Afghan National Defence Security Forces Issues in the Train, Advise and Assist Efforts
Contents ABSTRACT...2 THE AFGHAN SECURITY FORCES REFORMS (2001-2015)...3 THE CURRENT APPROACH...5 CONCLUSION...7 Page1
ABSTRACT In September 2017 SIGAR published a report titled Reconstructing the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces: Lessons From the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan. The report examines how the U.S. government developed and executed security sector assistance (SSA) programs to build, train, advise, and equip the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces from 2002 through 2016. The aim of this paper is to review the progression of the process to implement the recommendations of the SIGAR report and identify the shortfalls in the strategies that have hindered effective construction of the ANDSF and paved the way for the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan. This paper also compares the contours of President Ghani s new four year ANDSF roadmap and emerging US strategies to past efforts in order to assess future effectiveness. Page2
THE AFGHAN SECURITY FORCES REFORMS (2001-2015) Developing credible indigenous security forces in Afghanistan has been a linchpin of the US Afghan strategy. However, the progression of this initiative has been a perilous journey. The initial intended aim under the Bush administration was to keep US commitments of nation building at minimum, and instead develop credible Afghan security forces that may substitute the international forces and cater to providing a stable environment for sustainable socio-economic development. But, overlooking certain Afghan ethnic dynamics, US strategy in 2001, primarily sought assistance of anti-taliban militias of the Northern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban Regime. This approach exacerbated ethnic contentions and enabled a nexus of corruption and in some cases warlords domination to usurp power and attain key security positions embedding and perpetuating Afghan insecurities. Senior Afghan Security officials of the initial Afghan interim government phase supported the concept of creating a large scale Transitional Afghan Militia Force composed of fighters that helped in defeating the Taliban. The aim was to eventually evolve this militia into a smaller force of professionally trained soldiers. However, the efforts to transform politicized militias into a nationwide professional force could not materialize, primarily owing to the ethnic imbalances and multifaceted corruption. Realizing the adverse impact of such an approach, the US and coalition partners by 2003 tried to overhaul the structure of the Afghan Army by introducing some measures to correct the ethnic imbalances and trying to bring in recruits from comparatively professional channels such as the Kabul Military Training Centre. But, these measures proved to be inadequate. The second issue in effective development of ANSF stemmed from US lack of clarity on finding the appropriate expertise for the mission. The initial responsibility was delegated to US Special Forces but owing the scale of the Afghan mission, this task was eventually taken up by various divisions of US Conventional Forces. But the incoherencies in approaches stemming from rotation of the US forces complicated issues. The differences in strategic thinking and military history of US and Afghanistan also created a lag in producing immediate results. Furthermore, by 2003 the US engaged in other wars. This created capacity limitations on US forces and further added to the burden of assigning appropriate US Army divisions for Afghan Force training. Page3
The intended framework at the inception of the Afghan War sought to divide the ANSF reform responsibility amongst coalition partners. This strategy birthed unique challenges stemming from the structural differences of various militaries. Limits set by various national caveats also often created disparities in aspired outcomes. A prominent example of this phenomenon manifested itself in the Afghan National Police construction efforts. The initial task of structuring the Afghan National Police was delegated to Germany, which aimed at creating a civil law enforcing body. For the US, the core objective was to defeat Taliban and dismantle Al Qaeda -- thus for them the initial concept of a police force revolved around counterinsurgency rather than law enforcement. This once again created a loophole under which relying on politicized forces to carry out policing tasks was preferred. Thus, Germany on its part remained engaged with higher levels of ANP, but the US aim further entrenched the power of local warlords and corruption -- which till date impede the emergence of a national policing force. By 2007 the US along with Afghan officials moved on with the plan to further expand the size and scope of the ANSF and expedite training efforts. It is noteworthy that this strategy was building upon inadequately addressed weaknesses. Therefore, the expansion itself turned into a major root cause of several current Afghan insecurities. The expansion led to a further dilution in the quality of recruits and the US and the coalition partners were unable to cope with the required training efforts. Because of improper vetting procedures, the illiteracy rates in the armed forces drastically spiked up, posing difficulties in professional development efforts. Towards 2008, the US made efforts to harmonize the weapons and equipment system of the Afghan Forces by