Solution No 9

Improve methods of recruitment and training of Afghan police and Afghan National Army, as well as improve security by applying effective counterinsurgency methods.

The Afghan Army needs to grow larger and its profile needs to be strengthened so that vast security hurdles can be eliminated.  The Afghan Army needs to be at least a hundred and fifty thousand men strong; the minimum for a country in dire need of security to help end three plus decades of conflict.  That is 1% of the entire Afghan population; meaning   a 250,000 man army is a 1% ratio of an estimated population of 25 million people.  The growth of the Afghan army in numbers as well as in quality will make it a force to be reckoned with.

The Afghan Army does need to be competent but it does not have to reach the same level of tactical strength as forces from the west to be effective.  Additionally, in the Afghan field of operations, Afghan soldiers have advantages that no foreign troop has: home territory, terrain and cultural familiarity and immediacy, which are vitally needed for morale or esprit de corps; and nothing, can artificially replace that kind of cohesiveness once it is born within a fighting unit.  Even vast amounts of money cannot artificially induce this factor into a unit and neither can sophisticated equipment.

In addition, members of the security forces need to be well compensated and qualified leaders need to receive robust bonuses based upon leadership and recruitment.  This is one essential location where dollars expended wisely will have the greatest benefit.  That is because when potential recruits think about their families’ financial survival they can have an alternative other than being preoccupied with choosing between joining a local warlord’s militia - or that of a drug magnate.  If the pay is good, he can join the national security forces.

The government should also curb the activities of private security firms in the context of “achieving state monopoly over security affairs.”  Tackling the challenges posed by private security firms to that monopoly will require a lot of political resolve from the Afghan government and the international military presence in the country.

The most controversial part of the operations of private security firms in Afghanistan is convoy security. Reports indicated that they are involved in practices that allegedly help fund the insurgency. For example: by making arrangements with insurgents to deter attacks on their convoys. If these operations were to be replaced by efficient ANA or ANP forces, then undoubtedly the proliferation of insurgency in those areas will be diminished. 

Although it is true that money is essential for recruitment and maintaining strong Afghan forces, it’s not all that is needed.  For people to want to join the security forces there has to be the feeling that the sitting Government is a legitimate one, and has the best interest of the country as a whole in mind.

History teaches that Afghan people have always viewed any foreign military presence in Afghanistan as occupiers; and consequently they have created immense complications to all foreign missions. Our study suggests that the current operations of U.S. and NATO forces should be shifted away from the centers of population and repositioned along the border with Pakistan.  All security operations within the Afghan population centers should be carried out by well trained Afghan National Army (ANA) and police forces.      

The existence of foreign troops in the rural and urban areas in Afghanistan and their lack of Afghan cultural and tribal knowledge and deep sense of history both oral and written only frustrate the average Afghan who has a very strong sense of allegiance to family, tribe and self worth that Westerners cannot see through all the poverty.  Afghans are a very proud and autonomous people, and poverty does not dictate or diminish their self worth as a people.  This lack of understanding on the part of Westerners makes it very difficult to win over the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.   Just like our forefathers, Afghans refuse to be pushed into second class status in their own homeland by any foreign individual or force.

When it comes to the presence of foreign soldiers with a indistinct mission in a land that is not theirs, there is a clear rule that works along the same principles as the one laid out by Isaac Newton’s third law of motion in physics: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite re-action.”

An internationally coordinated action, with a clear new mandate by the United Nations defining the Afghan-Pakistani border as the focus and allowing some kind of hot pursuit into the porous border areas, is the key. The porous border “Durand Line” is where weapons, explosives, drug money, and militants are crossing daily to destabilize the Governments on both sides. This is where extraordinary efforts need to be made to grab success from the jaws of failure and defeat.    

Furthermore, all international forces, be they already under UN command as part of the ISAF, or self commanding and operating independently - such as a good part of the US contingent and some of its European allies - should move under the UN flag and abide by a new mandate to ensure that the frontier line is sealed as tight as possible – in an extraordinary way - for a extended amount of time, to defeat violent militant groups that prosper in the border zone. Let’s end this cat and mouse game once and for all.

The tightening of the border would allow the overhauled and significantly beefed-up Afghan security forces to improve the security situation inside the country and pave the way for the central Government to make its presence felt beyond Kabul. The credit earned for improving the security situation, in conjunction to being the facilitator for economic and humanitarian incentives could make the central Government appear indispensable in the eyes of local populations.

This reemphasis of missions and the division of tasks has the potential to produce significant results.  While foreign forces could ensure that the integrity of Afghanistan’s international borders are respected - and thus minimize the threat of cross-border violence, Afghan security forces could then concentrate on eliminating two major issues that poison nationhood and stand as momentous obstacles to normalcy and recovery: thriving narco-businesses, and private militias; eliminating both could ultimately result in the government’s winning over hearts and minds. 

The Afghan government should work with the international community to fund the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police until Afghanistan’s Gross Domestic Product and revenue sources can sustain the costs.