Advising the AAF

The Resolute Support Mission is two-fold; conducting counterterrorism operations and train, advise, and assist the Afghan National Defense Security Forces (ANDSF). An important part of the ANDSF is the Afghan Air Force (AAF). To do the Train, Advise, and Assist (TAA) mission with the AAF the United States (and its coalition partner nations) has air advisors working with the AAF as part of the Train, Advise, and Assist Command - Air or TAAC-Air. A recent paper provides us with a break down of the essential components of a successful air advising posture, applies it to the mission in Afghanistan, and concludes with a summary of key points and suggest areas for improvement. The authors of the paper are Lt Col Aaron Tucker of the USAF and Colonel Aimal Pacha Sayedi of the Afghan Air Force. Read Advising the Afghan Air Force, National Defense University Press, January 1, 2016.

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"Expeditionary Advising" and 215th Corps

The Blue Areas are where TAACs are Located

Expeditionary Advising the 215th ANA Corps - Not so Much! A couple of years ago the United States rapidly drew down the force levels in Afghanistan. Keeping below a troop level of 9,800 required the closure of a large number of bases and a restructuring of the mission. It was decided to keep a small counterterrorism force, some enablers & support units (drones, intelligence, logistics, air support, etc.), and to maintain an advisory capacity at the ministry, institutional, and corps levels. However, not all the Afghan National Army corps were covered by full-time, permanent advisors co-located at or near the corps headquarters. The 203rd and 215th Corps were advised by an expeditionary package - called "Advise and Assist Cells" that operated out of Kabul. While this may have been effective for the 203rd Corps responsible for seven provinces east and south of Kabul it was probably less effective for the 215th Corps in southwest Afghanistan (Helmand and Nimroz provinces). History will probably judge that this attempt at "Level 2" or expeditionary advising was not as effective as hoped; at least not for the ANA and ANP in Helmand province. Recent news reports now indicate that a large contingent of advisors are to be deployed in Helmand province to assist the 215th Corps. Read more in "U.S. troop reinforcements head for embattled southern Afghan province", Reuters, February 9, 2016.

SFA Planners Guide. For those heading out on an advisory mission there are a wealth of documents to read. One of the better ones for learning Security Force Assistance (SFA) is the Security Force Assistance Planners Guide by the Joint Center for International Security Assistance (JCISFA) at Fort Leavenworth which was just updated in January 2016.
www.afghanwarnews.info/documents/JCISFA-SFA-Planners-Guide15Jan2016-CDR-1543.pdf

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Commentary

Long-Term U.S. Commitment needed. "Can Americans - and their next president - see past short-term campaign promises to save Afghanistan?" Currently there are 9,800 U.S. military serving in Afghanistan. This number should stay constant for the remainder of this year. But a new president will soon take the reins and with that change will come new policies. Read more in "Building Afghan Security Requires a Long-Term U.S. Commitment", Defense One, January 11, 2016.

Time for a Permanent Advisory Unit? The odds are that the U.S. is going to be deploying advisors to Afghanistan and Iraq for a long time. In addition, the "Building Partnership Capacity (BPC)" mission to many areas of the world will require service members who know how to train, mentor, and advise. Perhaps the time has come to consider a full-time and permanent unit similar to the Advise and Assist Brigades (AABs) deployed to Iraq or the Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs) deployed to Afghanistan? Read more in "Learning From Our Mistakes in Selection and Training of Military Advisors", SOFREP, January 14, 2016.

Podcast on Afghan War. One war correspondent with lots of time in Afghanistan is interviewed about his thoughts on the war and the upcoming year. Listen to Franz-Stefan Gady in Can the Afghan War Be Won in 2016?, The Diplomat, January 14, 2016.

Obama SOTU Address: Not Much to Say on Afg. In his annual State of the Union address President Barack Obama did not have much to say about the never-ending conflict in Afghanistan. But, then again, why bring up bad news when you are trying to paint a rosy picture about your presidency? Read more in "Afghan war grinds on, but it's mostly absent from Obama's final State of the Union", by Missy Ryan, The Washington Post, January 12, 2016.

Worries on Cutting Defense Spending. David A. Ochmanek, a senior defense analyst at RAND Corporation, is concerned about defense cuts. Read "If We Keep Cutting Defense Spending, We Must Do Less", RAND Corporation, January 2016.

