Building Afghan Army Capacity While Fighting a Counterinsurgency
by Lieutenant Colonel Edward C. Ledford
Building Afghan Army Capacity (Full PDF Article)
During a 20 June 2007 press conference in Afghanistan, 82d Airborne Division's Colonel Marty Schweitzer described the approach to which he and the Soldiers of his 4th Brigade Combat Team had committed themselves during their rotation in the war-weary nation: "The 4th Brigade of the 82d is a subordinate formation to Colonel [sic] Khaliq and the 203rd Corps ... [Khaliq] developed this plan that we're currently executing."
Schweitzer added, "We've been fortunate . . . to be partnered with General Khaliq." Incidentally, General Khaliq sits to Colonel Schweitzer's left - in fact leading the press conference.
That press conference was over two years ago, so it was bitter irony to read Joe Giordono's Stars and Stripes article in February titled Afghans Will Help Plan, Execute Joint Missions. For fifteen months, from about January 2007 to April 2008, Soldiers of the 82d Airborne had set aside stereotypes, preconceptions, pride, fear and their more conventional and familiar tactics, techniques, and procedures in order to grow a significant and productive degree of trust between our Soldiers and the troopers in the Afghan National Army. They planned missions together, briefed missions together and executed missions together -- that was partnering. The idea Giordono's article headlines as a novelty or innovation was really old news...
That is, it should have been old news. At that point, we should have been well beyond thinking that Afghans will help our efforts; at that point, every coalition leader in Afghanistan should have understood that the Afghans must do much more than help.
The perspective we must adopt if we are ever to move forward is that we are there to help and support the Afghans succeed, and partnership is a big part of what will be that success. But we must understand what effective, embedded partnership means, and we must take it to its logical conclusion to achieve the greatest effects.
