Afghan National Security Forces: Closing the Gap Before 2014

Abstract

In order for Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) to be in a position for independent operations by 2014, the United States needs to decouple general purpose forces (GPF) from partnering now and focus strictly on advising under independent conditions. When US Special Operations Forces (SOF) turned the security force assistance (SFA) mission in Afghanistan over to US GPF in 2003, a shortfall in advisor teams as well as GPF personnel with advising experience led to an over reliance on partnering as the predominant form of SFA. The over reliance on partnering operations resulted in ANSF dependent on US operational forces to meet Afghanistan's internal and external Taliban threat. A gap now exists in capability between the current state of ANSF and the goal of an independently operating ANSF by 2014. In order to close the capability gap, NATO needs to decouple GPF now and allow the ANSF to conduct independent operations with the support of advisors. This will allow embedded advisor teams to refine all internal ANSF operations and processes while also retaining a NATO GPF backstop to stem operational failure and reinforce success prior to the 2014 deadline.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 20, 2013
Accession Number
ADA601560

Entities

People

  • Ryan P. Benson

Organizations

  • Marine Corps University

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Department Of Defense
  • Doctrine
  • Governments
  • Instructors
  • International Security
  • Joint Military Activities
  • Management Personnel
  • Military Organizations
  • Military Science
  • National Security
  • Nato
  • Security
  • Special Operations Forces
  • Students
  • United States
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

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