The Advisory or Advisor Challenge

[Old Eagle]

Assuming that the personnel plus-up stays on track, the question is what ought those personnel be doing? I think that the answer is advising, whether or not a "corps" is the force structure answer.

Reasons:
1. Too many failed/failing/incompetent states that desperately need assistance bolstering their security capacity. This can be done after a MCO or even better, before and ILO.

2. Indiginous forces are the only ones that can truly be successful in small wars of the future. OBTW idig civil governance capabilities also need to be developed/improved, but let's stay focused on security forces.

3. U.S. and major allies have reduced ground forces end strength to the point where we are incapable of going it alone without coalition partners. These partners, whether host nation or allies, need to be capable, ergo need to be developed. After Vietnam, we pushed our advisory capacity into SOF. Now SOF is overwhelmed by the magnitude of the advisory mission AND busy performing the sexy, hi-pri SOF missions: DA, CT, SR, etc.

4. Current security assistance and FID restrictions limit our ability to do the advisory piece half vast worth a darn.

Mission is critical. Resources are scarce. Need to find a peace dividend. We're in trouble.

[Tacitus]

Gentlemen,
Fascinating discussion going on here. So where do you find the men to make up this corps of advisors. Based on my own experience in the US Army, I really doubt they are going to just be able to find these people in the ranks. If an order to produce an advisor for some faroff country came down to the first sergeants I remember, they probably would have just grabbed an NCO that they didn't want in their unit, for some reason or another. I doubt there would have been many volunteers, since the kind of guy who'd be naturally interested in this kind of work would already be in, or have his sights set on Green Berets. I just don't think there are many T.E. Lawrences of Arabia in the ranks of conventional units waiting to excel in that kind of mission.

I'd suggest thinking about recruiting perhaps a different kind of soldier, if they are serious about this over the long term. How about immigrants, or sons of immigrants, from the nations they think this might be needed? Instead of beating the bushes for guys in small towns of east TN, for example, you might ought to look in these first generation immigrant neighborhoods and really explain what you are trying to do. This immediately helps you to deal with the language and cultural barriers that must be overcome, if you think that really matters (which I do).

We are a nation of immigrants, with people from everywhere on the globe. It is a great resource if used intelligently.

[Rob Thornton]

Hey Tom, OE, Tacitus, John, Ski
Hope nobody thought I meant we could not have both, in fact I also think we need both. What I was driving at is the question of if we need more BCTs within the proposed force increases, or should invest differently to build more specialized capabilities into the force. Building BCTs with the increase gives us more generalized flexibility. Building something like and Advisory Corps, adding more CS & CSS structures, and increasing the numbers of professional functional area officers would provide more assets/flexibility for the SSTRO side of the house. To frame the question I think we have to ask what are the pros and cons as they pertain to Army & Military responsibilities. I think this ties in with the Military Support to SSTRO JOC thread as well.

I do think there are some Tenn. fellows who can do the advisory piece though - being one of them. Our team was a mix match of USAR, USARNG and AD. We had a variety of MOSs often doing jobs that were outside of their professional experience. It was mostly a question of attitude and team work. You'd be surprised what you can do if you just decide you are going to do it. Overcoming cultural barriers - yea it matters, but you can also find a great deal in common with the folks you are advising while you are learning abut your differences. The real payoff for the Army in this would be exposing soldiers to this job and then having them rotate back into the force. While volunteering is nice, its not really a pre-requisite. Many guys come down on recruiting duty for example that did not volunteer - in fact I just had a buddy opt for the PTT advisory gig vs. take a recruiting assignment in Compton, CA.
Many guys are not physically able to go for the green beret, or for the officers don't want to make the permanent transition to the 18 series side of the house, but many would like to have an SF like experience at least once in their career - ex. I had a buddy on our team who sales life insurance in his real world job, he has a wife and family and cannot return to AD, but jumped at the chance to do the MiTT gig - guy had a blast. Another thing I did not mention was that the diversity of our team enhanced its effectiveness, we were able to discuss issues we might have missed if we'd all been AD.

