What is JCISFA, what is SFA, and how does it fit in the greater scheme of things-PT 1

[Rob Thornton]

What is Security Force Assistance & What is JCISFA

Most folks on the SWC know me, I’ve been around the council for about a year and a half, and started inter-acting while deployed on a BN level Transition Team to Mosul. I am currently working at the Joint Center for International Security Force Assistance as an Army strategist (FA 59) at Fort Leavenworth where we have responsibilities that place us working to identify and integrate SFA knowledge and practices into the institution, and also to provide operational support to deployed units. We work with the greater JIIM community on SFA and related issues, but we are not necessarily where some have identified us as being e.g. we have a relationship with FT Riley, but they are FORSCOM driven, and we are a Joint Center – like most organizations with “Center” in the title, there is plenty of responsibility not necessarily with commensurate authority. We are a Chairman’s activity, and LTG Caldwell is “dual-hatted” as both the CAC CDR and the JCISFA Director. Originally JCISFA was established under then LTG Petraeus when he was the CAC CDR, along with the COIN Center that CAV GUY works at. We are about a 25 person organization, with about five Marines, eight Army personnel, one Sailor, and eleven contractors.

JCISFA’s current mission statement: Institutionalize lessons and best practices from security force assistance (SFA) operations to better prepare U.S. and partner nation forces to rebuild security infrastructure during stability, security, transition, and reconstruction operations. Serve as the DOD Center of Excellence and U.S. Armed Forces focal point to provide advice and assistance for international security force assistance mission.

Appropriately, much like the SFA effort it supports, JCISFA achieves much of its mission through influencing, and you influence by providing good analysis and suggestions, good products that help the operational and institutional JIIM community get its arms around things, and by being right more often then being wrong. Because of the scale of the advisory mission, there is a great deal of related activity, numbers of centers (Riley is not the only Advisory training center in the JIIM community), and as the advisory mission becomes more accepted as something which will not only endure in Iraq and Afghanistan, but may become a key tenet of a greater “Indirect” strategy which focuses on building partner capacity, there has been more senior leader interest into how SFA fits into the “Full Spectrum” construct. SWC member and blogger DR JACK recently mentioned the SFA symposium hosted here at Fort Leavenworth where for the week in Jan, senior uniformed and civilians associated with SFA came into discuss strategic and policy level questions – there are still some due outs regarding the symposium that JCISFA is working on, but the important thing here is the issues were discussed if not by the decision makers themselves, then by those who directly influence how SFA will develop. I was not there – as I’d mentioned we touch allot of things, and that week we also had to send folks to participate in the Army’s TMAAG conference, and to the event I attended – the JFCOM J9’s Military Support to the Rule of Law workshop with the greater JIIM community up at Gettysburg, PA. I did review some of the video and presentations that were made at the SFA Symposium and SWC member Old Eagle was there, and I think they wrestled with the tough, high yield problems. I’d say in that regard, progress was made – just in getting a common understanding of the problems associated with SFA.

What is SFA?

The definition of Security Force Assistance (SFA): Unified action by the joint, interagency, intergovernmental and multinational community to generate, employ, sustain and assist host nation or regional security forces in support of a legitimate authority

SFA is a broad framework that spans the spectrum of conflict focused on assisting foreign security forces in support of US and Coalition interests regardless of operating environment

Within that definition the conduct of a SFA effort the functions of Generate, Organize, Train, Equip, Rebuild, and Assist could be seen a required lines of effort that might be seen from both sequential and simultaneous perspectives – e.g. although you have to start somewhere, the effort itself might be so large that within the partner’s greater security sector, various components (army, police, border, etc.) might be more or less mature then the others, its also worth considering that if conducting SFA under conditions where there is greater rather then less stability, and where there is already a mature insurgency, then the possibility exists that you might wind up with two steps forward and one step back, or worse, one step forward and two steps back for reasons that my be beyond your capability to effect.

Considering SFA from the tactical to the operational to the strategic

A political objective of using military force to conduct SFA might be described as a way to build partner capacity to the point where it can gain and sustain capability and capacity in its security sector against internal and external threats for the purposes of allowing the government to establish and sustain Rule of Law (RoL). RoL as a concept provides the physical and perceptual underpinnings that citizenry can point to as ensuring their safety and protection, provide the basis for law and order and the perception of justice as administered by the state (this does not necessarily exclude competing forms of cultural justice – each government must decide for itself how and if non-secular and secular ideas of justice can co-exist.)

