Reconstructing the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan

In the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the U.S. Congress mandated the Secretary of Defense undertake a study of DOD security cooperation activities, to be led by an independent organization of experts. This is a step in the right direction; however, we recommend that the mandate be expanded to include State, Justice, and other key SSA stakeholders. Our recommended study should include an analysis and evaluation of the authorities-based relationships and coordination mechanisms of U.S. government departments and agencies, and suggest ways to improve their effectiveness. Additionally, because the reliance on contractors to meet the needs of the U.S. SSA program in Afghanistan was not effective, the U.S. government should formalize and institutionalize SSA expertise within its military and civilian elements.

The Department of Justice’s International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) is staffed with law enforcement professionals experienced in the design, delivery, and management of foreign police development programs and security sector construction. While ICITAP uses federal and non-federal police advisors and trainers, it does not contract out the responsibility for program management and accountability. ICITAP has no independent budget and is fully dependent on State or DOD for funding and guidance. State does not have a staff of law enforcement professionals, but does have the required authorities and funding. In high-threat environments, DOD will by default assume a significant role in police development programs and, therefore, elements within DOD must be considered in the congressional review. During this review, the U.S. government should identify the lead agency for training both foreign police units involved in civil policing and also paramilitary police forces similar to the European gendarmerie. The U.S. government would benefit from having deployable experts capable of conducting training in both facets of policing.

Future missions that require reconstruction of a host nation’s security sector should include the development of the host nation’s judiciary and corrections systems, in addition to the police and military forces. U.S. military officials must pace the overarching development of the security sector to ensure each line of effort is being developed in tandem. A rapidly developed security force without the necessary corrections infrastructure and judicial systems will ultimately undermine security sector efforts overall. The Office of the Secretary of Defense for Security Cooperation has already taken positive steps with the introduction of DOD Instruction 5132.14, Assessment, Monitoring, and Evaluation Policy of the Security Cooperation Enterprise, which mandates an assessment of the host country’s security sector needs prior to the initiation of the SSA program.

In post-conflict nations and fragile states, coordination and synchronization with an underdeveloped host-nation government will be a challenge. However, as the government matures, host-nation ownership of SSA activities is critical. While extremely lengthy and slow to develop, the U.S. Security Governance Initiative (SGI) currently implemented in six African countries has been praised for its unique focus on host-nation ownership, joint planning, and long-term forecasting. According to White House documents, SGI’s distinctive approach “focuses on the systems, processes, and institutions that reinforce democratic security sector governance; uses vigorous analysis, shared data and agreed upon goals, and is supported by regular measurement and evaluation; and relies on commitment and accountability for results on the part of the United States and our partners.” The 2004 Securing Afghanistan’s Future report, published by the UN, World Bank, and government of Afghanistan, noted that “the only actor that can effectively coordinate the security sector reform process and fill the leadership void over the medium to longer term is the Afghan Government. Sustainable reform cannot be achieved if it is donor driven.”

The U.S. military attempted to strictly enforce ethnic diversity quotas in the early ANA; however, these quotas failed to address political and social diversity. While Pashtun quotas were met, Pashtun representation from southern Afghanistan–the Taliban’s homeland–was minimal. Capping Tajik representation to minimize Northern Alliance domination failed to recognize the ethnic diversity of the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance. Pashtun commanders affiliated with the Northern Alliance were appointed to meet quotas, but this also ensured their political dominance of the force.

While access may be limited before the start of the SSA program, key identifiers can be obtained during initial training and advising missions. From 2001 to 2006, the U.S. military largely ignored transitional or informal security forces operating throughout Afghanistan, allowing security to deteriorate to a point that could no longer be mitigated by the newly trained ANDSF. Transitional forces, left unmonitored, eroded the legitimacy of the national government and security sector institutions. Multiple SIGAR interviews with former Afghan military officials and U.S. advisors noted that Afghanistan has a history of informal chains of command, often based on personal relationships and familial ties. These informal chains of command were often empowered over the formal chains of command, which the United States was attempting to develop.

