COIN

Success in drawing down our combat forces in Afghanistan by 2014 supposedly depends on training the Afghan National Army (ANA) to assume responsibility for the country’s security. Hence the recent shift from COIN to SFA (Security Force Assistance). Even granting that our training efforts have expanded relatively recently, we have still been at this for 10 years. Why is the ANA unable to prevail over a batch of insurgents of similar cultural and economic background wearing flip-flops and toting AK-47’s?  It is, of course, always easier to be an insurgent since they have the initiative in attacking. But still, it seems hard to believe that the ANA are so much less capable than the insurgents and so much more in need of training.

Are the Opposing Fighting Forces Inherently Different?

The various insurgent factions (we tend to lump them all under the Taliban brand, although only some are connected with the Quetta Shura Taliban) seem to be a rag tag bunch. That is, they are Afghans. They are minimally equipped, depend on the local population for food and shelter, and do not shoot much more accurately than the ANA. Yes, they have R&R and training facilities just across the border in Pakistan, but how sophisticated are these? Do they compare with the sort of training that British and U.S. forces offer? The financial and logistical support from Pakistan may maintain the conflict at a simmer, but does not explain why the ANA would be less capable as a fighting force.

The ANA Model

 One problem is the model we have been trying to instill. The ANA is modeled on a Western army, carrying lots of equipment (even our bottled water), using M-16s that are harder to maintain than AK-47s, and requiring a complex supply/logistics/air asset/medevac support capability that the Afghans have no realistic chance of sustaining. The ANA are also being trained to plan in Western terms. It was once suggested that they be trained in the six steps of Marine Corps planning and in war-gaming. These conceptual tools seem unlikely to have much cultural resonance for the Afghans. (Afghan mission planning is reputed to consist of “We’re here; the enemy are over there. Let’s go.”) The Western training model with its reliance on written materials is also not well suited for a largely non-literate society. A fourth grade reading level is required for some Kabul-based training, and very few soldiers in the south qualify to attend. Soldiers are recruited and assigned nationwide, which means a burdensome human resource function as well as a lot of homesick or AWOL soldiers. If success in countering the insurgents depends on the ANA becoming a Western-style fighting force, we are looking at committing the projected $4.1 billion per year plus technical assistance for the indefinite future—an order of magnitude more than the insurgents are collectively spending. We would be better advised to focus on developing low-budget sustainable capability for a non-literate fighting force.

Do the Two Sides Care Equally?

The more fundamental issue may be motivation. Both ANA and Taliban come from the culture that managed to drive out the British and the Russians; Afghans of any stripe will fight tenaciously even against great odds when the outcome matters to them. It is possible that the various insurgents simply care more about their mission. They may be paid a stipend, or ideologically motivated (pro-Islam or anti-foreigner), or politically opposed to the Karzai regime, or profiting from the drug trade, or simply happy with a job close to home. (It has been reported that most Taliban are fighting within 20 km of home.) The assignment of ANA soldiers often puts them some distance from home and in battles they do not want to fight. (Witness the number of desertions of ANA headed for Marjah in 2010.) While the ANA have gained respect from the population, at least relative to the police, they do not appear to be motivated by any great cause. There is anecdotal evidence of families covering their bases with one son in the ANA and another in the Taliban. While I have seen some genuine ANA enthusiasm for defending the country against Pakistan, there is little apparent support for the Afghan government. It is hard to fight and die for the Karzai regime.

Training and mentoring are not going to overcome any of these motivational factors. Soldiers and citizens need a government they can believe in. The Karzai government is widely viewed as corrupt and incompetent and has refused to implement those portions of the 2004 Constitution calling for elected mayors and elected district, city and village councils. ANA performance may be more a symptom of Afghan governmental failure than a problem in its own right.  We might see considerably better outcomes if we focused our efforts on governmental accountability. With a credible government that had the loyalty of its citizens, the ANA motivational problem might take care of itself. There might also be fewer insurgents to deal with. With local electoral accountability, those who are simply anti-Karzai, as opposed to anti-American or pro-Taliban, could compete in the political arena rather than on the battlefield.

