i

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iii

v

Strategic Studies Institute

and

U.S. Army War College Press

ENABLING OTHERS TO WIN IN A 

COMPLEX WORLD: MAXIMIZING SECURITY 

FORCE ASSISTANCE POTENTIAL IN THE 

REGIONALLY ALIGNED BRIGADE 

COMBAT TEAM

Liam Walsh

December 2015

The views expressed in this report are those of the author and 

do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the 

Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. 

Government. Authors of Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) and 

U.S. Army War College (USAWC) Press publications enjoy full 

academic freedom, provided they do not disclose classified 

information, jeopardize operations security, or misrepresent 

official U.S. policy. Such academic freedom empowers them to 

offer new and sometimes controversial perspectives in the interest of furthering debate on key issues. This report is cleared for 

public release; distribution is unlimited.

*****

This publication is subject to Title 17, United States Code, 

Sections 101 and 105. It is in the public domain and may not be 

copyrighted.
vi

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be forwarded to: Director, Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. 

Army War College Press, U.S. Army War College, 47 Ashburn 

Drive, Carlisle, PA 17013-5010. 

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ISBN 1-58487-715-4
vii

FOREWORD

As the Army downsizes its personnel while still being asked to conduct a wide variety of missions globally, the need for increased effectiveness is paramount. 

Those interested in the possibilities presented by the 

Army’s recently developed regionally aligned forces 

(RAF) concept will find this monograph thoughtprovoking and of particular interest. While the United 

States has long recognized the importance of “helping others help themselves,” the author contends that, 

as Operation IRAQI FREEDOM demonstrated, U.S. 

Army conventional forces continue to falter in the 

realm of security force assistance. In a personnel and 

budgetary constrained environment, doing more with 

less will become more important, as will the need to 

build partner capacity. 

In this monograph, Captain (Promotable) Liam 

Walsh, an infantry officer and veteran of both Iraq and 

Afghanistan, seeks to answer how the Army’s principal tactical formation—the brigade combat team—can 

best respond to this challenge and opportunity. Drawing upon extensive research into the Army’s advisory 

efforts in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, Captain Walsh 

concludes that the Army must learn several key lessons in how it conducts security force assistance. Primary among these lessons is the imperative to get the 

right personnel into advisory roles, the need to ensure 

unity of effort between the operational and advisory 

missions, and the need to optimize the brigade combat team for security force assistance if it is to conduct 

that mission.

Captain Walsh examines the opportunities that 

the brigade combat team currently has in conducting 

security force assistance in today’s operating environ-
viii

ment. Drawing from the lessons of Iraq and current 

national security strategy, the author advocates that 

the brigade combat team can be a powerful force for 

the combatant commanders in the realm of conflict 

prevention, but that many of the lessons of Iraq are 

at risk of being lost. He further argues that changes 

should be made within the Army to make the brigade 

combat team more effective at security force assistance 

if tasked to conduct that mission.

The author provides five recommendations for the 

Army to increase the effectiveness of brigade combat 

teams when they are providing security force assistance. First, he calls for the Army to align the majority 

of its brigade combat teams with geographic combatant commands, thereby allowing the brigades to focus 

their training on a specific area of operations, while 

providing the combatant commanders with a more effective product. Next, he suggests the Army should 

reform its personnel policies to allow Soldiers to stay 

primarily aligned with units in the combatant command with which they have experience, creating more 

regional expertise and enabling enduring relationships with partner militaries. Third, he advocates for 

aligning conventional forces with collocated Special 

Forces Groups on military installations, creating the 

conditions for continued interdependence between 

the two, but also drawing on the inherent advisory capabilities found in Special Forces to help conventional 

forces prepare for this mission. Fourth, he calls for the 

creation of an “army advisor” corps, whose mission 

would be to conduct tactical and operational advising 

to host nation security forces, while also providing the 

ability to embed in conventional units tasked to conduct security force assistance to increase their capacity for that mission. Finally, he calls for the permanent 
ix

assignment of those “Army advisors” down to the 

battalion level as a means to assist unit commanders to train host nation security forces, or to provide 

stand-alone advisory packages if needed.

Captain Walsh’s work is timely and relevant and 

provides an excellent example of a young officer looking at a strategic issue and drawing upon his or her 

operational experience to try to provide recommendations to the U.S. Army as an institution. Those interested in the possibilities presented by the Army’s 

recently developed regionally aligned forces concept 

will find this monograph thought-provoking and of 

particular interest. The Strategic Studies Institute 

welcomes Captain Walsh’s contribution to the body 

of literature on security force assistance and regional 

alignment and highly recommends this work to those 

interested in the advisory mission in Iraq, brigade 

structure, and the regionally aligned forces concept.

 

 DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.

 Director

 Strategic Studies Institute and

 U.S. Army War College Press

xi

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LIAM WALSH is currently a student at the U.S. Army 

Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, KS. He was commissioned as an infantry officer 

after graduating from the U.S. Military Academy in 

2006. His first assignment was at Fort Campbell, KY, 

from where he deployed as a platoon leader to northwest Baghdad for 14 months in support of Operation 

IRAQI FREEDOM during the “surge.” After completion of the Maneuver Captains Career Course in 2010, 

he was assigned to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA, 

where he twice deployed in support of Operation 

ENDURING FREEDOM to southern Afghanistan; in 

2010 as an assistant operations officer and in 2012 as 

both a Stryker rifle company and headquarters and 

headquarters company commander. From 2013 to 

2015, Captain Walsh attended graduate school at the 

Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He holds a bachelor’s degree in military history from West Point and a master’s degree in law and 

diplomacy from the Fletcher School.

xiii

SUMMARY

An examination of the U.S. Army’s security force 

assistance efforts during Operation IRAQI FREEDOM 

reveals significant issues in effectively advising Iraqi 

Security Forces due to several organizational and personnel shortcomings within the Army’s approach to 

this crucial mission. The merging of the Army’s operational and advisory efforts at the core operational formation—the brigade combat team—occurred with the 

advent of the Advise and Assist Brigade in 2009 and 

resolved some of those issues operationally, but did 

not fix the underlying structural issues in the Army. 

In 2013, the Army began to examine a new way 

of conducting business in the area of conflict prevention, looking to “engage regionally and respond globally.” The tool chosen for this strategy is the regionally 

aligned forces (RAF) concept, which aligns various 

units with the geographic combatant commands. One 

potential mission for regionally aligned forces that 

has the possibility of yielding substantial dividends is 

security force assistance. By aligning units regionally, 

particularly the brigade combat team, the Army could 

greatly increase its ability to conduct security force assistance through building enduring relationships with 

partner militaries and in gaining genuine regional 

expertise in potential areas of conflict.

However, the security force assistance lessons 

learned in Iraq currently are not operationalized to 

their maximum level within the brigade combat team. 

If regionally aligned brigade combat teams are to be 

truly effective in future security force assistance missions, several changes must take place in how the 

Army mans, trains, and equips its formations:
xiv

• First, the Army should expand regional alignment to the majority of its brigade combat 

teams.

• Second, the Army should change its personnel 

management policies to ensure that soldiers 

serving in regionally aligned units remain focused on a geographic theater for the majority 

of their careers.

• Third, the Army should institutionalize relations between regionally aligned Special Forces 

Groups and conventional forces co-located on 

installations.

• Fourth, the Army should create a distinct 

“army advisor” functional area for officers and 

noncommissioned officers to form a cadre of 

experts in training foreign security forces at the 

tactical and operational levels.

• Fifth, the Army should modify the organization of the brigade combat team to increase its 

security force assistance capacity by assigning 

these Army Advisors down to the maneuver 

battalion level.

As this monograph demonstrates, the previous 

recommendations are not a cure-all for security force 

assistance within the brigade combat team, but what 

they do provide are possible means to develop more 

effectively and efficiently the militaries of partner and 

allied nations. By maximizing advising potential at 

the brigade combat team and below, the Army will 

be able to more effectively build partner capacity, to 

develop enduring relationships with partner military 

forces while gaining regional expertise at the tactical 

and operational levels, to institutionalize Special Operations Forces and conventional forces interdepen-
xv

dence, and most importantly, to attain unity of effort 

in the operational and advisory components of operations, while also getting the best soldiers suited for 

advisor duty into those roles.

