Military Review English Edition January-February 2014 | Page 31

BEATING THE TALIBAN

Afghan National Police shura with Shahid-e-Hasas village elders.

Ministry of Interior vetting, infiltration by insurgents,
and its monopolization by local powerbrokers. The
next version of local police, called Afghan Public
Protection Program, began in Wardak Province in
2009, and although it added governance and community vetting to its program, the commander of
the force at the time disregarded local sentiment
and never emphasized governance. Neither of these
programs utilized U.S. Special Operations Forces in
the recruiting, vetting, or training of these forces or
in the administration of the program, which limited
its overall effectiveness. While success was elusive,
many lessons were learned that proved vital to the
later success of the Village Stability Operations program as well as Afghan Local Police. The next step
in the evolution of the program was the creation of
a Community Defense Initiative, later renamed the
Local Defense Initiative. Approved in July 2009,
MILITARY REVIEW

January-February 2014

the programs emphasized the defensively oriented
nature of the local protective force, sought to reduce
the influence of powerbrokers through community
engagement, and nested its forces with GIRoA by
making them answerable to the Afghan National
Police. Renamed the Afghan Local Police program,
Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed an official
decree formally authorizing the program on 16
August 2010, allowing for an initial force of 20,000.
This initial cap increased as the program’s successes
against the Taliban demonstrated its utility.
The Village Stability Operations initiative began
in 2009 and represented the accumulated wisdom,
learned from both mistakes and successes, garnered
from raising local security forces accountable to the
people, answerable to the government, and effective
at fighting the insurgency. Before recruiting a single
member of the Afghan Local Police, a process of
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