Militia Order in Afghanistan

Guardians or Gangsters?

Matthew P. Dearing

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000406771
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This book offers a new insight into when and why paramilitary groups in Afghanistan engage in protective or predatory behavior against the civilians they purportedly defend.

In Afghanistan's counterinsurgency environment, America leaned on militias to provide order and stabilize communities cut off from weak central government institutions. However, the lucrative market of protection challenged militia loyalty, as many engaged in banditry, vendettas, and predation. This book examines the varying militia experiments in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2020 and their outcomes through three sub-national case studies. It argues that successful militia experiments in Afghanistan involved inclusion of local orders, where communities had well-established social structures and accountability mechanisms in place, and state patrons relied upon those structures as a restraint against militia behavior. Complementary management ensured patrons leaned on communities for strong accountability systems. But such environments were far from the norm. When patrons ignored community controls, militias preyed on civilians as they monopolized the market of protection. This book adds to the rich literature on the U.S. experience in Afghanistan, but differs by focusing on the interplay between states, communities, and militias.

This book will be of much interest to students of military and strategic studies, Asian politics, security studies and International Relations.

1 Introduction

It might have been the Rolex watch that stirred skepticism of the latest warlord promising to liberate southern Afghanistan. We shared tea, along with four compatriots of the self-declared “Moqor Movement” in the southern tip of one of the most volatile provinces in Afghanistan—Ghazni. In my third tour as an advisor to American forces in Afghanistan, I grew fond of the early morning meetings. Despite the bitter cold, there was always something warm about sharing tea with Afghan friends seeking to free their country from the tyranny of two-decades of Taliban repression. I could tell in the eyes of these battle-tested men, not only was there a story to tell, but it was more complicated than the straightforward reports delivered by the U.S. military about anti-Taliban uprisings across the country. In 2012, officials hailed the success of grassroots vigilantes rising up to take back their villages from years of Taliban rule and declared the dawn of a national uprising movement that would finally alter the civil war plaguing Afghanistan since 1979. More than any other security initiative in Afghanistan, these uprisings engendered a serious threat to the success of the Taliban. But like many state investments in militia movements preceding this one, the anti-Taliban Uprising, and its supporters failed to see its success depended upon a long-term investment in the local community.

Why would the U.S. or Afghanistan invest so heavily in militia forces? Since the U.S. invasion in 2001, and the subsequent international missions of reconstruction, counterinsurgency, and security force advising, the United States, NATO, and Afghanistan have created and patronized thousands of militiamen with various outcomes. One of the first acts of war in Afghanistan was U.S. Special Forces on horseback partnering with Northern Alliance militia—a bronze statue commemorating the event sits in Liberty Park in New York City. States have a variety of reasons for using militias as opposed to regular forces: cost-effectiveness, ease in recruitment, and their capability to serve in more stationary security roles rather than over-burdening regular forces already engaged in counterinsurgency. The expected returns are that those militias engage in protection of their communities against criminals and insurgents, serve as a local sensor of everyday activity, and develop a link between the state and rural areas—in effect shaping a militia order that bridges the periphery with the state. The conundrum state patrons face is finding a balance between expected function and actual outcomes. In many cases, militia clients have their own agendas, which do not match the needs and interests of the state or the civilians living in rural areas.¹ If state patrons and local communities fail to provide careful oversight and accountability, militias like the Moqor Movement, can take advantage of the protection opportunity to enrich itself and establish a competing power center. One of Afghanistan’s longest running militia programs, the Afghan Local Police (ALP), showed mixed results, with one-third “causing more harm than good,” and one-third proving “highly effective.”² Why the variation in outcomes? This book finds that militia experiments fail to bring stability when the local community is sidelined from the management process.

Policy makers and stability practitioners generally find militia groups an important, but risky tool to forward American interests.³ The ideal militia is generally described as a community watch or policing effort that has local buy-in with the community and state law enforcement authorities.⁴ One could imagine such a force on the streets of Chicago or Southampton—a community watch, lightly armed but comprised of concerned citizens with a vested interest protecting property, children, and their community’s way of life. In counterinsurgency, the stakes are higher and may have strategic implications. Forces may be engaged in offensive as well as defensive engagements to further the interests of their patron. In this highly visionary experiment, the militias are well trained, reliable, and committed to the goal of protecting their patron and community interests, which ideally, are inextricably linked. Patrons may be representatives of the state, local council members, or other state-affiliated institutions, but under this ideal type, they are all generally supportive of the state’s authority and protection of the status quo. Unfortunately, ideal types are just that, and rarely seen in the real world.