1

ENABLING OTHERS TO WIN IN A 

COMPLEX WORLD: MAXIMIZING SECURITY 

FORCE ASSISTANCE POTENTIAL IN THE 

REGIONALLY ALIGNED BRIGADE 

COMBAT TEAM

Liam Walsh

INTRODUCTION

Writing in Foreign Affairs in 2010, former Secretary 

of Defense Robert Gates noted: “strategic reality demands that the U.S. government get better at what 

is called ‘building partner capacity.’”1 Security force 

assistance (SFA) is a central tenet of the military component of this strategy, which focuses on the tasks associated with SFA: organize, train, equip, rebuild and 

build, and advise and assist.2 Defined as “activities that 

contribute to unified action by the U.S. Government to 

support the development of the capacity and capability of FSF [foreign security forces] and their supporting institutions,” SFA enables U.S. advisors to achieve 

strategic goals through the efforts of partner nations 

and allies rather than through direct U.S. intervention.3

 Additionally, as budgets tighten, focus within 

the Department of Defense (DoD), and the Army in 

particular, centers on the need to build partner capacity prior to the onset of conflict. Concentrating on the 

“Prevent” and “Shape” phases of campaigns, in 2013 

the Army chose to begin to regionally align its forces 

in order to provide conventional forces to geographic 

combatant commanders (GCCs) through a concept 

called regionally aligned forces (RAF). 

Security force assistance is more relevant in the 

contemporary environment than ever before. By 2009, 
2

Army doctrine recognized that “security force assistance is no longer an ‘additional duty.’ It is now a core 

competency of our Army.”4 Building off this idea, the 

2014 edition of the Army operating concept, titled Win 

in a Complex World, stated that, in order to foster security, “the Army engages regionally and prepares to respond globally to compel enemies and adversaries.”5

This central tenet of regional engagement and global 

responsiveness drives the RAF concept, as it recognizes that “Army forces are uniquely suited to shape 

security environments through forward presence and 

sustained engagements with allied and partnered land 

forces.”6 An underlying principle among these themes 

is the need for the United States to avoid prolonged 

large-scale conflict and instead focus on building partner capacity for dealing with these issues, exemplified 

in the recognition that “the diversity of threats to US 

security and vital interests will increase the need for 

Army forces to prevent conflict and shape security 

environments.”7

The aim of this monograph is to examine the role 

the U.S. Army plays in effectively enabling partner 

and allied nations to provide for their own security, 

thus preventing conflict if possible, and shaping it 

toward toward U.S. interests if conflict should arise. 

This monograph will focus at the tactical and operational levels of SFA—specifically looking at U.S. Army 

formations at the brigade combat team (BCT) and below; these units of approximately 4,500 soldiers are 

the deployable building block of the Army’s active 

forces. Optimizing the ability of the BCTs to conduct 

SFA while still retaining the warfighting capabilities 

inherent to the organization is crucial if the Army is to 

take on a larger role in building partner capacity and 

conflict prevention. SFA efforts in Iraq proved that the 
3

Army could adapt to conduct SFA at the BCT level, albeit slowly and often inefficiently, in order to develop 

Iraqi security forces (ISF) capable of defending Iraq 

after Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF) transitioned 

to Operation NEW DAWN (OND) in September 2010. 

This monograph’s chosen case study—OIF—will 

focus solely on the U.S. Army’s training efforts with 

the Iraqi army. Although the U.S. Marine Corps, as 

well as elements of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force, 

contributed significantly to the training of the Iraqi 

army, Iraqi National Police, Iraqi Border Police, Iraqi 

Special Operations Forces, and a myriad of other types 

of units, the scope of this project will be to look at how 

the U.S. Army attempted to train units most similar to 

it—the conventional Iraqi army.

Additionally, this analysis recognizes there are 

inherent contextual differences present in the OIF example and those of potential future SFA missions in 

conditions other than major combat operations. However, these differences do not negate the importance 

of understanding the institutional SFA shortcomings 

and associated remedies that the situation in Iraq dictated the Army undertake. Army units train for decisive action through the simultaneous combination of 

offensive, defensive, stability (or defense support of 

civil authorities) operations and then begin focused 

training upon receipt of a specific mission.8 Similarly, 

there is great value in learning from the lessons of SFA 

development and execution during OIF, an effort that 

saw continuous changes to the mix of offensive, defensive, and security operations, despite the fact that 

the Army is not likely to undertake another large-scale 

stability operation in the future. Even if future operating environments are not replications of the conditions 

found in OIF, there is value institutionally in looking 
4

at how the Army adapted to SFA in Iraq, and in noting 

that shortcomings still exist in the BCT for this crucial 

mission.

SFA efforts during OIF teach us several major lessons about how to be effective in this type of mission. 

Primary among these lessons is the inherent need to 

attain unity of effort between the advisory mission 

and combat mission, the need to specially select, train, 

and employ soldiers best suited for service as advisors early in the brigade’s cycle for deployment, and 

the need to adapt the organization to maximize effectiveness for SFA. Yet, current Army policy continues to treat SFA as an “add-on” mission for the BCT, 

negating the fact that, as Army policy states, conflict 

prevention is the area the Army will focus on in the 

future. Analyzing strengths and weaknesses of the 

U.S. Army’s SFA effort with the Iraqi army allows for 

best practices to be applied to future SFA efforts the 

Army may take part in—particularly should RAF at 

the brigade level and below find themselves ordered 

to conduct security force assistance. 

THE RELEVANCE OF SFA IN THE 

CONTEMPORARY OPERATING 

ENVIRONMENT

The 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) emphasizes three pillars for DoD’s defense strategy: protect the homeland; build security globally; project 

power and win decisively.

9 Of the 11 DoD missions 

the Army has a role in, SFA is directly tied to three: 

provide a global stabilizing presence; conduct military 

engagement and security cooperation; and conduct 

stability and counterinsurgency (COIN) operations.10
5

The 2014 Army Strategic Planning Guidance (ASPG) 

helps shape how the Army sees the strategic environment that drove the decision to turn toward RAF. 

Examining the desired end state of operations—the 

termination of conflict—the ASPG states, “Effective 

conflict termination must establish security and stability among populations, which requires knowledge 

and influence on their cultural, political and economic 

relationships.”11 The key point here, and one learned 

at great cost during OIF, OND, and Operation ENDURING FREEDOM (OEF), is that knowledge of 

culture and effective relationships are central to successful mission accomplishment in today’s operating 

environment. This rationale shapes and justifies the 

Army’s regional alignment of forces in order to meet 

the basic and enabling roles.

The Army accomplishes its mission through the 

conduct of two basic roles and four enabling roles. The 

Army’s basic roles are to deter/defeat threats on land

and to control land areas and their populations.

12 The 

organization, size, and capabilities of the Army make 

it the only branch of the Joint Force that can achieve 

these roles over a sustained period on land. The 

Army’s enabling roles are support to security cooperation, support to domestic civil authorities, entry 

operations, and Army support to other services, the 

Joint Force, and the DoD.

13 SFA falls primarily under 

support to security cooperation. The manner in which 

the Army will conduct this increased engagement is 

by maintaining a regional presence, building partner 

capacity and alliances, and providing the Joint Force 

with essential enablers for rapid contingency response 

if and when needed. The Army relies on two supporting concepts for this strategy—RAF and mission 

tailored forces (MTF).
6

The Army defines RAF as: 

[original in bold] those Army units assigned and allocated to combatant commands, as well as those capabilities that are service retained (but aligned to a 

Combatant Command (CCMD) and prepared by the 

Army for regional missions.

14

RAF includes total army organizations (Active Duty, 

National Guard, Army Reserves) and also capabilities 

that are forward deployed, operating in a combatant 

command area of responsibility, supporting the combatant command from outside the area of responsibility, and those prepared to support from outside the 

area of responsibility. 

