I wrote a new @washingtonpost @monkeycageblog piece focused on the missing story in the current Afghanistan narrative: what happened to the Afghan security forces the US spent two decades building? washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/…
We’ve reached a familiar episode in the sad saga of US efforts to build local militaries to fight local wars. Remember the collapse of the Iraqi Army in Mosul in 2014: warontherocks.com/2014/07/inside…
And the collapse of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam in the Fall of Saigon rand.org/content/dam/ra…
The United States’ three largest-scale efforts to build militaries in partner states failed in their principal objective: building local forces competent enough to keep the enemy from planting its flag.
My PhD thesis (defended June 2021) explains why. This piece hits some of the highlights.
1. As many excellent scholars (@ProfTalmadge @RisaBrooks12) scholars have shown, once a certain resource threshold is met, military effectiveness hinges on decisions people make
2. Political and military leaders aren’t always interested in building better militaries, and might instead implement policies optimized to coup-proofing, consolidating political power, lining their own pockets, or in some cases physical survival
3. In a kind of adverse selection, the US expends the most effort building militaries in countries whose leaders are most conflicted about building them (Stephen Biddle, @RyanBaker51 @jumacdo ) tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…
4. Local (political *and military*) leaders dealing with societal upheaval, political chaos, and spreading violence may happily take US mil assistance, but ignore US advice, implementing policies that serve their personal or political ends, but keep their militaries weak
5. So that’s a big reason why building militaries is hard. But the US’ approach makes it harder than it needs to be
6. The prevailing explanation of US failure to build better partner militaries goes like this: interest divergence is too high and US bargaining power too low to incentivize partner leaders to follow US direction and build better militaries
7. I find in my research that bargaining power has little to do with it. You really have to get creative with your def of bargaining power (a mushy concept to be sure) to find a way to argue that the US lacks it in the context of military assistance.
8. The US doesn’t lack bargaining power— the US *military* doesn’t bargain. Instead, it relies on PERSUASION.
9. Washington delegates these large-scale military assistance projects to the US military. In addition to the PA problem between the US and the partner, there is also a crucial PA problem between the principal in Washington, and its agent in the field- the US military
10. The US mil (from CGs down to tactical advisors embedded in partner battalions) tries to coax and cajole partner political and military leaders to follow their advice. Advisors aim to build trust and rapport, to inspire emulation by “showing what right looks like”
11. US mil teaches that it is wrong to use carrots and sticks to incentivize partners to follow their advice. When partners continue to ignore the advice, advisors are told not to push too hard, don’t risk losing the relationship. Compliance is less important than rapport
12. And so advisors and local leaders often develop genuinely warm relationships. The trouble is though, that friendship does not have much to do with compliance
13. Why does the US mil keep relying on persuasion, even as partners ignore the advice, continuing to implement policies that fatally and demonstrably weaken the militaries advisors are deployed to build?
14. I draw on org theory and show that the US mil has embraced an ideology of advising— The Cult of the Persuasive— that advances its own interests (minimizing bureaucratic headache and keeping Washington out of its business) even as advising missions continue to fail
15. The current inattention to the Afghan security forces the US mil spent so long building, combined w the quiet perpetuation of the advisory mission in Iraq, seems itself vindication of the US military’s methods of insulating itself against critique while keeping the taps open
17. Building militaries in partner states is hard, and in some places it might be impossible. But the US military has settled on a set of repertoires that all but ensures failure.
18. And it will likely continue on, T+1, T+1, unless Washington kicks down the door or pulls the plug. Fin.
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