Ending the story of ANDSF collapse

Rather than building on the remnants of old structures, the US decided to raise an Army and Police Force from scratch

We conclude this series of articles exploring the reasons behind the collapse of Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF) in August 2022. The series was based on the US perspective as reflected in February 2023 report by SIGAR (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction), a US government entity. We conclude the Series with a policy recap.

Rather than building on the remnants of old structures, the US in its own right decided to raise an Army and Police Force from scratch. One remembers Gen Ashfaque Parvez Kayani, COAS Pakistan Army, sensitizing the visiting US officials about the pitfall of this approach. Pakistan’s line of argument was that building structures may be speedy, military culture takes its own fermentation time and that leads to group solidarity, esprit de corps and high morale. The US approach also lacked the political will to ‘dedicate the time and resources necessary to reconstruct an entire security sector in a war-torn and impoverished country’. There were the usual urges to demonstrate progress in the shortest time at all levels of command. This led to setting unrealistic milestones for ANDSF capability development. With one foot out of the Afghanistan door, US military created the ‘appearance of success’ by assuming tasks and duties that Afghan Forces were to perform like ‘supply, logistics, evacuation, intelligence, maintenance, and procurement activities.’ As a result, the end product ‘could not operate independently’. ANDSF collapse was predictable and only a matter of time.

The Afghan government is equally culpable in going along a project that did not enjoy full political support and underwent revisions, costing time, effort and resources. Northern Alliance was merged into a Militia that became the ANDSF incubator. And initially designed as a light infantry, ANDSF ultimately developed into a full-fledged armed force with an air force, special operations command and different types of police force. Used to operate under or alongside foreign troops or under foreign air/artillery cover, ANDSF’s fate was sealed, when US/Allied Forces committed to completely withdraw from Afghanistan in 14 months after signing the Doha Agreement in February 2020.

Most notably, America also lacked the ‘organizational, agency-level, and inter-agency doctrine, policies, and dedicated resources’ to raise another nation’s army, air force and police force. Short-term deployment of US trainers and advisors deprived the project of any institutional continuity of effort. Trainers and advisors themselves were inexperienced and without adequate training. Metrices to evaluate training were frequently changed and these just measured if and when individuals were paid, and structures were built, etc.

Corruption dominated the Afghan scene. It was well known but the US could hardly do anything to root it out due to political considerations, patronage-addicted Afghan elite and alliances of convenience, etc. Personal enrichment at the country’s expense, getting away with it due to lack of accountability, and oversight by the US, NATO and the Afghan government itself encouraged it with impunity. Military leadership, so to speak, was for sale to the highest bidder without professional ability or military experience. Leadership was always in flux, recruitment hard, troops’ literacy rates low and their attrition during and after training high. Unsustainable casualties, divisions along ethnic and tribal lines, enrollment for the lure of pay only, exacerbated the situation. Low morale was a natural outcome.

Enlarging the scope to the Afghan Republic’s collapse, a SIGAR study published in July 2023, has identified six factors.

First, the deniability of the Afghan government which somehow was wed to the idea that the US/NATO troops cannot or would not leave, or at least would not completely withdraw. There was merit to the deniability as ‘over nearly 20 years and three US presidencies, the US had vacillated on the issue of military withdrawal.’ Hence US messaging was consistently contradictory and confusing. This left the Afghan government unprepared when the USMIL and its contractors withdrew.

Second, the exclusion of Ghani regime from Doha parleys weakened and undermined the Republic affecting the ANDSF in equal measure. IEA’s recalcitration not to talk to Afghan government, and the US’s purported circumvention to achieve a ‘sustainable political settlement’ with IEA first, and then engaging Kabul in intra-Afghan peace process failed. The Doha settlement energized the IEA forces.

Third, Ghani’s insistence — despite being weak — to integrate Taliban into the Republic, so he could continue in power, backfired.

Fourth, IEA for all its blood and sweat was unwilling to compromise. Its unaltered position on not holding ceasefire ultimately turned the tables on the other side, in a fierce contest of nerve and grit. By April 2021, US intelligence assessment concluded IEA as confident to achieve military victory.

Fifth, President Ashraf Ghani ruled through a select, ‘narrow circle of loyalists, destabilizing the government at a critical juncture.’ His antidotes to Afghanistan’s ills were outlandish and unworkable. His isolation, temperament and micromanagement hit at support for his government locally and internationally. He was seen as part of the problem.

Lastly, corruption within the wider Afghan government, high level of centralization and unceasing jockeying for power too contributed to its eventual collapse.

SIGAR also identifies ‘four findings’ about whether the US governance objectives were achieved. America failed to build ‘stable, democratic, representative, gender-sensitive, and accountable Afghan governance institutions.’ This approximately $145 billion enterprise failed. Second, the US failed to root out corruption and hence was unable to legitimize the new democratic republic in the eyes of common Afghans. Third, the limited progress achieved to develop human capital and institutional capacity etc before the collapse, was mostly unsustainable and easily rolled back by the IEA. Finally, residual elements of the Republic still exist and function, although IEA has adopted a mix and match approach.

All of the cited factors had an adverse impact on the ANDSF. But what the US consistently did not know or intentionally overlooked was the fact that Afghans in the ANDSF never had their heart in the fight. True to their sociology and in typical Afghan fashion, the IEA forces, on the other hand, tired the ‘occupation forces’, wore them down to bridge the vast capability-capacity disequilibrium, and then managed as favourable terms as possible. And during this entire process, the IEA kept intimidating and reminding ANDSF rank and file in Afghan villages, towns and cities... that Afghanistan belonged to the IEA and that the occupation forces were destined to leave, like so many times in the past. And this inevitable truism is etched in the collective Afghan memory.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 12^th, 2023.

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