Despite more than 15 years of SSA in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. government has very limited institutional expertise for SSA missions beyond unit-level training. Compared to other offices in DOD, State, or Justice, SSA offices and training centers are small and inadequately resourced. No department has the required cadre of trained experts to draw upon for SSA missions beyond normal foreign military sales (FMS), small unit train, advise, and assist missions, and multinational joint military exercises. Commands created to facilitate SSA missions, such as CSTC-A, were “pick-up” teams of brave and well-meaning personnel who lacked the necessary experience, relationships, continuity, organizational coherence, and pre-deployment training. They were forced to learn on-the-job within their 6–12 month rotations, which led to many lessons being lost as individuals rotated out of country. This problem was magnified as the SSA missions in Afghanistan competed for attention, talent, and resources with the high-priority mission in Iraq.

Developing such professional expertise in DOD and State will enable U.S. officials to better forecast timelines and resource requirements needed for successful SSA missions. More professional expertise will also increase the probability that U.S. officials will recognize and address problems such as corruption and malign influence. In Afghanistan, U.S. officials chronically underestimated these and other issues, including their impact on realistic readiness and reform timelines, which deeply impacted the overall SSA effort.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness should leverage internal DOD databases to track military and civilian experts in security sector governance for future efforts to advise ministerial-level security sector personnel in key areas of logistics, human resources, internal affairs, and finance.

Mandatory professional development and training should apply to both career professionals and rotational civilian and military trainers and advisors. DOD and State currently have professional development institutions aimed at providing support to SSA initiatives, including the Defense Institute of Security Cooperation Studies (DISCS), the Air Force’s Air Advisor Academy, and the Foreign Service Institute (FSI). These institutes provide tactical to strategic and regional-specific programs to career and deployable rotational advisors. DISCS provides mobile training teams to Afghanistan to train deployed advisors. Despite the capability of these institutions to train several hundred new students per year, pre-deployment training at any of these institutions was not mandated for U.S. trainers and advisors deployed to support the development of the ANDSF. This resulted in a cadre of U.S. military and civilians without the proper training and education to complete the mission they were tasked to perform.

Former and current advisors who had pre-deployment training identified deficiencies in the curricula and noted the training’s failure to properly prepare them to execute mission requirements. Therefore, pre-deployment training programs should be continuously reviewed and updated with current lessons learned in order to prepare advisors for the dynamic requirements of an SSA environment. To institutionalize this capability, DOD, State, and Justice should create a Security Cooperation Workforce Development program for SSA professionals to ensure these individuals have the required training and intellectual foundations required at the onset of future SSA efforts.

Senior DOD and State officials should continue international outreach to NATO member states to fill gaps in NATO requirements in Afghanistan. If NATO countries are unwilling to commit, or chronically delay deployments of NATO personnel, the United States should consider filling the gaps with United States personnel. The U.S. will likely have more success filling NATO requirements if an assessment of mission requirements is matched to the political and military limitations of the assigned NATO member. From 2010 to 2011, staffing of required trainer positions at NTM-A remained under 50 percent. Furthermore, due to the national caveats of some NATO countries, deployed trainers were unable to be appropriately assigned throughout Afghanistan. In late 2011, ANP trainers in Kabul were overstaffed by 215 percent, while police trainers in hostile and non-permissive areas of eastern Afghanistan were at a shortfall of 64 percent, leaving the advisory mission severely understaffed. Chronic understaffing remains today, as Resolute Support still has gaps in its advisory program.

These reports should be designed to appropriately align DOD activities with long-term U.S. funding, serve as a tool for congressional oversight, and improve transparency. DOD’s assessments should include different courses of action for SSA missions based on (1) the U.S. political strategy, (2) the U.S. military capacity, (3) the impact that improving a partner nation’s operational and governing capabilities has on long-term sustainability, and (4) any dependency concerns. DOD must obtain input from State, Justice, and the intelligence community when drafting these assessments. Finally, DOD should request independent, third-party assessments to ensure “groupthink” and “mirror imaging” issues are identified and mitigated.

