by Lieutenant Colonel Thomas S. Tilbrook (Australian Army), Lieutenant Colonel Frank Elgin (Netherlands Army), Lieutenant Colonel Ian Kippen (British Army), and Major Grant Martin (U.S. Army)
Download the full article: Supporting the ISAF Campaign Plan
At the end of the 2010 London Conference on Afghanistan, the government of the United Kingdom announced that "a more stable and secure Afghanistan is vital to our national security and to that of the wider world." The plan for the Afghans to take the lead in their own security by early 2011 came with an increase in Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to 305,000, enhanced provincial and lower-level government capability, and measures to tackle corruption. These are demanding tasks, given the increase in recent violence. Promises of International debt relief and aid could mean little without stability, but stability is untenable without security and legitimate governance. So what are we doing to achieve this vision of a stable and secure Afghanistan?
On 21 November 2009, the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A), the U.S. Headquarters charged with training and advising the Afghan Police, Army, Ministry of the Interior, and Ministry of Defense closed its doors. Well, not quite. CSTC-A never really went away; for political and monetary reasons it still exists, mainly to provide a link to U.S. funding and activities beyond the remit of Coalition Nations. What took its place is a new, 3-star General Officer Headquarters: NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A), commanded by Lieutenant-General William B. Caldwell IV, recently the commander of the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, KS. Elevating the command to a 3-star position was more than a symbol of President Obama's refocusing of the effort in Afghanistan on building the capacity of the ANSF, the new command comes with a possible increase of $15 billion over the next three years and the transfer of authority for training fully to NATO.
Download the full article: Supporting the ISAF Campaign Plan
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas S. Tilbrook (Australian Army), Lieutenant Colonel Frank Elgin (Netherlands Army), Lieutenant Colonel Ian Kippen (British Army), and Major Grant Martin (U.S. Army) are assigned to the headquarters of NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan/Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan.