Veteran Expresses Perspective on Continued Fighting. A Marine veteran, who served with the infantry in Afghanistan, reflects on the 15th year of the Afghan War. (Task & Purpose, Jan 14, 2016).

2015 Fighting Season. Jason Lyall, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University, has posted a map depicting districts in Afghanistan that saw over 100 plus Taliban fighters gather to mount an attack on the Afghan security forces. See "Here are the five things you need to know about the 2015 fighting season in Afghanistan", The Washington Post, January 12, 2016.

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"Expeditionary Advise and Assist"

The United States plans to keep the troop levels in 2016 the same as 2015 - meaning about 9,800 troops. Many of these military personnel will be conducting the "Train, Advise, and Assist" mission (a part of Security Force Assistance) - which is best done on a full-time and daily basis. It appears that the U.S. is going to move to "expeditionary advise and assist teams" in 2016. This is currently what is in effect for two of the six Afghan Army Corps - the 203rd in Gardez (eastern Afghanistan) and 2015th in Helmand province (southwest Afghanistan). The other four ANA corps have full-time advisors co-located or nearby the corps hqs. Of course the "expeditionary advising" (called Level 2 or Level 3 advising) is no way as effective as daily and persistent advisor presence (called Level 1 advising). Read more in a news report by Military Times, January 3, 2016.

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Inside the TAA Mission in Afghanistan

The columnist Franz-Stefan Gady provides us with an inside view of the NATO Train, Advise, and Assist Mission in Afghanistan. He spent some time with the TAAC-South advisory team in Kandahar learning how they conduct their mission. Of note are his observations about the significant use of Guardian Angels to prevent or mitigate insider attacks by Afghan security force members, the reduced footprint of the advisory effort, and the difficulty of how to measure the effectiveness of the Afghan security forces. In addition, the article stresses the importance of the effort in eight areas of focus - called the "8 Essential Functions" by Resolute Support HQs. It is interesting to note that one of the advisors profiled is a 1LT - mostly likely (unless former enlisted) on his first tour of duty in combat - and advising Afghan officers senior to him in rank, age, experience and with many years of combat in Afghanistan. That, of course, says something about the U.S. advisor selection process! Read "How NATO Advises Afghanistan's National Security Forces", The Diplomat, December 22, 2015.

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Rule of Law in Afghanistan

Video - RoL and BG Mitch Chitwood. The leader of Essential Function 3 at NATO's Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan is assisting the Afghan National Security Forces in aligning their effort with the rule of law, increased transparency, and the fight against corruption. In this 2-min long video posted on DVIDS on December 9, 2015 the general tells us about his job and the progress being made. For once it sounds like we got the right advisor in the right job! Many advisors are poorly selected and trained for their posting while working at the MoD and MoI.
www.dvidshub.net/video/441465/resolute-supports-essential-function-3-rule-law

International Anti-Corruption Day - Dec 9th. The United Nations led an international campaign to focus on how corruption affects education, health, justice, democracy, prosperity and development. I wonder if any progress was made in stemming corruption in Afghanistan?
www.anticorruptionday.org

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Commentary

RAND Paper on Security Cooperation. Christopher Paul (of RAND) has published a transcript entitled What Works Best When Conducting Security Cooperation?, CT-441, October 2015. The pub is the testimony presented before the House Armed Services Committee on October 21, 2015. Some important points outlined for the committee include aligning "with partner nation security forces' baseline capabilities and their ability to absorb training and technology", "relationships matter, and they can take time to establish", "characteristics or features of partners improve prospects for security cooperation success", and "consistency and sustainment are key".

Russia Revisits Afghanistan? Recent security reverses in Afghanistan, the resurgence of the Taliban, large swathes of terrain in northern Afghanistan under the control of the Taliban, and other factors have Central Asian states and Russia deeply concerned. Khyber Sarban explores this in depth in his article entitled "Russia in Afghanistan: Past as Prologue?", The Diplomat, November 4, 2015.

The 'Forever War'. Ann Jones, book writer, columnist, feminist, and former Afghan expat writes about the hopeless situation in Afghanistan in "Afghanistan 'After' the American War", Huffington Post Blog, November 5, 2015.

