Future Logistical Problems in Afghanistan 

 

According to David Pugliese at Defense News, Afghan military leaders express a great deal of resistance as the United States continues to reduce the number of troops and support in Afghanistan.  Despite the fact that the Afghan National Army is capable of fighting against their country's insurgency without any help, there are enormous logistical challenges that Afghanistan is simply not prepared for.

 

Over the past decade, the United States and other nations in NATO, have taken care of Afghanistan in terms of generating, transporting, and sustaining the nation's logistical needs and supplies.  In order to meet the goal of leaving Afghanistan a self-sustaining force, much effort has taken place to train the Afghan National Army to have the right maintenance capabilities to be able to sustain their force in the future.

However, according to a report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) in 2012, The United States already reported that Afghanistan will not be capable self-sustainment in 2014. Their findings concluded that there are not enough Afghanistan personnel set in place for sustainment with the technical skill required to get the job done, there was poor oversight of sustainment projects, and there is a lack of organization with regards to accountability of equipment.

Despite having the right personnel trained in order to maintain their own equipment and meet the demanding sustainment aspect of their logistical challenge, there still remains the overwhelming fact that they are not able to generate their own military supplies, vehicles, and weapons, which Afghanistan is frankly not able to provide due to financial limitations.  According to the SIGAR report, $50.15 Billion was spent by the United States between the years 2002 and 2012 for equipping, training, and sustaining Afghanistan forces.  These finances were used to generate all military supplies and equipment over the past decade. 

 

Eventually over time, without additional aid, this 'friction' will cause the Afghan National Army to slowly deteriorate as the sustainment and maintenance of their vehicles and weapons will only take them so far without generating additional vehicles and weapons.  A similar situation occurred when all Soviet Union support and funding ceased in Afghanistan during their collapse in 1991.  The result of this was a near collapse of the Afghanistan military forces during the time.

 

There is always going to be friction that comes with logistical planning and executing, however, if any of those aspects become a bottleneck or in this case, cease to exist, the whole system becomes vulnerable.