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Life Support to Our Exit Strategy
June 22, 2008 | Posted by Kip - 9:29am | 24 Comments
It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of General Casey's announcement this week that lieutenant colonel advisor team chiefs will be centrally selected to fill billets and that majors will not only receive professional credit for their advisor service but also be allowed to serve subsequently in conventional career progression slots.
The announcement is a remarkable about face for a leader who only three months ago said in an interview with Yochi Dreazen:
It is an important first step, but far more needs to be done to enshrine this as more than a gesture--even within the realm of personnel.
A key issue remains that centrally selected team commanders and majors receiving credit for their service will still have a team whose career tracks are being derailed. While better commanders will mitigate some of the captain retention issues arising from advisor service, captains will still return from their time on a team to an Army which does not place a premium on the combat tour they have just completed.
For those trying to make the Sergeants Major or Master Sergeants lists, advisor success will continue to play second fiddle to service in traditional positions.
In cases including much of Afghanistan where majors and captains are serving as team commanders far removed from any lieutenant colonels, the new policy does not give them command-equivalent credit where it is due.
Moreover, there is little reason to believe that service as an advisor will be regarded as equivalent to current check-the-block positions in maneuver units. Advisor service will likely be regarded by boards similarly to service in training commands. Successful service in training commands generally results in selection for future positions in training commands. Unfortunately, there will remain no advisor command in which to put these former advisors, and so they will remain generally uncompetitive unless they opt also for traditional maneuver positions. Nor does it seem that they will necessarily be more competitive for having done both when that option is available to them. Majors who due to time constraints must make a decision on a slot as an advisor or as a battalion executive or operations officer would be unlikely still to choose the former if they wish to remain competitive.
And while the promotion of Colonels MacFarland and McMaster signaled moves toward rewarding innovation, that it required the personal intervention of Secretary Gates and General Petraeus speaks to personnel systems that continue to fail in a time of war to reward wartime service in challenging positions.
There is significant historic justification for skepticism. When Vietnam-era Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson similarly ordered boards to consider service as an advisor team chief the equivalent of battalion command, the boards simply ignored him.
And even if we get the boards on board better than General Johnson, for instance by mandating selection of advisors at a higher per capita rate than their peers (which would be a change over which to uncork the institutional change champagne), it does not solve the other issues of Doctrine, Organization, Training, Leader Development, Materiel, and Facilities.
In terms of doctrine, the big tent process through which FM 3-24 was developed is a good model for developing appropriate doctrine for Security Force Assistance. The limited open commentary on JCISFA's emerging doctrine is unlikely to produce doctrine sufficient for our advisory efforts in BOTH Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention other contingencies. It is moreover inexcusable seven years into our war in Afghanistan that while we have a Mission Training Plan for US Army bands (ARTEP 12-113-MTP), we lack an equivalent document for the hundreds of transition teams and thousands of personnel currently deployed in an advisory capacity in Afghanistan and Iraq. Finally, the current version of the Army's Operations Manual lacks any mechanism by which to tailor forces or task-organize to conduct security force assistance within the "Provide Support to Governance" stability task.
In terms of organization, no organization currently structured within the modular brigade concept can fulfill the increasing need in Afghanistan and Iraq for large scale security force assistance. The lack of organizations structured for advising prevents the development and retention of institutional knowledge on advising and inhibits the training, education, and employment of advisors to our current conflicts.
Designating units as advisor units with identified mission essential tasks and training and education prerogatives would significantly support the efforts to develop security forces capable of defeating the insurgencies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. This is of course a zero sum game and can be done only at the expense of diminished capacity to man our maneuver brigades.
Much of the prerequisite thought and staffing for a military organization capable of providing support to host nation governance including security force assistance has already taken place...in 1968. DCSPER-40 directed the creation of the 6,000 man Military Assistance Officer Command, a force of 6,000 that would have combined the elements of both civil and military assistance. Unfortunately, like current attempts to reform the advisory effort, only 500 of those billets were filled two years into the program.
Training and education for advisors remains highly inadequate as described here, here, here, and here. The comparable Vietnam era school for advisors headed to the Military Assistance Officer Command was 22 weeks, compared to 8 weeks for our current transition teams.
Beyond significant personnel issues for captains and enlisted men still not addressed by the Chief's announcement, there remains the thorny issue of selecting the right personnel to serve in advisor positions. Major General John Cushman, who served several advisor tours in Vietnam, wrote in his final defbriefing report that a) the need for advisors would not go away and b) that the constitution and capabilities of good advisors did not necessarily overlap with those of good commanders.
The Army to date has resisted the implications of such findings, not taking language capacity or the ability to operate in a foreign culture into account in assigning advisors. Identifying those with the right skillsets to be advisors, taking only volunteers, and rewarding service in order to get those volunteers is necessary if our advisory efforts are to succeed. Leader development and education could then follow better training and personnel decisions. Integration of advisor training into current Leadership Development Programs would be a good start--where is the advisor module at the Captains Career Courses?
There is currently no single command with the identified responsibility of supplying and sustaining advisors. This is why they are often reduced to beggars in any area of operations (as applied to Kip during his service in Afghanistan). As for facilities, with the advisor mission likely to increase in coming years regardless of who wins the election, it is time to demonstrate institutional commitment to training through the development of world class and permanent facilities for advisor training.
The Army Chief of Staff's announcement is a vital first step in the move toward institutionalizing advisor capacity. It is, however, insufficient. Kip hopes it will not take seven more years to complete the significant reforms still required.
