Afghan Campaign Now Riding on the ANP? Wasn't it Always?
L.A. Times: U.S. puts hopes in bedraggled Afghan police
The U.S. military is attempting to put an Afghan face on policing, pushing Afghans to take the lead on patrols, searches and neighborhood sweeps. The police and army will be responsible for security when U.S. forces begin to withdraw, perhaps as early as next summer.
I really just don’t see how this whole train up the Afghan National Police (ANP) by 2011 initiative can possibly work. The reality is that the ANP, though somewhat better than in years prior, remains a complete mess. How that will change between now and summer 2011– especially given the lack of any significant planned changes in how training will be approached or in the capabilities and resources the U.S. and international community will be able to bring to bear on the effort– is somewhat of a mystery to me.
Lack of sustained, coherent, and consistent focus on police and justice sector development has been a persistent problem throughout the duration of both the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns. That lack of focus has taken a huge toll, perhaps an irreparably huge toll, on the broader police training effort. We hear over and over again that police are the most important forces in counterinsurgency. Even after finally focusing on the ANP, however, the U.S. nonetheless remains fundamentally ill-equipped to effectively train or develop its forces.
Rearranging and trying to squeeze the most out of the patchwork combination of State and Justice department contractors, European constabulary forces, and U.S. MPs currently involved in police training has clearly not been sufficient to address this gaping hole in U.S. counterinsurgency capabilities. One would hope that close to a decade of running into the same massive counterinsurgency roadblock would force us to come up with strategies that helps us not inch and limp our way around it, but to actually be ready to move it decisively and early on so that chances for success actually improve.
Until we do this, true local security in these types of campaigns will remain eternally elusive. Peace-building, reconstruction, development, democratization, social reform, and similar goals and objectives will then once again have to sit on the shelf as we scramble multiple years in to come up with a police force development strategy that should have been developed and aggressively pursued since day one or before.
