A Press Dinner with SACEUR General John Craddock Applying Lessons from Afghanistan: Actions and Outcomes Bibliothèque Solvay, Brussels SECURITY & DEFENCE AGENDA A Security & Defence Agenda Report Rapporteur: Julian Hale Photos: David Plas Year of publication: 2007 SECURITY & DEFENCE AGENDA Bibliothèque Solvay, Parc Léopold, 137 rue Belliard, B-1040, Brussels, Belgium T: +32 (0)2 737 91 48 F: +32 (0)2 736 32 16 E: [email protected] W: www.securitydefenceagenda.org SECURITY & DEFENCE AGENDA Contents Executive Summary 4 SACEUR’s General John Craddock—opening remarks 7 The Q&A Session 9 Can the insurgents be militarily defeated? 9 Can the gaps in NATO shortfalls be plugged? 10 What can NATO do to tackle the narcotics trade in Afghanistan? 11 The role of the international community 12 NATO planning—the longer term 13 List of participants 16 About the SDA 18 Page 3 SECURITY & DEFENCE AGENDA Applying Lessons from Afghanistan: Actions and Outcomes concerned, he feels that this is slow in Executive summary coming but says NATO is coming up with hand-me-down weapons and gear even if there are sometimes delays in Afghanistan: We cannot fail finding money to ship the equipment. As regards to the police force, the re- Supreme Allied Commander for duction in the pay gap between soldiers Europe (SACEUR) General Craddock and the police is one measure that has sees Afghanistan as a “very complex been taken. In addition, a US police situation” in which the international training mission which is to start imme- community “cannot fail”1 and that diately, will focus on equipment and NATO’s aim is to create the conditions training opportunities to develop Af- to allow Afghans to rebuild their coun- ghan forces rather like a gendarmerie. try. For him, the situation is improving but it is still a race against time to get the Afghan army and police trained and Making the Taliban irrelevant in a position to take over from NATO. The government needs to put in place Craddock feels that it is not so much domestic institutions and good govern- about defeating the Taliban as making ance that Afghans have confidence in. them irrelevant and that they would become so if people trust the govern- He is optimistic that the Afghan secu- ment to deliver social and welfare ser- rity forces will be able to take over re- vices to the people. Positive develop- sponsibilities in the next few years. ments including more and more chil- dren in schools rather than Madrasahs where they are taught about extrem- Afghan army and police ism, and practical projects such as road construction or hydroelectric power Craddock says that NATO would like systems, are carried out by NATO to have greater involvement of Muslim provincial reconstruction teams. In nations and hopes that North African terms of reconstruction, he believes and Middle Eastern countries will pro- that the tendency to lead with the mili- vide teams of military experts as part of tary operation and then consider the a growing programme to train Afghan reconstruction only afterwards needs military units. “They are interested,” he to inverted. said. “We're going to send a team down to Egypt very shortly, so I think there's some possibilities here.” He noted that NATO regional headquar- Counter-narcotics support ters will be establishing coordination Although NATO does support Afghani- centres to ensure that there is coordi- stan counter-narcotics forces with lo- nation between the International Secu- gistical support, it does not have a man- rity Assistance Force (ISAF) and the date for drug eradication and would Afghan army once the latter start car- need more resources to carry out such rying out autonomous operations. As a task. Progress has been made on re- far as equipping the Afghan army is Page 4 1 Quoting the NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. SECURITY & DEFENCE AGENDA A Press Dinner organised by the SDA in cooperation with the Hanns Seidel Stiftung ducing the amount of poppy cultivation Capability shortfalls in Afghanistan but there is still a long way to go. In his view, counter- In terms of capability shortfalls, he re- narcotics action must include some fused to name and shame countries and eradication, action against the leader- mentioned that there had been incre- ship of the trafficking networks and a mental improvements. However, he ban on the movement of drugs across argued that a clearly resourced NATO borders. sends a message that there is commit- ment to the success of the operation. His view was that every shortfall each soldier at a greater risk of being killed. Role of the international As regards ISAF protection for the EU community police mission in Afghanistan, Craddock stated that ISAF will always provide He stressed the important role played support for police outfits in extremis. by civilian actors from the international community in training government offi- cials, fighting corruption, fighting the narcotics trade and delivering