Training for Afghanistan

[jcustis]

As soon as possible you want to understand the plan of the unit you are replacing and the actions they are taking. Depending how good your links to theatre are (ours are very bad!) you may want to start shadowing what they do. When your team meets up you will have concrete scenarios and actions to discuss.

That's an excellent point, and one thing we did not do at all before our last deploy. It is good fortune that the exact unit we expect to replace is conducting work-ups right next door to our CP, so I will take little bit of a look at what they have cooking. I'm afraid it won't be much though.

[jcustis]

I've settled on a rough outline of training for our battalion-level LOO team. The only thing left is to find the training time and squeeze it in with the principal members:

Read and discuss White House position paper on regarding Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as the President's comments delivered on 27 March 2009 at the White House.

Read and discuss COMISAF's (Gen McChrystal) COIN guidance, published in Aug 2009.

Read and discuss the article, "Analyzing Afghanistan."

Get multiple copies of the Afghan interaction handbook (MCIA version) for all members and discuss the points on shuras, first contact with tribal areas, engagement strategies, etc.

Red and discuss Long War Journal Analysis: "Al Qaeada is the Tip of the Jihadist Spear."

Read and discuss "One tribe at a time" by Maj Gant.

Print out posts from the A.L.L. = Afghan Lessons Learned for Soldiers Afghan blog page, especially lesson 3A: Chai and the Pashtunwali

Read and discuss "Money as a Weapon System" and get that integrated into a CERP training program [what will be our constraints/restraints with CERP?].

Review LOO concepts so that the process is understood by all.

Review non-kinetic targeting principles, the cycle, and working group and targeting board rules. More specifically, review who will participate in what (S-3, S-2, FSC/IO, etc) and what the flow is, from target selection, to potential project selection, requirement, to pay agent and project pay officer.

Establish the key leader enagement SOP that will be used for each engagemnt, from PCCs/PCIs to intel prep, to OPORD to mission rehearsal. (it should look much like a quad chart of sorts used for kinetic/intel targeting).

Introduce the staff judge advocate to the Afghanistan Justice Sector Support Program webpage.