President Barack Obama promised that he would increase training for Afghanistan's military and police so that Afghans would take an increased role in maintaining security. The United States spent about $43 billion in the past ten years to recruit, arm and train military and local police forces. Another $11 billion was appropriated for 2012 alone.

That money has put some important pieces in place.

"In January 2009, there were roughly 140,000 total ANSF -- Afghan National Security Forces,” said Carl Moog, a Defense Department spokesman. "Now, we are nearing 352,000 total ANSF. Today, 75 percent of the population in Afghanistan resides in areas that are under transition to Afghan security lead.”

Several independent observers affirm that progress.  Max Boot, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told House lawmakers that the ANSF "has indeed made impressive strides over the last several years.”  At another congressional hearing, Vanda Felbab-Brown with the Brookings Institution said, "The standing up of the ANSF has been one of the brightest spots of the transition process.”

Increasingly, Afghan forces are able to plan and carry out their own missions. When the Taliban attacks, they have proved that they can respond with minimal American support.

But despite these gains, fundamental weaknesses remain.  

"We should not be fooled by the rhetoric about Afghan competence and control coming from the administration,” Boot said. "This is largely happy talk to appease both the government of Afghanistan and American voters who want to see the U.S. role in Afghanistan decrease.”

In the complex world of military operations, Boot said the Afghan army still relies on Americans for many things that matter. The list includes planning, logistics, gathering intelligence, medical evacuations, air support and more. The Government Accountability Office reported that just 7 percent of army units and 9 percent of police had achieved the highest level of readiness, and even those numbers were questionable because the Defense Department had lowered the bar and redefined readiness from "independent” to "independent with advisors.”

The isolated attacks by individual members of the Afghan forces on their American partners have exposed a very fragile situation. So far, at least 53 international troops have been killed by people they thought were their allies. Taliban infiltration is blamed in some cases; in others, personal grievances and battle fatigue seemed to play a role.

The quest to double the number of security forces as quickly as possible might be part of the problem. Anthony Cordesman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies told members of the House Armed Services Committee that numerical goals mean little when fundamental codes of conduct are in doubt.

From top to bottom, the Afghan forces "present major problems in terms of unity, leadership, corruption, loyalty, and abuses that alienate the population,” Cordesman said.

"The Afghan National Police remains notorious for perpetrating many crimes,” Felbab-Brown said. And the police have largely been trained not in everyday policing, but in  counter-terrorism. "Crime -- murders, robberies, and extortion -- are the bane of many Afghans' daily existence. The inability of the Afghan government to respond to such crimes allows the Taliban to impose its own brutal forms of order and justice.”

Our ruling

Obama said he would increase training for the Afghan military and police so that they could play a larger role in maintaining security. The administration achieved its numerical goals, and the Afghan forces are much more capable than before.

However, independent analysts express little confidence that Afghans will be able to fend for themselves by the time American and NATO combat forces leave in 2014. Plus, there is great concern that the Afghan military and police will themselves prey on the public and undermine what little stability exists in the country today.

We rate the promise Compromise.