BY REBECCA WEXLER
NEW YORK—Seeking new ways to speed the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, General Petraeus recently announced a massive expansion of the Afghan Local Police, a community policing initiative touted as the “new way forward” in winning the support of Afghans, and turning village-level security currently performed by NATO troops over to Afghan forces.
Plans to expand the program from its initial goal of roughly 10,000 local police across 60 districts to a force of roughly 50,000 members over the next several years, however, have raised serious questions about the viability of the program. The plans have additionally sparked another round of debate about the soundness of counterinsurgency tactics in the country, commonly referred to by the military acronym COIN.
Austin Long, a Columbia University professor and RAND analyst, suggests that the U.S. military has “dramatically overstated our agency” in erecting programs like the Afghan Local Police, mistakenly believing that the American military’s vision of the best way forward will resonate with Afghans.
For all of the International Security Assistance Forces’ efforts to paint the Afghan Local Police as an Afghan government-led, government-controlled program, Long points to an important Catch-22.
“If the Afghan government was actually effective, the need for local police would essentially be eliminated.”
Currently, the Afghan Local Police consists of approximately 3,000 members in 17 Afghan districts, and military officials suggest that trainers could have up to 10,000 recruits active across 68 sites by the spring, when fighting typically ramps up.
“Local security forces are basically COIN 101,” says Adam Mausner, an Afghan military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Burke Chair in Strategy.
He adds that similar programs were tried in Vietnam and Malaysia, with mixed success, and most effectively in Iraq with the Sons of Iraq movement.
As part of the Afghan Local Police program, 12-man U.S. Army Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) teams embed in Afghan villages to train and equip locals to protect their communities from Taliban incursions and influence.
“The idea is that [these units] actually mobilize not just individuals, but communities,” General Petraeus told the Financial Times. “This is now the community defending itself against the Taliban.”
Launched by U.S. Special Operations Command Center-Afghanistan in July 2010, the Afghan Local Police mixes two previous community-policing efforts—Village Stability Operations and the Afghan Public Protection Program—and has been described by its advocates as a combination of the most effective components of each.
Following promises of significant Afghan government oversight and monitoring, Afghan President Hamid Karzai approved a pilot initiative in August 2010.
With few measurable successes to point to in the previous incarnations of the program, however, civilian analysts and other Afghan experts suggest that the Afghan Local Police still carries the hallmark challenges of its predecessors, including the risk of independent militias, exacerbating existing tribal tensions, and undermining central government control.
Recognizing such concerns, military leadership is quick to point to differences between the Afghan Local Police and past community policing attempts.
General Petraeus has said on several occasions that the program is led and managed by the Afghan Ministry of the Interior, and that each local policeman “works for the district chief of police, not a local warlord or power broker.”
Meanwhile, program supporters also highlight an extensive vetting process for program participants in which potential recruits are nominated by village elders through shuras, vetted by Afghanistan’s intelligence service, and subjected to biometric data collection.
CSIS’s Mausner, however, cautions that these elders charged with recruitment are often selected by U.S. Army ODA teams, casting doubt on their local legitimacy, and potentially playing in to the same tribal politics the program is hoping to avoid.
Long, who has twice embedded with U.S. Special Forces ODA units in the Khakrez district in Northern Kandahar, witnessed these tribal tensions first hand.
“In Khakrez, the Popalzai tribe totally dominated district government and community organization and were therefore the only recruits for [Afghan Local Police]. The chief of police, for example, was Popolzai,” Long said.
Given these realities, Long suggests that it’s easy to understand why the Alikozai population was unwilling to buy in to the program.
“It basically created yet another opening for insurgents to exploit,” he adds.
With intensive mentoring from Special Forces teams, Long says that Khakrez has made significant strides since last summer in standing up a meaningful local police force. The chief of police, for example, was recently replaced by a member of a different tribe.
An obstacle that has yet to be cleared, however, is sustained commitment from villagers.
Long describes shura meetings in which Khakrez residents roundly denounce the Taliban, and welcome opportunities to take up arms to force them out. But come time to begin training, few are willing to risk their lives and don on a local police uniform.
“The wealthier village leaders have all fled to Kandahar. The remaining residents are mostly sharecroppers and poppy farmers,” Long says. “You can’t really blame them for just wanting to try and peacefully make a living.”
Skeptics of the local police say that examples like these indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of they very Afghan population that U.S. forces are so desperate to sway.
“It’s not that the motivations for this program are in the wrong place; there is a genuine desire to help protect Afghan civilians,” says Mausner. “The problem is that we are picking winners and messing around in a local system that we don’t totally understand. “
While many civilian experts believe that military leaders understand these realities and delicate dynamics, the decision to expand the Afghan Local Police program has cast doubt on their willingness to apply this knowledge.
According to both Long and Mausner, the program’s best hope for success lies in the active involvement of highly specialized U.S. Army Special Forces ODA teams in training and mentoring.
“It’s unlikely that militias will form and spin out of control with ODA teams present in these districts,” Long suggests. “But once you’re talking about local police in districts and villages that may be on the periphery of ODA control, it’s a very different question.”
With roughly 1,000 Special Forces units already in place within selected villages, it is unclear how many more teams will be available to deploy on these missions. Analysts suggest that it is highly unlikely that there are enough specialized military personnel to effectively oversee 50,000 local police.
Meanwhile, suggestions to supplement shortfalls of Army Special Forces with conventional forces seems especially untenable to analysts.
“The training and mentoring of these villagers is an extremely delicate process. You can’t just stick some first-time, 19-year-old kid in these villages in the middle of nowhere and expect them to have success,” says Long.
Striking a balance between expansion and oversight will be critical for future successes with the Afghan Local Police program.
“The key here is the word supportable,” says Long. “Expand too quickly and without enough support, and this could fall apart.”