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No Such Thing as a Perfect Partner: The Challenges of “By, With, and Through”

SOF News — Thu, 25 Jun 2020 05:00:00 +0000

By Emily Knowles, PRISM Vol. 8, No. 4, June 2020.
The original article can be accessed here – PRISM or view the PDF.

In recent military campaigns against violent non-state actors, many states have reduced the risk to their own forces by conducting airstrikes or supporting allies rather than placing their own forces on the ground.¹ Small teams of special operation forces (SOF) and military advisers, as well as military training teams and intelligence support units, have supported host-nation security forces in doing the bulk of front-line fighting against groups like al-Shabaab, Boko Haram, and al-Qaeda. In some theaters, such as the campaign against the Islamic State, this has extended to include intensive air and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) support. In other theaters, support may be limited to training and equipping local partners without conducting joint operations—like the support that the UK provides to Kenyan forces through the British Peace Support Team (Africa). This is a trend that the Oxford Research Group calls “remote warfare,”² although it goes by many other names, including “surrogate war,”³ “light-footprint,”⁴ “low-intensity war,”⁵ and “by, with, and through.”⁶

This article draws on field research conducted in Afghanistan (2017), Iraq (2017), Mali, (2018) and Kenya (2018) as well as a series of expert roundtables held in London between 2017–2019, and interviews held with militaries, diplomats, and civil society in Mali (2019) and Somalia (2016–2018). The purpose of the effort was to identify changes in military engagement following the drawdowns of large international military operations in Iraq (2011) and Afghanistan (2014) and to highlight the strategic implications of a shift towards remote warfare. This included considering the impact on mandates like the protection of civilians, transparency, and accountability, and long-term prospects for peace.

One of the things that surfaced quickly throughout the research was that remote warfare is not a specific approach to military operations in the same way that counter-terrorism,⁷ counter-insurgency,⁸ or peace support operations⁹ are, nor are these activities guided by an overarching “remote warfare” or “by, with, and through” strategy.¹⁰ While militaries might have specific units dedicated to some of these tasks—such as the American Security Force Assistance Brigades¹¹ or the British Specialised Infantry Group¹²—many other elements of training, advising, and assisting or conducting expeditionary warfare alongside local units are carried out by a range of regular, elite, and special forces. Air support increasingly falls to drone pilots as well as more traditional forms of air power,¹³ while intelligence sharing and targeting support can be provided by many different agencies. Remote warfare is therefore less of an approach and more of a spectrum of support relationships between international militaries and their partners.¹⁴

Similarly, there is no one driver of the trend but rather a few key factors that have increased the incentives for engaging in this way. Part of the picture involves the way in which technological innovation—particularly the rise in drone technology—has enabled western states to replace the need for boots on the ground in some theaters.¹⁵ When coupled with air superiority in these same environments, which has historically been used to avoid the deployment of ground troops, it is clear that technology is creating opportunities for modern militaries to substitute out intelligence and strike capabilities that might once have put troops in the line of fire.¹⁶ The U.S. drones program is perhaps the most high-profile example, but others include the UK’s strike against the Islamic State propagandist and British citizen Reyaad Khan, who was killed in Syria in August 2015,¹⁷ or the June 2019 U.S. cyber attacks against Iranian military computers that were aimed at disabling the systems that control missile and rocket launchers.¹⁸

Another driver is the perceived security threat of safe havens and the related weakness of local partners in the regions where terrorist groups tend to thrive. In the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, then-British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, predicted the emergence of a “future in which unspeakable acts of evil are committed against us, coordinated from failed states in distant parts of the world.” ¹⁹ The strategic imperative of denying terrorist groups safe haven in fragile or failed states has been a pivotal part of the military and political rationale linking U.S. and allied military action against violent non-state groups back to core national security concerns of preventing further attacks on their soil. ²⁰ As then-commander of the NATO Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan General John Nicholson said in his February 2017 evidence to the U.S. Senate, “Our mission was to ensure that Afghanistan would never again be a safe haven for al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups to attack America or our allies and partners. That mission has been successful for 15 years, but it is not over.”²¹

Other drivers are more case-specific. For example, in a conference organized by the Peace Research Institute Oslo in December 2018 on small-state provision of security force assistance (SFA), many of the conversations focused on how states could ensure that they were good allies and partners for major military powers.²² Providing troops to coalition missions such as NATO Resolute Support in Afghanistan or the air campaign against the Islamic State are a few examples where participants spoke of signaling their support to the U.S., while many interviewees in Mali cited showing support to the French as a component of why they were contributing to the EU Training Mission.²³ In the UK’s 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), the government committed to “focus on areas of comparative national advantage valued by key allies, especially the United States, such as our intelligence capabilities and highly capable elite forces.”²⁴ This was echoed in the 2015 SDSR which stated, “our special relationship with the US remains essential to our national security. It is founded on shared values, and our exceptionally close defence, diplomatic, security and intelligence cooperation.”²⁵

Following large-scale military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, some countries have also experienced increases in legislative scrutiny of military operations and shifting attitudes towards the costs in both blood and treasure of military engagement. In the UK for example, because remote warfare can offer the government military options that don’t require recourse to Parliament under the War Powers Convention, it makes it an attractive option for risk-averse governments that fear losing a vote.²⁶ The government’s failure to gain parliamentary authorization for the principle of military action in Syria on August 29, 2013 has compounded this fear. While research suggests that it is far from clear that the 2013 Syria vote was a marker of parliamentary pacifism,²⁷ the acceleration of today’s information age has certainly opened up military activities to greater debate and raised the risks for governments hoping to carry out discreet operations.²⁸ Low popular support for, or awareness of, enduring NATO commitments in Afghanistan was one of the factors that interviewees in Kabul cited for frustration on the ground, while extreme political risk aversion was cited as leading to very low appetites for accepting casualties on the NATO side.²⁹

Photo: Instructors from the European Union Training Mission in Somalia (EUTM) take Somali National Army (SNA) soldiers through training drills at Jazeera Training Camp in Mogadishu. AMISOM (Ryamond Baguma, 25 March 2015)

No Such Thing as a Perfect Partner

International Burden Sharing

It would be wrong to suggest that the template for working by, with, and through local partners is a new phenomenon. Wars have been fought alongside and integrated with allies and partners since antiquity.³⁰ The arming and supporting of rival factions reached fever pitch in the Cold War, when proxy wars enabled great powers to clash indirectly and—crucially—below the threshold for nuclear retaliation. However, contemporary operations have moved on from these past templates of waging war, not least in terms of international parties’ restricted reach and influence over the forces they fight alongside, who are partners rather than merely proxies.

In addition, military operations now include a growing number of actors; both local and regional partner forces, international organizations like NATO, and coalitions of local, community, or sub-state allies like the Peshmerga or Syrian Democratic Forces. In these “coalitions of the willing,” where the mission determines the coalition rather than the other way around, ³¹ partnerships can be fluid, ambiguous, and complex. These ad-hoc coalitions do not possess any international legal personality, nor are they recognized as legal persons within the states’ domestic legal systems, unlike more traditional alliance structures such as the UN or NATO.³² They also challenge the way that militaries are set up to run operations, with multiple red-card holders who can opt their national forces out of particular activities, multiple sets of rules of engagement, and varying risk appetites.³³

However, it is far from clear that the current approach to sharing the burden of operations across coalition partners is working. In Kabul in March 2017, only the American contingent had expeditionary rules of engagement that allowed them to accompany the troops that they were training.³⁴ Stringent restrictions on troop movements had a huge effect on the ability of troops to get out and build relationships with the people that they were meant to be supporting. One described how going to the Afghan MOD—which is down the road from Resolute Support Headquarters (HQ)—would require them to be accompanied by armored cars and given cover. Even walking to the U.S. Embassy, which is opposite Resolute Support HQ, would have required top armor and escort.³⁵ Interviewers were told that 25 percent of advisors could not currently advise because they did not have force protection.³⁶

It also appeared that the act of pledging troops was more important to some contributing countries than the question of what they would be doing when they got there. Indeed, some countries had not fully honored their pledges, with only around 12,000 of the 15,000 NATO places that had been promised actually filled in March 2017.³⁷ The change from earlier points in the mission seemed stark. Interviewees talked about how staff who had been out in Afghanistan before the drawdown and were then deployed back as part of Resolute Support asked why no one was speaking to their old contacts. The conclusion seemed to be that the current contingent had not been able to build those relationships because they could not get meaningful access to their local partners.³⁸

This appears to be a problem shared by other western troops. While interviewing recent returnees from the British training mission to AMISOM in Somalia, it was clear that troops were very aware that if anyone had got shot the mission could have been ended as a result. However, this led to a dilemma on the ground for those that wanted to have a meaningful effect and saw that they would not be able to do so on their current permissions. Some recounted how they had operated outside of their authorities in order to do their jobs—obviously a high risk considering the potential implications had anything gone wrong.³⁹ In a recent article for the British military outlet the Wavell Room, a soldier described how only two British personnel routinely went out into Mogadishu, and that these were the Chief J3 and J4 advisors for the European Union (EU) Training Mission.⁴⁰ While signaling support for allies is not necessarily a bad reason to join a coalition, if everybody is signaling rather than meaningfully engaging in a mission then chances of success seem slim.

Lead nations can also introduce dynamics into coalition partnerships that prove problematic for their allies. Negative public perceptions of the U.S. drones program in countries like the UK and Germany have led to huge political sensitivities around providing intelligence support or access to national facilities.⁴¹ For example, U.S. Col Patrick Ryder told the Guardian that the U.S. and the UK had consulted each other regarding the targeting of Junaid Hussain, a British computer hacker, adding “both governments will continue to coordinate efforts to eliminate violent extremist organisations.”⁴² Lieutenant-Colonel Nicholas Mercer, the British Army’s chief legal adviser in Iraq in 2003, said the confirmation of a British link to Junaid Hussain’s death raised “disturbing questions.”⁴³ This is particularly true when you consider the fact that, while the UK has admitted involvement in this successful strike against Junaid, it has kept very quiet about whether or not it was similarly involved in the first strike attempt which missed its target, instead killing three civilians.⁴⁴

In March 2019 a German court ruled that Germany was not doing enough to ensure that the U.S. was respecting international law in its use of Ramstein military base to conduct drone strikes. The German airbase provides the U.S. with a satellite relay station and personnel, which was enough for the court to declare that Germany played a “central role” in the strikes and therefore had an obligation to protect the lives of the Yemenis who brought the case after their relatives were killed.⁴⁵ In September 2017, a week-long protest against the U.S. drones program drew over 5,000 people to Ramstein.⁴⁶ While the German government often maintained that it had “no knowledge” of U.S. operations taking place at the base,⁴⁷ their assumption that the U.S. has not violated German or international law was found by the court to be based on an “inadequate investigation of facts.”⁴⁸

Risk Reduction or Risk Transfer?

