistan. In this case, ISAF has taken a policy of more positive intervention in the conflicts, although it has simply become a provocative entity to the Taliban insurgents, and thus triggered more belligerent incidents. As a result, more civilians and even ISAF troops themselves have been targeted. In other words, although ISAF might essentially have a military capability to control militia insurgency, the Taliban has expressed strong animosity against US-led ISAF, and ISAF itself has created the source of conflicts. In this case, the presence of ISAF is counter-effective. Arguably, the second hypothesis is more plausible. The report of the UN Secretary-General on the situation in Afghanistan published in early 2011 states pas follows: The Afghanistan national security forces and international military forces have intensified their operations. Pro-Government forces have reportedly inflicted loses on mid-level commanders of 8

9 networks of anti-government elements. The number of districts under insurgent control has decreased, and in the areas surrounding Kunduz and Balkh Provinces, joint operations of the Afghan national security forces and ISAF have displaced anti-government elements. In response, anti-government elements are expanding operations into previously uncontested area. In November 2010, 11 additional districts were designated as high risk and additional 3 were rated as very high risk to United Nations operations. 25 According to the report, ISAF operations have been effective in the areas which have long been the focus of the insurgency, but instead the Taliban insurgency shifted their operations to the relatively secure areas in the northern and western parts of Afghanistan. On balance, the overall security situation in Afghanistan has been deteriorating as indicated in Table 1. Furthermore, as the UN report implied, ISAF-led security policy has negatively affected UN peace-building efforts indirectly. Insurgents have been deliberately attacking those who chose to participate in the reconciliation and reintegration programmes initiated by the UN. 26 Indeed, the intensification of counter-insurgency operations and their one security policy in Afghanistan has prevented the reconciliation process from progressing. Strengthening counterinsurgency policy reduces the opportunity for communication, which is, however, the most important element in initiating a reconciliation process. Political analysts of Afghanistan argue that after several years of steadily increasing and intensifying insurgent activity in the south, south-east and south-west now spreading northwards any serious effort to facilitate a reconciliation process would be considerably more difficult than half a decade ago. DDR and US and NATO-led Counter-insurgency Operations DDR in Afghanistan was started in February The proposal of the DDR programme was devised by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) together with UNAMA, the World Bank, UNDP, UNICEF and the transitional Afghan Government. It was implemented by the Afghanistan New Beginning Program (ANBP). Therefore, DDR in Afghanistan was conducted by multiple frameworks. DDR by ANBP in Afghanistan was aimed at disarming 63,380 former officers and soldiers of the Afghan Military Forces (AMF) and at decommissioning of 259 AMF units. 27 Therefore, the Taliban and other like-minded militias were not included the DDR programme. DDR 25 UN Document S/2011/120 Report of the Secretary General: the situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security, 9 March 2011, para Ibid. para Centre for International Cooperation and Security Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) and Human Security in Afghanistan CICS Desk Review, University of Bradford, July 2008, p. 4 9

10 of the AMF was partly the process of the newly-built Afghan National Army (ANA). However, it was generally agreed that the DDR process was implemented in favour of the interests of high and middle-rank militia commanders. Each ex-combatant who accepted DDR received a food package (130kg) and clothing items. However, the provision of a one-off cash payment of USD200 in the early stage of DDR was cancelled since their commanders failed to hand it out, and manipulated the cash from the soldiers. In contrast, commanders were much more privileged than their soldiers. In Commanders Incentive Programme (CIP), commanders were offered other integration packages such as financial redundancy packages; training; government positions; and trips abroad. 28 From the traditional point of view, accepting the proposal of DDR could be regarded as shameful, and therefore the UN as well as the US persuaded a number of high and middle-rank militia commanders to join DDR by offering the incentive of positions in the new government. In other words, the US and the UN guaranteed the futures of the commanders in the form of government positions of sufficient prestige and power to compensate for the loss of their command. 29 This deal is attributed to another tradition of exploiting corruption and valuing patronage in Afghanistan. In the words of Antonio Giustozzi, the decision of who to disarm was the business of local commanders. There was an informal compromise between the demands of international community and the desires of key Afghan allies. Giustozzi claimed that the group which captured Kabul in 2001, Jami at-i Islam, was clearly in a privileged position to exercise serious influence in the shaping of the process of demobilization. Furthermore, DDR in Afghanistan very often permitted the militias with serious human rights violation records to be qualified into the programme, and then be offered positions in the national police and security forces and the government. For example, one could identify the prolonged negotiations by international forces and donors to secure the demobilization of the Tenth Division, a militia force loyal to Abdul Rasul Sayyaf. The militia force was considered to constitute a current threat to stability as a serious human rights abusing militia group. However, in the process of DDR, a number of its senior commanders of the Tenth Division, infamous as war criminals responsible for massacres in the civil war in the early 1990s, were given posts in the security and government sectors. Grossman claimed that such positions of power which have been awarded to the very people who fed civil wars has been a major source of public disillusionment Ibid. pp Gossman P. Transitional Justice and DDR: The Case of Afghanistan, International Center for Transitional Justice, June 2009, p Gossman P. Transitional Justice and DDR: The Case of Afghanistan, International Center for Transitional Justice, June 2009, p

