Capacity Building of Indigenous Forces in Afghanistan by Western Forces Post 2012

Introduction

Building capacity for indigenous security forces presents serious challenges in most cases based on the political as well as cultural obstructions, but it is even worse during active battles. Western forces such as the United States forces have always played a significant part in building foreign forces in the quest of boosting international security in the most vulnerable regions such as Iraq and Afghanistan[1]. Forces capacity building is not just an act of increasing their number, training, equipment and releasing them to fight rather it is more of focusing on the ability to enhance their confidence and abilities to offer protection to the people[2]. Forces capacity building demands competent leadership and consistency. Forces capacity building remain to be one of the most prioritized activities adopted by several nations in order to ensure stability, security, and peace in vulnerable countries such as Afghanistan[3]. While most countries are required to fight radicalism within their individual jurisdictions most of them lack the needed capacity to accomplish the goal, the element of forces capacity building incorporates collaborating with powerful partners in terms of resources and skills to training indigenous forces to equip them with the needed skills to stop terrorism and violence. This report will seek to discuss the capacity building of indigenous forces focusing on the case study of Afghanistan post-2012 and how the ongoing development and capacity needs across organizational structure are being addressed. The study will begin by synthesis literature related to capacity building of indigenous forces in vulnerable countries such as Afghanistan. The report proceeds as follows. In the first section an introduction to the issue, with a description followed by a review of  literature with respect to leadership competence, leadership needs, change of skills in organizational hierarchy and influence of leadership. Lastly, a synthesis of literature with a case study of Afghanistan indigenous forces will be conducted. The conclusion will provide a detailed analysis of the identified challenges and the proposed solutions.

An Analysis of How the Ongoing Development Needs Across Organizational Structure

Counterinsurgency thinkers and security operations experts believe that creating skilled indigenous police forces is an unconditional imperative in regard to creating stability in fragile countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet, organizational leadership and structures among the western forces that are accountable for the roles such as the American government in frequent cases appear to be glorification the principle of breaks. Actually, western forces have demonstrated their commitment to creating stability in Afghanistan post-2012 but lacks the capability to efficiently train and expand what is debatably the essential aspects of the nation’s interior security forces. The existing gap was clearly demonstrated by the United States involvement with police force building in more than a decade of its interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq respectively which is accounted for significant outcomes in both countries. Based on the increasing terrorist threat and the domination of the terror groups in different regions across the globe which has in turn affected the general ability of the affected countries to grow politically and socio-economically, the efforts by the western forces makes it evident that the building of effective indigenous forces is an important operation to subject it to uncoordinated and uncomprehensive measures in the field.

In Afghanistan, the instant post-war surrounding was branded by disorder and absence of healthy indigenous internal security[4]. However, for the case of Afghanistan although for different rationales police building lacked adequate attention either in regard to planning prior to the occurrence of war or post-2012 after the invasion era of the conflict. Given that the war that had taken place for close two double decades had mainly resulted in major destructions of the Afghanistan infrastructure, the western forces and the United Nations opted on the use of a light foot approach that restrained the global involvement in internal security affairs in Afghanistan. In consequence, over the past few years past the war, local policing roles were assumed by private soldiers that worked at the command of regional authorities rather than based on the request and authority of the central government. When it became rather evident that the immediate strategy was unsustainable, the primary donors particularly those from the west that were mainly involved in assisting the Afghanistan administration settled on the adoption of lead national strategy that wrapped out the leadership of the different security sector’s reform aspect to distinct nations as for instance German was left to bear the responsibility of capacity building of the local Afghan police forces.

Leadership Influence in Capacity Building of Indigenous Forces in Afghanistan

Leadership has played a substantial influence in regard to how the capacity building need and organization issues are being dealt with. To begin with, in the lead up to the post-war intervention, most of the senior officials from the western nations and forces focused on giving inadequate attention to the necessity for police force building but on the ground of a distinct reason[5]. In that, there is the assumption that Afghanistan apparatus and forces would remain intact. Since the western leadership believed and anticipated that the allied forces would be accommodated as liberators, the assumption that an obliging Afghanistan military and police forces held the ability to maintain national and regional security. This notion has however been proved as inaccurate. Post the war, the destruction that had occurred meant that the coalition was exceptionally not equipped in dealing with the extensive failure of national order that had occurred prior thus melting away the country’s indigenous forces as the western forces such as the U.S military assumed to have acted enough[6]. In Afghanistan immediately after the war rather than having a functioning and intact coalition, it was established that the forces were just crumbling giants.

Evidently, the lack of coordination is mainly attributed to the leadership which is a major threat to the capacity building[7]. With the fact that decisions within the structures have to be developed in a rather shared structure has resulted in major delays in regard to making appointments within the forces organizational command chain thus hindering the capability of the indigenous forces as well as their capability to fully assert command as well as control. it is worth acknowledging that capacity building of the indigenous forces is not just a matter of providing the needed resources to offer adequate defense and guarantee security but also seeking to provide practical training and resolving the organizational and structures issues that alter the ability of the forces to fulfill the set obligations[8].

Analysis of the Capacity Building

Forces capacity building in Afghanistan has been faced by a number of challenges mainly because of the needs resources, effort, the absence of security, insufficiency of forces, low quality of police training and instructions and the inability to manage efforts gathered from different nations. The rather unstable leadership has resulted in indigenous forces acquiring training under the corrupt and incompetent leaders which have thus restrained the ability of the forces. Afghanistan has a populace that is over 30 million with forces accounting for about 150,000[9]. The ratio is not a balanced one which makes the operations hard to achieve. Prior to 2012, the western forces had not been involved in capacity building of such large forces which in turn complicated the interventions.

From its foundation, the Afghanistan indigenous defense and security forces have widely been known for their intense experiences derived from the ever-changing partisan and security setting which have in turn affected their sizes, organizations, and capacity[10]. The forces have for the longest period being under the dependence of the western support for both monetary and operational help. Even though the intention to grow and enhance the capacity of this forces has been a primary priority of the western countries and the international community such as the United States it is evident that the forces are most likely to live under the dependency for a longer period than it had been anticipated post-2012. Despite the fact that the national security and defense forces in Afghanistan are characterized by desirable designs, the command and monitoring systems fail to perform as needed[11]. In that, the system is heavily reliant on bureaucracy which thus weakens the uppermost power and the lower one as well. The political meddling and the dodging of the official command chain normally hinders the interventions for capacity building from conducting well-established processes and plans in general. In Afghanistan there is an output that seeks to create and replace and army of approximately 90,000 and a police force of 98,000 which possess a great challenge[12].