Building Security Institutions: Lessons Learned in Afghanistan Focus stratégique, No. 38, July-August 2012
After its rapid military victory over the Taliban, the international community underestimated the resources, time and work that would be required enforce to Security Sector Reform (SSR) in Afghanistan. Even though the Afghan population was supportive of the coalition’s efforts at first, the light footprint approach, fostered by the Europeans, failed to provide with satisfying results as the insurgency made its way through popular frustration.
After the security situation worsened in 2005-6, the US-led coalition intensified the build-up and the training of Afghan national security forces. But internal debates about the role they should play in such a fragmented society, particularly for the Afghan Police, created division between the United States and the other members (especially the European Union countries). On the eve of the withdrawal of ISAF combat troops, Afghan government seems unfit to handle its new security forces that sometimes are the only representatives of the state in remote areas and failed to stabilize the country.