eco- Measuring progress nomic infrastructure such as roads. He believes that success in Afghanistan Craddock also says that SHAPE should be judged on the delivery of a (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers safe and secure environment and a bet- Europe) is developing one set of met- ter way of life for Afghans. In that rics to measure progress, for example sense, Craddock believes that that the on the extension of the Afghan govern- comprehensive approach is working ment’s authority across the country. better in some parts of the country He pointed out that measurements of than in others, that the provincial re- the effectiveness of actions needed to construction teams are working fairly be continually scrutinised and refined well but that there is room for im- and, for the longer term, that there provement in the long-term recon- would inevitably be lessons from Af- struction side of things, where interna- ghanistan for future operations. tional actors come into play. David Leakey, the Director General of the European Union Military Staff, agreed Deployable special operations with the General that there should be a metric strategy to measure the pro- Overstretch was a problem referred to gress of the international community by Herman Schaper, Ambassador of the across the board, that the international Delegation of the Netherlands to community should be engaged from day NATO. He also asked if, given that we one and that there should be Afghan are moving from a world of classical ownership alongside the international warfare to one where there is greater community’s efforts. need for counter-insurgency, there should be more focus on special forces and whether the remit of the military should be expanded, to include the role Page 5 SECURITY & DEFENCE AGENDA Applying Lessons from Afghanistan: Actions and Outcomes of a reconstruction worker. Craddock said that things were moving from a Cold War construct of big armies to one where it is about deployable spe- cial operations for different tasks. There was a need to catalogue “what we are doing”. Better long-term planning In terms of long-term planning, Craddock described the process of de- veloping capability packages in NATO as “an excruciating process” that needs to improve and that “we need to do more force planning informed what we are doing, not force planning as an end unto itself, its got to be informed by the real world; operations Active En- deavour, Kosovo, Afghanistan, training mission in Iraq. Informed by the reality of operations not informed by the doc- trines that we bring to the table in 26 different fashions”. Page 6 SECURITY & DEFENCE AGENDA A Press Dinner organised by the SDA in cooperation with the Hanns Seidel Stiftung tion, especially in the south and east of SACEUR General John Craddock – the country, as “difficult” but said that opening remarks “NATO has the upper hand right now with more ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) forces than a year ago and better capability”. He referred In his opening remarks, Supreme Allied to statistics from the Asia Foundation, Commander Europe (SACEUR) Gen- which showed that 90% of Afghans eral Craddock likened the roadmap for trust the Afghan national army. The Afghanistan to the complexity of the army is said to be well on the way to rules of cricket for American football reaching a target of 80,000 soldiers by fans. Although a humorous comment, the end of 2010 and is well over 50% in his point was clear - Afghanistan is an terms of retention rates. The SACEUR “extraordinary and very complex situa- said that the Afghan army is eager to tion” in which the international com- take on responsibility for security in munity “cannot fail”. He Afghanistan and highlighted pointed out that foreign sol- the importance of ‘OMLTs’ - diers would not be tolerated NATO operational mentoring indefinitely. In general terms, and liaison teams training he pointed to: forces embedded in the Af- ghan army. He described OMLTs as providing “the 1) the race against time to most important contribution meet challenges such as the NATO is making in providing Afghan security capacity taking security and stability in Af- over from NATO and the de- ghanistan” and being “our best velopment of domestic institu- investment in Afghanistan's tions and good governance; General John successful future”. Craddock 2) the importance of NATO SHAPE taking a long-term approach to the campaign; A comprehensive approach, including the international 3) the threat from opposition forces, community such as the Taliban but including other insurgents – “tribal warlords are for Craddock also stressed the need for the most part not organised but have a NATO and the international commu- common goal of preventing the democ- nity to continue to provide improve- ratically elected government of Afghani- ments in terms of the comprehensive stan from becoming the dominant gov- approach to Afghanistan.