US support for “civilian defence” paramilitaries in Iraq and Afghanistan

In this chapter I focus on US counterinsurgent support to “civilian defence” paramilitary forces in Iraq (Sons of Iraq) and Afghanistan (Afghan Local Police). Civilian defence forces (CDFs) are a specific form of paramilitary that are recruited from civilian populations in areas contested by insurgents to provide intelligence and static defence duties in their own towns, communities, or neighbourhoods. I start by placing the Sons of Iraq and Afghan Local Police programmes into a wider context of US interventions and highlight the strategic rationales for CDFs in US military campaigns. I describe the development of these programmes in Iraq and Afghanistan and argue that they have had adverse consequences for recruits and communities adopting the CDF programme. From a more critical perspective, I also argue that this tactic constitutes a form of imperial policing in which dispensable local collaborators are used to fight America’s wars.