Do the Afghan national security forces have the necessary capacity to take over security operations from the international military forces stationed in Afghanistan? It depends on who is asking. In late November, the NATO summit in Lisbon signed off on a 'timetable' for handing over responsibility to Afghan forces in a process expected to begin in the spring of 2011 and be completed by 2014; US troops are expected to start their 'drawdown' in July 2011. While the beginning of the withdrawal does not imply an exodus of the troops, it will see the beginning of gradual reduction – and, more significantly, decreasing participation of the troops in forward operations.
Ahead of and following the Lisbon summit, a broad section of the donor community was at pains to draw attention to security 'gains', linking success to the high 'attrition rate' (ie, the killing of) militants, a narrative designed to show that conditions are being created for the transfer of security responsibility. Missing from this narrative is the high attrition rate within the pro-government civilian and military ranks, too, as the insurgents step up their operations, moving deeper into Afghan villages. Frequent briefings claim the success of large-scale operations, especially in southern Afghanistan, as well as the larger role of Afghan forces who are sometimes credited with taking the 'lead' in some security operations.
The audience for this storyline is not quite clear. Are the spin doctors trying to convince the Afghan population? Their own domestic audiences – or themselves? What is quite clear is who is not buying into the hard sell: a substantive section of the internationals with boots on the ground in Afghanistan, who have relied on international private security firms for their security, and who have been in an uproar since President Hamid Karzai ordered a ban on these companies. President Karzai argued that the presence of the private security firms was undermining the growth of the Afghan forces and challenging their authority, and asked that the international community instead use the Afghan police and army for their security.
While diplomatic missions and international military forces have apparently been exempted from the ban, private aid contractors have threatened to pull out or downsize, insisting that the Afghan forces are unreliable. They have also warned that development would come to a halt throughout the country as a result. What appears to have escaped notice of the NATO member states, insisting that the capacity of the Afghan security forces is now robust enough to take over security duties in some parts of the country, is that their own private development contractors vociferously deny this capability.