The U.S. and NATO’s decision to restrict joint operations with the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) presents a major setback to the military mission in Afghanistan. The new rules call into question the most critical pillar of the Obama administration’s Afghanistan strategy, which is to train, equip and strengthen the local forces so that they can fill the security vacuum and allow an orderly exit of the remaining 68,000 US troops by the end of 2014.
How much of an impact the latest restrictions will have on the overall Afghan mission depends on whether the policy, as NATO claims, is temporary, or represents a permanent change in the military strategy. Training and mentoring the ANSF is impossible in the absence of trust and close partnership between the Afghans and their foreign partners.
Over the past three years, the ANSF has made remarkable progress both in terms of quality and size. More than 150,000 additional soldiers and policemen have been added, and the ANSF is currently leading more than 50% of operations across the country.
Despite these achievements, however, both the army and police remain reliant on coalition forces for support roles, such as logistics, medical aid, surveillance, reconnaissance, and air power. The Afghan Air Force is hardly functional. The halt of joint patrols also leaves the ANSF more vulnerable to dangers as they lack needed equipment such as mine detectors to deal with IEDs and other sophisticated Taliban tactics. ANSF casualties are already several times higher than those of the coalition countries combined. Thus, reduced cooperation will undermine the ANSF’s morale and ability to defeat the Taliban.
NATO said the main reason behind the suspension of joint operations was to mitigate the threat of a dramatic rise in the so-called green-on-blue attacks, in which Afghan soldiers and policemen, or Taliban fighters disguised as them, have killed 51 coalition troops so far this year. As I wrote earlier, the insider attacks have eroded trust between the coalition forces and their Afghan allies, and if left unchecked, they could produce even more damaging military and political implications for Afghanistan and its foreign partners.