The ultimate test: an overview of Afghanistan’s security sector reform process

The trajectory of SSR in Afghanistan mimicked the wider liberal peace project, which was progressively securitised and hollowed out. The core liberal principles of SSR were side-lined in favour of pragmatic, realist security objectives, part of the ‘security first’ mind-set. The penchant of liberal state builders and peace builders to compromise the core liberal principles of the SSR model when conditions are not ideal, accepting illiberal practices ostensibly on an interim basis to achieve stability, points to the innate fragility of the model in conflict-affected environments.