By Dave Anderson:
To fight a traditional counter-insurgency campaign, the counter-insurgent forces needs lots of troops with lots of discipline and discretion. The estimate is the counter-insurgent force needs to be able to field 2% to 3% of the population in arms and those men in arms need to possess high levels of cultural awareness and intelligence as well as excellent fire discipline combined with a willingness to take casualties from hidden insurgents instead of dishing casualties out without regard to civilian deaths.
That is a very tough nut to crack in any army. It is an even tougher nut to crack in a multi-generational civil war. It is even more difficult to field such an army when a good chunk of that army does not want to be there. The Telegraph reports that the Afghanistani government is thinking of instituting a draft to raise force levels:
admit would need the recruitment and training of 5,000 men each month.
Afghanistan's
ministry of defence said it was now drawing up plans for compulsory
military service under a constitutional clause stating all Afghans have
a duty to defend their country.
Zaher Azimi, spokesman for the
ministry, told Afghan television: "We consider preparing a plan to
revive the obligatory military service one way or another.
"We
plan to have our volunteer army soldiers take part in the combat
activities while the soldiers serving under obligatory military service
work in the logistical and administrative areas.
If an individual soldier is just serving his time for a very corrupt government that may or may not pay him on time, I have a hard time seeing what incentives he has to fight hard, to fight smart or not to sell stuff (weapons, supplies and information) on the black market. Conflicting primary loyalties to a tribe or group will supersede any weak loyalties to a government that is amazingly corrupt and illegitimate. This may not be a good idea after all.......
No comments:
Post a Comment