11 One could identify the similar story in the Seventh Division, where an infamous militia commander, Atta Mohammad Norr and his subordinates complied with the DDR programme to find that Atta instead became a provincial governor of Balkh. Governor Atta is a disguised warlord, in which he gave up his status as a Mujahideen Commander in exchange for a formal governing role on behalf of the state. According to Dipali Mukhopadhyay, Governor Atta s approach to managing militia commanders who once fought under his authority has involved far more than simply drawing these individuals and their rank and file into the disarmament process. Instead, the governor remains linked to a network of disguised combatants who continue to receive patronage, in the form of support and protection, from their leaders. As those who live Balkh attest, many of the senior positions within the provincial and district administration and police have been filled by fellow fighters who battled alongside the governor during his time as a Jamiat commander. 31 The above issue of a lack justice in DDR is based on the fact that the US and its allies considered the security issue only in terms of the Taliban and al-qaeda in the post-9.11 period. In other words, the US accepted many militias from the Northern Alliance as its allies although the latter contributed significantly to the destruction of Afghanistan before the Taliban came to power in the late 1990s. In the OEF and the ISAF operations, US and NATO troops needed local information and intelligence sources on the Taliban for their operations, which was provided by the anti-taliban forces. They also needed the support of military operations from the militia forces. In fact, the US and NATO-led ISAF stationed only 4,500 forces in 2002 when more than 25,000 were needed in the major regional centers. 32 As a result, not only were their past records of war crimes overlooked, but also their commanders obtained high-ranking official positions after the official process of DDR, and in many cases they still maintained their militia groups even afterwards. The identification of injustice in DDR, which was marginalized by US security policy, would bring about the slow or even stagnant process of state-building in Afghanistan. There is an issue of an unofficial reintegration program, the employment of national highway police in Afghanistan, which has been provided by the US. The highway police are in charge of security for roads linking the four regional centres and the two major roads to Pakistan. It was divided into six regiments and four of them are led by former AMF commanders. For example, the governor of Ghanzi province, Assadullah Khalid, who has close connections with the Coalition 31 Mukhopadhyay D. Disguised Warlordism and Combatanthood in Balkh: the Persistence of Informal Power in the Formal Afghan State, Conflict, Security & Development, Vol. 9, No. 4, December 2009, p International Crisis Group Asia Briefing No. 89, Afghanistan: New US Administration, New Direction, 13 March p. 4 11

12 troops, employed many of his militia in the highway police. Among the highway police, The Kabul- Kandahar highway is one of the biggest US development projects in southern Afghanistan. USAID s contractor subcontracted security for the project to a security firm, US Protection and Investigation (USPI). In this case, the pro-us militia commanders can recruit a large number of their men as national highway police. However, the local commander responsible for distributing the salary for 1,200 police from USPI, only positioned 400 to 500 officers, most of whom are members of militias, along the road. Furthermore, some local highway police commanders have used their recruited personnel and access to police vehicles and arms to transport processed heroin. The case of the highway police in Afghanistan exacerbated patronage relationships between the commanders and his militias, and undermined the proper process of DDR. The UNDP expressed its concerns about these practices to the US embassy in Afghanistan. 33 Has such unfair DDR policy promoted the Taliban s insurgent strategy? The answer would be affirmative, according to Zyck s article of 2009: Most troubling is the 800 per cent increase in the use of suicide attacks between 2005 and It is plausible to conclude that these statistics are unrelated to the DDR process. As has been widely reported, conflict is currently focused upon Pashtun areas in the South and East, locations in which DDR was sparsely implemented. Such a perception is, however, increasingly negated by the spread of insecurity into the northern and western regions of the country here which are predominantly inhabited by Tajik, Uzbek and other ethnic minorities affiliated with the United Front and subject to ANBP s DDR efforts. 34 For example, Jami at-i Islam regarded the DDR process as an opportunity to exert and strengthen its influence, and therefore saw no role for former Taliban fighters in the process. 35 As a result, a number of former Taliban fighters and other marginalized Mujahideen factions who failed to be in the process of DDR decided to join the Neo-Taliban insurgency fighting against the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Therefore, political manipulation in DDR indirectly strengthened the Taliban insurgency, which inevitably urged the US and NATO to reconsider the entire strategy of counterinsurgency campaigns and eventually strengthen the size of the OEF and ISAF. What were the consequences of the US and NATO s one security policy which undermined the DDR 33 International Crisis Group Asia Briefing No. 35 Afghanistan: Getting Disarmament Back on Track, 23 February 2005, pp Zyck S. A. Former combatant reintegration and fragmentation in contemporary Afghanistan, Conflict, Security & Development, Vol. 9, No. 1, April 2009, p Giustozzi A. Bureaucratic façade and political realities of disarmament and demobilization in Afghanistan, Conflict, Security & Development, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2008, pp