The United States lacks an interagency framework and decision-making processes for SSA sufficient to address the scope and magnitude of issues that arise in post-conflict or developing-world nations. Doctrine that addresses raising, training, and fiscally supporting an entire military and police force and its sustainment institutions and infrastructure is critical, because these efforts are very different from the typical SSA models where the United States provides advanced military support to a standing force, for example, in Pakistan, Jordan, Japan, or Israel. Constructing an entire security sector for a partner nation is likely to occur in post-conflict, fragile states and in the developing world, where construction of the nation’s critical infrastructure will be a requirement for the development and training of the national security forces. Any commitment to undertake security sector construction activities will require DOD, State, Congress, and the White House to commit to long-term planning and resourcing.

The lack of security sector construction models undermines the U.S. government’s ability to develop a sound approach to security force development and appropriately link training combat forces with the necessary critical infrastructure and equipment requirements. The absence of common language and authoritative concepts has impeded communication and coordination within the U.S. government and partner nations, and often pulled efforts in different directions.

For more than 15 years, the United States has been involved in largescale security sector reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. In both theaters of conflict, the U.S. military has used a variety of command structures and assessment tools to manage and evaluate the development of the host nation’s security forces. However, in each theater (and even over a period of time in each theater), the United States used approaches that differed organizationally and programmatically. To establish a baseline and be able to more accurately assess progress over time, a comprehensive methodology must be developed and, importantly, remain in use without substantive changes.

U.S. officials had difficulty measuring the effectiveness of the Afghan army and police units. Too often, they relied upon tangible data, such as staffing, equipping, and training status, to assess readiness. In the U.S. military, such factors do not necessarily correlate to unit performance or battlefield effectiveness; intangibles such as leadership and unit cohesion play critical, often decisive, roles. In developing-world militaries, the correlation is likely to be even more tenuous due to the heightened impact of intangibles. Leadership and cohesion play key roles, but so do dependency, political influence, corruption, and malign activities. Readiness evaluations must take greater account of such factors.

Assessments of institutional performance and capacity were even more challenging due to the Afghan political-military interface that was often opaque to U.S. military officials. Improved assessments will also help senior U.S. officials more clearly and reliably gauge strategic risk to U.S. interests and objectives.

DOD should create an internal mechanism to leverage independent subject matter experts to provide regular assessments of SSA programs. Expert analysis must then be compared against internal DOD assessments and intelligence community assessments to identify irregularities and discrepancies. Additionally, any changes to assessment methodology must be noted, and historical reports must be annotated and updated, as needed.

If the host nation requires less advanced systems and equipment, DOD should consider leveraging foreign military allies to provide material and sustainment support to the U.S.-led SSA program. Through literacy programs, education, and long-term partnering, the U.S. military can gradually improve and advance systems and equipment to meet the changing human capital profile of the force. Prior to deployment, U.S. advisors should receive training in equipment and systems suitable for the host nation’s security forces, or develop agreements with partner nations who can provide training expertise the United States does not have.

Human capital assessments should identify the strengths and limitations of the current force demographics within each service and the potential pool of recruits available. They should also take into account expected rates of attrition. Based on the capabilities of each service, the United States should clearly define a strategy as to what the force is expected to accomplish. As part of the report, DOD should include an assessment on the impact specialized units could have on the civil-military relations of the host nation, to include risk assessments on the potential of a military coup or the likelihood specialized units could be used as personal security for senior government officials.

Removing the most literate and capable recruits while simultaneously continuing to design a modern conventional force with Western systems and weapons will slow the conventional force’s development. If specialized units are required in a developing-world nation, then the design of the conventional forces must be revisited.

Uniformed military personnel often prioritize enhancing foreign military capabilities with less focus on the critical items of reform, management, and leadership. The U.S. government deploys a senior military commander to oversee U.S. military operations in a foreign country. However, when the mission involves the development of a foreign security force, the deployment of a DOD civilian to oversee security sector governance and institutional development often does not occur. This leaves a void in subject matter expertise and experience required to help develop the non-kinetic aspects of the host nation’s security forces.

