The Afghan National ArmyIt’s Role in Internal Security
Lt Gen ® Asad Durrani
Foreign forces are likely to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014. It is unlikely that the
Taliban led insurgency would have been defeated by then, or the efforts to reconcile them
with Kabul made any headway. Security in the country in that case would understandably
be the responsibility of the Afghan National Army- possibly assisted by the residual
US/NATO forces. If the ANA was now to become the lynchpin for peace and stability
that has eluded Afghanistan for over three decades, its potential to do so needs a
dispassionate discourse.
In principle, security is not a military only affair. The armed forces play a role, however
important, in an overarching political framework. When employed within the country, the
cover is all the more critical. For example, in counter-insurgency the role of the military
is specified, and limited, by the political objective: pacification, reintegration, or
elimination of the insurgents; all depending on the environment. Force will be required to
create favourable conditions and win time for the political leadership and the civil society
to address genuine or perceived grievances of own people. These “Grundnorms” are also
applicable to Afghanistan- especially in view of the country’s configuration.
Toynbee described this region as the “Eastern Crossroads of History”. Before 1747, the
year Ahmed Shah Abdali united its tribes and factions to constitute today’s Afghanistan,
the armed, even unarmed, hordes criss-crossed it at will. After becoming a country, this
trespassers’ highway became for them a quagmire. If Toynbee was not an historian he
might have called it the “Eastern Bermuda Triangle”- only this one sucks in empires and
armies. For this outcome alone, the founder of the country deserved to be remembered as
Ahmed Shah ‘Baba’.
Anyone halfway familiar with Afghanistan would understand the algorithm of this
transformation. The country has all possible fault lines: geographic; demographic; tribal;
even sectarian and cultural. It became a political entity through a grand bargain between
its components. It is best held together with the broadest possible consensus, and cannot
be dominated unless all the major centres of resistance were overpowered. That explains
the logic of consulting an all inclusive assembly, the Jirga, when deciding matters of
national import. And that also explains the pattern we are now so familiar with: foreign
invaders face no resistance from the conventional armies of Afghanistan, but they fail to
subdue tribesmen who wage unconventional warfare in their respective territories.
The fallout of the Soviet invasion and the predicament of the still unfinished American
misadventure continue to resonate. I however find the fate of the first British expedition
in 1842 more illustrative. When it reached Kabul, the Khan of Kalat famously quipped:
“and how would it get out of there”. That one didn’t, not because any “army” reduced it
to one man. It died a slow death inflicted upon it by the local militias. Of course, the sole
superpower of that time had to save face. It took “revenge” by undertaking another
incursion and bribed its way to Kabul and back.
One may well argue that whereas the intruders fail due to the Afghan penchant to defend
their freedom, a national force with its indigenous credentials need not suffer the same
fate. But then one only has to recall the post-Soviet plight of the PDPA Army-- much
better equipped, trained and led than the ANA’s hired guns. It is true that the Mujahideen
could not dislodge the regulars from their entrenched positions (a lesson they learnt at
considerable cost at Jalalabad), or, that they had to buy their victory at Khost as the elder
Haqqani did. But then it is also true that the PDPA was confined to a few big cities while
the resistance controlled the countryside. As any military strategist would know; the side
that enjoys freedom of manoeuvre ultimately wins the war. Incidentally, contrary to the
common belief, Najeeb’s Army did not vanish because the Soviets ceased their support.
His regime collapsed when allies like Dostum deserted him after his fateful statement that
he would abdicate in favour of a Mujahideen led government. Indeed, it is the unity of
command all the way to the national leadership that makes an army functional.
A dysfunctional government in Kabul may be just one, even if the more serious, of the
handicaps the ANA would face. The ethnic divide that has aggravated a great deal during
the last two decades may be equally disabling. Maintaining a healthy ethnic mix is a
national army’s compulsion. Given a mutually acceptable arrangement it may also work.
In the present environment it is a recipe for disaster. Employed against the Taliban, many
of its Pashtun soldiers would desert, some of them after using their weapons and skills
against their non-Pashtun officers. And just in case the ANA was needed to quash a
revolt in the North, one better be mindful of the massacres committed by the Taliban in
Mazar-e-Sharif and the systematic asphyxiation carried out by the former Northern
Alliance post 9/11. I do not know the extent of Taliban ingress in the ANA’s ranks, but
one can reasonably assume that after all the multicoloured assaults- green over blue and
red over whatever- loyalty of many Pashtun soldiers would be suspect.
