Truth in lending – I am an SFA aficionado. The reason for that is that although we possess the premier FID resources in the world (the guys in the funny green hats and some of their compatriots), we suck at developing foreign security forces. The reason is that we have elected to take an ad hoc approach that is neither efficient nor effective.

There are a couple of related issues here, but they probably ought to be dealt with separately.

1. Who will be doing FID in the future, and I think that Dave Maxwell has some good insights on that subject, although we will not be able to continue business as usual ante bellum. See below.

2. Who will provide the expeditionary forces needed for inconvenient operations around the globe, and I firmly believe that USMC will be that source. The heavy metal bands in the Army will ultimately get their way and withdraw themselves to deterrence-based locations in order to train on higher risk, but less likely scenarios.

Dave and I disagree on the utility of continuing the FID construct as currently defined. One part of the issue I have is in the narrow construct of that definition and the resulting problems in execution. The second part is in the Army-internal struggle to cope with FID as a mission.

According to JP 1-02, the “Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms,” FID consists of action programs to free and protect a society “from subversion, lawlessness, and insurgency.” The hint to the operative feature is the word “internal” in the name. To make matters even more complicated, the United States does not believe that military forces should be charged with maintaining that internal order, rather police and police-type forces. But wait, there’s more – then, in section 660 of the Foreign Assistance Act, we preclude U.S. military from training police. The current National Defense Authorization Act gives us some exceptions to that rule, but exceptions are, by definition, ad hoc. Therefore when we train military forces to conduct internal defense missions, that’s FID. But what if we’re developing them to be alliance/coalition partners or peacekeepers? What if there is no insurrection, subversion or lawlessness at home? What is that called?

The second part of my FID problem with the Army is the mutual admiration society of Army SF and Big Green. SF is VERY protective of THEIR (by legislation, yada, yada) mission. Big Green is happy to relegate, (perhaps even abrogate) all responsibility for FID-like missions to USASOC. The Army doesn’t even have FID doctrine!!! Within the Army only Special Forces possess that doctrine. All that works relatively well until major SFA missions like Iraq and Afghanistan crop up, or budget constraints force us to do SFA more efficiently.

Let the discussion continue.