Our failing approach to Afghanistan

Last month’s bombing in Kabul slaughtered dozens of people, including one of my former bodyguards, Ehsanullah Momand, who was part of my close protection detail in 2011. A capable and witty English-speaking father of three young children, his killing demonstrates once again that Western efforts to secure peace in Afghanistan are failing, especially in the heart of Kabul. We need to take a closer look at how our security forces are organized as they attempt to build peace, at the same time as we recognize the intricacies of perpetual conflict in Afghanistan. The current NATO-led Train, Advise, and Assist Command Mission operates under the banner of the Resolute Support Mission embedded within Afghanistan’s military installations. NATO’s mission helps the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). The mission is made up of about 12,800 foreign military personnel, of which United States troops number around 7,000. The rest are from fellow NATO and allied troop-contributing countries. The operationally diverse force includes elite special forces, air support and reconnaissance squadrons, counter-terrorism military intelligence units, and military advisers scattered around bases. The Resolute Support Mission is supported by 39 NATO and non-NATO countries and its aim is to provide training, advice, and assistance in eight vital areas. It handles everything from multi-year budgeting to civilian oversight of Afghan security institutions to strategy and policy planning to resourcing and strategic communications. As a former U.S. defence secretary explained once, “What’s the first thing in the world you need for anything else to happen, for hospitals to happen, for roads to happen, for refugees to come back, for people to be fed and humanitarian works to move on the country? You’ve got to have security.” Canada has been on the forefront in terms of supporting the advancement of Afghan women and girls though increased investments in education; maternal, newborn, and child health; and rights and empowerment. It’s also worked to advance security, democracy, rule of law, and human rights. Canada has committed, from 2015 to 2017, $227 million in development assistance and $330 million to help the Afghan National Security Forces. With its commitment, NATO seeks to assure the weak Afghan state that it is not being abandoned to face its own security woes in the aftermath of the formal NATO combat mission that ended in 2014. The United States and NATO allies have withdrawn more than 120,000 troops from combat, but since the withdrawal from Afghanistan the security situation has sharply deteriorated. Many question the readiness of ANSF and the efficacy of the Resolute Support Mission. Last fall the strategically important northern city of Kunduz fell to the Taliban after 6,000 ANSF retreated to the city’s main airport, leaving hundreds of thousands of civilians without state protection. According to Amrullah Saleh, head of the investigating team and a former intelligence agency chief of Afghanistan, lack of leadership, misappropriation of resources, and most importantly, lack of co-ordination among Afghan security forces were the main reasons Kunduz fell. Despite NATO-led attempts to facilitate co-ordination among representatives from the Afghan National Police, Afghan National Army, and National Directorate of Security, the security domain in Afghanistan remains volatile and dangerous. According to the Global Affairs department, “Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan between now and 2017 will focus on: supporting the advancement of Afghan women and girls increased investments in education, maternal and child health, and the rights and empowerment of women and girls; advancing security, democracy, rule-of-law, and human rights; and contributing to the capacity development for the management of humanitarian assistance." But Canada and NATO should also shift their efforts in Afghanistan from short-term security stabilization and humanitarian assistance to building independent Afghan security organs. The main problems are the lack of security co-ordination among the military, police, and intelligence branches of the state, which has led to distrust among its most powerful institutions. Though the Afghan National Police is incapable, corrupt, and under-resourced, it is expected to secure checkpoints and security installations in major Afghan cities such as Herat, Kabul, Kandahar, and Mazar-e-Sharif. The NATO mission is too narrowly focused on increasing force recruitment and counter-terrorism training, without any specific regard for improving the quality of service. “The recruitment system lacks the ability to properly identify recruits, often entering them at higher ranks, which allows them to receive salary and entitlement benefits at this inflated level for the remainder of his or her ANP service,” notes the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. The ANSF and Afghan National Police are not recruited and trained at the level of professionalism NATO initially anticipated. Long renowned as one of the most corrupt and ethnically divided states in the world, Afghanistan’s entire security sector needs help from Canada to achieve genuine reform. Policy-oriented directives are routinely flouted to transfer security responsibilities from the Afghan National Police to the national intelligence branch, namely the National Directorate of Security. The police need to nurture more mature relationships with Afghan civilians to improve and maintain civil order, and allow the intelligence branch, with its improved resources and training, to oversee daily security efforts in Afghanistan. Unless the United States and Canada initiate more palpable security-oriented institutional reforms, NATO’s Resolute Support Mission will remain a relatively miniscule force unable to deal with perpetual Taliban insurgency. The NATO mandate direly needs reinvigoration to realign its focus with realities on the ground, and to mitigate rising security concerns in Afghanistan. Within NATO, Canada needs to focus on building strong, well co-ordinated, independent, and sustainable security institutions if we are to actually win the war in Afghanistan. Sakhi Naimpoor is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Western University. He is fluent in five languages and specializes in international security policy and NATO-led capacity-building initiatives. The Hill Times

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Our failing approach to Afghanistan

Canada and NATO should shift their efforts from short-term security stabilization and humanitarian aid to building independent Afghan security organs.

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