The March 2018 British Army Field Manual Tactics for Stability Operations Part 5: Military Support to Capacity Building notes that one of the advantages of using capacity building as part of combat operations is that it allows UK forces to overcome “the problems of achieving sufficient mass” when British troops cannot be deployed in combat roles.⁴⁹ However, while there may only be a “‘light footprint” of western troops involved in operations, the commitment required from local troops remains considerable. Attrition rates for local military partners have been extremely high in contemporary campaigns. The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) does not release official statistics, but the death toll for its troops is estimated at over 4,000.⁵⁰ Since 2013, the UN mission in Mali has lost over 200 troops,⁵¹ while the Nigerian army is reportedly burying its own troops at night to conceal the toll of its fight against Islamist groups in the northeast.⁵² Attrition rates among Afghan forces have been consistently sky-high, with 6,700 deaths in just one year.⁵³ While remote warfare may seem low risk from the perspective of Western capitals, local troops are still paying heavily in these campaigns.

Photo: Devastation after the Battle for Mosul, July 9, 2017 (H. Mourdock)

Working “by, with, and through” can also transfer greater risks onto local populations. Many local militaries and armed groups are less equipped to mitigate civilian harm than their international counterparts. For example, senior British military personnel have recounted how Iraqi forces had been deeply traumatized by the experiences of 2014 and in many cases were reluctant to advance without heavier levels of international air support than might otherwise have been used in densely populated urban terrain. The consequences of this can be seen clearly in western Mosul, the final Islamic State stronghold in the city, where around 15 neighborhoods have been completely destroyed. These districts previously housed around 230,000 residents, leaving large numbers of internally displaced people who will not be able to return in the short- to mid-term.⁵⁴ The UN estimates that eight out of 10 buildings damaged in Mosul were residential buildings, with 8,475 houses destroyed—more than 5,500 of which were in west Mosul’s Old City.⁵⁵

Military coalitions can also be a “race to the bottom” when it comes to opening operations up to scrutiny.⁵⁶ The only member of the international anti-Islamic State coalition to consistently concede civilian casualties from its air campaign was the U.S., with other partners hesitant to distinguish their own strikes from those of the coalition as a whole.⁵⁷ Empowering local armed groups can also have negative long-term consequences for civilians when those forces are corrupt, abusive, or sectarian. A depressing 23 percent of the violent incidents against civilians recorded over the past 12 years was perpetrated by state forces rather than militia or rebel groups.⁵⁸ In some instances, building the capacity of predatory armed forces feeds a cycle of violence and conflict that contributes to the “forever wars” that define the contemporary international security environment.

For example, local security forces like the Afghan Local Police (ALP) were intended to address the growing problems of insurgency and lack of Afghan National Army legitimacy in the areas where the Taliban were drawing their support. However, reports of abuses against the local communities that they were meant to be protecting were also widespread. A survey of U.S. Special Operations Forces teams mentoring ALP units in 2011 found that 20 percent reported ALP colleagues were guilty of undefined “physical abuse/violence;” a further 12 percent reported bribe-taking. Between one-fifth and one-sixth reported that ALP indulged in salary fraud and theft. A smaller number witnessed rape, drug trafficking, drug abuse, and the selling or renting of ALP weapons and vehicles. Complaints of extortion and illegal taxation are commonplace. Some reports have even described ALP commanders selling the lives of their men: one allegedly accepted bribes equal to $500 per head to murder subordinates and killed six before capture. ALP in Faryab province were accused of raping, looting, and keeping a torture chamber with snakes at the bottom of a dry well.⁵⁹

In 2016/17 the UK spent £0.8 million delivering international humanitarian law (IHL) and preventing sexual violence modules through the EU Training Mission in Mali, with a further £0.87 million allocated for broader military and civilian support (with a focus on infantry, medical, and IHL) for 2018/19.⁶⁰ These master’s-degree level programs were optimistically delivered with the aim of professionalizing a force with limited education levels that has been linked to numerous violations including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and arbitrary arrests.⁶¹ The Malian armed forces and the broader Malian government have also been accused of ethnic bias. In central Mali, Bambara and Dogon ethnic armed groups have recently been acquiring heavy, war-grade weaponry—some of which presumed to be coming from the armed forces—that has increased the lethality of localized disputes.⁶²

In July 2017, Amnesty International released a report documenting the cases of 101 individuals accused of supporting Boko Haram—often without evidence—who were held incommunicado and allegedly tortured by Cameroonian security forces, including the elite Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR).⁶³ Created in 2001, the BIR is a special operations unit about 4,500 strong that has received security force assistance (SFA) from France, Israel, and the United States.⁶⁴ The BIR and other Cameroonian security institutions received IHL instruction as part of their technical training from the United States.⁶⁵ However, this has proven inadequate when it comes to altering heavy-handed approaches to countering terrorism and the politicization of the armed forces.

This is not to suggest that international partners should always cut assistance if their local partners prove to be corrupt or abusive. You can argue that increasing assistance and international presence in some of these environments would allow international partners to better scrutinize and influence behavior. However, there are also obligations that bind states to refrain from providing assistance that might cause or facilitate grave breaches of international humanitarian law.⁶⁶ Balancing the two is a dilemma, particularly if you subscribe to the view that donor states tend to overestimate the control they will have over their partners in the first place.⁶⁷

Taking A Peacebuilding Approach to Working with Local Partners

International military partners consistently misdiagnose poor behavior as stemming from a lack of training or capability.⁶⁸ There is a related assumption that improving the tactical proficiency of partner forces will address these concerns. While this logic may work in some places, a focus on military effectiveness as a criterion for partnership, or as a metric for success, creates its own dilemmas. This was captured by Frances Z. Brown and Mara Karlin:

“…the fact that it uses military criteria to choose a partner for a relationship that often evolves into a political one. If, as Clausewitz famously wrote, “war is a mere continuation of politics by other means,” the by-with-through model inverts this dictum, subordinating politics to … choices on the battlefield.”⁶⁹

For example, as soon as the Taliban government fell in 2001, armed groups within Afghanistan began competing for positions and influence. The international community came under immediate pressure to improve security and create the conditions for a transfer of power to a new Afghan administration. However, even as early as 2003, analysts were warning that, “Between September 2001 and June 2002 certain choices were made by national and international decisionmakers that have had long-lasting repercussions for the political process in Afghanistan.” ⁷⁰

In particular, the perceived capture of the process by powerful warlords who were then able to secure a place in the interim administration was seen as extremely damaging. Rather than pushing for a peace agreement in the sense of having a pact between warring parties, the Bonn process was geared at forging an agreement between leaders of four anti-Taliban groups that had been particularly instrumental to the international coalition that toppled the Taliban government.⁷¹ As early as 2002, experts were warning that “the Ministry of Defence [has become] a major obstacle to Demobilisation, Disarmament, and Reintegration (DDR) and the creation of the Afghan National Army (ANA).” ⁷²

Adopting a “winners take all” approach to engaging with local partners can exacerbate fragmentation on the ground in post-conflict societies. In many fragile contexts, governance and control is wielded through loose alliances between powerbrokers such as local strongmen, warlords, and militias.⁷³ These opaque and sometimes precarious relationships can dictate the development of political coalitions and lead to the intense politicization of armed groups, including the state armed forces. In weak states, the relative military might of different armed groups is one of the most crucial levers of power. In this context, foreign assistance can be an unintentional “kingmaker” as it strengthens parts of a fragmented system that may not serve the population or the stability of the state as a whole.⁷⁴ This creates incentives for elites to subvert assistance for their own purposes, while simultaneously engaging in corrupt or predatory behaviors that feed the instability that donors may be trying to address.⁷⁵

In other places, improving the tactical proficiency of units can create “islands of excellence” where small groups of elite forces are both willing and capable of protecting civilians,⁷⁶ but fail to deliver positive outcomes over the long-term. Efforts cannot be sustained unless the defense and security sector writ large also shares this ethos, and the political conditions on the ground support compatible values.⁷⁷ For example, one of the great international hopes from long-term international engagement in Iraq was the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS)—a multi-ethnic elite unit that showed some promise as a template for the broader security forces.⁷⁸ The CTS were largely considered to be a professional, sustainable force by the time international trainers left in 2011.

However, even in the early days after the international withdrawal it was clear that being the exception to the rule of low Iraqi National Army capacity had its downsides. Tasking began to come directly from the Prime Minister’s office, mostly for activities not suited to an elite counter-terrorism unit like securing voting centers, guarding convoys, and manning checkpoints. Experienced officers began to be replaced by people with connections to the Prime Minister, and the promotions system began to revert to a system based on loyalty rather than competence.⁷⁹ They were also removed from the Ministry of Defense chain of command to sit under its own ministry, but were not allocated money from the Iraqi defense budget.⁸⁰ Pouring money into specific units while the rest of the sector remains dysfunctional can contribute to the creation of “Fabergé egg” armies that are expensive to build but easy for insurgents to crack because the military as a whole lacks cohesion.⁸¹ Rethinking this technical approach to remote warfare that prioritizes improving the tactical effectiveness of local troops on the frontlines is essential if the long-term outlook for peace is to improve.