13 process and virtually accepted the employment of a large number of ex-militias in the public sector? One of them can be identified in the deteriorating data in the corruption perception index (CPI) in world statistics. The CPI, by Berlin-based Transparency International, defines corruption as the abuse of public office for private gain and measures the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among a country s public officials and politicians. About 180 out of the world's 193 countries participate in the survey. The scores range from ten (squeaky clean) to zero (highly corrupt). A score of 5.0 is the figure which Transparency International considers the borderline distinguishing countries that do and do not have a serious corruption problem. According to its annual survey, Afghanistan has been among the most corrupt countries in the world. Afghanistan s figures and world ranking on CPI from 2006 to 2010 are given in Table 2. Table 2. Afghanistan's figures and ranks on Corruption Perceptions Index, years CPI Figures World Ranks (Sources: Calculated by author) As can be seen from Table 2, the figures and rankings of Afghanistan on CPI have been deteriorating since This is not to say that the deteriorating tendency is solely due to US and NATO security policy. However, it is obvious that the spoiled and incapable ex-combatants who have been promoted to the public positions led by the DDR process, have put a negative impact on governance in Afghanistan. In this sense, the policy of the US and NATO which virtually accepted such ex-combatants to be privileged in the DDR process and get public positions with impunity, is highly questionable. Police Force in Afghanistan and US Comprehensive Strategy for Counter-insurgency The US believes that building up a credible and capable national police force is as important as building the Afghan national army. However, as the CRS Report for Congress put it, building up the national police is important to combating the insurgency 36, not to the protection of civilians or the 36 Katzman K. Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and US Policy CRS (Congressional Research 13

14 maintenance of the rule of law which should be the main missions for police in general. In other words, the US as well as ISAF has inevitably depended on the police force to fight against the Taliban, due to the shortage of the number of their troops and ANA. As a result, the US decision to give a leading role in its police programmes has blurred the distinction between the military and police. 37 In this case, the police force is more vulnerable to insurgent attacks than the military. The latter normally accompanies international military forces, while the former tends to be left to protect itself against attack. Therefore, the police force more easily encounters opportunities to assume a role to defend national security, marginalizing its fundamental mission of maintaining civil society. This is exactly what has been happening in Afghanistan, where there have been more casualties in the police force attacked by insurgents than those in the military. 38 In 2009, the ANP had an annual attrition rate of 20 percent from combat losses and other causes. It means that the entire police force personnel would be totally replaced in five years, assuming the recruits can be found. In fact, the US has adopted a different policy towards police reform from Germany which has played a leading role in security sector reform (SSR) in Afghanistan. Germany has aimed at creating a high quality police force, whereas the US was desperate to churn out a conveyor belt where qualtity is not an issue. 39 The police-sector reform should require a long-term training process in post-conflict peace-building. Meanwhile, Tonia Murray pointed out the hard- and software aspects in police reform as follows: The desire to have short-term tangible results may be why there is more emphasis on what can be called the hardware of police-building rather than the software. The soft part of police reform includes such matters as developing internal and external mechanisms for governing police conduct and performance, identifying and remedying leadership weakness, dismantling system barriers to women in the police, or transforming a dysfunctional police culture. It can also be said that the hardware part of police-building, such as provision of equipment, the building of facilities, or organizational restructuring, is easier to accomplish than soft police building. 40 The US desired to increase the size of the police force and produce immediate results in a short period for its own national interest in Afghanistan, and therefore it obviously emphasized the hardware of police-building. Consequently, the US accepted the request of supply of heavy Service) Report for Congress, 26 January 2001, p International Crisis Group Asia Report No. 138 Reforming Afghanistan s Police, 30 August 2007, p Murray T. Police-Building in Afghanistan: A Case Study of Civil Security Reform, International Peacekeeping, Vol. 14, No. 1, January 2007, p International Crisis Group Asia Report No. 138 Reforming Afghanistan s Police, 30 August 2007, p Murray T. p

