Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan by Jonathan Goodhand and Aziz Hakimi, United States Institute of Peace.
Arming local defense forces in Afghanistan has had mixed and often perverse effects on the security of local populations, according to this study on the role and impact of the Afghan Local Police in three provinces. These findings suggest that, as international forces draw down, the ALP will require stronger state oversight and absorption into the national police force…
Comments
The document states that the ANAP program selectees only received ten days of training. The Afghan Public Protection Program selectees got a bit more at 21 days. Not sure what the Community Defense Initiative/Local Defense Initiative got or the ALP/VSO but certainly not multiple weeks of training.
Now imagine a peaceful U.S. where we expected neighborhood watches or even reserve police officers to carry around AKs with a similar degree of training. We would not expect a non-professional police force to guard the U.S. Why would we believe it a primary strategy for protecting Iraqi or Afghans?
Yet had we left immediately after both initial conflicts in 2002 and 2003, that would have been the best either country could have hoped for and the Taliban, warlord militias, or Baathist Iraqi troops would have returned. This paper appears to describe that local arbaki and previous Taliban or warlord militias often just changed sides and put on uniforms, agreeing in theory to work for the Minister of the Interior who pays them using primarily U.S. funds.
The ANP has always had a bad rep for abuse of power, but at least there were 148,500 of them as of February 2013. This document implies that it is no different for the ALP/VSO. Even in Baghlan, the Pashtun ALP abused fellow Pashtuns according to this:
<blockquote>The predominantly Pashtun ALP in Baghlan, for example, has a record of harming and abusing the Pashtun communities it is purportedly protecting. According to a local elder, the ALP played a role in improving security, illustrated by the fact that he could drive to Dande-Ghori, Shahabuddin, and Dahana-e-Ghori areas, which were off limits before the establishment of the arbaki and ALP. But he also pointed out that the ALP was mostly made of former Hizb and Taliban fighters—only the labels had changed. This improvement in security is independent of, and even despite, the various police formations.</blockquote>
Agree or disagree there is a lot in this report
http://www.usip.org/publications/counterinsurgency-local-militias-and-s…!
Counterinsurgency, Local Militias, and Statebuilding in Afghanistan
"•ALP militias are less a threat to national-level stability and more a danger that after 2014 an oversized and unevenly trained national armed force will fragment into numerous competing militias.
•Outsourcing community protection and defense to the ALP—rather than extending state power and legitimacy—may have had the opposite effect.
•The ALP will not go away, has already left a long-term legacy that Afghans will have to deal with, and is symptomatic of a wider deficiency of the post-2001 intervention."
Move Forward,
While I don't disagree with your comments on the potential ineffectiveness of the VSO/ALP programs, the logic you used to come to your conclusion seems flawed to me. I think Dave's comments below are worth considering, but as he said it is a counterfactual argument at this point. When the VSO program was implemented it definitely seemed out of line with the overall strategic objective of empowering the Afghanistan Government. Whether we agree or not with the goal, that is/was the policy and the VSO program was not aligned with that. It also begs the question of whether we're doing FID or we're still an occupation force? If Karsai didn't want it and we did it anyway that points to our actions speak louder than our words. I wasn't in Vietnam, but in reviewing the CIDG program, especially with the teams with the Yards, the South Vietnamese didn't support that program either, so once again it seems we were at cross purposes between our state policy and operational approach. None of this calls into question the tactical competence of the teams who conduct VSO missions or conducted the CIDG missions, but if they were aligned with the strategy or counterproductive.
Agree or disagree with the programs, you can't compare the VSO/ALP program with developing the ANA and ANP. The two are very different animals and approaches. Building the ANA and ANP is ultimately institution building, which is essential for the future of Afghanistan. At best the VSO/ALP is a holding action, and is ultimately intended to be rolled into the ANP if that is possible. Is that a pie in the sky idea? Maybe, but it illustrates why you can't compare them, one is intended to be ephemeral while the ANA/ANP is intended to be an enduring institution.
