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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| Why There Are More Afghan than Iraqi Sergeants |
| 2004-12-02 |
| While the Iraqi army has had a hard time getting organized as a professional and effective fighting force, the same is not the case with the new Afghan army. Although the Afghan army only has some 15,000 troops now, they are well trained, well led and effective in combat. In another five years, the Afghan army will reach its full strength of 70,000. The Afghans have some of the same problems as the Iraqis, namely tribalism and a weak sense of nationalism. With four major ethnic groups (Pushtun, Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara), and dozens of powerful tribal organizations, it's been difficult to get Afghan recruits who are willing to serve in the national interest. Ethnic and tribal loyalties are always stronger. But European colonizers proved in the 19th century that, with good training and good NCOs and officers, you can produce combat units from tribal warriors that can match Western ones in effectiveness. The key problem is getting effective NCOs. It's the sergeants that supervise the troops, and keep order in the barracks. Professional NCOs have been the secret to success in Western armies. However, the NCOs must be slowly developed, by selecting recruits who have leadership and management skills, and training them, on the job, over several years. It takes 3-5 years to get a suitable recruit to the point where he can handle the job of the lowest level sergeant (in charge of a squad of 10-12 troops.) Another 3-5 years gets you an NCO that can handle a platoon (which is usually led by a lieutenant, who depends on the platoon sergeant a lot.) Another five years gets you a company 1st sergeant. This NCO assists the officer commanding the company, and supervises the other twenty or so NCOs in the company. Of course, Western nations have, in major wars, had to develop NCOs a lot more quickly. This was the case in the two World Wars, and as recently as the Vietnam war. When you are conscripting a lot of troops and creating many new units, the number of experienced soldiers is spread pretty thin. So you get "shake and bake" NCOs. These are young men (and some women) who have the leadership and management skills who are first selected (using tests and their performance in training), and then given some training on what NCOs do and how they do it. During World War II, there were many platoon and 1st sergeants in their 20s who did quite well, after on 2-3 years in service. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #1 This is A good article, but I have a question. Do you see the 2 to 3 year "forced NCO growth" as was seen in WW 2 or the slower 6 to 10 to 15 year period of learning of your other scenario in Iraq? |
| Posted by: leaddog2 2004-12-02 3:35:50 PM |