Bureau Recommends: The future of the Afghan army
The Bureau recommends an article in the Guardian about the transformation of the Afghan National Army (ANA).
The reporter is one of the few western journalists embedded with the ANA and looks into the readiness of the unit to operate independently of foreign forces.
The ANA and Police are set to take complete control of the country by 2014, by which time nearly all foreign troops will have either left Afghanistan or fallen back into non-combat support roles. But will it be ready?
The report compares the state of the ANA today to that of two years ago when members had mismatching uniforms and carried a bizarre assortment of old weapons.
Over the last two years, billions of dollars have been invested in training the ANA to prepare it to shoulder responsibility for security. This year alone £7.4bn will be spent on building the national force – a sum equivalent to Afghanistan’s entire economy.
As a result the ANA is now a more functioning army. And in opinion polls and interviews Afghans nearly always declare the ANA to be the institution they respect the most, in sharp contrast to the police who tend to be locals and therefore mixed up in tribal disputes.
But there is still a long way to go. Discipline still needs improving, especially around the measures taken to avoid being blown up by IEDs. There is also a need for more balance among the troops. In the three companies that the reporter spent time with he did not meet a single Pashtun soldier who hailed from the south – a failing which means that the ANA is often seen as an occupying force in the south.
