Flight Risk: The Coalition's Air Advisory Mission in Afghanistan, 2005-2015

History of Military Aviation

by Forrest L. Marion

After 2005, the United States and coalition partners led an air advisory campaign to rebuild the Afghan Air Force (AAF). From the 1920s Afghanistan maintained a smallish air arm that depended heavily upon outside assistance. After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the 1990s witnessed the splintering of Afghan air power among mujahideen groups, and in 2001 U.S. air power neutralized what remained of Afghan air assets. By 2005, U.S.-coalition rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan included the AAF and in 2007 a formal joint / combined entity, led by a U.S. Air Force brigadier general, began air advisor work with Afghan airmen. The AAF expected to grow to 8,000 personnel and 150 aircraft by 2016.
Between 2007 and 2011, air advising efforts made modest progress in terms of infrastructures, personnel and aircraft accessions, and various training courses. But by 2010, advisors increasingly viewed AAF command and control (C2) as a problem area that required significant improvement if a professional air force was to be built. In the spring of 2011, major institutional changes to AAF C2 procedures were being introduced when nine U.S. air advisors were killed. The attack was the worst single-incident loss of U.S. Air Force personnel in a deployed location since 1996 and the worst insider-attack since 2001. The post-attack investigation failed to uncover evidence of organized corruption contributing to the attack despite the well-known presence of a Criminal Patronage Network as well as certain power brokers within the AAF itself (all unacknowledged in the original report). The investigation was the victim of command pressure at the U.S. three-star level.
From mid-2011 through 2015, air advisors focused on force protection as well as teaching English, training Afghan airmen, and adjusting U.S.-coalition plans to a shifting AAF inventory. As time wore on, the cultural chasm between Afghanistan and the West became more apparent, highlighted by Afghan senior leaders' traditional practice of personal-based C2 through the use of their cell-phones to re-task most AAF aircraft sorties (especially Mi-17s) outside of established procedures and C2 entities. Many sorties were invisible to the air advisors, and others were suspected of transporting illicit goods. Under such circumstances, flying training sorties of AAF aviators failed to keep pace with the air campaign plan. In short, culturally informed ways of doing business precluded AAF professionalization. As of 2015, the dilemma continued with no end in sight to an air advisory mission of uncertain long-term value.

Genres: Aviation

376 pages, Hardcover

First published October 15, 2018

Reviews

[Chad Manske · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forrest L. Marion’s “Flight Risk: The Coalition’s Air Advisory Mission in Afghanistan, 2005-2015” provides a rare and deeply insightful chronicle of America’s attempt to rebuild the Afghan Air Force (AAF) over a tumultuous decade. Marion’s perspective is unique—having himself served as an official historian embedded with coalition air advisors, he delivers a narrative grounded in firsthand experience, rigorous interviews, and a wealth of official records. The book stands apart for its nuanced exploration of how coalition intentions collided with Afghanistan’s complex tribal politics, entrenched patronage networks, and endemic corruption. Marion portrays the advisory mission not just as a technical challenge of supplying aircraft and training pilots, but as a fundamental cultural contest: Western notions of “professionalization” routinely clashed with Afghan traditions and priorities. Advisors struggled to establish reliability and centralized command structures, but Afghan leaders often directed air assets for personal or tribal advantage, circumventing coalition systems through secretive cell phone calls and short-notice tasking—sometimes for profit, sometimes to consolidate power. A turning point in Marion’s account is the 2011 insider attack, in which an Afghan air force officer killed nine coalition air advisors. This tragedy marked a “cold war, no trust” environment and forced the mission to evolve under persistent suspicion and security constraints, changing the nature of the relationship between advisors and Afghan airmen. Importantly, Marion provides not only operational details but also strategic context. He carefully weighs evidence to show how the coalition’s efforts—driven by urgency, duty, and outsized ambitions—were consistently undermined by the very systems they tried to reform. The result was an air force bloated with resources but vulnerable to misuse, as aircraft intended for national service facilitated criminal networks, illicit trade, and systemic corruption. “Flight Risk” is a sobering read for policymakers and military strategists alike. Marion’s conclusions challenge the wisdom of imposing Western systems on societies with divergent values, and urge future practitioners to design security assistance missions rooted in local realities, not idealized templates. Ultimately, Marion’s work invites a much-needed humility in American and allied interventions, and provides a cautionary tale of good intentions undone by cultural blind spots.