I saw Gen Casey on Fox this morning discussing the future of the Army. Gen Petreus was on Fox Sunday and mentioned stabilizing Iraq as an 8-10 year gig. Both the National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism and the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism make state builiding up HN security force capacity as one of the keys to denying AQ and AQ like organizations sanctuaries to recruit, train and draw resources from states they wish to destabilize. FM 23-4 also lists US advisory functions as critical to establishing HN systems:

"“Key to all these tasks is developing an effective host-nation (HN) security force.”1 Indeed, it has been argued that foreign forces cannot defeat an insurgency; the best they can hope for is to create the conditions that will enable local forces to win for them"

I think if the Army says we are or are not going to do something like this, which requires a significant investment of resources from the Army and Joint community at a minimum, then everyone from OSD to Congress (including lobbyist who are protecting their interests) are going to want to compare what we get for it, or why we don't have this capability that we've said is so important in our strategy documents and doctrine. I think by discussing it on this forum we can help - because many of the participants here are going to be tasked with answering the tough questions from people who will be biased, short sighted, or unwilling to challenge the status quo for a host of reasons. If something like this evolves many of the folks on this site will be tasked to develop the doctrine (because they are already in those type jobs), work out the details, and make it work. These forums are kind of a work group of online collaborators in that regard - people dedicated to thinking about this stuff and engaging in discourse so that the thoughts get developed. We benefit from a very diverse audience that is candid and informed on a number of issues.

[Ken White]

On the broadly irrelevant side; the then 77th and 1st SFGs did the Laos mssions, the 5th was pretty well restricted to SVN (and NVN, the edges of Cambodia and Laos only for some of the projects). Their direct action folks were by design the Mike Forces, not the CIDG who were pretty much local patrollers and defenders. While broadly irrelevant, I mention all that because those CIDG and other elements that got more involved in the direct action missions did so mostly because of their commanders at the time, not due to any Army policy. However, the fact that the Groups have distinct personalities is definitely correct and those personalities are as much or more due to the Commanders ideas and goals as they are to history.

Kicking in doors is more fun than local patrolling and training people. That's still true. So is the fact that a commanders personality and desires can influence missions.

The capability to train most infantrymen to do direct action missions well certainly exists and is proven -- but then consider that if the lowly grunt can do this, particularly on "high value" targets, it may adversely affect someone's budget and missions. The relevance of all that is that the roles and missions argument is not at all simple and the parameters change constantly...

Strategic vision and the power to provide definitive guidance and force compliance is the issue. The existence of USSOCOM, for all the good it does, effectively and very severely complicates that roles and missions effort. Unity of command, like initiative is a tenet of US doctrine. Both get squashed pretty heavily and routinely.

While I personally agree that internal defense and indigenous force training is a proper SF mission, it carries little glory, attracts little money and just isn't fun...

Tacitus has a point in that good working relationships with indigenous folks is not everyone's cup of tea; some people do it far more effectively than others and immigrants are a good pick. Not a little of the early success of SF was due to all the Lodge Act enlistees -- and Officers -- that populated the Groups in the early days.

Having said all that, I doubt you'll be able to get SF involved at this time in any serious way and I strongly doubt either the Army leadership or, more importantly, Congress, will buy the Advisory Corps idea, good as it is, for the Active Army -- the USAR is perhaps a possilbility.

Agree that the USAR Training Divisions as currently constructed and trained are not a good choice, the skills don't transfer well. There is the potential of restructuring and retraining one or more of them to do the Nagl suggested Advisory mission -- and the rank structure won't interfere with DOPMA and HRCs grand designs.

Too much rank in too small a package and the Congroids will ask "what if there's not another Iraq or 'Stan?" 'Course, I could be wrong, have been before -- I'd have sworn the Army would see the handwriting on the wall in the 70s and work hard at counterinsurgency...

In any event, it seems the realistic near term approach is to better train Joe and his leaders and prepare them to do the job on an ad-hoc basis. They really seem to be doing it reasonably well.

[Ski]

Some additional thoughts:

I like the idea of putting the Advisory Corps under SOCOM, simply because it can draw personnel from all services. It does, however, highlight the need for a true umbrella organization, perhaps even a 6th service that can also draw required personnel from not only the differing military services, but also from other governmental agencies such as State, USAID, CIA, etc...

The problem I see with an advisory corps is similar to the dilemma that's faced SF. You can't cover down on everything, so you need to be able to forecast where the problem countries are and then tailor the force to meet the specific language, cultural, and societal issues. I remember the initial stages of OEF where Pashtu and Uzbek speakers were being drawn into SOCOM from all over the military because there weren't enough language experts. I see the same thing happening again in the future, perhaps it can be mitigated to a greater degree.

I still think that SF should be the base of the program, but with less emphasis placed on direct action. It's going to take a cultural change to be sure.

The bottom line to an Advisory Corps is gauging the legitimacy of the government that we are assisting. It doesn't matter what kind of organization we create (if it even gets that far) because if the populace of Country X doesn't think their government is worth a duck's ass, then we will have massive difficulties. That again requires good foresight and not necessarily American domestic political desire.