Key to the RAF concept is that combatant command requirements drive regional missions, and this 

will require that RAF have understanding of cultures, 

geography, languages, and militaries of the countries 

in which they are most likely to operate, as well as 

expertise in how to impart military knowledge and 

skills to others.15 The goal of regional alignment is to 

provide the combatant commanders with “predictable, task-organized, and responsive capabilities” to 

achieve their missions and other requirements across 

the full range of military operations, to include joint 

task force-capable headquarters, crisis or contingency 

response, operations support, theater security cooperation, and bilateral or multilateral military exercises.16

A byproduct of increasing regional knowledge within 

units is that Army units tasked to conduct SFA under the RAF concept will have a greater knowledge 

of their counterparts, their language, customs, and 

region, and thus can be expected to serve more effectively in an advisory role.
7

Additionally, the Army cites that regional alignment will provide for more effective approaches for 

nontraditional threats in an “increasingly interdependent security environment” by training soldiers and 

growing leaders who can adapt to changing conditions across the range of military operations.17 Part of 

this is that the Army sees RAF as one way to build sustainable capacity in partners and allies because forces 

organized under the concept will support enduring 

combatant commander requirements for military engagement, thus strengthening relationships and providing “consistent and committed interaction.”18 As 

will be examined later, the importance of enduring 

relationships is key in working with partner nations. 

The other supporting concept outlined in the 2014 

ASPG is that of mission tailored forces (MTF). MTF 

complement RAF in meeting combatant commander 

requirements, but have distinctly different and specific roles and missions such as the global response 

force (GRF), defeating anti-access/area denial threats, 

countering weapons of mass destruction, Army cyberspace forces, conventional Army habitual support to 

other services or special operations forces for specified 

missions, and combat operations to decisively defeat 

a threat.19

With this understanding of how the Army sees 

itself filling its role within current national security 

strategy, this monograph will next examine a case 

study of the largest SFA mission the Army has undertaken since Vietnam—OIF. By tracing the development of the SFA mission in Iraq from 2003-10, it is 

possible to identify institutional and organizational 

shortcomings in how the Army conducts SFA, especially at the brigade combat team level. 
8

SFA IN IRAQ 2003-10

The catastrophic effects of the early American decision to disband the Iraqi army were further compounded as OIF progressed by advisory efforts best 

described as ad hoc, disjointed, inefficient, and lacking proper attention and resources. At the beginning 

of the war, there were very limited efforts to build 

the Iraqi army, as it fell victim to the extreme levels 

of “de-Baathification” underlying American policy. 

It was not until February 2005, when the George W. 

Bush administration developed a strategy contingent 

on turning security quickly over to the Iraqis, that 

significant efforts at SFA began. In response, General 

George Casey, commander of Multinational ForcesIraq (MNF-I) called to raise the number of American 

advisors in Iraq to 2,600—more than doubling their 

presence.20 Yet, no consolidated training program for 

deploying advisors was created until 2006, and even 

then, no system existed within the Army’s personnel 

management bureaucracy to ensure selection of the 

best people suited to serve as advisors. 

Separate chains of command for advisors and operational units created unity of effort problems, and 

the focus remained on the conventional Army forces 

until 2009, when the Army decided to merge the advisory effort into the BCT, creating the Advise and Assist Brigade. This augmented formation fixed many of 

the inherent issues in SFA efforts in Iraq and led to 

continued success under OND, with the United States 

taking a back seat to the Iraqi military, although recent 

events and the collapse of the Iraqi army in the face 

of opposition in 2014 call into question the long-term 

effectiveness of this campaign. 
9

Although there are many lessons to be learned in 

examining the Army’s SFA efforts in OIF, it must be 

noted that this example occurred in a war-torn country 

that the United States had invaded and defeated. With 

this, the United States deployed significant amounts 

to troops and spent billions of dollars working to rebuild Iraq. Therefore, the OIF SFA model is not readily transportable to assisting U.S. partners that are 

not in the middle of a war. Additionally, much of the 

contemporary turmoil in Iraq must be attributed to 

forces well outside the Army’s purview—principally 

the Iraqi government’s inability to reconcile with its 

Sunni population. However, there are many lessons 

of the SFA experience in OIF, particularly focusing on 

BCT structure, that are worth examining in depth and 

provide ample opportunities for application in environments more permissive than that of war-torn Iraq.

Troubled Beginnings: 2003-06.

In June 2003, the operational command in Iraq, Coalition Joint Task Force 7 (CJTF7), created the Coalition 

Military Assistance Training Team (CMATT), manned 

primarily by contractors, to train ISF.21 The initial plan 

called for U.S. Special Operations Forces to train 500 

Iraqi commandos and for CMATT to establish nine 

light brigades for the new Iraqi army.22 Concurrently, 

conventional U.S. units began to train paramilitary 

Iraqi Civil Defense Corps units at the company level 

to assist in providing law and order.23

In June 2004, after a year of “indirection and collapse,” CMATT became incorporated under the newly 

formed Multinational Security Transition CommandIraq (MNSTC-I), led by then-Lieutenant General 

David Petraeus.24 The establishment of MNSTC-I 
10

coincided with the creation of Multinational CorpsIraq (MNC-I), which handled tactical matters, while 

MNSTC-I was responsible for the creation of Iraqi Security Forces. This occurred concurrently with CJTF7 

being split into two commands—MNC-I for daily 

operations, and MNF-I, which oversaw the strategic 

direction of the war. While intended to raise the priority of building ISF, the creation of separate operational 

and advisor commands also created a split command 

structure that would make unity of effort difficult to 

achieve.

Petraeus soon replaced the contractors leading the 

advisory effort with soldiers; however, many were 

“inadequately prepared for their role as advisors.”25

At the time, there were only 39 “advisor support 

teams” (AST) in Iraq to carry out the training of the 

ISF.26 Of the ASTs, Major General Schwitters, the commander of CMATT, felt that only a third of the teams 

were effective, noting that “nothing” had been done to 

prepare them for their duties.27

Indicative of the level of dysfunction in the advisory effort early in the war, one AST leader, who deployed to Iraq in March 2004 expecting to set up an 

Iraqi basic training facility, eventually found himself 

embedded with his Iraqi army trainees during the first 

Battle of Fallujah in November 2004.28 Outlining the 

role that elements of one reserve division played when 

they deployed to Iraq in 2004, the commander of the 

U.S. Army Reserve Command stated, “I thought the 

98th [Division] would essentially do a training base 

kind of thing. But what actually happened was that 

many of these outstanding soldiers found themselves 

embedded inside Iraqi units.”29
11

At the time of MNSTC-I’s creation, nine Iraqi battalions existed; Petraeus’s task was to build 10 Iraqi 

divisions as quickly as possible.30 Compounding this 

daunting challenge, MNSTC-I had to fight for personnel to man its staff, relying heavily on reservists and 

individuals plucked from units already in Iraq.31 Simultaneously, in June 2004 MNC-I tasked conventional Army units to train the two existing brigades of the 

Iraqi National Guard to replace the Iraqi Civil Defense 

Corps.32 Army units became increasingly involved in 

the training of ISF by creating ad hoc training teams 

they provided from within their own ranks, while also 

“partnering” with ISF to eventually conduct combined 

operations together. By November 2004, over 1,100 

transition team members—sourced predominantly 

from the units already on the ground—were serving 

in Iraq.33 Yet, despite the creation of MNSTC-I, little 

unity of effort existed, and units essentially developed 

their own programs and manned their own advisor 

units to train the Iraqi army.

During the 2004-06 period, advisors assigned to 

Military Transition Teams (MiTT) in Iraq were both 

sourced internally by operational units already in theater, and sourced externally by officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) selected to serve on transition teams by the Army. Disparate training, however, 

resulted in the teams having great levels of experience, but mostly forged through on the job training, 

rather than institutional training on advising.34 Heavy 

reliance initially went to Army Reserve and National 

Guard units, and then the efforts shifted to manpower 

that land-owning BCTs could provide themselves for 

the advisory mission. Multiple studies of transition 

teams, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, concluded that 

these teams were too small for the tasks that they have 

been assigned.35
12

Doctrinally, MiTTs were 11-man teams advising 

Iraqi army units at the division, brigade, and battalion 

levels. They were normally attached to U.S. land-owning units, usually at the brigade or battalion—although 

the size of the teams frequently varied as subordinate 

elements in the BCT were often reorganized in support of the MiTTs. Administratively, the Iraqi Assistance Group (IAG) controlled the teams, while the 

conventional land-owning units managed them tactically.36 MiTTs consisted of officers and senior NCOs 

from across combat arms and support branches, responsible for not only training and advising the Iraqi 

forces, but also for ensuring the Iraqi army had access 

to American enablers such as fire support and medical 

evacuation assets. In theory, a brigade-level MiTT was 

led by a combat arms lieutenant colonel, with a combat arms major as his maneuver trainer, and then an 

officer and NCO team in specialty areas such as intelligence, logistics, fire support, communications, and 

medical support.37 At the battalion level, the trainers 

dropped to a corresponding rank—generally led by a 

captain and made up mostly of company grade officers 

and staff sergeants through sergeants first class, while 

at the division, the sourcing went up, as colonels led 

division MiTTs. Therefore, in theory the MiTTs had 

the expertise to train and advise the Iraqi army, while 

also possessing the tactical skills needed to bring U.S. 

enablers to bear in support of the Iraqi army.

