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When it was originally conceived in 2002, the
Afghan National Army (ANA) was mainly designed as
a tool of nation-building. It was supposed to act
as a melting pot of recruits coming from all
provinces of Afghanistan, contributing therefore
to the formation of a national identity. As such,
it was also supposed to provide the central
government with some leverage against regional
strongmen, reluctant to take directions from Kabul
and keen to protect their own turf. The ANA was
not designed as a counter-insurgency force, nor as
an army capable of defending the country from its
neighbours. Its combat force is structured in
conventional light infantry battalions, suited to
take on the militias of Afghanistan’s warlords,
but not so much any real guerrilla force. Moreover
the ANA has not been trained in anti-aircraft or
anti-tank tactics or supplied with the relevant
weaponry. As long as Afghanistan was under
international tutelage, an army capable of
matching those of its neighbours was not
considered to be necessary, and perhaps even to be
a potential irritant to the Pakistani government,
always concerned about the possibility of being
surrounded by hostile forces.
Since then, the situation in Afghanistan has
changed a fair deal. The Neo-Taliban insurgency
has been gradually spreading, and from 2006 it has
turned in a large scale movement. Although
estimates vary, the Taliban on the whole now count
something like at least 50,000 members, probably
more when all the support elements
(‘facilitators’) are included, and are active in
33 of 34 provinces. The mostly NATO armies engaged
in the conflict on the government side are largely
structured to fight conventional wars too and have
high support-to-combatants ratios, usually at
least 3-to-1. Not even in the event of a major
‘surge’ of foreign troops in Afghanistan would
there be enough foreign combat troops to hold most
of the country’s territory. As a result, the talk
in the western capitals is increasingly one of ‘Afghanization’.
This means that the ANA and the Afghan police are
expected to shoulder a growing share of the burden
of fighting the insurgency, perhaps one day even
taking entirely over. Indeed, the ANA has
gradually started getting involved in the
fighting, as shown by its casualties. In 2003, it
lost just 30 men killed in action; in 2008, it
lost 370.
Even before the prospect of greater engagement in
the conflict started emerging, there were doubts
about the ability of the ANA to achieve its tasks.
In particular its ‘national character’ was placed
in doubt by the difficulty in integrating its
different ethnic and factional components. In
terms of the overall ethnic composition the army
is relatively balanced, with an
over-representation of Tajiks, a more or less fair
share of Pashtuns (the largest ethnic group in the
country) and an under-representation of Hazaras
and Uzbeks. The officer corps, however, is
predominantly Tajik, particularly the combat
units. The problem is not just the ethnic balance
of the officer corps, per se, but the fact that as
some senior Pashtun officers allege, the majority
of these Tajik officers are networked around the
Chief of Staff, Gen. Bismillah Khan, who through
his influence and the ability to appoint officers
is the majority share holder of the army. Defence
Minister Rahim Wardak, a Pashtun loyal to
President Karzai, only controls a small network of
former comrade-in-arms of the 1980s jihad, and
cannot even remotely compete with Bismillah Khan
in terms of influence. The hostility between Tajik
and Pashtun networks and individuals has grown
increasingly strong. Reportedly Wardak and
Bismillah Khan are not on speaking terms and in
official meetings the latter often shouts at the
former. Back biting and distrust are common and it
is likely that they might seriously affect the
ability of the Ministry of Defence to successfully
manage the ANA in the field, without ISAF
assistance. One aspect of the failure of the army
to acquire a national character is its failure to
attract talents and skills. After the initial
abundant recruitment of former jihadi commanders
and of some former officers of the pro-Soviet
army, the ANA has mainly been attracting recruits
from the poorest and less educated sectors of
society. The current plan to double the size of
the army from the presently planned 122,000 over
the next few years will inevitably compound these
recruitment problems. While there is no shortage
of volunteers, the quality is increasingly poor.
The latest batch of recruits is 90% illiterate, a
fact that bodes ill for the successful formation
of capable administration and logistics, as well
as for a qualitatively acceptable expansion of the
officer corps.
Apart from the staffing problems mentioned above,
the ANA also suffers from a lack of motivation.
Some officers behave aggressively on the
battlefield, but by and large the ANA is not too
keen to join the fight against the insurgents.
Often the beleaguered police have been refused
requests for help by the ANA; in part this is also
due to the tendency of the ANA to react slowly,
like all conventional armies: typically it takes
2-3 days to execute an operation; while
detachments assigned to hold posts away from the
local HQs lack authority to take quick decisions.
In general, however, the ANA has been reluctant to
operate in the villages of the insurgency-affected
regions, not least because a substantial majority
of the rank-and-file assigned to the southern Army
Corps is from the north and does not speak much
Pashto, the language of the overwhelming majority
of the population there. Morale is low also for a
number of other reasons, such as the perceived
discrimination in the evacuation of casualties:
injured ISAF soldiers always have priority over
ANA wounded-in-action, and the scarcity of airlift
often means that wounded ANA soldiers die before
receiving medical help. Yet another major factor
depressing morale, is the invasive character of
the ongoing mentoring effort by ISAF. Large
mentoring teams operate in every battalion and
their presence is often resented by ANA officers,
particularly the more experienced ones, who see no
reason for being mentored by people who are
usually their juniors. The fact that ANA units
never graduate from mentoring (some battalions
have been mentored since 2003) strengthens the
suspicion of the officers. The ever expanding
mentoring effort is under heavy strain because the
growth in the size of the army requires more and
more mentors.