One potential solution has its roots in the increasing focus on the importance of local ownership. In theory working by, with, and through local forces should lay the foundations for locally owned, locally responsive, and culturally attuned approaches to security. The UK’s Building Stability Overseas Strategy emphasizes the need for conflict-sensitive international engagement abroad, advising that;

“the starting point needs to be … analysing and understanding the situation to ensure that work designed to build stability does not unintentionally make things worse. The chances of success are greatest when the international community gets behind a political settlement that lays the foundations for tackling the causes of conflict in a country.”⁸²

In new stabilization guidance issued in 2019, the British government highlights the fact that “externally-backed peace processes and agreements that are significantly misaligned or out of sync with the underlying distribution of power and resources are likely to fail.”⁸³ The U.S. government’s 2018 Stabilization Assistance Review notes that “our national experience over the past two decades has taught us that it is not enough to win the battle; we must help our local partners secure the peace.”⁸⁴ One blueprint would be to approach assistance as a form of peacebuilding for fragmented security sectors, with assistance geared towards improving relationships between the many formal and informal groups that are often providing security in these environments, as well as between the security sector and the civilians that it is there to serve.⁸⁵

This means working with a wider range of groups based on their provision of legitimate, accountable security to the population as a whole. This also means letting go of or deprioritizing more traditional criteria like military effectiveness. Different communities will have different needs and different experiences of insecurity in a rapidly changing conflict or post-conflict environment. It is important to capture these concerns when deciding on the right course of action. For example, groups that are seen as corrupt and abusive in some areas can be seen as a lifeline in others:

“I know that people in Kabul are talking about cancelling the ALP, but you don’t understand”, said a provincial governor, gesturing at the barbed wire along his compound’s perimeter. “Without those guys, the Taliban will climb over that wall and cut my head off.”⁸⁶

The dynamics of legitimate and effective security provision will vary both across communities and across time. This is also the case for the dynamics of fear, and perceptions of risk associated with the courses of action chosen by policymakers. Both require frequent consultation and re-evaluation to make sure that policies adapt to changing circumstances. The international community must be careful to avoid quick assumptions about the extent to which local groups will use their knowledge and links with the community to solve problems and reduce support for violent actors. Just because groups are local, they should not be assumed to be a proxy for local legitimacy. This is where community consultation and detailed mapping become essential to avoid violent competition between different groups vying for assistance. Rather than allowing international actors to set the criteria for group inclusion, this should be a locally led process that is driven by community responses to the question of; who do you support to provide your security and why?

This means adopting a new vision for delivering military assistance in fragile states where success is evaluated against the long-term impact of programs on prospects for peace and security. Peacebuilding metrics could include; the ethnic diversity of course attendance, attendance rates for marginalized ethnicities or genders, hierarchies (informal and formal) between soldiers who attend courses, and the strength of positive and negative interactions between attendees. Efforts to maximize the exposure to each other of units or services who might have poor or problematic relations should be boosted and rewarded, rather than measuring basic attendance figures, or recall of tactical skills and concepts.

This may mean accepting a form of assistance that integrates leaders from the government and security forces but would also include informal actors who hold local legitimacy in providing security. While this creates a messier picture, what is lost in efficiency may be gained in sustainability. Compacts between elite groups and donors are fragile and open to abuse by groups seeking to entrench their own power rather than tackle instability. Fictionalizing a state apparatus and then refusing to deal outside of it only serves to mask the deep divisions that remain. These agreements often fail to address issues around representation in the security sector, or behavior that prioritizes the protection of some groups over the population as a whole. Using assistance to create opportunities for broad community engagement and wider relationship-building within fragmented security sectors is an approach that is anchored in local realities, starting where actors are, not where third parties want them to be.

Conclusion

Taking a peacebuilding approach to working with local militaries and armed groups means using assistance to fragmented security sectors to increase cooperation between various formal and informal elites in a weak state. This approach places less emphasis on developing conventional military power and more emphasis on facilitating and improving relations between the different factions within the security sector and between the security sector and the civilian population.⁸⁷ If international providers help local partners perform better at military tasks without ensuring that the forces have local legitimacy and strong accountability, progress is likely to be fleeting and could actually exacerbate civilian harm and the underlying drivers of violent conflict.

These negative outcomes are not inevitable. In theory, working by, with, and through local forces should lay the foundations for locally owned, locally responsive and culturally attuned approaches to security. Local, national, and regional armed groups have the potential to provide crucial support to peace processes and they bear ultimate responsibility for protecting local populations. Finding a way to support the emergence of legitimate, accountable, and effective local, national, and regional security forces is an essential part of setting the conditions for lasting peace.

However, this cannot happen without policies that account for the fact that these same partners have the potential to be major spoilers or perpetrators of harm. Rather than developing strong procedures to manage these risks and dilemmas, the tendency in western capitals is currently to approach partner operations as a low-cost, low-risk form of war. Debates within western militaries tend to ignore the transfer of risk onto partner forces and local civilians, and local partners and NGOs are often excluded from the international policy debate. Fixing this means doing more than trying to improve the way that international militaries work with local partners. It means adjusting the vision for what success would really mean.

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Notes

¹ “Remote War: Military, Legal and Political Issues,” Oxford Research Group, accessed March 14, 2019, https://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/pages/category/remote-war-military-legal-and-political-issues; “Conceptual Series: Defining Remote Warfare,” Oxford Research Group, accessed June 26, 2019, .

² “Conceptual Series.”

³ Andreas Krieg and Jean-Marc Rickli, Surrogate Warfare: The Transformation of War in the Twenty-First Century (Georgetown University Press, 2019), .

⁴ “‘Light Footprint’ Operations Keep US Troops in the Dark,” Defense One, accessed June 26, 2019, ; Brad Stapleton, “The Problem with the Light Footprint: Shifting Tactics in Lieu of Strategy,” Cato Institute, June 7, 2016, .

⁵ Roger Carey, “Low-Intensity Warfare and Limited War,” in International Security in the Modern World, ed. Roger Carey and Trevor C. Salmon (London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1996), 133–51, .

⁶ “Civilians and ‘By, With, and Through’ | Center for Strategic and International Studies,” accessed June 26, 2019, .

⁷ Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and of Staff, “Counterterrorism,” October 24, 2014, .

⁸ Chairman of the Joint and Chiefs of Staff, “Counterinsurgency,” April 25, 2018, ; North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Allied Joint Doctrine for Counter-Insurgency (COIN),” accessed August 20, 2019, .

⁹ North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Allied Joint Doctrine for the Military Contribution to Peace Support,” December 2014, .

¹⁰ Emily Knowles and Abigail Watson, “Remote Warfare: Lessons Learned from Contemporary Theatres,” Oxford Research Group, June 27, 2018, .

¹¹ Congressional Research Service, “Army Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs),” October 24, 2018, .

¹² “Specialised Infantry Group,” accessed August 20, 2019, .

¹³ “Drones and the Future of Aerial Combined Arms,” War on the Rocks, May 12, 2016, ; “The French Turn to Armed Drones,” War on the Rocks, September 22, 2017, ; “Rise of the Drones | Rudolph Herzog,” Lapham’s Quarterly, accessed August 27, 2019, .

¹⁴ Knowles and Watson, “Remote Warfare,” 2–3.

¹⁵ Thomas Bolland and Jan Andre Lee Ludvigsen, “‘No Boots on the Ground’: The Effectiveness of US Drones against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,” Defense & Security Analysis 34, no. 2 (April 3, 2018): 127–43, ; “Planning for a U.S. Military Recessional From Africa,” Council on Foreign Relations, accessed August 20, 2019, .

¹⁶ Dr Sebastian Ritchie, “The RAF, Small Wars and Insurgencies in the Middle East, 1919-1939” (Air Historical Branch, 2011); Group Captain John Alexander, “The End of Air Power History and the Last Airman? Air Power, Liberal Democracy and the British Way of War,” in Air Power Review, vol. 14, 2, 2011.

¹⁷ Shiv Malik et al., “Ruhul Amin and Reyaad Khan: The Footballer and the Boy Who Wanted to Be First Asian PM,” The Guardian, September 7, 2015, sec. World news, .

¹⁸ Zak Doffman, “U.S. Attacks Iran With Cyber Not Missiles — A Game Changer, Not A Backtrack,” Forbes, accessed August 27, 2019, ; “US ‘launched Cyberattacks on Iran Weapons’ after Drone Downing,” accessed August 27, 2019, .

¹⁹ Harry Verhoeven, “The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Failed States: Somalia, State Collapse and the Global War on Terror,” Journal of Eastern African Studies 3, no. 3 (November 1, 2009): 405–25, .

²⁰ Anthony Dworkin, “Europe’s New Counter-Terror Wars” European Council on Foreign Relations, 2016, ; Brian Michael Jenkins, “Disrupting Terrorist Safe Havens,” RAND, August 18, 2014, . \\uc0\\u8221{} Time, June 4, 2017, http://time.com/4804640/london-attack-theresa-may-speech-transcript-full/.”,”plainCitation”:”Anthony Dworkin, Europe’s New Counter-Terror Wars (ECFR, 2016

²¹ John Nicholson, “Testimony on the Situation in Afghanistan,” § Senate Commitee on Armed Services (2017), .

²² SFAssist project hosted by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Norway, 5–7 December 2018.

²³ Author interviews, Koulikoro Training Camp, September 2018

²⁴ HMG, “Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The Strategic Defence and Security Review” (HM Government, 2010), 12, .

²⁵ HMG, “National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015: A Secure and Prosperous United Kingdom” (HM Government, November 2015), para. 2.12, .

²⁶ Emily Knowles, “We Need to Talk about Yemen,” Remote Control Project (blog), December 9, 2016, ; Emily Knowles, “Briefing: We Need Greater Transparency on UK Military Operations in Libya” (London: Remote Control, May 2016), ; Emily Knowles, “Britain’s Culture of No Comment,” Remote Control Project (blog), July 4, 2016, ; Emily Knowles, “What British War on Terror?,” Remote Control Project (blog), October 26, 2016, ; Emily Knowles and Abigail Watson, “All Quiet On The ISIS Front : British Secret Warfare In The Information Age,” Remote Warfare Programme (blog), March 31, 2017, ; Liam Walpole, “Mind the Gap: Parliament in the Age of Remote Warfare,” Remote Warfare Programme, October 2017, .

²⁷ Abigail Watson, “Pacifism or Pragmatism? The 2013 Parliamentary Vote on Military Action in Syria,” Remote Warfare Programme (blog), May 29, 2018, .

²⁸ Knowles and Watson, “All Quiet On The ISIS Front.”

²⁹ Author interviews, NATO RS, March 2017.

³⁰ Cordula Droege and David Tuck, “Fighting Together: Obligations and Opportunities in Partnered Warfare,” Humanitarian Law & Policy, March 28, 2017, .

³¹ Matteo Tondini, “Coalitions of the Willing,” in The Practice of Shared Responsibility in International Law, ed. Andre Nollkaemper and Ilias Plakokefalos (Cambridge University Press, 2017), 703.

³² Tondini, 713.

³³ Paul A. L. Ducheine, Michael N. Schmitt, and Frans P. B. Osinga, Targeting: The Challenges of Modern Warfare (Springer, 2015), 254; Katja Lindskov Jacobsen and Rune Saugmann, “Optimizing Coalition Air Warfare: The Emergence and Ethical Dilemmas of Red Card Holder Teams,” Global Policy 0, no. 0, accessed August 27, 2019, ; M. C. Zwanenburg, Accountability Of Peace Support Operations (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2005), 48; Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg and Volker Epping, International Humanitarian Law Facing New Challenges: Symposium in Honour of KNUT IPSEN (Springer Science & Business Media, 2007), 43.

