Local Defence in Afghanistan

[jcustis]

1) How are we going to prevent these "local police" from simply becoming the militia of whoever is the strongest powerbroker in whatever area they are operating in? I doubt the Ministry of Interior is really going to be keeping a tight leash on things considering the state it's in. Who is going to set the left and right lateral limits for these units and then supervise them to make sure they are adhering to their boundaries? For that matter, who is going to do the initial vetting to prevent the police from becoming filled with Taliban sympathizers from the start, thus invalidating the whole process?

That's a million dollar question right there, and an example of the enigma wrapped in a riddle, that is this place.

[slapout9]

That's a million dollar question right there, and an example of the enigma wrapped in a riddle, that is this place.

I'd like to know the answer to that question myself. What is this rush to put in Policeman when maybe you need Soldiers first?

[subrosa]

JarodParker- that is so funny and how clever! in some places words count more than actions.

[subrosa]

this whole initiative is based upon the underlying assumption that the villagers do not want taliban insurgents in their villages.

[Jesse9252]

this whole initiative is based upon the underlying assumption that the villagers do not want taliban insurgents in their villages.

I'm not sure if that assumption holds true. Only 24% of key districts in Afghanistan support or are sympathetic to the government. And most of those are not in the south and the east.

Increasing the amount of police could actually undermine support for the government, especially if they are drawn locally and are more likely to be implicated in corruption and warlordism. In Marja, the local police that had been in place before Operation Moshtarek were so despised that the senior Marine was actually told: "‘We’re with you. We want to help you build. We will support you. But if you bring in the cops, we will fight you till death.” So far there has been no discussion of the measures that will/should be put into place to prevent these 'new local police' from becoming just as corrupt, ineffective, and counterproductive as the 'old local police' that have been tried before.

[subrosa]

it does not have to be mutually exclusive- the villages could hate the taliban and dislike the government at the same time. specially in the south and east where the provincial government is known to be corrupt.

i thought that the actual villagers were supposed to be the new cops, so there would be no question of bringing cops in from the outside, since they would already be there. the recruits would be the villagers you described below who are already willing to fight. they would just have to be trained and armed.
i dont know how local is local in this context.

[Bob's World]

For what it's worth, my assessment is that most of the rural areas where the insurgency is the strongest (and where this SOF Village Stability Operations program is being implemented) are what I would call Self-Governed Spaces.

They really have little use for external governance (or any of the bells and whistles that come with it) of any sort. GIROA is something they rarely see, and the Taliban come down out of the mountains to make their life hell, but at least they see them. Many such villages DO want the Taliban out, but GIROA isn't there to help them do that, and they can't do it by themselves.

This is where VSO comes in. A village either stands up and pushes the Taliban out and then calls for help; or they invite us in in advance and ask for such help. Everything worked through this Self-Governing mechanisms of the Village-Tribal-Religious local leadership. We help them organize local security and bring in some small development projects; again, all through the local leadership, and all employing local labor.

Next step is to then gather up GIROA officials who are forted up back at the District Center and take them out and introduce them to their own populace. To connect the official to the legitimate, and fuse the two together in a healing process.

There are no militia armies being built to go wage war on the Taliban, that is the loud voice of ignorance in the national media and similarly loud and disconnected Bloggers and columnists. These security forces cannot do law enforcement, and are purely defensive in nature; and now, are formally under the GIROA umbrella as a legitimate, official security force.

Not very sexy, but in a few, select, critical communities it is having significant effects; many of those effects extending far beyond those small, brave communities.

[Jedburgh]

FP, 27 Oct 11: Afghan Local Police: When the Solution Becomes the Problem

...The ALP was launched last year by the Afghan government to recruit local units to defend remote, insecure areas of the country against insurgent threats and attacks. Recruits are nominated by a local shura council, then vetted by Afghan intelligence and trained for up to three weeks by U.S. forces. General David Petraeus, the former ISAF Commander in Afghanistan, touts the ALP as successfully thwarting the insurgency.

But this narrative is very different from the one Refugees International discovered on a recent visit to the country. In May, we traveled to Afghanistan to conduct an assessment of the humanitarian situation in the country, in light of the increasing displacement caused by conflict. During the course of our 16-day mission, we conducted over 50 interviews with displaced Afghans, local organizations, UN officials, aid workers, human rights researchers, government officials, security analysts, and journalists in Kabul, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, and surrounding areas. To our surprise, the rapid rollout of the ALP program was widely criticized by Afghans and humanitarian actors. Almost every single one of our interviewees highlighted the growth of the ALP and the simultaneous rise of other pro-government militias as their top concern for the security of civilians and stability in the country, particularly in the north.

Many told stories of ALP forces using their newly gained power and guns - furnished by the U.S. - to harass, intimidate, and perpetrate crimes against the very civilians they were recruited, trained, and paid to protect. Some even reported that powerful warlords were pressuring local leaders to formalize pre-existing militias into the ALP - often around tribal, ethnic or political lines - to avenge personal disputes or strengthen their influence....

[jcustis]

I need to read the article in depth, but I am already curious just how well these ALP start-ups were supervised

[Jedburgh]

RAND 18 Sep 12: Locals Rule: Historical Lessons for Creating Local Defense Forces for Afghanistan and Beyond

Local defense forces have played a key role in counterinsurgencies throughout the 20th century. With the recent development of the Afghan Local Police (ALP) as a major part of the U.S.-led counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, lessons learned from earlier efforts to build local defense have become increasingly salient. This study examines eight cases of local defense forces used in the context of counterinsurgency in Indochina, Algeria, South Vietnam, Oman, El Salvador, Southern Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq. It covers an extensive time period (from 1945 to the present) and geographic scope, as well as a wide range of intervening countries and regimes, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Israel, and the Soviet Union. The authors compare the lessons learned from these eight cases and apply them to the current development of the ALP, in order to outline potential challenges and to suggest a way forward that takes into account the historical experience.