Conclusions

While there should not be inherent differences in the two fighting forces, several factors work in favor of the insurgents, and ANA training seems unlikely to make much of a difference. It is even conceivable that our Western design and training programs are subtracting capability—by pushing adoption of an alien military culture and by constantly telling the Afghans that they are falling short.

We have expected the ANA to fight as we do in order to protect a government that we support and Afghan citizens do not. The U.S. Government should insist on full implementation of the Constitution and the development of accountable sub-national government. We are wasting time and resources by interpreting the ANA difficulties as merely reflecting a training problem. 

You can find the pre-publication version of a new article by Stephen Biddle, Jeffrey Friedman, and Jacob Shapiro on the decline in violence in Iraq in 2007 at this link.

ABSTRACT 

Why did violence decline in Iraq in 2007? Many analysts credit the “surge,” or the program of U.S. reinforcements and doctrinal changes that began in January 2007. Others cite the voluntary insurgent stand-downs of the Anbar Awakening or say that the violence had simply run its course with the end of a wave of sectarian cleansing; still others credit an interaction between the surge and the Awakening. A combination of recently declassified data on violence at local levels combined with information gathered from seventy structured interviews with coalition participants enables a systematic test of these claims. These data show little support for the cleansing thesis. Instead, a synergistic interaction between the surge and the Awakening was required: both were necessary; neither was sufficient. U.S. policy thus played an important role, but Iraq provides no evidence that similar methods will produce similar results elsewhere without local equivalents of the Sunni Awakening. 

H/T Mike Few.

US Army Special Operations Command and Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory National Security Analysis Department have put together a useful reference for small wars students and practitioners entitled "Casebook on Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare Volume II:  1962-2009."  The resource is available for download in PDF format here.  If you are wondering where Volume I is, that government document covers post-World War I insurgencies and revolutions up to 1962 and can be downloaded in PDF here.  The original was published by the Special Operations Research Office at The American University in 1962.

Volume II is broken down by conceptual categories as can be seen by the table of contents:

I. REVOLUTION TO MODIFY THE TYPE OF GOVERNMENT........... 1 

1. New People’s Army (NPA).............................................................5 

2. Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC)..........39 

3. Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path)............................................71 

4. 1979 Iranian Revolution............................................................113 

5. Frente Farabundo Martí Para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN)...151 

6. Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA)................................195 

II. REVOLUTION BASED ON IDENTITY OR ETHNIC ISSUES........ 229 

7. Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)...............................233 

8. Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): 1964–2009............277 

9. Hutu–Tutsi Genocides...............................................................307 

10. Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA): 1996–1999............................343 

11. The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA): 1969–2001...379 

III. REVOLUTION TO DRIVE OUT A FOREIGN POWER.................. 423 

12. Afghan Mujahidin: 1979–1989..................................................427 

13. Viet Cong: 1954–1976................................................................459 

14. Chechen Revolution: 1991–2002..............................................489 

15. Hizbollah: 1982–2009................................................................525 

16. Hizbul Mujahideen....................................................................569 

IV. REVOLUTION BASED ON RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM.... 605 

17. Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ)......................................................609 

18. Taliban: 1994–2009....................................................................651 

19. Al Qaeda: 1988–2001.................................................................685 

V. REVOLUTION FOR MODERNIZATION OR REFORM................. 725 

20. Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND)....729 

21. Revolutionary United Front (RUF)—Sierra Leone.................763 

22. Orange Revolution of Ukraine: 2004–2005..............................801 

23. Solidarity.....................................................................................825 

The original was broken down regionally and included chapters on Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaya, Guatemala, Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Tunisia, Algeria, French Cameroon, Congo, Iraq x 2, Egypt, Iran, Sudan, Korea, China, Germany, Spain, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia.

H/T to Dave Maxwell