Initial engagement with EUPOL

After several years of bilateral engagement, Berlin sought to externalize the “difficult task” of police reform to the EU (interview with former senior EUPOL 1) with a view to “beef up” its own efforts and generate a “momentum of change” (interview with German official 2). During its Presidency of the EU Council in the first half of 2007, Germany acted as a promoter of the EU mission with a view to complement “the successful work of Germany in the reform of the Ministry of Interior and accelerates the training of the Afghan National Police” (Die Bundesregierung, 2007, pp. 11–12). In her November 2007 visit to Kabul, Chancellor Angela Merkel underlined that “if there is one area in which Germany should do more, it is in building up the police force” (Die Bundeskanzlerin, 2007).

In addition to its potential to serve as a leverage for Germany’s bilateral police reform efforts, Germany also engaged with the EU mission within the parameters of a civilian- and human rights-centred approach to policing. In the words of Frank Walter-Steinmeier, Germany’s foreign minister of the time, Germany sought to provide the people of Afghanistan “a life of freedom and dignity [which] is becoming more and more intense in civilian terms, and perhaps even weaker in military terms” (Deutscher Bundestag, 2007, p. 11522). This approach resonates with Germany’s broader foreign policy orientation which endorsed a “culture of reticence”, referring to an avoidance from use of force and tendency towards moderation and restraint in multilateral crisis management operations (Malici, 2006, p. 38).

In parallel, Germany framed the EU mission as a way “to help build a police force that has the confidence of the people, follows constitutional principles, guarantees human rights and increasingly meets security requirements in Afghanistan” (Die Bundesregierung, 2007, p. 25). Emphasizing the need to commit more in the civilian aspects of police reform, Walter-Steinmeier later stated that Germany should expand its “civilian engagement in addition to the military commitment” in Afghanistan (Bundestag, 2008, p. 20341). In line with this argument, the EU mission was tasked with “[assisting] and supporting the development of a police service which citizens trust, which works with integrity within the framework of the rule of law and which respects human rights” (Council, 2008, p. 13). Therefore, Germany thought that, with Berlin’s leadership, the EU mission would be in line with its domestic culture of policing based on minimizing the use of force (interview with German official 1).

However, the EU mission had a rather rocky start. A particular challenge for Germany as the main promoter of EUPOL was the expansion of the mission’s tasks and geographical scope. Within the first year of the mission, there was a pressing need to extend its efforts to districts outside Kabul, as most of the local population lived in small rural villages across Afghanistan or in a provincial capital (US Embassy Berlin, 2008b). In particular, the US urged Germany “to accelerate the deployment of EU trainers to Afghanistan, increase the number of trainers, and broaden the geographic range of activities” (US Embassy Berlin, 2008a). At the same time, German troops and trainers in Afghanistan were facing attacks from an increasing insurgency and sought more force protection to respond to the growing number of attacks (Merz, 2007, p. 11). In turn, German police officers under the EU mission were deployed to relatively safe districts of Afghanistan in order to avert further security risks. This choice also “allowed German police officers to enact their identity as civilian police”, a “normative understanding” shared by German diplomats at the Kabul Embassy (Friesendorf, 2013, p. 340).

Furthermore, there were also inter-ministerial divergences in Berlin about Germany’s policing assistance to Afghanistan. As the key governmental agencies in terms of determining Germany’s contribution to international police missions, the Federal Ministry of Interior (Bundesministerium des Innern, BMI) and the Federal Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt, AA) were divided on whether Germany should deliver police training via its bilateral efforts or under a collective European framework. Seeking to demonstrate that “it can do things outside of Germany’s borders”, BMI was reluctant about bringing Germany’s police training efforts under an EU mission, since it believed that such an option could compromise its control over the German police deployment in Afghanistan (interview with senior EUPOL official 1). In contrast, supported by the Chancellery, the AA “promoted Europeanisation behind the scenes, using EU structures to overcome [AA’s] resistance” (Pohl, 2014, p. 103). Similarly, the Federal Ministry of Defence (Bundesministerium der Verteidigung, BMVg) argued that “the civilian police expertise available to EUPOL […] seems appropriate and in line with the German government’s vision of EUPOL’s role in police building in Afghanistan” (Die Bundesregierung, 2010a, p. 23).

