John A. Nagl
Introduction
In 2014, the Iraqi army, into which tens of billions of American taxpayer dollars had been invested, collapsed in the face of an offensive by the terror group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Only a major coalition intervention prevented the fall of Baghdad. In 2021, within just a few months of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Afghan National Army (ANA) collapsed in the face of an offensive by the Taliban. Between 2002 and 2021, some $88 billion had been invested in the ANA. In both cases, the U.S. military had devoted vast amounts of time and money to the training of the host-nation’s security forces. Yet, with a few notable exceptions (the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Force and some units of Afghan commandos), both armies severely underperformed once they could no longer rely on extensive American air, ground, and logistical support. Why did the U.S. effort to train and advise these forces fail so spectacularly?
The disorganization and lack of priority given to the training of host-nation forces by the military are major factors. The U.S. Army failed to prioritize the creation of permanent security force assistance (SFA) formations because, as an institution, its focus has always been on the conduct of large-scale conventional warfare. Even when it turned toward counter-insurgency missions during the War on Terror, the U.S. Army concentrated on its own fighting role rather than preparing host-nation troops to take charge. At lower levels, capable U.S. officers preferred and sought combat assignments leading U.S. forces rather than serving in advisory posts. Leaders also had incentives to place poorly performing personnel into advisor teams, effectively removing them from their units. All these factors combined to make the creation of a capable force to train and advise the Iraqi and Afghan security forces more difficult.
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