By 2005, as the situation in Iraq deteriorated, the 

U.S. plan became to transition security responsibilities 

quickly to the Iraqis—as President Bush summarized, 

“as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.”38 This 

hopeful strategy was designed “to keep a lid on Iraq 

until such time as newly created Iraqi forces could 

take over the fight.”39 Correspondingly, advisory 
13

efforts rapidly increased. Casey requested forces for 

the advisory effort in 2005, calling for an additional 

1,505 dedicated trainers, representing a demand of 

over five BCTs worth of captains, majors, and lieutenant colonels, as well as a host of senior NCOs; this 

came at a time when the Army already had 20 BCTs 

committed to the fights in Iraq and Afghanistan and 

another 15 preparing to rotate in.40 Facing significant 

demand for officers and senior NCOs, the Army had 

to rely on the piecemeal tasking of individuals to cobble together advisor teams, ignoring factors such as 

cohesion among the teams or an individual’s disposition toward being able to work across cultures with 

Iraqi counterparts.

The establishment of MNSTC-I did show, however, that the Army was willing to put resources toward organizing, training, and equipping an Iraqi 

army, albeit not without flaws. Casey optimistically 

set November 30, 2005, as the date to transition security responsibilities to Iraqi control at the provincial 

level. MNSTC-I became the main effort in Iraq, with 

U.S. forces taking a back seat to the ISF, instead focusing mainly on counterterrorism.41 The assumption 

that, only 18 months after its establishment, MNSTCI could effectively train an Iraqi force capable of assuming responsibility for all of Iraq seems naïve in 

hindsight. This point was driven home in the failed 

attempt in July 2006 to implement the first Baghdad 

Security Plan, Operation TOGETHER FORWARD, 

when several Iraqi Army units simply did not show 

up.42 Despite U.S. plans and institutional commitment 

to turn security over to the ISF, the Iraqis simply were 

not prepared.
14

Transition Teams in the “Surge”: 2007-08.

Recognizing inconsistency in the training of advisors, in June 2006 the Army, Air Force, and Navy consolidated advisory team training at Fort Riley, KS, under the command of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division; 

the Marines established their own transition training 

center at 29 Palms, CA. Sensing the urgency of this 

mission, the Army allocated the combat power of the 

1st Infantry Division’s entire headquarters and the 

leadership of two of its brigades to oversee the training.43 Those selected to MiTTs underwent 60 days of 

training at Fort Riley, focused on individual skills, advisor skills, collective tasks, and culture, as well as 40 

hours of language training.44 Additionally, the Deputy 

Commanding General of the 1st Infantry Division 

was made the commander of the IAG, responsible 

for the administrative control of all transition teams 

deployed to Iraq.45 The Army G3, Lieutenant General 

James Lovelace, testified to Congress in 2006 that he 

considered resourcing the transition teams to be the 

Army’s top manning priority.46 There is some credence 

to this claim, as one class of majors graduating from 

the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College 

in late-2006 saw 18 percent of its graduates assigned 

directly to transition teams.47 However, the demands 

of the war dictated that many top performers were assigned to combat units, and advisor teams often were 

assigned those soldiers who had not yet deployed, as 

the Army had to relieve the stress on those soldiers 

that had deployed repeatedly to Iraq or Afghanistan.

This is not to say, however, that the Fort Riley 

training program was a cure-all to fix SFA efforts. 

COIN expert Dr. John Nagl, whose last assignment 

in the Army from 2006-08 was commanding one of 

the battalions at Fort Riley tasked with training U.S. 
15

advisors, stated he “was furious at the ad-hockery that 

underlay everything the Army was doing in advisor 

selection and training.”48 Nagl’s criticism’s centered 

on what amounted to strategic miscalculations. According to him, the Army was selecting the wrong 

people to serve as advisors (focusing on those who 

had not been in combat rather than the most talented 

who had); additionally, it was conducting training in 

the wrong place (the prairie of Kansas rather than the 

desert of Fort Irwin, CA). Furthermore, the Army was 

training advisors with the wrong people (tank drivers 

instead of Green Berets). Then the Army disbanded 

the trained, battle-tested advisor teams after their 

year-long deployment, only to create new ones from 

scratch to replace them.49

Higher echelon MiTTs (brigade and division) were 

predominantly filled with senior leaders centrally 

selected by the Army for advisory duty. These “external” teams received formal training—as the teams 

were formed and trained together at Fort Riley and 

then trained in Kuwait and Iraq prior to attachment to 

U.S. forces in theater. While these MiTTs often trained 

in a focused manner on advising skills and had good 

internal cohesion, they were attached to BCTs with 

whom they had no prior experience, resulting in the 

need to develop relationships between the MiTT and 

the BCT.50 Additionally, despite the importance of 

training the ISF by 2008, only half of the 14 division 

MiTTs were augmented with a standard MiTT, showing that even though these teams had the top manning priority, getting advisors into place remained a 

challenge.51

The battalion-level MiTTs, those conducting tactical advising, were frequently internally sourced by 

members of the U.S. battalion responsible for an area 
16

of operations. Although this led to good relationships 

between the transition team and the conventional 

land-owning unit, it also created several problems. 

First, these MiTTs often received scant advisor training—usually a rotation at one of the combat training 

centers, and then attendance at the Phoenix Academy at Camp Taji upon arrival in Iraq. The Phoenix 

Academy (later to become the COIN academy) was 

designed to serve as the transition team “finishing 

school” for MiTTs that trained together at Fort Riley, 

not as a stand-alone training program.52 Additionally, 

internally sourced teams were “created out of hide” 

and required the sourcing unit to lose a disproportionate number of senior NCOs and key officers for this 

mission, making it difficult to replace those leaders. 

Battalion MiTTs often conducted combat operations 

with their ISF partners, creating additional challenges. Conducting assessments of Iraqi army units in the 

field required the MiTT to organize itself for a combat 

patrol—a daunting task for an 11-member team, as the 

minimum manning requirements for most U.S. patrols was 12 soldiers, and giving credence to the claim 

that the advisory teams were too small for the tasks 

they completed.53 Many battlespace owning BCTs and 

battalions therefore had to provide U.S. platoons under operational control of the MiTTs to facilitate their 

freedom of movement, further exacerbating the ad 

hoc nature of the MiTTs.54

The descent of Iraq into sectarian civil war from 

2006-07 took its toll on the advisory effort, as the focus 

of MNSTC-I’s efforts remained the creation of Iraqi 

combat units, at the expense of institutional capacity, logistics, and other structural building blocks.55

Leader development in the ISF also took a back seat. 

Despite these challenges, by summer 2007, MNSTC-I 
17

had created over 150,000 soldiers in the Iraqi army, 

and the units’ performance had increased.56 Colonel 

Peter Mansoor, Executive Officer for General Petraeus 

from 2007-08, highlighted that “Six thousand advisors 

were embedded in five hundred military and policy 

advisory teams that were themselves increasingly better trained and able to assist Iraqi units.” 57 It should 

be noted, however, that this was at a time when over 

160,000 U.S. forces were deployed to Iraq; this means 

that less than 4 percent of the force was dedicated to 

training the ISF. The urgency of the “surge” required 

U.S. units to take on the bulk of securing the Iraqi population, while the ongoing development of the ISF did 

not receive the same level of emphasis and resourcing 

as did the additional five “surge” BCTs sent to Iraq. 

While efforts to secure Iraq from 2006-08 certainly 

achieved impressive results, the advisory campaign 

remained relatively ad hoc during this crucial phase 

of the war.

The Advise and Assist Brigade, 2009-10.

In September 2009, the Army relieved the 1st Infantry Division of its responsibility for training advisors, 

and the 162nd Infantry Training Brigade at Fort Polk, 

LA, was activated and assumed the mission. For the 

first time since the war began, an institutional command was dedicated to the training of advisors and 

transition teams. With this change, the 1st Infantry 

Division resumed its traditional role, and the 162nd 

fell in on the resources of the massive Joint Readiness 

Training Center at Fort Polk. 