Each partner we would like engage with in SFA is likely to have differing conceptual security challenges, but within their challenges will have both internal and external security threats. Even in the United States we have both internal and external threats which can both be further considered as domestic and foreign components. The connectivity between the internal and external threats has grown comparably as have the forms, functions and frequency of communications that have provided increased access between individual and groups who look for advantages and opportunities to undermine state security.

SFA then should be considered from a holistic view point if the threats are to be identified and defeated, because to focus solely on one aspect can create an advantage for the enemy; e.g. in a modern city with an airport that sits astride some line of communication, be it for commercial, government or religious travelers who pass through its gates for purposes in addition to, or outside of the business to be conducted within that city, the potential exists that illicit activity which undermines that city’s authority, the authority of the larger province or state and potentially the region might be conducted. If the conditions support that activity, meaning there is not a strong “anti” or “counter” capability to deter it, then that city is likely to provide some incentives to conducting business there. If that city is a target, because conditions there offer a tactical, operational or strategic advantage to one or more individuals or groups (to include foreign states) e.g. the police or the intelligence there are weak, and the population offers some degree of support, or is not in active support of the government, then that city may become more then just a safe haven, or place to plan operations, conduct meetings and conduct training.

This is where we must scope out and consider not only the activities which go on inside the city or destination, but the connected activities which deter and make more difficult for individuals and groups to enter, conduct and support those activities which threaten the state. This is a significant challenge inside Iraq and Afghanistan where even within a single city there are multiple efforts and units tasked to conduct SFA, given the size of the effort and the multiple LOEs (Lines of Effort) such as the police, the army, the local governments, the correctional system, etc., building a common operation picture that ensures unity of effort is daunting, particularly when an active and adaptive enemy is looking for ways in which to retard, or delay the effort so that it can establish itself as the political authority and wear out U.S. public will over time – its view is it does not necessarily have to win decisively right now, just prevent the Iraqi government from becoming strong enough to win. In Iraq and Afghanistan we are engaged with SFA tasks at the tactical, operational and strategic levels.


see continuation

[Rob Thornton]

part 2

To understand the threat to a city, the best place to start may be looking at what makes a city a city. Such an investigation might include asking the questions of: why did people decide to establish a city here?; who lives here?; why do they stay? What does this city produce?; who else comes here besides the residents and why? From there, you can start to consider what opportunities present themselves to both the enemy(s) and to the security forces who must operate there. While not exactly the same in terms of form, or in terms of authority, our own model of layered security can provide a functional model of reverse engineering to consider how the threat goes about gaining entry to, and establishing operations with a given location. From there, you should be able to go back and look at the security sector gaps which have allowed the enemy to conduct operations. This is not limited to the physical barriers, agencies, units and personnel which form part of the security sector, but also the types of law governing and regulating all other types of intercourse. I am “not” advocating “mirror imaging” of our security sector – what I am advocating is that SFA practitioners need to see the threat in the context of the greater security sector and that a holistic effort is required or the threat will retain freedom of movement within a system he understands better then you – the parts of the security sector (police, military, paramilitary, border guards, coast guard, intelligence, EPS, etc.) must be seen as somewhat inter-dependent (based on the threat), and as such our efforts to help them build capacity need to recognize and support that. This can quickly raise SFA from the tactical to operational level.

This leads you from the tactical SFA to the Operational SFA to the Strategic SFA. One of the presentations I wrote an EXSUM for based of the slides and the video was LTG Dubik’s, the MNSTC-I CDR. Without going into too great a detail, LTG Dubik has taken an Enterprise approach to his efforts. He has recognized that in order to eventually sustain itself independent of external assistance, the Iraqi security sector is going to have to have sufficient bureaucratic institutional depth to perpetuate itself, and to resist the whim of domestic policy. This is not only important when considering reliance on U.S. support, but in order to stand independently from having to enter into collective security arrangements because it was unable to sustain itself – it provides the state with a security sector capable of supporting its own domestic and foreign policy objectives.

SWC member CAVGUY, aka MAJ Niel Smith, had asked me to consider writing about what JCISFA is, what its role is, and the broader topic of SFA. This last bit is probably as important as the discussions on the many discussions as to how best we should organize to conduct SFA. If you don’t have an idea of what you might be trying to do, or why you are doing it, then trying to describe how best to organize for it is probably short sighted. There are multiple ways to go after an objective, once you have identified what the objective is, and why you want to do it. There are some great JCISFA contributions already out there (the SFA Planner’s Handbook – already out to the JIIM community, the SFA CDR’s HB – soon to be released) and several other good pieces of work to help SFA practitioners be they advisors, BCTs, CDRs, uniformed or civilian leadership, etc. JCISFA as a center is working to improve our capability and capacity to conduct SFA.

