Foreign Internal Defense (Indigenous Forces)

[Bill Moore]

Transitioning a discussion from the Iron Majors post on the blog:http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/200...rtage/#c020176, where we diverted the discussion from why there was a shortage of Majors, to FID.

I like to get your thoughts on the following:

I think State Department in the lead for FID has generally been more effective than when DOD has been the lead. While hurts me to say this, and I am not attributing any talent to State (it is an organization that rejects talent generally, and embraces tenure), I think their process of under resourcing the mission (not allowing mission creep) and limiting U.S. forces in combat to largely self defense forces the host to adapt and take the lead. Agree or disagree? Why?

Historically, with Iraq perhaps being the only exception, FID operations were successful when the number of advisors was kept low, probably under 300 personnel. On the other hand, any time we sent several hundred advisors we failed? Agree or disagree? Why?