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Reconstituting the Afghan National Army A FORCE IN FRAGMENTS: RECONSTITUTING THE AFGHAN NATIONAL ARMY Asia Report N°190 – 12 May 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS................................................. i I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 1 II. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND .................................................................................... 3 A. MODERNISING THE MILITARY: 1929-1979...................................................................................3 B. THE MILITARY’S DISINTEGRATION: 1979-2001...........................................................................4 III. INTERNATIONAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................................. 7 A. EARLY DEVELOPMENT.................................................................................................................7 B. FORCE GENERATION ....................................................................................................................8 IV. POLITICAL AND LEGAL IMPERATIVES.............................................................. 10 A. POLITICAL MILIEU .....................................................................................................................10 1. Factions and fiefdoms................................................................................................................10 2. The politics of corruption...........................................................................................................12 B. LEGAL FRAMEWORK..................................................................................................................13 1. Military justice...........................................................................................................................14 2. Military administration................................................................................................................14 V. MANNING AND FIELDING THE ANA..................................................................... 16 A. GROWING PAINS ........................................................................................................................16 1. Training......................................................................................................................................17 2. Recruitment and retention..........................................................................................................18 3. Ethnicity and leadership.............................................................................................................19 4. Logistics and infrastructure........................................................................................................20 B. IN THE FIELD..............................................................................................................................21 VI. A STRATEGIC WAY FORWARD.............................................................................. 23 VII. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 26 APPENDICES A. MAP OF AFGHANISTAN ....................................................................................................................28 B. MAP OF ANA REGIONAL COMMAND AREAS ...................................................................................29 C. GLOSSARY OF TERMS………………………………………………………………………………30 D. ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP ....................................................................................31 E. CRISIS GROUP REPORTS AND BRIEFINGS ON ASIA SINCE 2007.........................................................32 F. CRISIS GROUP BOARD OF TRUSTEES................................................................................................35 Asia Report N°190 12 May 2010 A FORCE IN FRAGMENTS: RECONSTITUTING THE AFGHAN NATIONAL ARMY EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS For nearly a decade, the Afghan military has been promoted has hobbled the Afghan military’s capacity to respond as the cornerstone of counterinsurgency in the country. effectively to threats confronting the state. Failure to de- Billed as a rare success story in a conflict with few bright velop a sustainable, comprehensive long-term defence pos- spots, the Afghan armed forces will undoubtedly prove ture could risk the army’s disintegration after the with- pivotal to stabilising Afghanistan. Yet nine years after the drawal of international forces. Similarly, tensions between fall of the Taliban, there appears to be little agreement be- the Afghan military’s historical roots in Soviet-style over- tween the government of President Hamid Karzai and its centralised and top-heavy command and control struc- international backers on what kind of army the country tures and the more fluid organisation of Western militar- needs, how to build it or which elements of the insurgency ies has often pitted the U.S. and NATO against the very the Afghan army should be fighting. Persistent structural Afghan officials they seek to influence and support. flaws meanwhile have undermined the military’s ability to operate independently. Ethnic frictions and political fac- Despite billions of dollars of international investment, army tionalism among high-level players in the Ministry of combat readiness has been undermined by weak recruit- Defence (MOD) and the general staff have also stunted the ment and retention policies, inadequate logistics, insuffi- army’s growth. As a result, the army is a fragmented force, cient training and equipment and inconsistent leadership. serving disparate interests, and far from attaining the uni- International support for the ANA must therefore be tar- fied national character needed to confront numerous secu- geted not just toward increasing the quantity of troops but rity threats. There is a strong need to strengthen civilian input enhancing the quality of the fighting force. Given the into military development, confront corruption and fac- slow pace of economic development and the likelihood of tionalism within the MOD and general staff and to place an eventual drawdown of Western resources, any assess- sustainability of the armed forces at the forefront of Af- ment of the future shape of the army must also make fis- ghanistan’s national security strategy. cal as well as political sense. Although recent efforts to con- solidate the training command structure under the NATO The Afghan National Army’s (ANA) strategic role in sta- Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A) are encouraging, bilising Afghanistan should not be underestimated. His- the U.S. emphasis on rapid expansion of the army, in re- tory has shown that failure to build a cohesive national sponse to the growing insurgent threat, could strain NTM-A army has often led to the diffusion of state force among resources and outpace the capacity of Afghan leaders to disparate actors, hastening the collapse of governments in manage an inherently unwieldy system. Kabul. The push to build a unified national military in service of a civilian government has frequently clashed These shortcomings, combined with the international com- with the tendency to create militias in a bid to insulate the munity’s haphazard approach to demobilisation and rein- state from internal and external threats. The tension be- tegration (DR) has undermined the army’s professionalism tween these polar conceptions has had far reaching impli- and capacity to counter the insurgency. The proliferation cations not only for internal security but also for Afghani- of weaponry provided by Kabul’s international backers stan’s relationships with external actors. also feeds an illicit shadow economy, which further em- powers patronage networks within the military. Kabul pow- ANA development and deployment have dragged under erbrokers are distributing the spoils of increased NATO these tensions as well as patchwork command structures, spending on army development among their constituents with little coordination between NATO’s International in the officer corps, fuelling ethnic and political factionalism Security Assistance Force (ISAF), U.S. forces and the within army ranks. MOD in the early years of army development. The lack of consensus between Kabul, Washington and Brussels A Force in Fragments: Reconstituting the Afghan National Army Crisis Group Asia Report N°190, 12 May 2010 Page ii These developments are all the more problematic in light b) conducting a thorough review of MOD and ANA of current proposals to reintegrate and reconcile elements general staff leadership with the goal of reducing of the insurgency. Limited progress on dissolution of ille- factional tensions; and gal armed groups and reintegration of insurgents has c) ordering a full review of military justice codes given Kabul wide berth to continue its time-honoured and procedures, in consultation with parliamen- tactic of exploiting divisions to consolidate the govern- tary committees on defence, internal security and ment’s hold over power. Government-backed reintegra- justice. tion programs have emerged as little more than distribu- tion of patronage by a few Afghan elites. With Taliban 2. Prioritise oversight and accountability within the groups in control of large swathes of the country since ANA and MOD by: around 2007, many Afghan military leaders believe that a) making appointments of the MOD inspector gen- in the current climate of high instability, the time is not
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