The guessing game over the exact number of US troops to be left behind and the nature of their mission has continued since President Obama first announced his troop surge at West Point in 2009. Currently, 66,000 US forces remain in the country, a total likely to decrease by 32,000 after the spring 2014 Afghanistan Presidential elections.4 During a NATO meeting in February 2013, there were reports of a proposal consisting of 8,000- 12,000 military trainers and advisors—of which the US would contribute roughly two-thirds—and a separate counterterrorism (CT) force wholly under US control.5

President Obama's choice of the 'split-the-difference' option for the 2009 troop surge coupled with the 2012 withdrawal of roughly 30,000 troops limited the ability of international forces to fight insurgents in Afghanistan's east and north. Consequently, the Taliban and Haqqani Network have become extremely active in these areas. The surge never quelled unrest in the southern provinces, the ancestral home of the Pashtun–dominated insurgents. With US, international, and Indian forces limited to training on bases or ministries (or outside Afghanistan, in India's case), and the CT Special Operations Forces (SOF) contingent on routing terrorist networks, there will be a void in fighting the insurgency, especially in areas distant from the diminished international forces. 

Purpose and Numbers

In modern times, private security contractors have played an integral part inUSmilitaryengagementsandwithdrawalstrategies. TheuseofPSCs in war-torn, unstable nations, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, derives from two interlinked needs. First, the security sectors are generally weak, certainly the case in Afghanistan. Second, engaged international forces lack the manpower needed to both carry out the wartime mission and protect civilian personnel and development projects. Consequently, the American government—particularly the Department of Defense (DoD)—and other international actors and private companies have sought the assistance of PSCs.8

Perhaps surprisingly, in 2008 the DoD employed 155,826 contractors in Iraq but only 152,275 troops. Similarly, in 2010 in Afghanistan, there were 94,413 contractors versus 91,600 troops.9 From fiscal years 2008-2011, DoD contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan represented 52 per cent of total US forces, and contractor obligations—which ran at roughly $132 billion over the previous five fiscal years—exceeded total obligations from all other agencies.10 One study on Iraq and Afghanistan estimated that contractor waste and fraud ranged between $31-60 billion, a conservative estimate given the chaotic nature of those conflicts. The $12 million/day mid-range of waste and fraud from contracting was and will increasingly be a difficult number to swallow in the US given the slow-growing economy and toxic political environment focused on reduced government spending.11 The DoD was not immune from recent 'Sequester' cuts, which will phase in over a ten-year period, and the military may understandably be reluctant to continue funding contractor fraud in countries from which it is withdrawing forces. 

Perception is critical in areas of conflict and military intervention, and the general belief in Afghanistan is that PSCs are primarily foreigners. As an Iraqi Interior Ministry official once said, “Iraqis do not know them as Blackwater or other PSCs but only as Americans.” Such thinking can turn entire regions against the central government and international forces, while also decreasing confidence in the local government, which cannot rein in the PSCs' bad behaviour. Insecurity and anti-Americanism can be stoked because of perception, even in the absence of abuses.19 

However, the net benefits from PSCs remain more difficult to ascertain. There have been grave concerns in Iraq and now Afghanistan regarding abuses and bribery committed by both foreign and local PSCs, which face insufficient oversight, especially in the southern provinces.21 Many of the negative aspects of PSC use have yet to be dealt with.

Determining which entities receive contractor funding remains a major issue of concern. One Congressional report noted, “Warlords, strongmen, commanders and militia leaders who compete with the Afghan central government for power and authority” were functioning as PSCs and charging millions each year. In particular, convoy protection rackets are notorious for their adverse impact on security. Important thoroughfares, like the Ring Road, are prime insurgent targets, and Afghan PSCs frequently pay insurgents to avoid attacking their convoys, which obviously does little to diminish the insurgency writ large. Uruzgan warlord, Maitullah Khan, was a 'chief of provincial highway police', and used just this tactic.22

Another example of PSC-fuelled insecurity came from a US Senate committee investigation of PSCs used in Afghanistan. A 2010 United States Senate Committee on Armed Services discussed one US Air Force contract with ArmorGroup, a subsidiary of UK-based company G4S. ArmorGroup was tasked with providing air base security, but it relied on warlords (some with Taliban ties) to provide guards. During the length of the contract, one of those warlords killed another in a bazaar, while another was killed during a raid on a Taliban meeting held at his own house.23

