Veoma interesantan članak iz londonskog časopisa "The Economist", koji govori o nužnoj (i zakasneloj) reformi Vojske Avganistana pre povlačenja snaga NATO-a.
IF REPENTING past sins is the first step to redemption, then the American effort to create a half-decent Afghan army is off to a promising start. Admissions of past blunders pour from William Caldwell, the three-star general with the job of overhauling both the army and the police. “In November we realised we were going to have to revamp everything—it just wasn’t working,” the frank general says.
November was, coincidentally, when General Caldwell took over from a line of predecessors who had specialised in repeating that all was going to plan. He was horrified to find the “entire focus on quantity not quality”. The ratio of instructors to students was 1 to 80, he says. On one base, it was 1 to 466. “There were no training standards…It was just, eight weeks and you’re done.” Some contractors failed even to show recruits how to calibrate the sights on their weapons.
Nine years after the Taliban regime was toppled, the American-led coalition is still struggling to build an army from the ragtag remnants of former mujahideen groups. Only when it does so will foreign soldiers be able to go without provoking a collapse of the government. Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s president, says that Afghan forces should be ready to take over by 2014.
But there is a desperately long way to go: a recent American government inspection found only 23% of Afghan soldiers could work unsupervised. During operations, they remain almost totally reliant on NATO troops, who suffer twice as many casualties. In one recent debacle in Laghman, a province east of Kabul, 300 Afghan soldiers, acting independently of NATO, were ambushed by the Taliban and many were killed or captured.
Lots of resources are now being diverted to the army. The number of foreign trainers has been doubled, improving those instructor-pupil ratios. Army pay is up from $120 to $165 a month. A national advertising campaign shows soldiers draped with more bandoleers than Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo would think decent. As a result, recruitment is ahead of target, with the army now 134,000 strong. The goal is to get to 171,600 by October next year, requiring as much additional growth as has been achieved in the past five years.
Yet, as General Caldwell says, it is even more important to improve the quality and make-up of the army. Less than 3% of recruits are from the troublesome Pushtun south, from where the Taliban draw most support. Few will sign up, fearing ruthless intimidation against government “collaborators” and their families. As a result, northern officers who only speak Dari have to use translators when in the Pushtu-speaking south. Northern infantry are reluctant to go there at all. This plays to fears of a looming north-south civil war.
NATO is trying various fixes. Simon Levey, a Briton who until recently oversaw army training, promoted what he called an “ethnic mixer” approach of setting up units that reflect the country’s ethnic make-up. An eight-week “mujahideen integration course” is supposed to entice former anti-Soviet resistance leaders to join up. They could help to address another problem: a lack of mid-level talent in an army short of non-commissioned officers.
The army also needs funds for infrastructure, such as a sprawling Afghanistan Defence University now being built on the edge of Kabul. Jack Kem, General Caldwell’s civilian deputy, thinks the army and police, once at full strength, will cost $6 billion a year to run (training this year costs $11 billion). Afghanistan cannot afford that, so outsiders will need to cough up. That would still be cheaper than paying for foreign troops: each American soldier costs $1m a year to sustain in Afghanistan.
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http://www.economist.com/node/16846714Komentari čitalaca su takođe vredni pomena, gde se govori o etničkim podelama u vojsci. Sve u svemu, interesantno štivo!
