Military Review English Edition January-February 2014 | Page 33

BEATING THE TALIBAN

operating bases throughout the district’s valleys and
mountain passes. These men operated as the forward
edge of FOB Kaufman, engaging local communities
and establishing an enduring presence in areas that
had never known it. Having created constant contact
with village elders, the recruiting process began for
the Afghan Local Police, and regular shuras were
convened with area villages to explain the initiative
and to identify sources of tribal, economic, and village grievances that alienated the people from their
government. As the work progressed, what began
in fits and starts became a deluge as area villagers
joined the Afghan Local Police program, accepting
a regular paycheck, embracing the pride of wearing
the uniform of a respected force, and using their local
knowledge to protect their own community. As the
police established checkpoints at bridge crossings,
valley choke points, bazaar shop entrances, and in
key villages, the Taliban were slowly squeezed out
of the area. The district chief of police, a local from
the area who had worked in Tarin Kowt as a police
officer, led the Afghan National Police and was in
charge of the local Afghan Local Police program.
He visited local shuras to promote the program, and
area elders respected him because he was one of
their own. Unlike in the past, the police chief had
resources, the Afghan Local Police went to him
for pay, weapons, and other support, as well as the
respect of the community that comes from having
the resources to help the people in a direct and positive manner. As the program simultaneously grew in
surrounding districts, roads that had been impassable
due to the insurgency opened up, commerce grew,
and the resurgent signs of a community wresting
off insurgent oppression abounded. As much as the
Afghan Local Police program removed the freedom
of movement for insurgent fighters through constructing and operating a network of checkpoints,
it also enlisted the population in its own defense,
robbing the insurgency of a ready-made recruiting
pool of poor and unemployed military-age males.
Additionally, the creation of the Village Stability
Operations framework and the development of a
system of military political and cultural advisors
from the village to the province to the capital complemented a village approach to security by knitting

together a holistic and vertically integrated system
of exercising political influence.

Future Strategy
Large Afghan army and police forces will play
a crucial role in any long-term strategy to provide
stability to Afghanistan. However, conventional
Afghan forces are very expensive and, while they are
capable, they cannot provide sustained rural security
to Afghanistan’s countryside without an adequate
local partner force. The creation of the Afghan Local
Police program in the last few years provides a possible way forward for an Afghan war strategy that
defeats the Taliban and is financially sustainable.
The central purpose of the program is to provide
a persistent presence of locally recruited, Special
Operation Forces-trained, and community-vetted
security forces that are defensively oriented. The
Afghan Local Police report to the Afghan National
Police in the district and have proved to be effective
and cheaper than conventional Afghan forces. Sustaining a robust Afghan National Army in the tight
budgetary conditions of the federal government in
Washington, D.C. is fiscally difficult. An Afghan war
strategy for the future should drastically expand the
Afghan Local Police program as part of a light, lean,
and long-term military presence in the central Asian
country. Sustainability issues and force resiliency
will persist as enduring factors, especially as the
U.S. military drawdown continues and the Taliban
attempt to reassert their control over Afghanistan.
Additionally, as discussions continue between
the U.S. government and the Government of the
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan over the nature
of the U.S. troop presence and size, the Village
Stability Operations approach is under increased
pressure as members of the Karzai government seem
inclined to remove Special Operations forces from
Afghanistan’s villages as part of a comprehensive
drawdown. The U.S. should continue to insist on
working with the Afghan government to grow this
locally based program to defeat the Taliban with a
strategy based upon its structure—village-based,
decentralized, long-term, blending civil-military
strategies seamlessly that enlists the Afghans in their
own defense. MR

NOTES
1. The name of the base was changed for operational security reasons.

MILITARY REVIEW

January-February 2014

2. The name of this forward operating base was also changed.

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