15 equipment, including rocket launchers, from the Afghan police force. However, this approach has not been compatible with the "light-footprint approach, adopted by UNAMA in Afghanistan. The US policy of the militarization of the Afghan police can be recognized by the establishment of the US-funded Afghan National Police Auxiliary (ANPA) in ANPA was a special police force with 11,271 initially recruited, which was intended to address the growing Taliban insurgency in the southern part of Afghanistan. However, despite initial assertions that the ANPA recruits would be thoroughly examined, many of them were Taliban agents and drug addicts, and all were members of forces loyal to provincial power brokers. As a result, ANPA virtually undermined the effect of the Disband Illegal Armed Group (DIAG) programme which started disarming and demobilizing illegal militias in The incompetence and ineffectiveness of the force resulted in its disbandment in May The comprehensive approach to counter-insurgency campaigns in Afghanistan by the US has been inherited by the Obama Administration. The Obama Administration s strategy for securing Afghanistan is to build up the size of the Afghan army and police rapidly, up to 134,000 and 82,000 respectively, in two years. Furthermore, the Obama Administration has adopted an integrated civilian-military counter-insurgency strategy. For example, the Administration claimed that the development of a strategic communications strategy to counter the terror information campaign would be urgent. Furthermore, the Administration expressed the provision of support for other Afghan security forces such as the Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF). 42 In fact, the US-funded APPF Program was created following the failure of ANPA in January The creation of APPF was a response to the shortfall in Afghan regular troops and police with the intention to disband private security companies. This was a tentative guardian force which provides public protection but not law enforcement. In other words, the APPF programme has no legal powers of arrest and will only detain suspects for handover to the uniformed police force. 44 However, a number of Afghan officials criticized the programme for diverting resources and undermining efforts to create a professional national police force. 45 The decision of the Afghan Government to transfer protection responsibilities of private security companies to APPF by the end of 2010 was delayed by difficulties in establishing mechanisms for transitioning away from existing 41 Perito R. M. Afghanistan s Police: The Weak Link in Security Sector Reform, United States Institute of Peace Special Report 227, August 2009, p Reidel B. White Paper of the Interagency Policy Group s Report on US Policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan, 27 March 2009, pp Accessed on 2 May Perito R. M. p The Long War Journal, 25 March accessed on 3 May Perito M. R. p

16 contracts with private security companies. 46 In a similar context, the US funded the Local Defense Initiatives (LDI) which was designed to help Afghans resist the Taliban in their villages. The aim of the LDI was to provide security in places where there were relatively few ISAF and Afghan security forces, bridging the gap until more Afghan army and police forces could be trained. The personnel in LDI were not supposed to be provided with weapons and payment - however they receive training and support from US forces as well as development work for their villages and communities. Both the US and Afghan officials expressed hopes that in the Initiatives tens of thousands of Afghans would ultimately join local militias which could serve as a tripwire for the Afghan army and the police. 47 However, as the Washington Post put it, the LDI was a bold and potentially risky initiative to support local militia. 48 Reportedly, since there was no detailed plan to connect these local forces to the Ministry of the Interior, they could fuel the rise of warlords and undermine the Afghan Government. The local tribal leaders could also manipulate US officers who do not understand local politics and tribal grievances in a particular area. As a result, it could trigger further corruption. The design of the LDI strongly reflected US domestic politics: the US Ambassador and the top US military commander in Afghanistan were under intense pressure to show fast results to take advantage of 30,000 US troops that would arrive in Afghanistan in Thus, the US has tried to provide many informal supports for security in Afghanistan through ANPA, APPF and LDI, under the guise of auxiliary and guardian forces, and informal training initiatives. The US strategy to boost local security in Afghanistan has taken advantage of the state s abundant financial and personnel resources and aimed to solve security problems in a short period. The US simply considers that since Afghanistan is a vast country, domestic security urgently requires a larger number of army and police forces. However, it underestimated the potential risk of such quick-fixes and immature security forces in a state where a local level of intelligence is lacking and social structure is so vulnerable to conflicts, corruption and bribery. In fact, it has been believed that a large number of the members of the ANP have already been involved in the drug trade. There is also no guarantee that the quickly selected and trained members in APPF and LDI have no links to criminal or drug networks. Also, the US strategy of multi-framed security has a problem of the safety of the security forces themselves. It does not matter for the Taliban or other insurgents whether the Afghan security personnel are armed or unarmed, and well-trained or poorly-trained. Consequently, the personnel in ANPA, APPF and LDI are more vulnerable to attacks from 46 UN Document S/2011/120, Report of the Secretary General: the situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security, 9 March 2011, para The New York Times, 22 January The Washington Post, 22 January Ibid. 16

