There is as yet no clear indication of the shape of things to come in Afghanistan after 2014 when the withdrawal of American troops from the country is scheduled to be completed. According to indications, United States Special Operations Forces will stay in the country for counter-terrorism operations. What that means remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of Defence Leon E Panetta said in Brussels on February 1 that American troops would step back from combat role as early as 2013. This means that the Afghan National Security Force, of which the main component is the Afghan National Army, will have to take charge of the country’s defence next year. Will it be able to do so? This actually means: Will it be able to hold its own against forces of the Haqqani network and the Quetta Shura of Mullah Mohammed Omar, who will continue to be backed by the Pakistani Army and the ISI?
The answer will be ‘no’ if it has to do that all by itself. Its targetted strength of 171,000, even if fully achieved, will not be enough. In his chapter, “Afghanistan Today”, Lt-Gen (retd) RK Sawhney writes in Afghanistan: A Role for India (published by Centre for Land Warfare Studies), that the US military’s counter-insurgency doctrine prescribes the presence of 20 to 25 counter-insurgency personnel for every 1,000 residents.
Afghanistan’s population of around 28 million would require anything between 568,000 and 710,000 troops. These figures, which he cited to underline the numerical inadequacy of the International Security Assistance Force, would also apply to the ANA’s strength.
The other problem is the ANA’s inconsistent performance — ranging from excellent to very poor. This, however, was only to be expected. It takes time and a great deal of money and effort to build an efficient Army. It may not be enough even if there is a plenty of each of these. An Army fights for izzat (pride) which in turn is closely linked to regimental traditions and tales of indomitable courage against indescribable odds, of which the Indian Army has a surfeit since World War I.
The Afghans have a martial tradition that any country should be proud of. These, however, relate to tribal history and traditions. The challenge will be integrating these into a motivational framework for the ANA.
The challenge is difficult but not impossible to meet. India has developed an excellent military force that displays a high degree of professional and operational excellence and also reflects the country’s tradition of unity in diversity. This, however, has happened over a long period of time.
The ANA has little time on its hand. It, therefore, has to depend on another factor critical to military performance, leadership at the level of planning and strategy as well as operational levels. In the case of the latter, the role of officers like lieutenants, captains and majors will be very important. Unfortunately, performance at this level has sometimes not been good enough.
There is another problem here. Maj-Gen Dhruv C Katoch points out in his chapter, “The Afghan National Army”, in Afghanistan: A Role for India, that while the ethnic composition of the ANA is generally representative of all the ethnic communities of the country at the level of foot soldiers, the commissioned and non-commissioned officers are mostly Pashtuns and Tajiks.
This imbalance has to change if the ANA is to be perceived as a genuine national Army. Besides, the feudal tradition of Afghanistan and the fact that commissioned officers generally come from the landed and privileged sections, tend to create a barrier between them and the men they lead. This has sometimes created difficulties in counter-insurgency operations in which officers and men have often to live and function closely together.
It will be labouring the obvious to say that the challenges facing the ANA will not go away overnight. Nor can one blame the Afghan Government for its inadequacies. As the Taliban had no Army, the building of the ANA had to begin from a scratch after the ouster of their regime by the US-led forces of the Northern Alliance in 2001. Its growth was slow and haphazard in the initial years because the diversion of American personnel and resources to the war in Iraq even before it began in March 2003. As Maj-Gen Katoch points out, its strength was a mere 6,000 in 2004. This had increased to 21,000 (including 3,400 under training) by January 2005 and to 91,000 by 2009.
There, besides, has been the major problem of raising an Army under conditions of insurgency when the writ of the Government does not run in many parts. According to a report by Ray Rivera in The New York Times of September 6, 2011, Afghan and Nato officials have long struggled to entice young men in the heavily Pashtun south — the Taliban heartland — to join the Afghan Army.
An analysis of recruitment patterns by the newspaper showed that, despite their efforts, the number of people joining the Army remained relatively minuscule, “reflecting a deep and lingering fear of the insurgents, or sympathy for them, as well as doubts about the stability and integrity of the Central Government in Kabul, the capital”. The report further pointed out that the two provinces of Kandahar and Helmand had a total population of nearly two million people but had contributed only 1,200 soldiers since 2009, “less than one per cent of the nearly 173,000 enlistees in that period”.
Recruitment has also been slow given the need to keep out Taliban and Al Qaeda infiltrators tasked with subversion from within. Considering all the odds, the building of the ANA is relatively a success story in a country where other Government institutions have a poor record. It will, however, take several years in the least to become a fighting force that can deliver in terms of its tasks.
Till then, it will need support, particularly in the form of and Air Force and heavy artillery support, arms and funds. Confounding most people, the Soviet-propped Government of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, headed by Mohammed Najibullah, did not collapse with the departure of Soviet troops in 1989. It fell in 1992 after the disintegration of the Soviet Union deprived it of the aid that sustained it.
An Afghan child kisses the headstone of his brother’s grave at a cemetery in Kabul. A UN report says 2011 was the deadliest on record for Afghan civilians, with 3,021 killed in the war. That is an eight per cent increase in civilian deaths from 2010. It was also the fifth year in a row that the civilian toll became steadily worse. The report says insurgents killed more than three-quarters of the civilians who died, with a steep rise in people killed in suicide bombings. It says roadside bombs were the single biggest killer of civilians, accounting for nearly one in three deaths.
