[This is an updated version of an editorial that first appeared in the NATO Watch Observatory No.35, August/September 2012 edition]
By Ian Davis, NATO Watch
On Monday, following the killing of three British soldiers and a major Taliban attack on Camp Bastion, the UK defence secretary, Philip Hammond, told MPs that British troops were operating in a "difficult and challenging environment" but their task of training Afghan security forces could not be "derailed".
The very next day it was derailed by an order from General John Allen, the US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, to suspend joint combat operations and patrols "until further notice". The UK defence secretary was clearly not made aware of this decision in advance, let alone consulted about it. Other NATO allies were also kept in the dark, rather undermining the often repeated claim that the international coalition’s military response in Afghanistan is “NATO-led”.
From day one in Afghanistan, the real strategic decision-making has taken place in the White House and Pentagon – although British officials and the NATO Secretary General were quick to point out that the policy change was a tactical shift and did not mark a change in strategy. Nonetheless, throughout the eleven-year conflict, NATO and the other ‘international protectorate’ actors in Afghanistan (UNAMA, ISAF, EU, OSCE and a host of private sector and non-governmental acronyms) have largely acted as a de facto arm of American foreign policy.
Whether resulting from infiltration by foreign spies, cultural clashes, personal grievances or fasting, the death toll from insider attacks of Western troops by Afghan security forces, also known as ‘green-on-blue’ attacks, continues to rise. 51 coalition troops have died in 36 attacks this year, at least 15 of them in August alone—last year there were 21 attacks, killing 35; and in 2010 there were 11 attacks with 20 deaths.
The surge of insider attacks is a significant threat to NATO’s exit strategy of turning over security to Afghan forces by the end of 2014. Currently, approximately 130,000 (‘blue’) NATO troops are fighting insurgents in Afghanistan alongside 350,000 (‘green’) Afghans. NATO has responded by arming so-called ‘guardian angel’ soldiers to provide 24-hour security on ‘mixed’ bases, drafting specialist counter intelligence personnel into the Afghan army and suspending some police training. The head of the Afghan army has also ordered the reinvestigation of 150,000 soldiers (almost three quarters of the force) for security vetting and biometric profiling. These measures are hardly conducive to creating mutual trust and as NATO combat troops transition out of Afghanistan, the military trainers left embedded in Afghan units will be even more vulnerable to such attacks.
While the ‘green-on-blue’ attacks and other NATO casualty figures receive most of the Western media headlines—the war claimed the 2,000th American life (not counting the record number of suicides in the US military)—it is Afghan civilians and security forces that continued to bear the brunt of the upsurge in violence. General John Allen confirmed that Afghan police and army casualties were also on the rise, mostly by roadside bombs known as improvised explosive devices. Some estimates suggest that Afghan security forces are dying at five times the rate of NATO soldiers with official figures regularly under-reporting casualties so as not to undermine moral. Again, such casualty figures can be expected to rise as Afghan security forces increase their presence on the battlefield and take more responsibility from NATO troops ahead of the drawdown.
The prospects for Afghan civilians are even grimmer. According to the United Nations, 1,145 civilians were killed and a further 1,954 were injured during the first half of 2012. Although the UN figures represent a 15% fall in overall deaths and injuries from the previous year, civilian casualties appear to have spiked during the ‘summer fighting season’. The UN attributed 80% of these casualties to ‘militant forces’, while casualties attributed to NATO and Afghan government forces declined as a result of strengthened policies to protect civilians: 165 civilians killed in the first half of the year, down 35% from 2011, with the majority (127) arising from coalition airstrikes.
That it has taken NATO so long to implement policies that provide better protection for civilians is indicative of a campaign that has lurched from one crisis to another. Despite the optimism of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe that “we will win in Afghanistan”, most signs point to the fact that the war will not end for the Afghans in 2014 -- and could get much worse. With that legacy in mind and clarion calls for US and NATO intervention in other crises, such as Syria and Iran, growing louder, perhaps it is time to pause and reflect on the words of the outgoing US ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker. The retiring diplomat voiced concern about becoming involved in conflicts "in somebody else's stadium, playing by somebody else's ground rules" without first understanding the country's "environment, history, [and] politics".
A veteran senior Afghan officer was even less diplomatic in an interview in Newsweek magazine: “I understand why our men are shooting US and NATO soldiers. I too have been personally hurt by the way American forces behave towards my soldiers, our villagers, our religion and culture. Too many of them are racist, arrogant, and simply don’t respect us”. These are surely fundamental starting points without which all the talk at NATO HQ about a comprehensive approach to crisis management remains just hot air.
And what next for NATO's exit strategy in Afghanistan? While there is a growing clamour to accelerate the military drawdown this seems unlikely, partly because of the logistical challenges (pulling out in an organized, coherent way requires thorny negotiation) but mainly because of the negative political signals this would give out in both Kabul and Washington. While many (including this author) have questioned whether military forces should have been deployed in the first place, it would be irresponsible and harm the slim chance of a successful transition to leave prematurely now. Britain and Denmark have called for a meeting of NATO countries to discuss how to tackle insider attacks, but whatever new safeguards are employed it seems certain that joint training operations will resume shortly.
Resumption of partnering is not enough, however. There also needs to be a renewed emphasis on three key objectives: a comprehensive peace process including all relevant internal actors and neighbours (while the recent upsurge in violence suggests that we are further away than ever from ceasefires, dialogue and reconciliation, the reality is that the Afghan insurgency, like others, will end with a messy political settlement); increased development, especially in non-Taliban controlled areas with a particular emphasis on women-centred projects; and a counter-terrorism strategy to combat Al-Qaeda that is both civilian-led and rooted firmly within international law (which means, for example, an end to the use of targeted assassinations with drones).
Post 2014, NATO is going to be forced to accept a situation like the one in Yemen, where a pro-Western government is incapable of controlling the whole of its territory. But Afghanistan can be stable and effectively governed on that basis—as the 1930-1970 period demonstrates—with Afghan security forces holding onto Kabul and other cities and traditional local governance operating alongside weak state structures.