Finally, I'd avoid using the Reserve Components as currently constructed because the skill sets aren't there. The USAR suffers at the lower Officer level or NCO level because many of their trainers have not been in an AC or ARNG MTOE unit and simply don't have the credibility or expertise required. We asked them to do a extremely difficult mission - training Iraqi and Afghan troops to conduct counter-insurgency operations - when they themselves have not done so. Some can succeed, no doubt, but it is difficult at best.

[Ken White]

First, Giving the mission to SF takes them away from their nominal current primary mission. While there is undoubtedly some benefit to obtaining their total capability in the advisory role, it is also probably significant over qualification at work. The average non-SF Army Officer or NCO can do a good job as an Adviser with a short language and advisory skills course. That can be done far more cheaply than using the rather expensively trained SF guys for something doesn't require most of their skills. No sense sending a Cadillac if a Ford will work. As an aside, it would likely have an adverse impact on retention in the Groups.

Secondly, I totally agree the USAR today does not have the skills required for the job, particularly if one is talking about the Training Divisions. One thing that has been consistently proven is that the average kid in the IRR who has been out two years or less knows more than most of the USAR Drill Sergeants who are supposed to re-blue him.

However, the USAR does some things very well indeed, better than the AC and the capability of selective recruiting to a notional "Advisory Division" and of training dedicated to the required skills, as cited above, is easily possible. Placing the effort in the RC eliminates many problems that trying to place a large organization so dedicated in the AC would engender. A small AC organization can be justified to DA and Congress, I strongly doubt a large one could be.

Iraq isn't going to be in the current state much longer, nor is Afghanistan. The potential for another commitment needing such capability in large numbers anywhere in the next few years is slight.

[Old Eagle]

"Iraq isn't going to be in the current state much longer, nor is Afghanistan. The potential for another commitment needing such capability in large numbers anywhere in the next few years is slight."

Gotta disagree here. I see a very large requirement for continued advisory capacity among GPF.

First, I'm not convinced that the Iraq and Afghanistan missions are going to end any time soon, at least not the advisory portions.

Secondly, when I look across the horizon, I see numerous countries that are important to us, threatened by disruptive forces of various ilks. Developing their indiginous capability to protect themselves is the only long term solution to their stability. The requirements of the future outstrip the capacity of my friends with the funny green hats.

Thirdly, we don't have sufficient tools in the rucksack to perform the required advisory functions. Train and equip doesn't work unless you're working with a sophisticated, capable ally -- sellin F-16s to NATO partners, T&E works. Other traditional security assistance also falls short. Shortly after the Nixon Doctrine was announced, stating that we would in fact bolster host nation capabilities to look after themselves, congress placed heinous restrictions on the programs to ensure that they would not be effective (AECA 76 (as amended)).

We now have an opportunity to move forward and develop truly effective means of organizing, training, eqiupping, (re)building and advising foreign security forces. The requirement to do so will remain large for the forseeable future.

[SteveMetz]

"Iraq isn't going to be in the current state much longer, nor is Afghanistan. The potential for another commitment needing such capability in large numbers anywhere in the next few years is slight."

Gotta disagree here. I see a very large requirement for continued advisory capacity among GPF.

First, I'm not convinced that the Iraq and Afghanistan missions are going to end any time soon, at least not the advisory portions.

Secondly, when I look across the horizon, I see numerous countries that are important to us, threatened by disruptive forces of various ilks. Developing their indiginous capability to protect themselves is the only long term solution to their stability. The requirements of the future outstrip the capacity of my friends with the funny green hats.

Thirdly, we don't have sufficient tools in the rucksack to perform the required advisory functions. Train and equip doesn't work unless you're working with a sophisticated, capable ally -- sellin F-16s to NATO partners, T&E works. Other traditional security assistance also falls short. Shortly after the Nixon Doctrine was announced, stating that we would in fact bolster host nation capabilities to look after themselves, congress placed heinous restrictions on the programs to ensure that they would not be effective (AECA 76 (as amended)).

We now have an opportunity to move forward and develop truly effective means of organizing, training, eqiupping, (re)building and advising foreign security forces. The requirement to do so will remain large for the forseeable future.

I'm kind of having second thoughts about the centrality of the advising function in our strategy. I've been thinking about this hard because I've participated in a two part wargame that focused on it.

Here's my problem: the approach is based on an assumption, viz that the shortfalls that other militaries have are the result of a lack of a body of knowledge and expertise which we possess and can impart to them. There's a little voice in the back of my head that tells me that assumption may be wrong. If it was simply a matter of acquiring the requisite knowledge and expertise, weak militaries would have done so long ago. I think the reasons for their weakness are much deeper and broader than that, lying within culture and history. If I'm right, this means that we can advise until we're blue in the face and it may not make much of a difference.

