October 2006

Five Years Later, Where is the Afghan Army?

Is sending more foreign troops the solution to Afghanistan’s deteriorating security situation?

Dr. Assem Akram

Five years after the American-led intervention in Afghanistan to remove the Taliban regime, the situation in that country is far from normal. The security situation has in effect worsened and Iraqi-style suicide bombings have become a daily occurrence. Not only the Taliban-Al Qaeda threat has not subsided, it has gained momentum. Today areas vaster than ever before are escaping from the inconsequential US-backed Karzai Government. The United States is passing the relay to NATO to pacify the ‘rebellious’ southwestern Afghanistan, but is it working and is this the solution?

Despite what the Bush Administration has strived to do with a pink brush, Afghanistan is not a shining success story. More than sixteen billion dollars of international assistance have barely affected the lives of a majority of Afghans living outside main cities. Even in Kabul, it’s hard to see any dramatic improvement: power is scant, trash is seldom collected, the issue of slums and improvised settlements of returning refugees have not been addressed, rampant corruption is a desperation - to name only a few of the plagues affecting the Afghan capital. In addition, the city is increasingly the scene of car bombings that mainly target international forces and, in passing, kill scores of innocent Afghans.

In five years of US-led efforts and backing, Mr. Karzai remains as ineffectual as on day one. His cabinet is, with some rare exceptions, filled with incompetent individuals who haven’t done much to prove that their appointment was not based on cronyism but on merit.

In terms of the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan, no matter what their nationality or their composition or even their intentions may be, there is a clear rule that works along the same principles as the one laid out by Archimedes in physics: the amount of pressure applied by a foreign troop will cause a local reaction equal or superior to that pressure. In other words, the more foreign troops are sent to parts of Afghanistan to suppress the insurgency, the more they make the ground favorable for the insurgents to recruit locally and grow stronger. In addition, the continued and accrued presence of foreign troops allows the Afghan Taliban–Non-Afghan militants nexus to continue in a concerted struggle against the common ‘western’ enemy, the ‘infidel.’

For that reason, and also because it’s the basic duty of any government to provide security for its citizens and defend its borders against foreign aggression, it is primordial that Afghanistan has a functioning, appropriately sized and equipped army; which, after five years and many empty promises by Washington and blatant incompetence on part of the Karzai Government, still does not exist.

It is probably true that Mr. Karzai’s perceived lack of legitimacy, the uncertainty about the future, as well as the low wages offered, contribute to make of the Afghan Army a not very attractive option for prospective recruits. But with smarts, a new Afghan Defense Minister and a 110% commitment of the International Community, the Afghan Army could rapidly become what it has failed to be thus far: a force to be reckoned with, a powerful tool for stabilization.

For the past five years, we’ve been repeating tirelessly the same tirade: without security, nothing will be achieved in Afghanistan. Alas, nothing substantial has been undertaken and even less achieved in that regard, and that is why we are where we are today. Afghanistan is now almost recognized as a failure by a worried Bush Administration that is bringing in NATO countries -chiefly UK and Canada - to do the dirty job of eliminating the ‘Taliban threat,’ while it’s concentrating its efforts on the Iraqi quagmire.

Bringing more foreign troops on Afghan soil is not the solution. The solution should be Afghan. Foreign troops are not part of the solution but part of the problem. They attract foreign fighters – suicide bombers are mostly non-Afghans, keen to confront the ‘West,’ viewed as a global enemy - who flock in through the Pakistani border. But once this major point of focalization – i.e. presence of non-Muslim foreign troops - is removed, Afghanistan will be a less attractive battleground. In parallel, the local Afghan population will be less inclined to sympathize with the Islamist extremists and more likely to stop turning a blind eye on their destabilizing activities.

Here is what the International Community involved in Afghanistan, the United States and the Karzai Government need to do:

• Make the build-up of a robust Afghan Army the absolute top priority of their agenda.

• Build in six months an army of hundred-fifty to a hundred seventy-five thousand men. Fill in the ranks first, worry about training and homogenizing later: there are hundreds of thousands of jobless former soldiers and Mujaheddin fighters that need just a few real incentives to enroll.

• Create a seven-member advisory board made up of retired Afghan Army Generals and a couple of former top-tier Mujaheddin Commanders to lend experience to the process.

• During that same time frame of six months to a year, and in parallel to the Afghan Army build-up, withdraw progressively all foreign troops and reduce ISAF to an UN-mandated peace and disarmament monitoring force of a few hundred men.

• In the long term, maintain ties with the Afghan armed forces through training, equipment and logistics.

In addition, the International Community needs to immediately put pressure on Pakistan to clean up the so-called ‘tribal areas,’ or else. Islamabad has been insincere and uncooperative for too long, and unless there is a threat that would force it to switch gears, nice parleys at the White House won’t affect much Pakistan’s institutionalized, long-standing and harmful ‘laisser faire’ policy in that contentious area.

Obviously, without security, there are no stability, no reconstruction, no education, no human rights - let alone women’s rights, no investment, no progress and no development. The prolonged and accrued presence of foreign troops on Afghan soil doesn’t improve security; to the contrary, it contributes to aggravate it. The solution can only be Afghan. It is therefore more essential than ever for everyone involved in Afghanistan, and who sincerely wish to see that country return to a normal life, to concentrate their efforts on one goal at this time: build a robust, sizable, visible and combative Afghan Army that can take on the security challenge while empowering the central Government.