Additionally, PSCs may merely decrease the effectiveness of Afghan government-run entities, rather than directly promoting insecurity,although this ultimately has similar negative impacts. For example, US and Afghan forces have little plan to reintegrate into ANSF or demilitarise ex- PSC personnel. One Afghan Army officer in Konar has said, “Recent attacks have proven that [Afghan Security Guards] who are fired do in fact return to the Taliban and use their knowledge... to mount assaults.”24

To ensure that the maximum number of armed groups transitioned from private to government control, the APPF was put under Ministry of Interior (MoI) purview. Eventually, both PSCs and the APPF would be replaced by a fully functioning ANP, one with a projected (although this may be reduced) 157,000-end strength.27 An international backlash led Karzai to relent on the speed of this plan, so a 'bridging strategy' was developed. The international community believed that throwing out all PSCs would harm Afghan development because new projects and civilian assistance would be limited by lacking effectiveness in the Afghan security sector, the initial PSC justification.28

Embassies and diplomatic postings would be allowed to use PSCs indefinitely. Development project contracts would terminate in March 2012, and ISAF's in mid-March 2013, unless Afghan security abilities were deemed insufficient. The complete two-stage plan would have required transitioning 455 sites, 220 contracts, and 24,000 guards.29

The March 2012 target date was not fully met, so the MoI created an interim license to allow for continued PSC operations “providing fixed site and convoy security.” By end June 2012, APPF administrative sites—including headquarters, zone headquarters, and operations directorates—were manned at 70 per cent. Also, 6800 APPF guards had been trained, and 95 per cent of existing PSC guards had been transferred to APPF control. By end 2012, convoy security transitions still proved difficult, although three of the seven convoy 'Kandaks' are in development.30 Because of bridging strategy delays, the deadline for implementation of wholly APPF-provided security has been extended to December 2014.31

The Logic of Militias

The US Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual notes that militias “constitute a long-term threat to law and order”. However, this has not stopped the US from tapping local militias in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a RAND analysis of worldwide post-WWII militia use, governments turn to militiamen to counter insurgencies, especially when state forces are weak and there are areas (especially rural) of low force concentration. In theory, militias can effectively control insurgencies within their remit. They may also turn towards corruption, commit abuses and promulgate the feeling among locals of lost central government authority. Consequently, governments must “establish tight control mechanisms” in order to rein in militias and bolster local support.33 Recent experience suggests that the task of effectively reining in newly established militias will be difficult for the Afghan government and its US partners.

The rural militias were larger and more important to sustaining the regimes. The government co-opted tribal leaders and/or bought off warlords to build proxy forces. However, this plan was fatally flawed because “Najibullah continued to lavish on those militia whose loyalty was essential to his survival, weapons and currency to the point where they became major contenders for power...with the cessation of Soviet aid.” By 1991, militia personnel reached 170,000, outnumbering Afghan security forces by 10,000.39 Unlike the Musahiban period, there was no central government security mechanism to check the militias. Frankenstein had created a monster over which he had little control.

The 1991 Soviet collapse—which further necessitated stoppage of aid to Afghanistan—and the 1992 decision by Defence Minister Ahmed Shah Massoud to eliminate the armed forces, signalled both the militias' triumph and a further descent into chaos. Without armed forces, warlord- backed militias proliferated, including some players which remain today: Ismail Khan in Herat; Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami; Dostum's Junbesh-i Milli-ye; and Massoud's Jami'at-i Islami.40 These forces turned to local taxation and the drug trade for money to fund their power grabs in Kabul, which for the first time became a battleground. Only during this period of militia-fuelled uncertainty could the Taliban (with Saudi and Pakistani backing) step into the void.

By 2010, the Awakening Councils, also understatedly called “Concerned Local Citizens' Groups” by the US military, had over 100,000 members. They received $300 in wages along with arms and training. The positive transformation of Anbar Province led to similar projects in Salaheddin, Diyala, Nineveh and Tamim. The Sahwa experiment, at least while controlled and paid for by US forces until 2010, was a militia success story, as seen in these groups increasingly being targeted by militants.43

Unsurprisingly, Petraeus and others were keen on duplicating these successes in Afghanistan. In 2010, when he bolstered the Afghan Local Police (ALP) program as part of a broader COIN strategy to win 'hearts and minds', Petraeus said the ALP was “an important addition to the overall campaign”, that is “in essence, a community watch with AK-47s.” The ultimate goal was to have 30,000 ALP members nationwide who would eventually be disarmed or absorbed into the conventional security forces.” Petraeus saw the ALP as “Arguably the most critical element in our effort to help Afghanistan develop the capability to secure itself.”44

Additionally, the Afghan government has in certain instances—like Kunduz Province—worked to reactivate militia groups such as the Shura- e-Nazar and Jamiat-i-Islami.45 Both the US and Afghanistan need to rigorously avoid funding strongmen and groups that may achieve short- term successes against insurgents in vulnerable areas only to turn around and use their funding and weapons to establish local control or fight vendettas against other outfits.