These divergences also reflected the dynamics of Germany’s coalition politics, where the federal foreign office is often held by the junior coalition partner (Hofmann, 2019; Oppermann & Brummer, 2020). Held by the leading coalition partner Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) during the second Merkel cabinet (2009–2013), BMI and BMVg were “always eager to cooperate with each other” on Afghanistan (interview with German official 1). On the other hand, AA was held by Free Democratic Party (FDP). While sharing common views with CDU/CSU on a number of foreign policy issues, FDP more explicitly advocated for the continuation of Germany’s civil reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan through the EU (AG Friedenforschung, 2009; FDP, 2013).

However, “there was no fundamental divergence” within the Federal Government around the civilian nature of Germany’s training provision (interview with German official 4). More importantly, “some ministers were interested more than others in Afghanistan” and that policing assistance to the country was “a purely domestic problem, nothing to do with Afghanistan” (interview with German official 1).

The launch of NTM-A

With the launch of NTM-A in 2009, differences between civilian and military methods of police training became a more prominent issue in Germany’s police reform efforts in Afghanistan. Because the German constitutional law separates police and military roles, engaging with a new multilateral military operation under the NATO framework would require an additional Bundestag mandate. At the same time, Berlin had to ensure that the funding for military projects was not used for civilian initiatives such as police training, as securing a parliamentary consent for civilian projects was easier than securing approval for militarily projects (interview with German official 3). Although Bundestag’s influence over Germany’s contributions to multilateral civilian mission is not as significant as it is in multinational military operations, it still had an important role “especially when it came to broader budget issues and the number of personnel that is sent” (interview with German official 4).

Thus, the Federal Government did not favour creating new structures such as a training mission under a NATO framework especially before the approaching federal elections in September 2009 (US Embassy Berlin, 2009). Given Berlin’s such reluctance, US officials reassured their German counterparts that rather than creating new police training structures, the US was proposing to “dual hat” the command of existing US-led CSTC-A, to which Germany was already contributing resources (US Embassy Berlin, 2009). Consequently, Germany “welcomed” the NATO mission “as [a] step toward the goal of bringing all military operations under one command (ISAF) and thereby improving unity of effort” (US Embassy Berlin, 2009).

Apart from Germany’s concerns about parliamentary approval, the new NATO mission also fed off the different policing approaches between Germany and the US, as well as between the EU and NATO missions. Although exhibiting differences, US and NATO approaches mainly sought to prepare the Afghan police for counterinsurgency by increasing the number of the police officers, which was justified by an increase in police casualties at the time (Friesendorf, 2013, p. 338). Similar to the US approach that “focused on rapid training rather than fostering long-term institutional change”, the NATO mission had a rather short-term perspective based on fast and visible recruitment of Afghan police officers (Gross, 2009, p. 27). In contrast to this “US-style training that was relied on basic training for the use of force only”, Germany’s approach adopted more civilian- and human rights-focused methods, as stated earlier (interview with German official 4).

At the same time, Germany’s targets such as a minimum of three-year training became untenable given the staff constraints encountered by the EU mission (interview with senior EUPOL official 2). Key tasks associated with this mission such as mentoring and advising were “long term measures [and] not easy to control and to evaluate”, whereas the NATO mission could determine and achieve more quantifiable targets (Feilke, 2010, p. 10). The NATO mission also provided “by far the largest number of internationally deployed trainers for the training, equipment and payment of Afghan security forces” (Die Bundesregierung, 2010b, p. 19) as it had a “special significance in terms of human and financial resources” (Die Bundesregierung, 2010b, p. 25). On the other hand, the training provided by the EU mission was limited to Afghan police officers mainly based in Kabul, whereas the NATO Mission provided “field police training in Afghanistan with Police Operational Mentor Liaison Teams”, responsible for the start-up of a functioning police force (Olsthoorn et al., 2014, p. 254).

Although Germany also provided combat training to Afghan police officers, this was seen as a necessity to “ensure that Afghan police officers can survive at the checkpoints when the insurgents were coming” rather than an underlying approach to police training (interview with German official 2). In the words of a German official, Berlin was against “confusing the butcher and baker” when it comes to international policing assistance in Afghanistan, implying that the involvement of military should not detriment the prominence of the civilian approach (interview with German official 2).

