NATO commanders in Afghanistan on Monday made public a directive to scale back joint operations with Afghan security forces in an attempt to reduce the risk of insider attacks. NATO also cited the tensions surrounding the anti-Islamic film that sparked so many anti-U.S. demonstrations across the Muslim world last week. The announcement came after an unusually successful Taliban attack on NATO's main base in Helmand province that appears to have benefited from insider help. Further, two weeks ago a senior commander for special operations forces in Afghanistan announced the suspension of training of new Afghan recruits as NATO vets more than 27,000 Afghan troops already under its command. The process is expected to disrupt training for at least two months.
These incidents are driving a wedge between NATO and the Afghan National Security Forces that NATO is tasked to train before the indigenous forces assume full responsibility in 2014. NATO's strategy in Afghanistan has been to gradually withdraw from combat while Afghan National Security Forces incrementally take over combat duties. In order to make that transition as seamless as possible, Afghan recruits and active units have trained with NATO soldiers and conducted joint operations.
The frequency of insider attacks in Afghanistan has increased over the years. There were six incidents in 2010, 15 in 2011 and 59 so far this year. These attacks have proved to be an effective tactic for bringing about the segregation of NATO and Afghan forces — as the recent directives demonstrate. With NATO and Afghan forces at least temporarily split, NATO cannot continue to effectively train Afghan soldiers to replace the international security force once it leaves.
The Afghan National Security Forces are still showing significant deficiencies in training and capability just 27 months ahead of the full security transition to Afghan forces. The force is rife with stories of misconduct, unprofessionalism, failure to maintain equipment and an inability to maintain security in certain areas. Many trainers have said Afghan security forces are woefully unprepared to take on the full mission profile of find, fix, finish, exploit and analyze. They can execute elements of their duties, but not the whole package.
That is not to say that all Afghan forces are incompetent. Indeed, a number of Afghan units have stood their ground against Taliban assaults. But training a soldier to shoot is just the beginning; what NATO is trying to do in Afghanistan is teach soldiers how to run an army and a police force. Both demand managerial skills that require significant time and training to master. Institutional knowledge, unit cohesion and management at any unit level are gained through experience, and the learning process is significantly faster when you have another institution there as a guide. Increased segregation between NATO and the Afghan security forces will only decrease the quality of the latter and impede the chances they will be ready to take over in 2014.
The clear winner in all of this is the Taliban. Regardless of their involvement in individual insider attacks (some officials say they have been involved in a quarter of these attacks, while others say as much as half), the tactic has spread across the country. Many are likely copycat attacks not instigated by the Taliban but nonetheless claimed by them. Insider attacks have become frequent enough to degrade the NATO mission. Cooperation is counterproductive if NATO soldiers don't trust the recruits they are training or the soldiers they are fighting next to.
Now the NATO mission has temporarily diverted its strategy to rebuild trust between NATO soldiers and their Afghan counterparts. NATO command is attempting to do this by conducting background checks on Afghan recruits to check for insurgent proclivities. It is unclear exactly how they will do this in a country that does not keep quality records. Also, according to NATO commanders, only as many as half of the insider attacks are linked to the Taliban, so even if the background checks are flawlessly performed they would theoretically only stop half of the attacks.
The United States has superior weapons programs and highly sophisticated communication and supply chain systems to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, but it simply cannot develop the intelligence or counterintelligence advantage necessary to defeat the insurgency. The continuation of insider attacks in 2012 doesn't pose an existential threat to NATO's presence in Afghanistan, but the attacks highlight the fact that NATO is far from defeating the insurgency outright. The United States is seeking a way out of this war, but getting out in an organized, coherent fashion requires difficult negotiation. The rise of insider attacks creates an environment beneficial to the Taliban and prevents the United States from pursuing a strategy that strengthens its negotiating position.