A Tale of Two Afghan Armies. Lemar Alexander Farhad examines the performance of the former Afghan Communist Army with today's Afghan National Army using two decisive incidents. The Battles of Jalalabad 1989 and Kunduz 2015 illustrate the comparative capabilities of the two Afghan armies. The author also explores the ANA's motivational belief system, what motivates them (nationalism vs. ethnic / tribal affiliation), and lack of will to fight. Read the report in Small Wars Journal, November 3, 2015.

What Should U.S. Do in Afghanistan? The decision by Obama to stop the flow of U.S. troops out of Afghanistan allowing them to continue the Counterterrorism and Train, Advise, and Assist mission at current troop levels is an important step to halting to slide into deepening instability in that country. However, that is not enough. More needs to be done on the political front. 1) improve the constitutional process and fix the problems generated by the NUG, 2) help reform the electoral processes, 3) help in building the relationship between the central government in Kabul and the re-emergence of sub-national power brokers, and 4) assist in the negotiations with the Taliban. At least, that is what Rebecca Zimmerman of the RAND Corporation thinks has to happen. Read her article in "Saving Afghanistan: More Than Just Troops", War on the Rocks, November 5, 2015.

Lessons from Afghanistan. Janine Davidson, a Senior Fellow for Defense Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, is interviewed about Iraq and Afghanistan. Read (or listen to the podcast) in "Lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan: Facing Future Defense Challenges", Council on Foreign Relations, November 4, 2015.

Political Centralization in Afghanistan. Ahmad Murid Partaw writes about the costs of political centralization in Afghanistan and how the highly-centralized political system has deepened the country's problems. (Foreign Policy Journal, Nov 4, 2015).

Ashraf Haidari on US-Iran Nuclear Deal & Afghanistan. Haidari, a former high-level Afghan national security official, provides his view that the JCPOA is a win-win situation for the Middle East and believes that similar negotiation efforts concerning Afghanistan will be of great benefit in the future. Read "Afghanistan after the US-Iran nuclear deal", Observer Research Foundation (ORF), November 4, 2015.

The U.S. Military's Broke Personnel System. One need only look at how the U.S. Army and other services assigned personnel to work at the Afghan Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense as advisors to realize that the military's personnel system is very broke. Air Force Colonels were assigned as advisors to the MoD's Ground Force Command (GFC), Navy logistics officers to advise ANCOP kandaks, and a reserve logistics Navy officer (06) who specialized in computer software in her civilian occupation was assigned as the principal advisor to the Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF). But the problem is much bigger than that and it is resulting in the loss of valuable people. Read more in "Can the U.S. Military Halt its Brain Drain?", The Atlantic, November 5, 2015.

Millennium Challenge (MC-02) - a Lesson in Red Teaming. Shortly after the invasion of Afghanistan and less than a year prior to the invasion of Iraq the U.S. military conducted one of the largest and most integrated military exercise ever - Millennium Challenge. The exercise was to be transformational - introducing concepts such as Effects Based Operations (EBO) and other advanced ways of thinking about military operations. The exercise was deemed a success or failure (depending on who you listened to). Read more in "Millennium Challenge: The Real Story of a Corrupted Military Exercise and Its Legacy", by Micah Zenko, War on the Rocks, November 5, 2015. On a related note, the Center for Strategic Leadership Newsletter (Carlisle Barracks, PA) has a number of articles about conflict simulation and wargaming.

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SOF News

Green Beret Officer Retires After Cleared of Wrongdoing. A decorated Special Forces officer who was investigated by the Army for whistleblowing to Congress about the government's broke hostage-recovery process has retired from the U.S. Army. His retirement was held up by the Army while an ill-advised months-long investigation ensued. The investigation, a warrant-less and inane act of bureaucracy, finally cleared LTC Jason Armerine of wrongdoing. Armerine and his 12-man Special Forces team linked up with Hamid Karzai in the fall of 2001, defeated a number of Taliban formations in the field, and entered Kandahar as liberators. Three members of the operational detachment were killed during this timeframe. Karzai later became President of Afghanistan. Read more in "Green Beret investigated for whistleblowing retires", Army Times, November 2015.

50 SF Soldiers Heading to Syria as Advisors - but "It's not Combat"! Some U.S. special operations troops are going to be coordinating local fighter movements with U.S.-led coalition efforts against Islamic State militants. They will assist local Syrian forces (Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen fighters) in tactics, operational planning, and logistics. They probably will assist in controlling air support as well. But this is not "combat". Hmmm. Red more in "White House: No Combat Missions for US Troops in Syria", Voice of America, November 2, 2015.

