Afghan Army Research Articles

Policing Mars or Venus? Comparing European and US approaches to police assistance

This article examines European and US approaches to police assistance in Afghanistan through the lens of strategic culture analysis. It is widely assumed that the Europeans are engaged in establishing a democratic, civilian police force in Afghanistan, while the US aim to transform the Afghan National Police (ANP) into a militarized auxiliary force of the Afghan army. Drawing on Kagan's famous dichotomy of Mars and Venus, the article first outlines the concept of strategic culture analysis with regard to US and European foreign policy strategies. It then describes the historical experiences of Western powers with police assistance in the so-called Third World in order to explore historical patterns of police assistance that have shaped specific strategic cultures of police assistance. Against this background European and US approaches to police assistance are contrasted with the practices of reforming the ANP on the ground. The article concludes that, contrary to the ‘Mars-Venus divide’, the US and the EU both pursue police assistance policies on the ground that produces a highly militarized ANP.

Diversionary wars: Pashtun unrest and the sources of the Pakistan-Afghan confrontation

The widespread belief is that the instability in Afghanistan is the result of the entry and later abrupt departure by the Soviet Union and its Cold War adversaries. In fact, the persistence of the conflict is the result of Afghan-Pakistan antagonisms that can be traced to the 1940s, when Kabul opposed the creation of Pakistan. The world's longest unrecognized border, the Durand Line, coupled with Pashtun nationalist claims over much of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, led to Afghan army infiltration in the 1950s. Though peace was negotiated with Pakistan after a crippling embargo of land-locked Afghanistan, this only endured until a coup displaced the King Zahir Shah in 1973. The new policy of Afghanistan turned out to be to fuel the old secessionist claims, leading Pakistan to back Jihadist insurgents in 1974. I find that Afghan-Pakistan conflict is driven by competitive diversionary behavior by both regimes seeking to buttress public support. Afghanistan will find no escape from this insurgency until the international community compels it to address its complicity in provoking Pakistani intervention. Selon une croyance répandue, l'instabilité en Afghanistan résulte de l'entrée dans ce pays de l'Union Soviétique et de ses adversaires de la Guerre Froide puis, plus tard, de leur brusque départ. En fait, la continuité du conflit est la conséquence des hostilités entre l'Afghanistan et le Pakistan qui remontent aux années 40, quand Kaboul s'est opposée à la création du Pakistan. De même que les revendications nationalistes pachtounes concernant la plus grande partie du Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, la ligne Durand, frontière non reconnue la plus longue du monde, a conduit à l'infiltration du Pakistan par l'armée afghane dans les années 50. Bien que la paix ait été négociée avec le Pakistan suite à un embargo écrasant du pays sans accès à la mer qu'est l'Afghanistan, elle n'a duré que jusqu'au coup d’état qui a déposé le roi Zahir Shah en 1973. La nouvelle politique de l'Afghanistan s'est alors révélée comme instrument pour attiser les vieilles revendications sécessionnistes, ce qui a poussé le Pakistan à soutenir les insurgés djihadistes. Je considère que le conflit entre l'Afghanistan et le Pakistan est le fruit d'une tactique compe ´titive de diversion employée par les deux pays pour renforcer le soutien de leurs populations. L'Afghanistan ne trouvera aucune issue à cette insurrection tant que la communauté internationalene le contraindra pas à assumer sa complicité, celle-ci se révélant lorsqu'il provoque les interventions du Pakistan.

THE AFGHAN NATIONAL ARMY

Billions of dollars have been spent in training, mentoring and equipping a new Afghan army which is representative of Afghanistan's diverse ethnic groups and operates in the nation's interests. Yet, at the end of 2009, the Afghan Army is beset by a host of problems including widespread illiteracy, ethnic rivalries, drug use and poor combat effectiveness. Respected Afghan expert Antonio Giustozzi analyses what has gone wrong and suggests that a new model may be the only way forward.

Afghanistan: An assessment of the status of health care and pharmacy mentoring efforts in an Afghan National Army Hospital

BackgroundThe United States and Coalition countries initiated mentoring in Afghanistan as a means of training the Afghan people for independence, to include democratic self-governance and national defense. Several medical Embedded Training Teams are executing the medical component of the mentoring mission at Afghan Army hospitals around the country. ObjectivesTo provide a brief synopsis of Afghanistan history, review the status of Afghanistan health care, and provide an overview of pharmacy mentoring efforts by an Air Force pharmacist and pharmacy technician at Kandahar Regional Military Hospital. SummaryAfghanistan health care has suffered from neglect, and improving health care in the country is an important part of bolstering their military and the country as a whole. Afghanistan is rebounding from decades of civil war and occupation from a number of oppressive regimes, and the Afghan military faces considerable challenges. Challenges specific to military pharmacy include lack of established policies and procedures, medication shortages, medication quality issues, and lack of basic equipment, supplies, and training. ConclusionThrough ingenuity and determination, Afghan and Coalition pharmacists are working together to make progress in advancing the practice of pharmacy in Afghanistan.

