The following is a guest post by political scientist Keith Darden (Yale University) and Harris Mylonas (George Washington University). Please note that the symposium in Ethnopolitics that they refer to in their article has generously been ungated and made available to all for free for a limited time in conjunction with this post.
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The killing of the US Ambassador last week in Benghazi and the recent wave of attacks on NATO personnel by uniformed Afghan police and military highlight the perils of international efforts to build states and societies on foreign soil. Why is it that the people we arm and assist keep on turning those weapons against us?
The New York Times, CBSnews, Washington Post, all reported on Sept 17, 2012 that the number of NATO personnel killed in Afghanistan by uniformed Afghan military and police is already at 51 this year, up from a total of 35 for all of last year. Approximately one in six of the NATO soldiers killed in Afghanistan this year were killed by our local allies and trainees. And this only counts those who killed while in uniform. The attrition and desertion rate from the Afghan National Army and police forces is exceptionally high and many have joined the ranks of the Taliban. If we consider the number of allied personnel killed by soldiers and police who have been armed and trained by coalition forces, the number is certainly much higher.
The US has wisely put the training of the Afghan Local Police (ALP) on hold for a month until it can improve procedures for vetting its recruits, but the problem runs much deeper.
In a symposium published recently in Ethnopolitics we debated the merits of international state-building efforts. Our main lesson: There is more to state-building than simply expanding the ranks of the army and police. Expanding the army and police may be state-building, but it might just as easily be insurgency-building if it is not preceded by systematic efforts to build loyalty and to carefully select recruits. If you are unsure of the loyalties of the recruits who you are training, it’s best not to train them at all.
Here is the link to our piece, which was followed by some responses (Erin Jenne, Fotini Christia, Gordon Bardos, David Siroky & Yoav Gortzak) and our reply to their thoughtful comments.