Gentlemen,

I'll be taking an adviser team to Afg in the spring time and I'm having a hard time figuring out one of the key tenets of COIN success or failure, how to assess progress.

As the adviser to an ANA Bn Cmdr and an ANA Bn as a whole I'm trying to figure out how to know if we are making progress to an end state of the ANA operating on their own with little to no CF support.

I don't think just talking it over with my Marines and saying yes or no they're getting better is necessarily the right answer, or is it? I'm not trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill but I want to make an honest evaluation of how these guys are progressing.

I know my E/S is ANA able to conduct operations on their own. That's a given. I have a rep for each staff function, S-1 through S-6. The hard thing I'm trying to figure out what exactly are effective measures of effectiveness?

I've done some a little Google research. Unfortunately alot of the stuff I have found on the net is conceptual and academic, information that makes for a good EWS discussion. My next stop is the CALL. In the interim though I'm open to suggestions and dialogue on what others experiences have been.

Thanks again for the help,

Pete

If in the wrong forum I apologize in advance. I know this one gets the most interest