The Afghan National Police (ANP) is critical to Afghanistan’s ability to shoulder the security burden increasingly thrust upon them as the international military presence draws down. For Afghanistan to stay on an even keel and advance and sustain overall stability, the ANP, alongside the Afghan military, must be marginally better than the armed non-state groups that threaten the current political order. But the ANP is very ineffective, hamstrung by widespread corruption, attrition, illiteracy and public distrust. Progress is being made, albeit slow and uneven, but this is unlikely to significantly alter the bottom line by 2014, when the international military combat mission in Afghanistan formally draws to a close.

Training the ANP has been the centerpiece of the EUs engagement in Afghanistan since 2007. What began as a German-led police training mission in 2002 became an EU-led mission in February 2007, christened EUPOL. The German effort was found wanting or, in the words of then-SACEUR James Jones, “very disappointing”. Today, after six years, the conventional wisdom of EUPOL and its results generally echo Jones’ verdict. This will undoubtedly cloud the EUs legacy in Afghanistan. But the conventions should not overshadow EUPOLs strengths, for herein lies a lesson can be leveraged in future statebuilding missions.

The EU was widely seen as the ideal candidate to lead the police training mission in February 2007. The EU had extensive experience and expertise from police training missions in Bosnia, Kosovo, Georgia and elsewhere. In European capitals many saw the mission as an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the EUs capabilities in a war that still enjoyed broad public support in most European countries. Finally, there were few serious alternatives to the EU. President Bush had recently announced a military surge in Iraq to enable a dramatic shift in strategy, effectively rendering a larger US role in Afghanistan unfeasible at that time.

As stipulated and adopted by the European Council, EUPOLs mandate was ambitious in scope – although also somewhat ambiguous – explicitly emphasizing the need to link the mission of training the Afghan National Police to a broader undertaking of strengthening rule of law in Afghanistan. Since its inception, however, EUPOL has severely struggled to fulfill this ambition. It hit the ground stumbling, not running. The means were never commensurate to the ends. Results were meager. In recognition of the ill state of the Afghan police and army, and their centrality to Afghanistan’s future and a viable international withdrawal,  the US led a push in late 2009 to form the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A). Eventually it came to dominate the entire training effort and symbolize the ineffectiveness of the EUs parallel effort.

What when wrong? EUPOL has suffered from ineffective leadership, dysfunctional internal procedures and political and bureaucratic in-fighting since 2007. The first EUPOL-chief resigned after just three months at the helm. Since then, the quality of leadership has varied greatly, but regardless of the person, they have all been hampered by consecutive battles to secure and retain institutional autonomy. This was a fight on several fronts. In Brussels, a strong EU bureaucracy and the contributing member states were reluctant to delegate authority. In Kabul, the EUPOL-chief had a rocky relationship with the EU Special Envoy, who, acting on behalf of the EU, would insist on being the EUPOL-chiefs in-country principal. This was ostensibly a cause of the first EUPOL-chief’s quick resignation. Even withinEUPOL infighting was common. Seconded staff had national agendas, methods and interests specific to their preferences and domestic political context. This further weakened the EUPOL-chiefs authority as well as EUPOLs autonomy and decision-making process.

Moreover, EUPOL has been dramatically and consistently under-staffed since 2007. The mission never had sufficient means at its disposal to achieve its objectives. EUPOL was planned to have 400 police trainers, but for most of its existence the mission has hovered between 200 and 300 trainers. Even if the staffing threshold had been met, it would still have been incommensurate with the task at hand. It paled in comparison to the thousands of trainers NTM-A devoted to build the Afghan national security forces since 2009. This severely limited EUPOLs capacity to drive the ANP forward. Leaving quality aside for now, the output was simply too slow and too little.