Drones Continue Advisory Mission in Syria. US officials remain adamant that the increase of operations and air support in Syria do not indicate a change in US policy. White House Press Secretary Josh Ernest was emphatic when he said our ". . . drones are serving in a non-combat role". Read more in "Drones in Syria 'Serving Strictly in an Advisory Role'", Duffel Blog, November 2, 2015.

Failed SF Training Program for Syrian Moderates Cost $2 Million per Trainee. While the price tag may be an exaggeration certainly the program was not a success. Read more in "Pentagon's failed Syria program cost $2 million per trainee", USA Today,  November 5, 2015.

Retired SF LTC Comments on Syria Mission. In a guest commentary to The Denver Post, Mitch Utterback tells us the difference that 50 Green Berets on the ground in Syria can make. Read "Don't underestimate the power of U.S. special operations", November 2, 2015.

SF Working "Coffee Breath Close". An example of "advise and assist" going right can be found in the effort by SOCAfrica to reduce the threat from African warlord Joseph Kony. His force of 3,000 has been whittled down to about 200 hardcore fighters. Read more in "What the Syrian Train-and-Equip Effort Could Learn from US Ops in Africa", Defense One, November 2, 2015.

9th Commando Kandak Facility Under Construction. Versar, Inc. has received a $17 million construction contract from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to support construction projects in Afghanistan. (UPI, Nov 3, 2015).

7th SFGA Memorial Wall. On Friday, Nov 6th 7th SFGA had a groundbreaking for the 7th SFGA Memorial Wall. (Stars & Stripes, Nov 6, 2015).

General Votel Interview. The commander of the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) in Tampa, Florida is interviewed. (KSTP.com, Nov 1, 2015.

JSOU Reading Lists. The Joint Special Operations University Library has posted their "Professional Military Reading Lists" for 2016; including the USSOCOM Cdr's favorites. Also, see AWN's reading lists for Afghanistan.
http://jsou.libguides.com/readinglists
www.afghanwarnews.info/afghan-reading-list.htm

SOCOM Looks to Techno Future. The US Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida is always exploring new high tech ways of conducting special operations. Read more in "Socoms 'hackatohon' opens process of creating high-tech commando gear", The Tampa Tribune, November 4, 2015.

Cash Bonus for SOF NCOs. Special Forces Senior NCOs with a high DLPT score are now eligible for bonuses (CSRB) of up to $150K if they re-enlist from 24 to 73 months. Check out the pay graph with details at Military Times.

MSF Report on Hospital Attack. When SOF operators, supporting ANA SOF in the fight to retake Kunduz city, called in air support from an AC-130 on a hospital in Kunduz over 33 people were killed including many members of the medical staff of "Doctors Without Borders". MSF has published its Initial MSF Internal Review about the attack on the MSF Kunduz Trauma Center. http://kunduz.msf.org Meanwhile, The Daily Beast has published an article on the incident - "Pentagon MIA on Afghan Doctors Without Borders Hospital Attack", November 3, 2015. Read also "U.S. Airstrikes in Kunduz destroyed more than a hospital", The Washington Post, November 4, 2015.

Book Review - The Lion of Sabray. An illiterate former Mujahedeen leader helped a survivor of a four-man SEAL reconnaissance element chased down by the Taliban. Lone Survivor is a book about Marcus Luttrell - a SEAL assisted by an Afghan villager. The Lion of Sabray is the story of the villager that helped Luttrell. Read a review of the book in a news story posted on Hampton Roads.com, November 1, 2015.

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Commentary

Training the ANA - Not so Much. A recent visitor to Afghanistan provides us his views on how well the training program in Afghanistan is going.

"Yet the current training is aimed a bureaucrats more than warriors, revolving around administrative functions such as budgeting and planning rather than the best way to fire a rifle or mount an attack."

Read what David J. Lynch has to say in "Training Afghan soldiers is just not working", USA Today, October 5, 2015.

SFA and BPC Questioned. Phillip Carter, a former Army officer and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security provides us his thoughts on having foreign troops fight our wars. He takes a hard look at the recent Security Force Assistance (SFA) and Building Partnership Capacity (BPC) ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan and finds some areas where the effort was lacking. He cites a difference in interests, the complexity of U.S. weapons, and a lack of a will to fight among our surrogates. Read "Why foreign troops can't fight our fights", The Washington Post, October 2, 2015.

