Mark Moyar, author of A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq, has a posting today at The Daily Beast entitled Can the Afghans Keep Order?
As the Marja offensive winds down, it falls to local police to keep order. But the State Dept. and defense contractors have done a lousy job of preparing them.
President Obama says bolstering Afghanistan's security forces is critical to ultimate success in Afghanistan, and few would dispute the point. But how to bolster those forces is a far more difficult question. It's an issue that has bedeviled NATO for years—and will become an especially vital concern when soldiers begin falling back after the Marja offensive and the burden of holding on to the gains shifts to the local police. Lieutenant General William G. Caldwell, the new commander of the NATO training mission, has declared Afghan leadership the mission's top priority for 2010—a welcome departure from prior years, when NATO often lost sight of the quality of the Afghans' officer corps. Experience has shown time and again that defeating rural insurgents hinges on the caliber of army and police leaders...
More at The Daily Beast.