Paul McGeough, who has covered the Middle East extensively, and authoritatively, writing in "US exit creates army ripe for recruitment" for the Sydney Morning Herald, assesses the situation Afghanistan will find itself in post those "official" military - that is foreign Government military as distinct from the vast array of private contractors who are in Afghanistan now, and will continue to do so - leaving in the next 6 to 18 months.
"Numbers coming out of Afghanistan often are scary but try wrapping your head around this one - 123,500.
After a roller-coaster decade of training by the US-led coalition, that's the number of soldiers and policemen who will be turfed from Kabul's foreign-funded security payroll as the coalition goes through the pretence of a dignified exit from what has become the US's longest war.
As bottom-line budget tightening, these cuts will be welcome in coalition capitals. But they will be even more welcome as an army of well-trained, battle-hardened fighters for the insurgencies and militias that are busily carving out territory, even before the departure of coalition forces from Afghanistan.
Given Afghanistan's inevitable future as a cot case, I've always been troubled by two aspects of its occupation in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the US.
First, education. With last year's school enrolments peaking at just over 8 million in a country with the bleakest of economic prospects, there is a good chance that these children will get just enough education to make them appreciate the circumstances of their lives - how angry they will become and just how they channel that anger remains to be seen.
Second, security. In its determination to equip Afghanistan with a sophisticated military and police machine, the coalition is close to having stood up a combined force of 352,000. But the failure to establish a government whose writ extends much beyond the suburbs of Kabul leaves any such security force ripe for the recruitment as foot soldiers for gangsters, warlords and insurgency commanders as their ambitions collide when the foreign forces have packed up."
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