17 insurgents than the official Afghan army and police forces. Furthermore, there is a feeling of dissatisfaction and discomfort towards these privileged security personnel in Afghan society. For example, salary in APPF will start at $100 a month, rising to a maximum of $250 for an APPF captain. 50 This rate is not so different from those of the official members of ANA and ANP. On the whole, in Afghanistan, there is significant disagreement on the potential effectiveness of a quicklytrained security force, supported by the US. Conclusion This paper initially described how the case of peace-making and peace-building in Afghanistan are perceived to be difficult to implement due to its uniqueness. The uniqueness stemmed from the coexistence of the UN and multi-national forces, and the co-existence of combat operations and midconflict peace-building. In other words, this paper identified a considerable difficulty in the compatibility of US and NATO-led security policy with the multiple frameworks model of peacebuilding in Afghanistan. Essentially, ISAF and OEF themselves became the sources of conflicts rather than peace-makers, and therefore as their size increased and their operations intensified, they encountered more serious provocative campaigns from the Taliban who also expanded their insurgency operations to relatively secure areas. This resulted in an increase in the number of civilian casualties. The US and NATO s one security policy considerably undermined the DDR process in Afghanistan. The lack of personnel in ISAF inevitably depended on anti-taliban warlords for assisting their military operations and providing them with intelligence on the Taliban. As a result, the warlords were privileged to obtain governmental positions after the successful completion of their DDR process. However, the fact that ISAF virtually marginalized or even ignored their notorious human rights records in the past also undermined the justice sector in the peace-building process in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the employment of such ex-militias who lacked administrative skills and professionalism consequently exacerbated corruption in the public sector such as the involvement in bribery and the drugs trade. It is no coincidence that the world CPI ranking of Afghanistan has been deteriorating since the DDR process was disrupted. This case implies that a security policy led by a heavily-armed, rich military ally, to a considerable extent, prioritized a retaliatory measure of one superpower and member state against international terrorists to the consideration of domestic affairs and history. Such a policy consequently procrastinated the peace-building process to the detriment of social stability, good governance, justice and democratization. 50 The Long War Journal, 25 March accessed on 3 May

18 The US and NATO-led security policy has been a negative influence on peace-building in the sector of police-force training too. The US, which has been eager to combat the insurgency, has expected the Afghan police force to play an active role for military operations. This has inevitably marginalized their original missions such as protection of civilians and maintenance of rule of law. US policy in building the police sector has focused mainly on the quantity side, which may not be accepted even by some of its allies such as Germany which has rather valued the quality side of the police force in Afghanistan. One can pose a question about the US and NATO s comprehensive strategy for counter-insurgency such as establishment of an auxiliary security policy including ANPA, APPF and LDI. Such a short-sighted comprehensive security policy would undermine efforts to create an authentic and professional national police force in Afghanistan. Peace- or state-building would be more successful when a more limited number of military or police forces are trained with a longer-term perspective until such forces become more mature, skillful and trusted by Afghan society. A principle of patience and a long-term vision has always been required to obtain sustainable development by peacekeepers and peace-builders. Just tentative and auxiliary guardians and trainees in an unofficial military and police services are not considered to be compatible with the principle of peace-building. This is not to say that the US and NATO forces are not demanded or required in Afghanistan. It is considered that the US as well as NATO was under intense pressure to proceed peace-making and peace-building in a prompt manner after 9.11 and the Bonn Conference. Furthermore, one can ask the serious question of whether the US and its allies could understand this difficulty due to the uniqueness in the case of conflict resolution and peace-building in Afghanistan. How can the Afghan issues be solved? This paper pointed out that many of chronic issues in Afghanistan including justice, corruption, drug trafficking and police force have involved ex-afghan militias and warlords. The international community should continue providing social aid to the militias, while it should make more efforts to recruit the personnel in the government or parliament positions and police and military forces from a wider range of Afghan society. The current ISAF plan of completing the transition to full Afghan responsibility for security by the end of 2014 would be more preferable than its current full-blown counter-insurgency operations. However, ISAF s gradual withdrawal should be accompanied by the UN-led negotiation and reconciliation process with the Taliban. While the Obama Administration currently has a policy towards Afghanistan of defeating the hardcore Taliban militarily and engaging with the moderate elements, some moderate Taliban groups have expressed a willingness to enter into discussions regarding reconciliation. Reportedly, even some leaders of the Taliban consider that negotiations can be started if a withdrawal timetable 18