Reconstructing the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces

Reconstructing the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces
Author: United States. Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction
Publisher: Government Printing Office
Total Pages: 284
Release:
Genre:
ISBN: 9780160941382

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

Reconstructing the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan
Author: Special Inspector for Afghanistan Reconstruction (U.S.)
Publisher: U.S. Independent Agencies and Commissions
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2017-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780160948312

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This publication is the second in a series of lessons learned reports which examine how the U.S. government and Departments of Defense, State, and Justice carried out reconstruction programs in Afghanistan. In particular, the report analyzes security sector assistance (SSA) programs to create, train and advise the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) between 2002 and 2016. This publication concludes that the effort to train the ANDSF needs to continue, and provides recommendations for the SSA programs to be improved, based on lessons learned from careful analysis of real reconstruction situations in Afghanistan. The publication states that the United States was never prepared to help create Afghan police and military forces capable of protecting that country from internal and external threats. It is the hope of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), John F. Sopko, that this publication, and other SIGAR reports will create a body of work that can help provide reasonable solutions to help United States agencies and military forces improve reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. Related items: Counterterrorism publications can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/counterterrorism Counterinsurgency publications can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/counterinsurgency Warfare & Military Strategy publications can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/warfare-military-strategy Afghanistan War publications can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/afghanistan-war

Divided Responsibility: Lessons from U. S. Security Sector Assistance Efforts in Afghanistan

Divided Responsibility: Lessons from U. S. Security Sector Assistance Efforts in Afghanistan
Author: Department of Department of Defense
Publisher:
Total Pages: 207
Release: 2019-07-25
Genre:
ISBN: 9781082523649

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After 17 years of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and security-related U.S. appropriations totaling $83.3 billion (approximately 63 percent of the nearly $133 billion of U.S. reconstruction funding), there is not one person, agency, country, or military service that has had sole responsibility for overseeing security sector assistance (SSA).1 Instead, the responsibility for security sector assistance was divided among multiple U.S. and international entities. This report examines how these divides had unintended consequences and created challenges to the effectiveness of the mission, as well as some benefits.While the dual-hatted U.S.-NATO commander is largely responsible for reconstructing the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), the Ministry of Defense (MOD), and the Ministry of Interior (MOI), the commander has no direct authority over civilian actors operating within embassies, the European Union, and other international organizations. Moreover, the commander does not have absolute authority to dictate the exact methods and activities NATO countries use to train and advise the ANDSF in different parts of Afghanistan. Rather the commander provides overarching guidance and coordinates the countries' various activities. This has created asymmetries in ANDSF development and has impeded the standardization of security sector assistance programs.This report also highlights how the unity of command and effort was strained because no U.S. executive branch department or military service had full ownership of key components of the mission, responsibility for assessing progress toward meeting U.S. strategic objectives, or accountability for vetting and deploying experts to accomplish mission tasks. Within the NATO-led coalition, the United States implemented a patchwork of SSA activities and programs involving dozens of U.S. government entities and international partner nations.

Security Force Assistance in Afghanistan

Security Force Assistance in Afghanistan
Author: Terrence K. Kelly
Publisher: Rand Corporation
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2011-08-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0833052225

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Security force assistance (SFA) is a central pillar of the counterinsurgency campaign being waged by U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan. This monograph analyzes SFA efforts in Afghanistan over time, documents U.S. and international approaches to building the Afghan force from 2001 to 2009, and provides observations and recommendations that emerged from extensive fieldwork in Afghanistan in 2009 and their implications for the U.S. Army.

