Last week I had the opportunity to participate in three separate Bloggers roundtables on Afghanistan sponsored by the Department of Defense (DoD). The roundtables were a forum designed to provide access to key officials involved in NATO’s training of Afghan Police and Army forces. Participating via a teleconferences from Afghanistan were Dr. Jack Kem, deputy to the commander of NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, Capt. A. Heather Coyne, NATO Training Mission Afghanistan (NTM-A) Community Liaison Officer, and Sergeant Major Michael Logan, USMC, NTM-A. This is the first of two blogs I plan to write on the event.
I blogged about the COIN strategy manual (http://www.usgcoin.org/library/doctrine/COIN-FM3-24.pdf) a couple of weeks ago but to better put the roundtables into perspective I’d like to do a brief review of some key points related to the importance of the training. First off as stated in the manual “Military efforts are necessary and important to counterinsurgency (COIN) efforts, but they are only effective when integrated into a comprehensive strategy employing all instruments of national power”. The manual also stated there were three stages to a COIN campaign and used a medical analogy to clarify. The initial stage was to stop the bleeding; the middle was characterized as inpatient recovery, and the third outpatient care – movement to self-sufficiency.
As I understand the process, the training discussed during the round table discussions is part of the second stage. The characteristics of this stage are taken directly from the COIN manual and are as follows:
MIDDLE STAGE: “INPATIENT CARE—RECOVERY”
• Characterized by efforts aimed at assisting the patient through long-term recovery or restoration of health—which in this case means achieving stability and civil security.
• The desire in this stage is to develop and build resident capability and capacity in the Host Nation (HN) government and security forces.
• Focus expands to include governance, provision of essential services, and stimulation of economic development.
• Relationships with HN counterparts in the government and security forces and with the local populace are developed and strengthened.
• The host nation increases its legitimacy through providing security, expanding effective governance, providing essential services, and achieving incremental success in meeting public expectations.
The manual gives one major caveat associated with this training: “The Host Nation Doing Something Tolerably Is Normally Better than Us Doing It Well” It is just as important to consider who performs an operation as to assess how well it is done. Where the United States is supporting a host nation, long-term success requires establishing viable HN leaders and institutions that can carry on without significant U.S. support. The longer that process takes, the more U.S. public support will wane and the more the local populace will question the legitimacy of their own forces and government”.
With that as a background, I’d like to go over some of the key points of the first roundtable conducted with Sergeant Major Michael Logan, USMC, NTM-A on July 20, 2010 on efforts to train the Afghan Army. According to Sergeant Major Logan currently they have trained approximately 130,000 soldiers. They expect that number to rise to 134,000 by the end of the month. Of that number there are 33,000 non commissioned officers (NCOs). Logan indicated this training was accomplished with 1,228 coalition trainers and 4,600 Afghan trainers. They have been conducting a train the trainer program in order to enable the Afghans to sustain the effort after the NATO trainers are gone.
Another major emphasis in training is to develop a strong NCO corp. Sergeant Major Logan mentioned under the old ways of doing things in the Afghan Army “the officers did more of the day-to-day leading and the NCOs were more of a general population. As we developed the NCOs, we forced them to take more ownership and control of their troops.” Logan emphasized that NCOs are the backbone of US military forces and he believes they will also be the backbone of the Afghan forces.
When asked, what is the biggest misperception about the training as portrayed in the media”, Logan mentioned coverage of the literacy issue. He admits that is an issue but great strides have been made during the 9 months they’ve been conducting the training. Originally, when the program began in November 2009, the requirement to enter the program was a third grade third grade reading level. Logan indicates people have actually progressed up to the fifth grade reading level after about six months of training. Today he says there are 11,700 enrolled in the literacy program and 6,400 graduates.
There are other challenges. Logan states “leader development has outpaced the accelerated force generation”.
When asked about press reports of corruption in the Afghan forces, Logan states: “Within the training realm, things we’ve done to professionalize the army, like developing systems and institutions to professionalize the growth of the force; standardizing training; development of leaders, so that when they come in and they’re looking at the example that they have and the things that we put them through, I know that that’s affecting them on the outside. So within the ranks, I’m confident we’re making a difference.”
I see a couple of challenges. First off with the large numbers of the Afghan Army fresh out of training how effective will their force be against the seasoned fighters of the Taliban? Second how deep are the roots of the leadership training they’re receiving? We won’t know the answers to those questions until NATO forces depart but one thing I know for sure, they’re receiving some of the best training in the world.
Well that’s it for now. Will summarize the remaining two roundtables in the next couple of days. As Always my views are my own.