NUG, Bad Comms, & Bad Intel. The combination of a government mired in conflict (Ghani vs. Abdullah), bad communications across and up/down with MoI, MoD, Corps, Zones, etc., and bad intelligence is consistently setting up the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) for failure. Read more in "The Plight of Afghanistan's Soldiers", The Diplomat, October 7, 2015.

"I Fought For Nothing". An infantryman remembers his tour in Afghanistan (2004-2005) and contemplates if it was worth it. Read "I fought for nothing: Staggering incompetence, egregious corruption & America's doomed war in Afghanistan", Salon, by John Rico, October 7, 2015.

Did HTS rationalize Pedophilia in Afghanistan? An HTS explanation of "Man-Boy Love Thursday" may have contributed to the U.S. looking the other way when confronted with "Bacha Bazi" events. Or so says two authors of a recent story about the HTS. Two anthropologists conveniently tie the recent story of the Special Forces NCO getting kicked out of the Army for assaulting an Afghan police officer who was raping a young Afghan to everything that was wrong with the Human Terrain System that provided cultural advice to the U.S. military in Afghanistan. While their writing may be convincing to some it looks to me as another opportunity to attack a very valuable program that provided great results in the Afghan COIN fight. Read their news story (but with a grain of salt) in Counterpunch, October 9, 2015.

Pakistan - Aiding the Taliban . . . Still. If you want to solve the problem of the insurgency in Afghanistan then you must look east to Pakistan. So says Fareed Zakaria - an opinion writer for The Washington Post and also commentator on several other media enterprises. The bottom line is that very few insurgencies are defeated if they have a cross-boarder sanctuary and a powerful patron (that would be Pakistan and Pakistan). Read his article "The key to solving the puzzle of Afghanistan is Pakistan", The Washington Post, October 8, 2015.

Paper Plans and Reality on the Ground. The battle for Kunduz exposed the strategy for the defense of Afghanistan as paper thin. Despite air power, advisors, and intelligence support from the U.S. (and NATO, of course) the Taliban were still able to take a provincial capital and hold it for a number of days. This problem of containing the Taliban goes beyond the development of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) into a professional counterinsurgency force. It has a lot more to do with eradicating the senior ANDSF leadership of corrupt officers. Read more in "Is Kunduz the Beginning of the End for Afghanistan?", by Emile Simpson, Politico, October 4, 2015.

Prospects of Success in Afghanistan? Not so Much. One observer, Patrick Skinner, has a pessimistic view of the situation in Afghanistan. Read "What Endures From Operation Enduring Freedom", The Cipher Brief, October 8, 2015.

Ignatius on Afghanistan. David Ignatius provides us with his opinion of the current state of affairs in Afghanistan and Pakistan in "The U.S. cannot afford to forget Afghanistan and Pakistan", The Washington Post, October 6, 2015.

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RS Support to Gender Issues

"The Resolute Support Mission Gender Advisor office is linked to UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which guides daily coalition interaction and working objectives with Afghan counterparts to ensure gender perspective is applied in the peacekeeping process."

Certainly a noble objective yet a hard task to accomplish. The plight of women in Afghanistan is among the worst in the world - although since 2001 there has been some significant improvement. Part of ISAF's (and now Resolute Support) mission has been to integrate women into the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF). This has been a slow and sometimes frustrating process. Resolute Support has a gender advisor to help this process along. A five-minute long video by Resolute Support HQs featuring Col. Deanne Gibbon of the Australian Air Force (filmed in the Destille Garden with birds chirping in the background) explains the importance of gender issues in the counterinsurgency fight.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHIkiVMp4kc

RS HQs Advise and Assist Cells

ACC-SW with ANA 215th Corps G3
Photo by Lt. Sharon Mulholland

As the United States military drawdown continues in Afghanistan the ability to station military advisors at the Afghan National Army corps level has diminished. Two of the ANA corps are now "uncovered" by permanent advisors. Instead an Advise and Assist Cell (ACC) advises these two corps from afar via phone and email as well as by conducting periodic visits. Resolute Support Headquarters has provided us an overview of one such Advise and Assist Cell mission in a recent news release (August 16, 2015).