To state that the conventional army can train partner nation militaries better than SF in my opinion is laughable after watching the Army fail repeatedly when training and advising tactical level units due to their clumsy and inflexible approach. One only need compare the competence and professionalism of the Afghan Commandos, which is part of ANA to the rest of the ANA, or Iraqi SOF to Iraq's conventional units. SF does, or at least did a good job of training up the company level. Doctrine states we train up to the Bn level, but that is a bit of stretch for an ODA. Can they do it? Yes, are we the best at it, I hope not, but maybe. Anything larger than BN we definitely need Army competence in forming bureaucratic systems (DOTMILPF) that will be critical to ultimately developing a self-sustaining capability (institution), but that doesn't mean we need entire BDE training teams, it means we need tailored training teams from the Army composed of Officers and NCOs that are deeply experienced, culturally astute, and have mental dexterity (meaning they can adapt the doctrine they know to make it appropriate for their partners). The Army has hundreds of these individuals, it is just a matter of identifying them and ensuring their careers are not destroyed when they do these missions.
Your argument about a resurgent insurgency in Iraq means little more than the political process failed, not that their security forces failed (mostly built by the Army, not SOF). We left with a bad system in place that a lot of us assumed would eventually crumble if it didn't evolve.
I've gotten half way through this well written and researched document. The conclusion that I draw, right or wrong, is that SF is no better at establishing a long-term local security force than larger general purpose forces are by training local ANP/ANA. The primary advantage of the ALP is its lower cost relative to the ANP/ANA. However, even the study acknowledges that as soon as the SF leave the area, the ALP would be highly susceptible to being slaughtered along with their families since most recruits are local.
Then there is this quote:
<blockquote>The U.S. SOFs shared the view of most Pashtuns that the dominance of the security sector by the Tajik-Jamiat faction was illegitimate. By siding with the Pashtuns and isolating the process from political interference by the dominant power brokers from Jamiat, the U.S. military made the ALP program in Baghlan even more controversial. </blockquote>
I've often been puzzled by some of RCJs comments that implied that the Pashtuns were mistreated by the Tajiks/Hazaras/Uzbeks/etc which of course is understandable given the Pashtun embrace of the Taliban which in turn embraced al Qaeda and abused the other ethnicities. The question then becomes, do you assume a strategic policy of favoring the majority of other ethnicities other than the Pashtun or do you favor the Pashtun plurality which has a history of unclean hands relative to the Taliban/Sharia Law and al Qaeda?
SF who train ALP seemingly cannot avoid the Stockholm Syndrome of identifying with the ideology of local forces. SF cannot help but adapt the views of those around them if they are to be effective in leading those ALP, be they Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek or other since they are local forces and generally one ethnicity is dominating that part of a district. As the article points out, this can lead to the SF performing functions contrary to the wishes of President Karzai the elected GIRoA Parliament and governors not to mention ISAF as a whole.
In addition, let me use this opportunity to dispute another favorite bashing point. These are the civilian casualty figures in Iraq as identified by Iraqbodycount.org as shown in Wikipedia:
2003...12092
2004...11638
2005...16223
2006...29293
2007...25755
2008...10040
2009...5140
2010...4109
2011...4147
2012...4574
2013...7900 estimate
Clearly, the levels of violence in 2013 are approaching 80% of 2008 but that was considered (and was) greatly decreased from the period of 2005 through 2007. That means about 1 in 4000 Iraqis may be subject to dying from a rebounding insurgency. Compare that to 1 in 10,000 Americans susceptible to dying in a car crash. It's a serious problem to be sure. However, if a large Iraqi military and police force did not exist, made possible by long term presence of major general purpose forces, the casualties no doubt would be far higher.
Likewise, were it not for our hands off policy in Syria which has allowed an al Qaeda resurgence near and into Iraq, the casualty figures also would be lower. The Surge worked. The Iraqi security forces worked immediately after we left. They would still be working effectively if we had not withdrawn nearly in entirety following the failure to establish a SOFA with their government. Let's hope Afghanistan does not make the same mistake.
After a quick read of this report one of the shortfalls is that it does not assess the early efforts conducted by Special Forces in 2002-2004 with local indigenous forces. For the most part the report focuses on 2008 and later. Any think any comprehensive assessment of these programs should include what really came before and efforts were abandoned due to lack of support by higher HQ and lack of understanding of the potential impact of focus on the local security challenges from the beginning rather than approaching the problem from a national level and one size fits all program. I wonder of the whole ALP/VSO effort might be characterized as too much, too fast, and too late. Too much because they tried to make the program bigger than it was capable of being, too fast because they tried to expand it too fast because for some it appeared to be the silver bullet, and too late because if there had been real support for sustained efforts in 2002-2004 perhaps Afghanistan would be in a little better place than it is today. But of course that is a counterfactual but I think it is an idea that a study like this should address. Maybe the idea will be debunked but I think it is worthy of study.