Afghan Soldiers Desperate for Pact with US, Criticize President Karzai for Delay by Kevin Sieff, Washington Post.
The Afghan soldiers fighting the Taliban have grown confident in their ability to combat an agile insurgency. But for those on the front lines, one question casts a shadow over the young army’s progress.
What if the United States - and its funding - vanish from Afghanistan?
That outcome has become increasingly probable with President Hamid Karzai’s refusal to sign a bilateral security agreement that would allow the United States to maintain a small military presence here beyond 2014. Now, Afghan troops are beginning to raise their voices against Karzai, demanding at great personal risk that he sign the pact.
“If the international community leaves, there is no question that we will lose ground to the Taliban,” Col. Mohammad Dost, a battalion commander in Zabul province, said in an interview. “It’s the biggest worry for every soldier now.”
In recent weeks, soldiers have voiced that concern in local television interviews and in newspaper op-eds, despite not being authorized by the government to speak on the topic. For some, the consequences have been grave…
Comments
I can understand why the cited ANSF sources are 'desperate'. It is simple they will not be PAID. There are many other - military - reasons, which are familiar to those who serve and watch.
It does appear that for political reasons GIRoA is unwilling to be clear on a post 2014 SOFA and related agreements, which includes funding.
Currently GIRoA and the 'coalition of the willing' appear publicly not to have considered alternatives to a limited military presence (whatever it is called), a training & SOF presence (which I assume is smaller than 14k) and nothing (exc. diplomatic guards).
Then there is the closely linked issue whether contractors will remain and be welcome after a possible coalition exit. If there is no - external and mainly US - funding there will be no contractors.
It would be a twist of history if GIRoA used externally funded paid PMCs to provide support.
Personally I cannot see the ANSF accepting under foreseeable circumstances non-Afghans, even if Muslims, in direct command positions as one commentator suggests.
Another way to look at the issue is that since WWII this country has militarily intervened in numerous countries. Some of those interventions have left chaos in their wake and some have produced successful results -- if one defines success as the existing government being able to sustain itself after U.S. forces depart. In some instances U.S. forces have remained in a country, however, only where no ongoing “actual” sustained combat activities are occurring such as in Korea. Thus, It appears that (perhaps by default) American policy permits retaining conventional sized and organized forces in countries requesting (?) our troops presence for an extended (multi-decade) period only when that nation’s geographical area is free of conflict.
Without addressing any personal biases on whether I believe military intervention is a positive or negative occurrence (and I am not certain one can logically take a stance on either extreme), our interventions seem to succeed when the country into which we intervene has an in-place government the population actually prefers to that of the opposing party, where the country has geographical borders that can be secured and thus eliminate the interjection and extraction of enemy forces at will exemplified by Korea and the Philippines or they have a neighboring country which is not actively supporting the opposing side. It also never seems to succeed when there is a viable opposition located in the country (at the time of our departure) which is led and armed sufficiently to withstand their eradication by government forces and the populations in which they operate are either supportive of them or neutral, i.e. do not actively support the government forces for whatever reason as exemplified by what occurred in Vietnam and seems to be occurring in Afghanistan.
Add to the above the critical factor that the military and police we leave behind must be capable of standing on their own and that appears to result when their ranks are filled by members of the same ethnic group as the greater majority of the local population; when they have the necessary organization and capable unit leadership, have a logistics system in place, and have the critically necessary air support. They cannot be viewed by their native peoples as corrupt or as the military force imposed on them by an outside power.
While we don’t , we could employ the once successful British colonial system of organizing, sufficiently arming, sustaining, and leading with American Officers native regiments sufficiently sized and stationed in an area whose objective is to apply the necessary violence as needed to crush any opposition – aided by U.S. provided air support. That would be a costly alternative since it appears we would gain nothing of economic value from Afghanistan to offset those costs – and a colonial era approach has certainly gone out of style.
The point being that both the Afghan Government and the Afghan National Army (ANA) is faced with a dilemma similar to that of the South Vietnamese Government and the ARVN when the U.S. withdrew its forces from that country. When American military forces are inserted into a country and effectively take over the conduct of an internal war to the benefit of one aide, that entity and its government have only a certain (albeit unspecified) number of years to be able to independently sustain themselves before the politically motivated U.S. government will cease supporting it. In all likelihood the average Afghan soldier is certainly uneducated if not illiterate, but the same cannot be said of their political and military leadership. Common sense (and they are cunning enough to have that common sense) dictated that before any Afghans effectively throw their lot in with and staked their future welfare and life span on the promises of an occupying power, they should have read its history.