procuring US and NATO standard weapons. But, owing to illiteracy and lack of adequate training the dependency of Afghan forces on the US only increased. Due to deteriorating security President Obama in December 2009 announced another troop surge of 30,000 -- increasing U.S. force strength to a total of 100,000. Alongside this, a transition mechanism was created amongst the coalition and Afghan partners aimed at gradually decreasing troop levels and delegating ownership to Afghan Security Forces by mid-2011. In this period, the US tried to introduce some initiatives to reform the Afghan MOD and MOI, improve accountability and oversight, turn the ANP into a paramilitary force, equip and train the ANA and the AAF, and improve recruitment mechanisms. Realizing the impracticality of the timeline to accomplish all those objectives, the NATO Lisbon Conference also agreed to turn the transition period into a condition based time framework. However, these efforts could not remedy the intrinsic issues and reform the expanding forces professionally. From 2011 onwards it was noted that insider Page4
attacks also began to exponentially increase, rampant corruption continued plaguing the Afghan Forces, reports of local forces selling arms to insurgents including Taliban began to surface and desertion rates remained high. Despite all this, on January 1, 2015, U.S. and NATO forces officially changed missions to Operation Freedom s Sentinel and Resolute Support, respectively. In March 2015, the US and Afghan governments announced that troop levels would be kept at 9,800 for training and advising purposes till the end of 2015. However, given the rapidly deteriorating situation stemming from the fault lines in the Afghan Forces, the US once again decided to keep additional troops in Afghanistan and loosen some restrictions on the role of those troops. THE CURRENT APPROACH The current situation indicates that the local insurgency has regained strength. New terror groups are also utilizing the political instability to their advantage. It is largely agreed that the overall security situation is deteriorating. This is what has emerged from the new US military approach: 1. The use of unilateral decisive force against the terror groups would continue; 2. Through the new mini surge the US would focus on train, advise and assist missions of Afghan Forces along with NATO; 3. The US would conduct close operations alongside Afghan Forces and provide close air support to supplement ground operations and fill gaps of Afghan Air Force capabilities; 4. Recent reports also indicate use of specialized CIA teams to carry out hunt and kill operations against the Taliban an approach that has been welcomed by the Afghan government; 5. The new strategy steers away from the business of nation building but realising the direct impact of institutional integrity on security, the reforming of the Afghan MOI and MOD is a part of the US strategy; 6. A greater reliance on Drones and air strikes in response to actionable intelligence. All these efforts are meant to support President Ghani s 4-year ANDSF roadmap. The roadmap is supposed to be a condition based series of development initiatives. The broad contours of the plan are as follows: 1. Establish leadership selection and management processes. 2. Double the size and combat power of the Afghan Special Security Forces (ASSF), further developing the capabilities of the Afghan Air Force (AAF). 3. Improve resource management. 4. Create unity of command and effort. 5. Reduce corruption. 6. Shift the ANP away from combat operations to civilian policing. Page5
Supposedly, some actions to counter corruption in the ANDSF are in the pipeline. A multilateral command centre the National Mission Brigade Headquarters has been created to improve checks and balances. The Afghan goal for 2018, states that the ANDSF will seek to employ their emerging ASSF capabilities for an increasingly offensive posture on the battlefield. In 2019, the aim is for ANDSF to deploy the full range of their newly developed capabilities. And in 2020, the ANDSF would focus on consolidation by maintaining their strength, infrastructure, and territorial gains. According to a recent report the US has approved contracts worth billions for the ANDSF. The DoD recently awarded a series of contracts in support of the Afghan Air Force and Special Mission Wing in ongoing efforts to boost the ANDSF capabilities. Some of which include: A contract for the Afghan Air Force worth $69.3 million for AC-208 armed intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft requirements. $1.3 billion for procurement of an estimated quantity of 150 MD 530F aircraft and required production support services to include program management, delivery support, pilot training and maintenance for AAF. And as part of a planned replacement of its ageing fleet of Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters, four US-made UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters have been delivered. This builds on to the Common Policy Agreement signed in September 2016 that established guidelines to help the MOD improve internal behaviour and professionalize the force. The US is reportedly looking to implement electronic systems aimed at improving checks and balances against corruption. The new strategy also asserts that US support to Afghan Forces would be conditional in order to influence Afghan leadership. It has also been noted that following the drawdown of forces the US advisors had to primarily rely on ANA s