EUPOLs mandate also was also constrained by restrictive and risk-averse caveats, preventing it from taking on roles in unstable areas such as in the South and Southeast, where a concerted EU training and advisory mission could have made a difference to the counterinsurgency campaign. Instead, EUPOL operated in relatively secure areas on the outskirts of Kabul and in Bamiyan province in central Afghanistan. That EUPOL could only operate in on the war’s periphery is a stark reminder of the limits of the EUs footprint and impact. Moreover, to the dismay of its critics in Kabul, EUPOL trainers were allowed to drink alcohol, were often not allowed to work on weekends, and had considerably more time off than their international counterparts at NTM-A and elsewhere. Tellingly, in the international community in Kabul – an environment were scathing sarcasm admittedly is a common refuge – EUPOL was an easy and popular target.

Much can and should be learned from these mistakes and shortcomings before the EU takes on a similar task. But given the politics and mechanisms of the EU, it is highly unlikely that these issues will ever be sufficiently resolved. Future EU police training missions will also suffer from lack of delegated discretion, in-fighting across national staff, limited resources and restrictive caveats. Instead, it its worthwhile to consider the strengths of EUPOL in order to gain a realistic understanding of how and for what specific objectives the EU can make a serious contribution to future, similar missions. EUPOLs flaws should not lead to a neglect of its special assets that, if leveraged with a narrow mandate, could make a valuable impact.

One of EUPOLs unparalleled strengths in Afghanistan was that its training effort was conducted by active policemen and –women with a wealth of professional experience from home and in post-conflict settings. This is in stark contrast to NTM-As effort, which is predominantly led by military personnel and contractors. The lack of civilian police trainers has reinforced the ANPs heavily militarized nature. The training, mindset and operational activities of the ANP is more green than blue. This is a significant obstacle to the ANPs long-term normalization from a war-fighting force advancing stability to a constabulary force advancing the rule of law. Most of the ANP today lack the skills to perform even the most basic police functions beyond preventing and deterring malign actors by the use or threat of force. Officers trained by EUPOL at the ANP Staff College near Kabul are educated and socialized as a truly blue police force. As the ANPs future leaders, they have the capacity to act as agents of reform (though it is unclear if they have the incentives to do so). 

In Bamiyan province EUPOLs training effort has had a tangible impact, providing a visible benefit for the local population in that their police units are more effective and trusted. Being heavily dominated by the ethnic Hazara minority – the minority most exposed to repression under the Taliban’s brutal rule – the insurgency will likely never attain a strong foothold in the province. Nevertheless, EUPOLs effort may have hardened the security against pressures from criminal networks and potential spill-over effects from less stable neighboring provinces. Moreover, while Bamiyan is relatively unimportant to the outcome of the counterinsurgency effort, EUPOLs presence there has somewhat counteracted what many Afghans point to as a morally hazardous incentive structure inherent in the international community’s strategy: the logic of counterinsurgency prevails upon ISAF countries to devote the lion’s share of their development resources in areas that are contested by insurgents in order to shore up fragile security gains. To many Afghans outside these unstable areas – such as in the orderly Bamiyan province – ISAF is essentially rewarding bad behavior.

The story of EUPOL is a testament to the limits of the EUs capacity to shoulder large, strategic burdens in the “hard” end of the spectrum of counterinsurgency tasks. EUPOL was never designed, resourced or able to build a sufficiently effective ANP – at least by 2014. Its results have fallen dramatically behind the goal envisioned when the EU took on the responsibility in 2007. As such, EUPOL will cast a cloud over the EUs legacy in Afghanistan. It has not been a success. But the silver lining sheds light on an important lesson: The EUs capacity to produce a high-quality, although incremental, training output is an asset that should not be forgone in future missions. In nascent security institutions, where professionalism is weak and internal cohesion low, effective leaders can make a truly decisive difference. Well-trained leaders have an amplifier effect. They can prove the difference between an ANP unit that stands its ground, builds rapport with the local community and prevails and a unit that preys upon the local citizens, colludes with malign actors or simply falls apart. The EU cannot supplant US-led actors like the NTM-A in large scale training efforts, but it can complement it in ways that, if leveraged effectively, can make a substantial contribution.

Christian Bayer Tygesen was an Anna Lindh Fellow at The Europe Center at Stanford University from September 2012 to January 2013. He was in Kabul from February to June 2011 and from May to June 2012 to conduct field research and other assignments.

