U.S. ponders militia strategy in Afghanistan

Analysts are warning that it might prove counterproductive to extend to Afghanistan the U.S. strategy of forming and paying tribal militias to improve security - though the strategy has been credited with great successes in Iraq.

The U.S. military in Afghanistan denied such a move was being considered by senior officials, but the possibility is being discussed by officers on the ground.

“People are talking about it,” said Vikram Singh, an expert with the Center for a New American Security who returned recently from Afghanistan and told United Press International the idea of extending the strategy there had come up in briefings from the U.S. military.

He said detailed discussions about possibly supplying weapons and money were taking place “at an operational and tactical level - identifying people who [coalition military forces] could work with.”

A spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan denied that extending the strategy of arming and paying tribal militias was on the table.

“We are not considering that,” Capt. Christian Patterson said.

But it is being advocated, at least by some now outside the government.

Recently retired U.S. Army counterinsurgency expert Col. John Nagl welcomed the idea, saying that “buying off your enemies is a time-honored tactic in counterinsurgency with a proven track record of success.”

“Over time, you try to incorporate those people into the government security organizations,” Col. Nagl added. “I absolutely think that there are tribal organizations in Afghanistan who could be incorporated. It would be a way to rapidly increase the size of [the Afghan National Police and National Army] with cohesive units.”

However, as UPI reported last month, the strategy of forming and paying Sunni tribal militias - known variously as Awakening Councils or the Sons of Iraq - to maintain security has run into trouble in Iraq, where efforts to integrate them into the nation’s security forces have been stymied by the sectarian concerns of the Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad.

Several Afghanistan experts with whom UPI spoke said they had grave doubts about expanding the practice, warning it would risk the fragile gains of the state-building strategy that the international community has been pursuing.

“At best, it would be a tactical gain, but also an immense strategic loss,” said Ali Jalali, a former Afghan interior minister and now a visiting professor at the National Defense University. He noted that by fragmenting power and undermining the authority of the central government, the strategy in the long run could actually worsen the instability it sought to improve.

He called this “effort to gain peace through manipulating tribal dynamics” a “colonial approach.”

Levels of corruption and instability were already much too high in the volatile border regions of the country, said retired Marine Col. Daniel Curfiss, also a professor at the National Defense University.

“My concern is, it would be throwing kindling on this [fire] to pay people who are already unwilling to relinquish power,” he said.

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