³⁴ Author interviews, NATO RS, March 2017.

³⁵ Author interviews, NATO RS, March 2017.

³⁶ Author interviews, NATO RS, March 2017.

³⁷ Author interviews, NATO RS, March 2017

³⁸ Author interviews, NATO RS, March 2017.

³⁹ Author telephone interviews, Somalia, October 2016

⁴⁰ Ric Cole, “The Rebirth of ‘Frontier Soldiering’?,” The Wavell Room (blog), August 15, 2019, .

⁴¹ Louisa Brooke-Holland, “Research Briefings – Overview of Military Drones Used by the UK Armed Forces” (House of Commons, October 8, 2015), .

⁴² Alice Ross and Spencer Ackerman, “Former Navy Chief Expresses Concern over UK Role in Syria Drone Strikes,” The Guardian, September 10, 2015, sec. UK news, .

⁴³ Ross and Ackerman.

⁴⁴ Spencer Ackerman and Alice Ross, “Airstrike Targeting British Hacker Working for Isis Killed Three Civilians Instead, US Admits,” The Guardian, January 29, 2016, sec. US news, .

⁴⁵ “German Court Hands Partial Victory to Critics of U.S. Drone Deaths…,” Reuters, March 19, 2019, ; “Statement on UK Assistance to Partners Following Ground-Breaking German Court Ruling – All Party Parliamentary Group on Drones,” accessed August 27, 2019, ; “US Drone Attacks via Ramstein – ECCHR,” accessed August 27, 2019, .

⁴⁶ Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com), “Ramstein Air Base Anti-Drone Protests: The Germans Taking on the US Military | DW | 09.09.2017,” DW.COM, accessed August 27, 2019, .

⁴⁷ Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com), “Drones and Diplomacy: US Ramstein Air Base Stirs Controversy in Germany | DW | 14.03.2019,” DW.COM, accessed August 27, 2019, .\\uc0\\u8221{} DW.COM, accessed August 27, 2019, https://www.dw.com/en/drones-and-diplomacy-us-ramstein-air-base-stirs-controversy-in-germany/a-47926300.”,”plainCitation”:”Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com

⁴⁸ “German Court Says Potentially Illegal Drone Strikes Aided by Ramstein, despite USAF Denials,” Stars and Stripes, accessed August 27, 2019, .

⁴⁹ “Tactics for Stability Operations Part 5: Military Support to Capacity Building,” Army Field Manual, March 2018, paras. 2–13, .

⁵⁰ “The True Cost of the World’s Most Dangerous Peace Mission,” The East African, accessed August 27, 2019, .

⁵¹ “Fatalities,” United Nations Peacekeeping, accessed August 27, 2019, .

⁵² Joe Parkinson | Photographs by Jonathan Torgovnik for The Wall Street Journal, “Nigeria Buries Soldiers at Night in Secret Cemetery,” Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2019, sec. World, .

⁵³ Tony Walker, “We Should Not Commit Combat Troops to the Afghanistan Conflict – Here’s Why,” The Conversation, accessed June 8, 2017, .

⁵⁴ “Recovery in Iraq’s War-Battered Mosul Is a ‘tale of Two Cities,’ UN Country Coordinator Says,” UN News, August 8, 2017, .

⁵⁵ Lucy Rodgers, Nassos Stylianou, and Daniel Dunford, “What’s Left of Mosul?,” BBC News, accessed February 27, 2018, .

⁵⁶ “The Sum Of All Parts: Reducing Civilian Harm in Multinational Coalition Operations,” Center for Civilians in Conflict (blog), accessed August 27, 2019, .

⁵⁷ Airwars, “Limited Accountability: A Transparency Audit of the Anti-ISIL Coalition,” Remote Warfare Programme, December 2016, .

⁵⁸ Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), “ACLED Data Export,” ACLED Data, 13 April 2019, , accessed 22 April 2019. This figure is based on ACLED data from Africa, the Middle East, South East Asia for violent incidents against civilians recorded since 1997 by state forces, militia forces and rebel groups. Out of 57,982 recorded events, 13,195 of them were attributed to state forces.

⁵⁹ International Crisis Group, “The Future of the Afghan Local Police,” June 2015, 8, .

⁶⁰ Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF),
‘Sahel Support to Multilaterals: Annual Review’, HM Government, 2018, , accessed 2 April 2019; CSSF, ‘Sahel Defence and Security’, HM Government, 2019, , accessed 2 April 2019.

⁶¹ Human Rights Watch, ‘Mali: Unchecked Abuses in Military Operations’, 8 September 2017, , accessed 15 June 2019; France 24, ‘Twenty-Five Bodies Found in Central Mali After Army Sweep’, 18 June 2018, , accessed 19 June 2019; Afua Hirsch, ‘Mali’s Army Suspected of Abuses and Unlawful Killings as War Rages’, The Observer, 19 January 2013.

⁶² Human Rights Watch, ‘”We Used to be Brothers”: Self-Defense Group Abuses in Central Mali’, 7 December 2018; Anna Pujol-Mazzini, ‘How Mali is Pursuing Justice for a War That Never Really Ended’, World Politics Review, 29 January 2019.

⁶³ Amnesty International, ‘Cameroon’s Secret Torture Chambers: Human Rights Violations and War Crimes in the Fight Against Boko Haram’, 2017, , accessed 10 April 2019.

⁶⁴ BBC News, ‘Burning Cameroon: Images You’re not Meant to See’, 25 June 2018.

⁶⁵ Voice of Africa, ‘Cameroon: Armed Forces – BIR Commando Training Centre Graduates 1,850’, 26 December 2017, , accessed 14 June 2019; United States Army Africa, ‘Human Rights and Law Training’, 13 May 2019, , accessed 2 July 2019; Carla Babb, ‘US Keeps Training Cameroon Troops but Urges Accountability in Criminal Probe’, Voice of America, 27 September 2018, , accessed 14 June 2019.

⁶⁶ Emily Knowles and Abigail Watson, “Lawful But Awful? Legal and Political Challenges of Remote Warfare and Working with Partners” (Remote Warfare Programme, May 2018), .

⁶⁷ Stephen Biddle, “Building Security Forces & Stabilizing Nations: The Problem of Agency,” Daedalus 146, no. 4 (October 2017): 126–38, .many now see “small-footprint” security force assistance (SFA

⁶⁸ Emily Knowles and Jahara Matisek, “Western Security Force Assistance in Weak States,” The RUSI Journal 164, no. 3 (April 16, 2019): 10–21, .

⁶⁹ Mara Karlin and Frances Brown, “Friends With Benefits,” Foreign Affairs, May 8, 2018, .

⁷⁰ Rama Mani, “Ending Impunity and Building Justice in Afghanistan” (Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, December 2003), 1.

⁷¹ Emily Winterbotham, “The State of Transitional Justice in Afghanistan” (AREU, April 2010), 6.

⁷² Mani, “Ending Impunity and Building Justice in Afghanistan,” 2.

⁷³ William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999); Joel S Migdal, State in Society: Studying How States and Societies Transform and Constitute One Another (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

⁷⁴ Knowles and Matisek, “Western Security Force Assistance in Weak States.”

⁷⁵ Jahara Matisek and William Reno, ‘Getting American Security Force Assistance Right: Political Context Matters’, Joint Force Quarterly (No. 92, 1st Quarter, 2019), pp. 65–73.

⁷⁶ Knowles and Matisek, “Western Security Force Assistance in Weak States”; Knowles and Watson, “Remote Warfare.”

⁷⁷ “The Roots of Restraint in War,” Publication, International Committee of the Red Cross, June 6, 2018, .

⁷⁸ Knowles and Watson, ‘Remote Warfare’, p. 14.

⁷⁹ David M. Witty, “The Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service | Brookings Institution,” Brookings (blog), November 30, 2001, 28, .

⁸⁰ Office of the Secretary of Defense, “Department of Defense Budget FY2018,” May 2017, 6, .

⁸¹ Jahara Matisek, ‘The Crisis of American Military Assistance: Strategic Dithering and “Fabergé Egg” Armies’, Defense & Security Analysis (Vol. 34, No. 3, 2018), pp. 267–290.

⁸² HMG, “Building Stability Overseas Strategy” (HM Government, 2014), ; DFID, FCO, and MOD, “Building Stability Overseas Strategy” (HM Government, July 2011), .

⁸³ Stabilisation Unit, “The UK Government’s Approach to Stabilisation: A Guide for Policy Makers and Practitioners,” March 2019, .

⁸⁴ US Department of State, “Framework for Maximizing the Effectiveness of U.S. Government Efforts to Stabilize Conflict-Affected Areas,” Stabilization Assistance Review, 2018, .

⁸⁵ Knowles and Matisek, “Western Security Force Assistance in Weak States.”

⁸⁶ The International Crisis Group. “The Future of the Afghan Local Police,” June 2015, https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-asia/afghanistan/future-afghan-local-police.

⁸⁷ Lisa Schirch, Conflict Assessment and Peacebuilding Planning: A Strategic Participatory Systems-Based Handbook on Human Security (Boulder, CO: Kumarian Press, 2013).

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Download PDF, 15 pages.

The author, Emily Knowles, is an Associate Fellow at the Oxford Research Group.

Top Photo: Air Force air advisors assigned to the 409th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron brief the Niger Armed Forces (FAN) before training exercises in Agadez, Niger, July 10, 2019. The FAN learned how to efficiently and safely clear a building. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Devin Boyer)

This article was first published in PRISM Vol. 8, No. 4, June 11, 2020 by the National Defense University Press. Re-posted by SOF News with the permission of the PRISM editorial staff. View the original article here.

54th Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB) Activation

John Friberg — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 14:34:24 +0000

The 54th Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB) was formally activated by the U.S. Army during an official ceremony at Fort Bragg, North Carolina on March 5, 2020.

The establishment of the 54th SFAB has been in progress for over a year. The uncasing and display of the command and brigade colors marked the beginning of the unit’s history and lineage. The keynote speaker at the ceremony was General Michael Garrett – the commanding general of the United States Army Forces command.

The 54th SFAB is an Army National Guard unit composed of a brigade headquarters and six battalions. The brigade has units in Indiana, Georgia, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, and Florida. The 54th SFAB headquarters is part of the Indiana National Guard.

