U.S.-trained Afghan soldiers prepare for battle in Kunduz.
(Reuters photo)

Lawrence Korb,
assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration, has written
a short and to-the-point piece about why it is time for the U.S. to give up on
training foreign fighters as a part of any future military strategy.

Korb traces the history of failure in U.S. military training
efforts of overseas allied troops, from Vietnam and Iraq to Afghanistan and
Syria, and concludes that this policy has never worked and probably never will.

In a column written for Reuters, Korb concludes:“We now see it in Syria as
well. The U.S.-trained Syrian forces are not only not fighting (the) Islamic
State, they are instead joining with groups like Al Nusra, an al-Qaeda
offshoot.“These defeats should raise
two questions for U.S. policymakers: Why does this happen? Why do we keep doing
it and expect a different result?

“… The reason that
U.S.-trained foreign forces usually do not prevail is not because they are poorly
trained and ill-equipped. In fact, they often have better equipment and far
more extensive training than their opposition.“Yet they repeatedly fail
largely because they are not
as motivated. Military success on the battlefield is more dependent on
whether men and women are willing to fight and die for a government they
believe in. Rather than how well trained they are, troops have to believe their
government is acting in the best interests of all its citizens.”