selfassessments of performance at the headquarters level. This insufficient visibility led to inconsistencies in advising and training. The closer support also aims to remedy this issue. Reports suggest that the US and Afghan government are considering raising new militia forces within the Afghan Local Police. The concept is meant to be modelled after the Indian Territorial Army. For that end, during Abdullah Abdullah s visit to India in September the scope of Technical Cooperation on Police Training and Development was discussed. The Afghan National Army Special Forces are considered a comparatively well trained and effective unit that is capable of countering insurgency. Efforts to expand the size of the Special Forces is also under consideration. Training Afghan personnel in US facilities in the US has faced the problem of recruits deserting and disappearing. Page6
The US air combat in Afghanistan has reportedly reached all time high levels. 751 bombs were dropped in September alone. The CIA is also planning to carry out covert operations in Afghanistan, by sending small teams of highly experienced officers and contractors alongside Afghan forces to hunt and kill Taliban militants across the country. The large scale use of contractors is under consideration. CONCLUSION It has been noted that following ISAF s official withdrawal from combat role, the ANSF were only partially able to fight the insurgency. The rampant corruption on all levels in the Afghan security establishment, illiteracy, inadequate training of forces, ethnic imbalances, and desertions remain prominent issues of the Afghan Forces. Some pressing questions that come to mind are: 1. How would conditionality compel the Afghan top security officials to do things differently if the certainty of US enduring interests and stay now exists? 2. How would one strengthen the Afghan security institutions and inculcate professionalism? 3. How can the notion of further expansion of indigenous forces be protected from the dilution of quality? 4. How and when would the Afghan military dependency on US support end? 5. How would the multi-ethnic force be united as a national force, if ever? So far, from what has emerged, well-structured plans to fix these issues are nowhere to be seen. The US contends that its core purpose is to pacify the insurgency and dismantle terrorist networks while refraining from the business of nation building. The Afghan Government seems to have delayed the responsibility of efficient governance yet again. Firstly, the notion of structuring one s security forces is in principle nation building - therefore it should not be taken in half. The US on its part views the overall deterioration of Afghan security through restricted prisms of external factors or timelines. The bitter reality dictates that after 16 years the security situation has relapsed and a credible indigenous force is not yet in place -- it is noteworthy that the efforts to reconstruct ANSF have been ongoing since 2002. it is important to consider why the US along with the expertise of half the world could not accomplish this goal and how will it be possible to combat terrorism, subdue insurgency and at the same time raise an effective credible force now? It is evident that for now the US is essentially taking the lead in combat, the events so far also dictate that the approach is heavily militaristic with the focus on battlefield successes. With the added benefit of no time frames one may even Page7
assume that the intended goal may be achieved, just like the previous military gains achieved in Afghanistan but will these be sustainable? But nothing answers what the next step would be? Perhaps more focus on training the Afghan Forces? Looking at the deeply entrenched crisis of the ANSF - one cannot be certain how long it would take to reform it effectively. It is important to note the intricate underlying socio-economic and political issues that bog down the Afghan forces in security crises. This implies that bringing the Taliban to the table would be the ultimate option and the military success is supposed to achieve that. Perhaps this could be done without the military option by a more realistic strategy based on diplomacy and politics. After all nothing highlights US failure in Afghanistan more starkly than the fact that 45% of Afghan space is under Taliban control and this includes a 648 kilometre segment of the border with Pakistan, that opium production is at an all-time high and that militant organizations of all kinds including ISIS have secure sanctuaries in Afghanistan. Dr Harlan Ullman in a recent commentary made an important point that The good news is none of these regional or terrorist threats are existential. The tragic truth is that the political process may not be capable of providing for the common defence with objectivity, rationality and common sense. Finally, if India, under US tutelage, makes the mistake of venturing into Afghanistan then all restraints would be off on the response to the violence from Afghan soil. The Taliban will not take kindly to one alien presence being augmented or replaced by another and the fiercely independent Afghans will feel humiliated and insulted as a people. The best option for the US is to stop creating confrontations in the region using India and the Afghan President as tools and work on creating the kind of cooperation that will bring peace and stability to Afghanistan and give the US an exit strategy---but does the US really ever want to exit from Afghanistan? Page8