From what I have read in blog articles recently being posted on sites such as "War on the Rocks," in papers having appeared in other Journals, and from what I have heard from comments made by those who have been in Afghanistan during discussions on C-Span, etc it appears (at least to me) that a substantial part of the ANA consists of non-Pashtuns; therefore one would presume soldiers from the Northern Alliance areas. If true, their leaders should have been wise enough to inform this country they would support our efforts in Afghanistan, but only do so in their own tribal areas or slightly over its borders in return for military aid and assistance and noted they would not move further forward absent the U.S obtaining support from a sufficiently viable tribal groups among the Pashtuns and their providing military units to fight for us. They didn’t act with that common sense and now find themselves (or at least their men) potentially exposed deep into and disbursed throughout Pashtun territory. It will only take one or two post U.S. withdrawal defeats before self preservation takes over and those non Pashtun troops and their officers withdraw and head back to their tribal areas.
If the U.S. maintains advisers and provides air support liberally applied the above may not happen – at least until we withdraw completely. You can wager on that occurring if the Afghan National Army does not operate at a level where they can sustain themselves. Is it fair that they may run out of bullets as Carl noted, certainly not; but recall what happened to the South Vietnamese military. They believed the U.S. would support them after we withdrew. Then Congress began cutting the funds going to them and eventually their Air Force was all but grounded due to lack of spare parts, as an example. OF course, their leaders were still stashing money in their overseas accounts. Eventually, a conservative Republican President, who served as a Navy Officer in the Pacific during WWII, decided to no longer provide them air support. The result was as expected.
What will happen in Afghanistan remains to be seen, but in all likelihood the county will break up (again) into its tribal areas, the groups will fight each other along their internal tribal borders, much of those Taliban in temporary exile in Pakistan will return, etc. Does this country have a strategic national interest in preventing that from occurring -- not really. Will Al Qaeda elements return to Afghanistan, perhaps; but so what -- better they are located in that isolated country and if they appear to be a potential nuisance liberally applied suddenly appearing "numerous" Cruise Missiles or bombs from B-2's can keep them on edge and on the move.
The stability operations / COIN occupation game is over for the U.S. in that country. The future as the philosopher is reported to have said is in their hands.
Robert C. Jones:
Yeah, if only we hadn't gone off half cocked after those towers fell down and crushed 3,000 of us the Pak Army/ISI could have made sure the set of warlords devoted to working for the people won years ago.
I don't blame the scorpion for being a scorpion. I blame us for being the frog.
Carl,
What I have said is that the Northern Alliance-based government of Afghanistan, elevated into power by the US, is defacto illegitmate for that very reason.
I have always advocated for a milita-based, sustainable security structure for Afghanistan. But the last thing an illegitimate Nothern Alliance government wants is a security force that works for the people rather than for them. The wanted a centralized system of patronage and a centralized system of security. And they wanted us to fund and protect the same. At this point the core leaders are richer than Midas and no longer feel it is worth the benefit to continue to put up with the cost of our Western presence.
As to Pakistan, they conduct UW to leverage their shared Pashto population to advance their vital national interests in Afghanistan. That will never change. Unlike the US, Pakistan actually has both a vital national interest and shared population in Afghanistan. We have no such existential, enduring reasons to be there. Like the fable of the scorpion and the frog...don't blame the scorpion for being a scorpion.
We had a vital national interest in conducting a decisive punative expedition against AQ, and against a Taliban government that looked the other way while those villians prepared to attack us. That was a 2-3 week operation/interest at best. That has expired long ago, and everything since has been largely a mix of well-intended but misguided hubris and folly.
Robert C. Jones:
So you say a "warlord" militia system is the workable, sustainable security mechanism there,". That I believe described the Northern Alliance, which you have said on many occasions was not a workable system and caused bad governance which caused all the trouble in the first place. So which is it, is a warlord system workable or is it not workable?
The superiors of that ANA soldier are remarkable people. They will be taking a cut of money that won't be there at all if a security agreement isn't reached. That's a pretty neat trick.
