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Afghanistan: The Nexus between Disarming and Rebuilding Armed Forces

United States Institute of PeaceFebruary 3rd, 2011

Christopher R. Mantas

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) hosted an event exploring the challenges which faced the

Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) and Security Sector Reform (SSR) processes

in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2005. Four distinguished panelists provided valuable insights into

the dialogue. The first speaker was Dr. Caroline Hartzell, Senior Fellow at USIP and a professor of

political science at Gettysburg College, who is currently composing the USIP paper on this topic. Dr.

Hartzell was followed by Shahmahmood Miakhel, Director of USIPs Afghanistan office, and former

Deputy Minister of Interior of Afghanistan between 2003 and 2005. The next speaker was Thomas

Donnelly, a defense and security policy analyst, and director of the Center for Defense Policy. The last

panelist was Mark Sedra, a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).

Although the panelists held some dissimilar political philosophies, a common theme emerged

throughout the event: the US and other donor nations missed a key opportunity for DDR to work in

Afghanistan during the first couple of years after the war began, as violence was down and the local

populations were supportive of change, due to a lack of a comprehensive plan/strategic framework, an

absence of effective coordination efforts, and an astounding lack of political will by the international

community and the local government. This failed DDR process made the long term goal of effective

SSR exceptionally difficult, as creating sustainable institutions and ingraining the rule of law into

society requires bad actors to be disarmed, demobilized and reintegrated. The DDR and SSR processes

are not unrelated and linear as conventional wisdom puts it, but connected and must be taken on

simultaneously to have a positive effect.

Dr. Hartzell underscored the difficult environment of DDR to take root in Afghanistan. The DDR

process is customarily undertaken in post-conflict states, Afghanistan has seen 30 years of continuous

conflict, therefore institutions are weak and security forces are localized, and the nature of the key

agreement, the Bonn Agreement, did not even mention DDR. An interesting aspect of her presentation

was the argument that scholars who argue that the DDR process was a success in Afghanistan usuallypoint to the high numbers of weapons seized and security forces created, whereas the process should

be judged on the criteria stipulated in the New Beginnings program, a UN initiative which detailed a

three-pronged approach to success: to break the historic patriarchal chain of command which plagued

Afghanistan, for militia-members to transition from military to civilian life through creating an

environment where employment is accessible, and to retrieve/store a large supply of weapons. Dr.

Hartzell argued that in each regard, the process failed, citing the continual reliance on illegally armed

groups (IAGs) such as local warlords and militias, 40% unemployment and failure of reintegration into

civil society, and the seizure of the weapons thus far as only a drop in the bucket. Dr. Hartzell ended

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by underscoring the failure of capitalizing on the window of opportunity during the first couple of years

which was available to impose an effective DDR program and encouraged the evaluation of DDR in

Afghanistan not in terms of outputs, but by the three objectives of the New Beginnings program.

Shahmahmood Miakhel began his commentary by characterizing the DDR process in Afghanistan as a

failure of design and implementation. Political will, Mr. Miakhel believes, has been and will continue

to be the most problematic aspect of the DDR process, as the theoretical approach to betteringconditions on the ground rarely culminates in practical improvements. The security vacuum created

during the period the US was focused almost exclusively on Iraq provided a marriage of convenience

between arms dealers and drug dealers in Afghanistan, with many bad actors coming from Central

Asia to partake in a lucrative business. At one point, Mr. Miakhel recalls, some senior commanders

talked about potentially dismantling the whole Afghan National Police (ANP) force because of the

deeply rooted corruption within the organization and the deteriorating security presence around the

country. Mr. Miakhel disagreed with Dr. Hartzell contention that only the first couple of years were

conducive to an effective DDR process. Mr. Miakhel recalls that during the first three or four years of

the ANP, no shots were fired at the ANP because of the good will and faith that the local population

held, underscoring the locals eagerness for change. Mr. Miakhel ended by stating that the biggest

failure of the DDR process in Afghanistan was that it was not connected to SSR, citing the 2nd Vice

President of Afghanistan as an example. This VP was chief of the internal DDR process and washimself a local warlord who was not demilitarized. Under these circumstances, institutions cannot be

built and effectively engage in SSR.

Tom Donnelly then began discussing the main problem of DDR in Afghanistan as the ever-changing

support structure personnel in the country and the rapidly changing trial and error approach to the

design and implementation for the process. Afghanistan does not represent a ten year war, but ten

one-year wars. This discontinuity devalued the DDR process, which Mr. Donnelly contends, was

successful in reducing the number of weapons held by IAGs throughout the country. His argument was

that the goal of the DDR was never to seize control of all the illegal guns in Afghanistan, but to control

the heavy-machinery so that the Afghan Government will never lose a firefight. Also, Mr. Donnelly

contends that far too much was encapsulated into the DDR process prior to implementation, as

demobilizing and reintegrating the various militias worried about losing control to other groups was an

unrealistic goal from the very beginning. The disarmament portion of the DDR process was done very

well, Mr. Donnelly believes, as it answers the central question: Who controls the means of violence?

The on-deadline and under-budget approach to DDR was a main contributor to other failures, said

Mr. Donnelly.

The last panelist, Mark Sedra focused on the nexus between DDR and SSR. DDR creates the security

space through breaking down armed groups by which SSR can take shape. Political will, planning, and

coordination efforts were all abysmal failures in Afghanistan. An interesting aspect of Mr. Sedras

presentation was his argument that unless a DDR process is done correctly, following a strategic

framework whereby the preceding factors are capitalized, it is better not to do anything at all because

the failure of DDR can do harm. The breakdown of patronage networks not only failed, but the process

of attempting to deconstruct the networks has had an adverse effect through consolidating local

militias and giving the local population the feeling that the current process is merely a break betweenongoing civil wars, making the population less likely to support US initiatives, as militia groups will be

in Afghanistan far after coalition forces leave. The goal of effective DDR should not be to de-politicize

the process, Mr. Sedra believes, but to leverage political tools effectively to incentivize adherence to

agreed upon principles. Mr. Sedra ended by reemphasizing the missed opportunities and subsequent

failures of other programs attempting to do the same things in the same failed ways.