Quote Originally Posted by Bill Moore View Post
Our political patience is rarely the problem.
I suggest it is, especially when it changes mid stream (as it is apt to happens with politicians) and the military have to rapidly rejig the process. That's when the compromises on quality start.

It doesn't take 10 plus years to develop a relatively effective fighting force. It may or may not take 10 plus years to stomp out an insurgency, but that is a different issue.
That depends on the quality of your enemy in that instance. If you are drawing your manpower from the same pool as the enemy then it all will come down to their training and leadership. This is what your command cadre will have to deal with when they take the unit operational.

Where I think we go wrong (and this is just a start):

- We try to develop forces that mirror the U.S. force structure and tell them to employ our doctrine. It is generally too sosphisticated for most in developing nations to replicate, culturally inappropriate, and fiscally unsustainable.
That's a problem with who gets to be put in charge of this training and these units. If they come from a rigidly structured environment they will probably not have the faintest idea how to go about it and will resort to what they know.

To be honest the US doctrine is too sophisticated for the US military to adopt across the whole military itself.

- Department of State has responsibility for security assistance and frankly they don't know what they're doing. They have a long track record of throwing millions of dollars at these challenges with little understanding of what is actually required. The worst part is they do not develop a logistics system for the supported nation that is sustainable (if they develop one at all). If Americans had a better appreciation of how much Dept of State spent on these efforts and what little they have to show for it, I suspect more authorities would shift back to the military. State should own policy and have a veto vote, but once a decision is made to execute they need to enable and stop impeding.
You know, I know that State is dysfunctional and for the most part incompetent. Is that going to change anytime soon?

- If it is a security assistance Mobile Training Team U.S. forces do not have the authority to combat advise, only to train and equip. Without mentoring them in combat it is very difficult for those trained to transition from the classroom and range to the battlefield. Mentors in the field instill confidence and can make on the spot corrections and identify shortfalls in training that need to be addressed. As that military matures over time these lessons are incorporated in their doctrine (not U.S. doctrine with their country's name stamped over it) and taught in their schools.
Who would these mentors be? I suggest that if they were have to be drawn from your most combat experienced soldiers with the proviso that they have the aptitude and emotional disposition to do this sort of work.

- Not surprisingly, when forces that are actually trained to build partner security forces like U.S. Special Forces have the resources and authorities to do so like they did in Iraq and Afghanistan they developed some very capable partner Special Forces units. Much better than the sepoys and numerous other forces developed by the Europeans during the colonial years. The point is the U.S. can do this if we have the right people in charge it enabled with the right authorities and resources. We have a proven track record. We have a dysfunctional bureaucracy and disparate authorities that make effective execution difficult at best, impossible at worst.
Special forces don't only have to train special forces. A special forces training team can and should be able to train anything from a village militia to a HVT hit squad. I know they seem to only want to do the sexy stuff but that is where military discipline comes in.

The problem is that there is a squeeze from both ends... from the politicians on one side and from the grunt level on the other who have all the answers... and it seems those in the middle don't have the balls to push back.

See an example from the current Australian infantry problems.