Now, I'm not saying don't provide advice. I'm just saying that making it the centerpiece of our strategy worries me.

[Ken White]

"Iraq isn't going to be in the current state much longer, nor is Afghanistan. The potential for another commitment needing such capability in large numbers anywhere in the next few years is slight."

Gotta disagree here. I see a very large requirement for continued advisory capacity among GPF.

First, I'm not convinced that the Iraq and Afghanistan missions are going to end any time soon, at least not the advisory portions.

Secondly, when I look across the horizon, I see numerous countries that are important to us, threatened by disruptive forces of various ilks. Developing their indiginous capability to protect themselves is the only long term solution to their stability. The requirements of the future outstrip the capacity of my friends with the funny green hats.

Thirdly, we don't have sufficient tools in the rucksack to perform the required advisory functions. Train and equip doesn't work unless you're working with a sophisticated, capable ally -- sellin F-16s to NATO partners, T&E works. Other traditional security assistance also falls short. Shortly after the Nixon Doctrine was announced, stating that we would in fact bolster host nation capabilities to look after themselves, congress placed heinous restrictions on the programs to ensure that they would not be effective (AECA 76 (as amended)).

We now have an opportunity to move forward and develop truly effective means of organizing, training, eqiupping, (re)building and advising foreign security forces. The requirement to do so will remain large for the forseeable future.

Re: my quoted statement, you'll note I said that the two nations were not going to be in their current state much longer. That doesn't say or imply that the missions will end soon; I believe we'll be in both for many years. It does mean that the types and numbers actions are changing daily and that the situation will differ in the near and distant future. Yes, there'll be an Advisory requirement but it can be met by the 1st ID model with a MAAG add-on.

So, first, we'll be there and the advisory effort will continue. The question is does that require a 'dedicated' advisory corps or such like. My answer would be no. The GPF are capable of doing the job in the ME with minimal extra training.

I've been a MAAG Adviser in the ME and in SEA and worked elsewhere with Advisers including some from other nations who have a far, far, smaller but more effective foot print than we do. I've been to Iraq and my guess is that the number of Americans that would gain real traction there as Advisers is microscopic. The capability to fully integrate and be effective in that job is a crap shoot; it's personality dependent and whether or not your counterpart likes and trusts you -- or to what extent he does those things. Culture, religion and traditions all have a very significant effect on the abiltiy to establish real rapport and lacking that, the Adviser is only marginally effective -- and may even do harm. In that light, the conventional wisdom says that long advisory tours are preferable. I disagree, short tours are better to offset the personality disconnects that are bound to occur -- that and the Stockholm syndrome effect...

Secondly, I agree with your view. The question is will Congress agree with it? Another question is how many of those nations are likely to invite us in any significant numbers? Some will take Advisers -- but only to insure the benefits and equipment with which we bribe them to take an Advisory Team (or for the money a MAAG will spend in country), such nations Armed Forces tend to be very polite to the advisers and yet change their processes only slightly. I think 1st SF Gps efforts in the Phillipines and elsewhere offer a far better model than the large Advisory Team effort.

Recall I said "for the next few years." That is, IMO, due to Congress and the fact that we're on the world's nasty list right now (not a problem, we have been before and I don't think it's as bad as it was during Viet Nam) and will be for a bit. We have to time to think and do something smart instead of just jumping into a large structure that will be underemployed for a while; say in the 2010-2015 period.

Thirdly, you're correct -- and I seriously doubt a large advisory effort will improve our ability in this regard. I also doubt Congress will relax those restrictions to any significant extent in the near future. A more important point is that other nations have seen that failure to implement the Nixon Doctrine, watch the current disconnect in Congress and have significant doubts about our ability to stay the course. Justifiably, I might add...

I submit the number of invitations to us for help (other than $$ and goodies) will be slim for a few years. A small footprint may be accepted; few will want a large one.

Don't misunderstand me; I agree we need to work on the Advisory bit, reinvent that wheel as it were and I agree that the effort is important. I am, however, saying that the "Advisory Corps" is massive overkill and is unlikely to be approved by either DA or Congress in any event. The 1st ID effort is a fair start and an adequate base and the SF model in Asia has more merit than it is given credit for, it's been successful and the Army cannot say that either the Afghan or Iraqi campaigns have been. Yes, that's partly due to some factors from outside the Army but we did not do it well. Thirty plus years of ignoring the developing nation issue were the Army's fault. That damage will not be repaired by over reacting in trying to jump back into the ball game willy nilly. My fear is that we will do the age-old American thing and swing too far as we oscillate from virtually no involvement with developing nations to attempting to overdo said involvement.

As to your conclusion, we can disagree on that