In 2017, the U.S. Army announced the creation of six Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFAB). This is a positive first step, and we recommend other services consider similar models. Currently, at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, the U.S. Air Force has a group of air advisors who are serving four-year tours training Afghans on the C-29. Institutionalizing that program could serve as a positive first step for the U.S. Air Force to create a long-term internal capability.

DOD should also consider creating an institution responsible for security sector governance. Since most U.S. military units primarily focus on—and are better suited to address—the needs of the fighting force, an institutional capability with a deployable force of experts in defense institution building ensures the United States provides holistic support to the host nation’s security needs.

DOD and State, working with U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and NATO military leadership, should support an Afghan government top-to-bottom reevaluation of the operational and organizational roles and responsibilities of each element of the ANDSF. Under the proposed Afghanistan four-year plan, Afghan National Civil Order Police (ANCOP) and Afghan Border Police (ABP) will transition to the MOD, and ANA special forces and the Afghan Air Force will be expanded to meet offensive operational requirements. The ANP will assume the role of community policing with a focus on rule of law. As the ANP becomes a community police force, DOD and State should review mission requirements and properly align U.S. advisors to train the ANP accordingly. An analysis of the Afghan Local Police (ALP) mission should be conducted to determine if the program should continue to exist and, if so, how the force should be properly aligned to mission requirements. A review of the proper alignment of the Afghan Air Force is needed to determine if it should be a separate military service that requires its own governing backbone or an element reliant on ANA institutional infrastructure. Finally, with the allocation of additional forces to MOD, a correlated increase of governing personnel, for example, in human resources, payroll, training and medical, is necessary. The United States should restructure its ministerial advisory effort to align with the new changes in force to ensure full coverage of critical security sector governing elements.

DOD, State, DOJ, and DHS must identify the proper agency to serve as the proponent lead for the ANA and ANP. Both the Afghan special forces and Afghan Air Force have proponents in Afghanistan that serve as the lead element for the professional development of the force and at times serve as a key advocate for the force with the larger international community. Proponent leads are able to speak on behalf of the entire force and can ensure international assistance is properly aligned. Proponent leads for the ANA and ANP no longer exist, which removes an international advocate and results in support being provided at the regional level, but not throughout the entire chain of command.

DOD, State, DOJ, and DHS should create an element in the Washington, DC, area responsible for providing persistent and comprehensive support to forward-deployed elements involved in the train, advise, and assist mission. This organization should have a habitual relationship with CSTC-A and the TAACs, to include a rotation of deployed personnel to Afghanistan. Currently, the rotational schedules at CSTC-A and the regional and functional TAACs preclude the United States from optimizing its ability to assess ANDSF development and the effectiveness of the U.S. advisory mission over the long-term. A stateside element should be staffed with civilian and uniformed personnel on tours of no less than four years in support of the Afghanistan four-year plan.

The White House and DOD should synchronize troop decisions with NATO force-generation conference schedules. NATO typically meets twice per year to decide on NATO troop contributions for NATO-approved missions. Failure to synchronize the decision-making process in Washington and Brussels could result in extended timelines for NATO troop deployments. With a four-year plan to enhance the ANDSF under review, deployment of additional trainers and advisors with the required skillset will need to be decided soon. The White House and NATO should also synchronize support to the ANDSF post-2020, as draft design changes for the ANDSF will likely result in necessary training beyond the 2020 commitment.

DOD and State should require all future trainers, advisors, and SSA monitoring and evaluation personnel to attend an SSA certificate program at service-level training centers (like the Air Advisor Academy or the new Army Advisor Academy) or one of the department-level training centers, such the Defense Institute of Security Cooperation Studies (DISCS) or the Foreign Service Institute (FSI). DISCS and FSI should modify programs and curricula to prioritize training for deploying units and ensure courses are focused on their country-specific requirements. CSTC-A advisors currently involved in plans to develop a “CSTC-A Academy” for deployed personnel should synchronize needs and pre-deployment requirements with stateside training missions.

