The Good and Bad about Militia Forces

ALP Graduation in Shah Joy District

Militia forces have had a mixed performance in Afghanistan. Many of the attempts to establish local militia forces by the United States and its coalition partners have failed while some have succeeded. The outcomes have been mixed. Some militia programs have helped secure local communities from the Taliban while a few of them have degenerated into armed criminal bands that terrorize the local population. Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, explores the security and political effects of militia forces in Afghanistan. In her paper she provides a good historical background on the Afghan Local Police as well as mentioning earlier militia programs such as ANUP, APPP, LDI, and CDI. She compares and contrasts the militias of Afghanistan with the popular local uprisings in Mexico and draws some conclusion and provides some recommendations for future support of prosecuting security policy through proxies. Read her article The dubious joy of standing up militias and building partner capacity: Lessons from Afghanistan and Mexico for prosecuting security policy through proxies, July 21, 2015.