While America’s efforts to build the Iraqi and Afghan armies have captured headlines, the creation of effective, uncorrupt, and nonsectarian police forces is arguably an even greater challenge for the United States in the war on terror. Lying uneasily at the intersection of development and security policy, U.S. and international efforts to recruit, train, and mentor indigenous police in Iraq and Afghanistan will have crucial implications not only for the success or failure of the military campaigns raging there, but the broader effort to establish democratic, accountable governance in the Islamic world.

Why is the development of effective, indigenous police so important in winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and why has it proven so difficult? What kinds of internal reforms should Washington undertake in order to improve its capabilities to assist police in the frontline states of the war on terror? What lessons learned can be drawn from police-building thus far in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as from previous police assistance missions in Bosnia, Kosovo, and elsewhere?

Please join AEI for a panel discussion to discuss these and other questions. Speakers include David Bayley, distinguished professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany and author of Changing the Guard: Developing Democratic Police Abroad; Ali Jalali, former interior minister of Afghanistan and professor at National Defense University; and Dick Mayer, former senior police advisor in the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement in the U.S. State Department and deputy director of the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program of the U.S. Justice Department.