that I found so very stimulating when I first found SWJ. thanks Bill.

Perhaps the distinction between FID, SFA, and occupation operations points in the direction of how we should educate and train the force. FID is an SF mission. I find it difficult to see how most conventional unit personnel can undertake the full spectrum of FID but they certainly can undertake parts of the mission. Those parts are what we call SFA (or is that term no longer in use?) In an occupation we have to do many things ourselves and we most certainly need a doctrine for them - concur with you on that Bill (along with much else).

I wonder if the aversion at senior levels (both political and military) to call de facto occupations by that name is related to the desire for a "cleaner" conventional war. (God help us if we ever really have to fight one of those against a peer or near peer competitor because it will be bloodier than anything we have seen in a long, long time.) That said, we need to think about how we prepare for the full spectrum of conflict as well as prepare our officers to provide good advice to the civilian policy makers. We do have some good programs in place. DOS has a number of military officers assigned to the Bureau of Pol-Mil Affairs while DOD has a significant number of current or former DOS people. You may recall ASD-SO/LIC Allen Holmes during the Clinton Administration who was a career Foreign Service officer. More recently, Mike Sheehan (who graduated from Leavenworth in June 1992 as I arrived) went to work for his old grad school prof, Madelaine Albright, at both the US Mission to the UN and then at State. When Mike retired from the Army (he was SF) he went to work at State as a civilian, then NYC, and just retired from DOD where he too was ASD-SO/LIC. Lots of examples and a number of paths of this kind, only some of which are institutionalized by programs like FAO. Seems to me that a good place to start is to research what programs actually exist and see if they prepare officers to think beyond the operational and tactical so that they can provide both appropriate advice and participate fully and effectively in policy debates as they get to positions where those debates take place. I would note that some take place as low as the Ambassador's Country Team in the field and on the Interagency Policy Committees in DC (where military representation can be as low as LTC/CDR on occasion).

Cheers

JohnT