ANSF performance 2015 onwards

[davidbfpo]

Sub-titled:

A week on the frontlines with the Afghan National Police.

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/ma...hanistan.html?

A good read, if depressing.

[davidbfpo]

A NYT report:

Months after President Obama formally declared that the United States’ long war against the Taliban was over in Afghanistan, the American military is regularly conducting airstrikes against low-level insurgent forces and sending Special Operations troops directly into harm’s way under the guise of “training and advising.”In justifying the continued presence of the American forces in Afghanistan, administration officials have insisted that the troops’ role is relegated to counterterrorism, defined as tracking down the remnants of Al Qaeda and other global terrorist groups, and training and advising the Afghan security forces who have assumed the bulk of the fight.

Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/wo...ghanistan.html

[Bob's World]

A power that creates and protects a government in some foreign place, cannot create a security force to effectively secure that de facto illegitimate government against some challenger who's forces perceive their cause as legitimate.

The US tried and failed in the Philippines in the early 1900s; in Vietnam in the mid 1900s, and in Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s. Each with the building of partner military capacity as the corner stone to the strategy, each a complete failure.

This is not, by the way, in the much touted "Decade of War" lessons learned. We have not learned this lesson.

[omarali50]

"A power that creates and protects a government in some foreign place, cannot create a security force to effectively secure that de facto illegitimate government against some challenger who's forces perceive their cause as legitimate."

This is too broad a generalization. It depends on the power, the force they create and the enemy they face.
In this case, failure was not guaranteed. But of course, it COULD fail.
The tragedy is that it could have worked.

[Bob's World]

Broad indeed. But not too broad.

Please give me an example of where this has worked?

[Bill Moore]

"A power that creates and protects a government in some foreign place, cannot create a security force to effectively secure that de facto illegitimate government against some challenger who's forces perceive their cause as legitimate."

This is too broad a generalization. It depends on the power, the force they create and the enemy they face.
In this case, failure was not guaranteed. But of course, it COULD fail.
The tragedy is that it could have worked.

I'm with you on this and it takes us back to the wise saying that, "all models are wrong, but still useful." If someone becomes overly enamored with their model, it no longer serves its heuristic role. Clearly the USSR created a number of governments where its security forces held the line for decades. One could argue we did the same in Germany and Japan. In Vietnam, the government did hold against the insurgency, they couldn't hold against the superior conventional power of North Vietnam, and no this wasn't Phase 3 of Mao's insurgency model. You can also argue that the UK and France created a number of states and trained their security forces that have held the line.

If you're going to argue that they failed 50 to 100 years later, that is getting a bit petty and unrealistic. New issues emerge, history doesn't freeze in place.

If you look at the Arab Spring, any state that kept control of their security forces defeated the uprising, with the exception of Syria. Assad's government in Syria, to the surprise of many who embrace liberal social models, still exists.

Clearly these issues are much more complex than any simplistic model can explain. We need to use multiple modes as lens to try to understand, but also free ourselves from models to take a fresh look at the issue as it really is, without the bias of a model or ideology.

[Morgan]

I was under the impression that US efforts in the Philippines did work....? Messy to be sure but successful, yes? Wasn't it essentially a fairly peaceful US "colony" until 1942?

[Bill Moore]

I was under the impression that US efforts in the Philippines did work....? Messy to be sure but successful, yes? Wasn't it essentially a fairly peaceful US "colony" until 1942?

It was relatively peaceful, and we were relatively effective, but the Philippines in my view has never been peacefully united. It has always been a violent country with its various militias, insurgent groups, and criminal groups (both state and non-state). There have been rays of hope with the likes of Magsaysay and the current Aquino, but overall it is a still a basket case in many places due to high levels of corruption (and no it isn't culturally appropriate) and power struggles among different groups. It is just another example of state where simplistic models do not provide understanding or answers.

[davidbfpo]

Not a shock, but one wonders how long can the ANSF sustain itself:

Afghan security forces are suffering record casualties in their first battles against the Taliban since the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan ended in December after more than 13 years. The number of killed and wounded so far this year is about 70 percent higher than during the same period last year, said Colonel Brian Tribus, director of public affairs for NATO’s Afghanistan mission.

Link:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...s-with-taliban

Interesting to note the ALP get a mention:

Ulumi said that local police have borne the brunt of the fresh Taliban offensive, which has targeted the northern provinces of Kunduz and Badakhshan.

[Bob's World]

Bill,

Of course it was phase three of the insurgency that consolidated Vietnam. North and South "states" were a Western fiction created in the midst of an ongoing movement to liberate the whole of Vietnam from Western control.

I think it is you who are too infatuated with the official US perspective on our history, and that my model that exposes deep flaws in the thinking behind that perspective makes you uncomfortable. We need to get uncomfortable if we hope to get better. Thinking is like PT - if it doesn't make you uncomfortable, you are probably wasting your time.

The armies we have created to protect the governments we have created have all, without exception, folded like lawn chairs when pressed by a more legitimate force. Period. We can't even admit those challengers were more legitimate, yet alone that our political and security strategy failed.