Reasons Why Afghan National Army Soldiers Go AWOL (Absent Without Official Leave)

Abstract

Since the re-establishment of the Afghan National Army (ANA) after the fall of the Taliban regime, numerous individuals and academic institutions have written articles and books about the strengths and weaknesses of the Afghan National Army. They have poorly illustrated the Afghan National Army’s challenges in a subjective manner such as: financial sustainability, non-financial sustainability, dependency on external help and advisement, lack of full functionality of the Afghan Air Force, application of wrong models, lack of adequate machinery resources, illiteracy, nepotism, logistical issues, ethnic frictions, and solidity of the chain of command; however, they have paid less attention to finding out the real reasons behind Absent Without Official Leave (AWOL) as one of the current biggest problems of the Afghan National Army. In consideration of the existing facts within the structure and organization of the Afghan National Army system, this thesis evaluates and explains the real reasons why the Afghan National Army encounters a high rate of AWOL soldiers by interviewing four previous Afghan National Army personnel who deserted the ANA and other current and previous military officials and authorities. The current thesis studies and evaluations have discovered that there are other reasons causing AWOL within the Afghan National Army. These reasons are summarized as: low morale, ill treatment of soldiers, high mortality rates, death threats to soldiers and their families by the enemy forces, fearful families forcing soldiers to quit the ANA, soldiers’ unwillingness to remain far from homes and families, and sympathizing with the enemy forces when it comes to religion and ethnicity. Additionally, lack of purpose and clear vision within the mission of the ANA, differences of ideology, unclear definition of the enemy to be fought, infiltration of the enemy forces in all levels of army ranks, failure of the government to bring all ethnics under one banner to form a strong national unity, unaccountability within the ranks of the army, and struggles within ethnic groups for establishing their superiority are detrimental factors behind the ANA AWOL challenge.