In late July 2015 the Resolute Support Advise and Assist Directorate deployed a small team to a remote region of Afghanistan (we used to call this RC Southwest where thousands of U.S. Marines, Brits, Danes, and others were stationed). The ACC's advising mission was interrupted by the 215th Corps responding to a district in Helmand province that was under attack. Now Zad district was the scene of heavy fighting. The ACC had the opportunity to see the 215th ANA Corps battle staff in action.

The head of the Advise and Assist Directorate (ADD) in Kabul, BG Paul Lebidine, is quoted in the news release as saying that the ANA knows how to fight and that they have courage; but that the ANA really needs advise in gaining long term sustainability - therefore RS HQs is concentrating advising efforts on the detailed processes necessary to run a large scale army. The ANA lost the battle for Now Zad district and as of mid-August the Taliban flag was flying over the district center.

Advising in Afghanistan

Ian Bertram, of the U.S. Air Force and a Mi-17 air advisor in Afghanistan in 2012, suggests that advisors in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere would benefit from reading a series of books published long ago. He contends that the introduction of western values and methods are not always as useful as the use of traditional values and methods found in the host nation. Read "Ancient Backbone: Using Ancient Texts to Train Modern Allies", Small Wars Journal, July 15, 2015.

Lessons for Advisors . . . from Vietnam. Peter Murphy has penned an article entitled "Why Military Advising Was So Successful in Vietnam . . . ", Small Wars Journal, June 28, 2015.

Paper on Advising. Professor Raymond A. Millen of the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI), Carlisle Barracks, PA, has penned an informative paper about ministerial level advising. Millen served three tours in Afghanistan; his last as an advisor at the strategic plans level at the Ministry of Defense. His paper, 76 pages long, was published June 3, 2015 by the United States Army War College Press.
Professionalizing Ministerial Advising
www.pksoi.org/index.cfm?disp=cdrview.cfm&cdrid=1334

Article - The Advisor and BCT

Lt. Col. Jeremy Gwinn, U.S. Army, writes in Military Review about his deployment as an advisor attached to 4th Brigade, 101st Airborne Division to Regional Command East (RC East). At the time, 2010 to 2011, the brigade was augmented with several dozen personnel (the concept called for a 48-man team) to be combat advisors conducting the beginnings of the Security Force Assistance (SFA) mission. These early augmentation teams came to be known as Security Force Assistance Teams (SFATs); not to be confused with the follow-on advisors who were members of Security Force Assistance Advisor Teams (SFAATs) or the Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs). The SFATs, usually consisting of senior NCOs and officers, augmented the brigades advisory capacity. Many of the individuals on the SFATs saw important and rewarding duty; however, some were relegated by the receiving brigade commanders to unimportant positions and marginalized. Lt. Col. Gwinn provides us with an overview of the SFAT augmentation, training, employment, and finishes with some recommendations for future advisory efforts. Read "The Advisor and the Brigade Combat Team: Toward and Enduring Solution for an Enduring Requirement", Military Review, May-June 2015.

Paper - "Building Partner Capacity"

Harry R. Yarger of the Joint Special Operations University has wrote a paper entitled "Building Partner Capacity", JSOU Report 15-1, February 2015. This 125-page long paper explores the sources of instability that pose security concerns to the United States and the various ways of mitigating those security concerns. It says that, in addition to humanitarian assistance and security assistance, building partner capacity is one of the best ways to diminish instability and should be a major part of the nation's grand strategy. The author provides us with the multiple ways of viewing the role of building partner capacity as part of a U.S. grand or defense strategy and the place of special operations forces in these strategies.

Building Partner Capacity (posted on JSOU website).

DoDIG Report on "Train, Advise, Assist, and Equip"

The Department of Defense Inspector General (Do DIG) office has issued a report about the Security Force Assistance mission in Afghanistan and Iraq. The reports overall objective was to provide DoD military commanders and other stakeholders responsible for Operation Inherent Resolve a summary of lessons learned gleaned from DoD IG assessment oversight of U.S. and Coalition "Train, Advise, Assist, and Equip" efforts during Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. The DoD IG reviewed 30 assessment reports issued by the DoD IG between July 2008 and January 2015. These reports contained 342 observations related to U.S. and Coalition efforts to develop the national security forces of Iraq and Afghanistan. In this summary project the authors sought lessons learned that might apply to future contingency operations as well as to Operation Inherent Resolve. The report identifies five systemic challenge and problem areas, with related lessons learned.