DOD and State should consider enticements for deployed military and civilian personnel who are experts in SSA activities and engaged in training and advising host-nation military and security forces. DOD should consider an equivalent of joint credit for deployed uniformed and civilian personnel in SSA missions. Congress should evaluate the pay cap threshold for deployed civilian Senior Executive Service (SES) personnel to ensure they receive full financial compensation during their deployment to an active combat zone. Additional incentives should be considered for personnel willing to commit to deployments of 24 months or more.

The U.S. government must continue to support aggressive anticorruption investigations into the ANDSF leadership. While the Afghan government has taken some steps to investigate and arrest corrupt ANDSF leaders, more needs to be done. The United States should devote additional uniformed and civilian experts to partner with Afghan MOD and MOI personnel to develop improved governing, oversight, and accountability systems.

The U.S. military and civilian leadership should continue to use stringent conditionality mechanisms to eliminate the ANDSF’s culture of impunity. Historically, the United States provided blanket support for ANDSF development and increasing support to offset ANDSF weaknesses. For many, the ANDSF was “too big to fail.” It is imperative that senior Afghan leaders assume greater responsibility to sanction corrupt officials to break the cycle of expectation that positions of power lead to personal gain at the expense of those under their command. Where conditionality has been imposed, positive movement has been possible.

DOD, State, and other key civilian agencies should support Afghan initiatives to create a civilian cadre of security sector governance personnel at MOD and MOI. Supporting the growth of a civil service should balance the current dominance of Afghan uniformed military in governing and sustainment departments.

DOD, State, and other key stakeholders should institutionalize new rotational schedules that allow for continuity in mission and personnel. Many senior military officers in Afghanistan are attempting to fix the “brain drain” issue that has plagued the ANDSF development mission; however, these efforts are based on personal initiative and have not been institutionalized as a best practice.

The United States should increase the number of civilian advisors to the ANDSF, MOD, and MOI. SSA is a whole-of-government mission; however, military forces and contractors continue to dominate the train, advise, and assist mission, with limited to no parallel civilian effort. While the current advisory mission will help the development of kinetic and operational capabilities, the lack of comparable civilian advising on security sector governance and institutional development will cause the sector to lag. Based on the non-permissive environment and the requirement for a high level of security for personnel movements, the increase in civilian advising capabilities needs to be accompanied by an increase in security personnel to improve freedom of movement.

With congressional funding approved, DOD should apply best practices and develop mitigation strategies for the potential challenges the United States may encounter during the Afghan Air Force’s recapitalization (RECAP), based on lessons identified over the past 15 years in Afghanistan. DOD must ensure that operational requirements do not reduce the training and professional development standards required for the transition from Mi-17s to UH-60 Black Hawks. Also, with the introduction of over 100 UH-60 Black Hawks, the regional TAACs should increase training for ANA infantry units on combat arms integration between ground forces and air power. With the introduction of the UH-60 platform, the U.S. train, advise, and assist mission for the AAF should become a joint mission between the USAF and U.S. Army. The TAAC-Air advisory mission would benefit from and should consider a hybrid command structure between the two services and between the fixed-wing and rotary platforms of the AAF. As we have seen with the USAF’s training for the A-29, the U.S. Army must fully own the mission and requirements for the UH-60 transition.

At a minimum, DOD should consider mitigation strategies for the following potential situations. First, as this report highlights, operational requirements are routinely prioritized over the training and professional development of the force. With the planned introduction of UH-60 Black Hawks during the 2018 fighting season, DOD must identify what the U.S., NATO, and Afghan plans are to transition combat and lift capabilities when operational requirements are at their highest. Within this analysis, DOD must also acknowledge and resolve the Afghan army’s dependence on airlift and close air support during this time. Second, if the Afghans decide to maintain a higher level of Mi-17 airpower, either through leasing airframes from another NATO member or through other means of support, DOD must show how that will impact the initial training plans for the UH-60, which rely on the downsizing of the Mi-17 platform. Third, based on historically high levels of attrition, DOD must identify how the U.S. Army’s training plans will properly forecast the development of more than 100 pilots, most of whom are likely not part of the current Afghan Air Force. Fourth, with the current deficit in U.S. Army warrant officers, DOD must determine how the U.S. Army will staff the trainer and advisor needs of RECAP. Finally, DOD must identify the mechanisms the United States will put in place to prevent overuse of the UH-60, which would result in an increase in maintenance requirements and a shorter airframe life cycle.

