Anan, the $102 billion is not military spending but reconstruction costs. Do you really believe the Taliban won't return to power once foreign troops leave? Do you think they won't continue their 6th century BS? The Afghanistan forces will not survive on their own and I don't see the West having the will or means to continue supporting this venture, especially if they end up having to provide support to that other failed venture, Iraq.
The large majority of the $102 billion in aid was directed towards the ANSF. Much of this was spent on short term military affects.
For example, if someone wants to achieve X in 10 years, it costs $1 billion. However, if the same someone wants to achieve X in 1 year, it costs $10 billion. Military spending is a lot like that. Because of the desire to achieve quick results, ANSF spending was a let less efficient than it would have been had it been planned and executed in a long term optimized way. For example, the cost to construct many ANSF facilities was several times what it would have been if they had been constructed over a longer time frame.
The best estimate we have for the ANSF steady state budget currently planned is $4.6 billion a year. This is for a force planned to absorb about 6 K killed in action and about 15 K wounded in action per year, a rapid pace of kinetic operations, massive wear and tear on equipment, massive fuel consumption, massive ammunition and spare parts consumption, indefinitely.
The current ANSF TO/E is not designed to enable them to "win", merely maintain an indefinite war and stalemate.
Only 600 men and 50 woman per year are trained by the ANSF for more than 1 year. The vast majority of officers in the ANSF are only planned to receive 20 weeks of training over the course of their careers. The vast majority of NCOs in the ANSF are only planned to receive 4 weeks of additional training in addition to what an enlisted raw recruit gets over the course of their careers. The entire ANSF only has about 35 thousand training seats per year (number of ANSF officers, NCOs and enlisted being trained at any given time.) To professionally train ANSF officers and NCOs, the ANSF would probably need something similar to 80,000 training seats (similar to what the Iraqi Security Forces had from 2006 onwards.) This would be to professionalize the current ANSF strength of 353,000; not expand the size of the current force. The typical enlisted would continue to get approximately 8 weeks (Afghan Ministry of Interior) to 10 weeks of training as per current policy. However, officers and NCOs would get substantial additional training. Perhaps done in a staggered fashion. Every officer could be partnered with another officer in a two in the box fashion. They would alternate every six months. One trains while the other fights, flipping every six months. Every "officer" slot would be filled by two officers. Another option would be a 6 month train, 12 month fight, 6 month train, 12 month fight, 6 month train, 12 month fight, 6 month train . . . model.
In November 2009, General Petraeus, General McChrystal, LTG Caldwell, ISAF proposed a plan to develop a professional ANSF capable of decisively defeating the Taliban with a long term steady state budget of about $10 billion a year. A common number floating around in 2009 and 2010 was an $11 billion ANSF budget.
However in 2010 President Obama, overruled the generals at ISAF and NTM-A, and authorized a smaller, substantially less trained, and substantially less equipped ANSF. President Obama had good reasons from his point of view. He perhaps feared that the Pakistani Army and GCC would view the ANSF as a major threat and retaliate by supporting Al Qaeda and the Taliban. President Obama also might have been unsure the international community could over the long term fund an ANSF with a budget of more than $4.3 billion per year. That $4.3 billion long term ANSF budget has now been increased to $4.6 billion per year. Another reason why some Afghans believe President Obama was so reticent about supporting an Afghan victory against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in 2009 and 2010 might have been because of Afghanistan's close friendship or de facto alliance with India, Russia, Turkey, and Iran.
It is very unlikely the Taliban could ever decisively defeat the ANSF, just as the ANSF currently constituted cannot decisively defeat the Taliban. Neither has the TO/E, OOB and international support to decisively defeat the other. I have seen no evidence that the Deep State GHQ or GCC establishment are willing to surge the Taliban and Al Qaeda capacity substantially from current levels.
The Afghans are likely to remain deeply dependent on India, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Japan, China, Europe, America, South Korea, Australia and Canada for the foreseeable future. Japan's $1 billion a year in aid to Afghanistan remains crucial to funding the Afghan Ministry of Interior (Afghan National Police) and their training.
The Chinese are increasingly concerned about America's long term commitment to help the Afghans fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda. As a result they are starting discussion with India about how China and India can jointly help the Afghans:
Why India and China Matter to America's Afghanistan Drawdown Plan - Defense One
China is increasingly targeted by ISIS, Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists.
Of course, Russia, India, China, Turkey, Japan, and the Europeans would greatly prefer collaborating with America to support the Afghans.
Given the significant threat of Al Qaeda and the Taliban attacking the American homeland (and the Chinese, Russian, Indian, Iranian, Turkish, European, Canadian, Australian, Iraqi, Syrian, Israeli, Palestinian, African, Malaysian, Thai, Indonesian homelands); and the danger of Al Qaeda and the Taliban capturing chemical and nuclear weapons, it is unlikely that the ANSF will not continue to receive massive international support for many years to come.
"The Afghanistan forces will not survive on their own"
If you mean international funding; absolutely true. Similarly the USSR could not survive against the Nazis in WWII without substantial international help.
Provided the ANSF gets $5 billion in funding per year, do you have any reason to believe the Afghans can't survive on their own? The Afghans have survived on their own controlling all the battle-space of Afghanistan for over a year with little ISAF support.
