Paper - "Risky Business"

Afghanistan has a long history of the use of locally-based militias to keep areas secure and loyal to the Afghan central government. The period of post-2001 is no exception. At the very beginning of the period following the fall of the Taliban regime Special Forces teams recruited, trained and led local militias called Afghan Militia Force (AMF). A few years after the Afghan National Army was established the AMF units were disbanded (well, almost all of them). In addition to the AMF there were a number of local defense force initiatives attempted by the United States Special Forces (and others) in Afghanistan (ANAP, AP3, LDI, CDI, CBSS, ISCI, and CIP). The latest and most successful has been the Afghan Local Police or ALP. The Center for Naval Analysis has published a paper about community-based security solutions utilizing pro-government civil defense forces in an attempt to achieve U.S. counter-terrorism and stability objectives. In the near future the United States will be working with a reduced defense budget and a public reluctance to engage in large-scale, population-centric counterinsurgency operations. Civil defense forces - used alongside air strikes, drones, special operations forces, and intelligence operatives - could provide a low-cost, small-footprint strategy to combat terrorist, insurgent, or transnational groups. Read more in the paper, entitled "Risky Business: The Future of Civil Defense Forces and Counterterrorism in an Era of Persistent Conflict", October 2014 available at the link below:

www.cna.org/sites/default/files/research/CRM-2014-U-008881.pdf