Raising and Mentoring Security Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan

The effort to raise host nation security forces was central to the U.S. strategy in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. poured massive resources into both countries. Unfortunately, U.S. planners failed to understand the cultural and political environments in which these forces would have to operate. Thus, the United States attempted to build ministries and forces based on U.S. models that simply were not appropriate for those nations. Although the training teams successfully recruited, trained, and deployed almost a million Afghans and Iraqis, Iraqi forces have collapsed and the Afghans are struggling to keep the insurgents at bay.