Mission. The mission of an SFAB is to carry out train, advise, and assist (TAA) missions with foreign nation military partners. Along with the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, the SFABs are the U.S. Army’s permanent and dedicated organizations specifically trained in the combat advisory role. The SFABs do not do the full range of missions assigned to Special Forces – such as counterterrorism (CT), direct action (DA), special reconnaissance (SR), unconventional warfare (UW), and other SOF missions.

Active Duty SFABs. The active Army has established five Security Force Assistance Brigades. The 1st SFAB completed a tour in Afghanistan in late 2018. The 2nd SFAB completed an Afghan tour in 2019. The 3rd SFAB is currently deployed to Afghanistan and a small element of the 3rd SFAB is in Iraq. Smaller elements of the SFABs have deployed to other locations around the world. The 4th and 5th SFABs are currently training up and are projected to deploy worldwide – most likely to the Pacific and Africa regions.

Training. Most members of the 54th must pass an assessment and selection process. Those personnel assigned to an advisor position attend the Combat Advisor Training Course at the Military Advisor Training Academy (MATA), Fort Benning. In addition, SFAB soldiers receive training on foreign weapons systems, driving, SERE, and medical subjects. SFAB soldiers also receive language and cultural training.

Unit Training. The national guard units in the individual states are conducting training events throughout the year. A typical training event is described in a November 2019 article published on DVIDS by the Georgia National Guard. Read “Georgia Guard’s 1-54th SFAB Conducts Team Assessment at Fort Benning, Georgia”, DVIDS, Nov 15, 2019.

OCONUS Missions. Some of the SFAB guard units have gotten an early start. Members of the Florida SFAB units deployed in the summer of 2019 to the Dominican Republic and trained up soldiers of Caribbean nations during a recent Tradewinds exercise. Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 54th SFAB (Florida) completed a five day exchange in the Commonwealth of Domica where they worked with the Dominica Police Force on tactics and techniques for policing operations and crime scene investigation.

Volunteers. The National Guard SFAB is accepting volunteers for advisor and non-advisor positions. The applicants for advisor positions are interviewed by commanders and senior NCOs. There is an assessment and selection process that applicants must pass. This consists of physical fitness tests, interviews, and other selection events. Learn more on how to become a National Guard SFAB combat advisor.

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References:

54th Security Force Assistance Brigade, SOF News, January 30, 2019
http://www.sof.news/sfa/54th-sfab/

54th Security Force Assistance Brigade Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/54SFAB/

Security Force Assistance Command (SFAC)
https://home.army.mil/bragg/index.php/units-tenants/SFAC

Photo: A Soldier from the Florida Army National Guard Security Forces Assistance Brigade (SFAB) advises a Haitian Soldier on the proper handling technique of a shotgun during Tradewinds 2019, at Las Calderas Naval Base, Dominican Republic. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Leia D. Tascarini, June 2019).

Paper – Defense Institution Building . . . by Design (JSOU, 2019)

John Friberg — Wed, 15 Jan 2020 14:30:43 +0000

Dr. Richard D. Newton, an operational planner at the Special Operations Command Africa, has written a paper about Defense Institution Building (DIB). He describes how DIB helps “. . . to enhance the capacity of allies and partners to sustainably man, train, equip, and independently employ their own military and security forces in support of common strategic interests.

The author notes that Security Force Assistance (SFA), Foreign Internal Defense (FID), and Joint/Combined Exchange Training (JCETS) have a long history in the U.S. special operations community. However, he points out that these missions are often not effective in achieving paradigm shifts that cause organizational transformation.

In his 30-page paper, Dr. Newton describes the purpose of Defense Institution Building and how it is different from SFA, FID, and JCETs. The paper reviews the history of DIB, current literature on DIB, relevant doctrinal publications, and challenges to DIB programs.

He then goes on to recommend taking a design-thinking approach for “designing, developing, and implementing a sustainable DIB partnership with a willing nation.” Newton offers as an example the case study of the transformation of Romania’s special operations forces – which was a priority effort for the Special Operations Command Europe.

In the post 9/11 environment U.S. SOF was focused more at the tactical level (advising combat units) than at the national level (institution building). The author has seen a slow change in approach since 2010 – with an increased focus towards security cooperation intent on institution building. The author concludes his paper with . . . “Since 2015, design-thinking has offered SOF planners and commanders a practical tool for problem-solving in the human domain.”

Defense Institution Building . . . by Design
By Richard D. Newton, Ph.D.
Joint Special Operations University (JSOU)
Department of Strategic Studies
JSOU Press – Occasional Paper
December 2019
https://jsou.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=51643902

Bio of Dr. Newton. Richard Newton has a long history in the special operations community. He served 22 years in the U.S. Air Force as a combat rescue and special operations helicopter pilot; as well as a combat aviation advisor, planner, and educator. Newton continued his service in the SOF community as a senior faculty member at the Joint Special Operations University. He is an educator, planner, researcher, and curriculum developer in the fields of air-ground integration, irregular and asymmetric warfare, and special operations.

Marine Corps Advisor Company (MCAC)

SOF News — Thu, 13 Jun 2019 08:00:16 +0000

The Marine Corps Advisor Company or MCAC is a new unit that has been established to provide trained and capable military advisors to work with foreign militaries and security forces of partner nations. The MCAC units will focus exclusively on training, equipping, and deploying military advisor teams that will operate around the world.

Eventually there will be four Marine Corps Advisor Companies. The first two MCACs – part of the Marine Corps reserves – were formally activated on June 7, 2019 at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling (JBAB) – MCAC Alpha and MCAC Bravo. Both MCACs will provide Marine Corps Advisor Teams (MCATs) to conduct the Security Force Assistance mission with partner nation militaries at or above the brigade level.

Marines who are assigned to the MCACs will attend the four-week long Marine Advisor Course at the Marine Corps Security Cooperation Group (MCSCG). the MCSCG carries out foreign military training and cooperation as well as training Marine advisors in culture, foreign weapons handling, force protection, and other advisor skills. The MCSCG was stood up in 2012.

In addition, the Marine advisors will conduct unit training and attend military schools that increase their skills – such as shooting, communicating, and battlefield survival. Advisory skills such as knowing the human terrain and cross-cultural communications, negotiations, and more will be trained up.

The MCAC advisor teams are rank-heavy – a requirement for advising at foreign militaries at the brigade or higher level. The MCATs are led by a colonel or lieutenant colonel and structured like an infantry battalion staff. The officers and NCOs have expertise in one or more of the functional areas of operations, intelligence, fires, logistics, and communications.

Advising is not a new mission for U.S. Marines. In the past several decades there have been several programs, courses, and schools to train Marines for the advisory mission. However, what has been lacking in the past has been a permanent and professional advisory corps.

In the history of the Marine Corps advisors and trainers have been employed in places such as Latin America, Vietnam, the Philippines, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Georgia. The Marines were busy advising and training during the “Banana Wars” in Central America and the Caribbean in the first part of the twentieth century as well as in the later part of the century. In Vietnam the Marines took part in the Combined Action Program (CAP) – where they worked with the paramilitary Popular Forces (PF). The Marines also trained and advised the Vietnamese Marine Corps (VNMC).

In Afghanistan, the Marines provided advisor teams to train up the Afghan National Army 201st Corps in the early years of the conflict. Most recently Marines have been conducting the Security Force Assistance mission in Afghanistan as part of Task Force Southwest in Helmand province. They are advising and training the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF).

In the establishment of the MCACs the Marine Corps has recognized the importance of a permanent advisory corps. This moves follows the formation six Security Force Assistance Brigades by the U.S. Army in the past two years. The formation of the MCACs shows that the Marine Corps is shifting from the ad hoc nature of advising efforts to one with a more permanent capability. The personnel of the newly established Marine Corps Advisor Companies will certainly be busy in the future!

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References: For a detailed examination about the Marine Corps advisory missions of the past read United States Marine Corps Advisors: Past, Present, and Future, CNA Analysis & Solutions, August 2013. (PDF, 136 pages).

Photo: Col. Christopher Douglas, senior advisor with the 505th Zone National Police (left), and BG Benjamin Watson, CG of Task Force Southwest (TFSW), conduct planning for operation Maiwand 11 with the Afghan National Defense and Security Force (ANDSF) leadership at Bost Airfield, Afghanistan, Jan. 25, 2018. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Conner Robbins).

54th Security Force Assistance Brigade

SOF News — Wed, 30 Jan 2019 06:00:00 +0000

Army National Guard’s Newest Unit

The Army National Guard is in the process of establishing one of the Army’s six Security Force Assistance Brigades or SFABs. These new units are the brainchild of Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley. He sees the SFABs as a professional and permanent advisory unit that can provide training, advice, assistance, and enablers to partner nation military forces. This article will explore the mission of the SFAB, selection criteria for volunteers, the advisor training unit members undergo, locations of the units of the 54^th SFAB, and possible future missions of the unit.

The 54^th Security Force Assistance Brigade is the sixth SFAB to be established. The other five SFABs are active duty Army brigades. The 1^st SFAB is based at Fort Benning and just recently returned from a nine-month long deployment to Afghanistan. The 2^nd SFAB, based at Fort Bragg, is scheduled for an early 2019 deployment to Afghanistan. The 3^rd SFAB has been established at Fort Hood. The 4^th and 5^th SFAB will be based at Fort Carson, Colorado and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington.

The 54^th SFAB will be spread across several states. The brigade headquarters is located at Stout Field Armory in Indianapolis, Indiana. The locations of the SFAB’s battalions are listed below:

1^st Bn (Infantry), Columbus, Georgia
2^nd Bn (Infantry), Pinellas Park, Florida
3^rd Bn (Cavalry), Gainesville, Florida
4^th Bn (Field Artillery), Dallas, Texas
5^th Bn (Engineer), Columbus, Ohio
6^th Bn (Support), Rock Island, Illinois

The Security Force Assistance Brigades provide a specialized unit for advisory missions. The SFABs will allow the Army to free up conventional brigade combat teams from advisory and training missions; which will allow them to train for their warfighting missions. The 54^th SFAB has approximately 800 personnel in its force structure. The ranks are primarily E5 and above. Over 560 of the personnel slots are combat advisor positions.