Again I see you don't mention the Pak Army/ISI's proxy war against Afghanistan and all the resources that brings to bear.
When the ANA soldier runs out of ammo and fuel it will be because his superiors have all taken their cut of both - selling it to fulfill their duties to their patrons above, to dole out favors to their patrons below, and to pad their own personal accounts. This is how Afghanistan functions, and why a "warlord" militia system is the workable, sustainable security mechanism there, and not a "mini-me" Western army.
After all, the security threat there is one that has defeated/frustrated the Russians, Americans and British in recent years - are there any who truly believe that the ANA built in that image will fare better??
We invested in a building a security system that we see as "proper" rather than in a security system the culture and people see as "appropriate." But while there is a major security challenge in Afghanistan, the problem is not a security problem. We fixated on the symptoms rather than the problems, as in understanding the problems forces us to understand things about ourselves that we'd rather continue to pretend do not exist.
Soldiers do not set policy. Not in the US, and certainly not in Afghanistan.
Civilian leaders of Afghanistan will decide if they want the US to stay, to what degree and to what capacity. This is their sovereign right. If we say or act otherwise we are frauds of the highest order.
Civilian leaders will then move quickly to reduce both the size of the artifically large Afghan security forces and their mission to reflect the resources, interests and goals of that sovereign government - rather than those of ISAF.
It should not be any other way.
If the question is "will the ANA be able to sustain what ISAF currently believes the security mission to be in Afghanistan to acheive ISAF goals," then clearly the ANA Colonel is correct. The ANA cannot do that. But then neither could the ANA with 12 years of NATO support.
The challenge facing the government of Afghanistan (not the people, it is the government under attack, the people are caught in the middle of a much broader compeition for patronage wealth and power and opportunity that has little to do with "democracy" or "Islamism" or any other dogma)is remaining in control over the key nodes of patronage power for as long as possible. Most have grown so wealthy under ISAF protection and the Billions of dollars we have pumped into their patronage system that I would not be surprised that they have little appetite to hang on for long. This is a failed experiment in social engineering. Time will tell, but that time belongs to them not us. Time for us to take our watches and go home.
"And the top brass? Their careers march on."
Unfortunately, that is true. Lack of accountability for results seems to be the standard in the U.S. government, but that is nothing new. Westmoreland was transferred out of Vietnam and promoted and became Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. Sebilius (sp?) still has her job and will until the end of that administration. Rarely does a high ranking government appointee (and General / Flag Officers are de facto government appointees) find themselves forced out for a failure to perform. Regardless of his reasoning, as an Executive President Obama did not / has not restored the American economy as promised and the nation re-elected him.
When failure is not somehow punished, those in leadership / management roles in an organization understand success is not required for longevity and upward movement. Risk taking and speaking up are not rewarded, the status quo remains entrenched, and failures are ignored. We are getting the leadership environment from the officials we elect to office (everywhere and in all facets of our government -- not just in the Office of the President).
For whatever it is worth, I find it impressive that so many mid-range officers (Colonel and below) are willing to now risk their careers and stand up to the poor leadership and management of General / Flag Officers by publishing papers (often under their own name) pointing out(with factually substantive information) the discrepancies between official reports and what is actually occurring. One would NOT have seen that level of political courage in my time as a Navy Officer. And the fact that Marine Officers have entered into that community and are expressing critical views of their leadership really surprises me.
CBCalif:
You know my original inclination was to write something sardonic about the questionable accuracy of reports from our top brass, something along the lines of a riff on the French policeman's line from Casablanca about being "shocked". But it won't come. Too many people have died and will die. It's just so damn sad.
And the top brass? Their careers march on.
“If the international community leaves, there is no question that we will lose ground to the Taliban,” Col. Mohammad Dost, a battalion commander in Zabul province, said in an interview. “It’s the biggest worry for every soldier now.”
Two apparently realistic assessments about the true state of the Afghan National Army (ANA) which appear to be in concert with the content of many of the papers being published on blogs by younger Army and Marine Corps Officers who served or are currently serving in Afghanistan -- asserting the ANA is not ready to stand on its own against its opponents. And, statements (from an ANA Colonel) which call into question the accuracy of the reports being issued by our top brass about ANA’s capability / state of readiness to go it alone against the Taliban. On its face, the Colonel's statements are not a good sign.