I'm not in the army or have been to Afghanistan (and so will bow to the knowledge of those who are/have), but I have a friend who has and I've been talking about stuff with him and asked him a bit myself. I also have a bit of knowledge of the history and what's going on in the region (it interests me).
Just to add, around 40% of the Soviet troops in Afghanistan were engaged in combat operations. The rest were involved with economic infrastructure buildup.
The Afghan National Army was ineffective and Soviet troops were required to "finish the job" almost all the time.
I'd like to know what the status is of the current Afghan military.
The previous soviet inspired Afghan army (DRA) was completely a different force. It was a reluctant conscript army and it's members were infamous for frequent desertion and often outright joining the Mujahideen. Units in the DRA were known for being massively below strength (usually about 50% of the size they were on paper) and when ordered to any serious fighting often joined the guerillas. The Russians literally used to have 'press gangs' roaming the country to get any Afghans to join the army. They only got their act together in the last couple of years after the Russians left and they were forced to operate on their own. To everyone's surprise, they held on for a couple of years before they collapsed.
The new western-backed Afghan National Army (ANA) has it's own problems. It's often poorly-equipped, poorly educated (many soldiers are completely illiterate) and relies heavily upon recruiting minorites in some areas (Tajiks, Hazaras etc) as they are opposed to being ruled again by the mainly ethnic Pashtun Taliban. Afghanistan has never had a particularly strong sense of state and has long been plagued by 'warlordism' so trying to constitute a complete new modern army there, right in the middle of a vicious insurgency too is never going to be an easy task. However in comparison to it's predecessor it's a motivated and growing volunteer force and it's soldiers are brave and fiercely hate their enemies. They're also a long way from being independant in terms of leadership and support (engineers, fuel, resupply etc).
Also the size of the western contingent is much smaller than it is on paper, as some of the forces from NATO (like the Germans, Spanish, Italians) etc) will only take the on safe areas and refuse to do any missions that involve fighting. Only a few nations like the British, Americans and Canadians will deploy to the South and East (where most of the fighting takes place) in any real numbers. "All in" the NATO forces number approximately 60,000. However of those only about 40,000 are from nations who's leaders have cleared them to fight, and of those 40,000 not all are combat troops.
As to why they are unsuccessful in their efforts in Afghanistan, here is a quick comparison. Iraq is both a smaller country geographically than Afghanistan and has a smaller population than Afghanistan. Iraq also has comparatively much easier terrain to operate in, being a relatively flat country with well established intrastructure (motorways, hospitals, police stations etc) and a history of having a well-established state. During the occupation of Iraq, the Americans alone had 140,000-160,000 soldiers in their attempts to pacify the country and in the end were only just successful (arguably). That's not counting other nations that were aiding them in Iraq like, well Britain for example. And the Iraqi security forces are much stronger than their Afghan equivalents too.
So as you can see, 40,000 troops trying to keep Aghanistan quiet is almost a war on a shoestring. There's far too much territory for them to cover, in places we're just holding a few fixed locations with what forces we can. My friend made a point to me. When we sent our forces into Helmand province, we got given 8 Chinook helicopters to support them as heavy lift capacity, backed up by a smattering of other types (some Lynxs etc). When the Americans deployed some of their marines into Helmand, they brought over 100 helicopters with them. We were flying the same 8 helicopters to death cause we're too incompetent to get the ones we have working and we haven't the budget for more aircrew (
largely because in June 2004 Brown insisted it was spending too much on them. He slashed the budget from £4.5 billion to £3 billion) and the Americans come in and have their runways choked up with the things. Though that's about to change finally with the addition of some more Chinooks and Merlin helicopters at long last. The equipment we're lacking isn't just helicopters but because of the lack of them we're forced to move everything by road, whereas the Americans just air drop many of the things we can't, making our troops easer to ambush/bomb. Also many of the vehicles we've used in the past are horrendous (remember the infamous snatch landrovers?) and are now considered death traps compared to the mine-resistant vehicles replacing them. The other problem with Afghanistan is Pakistan and their border regions are safe havens for our enemies controlled by the Taliban. Many of the Talibs aren't Afghan at all and are hated by the natives for coming into their country and making trouble. Every spring the Taliban get reinforced and replendished as a new wave of Pakistani nutcases make their way across the border itching to die for Jihad.
