ISAS Insights

Afghanistan has proved to be the quagmire that has sunk many an invader. Getting in is not always easy, and getting out even more difficult. This is also now the experience of the United States and other foreign forces. The ‘green on blue’ attacks are symptomatic of the existing complexities. The plan to leave behind a large Afghan National Army, also without assured requisite funding upon Western withdrawal in 2014, is not a good one. The chances are, as before, and as has happened in the case of Libya, the Army will dissolve into militias on ethnic and tribal lines, exacerbating intra-mural conflicts. It will be more worthwhile spending the available resources on ‘peace-building’ projects, some of which have already been tested, than on a non-existent sense of central, or Kabul-based, security.