US Peacebuilding in Afghanistan - Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis

As shown in the section above on ANP development, DoD has a vested interest in producing asmany policemen as possible, as fast as possible. The ANP is employed as a counterinsurgentforce that has been focused on defeating the Taliban instead of protecting the citizens of itsmembers’ jurisdictions. The short-duration training regimen is intended to be a solution forcounterinsurgency, but instead creates ill-trained and ill-equipped counterinsurgents and police.This has made the ANP more a driver of conflict than a key element of peacebuilding. The ANA,too, may be destabilizing in the long term. While ANA development has been a relative successstory in Afghanistan, the U.S. has supported such an ambitious growth of the end strength of theANA that the government of Afghanistan will be unable to sustain it after the United Statesdraws down its support (which presents a future DDR requirement). Again, U.S.counterinsurgency needs are driving decisions with short-term benefits and long-term costs, coststhat will likely preclude a lasting peace.DDR has been a peacebuilding effort for which the United States has been a supporting donor,yet its actions with regard to the war against the Taliban have derailed, subverted, and in somecases reversed international efforts at DDR. With so many resources focused on military success,the United States has affected peacebuilding initiatives without intending to. This phenomenonexists in other aspects of peacebuilding not discussed in depth here. For example, drugproduction is seen to fund insurgent groups, so the United States undertakes drug eradicationmeasures to wipe out poppy fields. This is done with the purpose of destroying an insurgentfunding stream without concern for actual second-order effects. Anecdotal evidence suggests thateradication has become a driver of conflict in many cases as the poppy farmers lose theirlivelihood and turn to the Taliban for sources of income.The United States is spending a significant amount of resources in Afghanistan in order to defeatthe Taliban and is unlikely to completely withdraw its troops until some modicum of security isestablished. The U.S. government has determined that a counterinsurgency strategy is its bestmethod of achieving that and has geared its activities towards that end, often to the detriment ofachieving a lasting peace. With waning public support for the war, the United States is looking todisengage as quickly as possible and is taking steps to hasten its withdrawal to meet domesticpublic sentiment and risks prolonging the conflict as a result. This is not to say that the UnitedStates has difficulty with peacebuilding in every setting, only that in war zones in which theUnited States is a primary combatant, it will treat peacebuilding as supporting the war effort andnot as a necessary process of its own. The United States should strive to change how itapproaches peacebuilding in conflict zones.Implications for Cooperation with JapanWhen engaged in conflict, as in Afghanistan or Iraq, the United States tends todisproportionately and myopically center its resource allocation on combat tasks. The UnitedStates is usually the largest overall donor to these types of operations and feels that because ofthis it should be able to drive all aspects of the combat and peacebuilding missions. When12