• Training and Equipping of Partner Nation Security Forces and Ministries
• Advisory Assistance in Support of Partner Nation Security Forces and Ministries
• Logistics Development and Sustainment
• Accountability and Control of U.S.-Supplied Equipment
• U.S. Contract Management

Summary of Lessons Learned - DoD IG Assessment Oversight of "Train, Advise, Assist, and Equip" Operations by U.S. and Coalition Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan
Report No. DODIG-2015-093
March 31, 2015

http://www.dodig.mil/pubs/documents/DODIG-2015-093.pdf

Cordsman - Effective Use of Advisors

Anthony H. Cordsman, writing for the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), has penned a paper entitled "Boots on the Ground: The Realities in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria" published on February 13, 2015. He faults the U.S. advisory effort in several areas to include the lack of an integrated Civil-Military strategy, lack of an effective advisory effort in the field, advisors without the necessary mix of skills, and lack of effective combat support and enablers to assist our indigenous allies. Interesting reading.

http://csis.org/publication/boots-ground-realities-afghanistan-iraq-and-syria

Advisor Selection and HRC

"The decisive point of any SFA mission may very well be the selection, training, and education of personnel in preparation for deployment." 

                                                                           SFA Handbook, JCISFA, June 2012
                                                                 
The United States military has had extensive experience in performing advising duties over the past decade in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in other parts of the world. Unfortunately, the United States Military has had poor results in selecting advisors to important advisory positions. This is true of all services but especially the U.S. Army. Quite simply - the personnel management system of the U.S. Army has operated in a peacetime mode while the nation was at war for over 13 years. The personnel management system is not flexible and it is not adaptable. The fault lies at Human Resources Command, FORSCOM, and the units selected to provide advisors. A recent article in Military Review entitled "Misunderstanding the Officer Personnel Management System", January 2015 defends the current system in place. However, there are many observers familiar with the SFA mission in Afghanistan that believe FORSCOM and Human Resources Command have failed in providing the right advisors for the Security Force Assistance mission in Afghanistan. This writer has personally embedded with over 120 Security Force Assistance Advisor Teams (SFAATs) in Afghanistan over the past three years. The number one problem with the SFA mission is poor advisor selection and pre-deployment training. Changes need to be made.

Conference - Future of USG Advising Missions

Conference - "The Future of USG Advising Missions"

by United States Institute of Peace

Washington, D.C. January 15, 2015

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) will host a conference on the future of U.S. government advising missions. This is a policy-level discussion about mission mandates for long-term, locally-owned solutions on advising. Learn more about this conference at the link below:

www.usip.org/events/the-future-of-usg-advising-missions

DynCorp Gets Afghan Training Support Contract

DynCorp International has been contracted by the U.S. Army to provide advisory and other support services to Afghanistan in the training of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police. There are two separate contracts - one for the police and one for the army. The contracts are for a nine-month base period of performance with two three-month options. The two contracts have a total value in excess of $100 million. Read more in "DynCorp International selected for training support in Afghanistan", UPI, January 9, 2015.

Police Advisors Pledge Support to MoI / ANP

An agreement was recently signed that coordinated the advisory efforts of several different international organizations that are training, advising, and assisting (TAA) the Afghan National Police (ANP) and the Ministry of Interior (MoI). Representatives from the European Union Police (EUPOL) Mission Afghanistan, the German Police Project Team (GPPT), and ISAF/RS signed a "Memorandum of Cooperation" on Monday, December 29th, 2014. The memorandum improves coordination and cooperation and transitions the TAA effort from a tactical focus to a more strategic level at the Ministry of Interior. The head of the International Police Coordination Board (IPCB) was also in attendance. It would seem that the 'memorandum' addresses what some might call an uncoordinated and disjointed police training effort in the past. So, the good news - the effort is now jointly coordinated. Hopefully it being coordinated by someone with some police experience and not an infantry or armor officer who read a book on police advising and who is on his first Afghan tour. And, the bad news - the memorandum seems to move the advising and training effort off the tactical level and up to the strategic level. So we are adopting a 'top down' approach to police training and advising - when the need is at all levels. Read more on this topic in "International police reps pledge support to Afghan National Police, Ministry of Interior", ISAF News, December 29, 2014.