Afghan forces target met 3 months early - Military News | News From Afghanistan, Iraq And Around The World - Military Times

Afghan forces target met 3 months early

NATO has reached its goal of expanding the size of Afghanistan’s army and police to 240,000 three months ahead of schedule, achieving a key measurement that will be used to gauge progress in the war.

The size and quality of Afghan security forces will be a central part of a review that the White House will be conducting in December to measure the effectiveness of its new strategy of emphasizing protecting civilians in Afghanistan.

The improved recruitment and retention follow a pay raise and improvements in a payroll system. NATO has also increased the number of trainers dedicated to working with Afghan soldiers.

“Before we were training them very quickly and throwing them into the fight,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a member of the Armed Services Committee. “It didn’t work too well.”

The quality of the recruits is also increasing, according to statistics. A year ago, only about 25 percent of the soldiers graduating from basic training passed a weapon qualification test. Today, between 90 percent and 95 percent pass the test, said Jack Kem, deputy director of the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan.

The size of the Afghan army has increased to 134,000 soldiers, up from about 97,000 in November, according to NATO. The police are at 109,000 now, up from about 95,000 in November.

The plan is to increase the size of the forces further in the coming year.

The quality and number of troops are only one goal that will be used to assess the White House’s Afghanistan strategy, but the goal is considered a critical one.

“Perhaps the most important point is the development in Afghanistan of the national security forces,” said Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., a member of the Armed Services Committee.

The December assessment will measure a broad range of issues, including the viability of markets and level of government corruption, according to the White House. It will cover strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The review will use a set of congressionally mandated targets that are already being reported to Congress, but will also include other information.

Commanders in Afghanistan are already routinely collecting data detailing everyday life for Afghan civilians.

“I’m trying to measure things like what the prices might be in the bazaar,” British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, commander of allied forces in southern Afghanistan, said Tuesday. “I’m trying to measure the extent to which life is returning to normality.”

The level of violence will also be included in the review, but it is at best an ambiguous measure and can be misleading. In Iraq, violence initially went up as U.S. forces challenged the dominance of insurgents in their strongholds during the surge.

Ultimately that violence decreased as U.S. and Iraqi forces expanded security.

“When violence is going up you don’t know what it’s telling you,” said Stephen Biddle, a defense analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The December review will measure progress to date, recognizing it is too early to pass final judgment on the strategy, said Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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