As demonstrated by the Awakening Councils, the ALP assists in pacifying rural areas. After the overthrow of the Taliban, the US sponsored a range of failed militia disarmament initiatives, and formerly influential warlords like Dostum and Atta Mohammad retained their power. Then, in response to the 2006 Taliban resurgence, the US backed a failed attempt to develop a new militia force, the Afghan National Auxiliary Police (ANAP). This 'mercenary force' was given ten days training and expected to fight alongside coalition forces or secure checkpoints in Helmand, Zabol, Kandahar, Farah, Oruzgan and Ghazni. ANAP recruits had little ability or legitimacy within local tribal structures.47

By 2009, Afghan insurgent groups were gaining ground, and as suggested by ISAF Commander Stanley McChrystal, “Elements of Afghan society, particularly rural populations, [were being] excluded from the political process.” Consequently, in Spring 2009, the Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command-Afghanistan (CFSOCC-A), led by Brigadier General Reeder, established a new militia force that would “assist local populations to provide their own security with defensive 'neighbourhood watch' type programs.”48 CFSOCC-A determined that the Afghan central government had to place militia under the control of local governing structures, a gaping hole in the Afghan National Auxiliary Police (ANAP) effort, and modelled the ALP on Musahiban militia formation. 

While the programme is officially regarded as successful, one American official confidentially told The New York Times, “The process is broken, or maybe it never completely was working. If you recruit the young tough guys in a village, they go out and act like young tough guys with power.” The ALP is not the only questionable militia initiative sponsored by ISAF. Until 2012, ISAF also supported 'Local Defence Forces', many of which were aimed at the protection of critical infrastructure. As the result of widespread allegations of criminal actions and human rights abuses, President Karzai called to suspend LDFs in late 2011. The possible dispersion of former LDF member to rogue militias or their integration into the ALP raises serious concerns.54

Exemplifying the tensions created by ISAF-backed militias, in late February, President Karzai ordered US Special Forces out of Wardak Province, a surprising order given the province's strategic location to Kabul's west. Aimal Faizi, President Karzai's spokesman, noted that a 'suspicious' force with links to US SOF had recently been tied to the beheading of a local student and the capture of nine locals, generating public resentment and hatred among the local community. Faizi went on, “It became clear that armed individuals... in Wardak Province engage in harassing, annoying, torturing, and even murdering innocent people.”55 The order shows the pressures placed on Karzai by these groups.

In Kunduz, for example, Turkmen and ex-Mujahidin militia leader Nabi Gecchi was given funds to fight the local Taliban. After defeating the insurgents, local militias are now fighting for control of the area in a small- scale localised civil war. The militias, including Gecchi's, collect taxes, build infrastructure, and provide police protection, in addition to fighting each other.56 In effect, these militias are working to attain local control, wresting it from each other and Afghan governing structures.

The first post-Taliban reintegration initiative was the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration program (DDR), which worked to end the influence of the Soviet-inspired militias. This program was both international and Afghan in nature. However, the UNDP in its report “Afghanistan's New Beginnings Programme (ANBP)”, determined that DDR failed to reintegrate 1496 illegal armed groups. The International Crisis Group reported that DDR could not “keep pace with the evolving nature of Afghanistan's militia structures.” The 1500 UNDP number did not even closely reflect the remaining militia forces, many of which were beyond DDR's remit. DDR did confiscate some weapons, but it failed to remove commanders. Its supposed achievements were cosmetic, not substantive.59

DDR's successor programme was Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups (DIAG), running from 2006 to 2011. DIAG was Afghan government owned and controlled, with oversight entities like the Disarmament and Reintegration Committee. By 2011, when it was subsumed into the 'Afghan Peace and Reconciliation Programme' (APRP) and effectively ended as an independent force, DIAG had only reintegrated roughly 760 of the nearly 1500 'remaining' armed groups.60

Furthermore, 2009 and 2010 DIAG reports suggest that disbandment of certain groups was more show than reality. According to a former north- eastern region DIAG unit commander, the average IAG possessed only five weapons. This suggests that DIAG units disbanded only 'low hanging fruit', the non-effective forces. Or, as stated in the ANBP annual report of 2009, “Many IAGs turned in old or unserviceable weapons under the DAIG process instead of the more modern and functional weapons.” Consequently, DIAG could say it was disarming groups, and the groups could maintain firepower, which did little to stabilise rural Afghanistan.