The Afghanistan National Police (ANP)

[Red Rat]

General Scaparotti in regional east has been promoting an idea called Combined Action (you may have heard of it). CA has 4 components: the ANA, the ANP, ISAF, and the Afghan Government. CA allows the Afghan government to reach out to the environment while being protected while the ANA monitors the ANP and ISAF has their resources available to provide backup. So far, CA has been very successful. I do like the idea of having ANA patrol with the ANP because they'll keep the ANP from peroforming corrupt activities and will offer a "security arm."

I have not heard of CA, but it sounds like common sense. The police police, the army provides security and ISAF provide the overwatch and specialist capabilities. Is the role of the ANA to mentor, monitor or protect the ANP?

The US government should consider establishing some sort of civilian police force that can deploy abroad to help in situations like Afghanistan. The Italians have one, the French have theirs, so it is possible.

One of the lessons we learnt in the UK from Iraq was our lack of a deployable policing capability. The US Army's Military Police branch is however much larger then its UK equivalent, and with a much broader scope (rear area security) so it is more useable to fill the identified gap.

As far as I can make out the ANP is little more then a local protection force at the moment, and not what we would regard as a police force. Does AFG want the ANP to provide a policing service or an internal security service? Perhaps what we should be looking at is rolling out a paramilitary security service (the ANP) with limited policing expertise (and powers) and a separate more specialised policing branch. Many developed countries have a policing service and then a paramilitary 'knock heads' service (the French CRS, elements of the Italian Carabineri and the Spanish Civil Guard all spring to mind) with the balance weighted towards the policing. Perhaps in an unstable country we want to reverse polarity, with the majority of the policing being of the paramilitary type and a smaller civil policing / investigative branch?