Embedding with the Afghans

Something to continue after 2011?

Canadians teaching Afghans how to fight are following an honourable tradition, says Canada's top Operational Mentor and Liaison Team adviser to forces in Kandahar, and it's a mission widely expected to expand after 2011...

The widespread opinion of Canadian troops deployed in Kandahar is that when the current combat mission ends in 2011 [see this post], the OMLT unit, which helps train the Afghan army, will not only continue but expand...

There was widespread praise among Canadians about the Afghans' fighting skills. There was also agreement that of all the disciplines, logistics was the Afghan National Army's weakest.

For Maj. Lawrence Methot, who mentors the Afghan logistics battalion in Kandahar, the problems include a reluctance among Afghan officers to hold staff meetings, a legacy from the Afghan officers' training in the rigid Soviet system -- where all orders come from the top down [see last part of this post].

Hall called this assignment the most gratifying job he has had in a long career in the military...

More on OMLTs here. On the other hand, BruceR sees a problem should, as seems almost certain, the US replace our battle group.

Meanwhile, an embedded US Marine trainer whose tour has just ended is...

...hearing rumors that the embedded training concept is going away. I’m not sure if this means the ANA are going to partner directly with the adjacent Coalition unit in the area without the benefit of an ETT to facilitate, or if this means the ANA is just going to operate independently. Either way, I’d hate to see the concept go away as I’m certain ETTs are huge force multipliers...

More from the Marine about the ANA at another post:

[It] makes it hard for me when I can’t get my ANA to do more than four or five patrols in a week. When I see the US Army here going out every day, and often more than once a day, while my Afghans play volleyball, it makes it a little hard to feel proud of the job I’m doing with them. At times I’m almost ashamed at the scheduling meetings when I tell the Army guys that the ANA are taking another day off for “religious classes." When questioned about this issue, I laugh it off and say the ANA are in it for the long haul.



We do what we can here to get them to work more, but overcoming the attitude of the culture in general towards work is tough, and overcoming the Afghan military cultural problems that stand in our way is even tougher...

Afghan military culture doesn’t help our cause either. Many Afghan officers don’t lead by example. Most do not go out regularly on patrols. When the Afghan officers aren’t often sharing the dangers of their men, the men aren’t going to feel that risk is fairly distributed, and thus will be less likely to believe in the mission and do a serviceable job.

Additionally, Afghan officers are afraid of making any type of non-conforming decision that might get them into trouble...

The bright spot is that the younger officers I’ve worked with are much better than the older guys. Afghan Army officers basically come in three varieties: the older officers who were Russian-trained or influenced; the former mujahideen fighters/commanders; and the new, younger, American-trained generation. The former mujahideen fighters make pretty good officers and are revered by their men, but don’t have the education or formal schooling and don’t listen to advice. The older officers, in the words of my best interpreter, a former ANA 1stSgt, “don’t ever want to leave the base” and have an excuse why they can’t do anything about their problems or act on our suggestions. The new generation of officers is much more willing to do operations, listen to our advice, and make some changes on the fly if need be, although they’re still somewhat afraid to make mistakes. Unfortunately, for now the power lies with that older group of officers. Hopefully, once the younger, American-trained generation comes of age, things will start changing rapidly for the better.

Update: From BruceR at Flit:

...
"K" from the Konar ETT says farewell. I was struck throughout his reporting how interchangeable "his" Afghans and "my" Afghans seemed to be, offering reassurance that the challenges we experienced as military mentors were not confined to Regional Command South...

Read on for some interesting observations on Brits mentoring Arabs, and Germans Turks, in World War I ("Lawrence vs. Liman").