The ANA as an institution would also carry a baggage; at least for a time. The
Mujahideen used to pejoratively name the PDPA Army a “communist tool”. The ANA
too is likely to be seen as an imperial instrument, especially when operating under the
US/ NATO cover. One may well argue, as someone has, that how come the Pakistan
Army, a legacy of the Raj, was not similarly labelled? I am not sure if I have the correct
or the whole answer, but I think that a people’s psyche is strongly influenced by its
historical experience. In the Subcontinent the force of arm has always been feared, even
respected; and in the “marshal areas” it is envied and eulogised. I do not know of many
other countries where the soldiers proudly wear emblems touting that their unit, when
serving a foreign power, massacred its own people. I believe the Afghans, though
pragmatic when dealing with power, are too proud to worship it.
A question one can legitimately ask, “if the above makes any sense, why has the US sunk
billions of dollars in a project that had no chance to deliver?” The honest answer again
must be, “I do not know, but can try to rationalise”.
A few years back I met a retired American general at the Kabul Airport. He said he was
heading a company training the Afghan Army. Now, one has heard about representatives
of defence industry running introductory courses on new weapon systems, but never of
private companies imparting basic skills to armies preparing for war. These soldiers of
fortune are more interested in making money. Their Taliban (students), if not well
trained, would be a great help in getting their contracts extended- and thus in making
more money. Defence contractors training, equipping and building barracks for the
Afghan military have a huge stake in the continued build-up of the ANA.
Exhausting all options- as Churchill said was the American wont before they got it rightmay be another reason. Having experimented with democracy, nation building and
degrading the Taliban- none of them succeeding to the desired extent- handing over
Afghanistan to a national army might help Obama proclaim “mission accomplished”.
Another possibility is not so benign.
The former Vice-President Dick Cheney reportedly said that turmoil in certain regions
was good for America. Indeed it is. It serves the sole surviving superpower retain
leverage with one or the other side- at times with both- and it keeps its powerful military
industrial complex well oiled. Turmoil in Afghanistan also has other benefits. It would
justify maintaining a strong military presence in a resource rich region, restrain “rogue”
nuclear or wannabe nuclear powers in the neighbourhood, subvert Beijing’s strategic
goals in Pakistan, and who knows one day the US might even realise its New Silk Road
project. An ANA unable to enforce peace and stability in Afghanistan provides the right
pretext to maintain the desired foothold.
Or, there may be yet another reason!
Till recently I had believed that the US was too smart not to know about the ANA’s
limits and was pumping it up as a ruse. But since an American friend of mine who is a
keen observer of the Afghan scene is convinced that the ANA could carryout its mission
with some help from its mentors, it is quite possible that Washington too has faith in this
role.
Another friend of mine from across the Atlantic suspects that the Pakistanis, especially
from the military, are fearful of a strong Afghan army in the belief that it would be an
unfriendly force and could spoil Islamabad’s designs to influence policies in Kabul. I
must admit that I had never given much thought to the type of threat the Afghan military
could pose to Pakistan’s real or perceived goals in the region, but I do recall the role of
the Afghans and their Security Forces during our two wars against India. The message
from Kabul both in 1965 and 1971 was that we could move all our troops from the
Durand Line to the eastern borders where we needed them more. We did precisely that
and the Afghans ensured that for the duration of the crises there was all quiet on the
western front. The two countries have their good neighbourly troubles but then their
stakes in each-other’s security and stability are so high that neither would do anything
deliberately to hurt the other’s core interests.
Every country has the right to keep an army; if for no other reason than as a symbol of its
sovereignty. Afghanistan too will have one to suit its own needs. But to expect the ANA
in its present shape, or even when it has become an effective fighting force, to ensure
security in the absence of a broadly accepted dispensation in Kabul, runs counter to a
fundamental principle as well as to the genesis of the Country. My American friend, the
keen observer of the Afghan scene, once told me that before 1977, except for the Panjshir
uprising of 1975, it was the local authority that kept peace in the Country.
My Foreword for “Whose Army; Afghanistan’s Future and the Blueprint for Civil War”;
a book by Musa Khan Jalalzi, published by Algora Publishing, New York, 2014.