Another consequence of the extensive and invasive
mentoring effort is the growing dependency of the
ANA on its mentors, both in terms of their role as
‘fixers’, in particular with regards to logistics,
and of their role as ‘shadow officers’ and
supervisors. It is widely believed in the ANA that
promotions and demotions are largely determined by
the reports that the mentors send back to their HQ
(CSTC-A), a fact that tends to make ANA officers
quite keen to follow whatever advice they are
offered. This attitude is unlikely to contribute
to the formation of capable officers. Perhaps the
heaviest dependency of the ANA on its mentoring
teams, derive from their role as forward air
controllers, able to call in close air support
from the ISAF air assets. Indeed the ANA is being
trained to fight the ‘American way’ (in fact the
‘NATO way’). That is, relying on heavy firepower
and in particular close air support, to win
tactical engagements. The question that arises of
course is how will the ANA cope if the mentoring
teams were to be withdrawn. In other words, if
genuine Afghanization has to happen, an ANA grown
dependent on the mentoring teams is hardly the
answer. The Afghan Air Corps is still in the early
stages of its formation, but at no stage it will
be able to provide anything even remotely
resembling what the USAF can provide in
Afghanistan. Indeed, it will never exceed a
handful of attack helicopters and light attack
planes, according to the existing plans, and even
that will take several years to accomplish.
The desire to Afghanize the conflict rests mainly
on the doubling in size of the Afghan security
forces (ANA and police). The idea is flawed
at least as far as the assumption that a mere
quantitative increase would necessarily represent
an improvement. In reality, if command and control
and management capabilities, already weak, will
not keep the pace with the expansion of the number
of battalions over the next few years, the ANA
might well end up weaker, not stronger.
The ANA already has major problems in retaining
troops in its ranks; in part in order to contain
the desertions only about a sixth of the army is
deployed to the south, where the most intense
fighting is going on. There the typical battalion
is 50-70% under strength due to losses and absence
without leave. ISAF commanders routinely complain
about the insufficient numbers of ANA troops, but
given the existing low morale it is feared that
reducing the periods of rotation and posting
higher numbers to the south might have a very
negative impact.
Perhaps the most problematic aspect of
Afghanization is the continuing politicization of
the ANA, particularly in the context of the
turmoil which followed the August 2009
presidential elections. Bismillah Khan, the chief
of staff, is known to be sympathetic to Dr.
Abdullah, President Karzai’s main challenger. At
the time of writing (21 October 2009) it was not
clear yet whether a coalition government would
emerge from the Presidential elections; if not the
stability of the ANA could be further compromised
as most of its officers would be resentful towards
President Karzai and his circle for monopolizing
power. Karzai might also be tempted to try
politically neutralizing the ANA by removing
Bismillah Khan, an option he is known to have been
considering for some time. While a purge of
officers loyal to Bismillah Khan is not likely,
the substitution of Bismillah with a Karzai
loyalist would allow the Presidential camp to
appoint loyal officers to lead the new battalions
which will be formed in the future, offsetting at
least in part the power of Bismillah’s network.
The removal of Bismillah, who is a quite
charismatic commander, could also lead to the
fragmentation of his largely Tajik network, again
favoring Karzai’s bid for control. As always,
political appointments will tend to be at odd with
military effectiveness and the already mediocre
ANA could see a further degradation of its command
and control capabilities.
In sum, short of a major re-direction in the
effort to develop the ANA, it is unlikely that any
plan to Afghanize the conflict centered around the
ANA will succeed. Even if a change was
decided, implementing it would be difficult. There
is only very limited ability of the ISAF-participating
countries to provide anything else but
conventional training to the ANA. The American
Special Operations Forces, which have the
capability to train in counter-insurgency actions,
are spread thin around the globe hunting
terrorists and are not in a position to take up
the task. The human resources needed to properly
staff the ANA are unlikely to be attracted to the
job, not just because of the relatively low
salaries, but also because the risk involved and
the need to deploy away from their families,
discourage many. The Taliban are running a
campaign to intimidate members of the Afghan
security forces, which has been driving
recruitment into the ANA to very low levels, at
least in southern Afghanistan. Finally
addressing the political rivalries which affect
the ANA is not something that foreigners can do; a
durable political settlement has to be found among
Afghans. What the intervening US / NATO coalition
in Afghanistan can do is re-direct the mentoring
effort in a way more conductive to the growth of
autonomous ANA capabilities and skills, but there
is no sign that this is happening. The short-term
fear that the ANA might suffer some tactical
humiliation, overrides the desire to achieve
longer-term gains in terms of command
capabilities.
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