A number of important studies seek to clarify the different types of armed auxiliary security forces that are separate from the regular military (e.g., army, navy, and air force). Much of the focus on militias has been their relationship to the state and the spoils of war.⁵ Some characterize militia as “proxy warriors” or pro-government actors, while others find them distinct from regular state forces.⁶ Bohmelt and Clayton identify two specific categories, paramilitaries and pro-government militias, and find “embeddedness in official structures” is the crucial difference between them.⁷ Whereas paramilitaries have an official designation within the government, such as the National Gendarmerie in France, pro-government militias have a semi-official or informal tie to the government, such as the Janjaweed of Sudan. However, within a counterinsurgency environment, the lines between official and unofficial are frequently blurred. Even militias that express autonomy from the state and sovereign claims over territory, tend to have indirect connections to state actors.⁸ In a highly competitive counterinsurgency environment, auxiliary forces characterized as informal pro-government militias may shift into or out of a more formal paramilitary position within the security architecture of the state. In addition, the links between pro-state and anti-state militias can be tricky. For example, the Northern Alliance could be seen as anti-state in the sense they were against Taliban rule, but pro-state once the Taliban government collapsed—their identity as a militia though did not change.⁹ Private security firms are a group I do not include in this study given their unique legal and contractual status with governments.¹⁰ I use the term militia to capture the various state-led paramilitary and pro-government militias within Afghanistan’s complex counterinsurgency environment.

As a function of competition for state legitimacy, militias extend a regime’s reach into rural communities. Quantitative research shows that from 1981 to 2007, governments around the world relied upon militias in 81% of civil wars.¹¹ States find militias useful for logistical, political, and strategic incentives. In addition to their role as force multipliers, militias are an asset for human intelligence, a propaganda tool for mobilizing the population to support the state, and may reduce rebel numbers through reintegration programs.¹² Protective militias are often seen as a result of effective state ownership and oversight, for example, regular military forces engaging in close oversight, conducting thorough training, and ensuring militia are held accountable through checks and balances and a rules-based order. In return, protective militia buy-in to what the state has to offer, obtaining material resources, employment, and an opportunity to fight enemies, serve the country, and contribute to the interests of their community. However, empirical evidence shows that controlling processes such as resource delivery, patronage, and shared value structures are not enough to keep militias well behaved.

Generally missing from these state-centric and functional schools of thought is the role of the community. While auxiliaries are influenced by state entities, communities also present significant influence over the character and motivations of armed groups, thus adding an important layer to multi-layered governance.¹³ When militia groups form, they are usually part of or soon become part of the local communities they work in, which can have an important influence on the behavior and trajectory of the militia force itself.¹⁴ As such, new research seeks a break away from the constraining logic of the state. Paul Staniland argues militias are “not intrinsically subservient” to states and there is a need for a broader characterization of their relationship, to include targeting, absorption, and containment.¹⁵ Others have argued that state intrusion and exploitation of traditional security structures (for example, tribal militias) has exacerbated local rivalries and undermined new and traditional militia formations from the start.¹⁶ A number of international interventions point to the problematic influence of foreign and domestic patrons, such as intelligence or military officers forcing communities to embrace militia experiments or dangling humanitarian aid as a trade-off for loyalty and patronage.

Proponents and critics agree that militias are risky and dangerous.¹⁷ Militia predation is seen as a function of state weakness to manage armed groups, or a dangerous tool in counterinsurgency that leads to extrajudicial state reprisal, personal vendettas, or warlord power grabs.¹⁸ The community watch ideal can often break down from actions by the state or the militia itself. State patrons often exploit militias to avoid political accountability or the costs of state violence—intimidation, death squads, and extra-judicial killings are common trademarks.¹⁹ At such a point, militias become protective of the political regime at the expense of society and increase the prevalence of state-sponsored repression.²⁰ Even if militias are co-opted or managed by state patrons, they are still hard to control, hold accountable, and have the tendency to shift loyalties and interests towards other agendas.²¹ They may engage in personal gain by taxing the population, looting natural resources, or controlling land rights.²² They may also engage in ethnic, tribal, or family vendettas, purging political rivals, or targeting disloyal citizens.²³ Some may create new rules, run unofficial prisons, and infringe upon personal liberties. Militia may start out as selfless protectors of the civilian population, but transition to entrepreneurial roles based on group strategies, local conditions, changing power dynamics, and state support or neglect. Ultimately, militias can affect the duration and dynamic of conflict in ways states and communities are unprepared for, such as sparking dormant rivalries or drawing civilians towards rebel support.²⁴ In addition, not all militias are the same—some are comprised of criminals, former rebels, freelancers, or ordinary civilia...