Reconstructing Afghanistan

Reconstructing Afghanistan
Author: William Maley
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 215
Release: 2014-11-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1317608933

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This book identifies some of the main lessons for civil-military interactions that can be derived from the experiences of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Afghanistan. The book has three main themes. Firstly, the volume analyses why the ways in which civil and military actors interact in theatres of operations such as Afghanistan matter — for both those categories of actors, and for the ordinary people who their interactions serve. Second, the book highlights that these interactions are invariably complex. The third theme, which arises specifically from ‘the PRT experience’ in Afghanistan, is that such teams vary significantly in their roles, resourcing, and operational environments. Consequently, to appraise the value of ‘the PRT experience’, it is necessary to unpack the experiences of different PRTs, which the use of case studies allows one to do. The volume comprises an introduction, identifying some key questions to which the PRT experience gives rise, and case studies of the experiences of the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada, The Netherlands, Australia, Germany and France; chapters dealing with the roles played by NGOs and the UN system and a discussion from an Afghan perspective of the implications of civilian casualties. It is the combination of the diverse cases discussed in this book with a focus on the broad challenges of optimising civil-military interactions that makes this book distinctive. This book will be of much interest to students of the Afghan War, civil-military relations, statebuilding, Central Asian politics and IR in general.

Collapse of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces

Collapse of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces
Author: United States. Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction
Publisher:
Total Pages: 62
Release: 2022
Genre: Afghan War, 2001-2021
ISBN:

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Since 2002, the United States has allocated nearly $90 billion in security sector assistance to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), with the goal of developing an independent, self-sustaining force capable of combating both internal and external threats. Yet, in August 2021, the ANDSF collapsed, paving the way for the Taliban to re-establish control of Afghanistan. The objectives of this interim evaluation were to (1) determine the factors that contributed to the ANDSF's collapse in August 2021; (2) assess any underlying factors over the 20-year security assistance mission that contributed to the underdevelopment of ANDSF capabilities and readiness; and (3) account for all U.S.- provided ANDSF equipment and U.S.-trained ANDSF personnel, where possible.

Lessons Encountered

Lessons Encountered
Author: Richard D. Hooker (Jr.)
Publisher: Government Printing Office
Total Pages: 492
Release: 2015
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780160937033

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It then moves on to an analysis of the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq from their initiation to the onset of the U.S. Surges. The study then turns to the Surgers themselves as tests of assessment and adaptation. The next part focuses on decisionmaking, implementation, and unity of effort. The volume then turns to the all-important issue of raising and mentoring indigenous security forces, the basis for the U.S. exit strategy in both campaigns. Capping the study is a chapter on legal issues that range from detention to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles. The final chapter analyzes costs and benefits, disects decisionmaking in both campaigns, and summarizes the lessons encountered. Supporting the volume are three annexes: one on the human and financial costs of the Long War and two detailed timelines for histories of Afghanistan and Iraq and the U.S. campaigns in those countries.

Stabilization

Stabilization
Author: United States. Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction
Publisher:
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2018
Genre: Afghanistan
ISBN:

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Stabilization: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan is the fourth lessons learned report issued by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. The report examines the U.S. stabilization effort in Afghanistan, detailing how the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Departments of State and Defense tried to support and legitimize the Afghan government in contested districts from 2002 through 2017. The report identifies lessons to inform U.S. policies and actions to stabilize a country or region before and during a contingency operation and provides recommendations to do so. With the rise of the Islamic State and its affiliates, making poorly governed spaces inhospitable to transnational terrorist groups remains a vital U.S. national security priority.

The Strategic Lessons Unlearned from Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan

The Strategic Lessons Unlearned from Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan
Author: Chris Mason
Publisher: Independently Published
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2019-05-16
Genre:
ISBN: 9781098969455

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The wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were lost before they began, not on the battlefields, where the United States won every tactical engagement, but at the strategic level of war. In each case, the U.S. Government attempted to create a Western-style democracy in countries which were decades at least away from being nations with the sociopolitical capital necessary to sustain democracy and, most importantly, accept it as a legitimate source of governance. The expensive indigenous armies created in the image of the U.S. Army lacked both the motivation to fight for illegitimate governments in Saigon, Baghdad, and Kabul and a cause that they believed was worth dying for, while their enemies in the field clearly did not. This book examines the Afghan National Security Forces in historical and political contexts, explains why they will fail at the tactical, operational and strategic levels of war, why they cannot and will not succeed in holding the southern half of the country, and what will happen in Afghanistan year-by-year from 2015 to 2019. Finally, it examines what the critical lessons unlearned of these conflicts are for U.S. military leaders, why these fundamental political lessons seem to remain unlearned, and how the strategic mistakes of the past can be avoided in the future.