Local Defence in Afghanistan
From the Afghanistan Analysts Network:
Local Defence in Afghanistan: A Review of Government-backed Initiatives
by Mathieu Lefèvre
27 May 2010
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In this latest AAN report, Mathieu Lefèvre unpacks the myths about local defense initiatives in Afghanistan. His analysis of three local defense initiatives shows the contradictions in the claimed successes and points at possible long-term security challenges posed by these initiatives.
In this report, Mathieu Lefèvre analyses three local defense initiatives in Afghanistan: The Afghanistan National Auxiliary Police (ANAP), the Afghan Public Protection Program (AP3) and the Local Defense Initiative (LDI). The aim of the ANAP, launched by the Ministry of Interior (MoI) with international support in 2006, was to provide a ‘community policing’ function. The ANAP force was locally recruited and trained and the initiative was concentrated to the south and south-east of Afghanistan. Some of the challenges that faced the ANAP were inadequate logistical support, inadequate vetting, unclear command-in-control and issues of loyalty. According to Lefèvre lessons were not learnt from the shortcomings – and failures – of the ANAP, and consequently they have been reproduced in the AP3 and the LDI programs.
Lefèvre concludes that the three initiatives reproduce the same challenges: The relationship between the local defense initiatives and the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) is problematic, it has been difficult not to ‘pick sides’ when working with local militias, experimental in nature the programs lack proper accountability mechanisms and the programs run the risk of creating perverse incentives through rewarding criminal commanders rather than peaceful members of the community. Lefèvre also cautions against viewing these initiatives as a possible part of reintegration efforts.
Karzai resists US plan for village militias
Gen. Petraeus Runs into Resistance from Karzai over Village Defense Forces - - Joshua Partlow and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post.
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As he takes charge of the war effort in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus has met sharp resistance from President Hamid Karzai to an American plan to assist Afghan villagers in fighting the Taliban on their own. A first meeting last week between the new commander and the Afghan president turned tense after Karzai renewed his objections to the plan, according to U.S. officials. The idea of recruiting villagers into local defense programs is a key part of the U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan, and Karzai's stance poses an early challenge to Petraeus as he tries to fashion a collaborative relationship with the Afghan leader.
Of course Karzai will try to resist this plan. If the villagers can defend themselves against the Taliban they will be able to defend themselves against Karzai's forces in due course. Karzai knows that day will come.
Of course, the answer to the Question posed is ...
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Originally Posted by
Cannoneer No. 4
What successful counterinsurgent did not employ indigenous irregular auxiliaries?
Legitimate sub-national paramilitaries under the effective control of village headmen, district chiefs, and provincial governors recruited from amongst the inhabitants of the battlefield won't be much to look at, won't have the appropriate tickets punched, won't be focused districtly developed enough to meet the high standards claimed by Afghan National Security Forces, but they are already there, already armed in most cases, with some retired Russian-killers for adult supervision.
None.
The Taliban may come back, but they could never go back as well
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Originally Posted by
subrosa
Bob's World cited in part:
What is your timeframe for this for not happening? now? or like a year after karzai strikes a deal with the taliban and pictures of animals are banned again? perhaps there will be even an uprising from the northern tribal forces(trained, enabled and led by a handful), again.
I dont think expanding power in the wali kandahar belt by fusing local and provincial powers is a good thing, specially if the taliban is going to be part of the official govt and this is their heartland. the shura plan sounds good but not the "fusing" part.
In so many ways the Puritans of the Mass. Coloney were very much like the Taliban; but the simple fact is that what they were selling was unsustainable once fully exposed to the light of day and difused by the inevitable (no matter how ruthlessly they tried to avoid it) immigration of people who did not hold to their harsh, strict doctrines. Similary, though the Taiban may come back, they will not likely be able to go back to the ways they ruled the dark, backwater Afghanistan of that past era that no one cared about. The world is looking now.
Karzai must reach out to that aspect of his populace that look to the Taliban for governance as that is the heart of his current insurgency. To not do so out of fear of Taliban doctrine would be extremely short-sighted. He must also do this in a way that does not alienate the populace whose support his government already has. This is the true nature of the challenge in Afghanistan is the tendency to be either "all in" or "all out." Any successful government in Afghanistan (and we should never assume that it must include Mr. Karzai, or anyone else for that matter) must be able to break this pardigmn and reach across tribal/regional/lingquistic/ethnic/religious lines and create an inclusive compromise.
We make the problems in Afghanistan worse when we either over-promote one party (say, the current GIROA); or overly work to block other parties (Haqqani, Taliban, etc) from participation. Good COIN is about fixing government and addressing popular concerns, not ensuring that the failed status quo prevails and the challenger is defeated. To assume the latter is our role is to make the US and the Coalition a pathetic bitch lap dog of the current government of Afghanistan; and if that is a course we take, it will be because we don't understand the nature of the threat in ways that have caused us to exaggerate the fears in our minds.
Karzai understands our fears and plays upon them. One thing that I am constantly struck by when I meet with senior people from Pakistan and Afghanistan both, is that these people have a far more sophisticated understanding of insurgency accross the board than virtually any US "expert" on COIN that I have either spoken with or read. Our experts have studied COIN and even executed operations they thought were COIN; but one must understand insurgency to truly understand COIN; and the people who have risen in these communities have successfully been back and forth on both sides of insurgency and counterinsurgency their entire lives. This isn't something they read about, it is the world they live in.
The same was true for America's Founding Fathers. They grew up in oppression, led an insurgency, and then immediately found themselves in a new era of complex counterinsurgency. They did not talk in terms of insurgency and counterinsurgency, they just did what they needed to do to prevail.
As to village stability operations, they are not a great panacea; but they are a great supporting effort to an effective COIN campaign. But understand this; the last thing Karzai wants is an effective COIN campaign, as that implies to a wise insurgent/counterinsurgent like himself that he must change, or perhaps even go; and he is not keen on either one. Far better for him to just leverage the fears of the West to get them to simply stay and hold the symptoms of insurgency at bay; as that enables him and his cronies to stay just the way they are.
New Afghan local police units failing - HRW
Hat tip to Circling the Lion's Den a pointer to a Human Rights Watch report on the Afghan Local Police (ALP).
Comment:http://circlingthelionsden.blogspot....s-failing.html
Cited HRW report:http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/fil...1webwcover.pdf
One chapter is entitled:
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The Afghan Local Police:“Community Watch with AK-47s"