The mission of the SFAB is to advise, assist, train, enable, and accompany conventional units of partner and allied nations. Currently the 1^st and 2^nd SFABs are allocated to CENTCOM; with deployments to Afghanistan. It is likely that the remainder of the SFABs will be destined for CENTCOM deployments in the near future. National Guard soldiers can volunteer for this unique unit but they must meet some SFAB selection criteria. The volunteers need to have a Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) authorized by the SFAB structure, should be fully deployable, be in good medical condition, have a score of 240 or higher on the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT), and have a secret clearance. Key leader positions may require an interview by the SFAB commander or command sergeant major.

Volunteers will attend a two-day assessment and selection process. This consists of a number of physical events such as the APFT, pull-ups, obstacle course, and 5-mile ruck march with 50 pounds. The candidates will undergo a leadership reaction course, take an MOS proficiency test, a warrior skills test, and write an ethical dilemma essay. In addition, during the two-day process there will be peer evaluations.

The personnel who volunteer for the SFAB will receive specialized training. Part of being an effective advisor is knowing the language and culture of the partner nation force – so an advisor will receive a significant amount of training in those areas. Some members of the unit will receive foreign weapons training so they are accustomed to the small arms, mortars, and artillery of partner nation forces. In addition to the specialized training members of the SFAB will also participate in unit collective training. Prior to a combat deployment the brigade will very likely attend a rotation at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk.

Photo caption: Members of 4th Bn 1st SFAB receive training at JRTC. Photo by SGT Arjenis Nunez, 1st SFAB, Jan 20, 2018.

Many soldiers of the SFAB will attend the Combat Advisors Training Course (CATC) at Fort Benning, Georgia. The CATC is the primary course of the Military Advisor Training Academy (MATA) at Fort Benning. The course is approximately one month long; although it may increase to six weeks in the future. Members of the 54^th SFAB started attending the CATC as early as the spring of 2018. The advisor course provides students to work together in small teams to solve challenging problems.

The current commander of the 54^th SFAB, Colonel Jeff Hackett, is a member of the Indiana Army National Guard. His previous position was as Indiana’s director of plans, training, and operations. Hackett has served as an infantry officer for more than two decades and has commanded at the platoon, company, and battalion level. He is a graduate of the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College, U.S. Army War College, Airborne course, and Ranger School.

Photo caption: CPT David Zak 1st SFAB Afghanistan, advising ANA officer about security in Logar province, Afghanistan. Photo by Lt. Aubrey Page, U.S. Navy, August 7, 2018.

The advisor mission is not new to the Army National Guard. Early on in the Afghan conflict the Army National Guard provided the headquarters for the training mission of the newly formed Afghan security forces. Task Force Phoenix was responsible for the deployment of hundreds of Embedded Training Teams (ETTs) that worked alongside the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP). In Iraq many of the Military Transition Teams (MiTTs) came from units or individuals of the Army National Guard

The establishment of the Security Force Assistance Brigades should provide the Army with the ability to field professional advisor units to many areas of the world. The near future will likely see brigade level rotations into combat zones like Afghanistan and Iran similar to the just completed Afghan deployment of the 1^st SFAB and the scheduled deployment of the 2^nd SFAB. Once the requirement for advisors and trainers for Afghanistan and Iraq diminish it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine smaller units deploying to countries in Africa to conduct security force assistance missions. The 54^th may be one of the SFABs sending off twelve-man advisor teams for short (a few weeks) or long (several months) advise and assist missions overseas.

2nd SFAB – Security Force Assistance Brigade

John Friberg — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 06:00:09 +0000

The 2nd SFAB or Security Force Assistance Brigade is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan in early 2019. The unit was formed up in early 2018 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. It has been moving into its new compound, receiving personnel and equipment, and conducting training for its advisory mission in Afghanistan. The 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade returned from its nine month long mission in November 2018.

SFAB Concept

The formation of the SFABs is based on the recognition of the need to have a permanent, professional advisor force – in addition to that of U.S. Army Special Forces. Under General Milley’s guidance the professional advisor corps concept has finally come to fruition. General Milley and others have come to the conclusion that the U.S. is likely to be involved in train, advise, and assist operations for some time in the future. The SFABs are a very high priority for the Army. The Army plans to have a Security Force Assistance Command (SFAC) and six SFABs up and running by 2022.

2nd SFAB Start Up

In December 2017 the U.S. Army announced that it would begin the formation of the second of six Security Force Assistance Brigades at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The decision to base the new unit at FBNC included the projected time to activate and train the 2nd SFAB, the presence of senior grade personnel to man the unit, and the capability of FBNC to provide the facilities and training resources needed to base the unit. Fort Bragg is one of the largest military installations of the U.S. Army.

Organization

Although based on the brigade combat team (BCT) model the unit has only 800 personnel. There will be a headquarters unit and several battalions – each battalion providing combat advisor teams. The advisor teams are small – usually 12 members per team. In addition, additional personnel may be assigned or attached to the team to provide force protection.

Personnel

The 2nd SFAB commander is Brigadier General Donn Hill. He was most recently the XVIII Airborne Corps’ G/3/5/7 at Fort Bragg, NC. CSM Ken Killingsworth is the 2nd SFAB Command Sergeant Major.

Many of the unit members arrived over the summer of 2018, reassigned from other Army units from Fort Bragg and from around the country. Most of the personnel are senior and noncommissioned officers. The ideal SFAB Soldier already has expertise and experience in training and advising foreign military forces. The unit commanders and leaders in the 2nd SFAB will have already commanded similar units at the same echelon. So the officers and senior NCOs should be very experienced in their positions.

For instance, one of the 2nd SFAB battalion commanders is LTC Johnny Casiano. He is the former commander of the 1st Battalion, 77th Armor Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Armor Division at Fort Bliss, Texas. The Senior Enlisted Leader is CSM Craig Jeffrey who formerly was with Fort Bliss’s 3-41 Infantry, 1st Brigade, 1st Armor Division. [1]

There are over 70 different military occupational specialties (MOSs) required to fill an SFAB. These MOSs include infantry, medics, intell analysts, logistics, and more. Not all personnel will be advisors. All personnel in the SFAB need to be able to deploy.

2nd SFAB Soldiers training at Fort Benning, March 10, 2018.

Advisor Training

The personnel who will perform advisor duties within 2nd SFAB have or will attend the Combat Advisor Training Course at the Military Advisor Training Academy (MATA), Fort Benning, Georgia. Although the MATA is ‘advertised’ as a six-week long advisor training course the training being conducted is abbreviated at this time.

The subjects covered in the Combat Advisor Training Course at Fort Benning include instruction in map reading, land navigation, medical training, personnel recovery, culture, advisor assessment, training development, antiterrorism, and force protection. [2]

The length of training for most 1st SFAB Soldiers at the MATA was two weeks. For most 2nd SFAB Soldiers the MATA course is reported to be four weeks long. In addition, the future advisors will receive home-station training at FBNC as well as further advisor training at JRTC. Many of the officers and NCOs already have advisor experience in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

2nd SFAB convoy training with MRAPs at FBNC.
(Photo by Spc. Andrew McNeil, 22nd Mobile Public Affairs
Detachment, U.S. Army, October 24, 2018.)

2nd SFAB Training at FBNC

The personnel in an SFAB have or will be screened for their qualifications and experience. [3] Once accepted into the SFAB some of the Soldiers – depending on their role in the unit – will attend the Military Advisor Training Academy. In addition, many will attend specialized training – language, foreign weapons, and the Joint Fires Observer course. In addition to the ‘battlefield survival’ training and traditional unit pre-deployment training, members of the 2nd SFAB will undergo training in language, culture, negotiation and mediation. There are a number of different job specialties on a combat advisor team – and there is a fair amount of cross-training that takes place at team level. Typical cross-training would include medical skills, communications, call for fire, vehicle maintenance, and more. The 2nd SFAB is being assisted in training for the Afghan deployment by members of the 1st SFAB who have recently returned from their Afghan deployment.

In October the 2nd SFAB held training events at Fort Bragg. This training went beyond the individual and specialized training Soldiers had been taken part in since the summer months. Training events included mounted and dismounted patrolling, medevacs, calls for fire, and security operations. The October training was part of the process to prepare for the brigade’s validation at JRTC.

An instructor provides cultural training to members of the
2nd SFAB attending the Security Force Assistance Course at Fort Polk.
(Photo by Chuck Cannon, December 6, 2018).

Security Force Assistance Course

In December the 2nd SFAB leadership team attended a week-long class on security force assistance in Afghanistan. The personnel of Alpha Company, 3rd Battalion, 353rd Infantry Regiment at the Joint Readiness Training Operations Group at Fort Polk, LA provided the theater-specific training.

Alpha company maintains a liaison officer (LNO) in Afghanistan to provide feedback to the Security Force Assistance course instructors on specific questions and important events taking place in Afghanistan. The JRTC unit will also send 10 linguists with the 2nd SFAB when the brigade deploys to Afghanistan. The goal of the SFA course is to get 2nd SFAB senior officers and NCOs more familiar with the future advisory role in Afghanistan.

JRTC Rotation

In January 2019 the 2nd SFAB will attend a Joint Readiness Training Center rotation at Fort Polk, La. JRTC doesn’t certify individual SFAB Soldiers as advisors, that is done at the MATA. But those Soldiers who did not attend the MATA will receive some advisor training. The JRTC rotation will certify the unit for its Afghan deployment.

Deployment to Afghanistan

The 2nd SFAB is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan where it will field more than 30 combat advisor teams. [4] The teams will likely be dispersed throughout the country – most likely serving at the corps and brigade level (Afghan units) as advisors and trainers. Some teams may serve at the kandak (battalion) level.

(Editorial Note: Since this article was published President Trump has looked at the possibility of reducing the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan by 7,000 troops. This could have an impact on the 2nd SFAB deployment).

No Overlap with 1st SFAB

One aspect of the 2nd SFAB deployment to Afghanistan is that there is no overlap of the SFABs in theater. Usually when one unit replaces another there is a ‘left seat right seat’ transition on a unit and individual basis. Typically the arriving unit would phase in its personnel and equipment over a two-week period while the departing unit would start sending its personnel and equipment home. From an advisor standpoint this is a critical event. An advisor who has worked with his Afghan counterpart would have an opportunity to brief up his replacement and then introduce his replacement to his Afghan counterpart – an important transition.

Unfortunately, the 1st SFAB completed its Afghan deployment in November, and there will be no in-country transition with 2nd SFAB. With several months in between the SFAB deployments this is a less than optimum circumstance. It was probably considered an acceptable risk to have a gap in the two SFABs during quieter winter months when insurgent activity is not at its peak.

