Security Sector Reform in Afghanistan, 2002–2011: An Overview of a Flawed Process

The security sector in Afghanistan has received intense international assistance and the investment of many billions of dollars in the nearly ten years since the fall of the Taliban regime, yet the country is still unable to maintain security and stability. While there are many obstacles to reform in the Afghan context itself, not the least being the present insurgency, the international community has made many mistakes that have prevented success. The police is perhaps more important than the military in peace-building, but it is the weakest of all the security forces. There have been three phases of police reform as the international community has tried to find the best approach, but the one factor that has not changed and is the greatest impediment to reform is the insistence on using a ‘military model’ for changing the police, and to use the police more than the army for fighting the insurgency. Now, there is another plan: to prepare the Afghan national security forces to assume leadership and responsibility for security in the country by 2014. Is this another international failure in the making?