Best Regards, Rob

[slapout9]

Hi Rob, that's a great post. The references you described are they available online anywhere or is this secret stuff? If they are tell them guys with the stars that assistance starts at home and as a security manager I wants some

[Rob Thornton]

Slap - shoot me the proverbial PM - that which has been approved for public release is yours for the asking; that which isn't currently - soon will be, and I'll get you that too. So far its all UNCLASS, and set for unlimited distro. Right now the SFA Planner's Handbook is good to hook and on the streets, and its found a home with a good many J5s, I also passed out a bunch to JIIM community. BTW, while we don't have a uniformed airman in JCISFA yet, we do have a retired airman who is currently a contractor, he and our Deputy Director just got back from USAF's advisor training effort.

Some of the first guys at JCISFA (like SWC member "Old Eagle") are to be thanked for the quality of the SFA Planner's HB. Best, Rob

[Surferbeetle]

Rob,

This is a solid post and will require some time to digest. There is a discussion on the BCKS CMO website concerning 'Best of Breed' that might be of interest to you. I have been thinking about analyzing strategic frameworks using such business techniques as Balanced Scorecard, SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportuniites, and Threats) VRINE (Value, Rarity, Inimitability, Nonsubstitutuability, and Exploitability) among others in support of the CMO effort. By combining these with my ongoing interest in defining applicable metrics I might even find the time, one of these days, to put something together for the website. In the meantime I'll just continue to ramble on here...

Regards,

Steve

[Ken White]

Like Steve, I'll have to digest that for a bit. Out of idle curiosity, does the AF plan on providing some blue suiters?

[Rob Thornton]

Hi Steve,
I found his (LTG Duik's) presentation and philosophical framing of it as an enterprise pretty interesting, and I think spot on - I'd known some PRT folks, but I'd yet to see thinking on building the required institutional bureaucracy, until now. MNSTC-I is working to get the right type of senior level / ministry type advisors in place to help the Iraqis work through this. As many have mentioned before, under Saddam's regime they had a bureaucracy that was not designed to tell the emperor he had no clothes. When the regime was torn/fell apart even those linkages were dissolved.

JCISFA is trying to help them out by providing an advisory course POI (the actual teaching of that would probably go to somebody else with capacity) targeting the skill sets for that level of advising. This is not easy. For a job of such importance you have to start with someone with a level of technical education appropriate to evaluate the existing system, the environment in which the system is supposed to work, how the system will facilitate and sustain the desired endstate - or a combination of all three simultaneously. We're talking high art here I think. This is not something that can be minted and sent out the door.

One of the best analogies I've heard is that of a gardener. Before you can advise somebody on how to garden in a manner that theperson being advised stands a good chance of being successful, the advisor needs to understand gardening pretty well himself. Nobody wants advice on a topic from someone who really has no practical experience in the area he's advising on. At the tactical level, this is challenging enough, but for the most part we get it about right, we and the Iraqis have enough capacity in that area that when a TT goes down range they can at least advise on the technical aspects. These ministry level advisors though are of a different nature - a strategic one.

Not only do they require someone saavy on politics, and the culture of the politics at work, but a senior level mis-step can have far reaching and enduring ill effects. Also, the longer it takes the Iraqis to build their institutional bureaucracy, the less stable, less effective and more vulnerable the overall governmental structure will be to internal and external pressures. Unfortunately the uniformed side does not have allot of experience in this, in fact most of our culture goes far out of its way to stay out of it.

I think his observation is right on, but getting the right people, with a sufficient amount of professional experience in a personnel system that struggles to meet "made to order" requests is going to be tough. Most of the folks I would think best suited to do this level of advising would be OSD SES types, and people who'd served as -Ds, etc. We (the big JIIM "we") can provide them with the skills to "advise", but the core competencies, cannot be built in a short term nature, they are either the product of long term experiences (best case & requiring hand selection based on professional assignments), or potentially a series of courses and schools that at least introduce them to the technical skills (maybe an adequate solution, but will mean selection early and a good deal of supplemental preparation in the technical areas).

Another one of those things with "no easy answers".

Best, Rob