The U.S. military leadership in Afghanistan should conduct a human capital assessment of the ANDSF conventional and special forces. Afghan special forces and the Afghan Air Force have proven to be the most capable and formidable offensive forces in the Afghan military, while the conventional forces struggle to implement the necessary security sector reforms, accountability, and oversight. Future efforts to bolster the ANDSF must be grounded in a better understanding of the strengths and limitations of the current human capital of each service and the potential pool of recruits available. If only certain recruits receive higher-end capabilities and advanced training, we need a clearly defined strategy as to what each component of the force is expected to accomplish.

DOD should review combat and logistics enabler support to the ANA and draft a transition plan for aviation requirements. In part, the U.S. military’s train, advise, and assist efforts since 2002 resulted in conventional ANA units dependent on close air support, medical evacuation, route clearing, protected mobility, accurate fires overmatch, and ISR capabilities. This lack of combat enablers and resulting equipment losses and high casualty rates has resulted in fewer offensive operations for larger conventional forces who are more prone to stay on base in the absence of combat enablers. Afghan combat enablers were not part of initial design decisions and are still largely underdeveloped, compared to the operational requirements. As shown recently, the development of the Afghan A-29 close air support platform has resulted in more combat mobility for offensive operations by larger ANA formations. In 2017, the U.S. military has dramatically increased U.S. airstrikes to support the ANDSF; however, less support has been provided in the form of medical evacuation and logistics.

DOD should place advisors in ANA military academies and training centers to develop and improve the ANA’s military doctrine and professional development system. The U.S. military greatly benefits from the value added by the U.S. academies and training centers, such as the Army’s Combined Arms Center, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), War College, and other institutions that leverage battlefield experience to improve future generations of the force. The ANA would likely derive equal benefits from similar professional development opportunities.

In addition to prioritizing advisor support for these institutions, DOD should leverage U.S. and coalition institutional training, service schools, and academies to create ANDSF subject matter experts who have the knowledge base needed to deliver instruction and to define and develop training, doctrine, and force structure. Long-term sustainment and development of the ANDSF requires that ANDSF has resident subject matter experts. The current “train-the-trainer” model needs to be modified to ensure that real depth and expertise is developed.

DOD should expand the current train, advise, and assist mission to allow for close, enduring partnerships and increased opportunities for mentoring below the corps level. In 2012, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey testified, “You can’t commute to work to train and advise.… The bond between our forces and the Afghan forces will ultimately be what gets [the Taliban] defeated.” If expansion below the corps level is implemented, DOD needs to provide guidance to military advisors to be wary of capacity substitution, furthering the dependency of Afghan units. A balance between close mentoring by U.S. subject matter experts and allowing the Afghans to lead and learn is critical.

SIGAR observed during a spring 2017 visit to Afghanistan that diminishing security has increased security requirements for U.S. military and civilian trainers and advisors. According to current U.S. military advisors, the military calculates guardian angel requirements based on the current threat, ranging from one to three security personnel for every advisor. For civilians, those numbers are significantly higher. Therefore, to get 3,000 to 5,000 additional U.S. military advisors, the U.S. would have to deploy 3,000 to 15,000 additional security personnel.

DOD must ensure that sufficient U.S. government expertise is provided to oversee contracts providing logistics, maintenance, or training support for the development of the ANDSF. In the case of training, there must be clearly articulated and measurable performance standards and methods to evaluate the quality of the training being provided.

Conventional U.S. military units are ill-suited to train a foreign police force on community policing methods and rule of law. If U.S. civilian agencies (State or DOJ) remain risk-adverse and are unwilling or unable to deploy advisors to the sub-national level because of security concerns, DOD should consider leveraging the National Guard to deploy law enforcement professionals or use Military Police with expertise in community policing to perform the ANP advisory function.