The Alienated Frontier: Why the United States Can’t Get Osama bin Laden

Since the Russian-supplied Afghan army overthrew progressive President Daud in 1978, the nation has endured the long Soviet-Afghan war, the Taliban, and the arrival of U.S troops. These military actions have only heightened the historical alienation of the Pashtun tribes who overspread the long-contested border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. These are the people who are almost certainly sheltering Osama bin Laden. The Alienated Frontier is a centuries-old problem that must be solved if we are to win the war on terror, and solving it will require rebuilding the infrastructure, developing alternatives to poppy cultivation, and solving the “Pashtunistan” question. The capture or elimination of given individuals will achieve little if the conditions that allow radicals to thrive are not addressed

A New Model Afghan Army

AN UNFORESEEN RESULT of the U.S. military's stunning success in Afghanistan was the overnight suspension of that country's vicious, 23-year-old civil war. Afghanistan's ftiture-including whether it again degenerates into a terrorist base-now largely depends on what is made of this precious opportunity. In countries recovering from civil war, the most critical requirement for long-term peace is the demobilization of the formerly warring parties and their integration within a unified military. Angola and the former Yugoslavia provide cautionary tales about the difficulties of military reintegration; Mozambique and South Africa give more hopeful examples of how building a cohesive army can help solidify peace after a national conflict. In Afghanistan, the process of military integration has barely begun, but it is already close to collapse. Not only are perennial ethnic, factional, and religious disputes hampering progress, but the political elements of postwar transition are moving ahead without the requisite military corollary. Indeed, the interim admin istration inaugurated in December zoci never answered basic questions about the size, composition, and tasks of a national army. Meanwhile, the international community remains ambivalent about how it will assist, and what little aid it has promised has been slow in coming.

Afghanistan: The Anatomy of an Ongoing Conflict

The civil war in Afghanistan is a microcosm of the post-Cold War multilateral competition for influence in unsettled regions. The Afghan conflict involves internal armed factions with extensive foreign links, neighboring states that pursue competing strategic interests, and ultra-regional players who have ideological, security, or economic stakes in the chaos. With no central authority in Afghanistan, neighboring countries further their policies by engaging and supporting rival Afghan factions, thus fueling the internal strife and blocking the emergence of a broad-based legitimate government in Afghanistan. The turmoil is both the cause and consequence of state failure in the war-torn country. The result is an attempt to impose a military solution. Armed struggle is not an instrument of a clearly defined policy but a means for open-ended gains in a volatile environment. The trend defies classic norms of warfare and widely accepted military concepts. Instead of war being a continuation of politics by other means, militarized politics is an extension of war through other channels. Nor does the conceptual paradox end there. The structure of opposing forces and methods of their tactical and operational employment are in stark contrast with conventional models. Militia formations tailored for guerrilla warfare fight conventional battles. Traditional practices regulate the use of new weapons instead of modern technology reshaping outdated procedures. The new follows the old; the past governs the present. This article looks at the dynamics of the Afghan battlefield with an emphasis on the military potential of the major players and their capacity to force peace through military action. It also examines the interplay of political and military aspects of the conflict to identify conceptual frameworks for restoring peace in Afghanistan. Background Militarization of politics in Afghanistan in the fourth quarter of the last century opened a bloody chapter in the country's history that is yet to be closed. Traditionally an internal security force, the Afghan army became heavily politicized in the 1970s as a result of two military coups that eventually brought the communists to power in 1978. Armed resistance to the Saur Revolution plunged the country into the grips of a devastating civil war leading to the Soviet military intervention (1979-89) and increased Western support of Islamic-led anti-regime resistance forces, the mujahideen. Political polarization of the county intensified as the war developed into a bloody Cold War battlefield throughout the 1980s. No previous war in Afghanistan caused so much social change as this one, ripping society apart vertically and horizontally. Traditionally, the regular army was augmented by civilian militias in dealing with major domestic disturbances and foreign threats. During foreign invasions integrated contingents of civilian militias and elements of fragmented state armies had fought foreign invaders. But this war split the nation in two. Each side had extensive foreign backing. The troops of the Moscow-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) and its successor the Republic of Afghanistan (ROA) more than tripled in less than ten years to a total of 329,000. [1] Increases in military hardware, particularly after the Soviet pullout, were even greater. [2] The size of the ground forces expanded from 10 divisions to 22. In an effort to popularize the defense of the revolution and improve the force-to-space ratio, the regime recruited a large number of tribal and local militias. In addition, 14 Border Guard brigades and the elite National Guard Corps [3] were created. On the other side, the mujahideen forces grew from local militias to a nationwide guerrilla force composed of numerous factions united by a common enemy but divided along political, ethnic, and regional lines. The mujahideen-- backed by millions of armed and unarmed people who were opposed to the communist regime and Soviet military occupation--fielded about 200,000 active fighters [4] equipped with sophisticated weapons including Stinger and Blowpipe anti-aircraft missiles, the MILAN anti-tank system, and surface-to-surface rockets. …

Afghanistan

WHEN US AMBASSADOR DUBS was killed recently during an Afghan assault on the Ambassador's kidnappers, Americans were shocked by the hand-in-glove role played by Soviet security advisors on the scene and in positions of responsibility, advising and cooperating with Afghan security officials who authorized the final fatal rush. They need not have been, because the nature of the Soviet role in the new, pro-Soviet Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was clearly signalled last autumn by President Brezhnev during the visit to Moscow of Afghan President Taraki. Toasting Taraki on the occasion of the signing of a new Soviet-Afghan friendship treaty, Brezhnev remarked that: traditional good relations between our two countries have taken on a qualitatively different character. (Emphasis added.) We can assume that President Brezhnev knew whereof he spoke. After all, the conclusion of the treaty and the flood of Soviet advisors into Afghanistan so soon after the bloody takeover in Kabul by the minuscule People's Party, aided by Soviet-trained Afghan Army officers, and coupled with the replacement of the traditional red, black, and green flag with a solid red one-all this could not be without special significance. Indeed, the new leaders in Kabul frankly acknowledged that their revolution was a continuation of the 1917 Russian Revolution. The lesson for the rest of us is that history (especially along the Soviet borders) does move in certain orderly ways and according to some very compelling, if not inexorable, laws of strategy which, like the laws of physics, can be ignored only at great peril.