Training for Afghanistan

[Red Rat]

Jon,

Having looked at our bde TTPs I know we do it (LOO team), I am just not sure how...

Key to the LOO capability (apologies of teaching to suck eggs, but in all 3 areas my HQ is currently deficient) is:

• Subject area expertise of respective staff
• In depth knowledge of relevant operational area/culture
• Tried and tested HQ procedures to integrate the LOO with all bn ops

On the last point the emphasis in the campaign seems to be shifting away from the kinetic; you may find yourself main effort and not necessarily an enabler for kinetic ops!

What types of HQ training do you have planned before you deploy? If we have an idea of the type of training you will be doing I may be able to give some pointers on what could be incoporated. For example my HQ has a considerable series of non-mission specific synthetic and field training exercises planned where we are going to develop and refine our TTPs.

One thing we are doing is organising some informal get togethers with non-military people who have extensive COIN and/or Afghan experience to get their perspective on how we (the military) do business. IOs and NGOs have come forward, they are very wilco but like things kept very low key and off the record (I bribe them with the promise of good food, fine wine and my scintillating company!). We are hoping to get a different perspective on how we do business as well as access to some in-depth cultural knowledge.

MarcT has made the point that the narrative continuity is very important. 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.

[marct]

Hi Callum,

One thing we are doing is organising some informal get togethers with non-military people who have extensive COIN and/or Afghan experience to get their perspective on how we (the military) do business. IOs and NGOs have come forward, they are very wilco but like things kept very low key and off the record (I bribe them with the promise of good food, fine wine and my scintillating company!). We are hoping to get a different perspective on how we do business as well as access to some in-depth cultural knowledge.

That is a really good idea. I'm trying to see if I can get a get-together like that set up for you in Ottawa for when you are over here - if you're interested .

MarcT has made the point that the narrative continuity is very important. 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.

Part of that narrative continuity lies in "naming". So, for example, if Jon's unit uses the term Civil Affairs Officer as the key contact for local micro-development efforts, you should use the same term.

This brings up another point which has been problematic for me as I look at the effort in Afghanistan - poor reachback. In simple terms, "corporate knowledge" of an area gets lost with each unit rotating out and the handover when a new unit comes in tends to be dominated by the most immediate common denominator (aka kinetic potential). This is a real problem, and it's one that I think we should be thinking about.

This entire project is, in some ways, an attempt to circumvent the institutional lack of a decent reachback facility (as is Rach's CMO). It may be seriously woth thinking about designating someone as a reachback officer - someone whose focus is on making sure that knowledge gets stored where it can be accessed by other units going into the area (assume a FOUO level) and where people who are subject matter experts can be contacted.

[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.