The Adviser's Dilemma: Endemic Challenges and Unrealized Opportunities in the Training Mission in Afghanistan
The Adviser's Dilemma: Endemic Challenges and Unrealized Opportunities in the Training Mission in Afghanistan by Adam Maisel, Modern War Institute
As the Trump Administration prepares to roll out its Afghanistan policy, much remains unclear on one of the most critical functions: advising of Afghan defense and security personnel. Though preliminary plans recommended to the president call for an increase of between 3,000 and 5,000 US troops and loosening of Obama-era restrictions on military advisers’ proximity to the frontlines, little has been said to address the incoherence of advising efforts across the country.
Between 2014 and 2017, I spent a total of twenty months deployed to Afghanistan—much of the time in a direct advising capacity to Afghan security forces. Teaching and mentoring field-grade intelligence officers and senior NCOs in the Afghan National Army, I was often asked questions I didn’t have the answers to. “When will the United States come back to help us?” and “Will we win?” In a sense, the United States and NATO have failed them. This is not for a lack of effort. I have seen exceptional men and women instruct and advise in Afghanistan, achieving tangible results at the brigade level and below. Where we have failed is in the incoherence and inability to translate tactical advising successes into strategic ones. Our overall policies in Afghanistan have been amorphous and shifting for over fifteen years and have been aptly described by Vanda Felbab-Brown as “largely a sequence of reflexive reactions in search of a strategy.” And where this dysfunction and disconnected policy has manifested itself most is within the advising mission, one of the most critical efforts by NATO forces, yet consistently marginalized in execution.
Current conventional advising efforts tend to fall into three types of mission sets: classroom instruction on NATO or Afghan-adjacent bases; ground movement to Afghan corps-level bases, provincial police and security headquarters for garrison advising; and Expeditionary Advising Packages (EAPs), a fly-to-advise effort to provide immediate and tailored over-the-shoulder advising to brigade-sized elements conducting strategic operations in areas such as Uruzgan, Farah, Helmand, and Nangarhar Provinces.
I have personally participated in all three mission sets and see the inherent value of each of them. But the frustration comes from the seeming inability for each of these efforts to be properly coordinated into a coherent advising policy. Each type of advising offers a minimal amount of time to interact with Afghan counterparts, creating a repeating game of “Twenty-One Questions.”
Furthermore, each of the three advising mission sets have critical weaknesses. Classroom instruction provides much-needed skill development, but lacks the ability to assess whether the concepts taught are effectively implemented in real-world operations. Transport for Afghans to NATO bases is often a tedious process, and security measures at entry control points often lead to delays in getting students to their place of instruction. Ground movements to nearby Afghan bases help to fill this gap, but missions are often canceled due to weather, security concerns and VIP visits. Additionally, the reliance on local nationals as linguists results in the awkward situation of arriving to advise Afghan personnel with no linguist available (it happened to me more times than I care to admit). Often, the three sets are mixed with counterproductive results (such as attempting to provide classroom instruction during an EAP that focused on brigade clear-and-hold operations)…
There’s No Such Thing as the ‘Arab Street’
There’s No Such Thing as the ‘Arab Street’ by Jonathan Schanzer, Wall Street Journal
Washington has stopped trying to figure out the “Arab Street.” From what I can tell it happened somewhere around Nov. 9, 2016. America is probably better off for it.
I’m not saying we should ignore public opinion in the Arab world. Nor should we ignore its politics. The Middle East, and what happens there, is of crucial concern to American policy makers and interests.
But at least since I arrived in Washington in 2002, the foreign-policy establishment has been on a quixotic quest to tap into the thoughts of an estimated 365 million people. Armed with language lessons, history books and advanced degrees, America’s Middle East analysts labored to understand why Arab populations cheered the 9/11 attacks, jeered the 2003 Iraq invasion, and brought down dictators during the Arab Spring. I was among them, taking trips to dangerous places in the hope that I could acquire “ground truth” that would help in America’s battle for hearts and minds.
The only “ground truth” I could ever discern was that the Arab world is a complex patchwork of national identities that are influenced heavily by clan, family, tribe and—of course—religion. The people speak different dialects and embrace different cultures. Sure, there are commonalities among Arabs, but the more you travel the region, the more you find yourself focusing on the differences.
There is not one Arab Street, in the same way that there is not one Main Street in America (consider the differences among New York City, Biloxi, Miss., Des Moines, Iowa, and Los Angeles). Numerous ideological currents run through our 50 states and 320 million residents. Just ask the pollsters who got it wrong in November.
In a rather poetic twist of fate, the Arabs are now sending delegations to Washington in their own quest to glean ground truth. Some have come to visit me. Others have popped in on other policy shops around town. The conversations vary, but the questions are basically the same. With the political sands shifting dramatically in Washington, the Arabs are desperately trying to understand the thinking of the new leadership, but also the thinking of Main Street Americans who were instrumental in bringing about this change…