The 162nd conducted its advisor training program 

in four blocks: a 10-day Advisor Course for Augmented Advisors, Warrior/Deployment Task Training, a 
18

3-day Tactical Leader Seminar, and a 3-day Advisor/

FSF Staff exercise.58 This also enabled the 162nd to 

train and evaluate advisor teams as they conducted 

their Mission Rehearsal Exercise at Fort Polk or Fort 

Irwin, CA, certifying the teams prior to their deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. Additionally, this change 

turned the Iraqi Assistance Group and the advisory 

effort over to MNC-I on June 3, 2009; finally placing 

the advisory and operational commands in Iraq under one roof.59 The 162nd also formed Mobile Training 

Teams that could travel to Army installations to train 

deploying units on a variety of SFA functions, including language skills, Islamic culture, roles of the advisor and negotiation techniques, leader engagements, 

and many other areas relevant to advisors.60

More importantly, the Army changed its approach 

to SFA in a significant way—both in the advisor teams 

and in the BCTs. The centerpiece of this change was 

the publishing of Field Manual (FM) 3-07.1, Security 

Force Assistance, in May 2009. The central operational 

change in this construct was that MiTTs and other 

transition teams were no longer to be attached to the 

BCT. The BCT would now be seen as the modular 

brigade augmented for security force assistance (MBSFA, more commonly known as the Advise and Assist 

Brigade, or AAB). Under this concept, the BCT would 

gain a large component of advisors upon receipt of 

an SFA mission, therefore shifting the priorities from 

transition teams supporting BCTs to the BCT itself becoming the transition team.

To facilitate this change, an AAB received up to a 

48-person augmentation in the form of four colonels, 

20 lieutenant colonels, and 24 majors.61 These individuals would be assigned temporarily to the BCT 

upon receipt of an SFA mission and would be task-
19

organized into Stability Transition Teams (S-TTs) that 

would work hand and hand with the BCT’s maneuver 

battalions. This meant that the S-TTs were embedded 

in the maneuver units and advised the ISF, providing them with coalition support when needed, and 

providing coalition forces with situational awareness 

of ISF operations and progress, while conventional 

forces at the squad through battalion level partnered 

with their Iraqi counterparts (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Traditional BCT vs. AAB.62

In the spring of 2009, the 4th BCT, 1st Armored 

Division deployed to Iraq, serving as a “proof of concept” for the AABs. By August 2010, seven AABs were 

serving in Iraq as the last “combat” BCT redeployed 

to the United States.63 Highlighting the importance of 

the shift to an advisory capacity within the BCT itself, 

a former AAB commander commented: 
20

leaders quickly discovered that security force assistance requires a different mind-set and focus from 

the traditional counterinsurgency mission of previous tours. We could no longer define our success by 

the number of insurgents we detained. . . . Rather, the 

quality of the host nations’ security forces we left behind ultimately defined the success of our campaign.64 

With the development of the AAB, the Army finally achieved unity of effort between its advisory 

missions and the major unit on the ground, the BCT. 

By linking the BCT to the transition effort, another 

AAB commander noted that “mindset shift” occurred 

within the AAB’s, where the “ISF are our battlespace” 

and the “entire organization of the brigade is in support of the S-TT.”65

On September 1, 2010, OIF transitioned to OND, 

marking the official end of combat operations by U.S. 

forces in Iraq. Under OND, six AABs remained in Iraq 

to conduct stability operations, focusing on advising, 

assisting, and training the ISF.66 This became the U.S. 

military mission in Iraq until the end of 2011, when 

the United States, unable to negotiate a new status of 

forces agreement with Baghdad, withdrew the last of 

its military forces from Iraq. The hard-learned lessons 

of SFA within the BCT learned during the 2003-10 

period became, at least temporarily, institutionalized 

within the AAB. As focus within the U.S. Government 

shifted to the war in Afghanistan, the AAB structure 

changes eventually found themselves present in the 

SFA Transition Team (SFATT). Yet, once units redeployed to the United States, training focus and organization completely shifted away from SFA, running the 

risk of failing to institutionalize the lessons learned in 

training FSF.
21

ANALYSIS AND LESSONS LEARNED

Reviewing the lessons learned in the Army’s attempts at SFA in Iraq from 2003-10, there are several 

key takeaways that must be considered in future SFA 

operations. Primary among these lessons is the imperative to get the right personnel into training and 

advisory missions; the need to ensure that unity of 

effort, particularly between the BCT and advisors, is 

considered in all aspects of operations; and the need 

to optimize the BCT for SFA missions. 

Personnel: Getting the Right People 

in the Right Place.

Army doctrine recognizes that “not every Soldier is 

well-suited to perform advisory functions; even those 

considered to be the best and most experienced have 

failed at being an advisor.”67 Consequently, the Army 

lists 16 personality traits of the advisor, including 

such subjective traits such as tolerance for ambiguity, 

warmth in human relations, tolerance for differences, 

and a sense of humor, as well as outlining two subcategories of advisor-specific skills: enabling, or working across cultures, building rapport, and negotiation; 

and developing—teaching, coaching, and advising.68

Despite the lessons of Iraq, current Army personnel strategies remain rooted in “an industrial age approach” in which it is impossible to identify relevant 

talents or experiences for advisory duty.69 Due to the 

Army’s assignment and evaluation systems, there is 

no way to identify those who possess the attributes of 

successful advisors outside of prior service as an advisor. Additionally, it took several years for the Army to 

ensure that those officers selected as advisors would 
22

have the duty seen as a career enhancing assignment. 

Casey, then the Army Chief of Staff, stated in 2008, “I 

want to ensure that the officers that lead these teams 

are recognized and given the credit they deserve.”70

As Nagl noted, this decision played a major role in 

helping ensure the right people filled advisory roles, 

as majors who led transition teams were given “key 

and developmental credit” required to advance in 

rank, and lieutenant colonels and colonels were selected for advisory duty by a centralized board, similar to the process for selection of battalion and brigade 

command.71

A question raised by the U.S. SFA effort in Iraq 

is how detrimental the ad hoc creation of transition 

teams was to their ability to create effective Iraqi forces. Some have noted that review of the Army’s advisory efforts throughout history reveals that the Army’s: 

primary method of selecting advisors for nearly 100 

years has been the ‘hey you’ system. With the exception of SF [Special Forces] and FAO [Foreign Area Officer] selection, there appears to be no clear method for 

selecting the best qualified advisors.72

Similar to criticisms of the advisory effort in Vietnam 

being “the Other War,” some have come to criticize 

the Army’s efforts in Iraq as having repeated some of 

the same mistakes.73 Additionally, personalities matter when trying to work effectively between transition 

teams and BCTs, especially at the senior leader level.74

However, it was not until the development of the AAB 

that advisor teams and BCTs trained together (albeit 

usually only for a short period) prior to deployment. 

The ad hoc creation and manning of advisor teams impaired not only team internal dynamics, but also relations with the BCT they would be attached to. 
23

The Army must therefore place emphasis on 

identifying and selecting the right type of people to 

serve as advisors, ensuring the duty helps advance 

their careers so that advisor duty attracts the best 

and brightest. Additionally, the Army must get these 

advisors into the BCT as early as possible to ensure 

effective relationships exist between the BCT and the 

advisory teams if the Army truly wants to ensure that 

the successes of the AAB will continue in future SFA 

endeavors.

Organization: Unity of effort.

The decision to create specialized elements in the 

form of an operational command (MNC-I) and an institutional command (MNSTC-I) in Iraq often created 

stove-piped information chains and disrupted unity 

of effort between the operational and advisory missions. Similar effects were felt in tactical and operational units, as this bifurcated chain of command required increased command and control requirements, 

allowed for multiple units operating in the same area 

of operations, and created competition for resources.75

Once deployed to theater, the MiTTs fell under the 

administrative control of the IAG, which oversaw all 

team training and reporting requirements on ISF progress.76 The IAG determined team assignments; oversaw personnel management such as replacements, 

evaluations, and awards; identified new equipment 

requirements for the teams; and oversaw property accountability.77 A problem with this alignment is that, 

while under the administrative control of the IAG, the 

MiTTs were attached to conventional BCTs, creating 

fractured information chains—similar to the examples 

of MNC-I and MNSTC-I at the theater level. For externally sourced MiTTs, this often led to problems with 
24

determining who was to provide them with administrative and logistical support. While a responsibility 

of the IAG, it became more of a reality that the BCTs 

should take on this task due to their physical proximity with one another. 

