ABSTRACT
The previous chapters have analysed the various gendered performances and embodiments of US counterinsurgency forces in Afghanistan, focusing on women and men, femininities, and masculinities. This chapter continues this exploration through analysing a central part of the US and NATO strategy in Afghanistan, namely the training of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and its various raced, gendered, and sexual dimensions. Shortly after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, rebuilding the ANSF, including the ANA (Afghan National Army) began, although it though it took several years before it became a real priority for ISAF. For the fourth time in 150 years,1 Afghanistan was to have a new National Army and, not unlike the previous attempts at rebuilding, this rebuilding has repeatedly run into diffi culties (Jalali, 2002; Giustozzi, 2007).2 While the numbers at fi rst were humble (an initial target of 70,000), the army has grown steadily.3 By 2015 the numbers within the military reportedly stood at 173,000 with an additional 182,000 working within the police and local police (NATO, 2015). Such an expansion of security forces in a relatively short space of time is by anyone’s account staggering, made possible largely through massive fi nancial support from the US and politically by NATO’s desire to withdraw its own troops.