Moreover, Germany argued that its cooperation with NTM-A should be separated from its involvement in the aforementioned US-led initiatives, as a move in the opposite direction “would cross a red line for German civilian police officers, serving as trainers/mentors, to be put under military command” (US Embassy Berlin, 2009). The view that the police should not be under military command reflected Germany’s said domestic culture of policing and historical experience (interview with German official 1). The Federal Government was also pressed to follow civilian rather than military approaches of police training by parliamentary opposition. For example, a group of Bundestag members from Die Linke (The Left) fraction pointed out that “it is not clear to what extent the German police officers are able to detach themselves from the predominantly militarily motivated deliberations of the leading NATO Training Mission Afghanistan” (Die Bundesregierung, 2011, pp. 1–2).

Under these circumstances, Germany decided to increase its contribution to police reform in Afghanistan through the EU mission (Westerwelle, 2010). At the same time, it maintained its bilateral efforts to minimize the shortcomings of the EU mission (interview with German official 1). While tolerating the NATO mission as part of the military engagement in Afghanistan as a pragmatic means to complement the EU’s civilian policing assistance, Germany’s civilian police trainers did not formally operate under the NATO command. Instead, they engaged with NATO mission’s staff at a personal level and “discussed how to divide the military aspects from the police aspects of training what can military do for the civilian police, such as shooting training” (interview with German official 2). Despite working “very closely” with the NATO mission, Germany’s primary preference to support the civilian-led EU mission was US-led initiatives such as CSTC-A and FDD that provided more “robust civil police training” compared to the NATO mission (interview with German official 2).

Initial engagement with EUPOL

A logic based on France’s long-term orientations about the role of the EU and NATO as international security providers would expect France to be an active supporter of EU instruments than those of NATO in the area of crisis management (e.g. Irondelle & Schmitt, 2013). Indeed, the EU has been a central platform for France to contribute to “rebuilding an effective and democratic military, police and judiciary [and] restoring or consolidating stability and prompting a return to political and economic normality” in fragile states (France Cooperation, 2007, p. 3). According to the French Government, “making an active contribution to the principles developed in this field in the different fora in which France participates – especially the European Union – is crucial” (ibid).

Yet, in contrast to Germany, France did not commit significant resources to the EU mission, while being an active contributor to its NATO counterpart. France’s contributions to EUPOL were considerably lower than those of Germany: Whilst Germany deployed on average 26 personnel during the years the mission had been operable (2007-2016), this figure was 5.1 for France.¹ Although the EU mission focused on quality rather than quantity in policing and “strategic level” advise to the high-ranking staff rather than field-level training, key managerial positions of the EU mission, such as the (deputy) mission heads, were provided initially by Germany and subsequently by other member states, rather than France.

Throughout this rather low profile presence in the EU mission, France was suspicious about the German-led approach of the EU mission, which Paris perceived to be overly prudent and civilian-focused (expert interview). From the inception of EUPOL, France argued that the security environment in Afghanistan required the local police to be able to undertake counterinsurgency tasks (interview with French official). In this sense, high-ranking French diplomats viewed the EU mission essentially as a “German-but not our-baby” and that it was “a logistical failure [and] Europe [was] simply not prepared yet for such a theatre” (Fescharek, 2015, p. 133). Moreover, while supporting the development of civilian instruments of crisis management in the EU, Afghanistan was not France’s preference to use such instruments. Instead, Paris considered West Africa as a primary area for using civilian EU instruments and committed to “present proposals directed towards that region” (Assemblée Nationale, 2008c).

Thus, France’s engagement with EUPOL before the launch of the NATO mission can be seen as a balancing to respond to a dilemma: On the one hand, an EU civilian policing mission initially appeared to be suitable for France’s support to the further development of the EU’s civilian capabilities. On the other hand, France thought that the EU’s training approach was not in line with the necessities of security conditions on the ground, and that the EU’s civilian capabilities should be used elsewhere, rather than in the training of the Afghan police forces.

The launch of NTM-A

To examine France’s strategies about NATO’s involvement in the training of the Afghan police, two topics are of significance: Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) and European Gendarmerie Forces (EGF).