A bigger issue existed in the fact that the BCTs, with 

their ISF counterpart, “owned” the terrain in which 

the MiTTs operated. This could create tension between 

advisors and U.S. BCTs about operations conducted 

with the ISF. Conventional U.S. Army units often 

partnered with Iraqi army units at the squad, platoon, 

and company levels, conducting combined operations 

together, but the land-owning organization retained 

operational authority over what occurred in an area 

of operations until the advent of the AAB. MiTT advisors, concerned with the effectiveness and development of the Iraqi Army, worked from a separate set 

of priorities from their land-owning counterparts, 

whose primary concern was the security of the Iraqi 

population. Just as information became stove-piped 

in the division between MNC-I and MNSTC-I, the 

same occurred at lower levels, as American platoons 

partnered with Iraqi platoons often had no real way 

of reporting the real effectiveness of Iraqi small units 

in combat, since the 11-man MiTTs were very limited 

in what they could do operationally. Even under the 

AAB, challenges existed in assigning a large number 

of field grade officers to conventional units they had 

never worked with until just prior to deployment to 

Iraq. This led to the potential for personality clashes 

among brigade and advisor team leaders, and at lower levels could lead to confusion as to what was the 

main effort.

The key lesson is that, in order to achieve unity 

of effort, the advisory effort needs to be completely 
25

imbedded at the BCT and below—thus optimizing 

the organization for SFA. While in theory the AAB 

achieved this, in reality the addition of a large contingent of field grade officers a few months before deployment was not a total fix. In order to truly achieve 

unity of effort, advisors would need to work seamlessly with conventional units down to the company 

and platoon levels much earlier in their training cycle 

for deployment, and leaders at all levels very early on 

would need to define the relationships and command 

and support structures between the two missions.

SFA in OIF Conclusions.

In diagraming the arc of SFA efforts in OIF, it is 

apparent that two themes—getting the right people 

into advisory roles and achieving unity of effort between the advisory effort and land-owning units—are 

critical for effective development of FSF. The Army’s 

SFA effort in Iraq provides three key imperatives to be 

applied to future operations:

1. The BCT is likely to remain the baseline formation for the Army; advisory efforts must therefore be 

tailored to fit within the BCT structure to improve 

unity of command and effectiveness. Experience with 

the AAB in Iraq proved the formation to be adequate 

to conduct both major operations and SFA.

2. Ad hoc creation of advisor teams must be avoided in the future, and advisory teams should be incorporated into the BCT, similar to the AAB model in 

Iraq. Care should be taken to avoid creating separate 

commands such as MNC-I and MNSTC-I. Permanently assigning advisors to brigades would be a possible 

organizational change that could improve SFA efforts 

at the lowest levels.
26

3. Army personnel management processes must be 

modified to better identify service members possessing the skills and attributes for SFA outlined in FM 

3-07.1. Service as an advisor must be incentivized and 

not be seen as a competitive assignment that will not 

detract from future command opportunities.

These lessons will drive the following sections of 

this monograph as it examines how the Army can 

best apply the lessons from SFA in Iraq to future operations while recognizing that future SFA efforts are 

very likely to occur in circumstances much different 

from those of Iraq. As the Army seeks to “Prevent” 

and “Shape” the future conflict environment, it must 

get better at SFA at the lowest level if units deployed 

in support of RAF missions are to be effective and to 

apply the hard-learned lessons of training FSF that we 

can draw from OIF.

THE CURRENT ENVIRONMENT, RAF, 

AND THE BCT

Illustrating the potential that RAF can play in SFA 

for combatant commanders, General David Rodriguez, Commander of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), noted how the Army’s first regionally aligned 

brigade, the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team 

(ABCT), 1st Infantry Division, took part in multiple 

missions to train FSF. 2/1 ABCT elements trained a 

battalion from Malawi to serve in Congo, trained 

Chadian and Guinean peacekeepers to serve in Mali, 

conducted first aid training with Rwandan Defense 

Forces, trained Burundi forces in counter-improvised 

explosive device (IED) skills, and trained Kenyan Defense forces in unmanned aerial vehicle operations.78
27

Additionally, an infantry company from the brigade 

served as the East African Response Force and was 

ready to respond to the terror attack on the Westgate 

Shopping Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, although was ultimately not deployed.79 At the end of the first RAF 

deployment, elements of the brigade had conducted 

over 160 missions in 30 countries.80

The merits of the Army using aligned BCTs in SFA 

is therefore not in question—being able to provide 

forces to combatant commanders to meet their mission needs also coincides with the missions asked of 

the Army via the various national security documents 

that make up U.S. strategy. As noted in Foreign Policy, 

“it’s always Phase Zero somewhere,” and thus, regionally aligned Army forces have a role to play.81 The 

crux of the RAF concept is getting the BCT involved 

in the “Prevent” and “Shape” phases of its “PreventShape-Win” strategy. One key mission the BCT can 

bring to combatant commanders is SFA.

One helpful model to view the role of the BCT in 

conducting SFA is found in the U.S. Army Special 

Operations Command’s (USASOC) Operating Concept 

2022 (See Figure 2). Not surprisingly, USASOC envisions itself in the lead in most operations to the left 

of conventional military operations, such as foreign 

internal defense (FID), unconventional warfare, and 

counterterrorism. Where this analysis is truly interested is in the middle ground, where USASOC highlights 

the role of counterinsurgency, SFA and FID, and the 

interplay of SOF and conventional forces (CF). In this 

“engagement” phase, there is clearly a role for both 

conventional BCTs and SOF to play, especially given 

that it aligns with national security strategy emphasizing the military’s role in conflict prevention. The 

question, therefore, becomes one of how conventional 
28

forces, particularly at the BCT level and below, can 

become more adept at these types of missions.

Figure 2. USASOC Future Force Development 

Process.82

While this operating concept provides an excellent model for envisioning future campaigns and 

highlights the absolute necessity of SOF and CF interdependence, it is not without flaws. First, it overemphasizes the role that SOF can play, given the size 

and nature of SOF. One of the SOF fundamentals is 

that “SOF cannot be mass produced.”83 Therefore, a 

breaking point will be reached if SOF alone conducts 

SFA, thus necessitating the role of CF in this mission. 

USASOC also envisions SOF pulling critical enablers 

from the BCTs such as medical experts, intelligence 

assets, transportation assets, and others, which would 

critically degrade the BCT’s ability to conduct its own 

operations. This hits at the heart of the lessons learned 
29

conducting SFA in Iraq—Army BCTs must get better 

at conducting SFA so that they can conduct effective 

building of FSF without depending on SOF. Finally, 

there is a legitimate concern that the levels of SOF/CF 

interdependence experienced in OIF and OEF could 

atrophy because “security cooperation and security 

force assistance lack the forcing functions of combat 

that occurred consistently over the past decade.”84

It is also necessary to examine existing programs 

in the Army focused on SFA and Security Cooperation 

and to draw lessons from those operations as well as 

the lessons of Iraq. A well-known case study at the 

tactical level exists in Army Special Forces conducting 

FID missions—a core competency of the Green Berets 

since their founding in the earliest stages of the Vietnam War, while the National Guard’s State Partnership Program, formed in the 1990s to develop cooperative, mutually beneficial relationships with partner 

nations also provides an excellent example of effective 

relationship building and the importance that plays in 

working with partner militaries.

FID has long been a core competency of Army 

SOF. Yet, it is important to note that FID and SFA 

are not one and the same, as “SFA and DoD FID are 

both subsets of SC [Security Cooperation], but neither 

SFA nor FID are subsets of one another, because SFA 

activities serve purposes beyond internal defense.”85

The focus on all U.S. FID efforts is to support the host 

nation’s Internal Defense and Development (IDAD) 

strategy, which is ideally a preemptive plan of action.86 A more significant difference in FID and SFA 

is their scale. Forces conducting SFA theoretically can 

build FSF from the ground up, whereas FID focuses on 

existing forces defending against an internal threat.87

Nevertheless, while not the same doctrinally, a SOF 
30

approach to FID can provide valuable lessons into 

how conventional forces can conduct SFA.