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, a Stanford law professor and expert on administrative law and governance, public organizations, and transnational security, will lead the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

The announcement was made in Feb. 11 by Provost John Etchemendy and Ann Arvin, Stanford’s vice provost and dean of research.

“Professor Cuéllar brings a remarkable breadth of experience to his new role as FSI director, which is reflected in his many achievements as a legal scholar and his work on diverse federal policy initiatives over the past decade,” Arvin said. “He is deeply committed to enhancing FSI’s academic programs and ensuring that it remains an intellectually rich environment where faculty and students can pursue important interdisciplinary and policy-relevant research.”

Known to colleagues as “Tino,” Cuéllar starts his role as FSI director on July 1.

Cuéllar has been co-director of FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) since 2011, and has served in the Clinton and Obama administrations. In his role as FSI director, he’ll oversee 11 research centers and programs – including CISAC – along with a variety of undergraduate and graduate education initiatives on international affairs.  His move to the institute's helm will be marked by a commitment to build on FSI’s interdisciplinary approach to solving some of the world’s biggest problems.

“I am deeply honored to have been asked to lead FSI. The institute is in a unique position to help address some of our most pressing international challenges, in areas such as governance and development, health, technology, and security,” Cuéllar said. “FSI’s culture embodies the best of Stanford – a commitment to rigorous research, training leaders and engaging with the world – and excels at bringing together accomplished scholars from different disciplines.”

Cuéllar, 40, is a senior fellow at FSI and the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at the law school, where he will continue to teach and conduct research. He succeeds Gerhard Casper, Stanford’s ninth president and a senior fellow at FSI.

“We are deeply indebted to former President Casper for accomplishing so much as FSI director this year and for overseeing the transition to new leadership so effectively,” Arvin said.

Casper was appointed to direct the institute for one year following the departure of Coit D. Blacker, who led FSI from 2003 to 2012 and oversaw significant growth in faculty appointments and research.

Casper, who chaired the search for a new director, said Cuéllar has a “profound understanding of institutions and policy issues, both nationally and internationally.”

“Stanford is very fortunate to have persuaded Tino to become director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies,” Casper said. “He will not only be an outstanding fiduciary of the institute, but with his considerable imagination, energy, and tenacity will develop collaborative and multidisciplinary approaches to problem-solving.”

Cuéllar – who did undergraduate work at Harvard, earned his law degree from Yale and received his PhD in political science at Stanford in 2000 – has had an extensive public service record since he began teaching at Stanford Law School in 2001.

Taking a leave of absence from Stanford during 2009 and 2010, he worked as special assistant to the president for justice and regulatory policy at the White House, where his responsibilities included justice and public safety, public health policy, borders and immigration, and regulatory reform.  Earlier, he co-chaired the presidential transition team responsible for immigration.

After returning to Stanford, he accepted a presidential appointment to the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a nonpartisan agency charged with recommending improvements in the efficiency and fairness of federal regulatory programs.

Cuéllar also worked in the Treasury Department during the Clinton administration, focusing on fighting financial crime, improving border coordination and enhancing anti-corruption measures.

Since his appointment as co-director of CISAC, Cuéllar worked to expand the center’s agenda while continuing its strong focus on arms control, nuclear security and counterterrorism. During Cuéllar’s tenure, the center launched new projects on cybsersecurity, migration and refugees, as well as violence and governance in Latin America. CISAC also added six fellowships; recruited new faculty affiliates from engineering, medicine, and the social sciences; and forged ties with academic units across campus.

He said his focus as FSI’s director will be to strengthen the institute’s centers and programs and enhance its contributions to graduate education while fostering collaboration among faculty with varying academic backgrounds.

“FSI has much to contribute through its existing research centers and education programs,” he said. “But we will also need to forge new initiatives cutting across existing programs in order to understand more fully the complex risks and relationships shaping our world.”

In addition to Casper, the members of the search committee were Michael H. Armacost, Francis Fukuyama, Philip W. Halperin, David Holloway, Rosamond L. Naylor, Douglas K. Owens, and Elisabeth Paté-Cornell.