The announcement is a remarkable about face for a leader who only three months ago said in an interview with Yochi Dreazen:
"I'm just not convinced that anytime in the near future we're going to decide to build someone else's army from the ground up," said the Army's chief of staff, Gen. George Casey. "And to me, the 'advisory corps' is our Army Special Forces -- that's what they do."For an Army that has resisted all efforts to institutionalize security force assistance outside of Special Forces, this move is the first time that a portion of our personnel policies will reflect senior leaders' emphasis on developing capable Afghan and Iraqi forces.
It is an important first step, but far more needs to be done to enshrine this as more than a gesture--even within the realm of personnel.
A key issue remains that centrally selected team commanders and majors receiving credit for their service will still have a team whose career tracks are being derailed. While better commanders will mitigate some of the captain retention issues arising from advisor service, captains will still return from their time on a team to an Army which does not place a premium on the combat tour they have just completed.
For those trying to make the Sergeants Major or Master Sergeants lists, advisor success will continue to play second fiddle to service in traditional positions.
In cases including much of Afghanistan where majors and captains are serving as team commanders far removed from any lieutenant colonels, the new policy does not give them command-equivalent credit where it is due.
Moreover, there is little reason to believe that service as an advisor will be regarded as equivalent to current check-the-block positions in maneuver units. Advisor service will likely be regarded by boards similarly to service in training commands. Successful service in training commands generally results in selection for future positions in training commands. Unfortunately, there will remain no advisor command in which to put these former advisors, and so they will remain generally uncompetitive unless they opt also for traditional maneuver positions. Nor does it seem that they will necessarily be more competitive for having done both when that option is available to them. Majors who due to time constraints must make a decision on a slot as an advisor or as a battalion executive or operations officer would be unlikely still to choose the former if they wish to remain competitive.
And while the promotion of Colonels MacFarland and McMaster signaled moves toward rewarding innovation, that it required the personal intervention of Secretary Gates and General Petraeus speaks to personnel systems that continue to fail in a time of war to reward wartime service in challenging positions.
There is significant historic justification for skepticism. When Vietnam-era Army Chief of Staff Harold K. Johnson similarly ordered boards to consider service as an advisor team chief the equivalent of battalion command, the boards simply ignored him.
And even if we get the boards on board better than General Johnson, for instance by mandating selection of advisors at a higher per capita rate than their peers (which would be a change over which to uncork the institutional change champagne), it does not solve the other issues of Doctrine, Organization, Training, Leader Development, Materiel, and Facilities.
In terms of doctrine, the big tent process through which FM 3-24 was developed is a good model for developing appropriate doctrine for Security Force Assistance. The limited open commentary on JCISFA's emerging doctrine is unlikely to produce doctrine sufficient for our advisory efforts in BOTH Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention other contingencies. It is moreover inexcusable seven years into our war in Afghanistan that while we have a Mission Training Plan for US Army bands (ARTEP 12-113-MTP), we lack an equivalent document for the hundreds of transition teams and thousands of personnel currently deployed in an advisory capacity in Afghanistan and Iraq. Finally, the current version of the Army's Operations Manual lacks any mechanism by which to tailor forces or task-organize to conduct security force assistance within the "Provide Support to Governance" stability task.
In terms of organization, no organization currently structured within the modular brigade concept can fulfill the increasing need in Afghanistan and Iraq for large scale security force assistance. The lack of organizations structured for advising prevents the development and retention of institutional knowledge on advising and inhibits the training, education, and employment of advisors to our current conflicts.
Designating units as advisor units with identified mission essential tasks and training and education prerogatives would significantly support the efforts to develop security forces capable of defeating the insurgencies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. This is of course a zero sum game and can be done only at the expense of diminished capacity to man our maneuver brigades.
Much of the prerequisite thought and staffing for a military organization capable of providing support to host nation governance including security force assistance has already taken place...in 1968. DCSPER-40 directed the creation of the 6,000 man Military Assistance Officer Command, a force of 6,000 that would have combined the elements of both civil and military assistance. Unfortunately, like current attempts to reform the advisory effort, only 500 of those billets were filled two years into the program.
Training and education for advisors remains highly inadequate as described here, here, here, and here. The comparable Vietnam era school for advisors headed to the Military Assistance Officer Command was 22 weeks, compared to 8 weeks for our current transition teams.
Beyond significant personnel issues for captains and enlisted men still not addressed by the Chief's announcement, there remains the thorny issue of selecting the right personnel to serve in advisor positions. Major General John Cushman, who served several advisor tours in Vietnam, wrote in his final defbriefing report that a) the need for advisors would not go away and b) that the constitution and capabilities of good advisors did not necessarily overlap with those of good commanders.
The Army to date has resisted the implications of such findings, not taking language capacity or the ability to operate in a foreign culture into account in assigning advisors. Identifying those with the right skillsets to be advisors, taking only volunteers, and rewarding service in order to get those volunteers is necessary if our advisory efforts are to succeed. Leader development and education could then follow better training and personnel decisions. Integration of advisor training into current Leadership Development Programs would be a good start--where is the advisor module at the Captains Career Courses?
There is currently no single command with the identified responsibility of supplying and sustaining advisors. This is why they are often reduced to beggars in any area of operations (as applied to Kip during his service in Afghanistan). As for facilities, with the advisor mission likely to increase in coming years regardless of who wins the election, it is time to demonstrate institutional commitment to training through the development of world class and permanent facilities for advisor training.
The Army Chief of Staff's announcement is a vital first step in the move toward institutionalizing advisor capacity. It is, however, insufficient. Kip hopes it will not take seven more years to complete the significant reforms still required.
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