We Never Thought Training Syrians Would Be Easy

When it comes to building capable foreign forces, one can have all the will, skill, money, and allies – but no guarantees.

The spectacular setback in the U.S. military program to equip and train the Syrian opposition – with the revelation last week that no more than nine are still in the fight – is as depressing as it is shocking, especially for those of us who believed in the effort and had a hand in building it. But reflecting on other U.S.experiences with such endeavors, perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised.

Working to arm, train and sustain insurgent or indigenous forces is hardly new, and history offers a few cases showing it effective. The program to strengthen Afghanistan’s mujhadeen rebels against the Soviets is usually held up as the shining example for how this can work. But there are far more examples of when it hasn’t.  Think of the Bay of Pigs. Or the South Vietnamese Army after U.S. forces withdrew in the early 1970s. Or the Nicaraguan Contras in the 1980s.

This checkered record is certainly on President Barack Obama’s mind, and he’s made no secret of his skepticism. “I actually asked the CIA to analyze examples of America financing and supplying arms to an insurgency in a country that actually worked out well,” he said in an interview last year. “And they couldn’t come up with much.”