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Abstract
The conclusion of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission in Afghanistan at the end of 2014 has generated substantial uncertainty about the duration and level of international commitment to Afghanistan. The fate of local allies of international forces is therefore deeply in doubt. This article is of necessity speculative rather than empirical, but it attempts to draw on the history of previous intervention in Afghanistan as well as more general patterns of local and external alliance to sketch plausible scenarios for the fate of local allies. It proceeds in four parts. First, it draws distinctions between different types of local allies in Afghanistan based on position and relationship to the Afghan state and an external actor. Second, it examines the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan for relevant lessons for the fate of local allies. Third, it presents a scenario based on the foregoing that assumes there will be an ongoing small but significant international military presence and accompanying resources. Fourth, it presents a scenario that assumes there will be no or minimal international military presence and accompanying resources.
Notes
1. This section draws extensively from Long, ‘Partners or Proxies?’; Long, ‘The Police in Afghanistan’; Long et al., Locals Rule; along with the author’s observations from the period 2009–2013.
2. US Department of Defense, Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, 47–8.
3. From 2009 to the end of 2013 NTM-A and CSTC-A were commanded by a dual-hatted American general officer.
4. Rivera, ‘Afghan Army Attracts Few Where Fear Reigns’.
5. Tairov, ‘The Afghan Army’.
6. Long et al., ‘Building Special Operations Partnerships’.
7. US Department of Defense, Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, 61.
8. Ibid.
9. Long and Radin, ‘Enlisting Islam’.
10. UK Ministry of Defence, ‘Afghan Forces Find Biggest Ever Haul of Bomb-Making Chemical’.
11. See Long et al., Locals Rule; and Madden, ‘The Evolution of Precision COIN’. On dependence on the United States, see Stancati, ‘Left Unmoored’.
12. Clark, ‘War Without Accountability’.
13. Cavendish, ‘Revealed: Afghan Chief Accused’; DeCamp, ‘Afghan Police Protect PRT’.
14. Woodward, Obama’s Wars; Martinez, ‘US Official Confirms CIA’s 3,000 Man Army’; Nordland, ‘After Airstrike’; Aikins, Contracting the Commanders.
15. Frontline, ‘Fighting for Bin Laden’.
16. Aikins, ‘The A-Team Killings’; Miller and Tate, ‘CIA Shifts Focus to Killing Targets’.
17. Ahern, Undercover Armies; Blaufarb, Organizing and Managing Unconventional War in Laos; Warner, Shooting at the Moon; and Conboy and Morrison, Shadow War.
18. Kimberly Dozier, "CIA Falls Back in Afghanistan," The Daily Beast, May 4, 2014. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/04/exclusive-cia-falls-back-in-afghanistan.html
19. Cloud, ‘CIA, U.S. military at odds’.
20. Filkins, Mazzetti, and Risen, ‘Brother of Afghan Leader’; Trofimov, ‘After Afghan Raid’.
21. This section draws heavily on Long et al., Locals Rule; Grau, The Bear Went Over the Mountain; Grau and Gress, The Soviet War; Giustozzi, War, Politics, and Society; Giustozzi, Empires of Mud; Andrew and Mitrokhin, The World Was Going Our Way; and Oliker, Building Afghanistan’s Security Forces in Wartime.
22. Braithwaite, Afgantsy.
23. Ibid., 138.
24. Giustozzi, War, Politics and Society, 98–9, 266.
25. Ibid., 206.
26. Ibid., 222–3.
27. Kalinovsky, A Long Goodbye, 206–8.
28. Giustozzi, Empires of Mud.
29. Ibid.; Aikins, ‘The Master of Spin’; Aikins, ‘Our Man in Kandahar’; Chandrasekaran, ‘The Afghan Robin Hood’; and author conversations in Kandahar July 2009, January 2011, and July 2011.
30. Raghavan, ‘U.S., Afghanistan Sign Long-Delayed Security Pact’.
31. Trofimov, ‘Afghanistan Presidential Rivals Sign Power-Sharing Deal’ and Salahuddin and Peter Holley, ‘Commando-style Assault on Afghan Jail’.
32. US Department of defense, Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, 3–4.
33. Ibid., 80.
34. Nordland and Mashal, ‘Afghans See American General as Crucial’.
35. Schogol, ‘U.S. Air Power Helps Afghans Retake Musa Qala’.
36. Nordland and Shah, ‘Afghans Say Taliban Are Nearing Control of Key District’; Cunningham, ‘Taliban Offensive in Southern Afghan District’; Ali, ‘Security Forces Spread Thin’; Foschini, ‘Footsloggers, Turncoats and Enforcers’.
37. Stancati, ‘Left Unmoored’.
38. Ameeri, ‘QRF Commander Among Seven Injured’.
39. Van Blijert, ‘Security at the Fringes’.
40. The original story is Rosenberg, ‘Amid Election Impasse’ and Coll, ‘Dodging a Coup Attempt in Kabul’. The outlines of Coll’s story were supported by August 2014 conversations with Western observers in Kabul.
41. Shinkman, ‘Afghanistan’s New Leaders’.
42. East-West Institute, ‘Afghan Narcotrafficking,’ 26.
43. Coll, Ghost Wars.