This lack of overlap is being compensated by four actions. One is that there has been a steady flow of information from the 1st SFAB to the 2nd SFAB – sharing lessons learned – during 1st SFABs deployment and continuing to the present now that the 1st SFAB is back at Fort Benning. A second is that selected members of the 1st SFAB are attending / observing 2nd SFAB training, at Fort Bragg, during the SFA course held at Fort Polk in December, and during the January JRTC training rotation. A third is that some members of the 2nd SFAB may deploy earlier than usual – something that units rotating in and out of Afghanistan should have been doing for years . . . but didn’t. A fourth is that selected members of the 1st SFAB – possibly as many as 100 – will accompany the 2nd SFAB into Afghanistan for the first few initial weeks to assist with the transition and to conduct ‘first engagement’ meetings with the Afghan counterparts. [5] Someone did some solid thinking to come up with this fix.

Lessons Learned

The 1st SFAB has passed on some lessons learned (LL) to the 2nd SFAB. Many of the lessons brought back by 1st SFAB “. . . pertain to getting out and doing patrolling again with Afghan partners instead of just staying at FOBs (forward operating bases).” [6] Other LL include the insider threat facing advisors and the importance of feeding “bottom up” feedback to coalition partners and the higher echelons of the ANDSF.

Logistical Support in-Country

Providing support to a unit that will disperse its elements across Afghanistan is problematic. The 2nd SFAB will be spread out among the many different Train, Advise, and Assist Commands (TAACs) and Task Forces. In addition, the small teams will need to be supported by host units and will require access to logistical and equipment support that larger units normally have available within their organic capabilities. There are some ‘lessons learned’ from the recent deployment of the 1st SFAB to Afghanistan – one of which is that SFABs need more logistics support than anticipated. The “. . . SFABs need a more robust logistics structure, . . .” [9]

An advisor and interpretor conduct an interview with a ‘local national’ under
the watchful eye of a Guardian Angel during training for the Wisconsin National
Guard’s 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry Regiment at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin in
October. The 2-127th was preparing for its role as security force for the 2nd
Security Force Assistance Brigade’s deployment to Afghanistan in 2019.
(Photo by Chuck Cannon, JRTC, November 2, 2018.)

Guardian Angels

The insider attacks that took place in the summer and fall of 2012 almost derailed the ISAF mission in Afghanistan. This period was the height of the ‘green-on-blue’ threat with numerous incidents of US and NATO troops being killed by Afghan security force members. A number of measures were instituted to mitigate the insider threat in late 2012 and the years following. One force protection measure that seems to have helped diminish the insider threat is the use of ‘Guardian Angels’. These personnel are selected and trained to protect advisors working with the ANDSF. So while the advisor is traveling to, from, or conducting training or attending meetings with the ANDSF the Guardian Angels are looking out for the advisor’s safety. This allows the advisor to concentrate on his primary task of advising, training, assisting, and enabling his ANDSF counterpart and unit.

Usually the Guardian Angels are formed from within the advisory unit. However, the 2nd SFAB will be working with a Wisconsin Army National Guard unit for its force protection. About 400 Soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry are assigned this task. This is the first time the unit will be deployed to Afghanistan. [7] The unit has had deployments to Iraq in 2005-06 and 2009-10. The personnel of the 127th recently received training from the Joint Readiness Training Center based at Fort Polk, La. The unit members will also attend the January 2019 JRTC rotation at Fort Polk with the 2nd SFAB. [8]

Conclusion

Based on reading open source material available in the media, news releases by the U.S. Army, social media platforms, and other sources it appears that the establishment and training of the 2nd Security Force Assistance Brigade is on track. The unit should be ready for its deployment to Afghanistan and it will very likely have a successful deployment. Hopefully, the 2nd SFAB will perform as well or better than the 1st SFAB and will further validate the SFAB concept of permanent, professional advisor units. In addition, there is the opportunity to further develop the capabilities and effectiveness of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces during the 2nd SFAB deployment.

Footnotes

[1] See “Bliss’ Casiano will help to train, develop militaries with partner nations”, El Paso Times, January 13, 2018.

[2] For more on instruction offered at the MATA see “2nd SFAB Training as Combat Advisors at Fort Benning”, Benning News, March 2, 2018.

[3] For more on screening of SFAB personnel see “SFAB Selection for Security Assistance Brigade”, SOF News, November 4, 2017.

[4] The Afghan deployment of 2nd SFAB was announced in “Department of the Army announces upcoming 2nd Security Force Assistance Brigade unit rotation”, U.S. Army Public Affairs.

[5] See “In unusual move, Army trainers will leave Afghanistan, return months later to help next unit”, Stars and Stripes, October 25, 2018.

[6] For lessons learned from 1st SFAB see “A Co, 353rd Inf Reg preps 2nd SFAB leaders for deployment”, Fort Polk PAO – DVIDS, December 14, 2018.

[7] “Wisconsin Guard soldiers given send-off for Afghanistan”, WAOW.com, November 29, 2018.

[8] See “Fort Polk Soldiers train Wisconsin Guardian Angels”, Fort Polk Public Affairs Office (DVIDS), November 2, 2018.

[9] See “US Army’s second SFAB unlikely to deploy with added logistics support”, Janes.com, November 7, 2018.

References

Collection of news stories about the 2nd SFAB
by Afghan War News.
www.afghanwarnews.info/sfa/sfab/2nd-SFAB-news.htm

ATP 3-96.1, Security Force Assistance Brigade, May 2018.
Access at https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/. . . .

2nd Security Force Assistance Brigade, FBNC.
www.bragg.army.mil/index.php/units-tenants/xviii-airborne-co/security-force-assistance-brigades

Fact Sheet, Security Force Assistance Brigade, February 17, 2017.
www.army.mil/standto/2017-02-17

Frequently Asked Questions on SFABs, FBNC, (FAQ PDF)
SFAB FAQ.

SFAB Recruiting – Careers & Jobs.
GoArmy.com

GAO Report on Advising. Security Force Assistance: U.S. Advising of Afghan National Army Has Expanded since 2015, and the U.S. Army Has Deployed a New Advising Unit, Government Accountability Office, December 19, 2018.
https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/696165.pdf

Army Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs), Congressional Research Service (CRS), October 24, 2018.
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/IF10675.pdf

Military Advisor Training Academy – MATA

John Friberg — Sat, 09 Dec 2017 08:00:18 +0000

MATA – The Military Advisor Training Academy is located at Fort Benning, Georgia. The purpose of the school is to prepare Soldiers for a future assignment as advisors to foreign military forces.

MATA Course Scope. The academy will provide to the student a doctrinal base for understanding the role of the train, advise, and assist (TAA) mission. The student will be able to engage in security cooperation planning and assessment considerations and conduct advisory missions.

Training Objectives. Upon completion of the course the student should have a knowledge, understanding, or be able to demonstrate: [1]

Doctrinal training in support of Security Force Assistance (SFA)
Demonstrate cultural awareness
Demonstrate knowledge of host nation interactions
Demonstrate use of Information Operations (IO)
Understand the utilization of interpreters
Knowledge ad skills necessary to be an advisor

Origins of the MATA Course. The concept development for the course began in November 2016. In March and April 2017 the cadre began their assignment with the MATA at Fort Benning. The first MATA instruction took place in August 2017. The MATA is part of the 316th Cavalry Brigade and the Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning. The Maneuver Center of Excellence, the Army’s proponent for brigade-level security force assistance, will oversee the academy. The U.S. Army had established an advisor course at Fort Riley, Kansas. This course was later moved to Fort Polk, Louisiana.

The Original MATA. The Fort Benning MATA is not the first MATA that the Army has established. During the early years of the the Vietnam War, U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina conducted a six-week long advisor training course. The Military Assistance Training Advisor (MATA) course was established in 1962 as part of the U.S. Army Special Warfare School. [2] It prepared conventional U.S. Army officers and NCOs for assignments as advisors to Vietnamese Army units. Instructors were Special Forces NCOs highly trained in conducting Foreign Internal Defense (FID) missions. Special Forces from the 1960s and 1970s may fondly remember the “MATA Mile” – a running course through the woods alongside Gruber Road. Students were provided with ST 31-179, MATA Handbook for Vietnam, January 1966. [3]

Training the 1st SFAB. Currently the MATA is preparing Soldiers of the 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB) for their upcoming deployment to Afghanistan in early 2018. The plan is for every Soldier assigned to an advising team with the brigade to attend the MATA prior to the brigade’s deployment.

SFABs. The Army’s Security Force Assistance Brigades are a new, permanent unit purposefully built to train, advise, assist, accompany, and enable (TA3E) allied and partnered indigenous forces. The SFABs help combatant commanders to accomplish theater security objectives. The 1st SFAB is the first brigade to stand up. Five more SFABs will be established; one to be in the Army National Guard.

MATA Instructors. Only Soldiers with recent advisor experience are sought for instructor duty at the academy. The school reaches out to the field (theaters) for information on how to improve the course. The academy will have a cadre of approximately 70 instructors, including some Special Forces Soldiers.

Training. Incorporated in the course are several ‘must know’ topics. One of the more important ones is how to conduct a ‘key leader engagement’ or KLE. Mock KLEs are conducted to provide the opportunity for future advisors to engage with a counterpart while using an interpreter. The KLEs prepare the future advisors with an experience in using face-to-face engagement techniques, cultural understanding, and how to build rapport.

MATA Curriculum. The subject matter introduced in the course is applicable to any location but it can also be tailored for specific geographic regions. Advisor techniques are generally universal. The initial six-week course will be followed by training in foreign languages, cultural studies, and foreign weapons.

Key Attributes. An advisor must have some key attributes to be successful. Some of these key attributes include self-motivation, critical thinking skills, empathy, active listening, and teamwork.

Future. It is planned that the remaining five SFABs will go through advisor training at the academy. For the time being the 3-353rd Armor Battalion at Fort Polk, Louisiana, will continue training Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) to handle security force assistance missions.

Footnotes:

[1] Military Advisor Training Academy (MATA) website
www.benning.army.mil/armor/316thCav/MATA/

[2] Helmus, Todd C., Advising the Command: Best Practices from the Special Operations Advisory Experience in Afghanistan, RAND Corporation, 2015, 38.
www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR949.html

[3] U.S. Army, MATA Handbook for Vietnam, US Army Special Warfare School, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, January 1966 (Revised)

References:

May, Capt. John, Military Advisor Training Academy prepares 1st SFAB as combat advisors, U.S. Army.
www.army.mil/article/197404/

Sheftick, Gary, New Academy Will Train Security Force Assistance Brigades, TRADOC News Center, February 17, 2017.
http://tradocnews.org/new-academy-will-train-security-force-assistance-brigades/

Army creates Security Force Assistance Brigade and Military Advisor Training Academy at Fort Benning, U.S. Army Public Affairs, February 16, 2017.

