Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform (GFN-SSR)

Afghanistan's National Security Forces

 Printable version

What are the components of the national Afghan forces? What are the US and NATO doing to improve the Afghan national forces and with what aim? This Council on Foreign Relations article discusses this issue and provides some answers to these questions. The article firstly provides a background to the mission of the US military and NATO in Afghanistan. It follows with a breakdown of each security component and its current state of effectiveness. Finally, key issues are highlighted that are affecting the success of US military and NATO missions.

The US strategy in Afghanistan is now an attempt to 'right the mission', focussing on training Afghan forces to a standard that they can eventually take control of their own security. This approach of developing the capacity of the Afghan forces is seen by Coalition partners as the quickest exit strategy. Nevertheless, despite efforts and increased spending on training, it appears that this end point remains years away. This implies that pledges and funding remain insufficient to effectively develop Afghanistan’s security apparatus.

Despite having already spent billions of US dollars on training, handing over full security responsibility to the Afghans will take time, money and far more resources. The article offers a breakdown of each component of Afghanistan's National Security Forces and a brief analysis of each current state of effectiveness. The Afghanistan's National Security Forces consists of four principle components:

1. Afghan National Army: The element is widely seen as the most capable branch of the country's security forces despite issues of oversight and sustainability.
2. Afghan National Police: In theory this body is very solid, however in practice it suffers from a lack of professionalism, attrition remains a problem and as a result of corruption and lack of institutional reform, progress is hindered.
3. Afghan National Army Air Corps (ANAAC): This component remains in its infancy and implementation of practical progress, modernity and expansion remain years off.
4. Afghan Public Protection Force: Associated to the concept of neighbourhood watch, this element calls for support but may cause more harm than good.

The article concludes that in a context where the US and Coalition partners are planning to deploy more troops and trainers to Afghanistan in the coming month, there still remains lingering questions which must be dealt with. These include:

• Shortage of trainers in the US military as well as in NATO forces to be deployed.
• Police and soldiers are paid more to fight for the Taliban than what they are paid by the Afghan government.
• The training mission suffers from resource deficiencies and competing agendas.
• Basic operational limitations are increasingly undermining army and police progress with a lack of communication of operations between the US military, Afghan forces and NATO.

Access full text