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>how utterly incompetent the local military is no matter how much time we put into attempting to train them. Somehow in the US we're able to take (often poor) 17/18 year olds, and in 10 weeks of BCT (Basic) and then in 3 week to 2 years of Advanced Individual Training (AIT) we're able to create pretty damn disciplined soldiers

A country's military is a reflection of and limited by the society that spawns it. The USA can keep disciplined and ethical soldiers because it has never suffered civil unrest, never been invaded, enjoys prosperity, freedom, public law and justice. No such thing can be said of Afghanistan or Iraq. Moreover - the "10 weeks of BCT" is not "just" "10 weeks of BCT". There is a logistics and supply train several tho-- million pages long that creates those "just" 10 weeks. Consider the fact that humans are recruited. Recruiters need to be trained, fed, paid, and have offices. That costs money. Afghanistan has no money. Consider the fact that young men need to be transported from and to BCT: this requires roads free of IEDs, requires fuel for trucks, favourable economic conditions to produce or import buses. Consider the fact that a certain percentage of all military trainees quit before completing that training. This is accounted for and expected: there are 300 million humans in the USA and this is acceptable losses. Consider the fact that abiding by the laws of a nation and strict adherence to authority is something these "17/18" year olds have done for two decades by the time their military training is over. It is ingrained into their psyche to follow the law from the earliest age, in the most gentle of methods: by the witnessing of safety and prosperity of Americans abiding by the law. Consider an Afghani youth: what is ignrained into them is an invsion by Russia and now invasion by America. How confident in justice do you think they are? How inclined are they to respect authority? How confortable are they submitting to a national government?

A country's military is fundamentally a reflection of the society it spawns. Afghanistan is a failed state in every respect, for the last several decades, and as such it cannot muster a professional military despite the efforts of the US-led coalition.

Thanks for the reply.

Toward the end of the doc, it digs a bit more into the 'why', which include many of your points.

I thought a while about the perspective of an Afghani youth vs those views of an American youth. Afghan youth probably realizes even more than the American one that they are simply pawns in the system and no one outside their families cares for them. The Afghani youth are likely illiterate by most standards, and it sounds like the soldiers keep absolutely terrible records accordingly. As much as we trash the American education system (which is flawed), we at least have a pretty decent baseline for education to create soldiers that can read/write/math.

Whereas the American youth probably thinks that they are fighting for their country and doing great good around the world, I'm not entirely sure that the Afghan youth would think of it that way. At best, they are fighting for a paycheck, a gun, and some temporary protection.

As you point out, the basic supply chain of infrastructure is lacking there. We've given them the tools such as solar panels (which they feature in the doc), but if something messes up they have no idea how to fix them. Corruption isn't a bad thing, its being smarter and probably closer to survival than anything. The motivation to stay and fight in a dangerous situation is exceedingly low; whereas an American soldier can at least hope for a memorial, benefits to their spouse, and honors if they are killed in action, there is certainly none of that for the Afghan youth.

I guess to top that off, we're all left holding the question of why we're over there at all. It didn't really make that much sense at first (didn't we learn from Vietnam?), and it makes even less sense now. Nationbuilding doesn't work. Never has, never will.

While the American army might be mostly disciplined and ethical, but there have been notable and terrible exceptions to this. The repercussions of these colossal lapses have been to further alienate a skeptical population of an occupied country. If your invading with a overriding mission statement that claims the moral high ground, scrutiny is going to be intense - the occupiers have been found wanting.

The elephant in the room is that this isn't incompetence, it is motivation. These people don't fear or respect the US so what motivates them to do what the US wants? They will do just enough to collect the money being offered and then do what they want in the way they want. If they want to kill some Americans, defect or just desert then they will do it and what is really to stop them?

Germany started out with tons of world-class military men and they were not being trained or directed by a hated power, rather the opposite, they were working against hated outside powers. So no motivation problem there.

No training technique will substitute for motivation.

> I'm absolutely certain it isn't because westerners are smarter, better, etc (we aren't)... but there is something seriously weird over there at the same time (malnutrition, lack of basic formal education system, cultural differences, too many generations of instability (maybe one generation works ok, but 3 breaks things seriously))

I'm amused at how you can disclaim completely that Westerners might be smarter - perish the thought! - and then in the next breath suggest a major cause of that (lack of malnutrition) as the explanation.

I guess that I'm saying we aren't inherently smarter (westerners have often thought about others around the world). Education, nutrition, healthcare, better mental health of course all contribute to better effective applicable intelligence.

But for the points you brought up, it doesn't matter if westerners are 'inherently' smarter (whatever that means - genetics?). It only matters that they are smarter, for whatever reason.