ATP 3-96.1 Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB)

John Friberg — Sun, 19 Nov 2017 02:47:43 +0000

UPDATE: ATP 3-96.1 is now in final form, published in May 2018.
Access ATP 3-96.1 here.

ATP 3-96.1, Security Force Assistance Brigade is due to be published (final version) in January 2018. The Army Techniques Publication – ATP 3-96.1 provides doctrinal guidance and direction for how the security force assistance brigade (SFAB) plans, prepares, and executes operations globally. It focuses on the SFAB conducting security force assistance (SFA) and advising foreign security forces. It is based on lessons learned from previous advising efforts and recent combat operations with a view to the future. The ATP provides the framework for conventional forces to conduct SFA within the construct of unified land operations. It addresses SFA at operational and tactical levels.

https://tjaglcspublic.army.mil/atp-3-96.1

SFAB Selection for Security Force Assistance Brigade

John Friberg — Sat, 04 Nov 2017 14:02:41 +0000

SFAB Selection – The 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade (1st SFAB) has a two-day candidate assessment process for its incoming personnel. The SFAB selection takes place at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Six SFAB Units. The U.S. Army plans on establishing six Security Force Assistance Brigades over the next several years. The 1st SFAB has already stood up at Fort Benning, Georgia and it is currently undergoing pre-deployment training for a tour in Afghanistan that will begin in early 2018. The SFAB mission is to provide tacticians who can train, advise, assist, accompany, and enable allied and partner nation armies. Rumor has it that this mission has spawned a new acronym – TA3E – which is somewhat similar to the “TAA” found within the OTERA acronym that describes the Security Force Assistance mission.

Evaluation. The “assessment events evaluate a candidates physical attributes, problem solving, communication, inter-personal skills as well as their ethical perspectives.”

Two-Fold Assessment. Colonel Scott Jackson, the commander of the 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade, says that the candidate must meet the U.S. Army’s standards derived from the unit’s mission profile and also possess the mental and personal attributes to be an effective advisor.

Past Advisory Experiences of U.S. Army. In the past, the U.S. Army has deployed advisory teams throughout many conflicts (Korea, Vietnam, etc.). Over the past decade and a half advisory teams have deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, these conventional force advisory teams were ‘ad hoc’ in nature – temporary arrangements with spotty selection and training practices prior to deployment. The SFAB units of the U.S. Army are a step in the right direction to have a professionalized conventional force advisory capacity and capability.

Complementing SF FID Capability. The SFAB advisor teams will complement the advisory effort that the U.S. Army Special Forces engage in with foreign armies (Foreign Internal Defense of FID). Special Forces has had FID as a core mission for many years but the recent operations tempo has taxed the ability of SF teams to respond to the demand signal for advisor teams from combatant commanders around the world.

Testing Limits. According to an Army news release (see below) the two-day “. . . assessment pushes Soldiers to go beyond their physical and mental limits.” The assessment process was developed with the intent to select strong advisors.

1st SFAB Currently Recruiting. The unit is seeking promotable specialists, sergeants, and staff sergeants with a background in combat medicine, vehicle maintenance, logistics, explosive ordnance disposal, communications, field artillery, and military intelligence. If selected they will serve on 12-man advisory teams.

Read more in “1st SFAB Assesses Candidates”, DVIDS, October 17, 2017.

More Articles on the SFABs.

SOF and the Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs), SOF News, June 21, 2017.

News Stories on 1st SFAB, Afhan War News

Beret for Soldiers of 1st SFAB – Concern in SF Community

SOF News — Sun, 29 Oct 2017 18:02:31 +0000

SFAB Beret – The rumors that Soldiers of the 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB) will be issued a distinctive headgear – an SFAB beret are possibly true. Over the past week the social media frequented by current and past members of the Special Forces community has been ablaze with comments, memes, and commentary about the SFAB beret. A recent news article by defense reporter Meghann Myers stated that an Army official confirmed on Friday, October 27th that a colored beret would be issued to Soldiers in the 1st SFAB. [1]

Beret, Tab, and Nickname. It appears, based on photos posted on Instagram by SFAB Soldiers, that the SFAB beret will be a shade of green very close to the green beret worn by Special Forces Soldiers. Apparently the SFAB Soldiers will wear a tab as well – pictures on the Internet show different versions – one saying “Advise Assist” and the other “Combat Advisor”. The nickname of the 5th Special Forces Group is “The Legion”. Well, initial reports indicate that the 1st SFAB is calling itself the legion. Some members of the Special Forces community are calling this ‘cultural appropriation’!

History of the Green Beret. The members of Special Forces wore the Green Beret as an unofficial headgear in the early 1950s – following the lead of elite European units that wore various colored berets that marked them as highly-trained and specialized airborne or special operations units. In October 1961 President John F. Kennedy visited Fort Bragg, North Carolina where he met with Special Force leaders and visited SF units. Kennedy was a fierce advocate of unconventional warfare and he recognized the unique abilities of SF. He issued a Presidential Directive that made the famous green hat the official headgear of U.S. Army Special Forces – headgear that he called a “Symbol of Excellence”. [2] This recognition of Special Forces by the president has been an important part of Special Forces culture – and it is remembered by the Special Forces community in an annual Green Beret wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington Cemetery. The exact shade of green for the beret that SFAB Soldiers will wear has not yet been officially released; although some reports say it is an ‘olive drab’.

Shoulder Tabs. The most commonly known shoulder tabs in the U.S. Army – the Airborne, Ranger, and Special Forces Tabs – are for Soldiers who have undergone difficult training courses or belong to elite units. There are a number of official shoulder tabs in addition to Airborne, Ranger, and Special Forces – “ARNG Honor Guard”, “Honor Guard”, “President’s Hundred”, and “Sapper”. [3] The Special Forces Tab was approved in 1983 by the Chief of Staff of the Army for those personnel who graduated from the Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC). [4] The Fort Benning website is displaying the “Advise Assist” tab while some Instagram photos depict tabs above the 1st SFAB shoulder patch that say “Combat Advisor”.

Shoulder patch for 1st SFAB, USASOC, Special Forces, and MACV Recondo School (Vietnam)

Unit Shoulder Patch. The new patch for the 1st SFAB is similar to the Special Forces shoulder sleeve insignia. The SF patch, approved in 1955, is authorized for wear by members of the U.S. Special Forces Command and it’s subordinate units. [5] Some online commentators have compared it to the Vietnam-era Special Forces MACV Recondo patch – the shape being inverted. However, a Google search shows this distinctive shape was used by Recondo elements of many U.S. Army units during that era. [6] The 1st SFAB patch does share a distinctive shape and have a sword.

“The Legion”. For quite a few years the 5th Special Forces Group has used “The Legion” as an unofficial nickname for their unit. The origin of the ‘Legion’ reference appears to be in the period after Desert Storm in late 1991; although some Internet sources say it goes back to the ’80s. The graphic above “We are the Legion, A Legion of Honor” is from a recruiting brochure for the 1st SFAB found on its website. [7]

Image from Change.org petition about the SFAB Beret. (Photo credit TSGT Maria L. Taylor, USAF, March 15, 2001, taken during a Fallen Soldier Ceremony at Ramstein AIr Base, Germany).

Petition. An online campaign to stop the issuance of the Green Beret to the U.S. Army 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade has developed some momentum. It has generated thousands of online signatures. [8] The petition claims that:

“The 1st SFAB command has stolen our heritage by co-opting the legendary “Recondo” patch from our Vietnam era Green Berets, stolen the U.S. Army 5th Special Forces Group’s unofficial name of “The Legion” and made as their own.

This petition also demands the 1st SFAB cease all usage of Green Beret unit history and heritage as their own, such as the usage of the arrowhead unit patch and the OSS dagger likeness as well.”

What’s Ahead? The Chief of Staff of the Army, General Milley, is a long-tabber. However, he is also a big supporter of the SFABs. [9] It will be interesting to see how the Army handles this controversial situation. Hopefully over the next few weeks we will find that some of the reporting is false; and that some of the issues are quietly taken care of. The SFABs will certainly gain a lot in working with the SF community during its training for deployments and while deployed downrange on advisory missions. [10]

Footnotes:

[1] “The rumors are true: New berets for the Army’s military training advisers”, Army Times, October 28, 2017.

[2] See Special Forces Culture, on specialforceshistory.com
www.specialforceshistory.info/culture/culture.html

[3] See more about the other shoulder tabs (besides Airborne, Ranger, and Special Forces) at the Army’s Institute of Heraldry.

[4] Learn more about the Special Forces Tab at the Army’s Institute of Heraldry.

[5] Learn more about the Special Forces Shoulder Sleeve Insignia on the United States Army Special Forces Command website.
www.soc.mil/USASFC/Sleeve.html

[6] The 5th Special Forces Group ran a Recondo course in Vietnam. Graduates received a Recondo badge. Ebay will sell you a ‘Recondo’ patch from any Army unit you can name!
www.ebay.com/bhp/recondo-patch.

[7] “The Legion’ graphic is taken from a brochure posted on the 1st SFAB recruiting page on the Fort Benning Website. (accessed October 29, 2017).
www.benning.army.mil/tenant/1SFAB/Join.html
(The above link was deactivated on Tuesday, October 31, 2017).
Click here to read the SFAB Recruiting Brochure.

[8] View the online petition on Change.org.

[9] See “Advisory brigades to be established by U.S. Army”, SOFREP, June 29, 2016.

[10] See SOF and the Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs), SOF News, June 21, 2017.

Other News Reports on the SFAB Beret –

“Petition to Stop the Issuance of the Green Beret to Non SF Units”, Rogue Right, October 28, 2017.

References:

Website – 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade
www.benning.army.mil/tenant/1SFAB/index.html

Facebook for 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade
www.facebook.com/1SFAB/

Additional Readings on the SFABs:

SFA Paper -“Building Armies, Building Nations” (RAND, Oct 2017), SOF News, October 25, 2017.

All Things SFAB – Explainer of Security Force Assistance Brigades, SOF News, October 10, 2017.

SOF and the Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs), SOF News, June 21, 2017.