ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I focus on US counterinsurgent support to paramilitary “civilian defence forces” (CDFs) in Iraq (Sons of Iraq) and Afghanistan (Afghan Local Police). CDFs are a specific form of paramilitary recruited from civilian populations in areas contested by insurgents to provide intelligence and static defence duties in their own towns, communities, or neighbourhoods. I start by highlighting the strategic rationales for CDFs in US military campaigns. I then describe the development of these programmes in Iraq and Afghanistan and argue that they have had adverse consequences for recruits and communities adopting the CDF programme. From a more critical perspective, I then argue that this tactic constitutes a form of imperial policing in which dispensable local collaborators are used to fight America’s wars.
