Part of the decision to have an 18-month window for the American mission in Afghanistan is a calculation for training additional Afghan troops. The NATO command has authorized the training of 134,000 Afghans for the native army, and Obama thinks that the enhanced effort could get that as high as 150,000. But that number is far too low, says the commander of the Afghan army, and has the historical record to prove it:
Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi, operational commander of Afghanistan’s defense ministry, said a 134,000-member Afghan National Army is shy of what is needed.
“The 134,000 army, which has been approved so far, it is not enough for our country,” he said. “We have requested to increase that number to at least 240,000.”
He said even during the 1970s, during the reign of King Mohammad Zahir, the ranks of the Afghan army didn’t fall below 200,000 — and the target was for 250,000 troops. “Then, everywhere was peace. There was no fighting,” he said. “Today, with Taliban militants and international terrorists, we even need more troops than during the king’s time.”
Of course, the Afghan army in Zahir’s time was not terribly well-equipped. That became obvious when the Soviets rolled into Afghanistan, initially with ease, in 1980. A more modern army, with technological training and the proper infrastructure, could make up for lower numbers with increased capabilities.
However, Afghanistan completely lacks infrastructure. They only have a handful of paved roads outside of the major population centers, no real network of military bases except what NATO has implemented, and almost no lines of communication as a result. In order to secure Afghanistan, the army will need a very large infantry and a lot of off-road vehicles to move them around the country.
And even if roads magically appeared in the next few months — and remember that the Taliban has targeted road-building and electricity-producing projects — the Afghan army is not going to get that technically adept in 18 months. It took the new Iraqi army years to build those capabilities, and Iraq had the infrastructural support as well as having been a fairly modern state with an educated populace on which to draw. Afghanistan has none of that, nor will they develop it within a generation.
The Obama administration has the right idea, but a very misguided sense of scale and time commitment to reach those goals.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member