An important factor when addressing Army Special Forces is that they possess unique functional skills 

inherent in their organization from the 12-man Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha level up, 

including cultural understanding and language skills, 

regional focus, and perhaps most important, core advising skills in working with other militaries. These 

factors made SOF the de facto forces for FID dating 

back to the Richard Nixon Doctrine of U.S. military 

assistance to host nations with the caveat that they 

provide the preponderance of forces for their own 

self-defense.88 This role was further solidified in the 

Sam Nunn-William Cohen amendment to the Barry 

Goldwater-William Nichols Act, which legislatively 

dictated FID as a core task for U.S. SOF.89

As will be noted in the examination of the State 

Partnership Program, SOF FID operations are not a 

panacea for SFA. FID is inherently much more limited 

than SFA in the scale of the operation—based on the 

precondition that a host nation must have or be capable of producing an IDAD strategy, both OIF and 

OEF were not candidates for FID.90 This limited scale 

enables SOF to conduct FID given the finite number of 

SOF, but as highlighted in the earlier section’s discussions of the USASOC operating concept, implies that 

there will never be enough SOF to act everywhere, 

thus necessitating the need for CF to take on the SFA 

mission. However, the value in examining the SOF 

role in FID is to highlight the importance of advisor 

expertise and cultural understanding in an existing 

Army structure for SFA.

Demonstrating the critical role that enduring relationships can have in working with partner militaries, 
31

the National Guard’s State Partnership Program (SPP) 

is another existing program deserving of examination. 

Created as a U.S. national initiative for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Partnership for 

Peace program in 1994, SPP initially sought to “provide opportunities for non-NATO countries to create 

a foundation for full participation in a shared environment of regional and international military, political, 

and economic activities.”91 With the focus of operations shifting to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) 

after September 11, 2001, the SPP mission remained 

relatively unchanged as U.S. European Command 

(EUCOM) was able to call upon National Guard forces 

despite losing many of its assigned forces to the fights 

in Iraq and Afghanistan.92 By 2010, SPP had expanded 

to partner 62 countries with 47 states, two territories, 

and the District of Columbia.93

A central reason for the success of SPP missions is 

that, because they draw from National Guard units, 

they have much greater personnel stability in their 

ranks compared to their Active Duty counterparts. 

This means the same soldiers often return to work with 

their host nation on multiple occasions—one extreme 

example is that of former Adjutant General in Illinois 

Major General William Enyart who worked with Polish security forces in the SPP from the time he was 

a junior lieutenant colonel and went on to maintain 

relationships with many Polish senior leaders military 

as a general officer.94

These military-to-military exchanges in the SPP almost always included people on both sides who had 

participated before, allowing for a degree of continuity 

but also enhancing understanding of culture, capabilities, and the importance of long-term relationships.95

As the program expanded beyond military-to-military 
32

partnerships, SPP was able to fund and train nonmilitary events, drawing on the significant experience in 

the National Guard on disaster relief and cooperation 

with civilian authorities, expertise not generally present in the active duty Army.96 Maryland eventually 

expanded the program to include sister cities, where 

mayors of 10 towns in Maryland worked with Estonian mayors to talk about provision of services.97 The 

key lesson relevant to the Army in conducting SFA 

missions is the importance of enduring relationships 

with partner and allied nations.

The SPP is also not a cure-all model for working 

with FSF. For instance, Ohio was partnered with Hungary in large part due to a large Hungarian population 

residing in Ohio; this type of situation is not transferable to the Active Army.98 Additionally, funding for 

civilian security cooperation is complicated, as it is 

executed under Title 22 USC, whereas military-tomilitary is executed under Title 10 USC. SPP gets approval from U.S. ambassadors, the National Guard 

Bureau, and the National Guard Annual SPP plan, and 

resources come from a variety of sources to include 

government agencies, NGOs, federal and state grants, 

private sector organizations, and international agencies.99 The obstacles to Active Duty units conducting 

military-to-civilian, and even military-to-military, operations under Title 10 USC are more complicated and 

restrictive. SPP does provide, however, an example 

of the value of enduring relationships between U.S. 

forces and partner nations, a central goal of the new 

RAF policy.
33

The Central Question: Can the BCT 

Conduct Effective SFA?

Nagl argued in 2008 “the Army should create a 

permanent standing advisory command with responsibilities for all aspects of the advisor mission—from 

doctrine through facilities.”100 Nagl’s vision called for 

an Army advisory command led by a lieutenant general that would oversee the training and deployment 

of 25-soldier advisory teams organized into three 200-

team advisor divisions.101 This new command would 

have primacy in all Army SFA missions, allowing it to 

focus all of its efforts on building FSF. A similar proposal is found in Colonel Scott Wuestner’s argument 

for the creation of a two-star “Security Advisory and 

Assistance Command,” which would implement all 

Army SFA programs. Similar to Nagl’s concept, Scott 

Wuestner called for a 47-person advisory teams at the 

division level and 25-person teams at the brigade and 

battalion levels.102

Others contend that the BCT is the correct structure 

for SFA, however. Colonel Philip Battaglia, commander of a prototype AAB in Southern Iraq from 2008-09, 

argued, “the BCT structure has the built-in flexibility 

to perform any assigned mission. There is no need 

for wholesale force structure redesign.”103 Citing the 

inherent agility and flexibility of the BCT, Battaglia’s 

experience led him to believe that “the modular BCT 

is the right organization to form the core of security 

force assistance operations in Iraq.”104 This is in line 

with the 2008 claim of then-Lieutenant General Peter 

Chiarelli that “I don’t believe it is in the military’s best 

interest to establish a permanent ‘Training Corps’ in 

the conventional military to develop other countries’ 

indigenous security forces.”105 Instead, Chiarelli felt 
34

that SOF could continue with the FID mission, although noting that conventional forces should have 

the inherent flexibility to transition to that mission, 

should it become too large for Special Forces.

Other arguments contend the modular BCT is the 

right formation for SFA, albeit with organizational 

and cultural change within the organization. One major lesson evident in the Iraq example is for a culture 

change to occur within the BCT so that it supports 

the advisor teams, not to “fight” them on the battlefield.106 Another criticism of the current model is that 

it provides inadequate doctrinal guidance to conduct 

SFA; units tasked with SFA missions have insufficient 

dwell time between deployments to organize, equip, 

and train effectively; and that several manning and 

training capability gaps exist in the AAB despite the 

approved augmentation package.107 The next section 

provides recommendations based on these arguments, 

the lessons from Iraq, and likely future missions that 

the Army will find itself tasked with so that it can best 

optimize the BCT to effectively conduct SFA.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the examination of the key lessons 

learned regarding SFA in Iraq—the need to get the 

right people into advisory missions and the need to 

achieve unity of command—as well as the previous 

examination of current SFA models and the likely future operating environment, this section of this monograph will provide recommendations for how the BCT 

can best adjust to SFA missions. These recommendations are based on the assumptions that the Army will 

be called upon to conduct SFA missions in partner nations in the “Prevent” and “Shape” phases of conflict, 
35

that the BCT will remain the core formation for Army 

operations, that the Army’s end strength does not 

drop below 450,000 soldiers in the Active Army, and 

that the vast majority of BCTs will remain stationed in 

the United States. Any changes to these assumptions 

would require a new analysis and likely prompt new 

recommendations.

Considering this monograph’s earlier findings and 

the earlier assumptions, the following recommendations are proposed, in order of importance, to maximize effectiveness within the brigade combat team 

tasked with conducting SFA:

1. Expand regional alignment to more BCTs.

2. Revise the Army’s personnel system to stabilize 

soldiers to units aligned to a combatant command 

with which they have experience.

3. Where possible, align BCTs with Army Special 

Forces Groups as well as combatant commands.

4. Create an Army Advisor Functional Area/Military Occupational Specialty.

5. Modify BCT structure by assigning “Army advisors” to increase SFA capacity at BCT and below.

Recommendation 1: Expand regional 

alignment to more BCTs.

To truly make regional alignment of BCTs effective 

in the realm of security cooperation, the Army should 

consider regionally aligning the majority of its brigades with a combatant command. While these alignments are not sacrosanct to operational demand in crisis, the alignment would nevertheless serve multiple 

purposes in making the BCT a more effective product 

for the combatant commanders. The benefits of this 

recommendation are numerous, but most important is 
36

that this proposal would build focused regional expertise at the individual and organizational level within 

aligned units while also providing the potential for 

lasting relationships between aligned units, their host 

nation partners, and the combatant command headquarters.

First, aligning the majority of its active BCTs with 

a combatant command provides the brigade with a 

region for which it can focus its training, not just language and culture, but also on operations and tactics. 

For instance, whereas a “light” infantry brigade combat team (IBCT), aligned with U.S. Pacific Command 

(PACOM) or U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), 

might focus small unit training on jungle operations, 

a more heavy, wheeled vehicle-based Stryker brigade 

combat team (SBCT) aligned with EUCOM or AFRICOM could focus on operations in built up urban areas or open terrain. These units must still train to “Decisive Action” standards, the execution of a full range 

of mission sets across the warfighting spectrum from 

insurgents and criminal networks to near-peer heavy 

forces. However, regional focus could help develop 

specialized capabilities for the areas they are most 

likely to deploy. The Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division’s recent re-establishment of a “Jungle Operations 

Training Course” represents some of the possibilities 

presented by alignment with PACOM with regards to 

training focus.108

More importantly, expanded alignment presents 

the conditions for establishing permanent relationships with host-nation security forces in partner nations. While these relations will never be fully realized 

at the tactical level due to personnel turnover, at the 

operational and senior leader levels, there is a real possibility that, through rotating brigade staff level offi-
37

cers and senior NCOs to joint exercises with partners, 

personal relationships can develop, as was the case in 

the National Guard’s State Partnership Program. At 

the squad through battalion level, continued focus on 

a region will at least develop regional understanding 

of allies and their armed forces’ capabilities, terrain, 

and operations, even if it is never possible to reach 

cultural and language proficiency across the broad 

spectrum of nations that make up a combatant command’s area of operations. An expansion of regional 

alignment meshes with General Raymond Odierno’s 

2012 remarks that: 

the approach to accomplishing operational tasks 

is by organizing around highly trained Squads 

and Platoons that are the foundation for our Company, Battalion and Brigade Combat Teams, organized for specific mission sets and regional 

conditions.109

Ideally, the expansion of regional alignment would 

include providing combatant commanders with a mix 

of the three types of brigade combat teams—infantry, 

Stryker, and armored. Ultimately, the unit’s doctrinal 

mission should “be foremost taken into consideration” 

when aligning forces to a combatant command.110 For 

example, in PACOM, operations in jungle environments with small elements are more likely to be the 

norm than combined arms maneuver with tanks and 

other heavy vehicles (with Korea being the exception), 

necessitating a preponderance of aligned light IBCTs. 

The same goes for a larger alignment of ABCTs or 

SBCTs in AFRICOM, CENTCOM, or EUCOM. While 

combatant commanders should be provided with a 

mix of the three types of BCTs for regional alignment, 

the realities of physical geography, the composition 
38

of host-nation security forces, and a realist analysis of 

the composition and disposition of potential adversaries in the area of operations must all inform the right 

“mix” of brigades aligned to a combatant command.

To maximize alignment of BCTs with combatant 

commands, it is important to understand how the 

Army manages its personnel and units under the 

Army Force Generation (ARFORGEN) model. Active 

Army units are managed on a 36-month rotational 

cycle in three force pools: 6 months in the RESET pool, 

focused on unit reconstitution after a deployment and 

on limited individual training; 18 months in the Train/

Ready pool, focused on increasing readiness and capabilities in preparation for moving to the Available 

pool; and 9 months in the Available Force pool, where 

units are at the highest state of readiness and are available for sourcing operational requirements.111 This 

1:3 ratio of “boots the on ground” time deployed to 

nondeployed, or “Dwell” time exists in “steady-state” 

rotation where supply of forces in the Available Force 

Pool exceeds mission demands; in a “surge rotation,” 

the rotation drops to 1:2.112

Given other operational demands, not all BCTs 

can, or should, be continuously regionally aligned. 

With the deactivation of the Army’s last standing BCT 

stationed in South Korea in the summer of 2015, the 

Army will begin to fill that requirement with a rotational Armored BCT. Additionally, in 2012 the Army 

agreed to allocate a rotational U.S.-based Armored 

BCT to the NATO Response Force.113 The Army also 

fills the Global Response Force mission, a brigadesized element capable of achieving forcible entry into 

a contested area within 96 hours of notice as part of the 

Joint Operational Access Concept.114 Traditionally the 

purview of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, 
39

NC, the GRF is now augmented with stryker and armor companies, combat aviation elements, and other 

additional assets.115 Given the need for rapid deployment within the GRF, it is a mission best suited for 

the 82nd Airborne, and it is critical to identify these 

augmenting elements and get them to train with them 

prior to assuming this mission.

Another factor to be considered in this proposal 

is accepting the reality of resources and threats, and 

thus treating some combatant commands as economy 

of force missions. National security strategy dictates 

that PACOM and CENTCOM will remain high emphasis areas requiring continued presence of rotational forces. Those two combatant commands should be 

prioritized for alignment of conventional forces. One 

potential solution is to draw upon the National Guard 

and its already existing State Partnership Program 

in many of the nations in SOUTHCOM and EUCOM 

rather than aligning a large number of Active Army 

brigades with them, although continued Russian aggressiveness is likely to necessitate a larger continued 

Active Duty presence in EUCOM. 

Finally, it is important to note that this proposal is 

based on the current operational requirements facing 

the Army and on the 2014 QDR’s guidance that the 

Army will no longer be sized to conduct long-duration stability operations. The onset of a major conflict 

in any of the combatant commands would therefore 

necessitate pulling units from outside the regionally 

aligned pool of brigades to meet the force requirement 

demands of the combatant commander. Therefore, 

the intent is not for these regional alignments to be 

inviolable; the Army must retain the flexibility to deploy forces to deter and defeat enemies on land—its 

principal goal. 
40

Recommendation 2: Revise the Army’s personnel 

system to stabilize soldiers to units aligned to a 

combatant command with which they have 

experience.

A 2014 Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) monograph, Creating an Effective Regional Alignment Strategy 

for the U.S. Army, cites both SOF and the SPP as being 

examples of building enduring relationships due to 

their regional alignment and personnel stability. The 

report contends that peacetime conditions “afford the 

Army with opportunities to increase soldier assignment length, reducing the personnel churn so destructive to establishing and maintaining enduring human 

relationships.”116 Building on Recommendation 1, an 

Army policy shift to increase personnel stability in 

combatant command aligned units whenever possible 

could yield great dividends. A new assignment policy 

that attempts to reassign most soldiers within units 

aligned with the same combatant command would 

enable soldiers to better achieve knowledge and understanding of their assigned region of operations, 

and at higher echelons could even enable some of the 

lasting relationships with partners that the SPP enjoys. 

Therefore, soldiers need not stay in the same unit per 

se, but could at least focus the majority of their career 

“home based” or aligned with a specific region, yielding many of the benefits mentioned at the unit level in 

Recommendation 1.

Currently, Army policy requires a maximum 

4-year tour at a duty station in the United States, with 

exceptions that occur based on professional education windows and other factors.117 While certainly a 

degree of personnel turnover is inherent in all military 

organizations to ensure personal and professional 
41

development, it also degrades the ability of regionally 

aligned units to gain actual regional expertise and, 

more importantly, to build enduring relationships. A 

preferred course of action would be to do away with 

“time on station” requirements and instead focus on 

“time in unit.” This would enable soldiers to increase 

their expertise in a region, while still ensuring they 

meet their professional development windows. There 

are several other benefits of this recommendation, as 

it could possibly increase retention of the best soldiers 

as they no longer have to move their families every 2 

to 4 years, while also potentially saving the government millions of dollars in not having to fund soldier 

moves as frequently. However, none of this can be 

achieved unless the Army revises its reenlistment and 

retention programs to encourage “home-steading” 

without damaging soldiers’ careers.118

Creating an Effective Regional Alignment Strategy for 

the U.S. Army also calls for the Army to redesign its 

Force Generation Model, accurately noting that: 

Instead of the incremental personal churn that allows 

units to retain a modicum of institutional memory and 

regional expertise, current ARFORGEN practices create ‘all or nothing’ units whipsawing in and out of the 

proverbial ‘band of excellence.’119

The lessons the authors draw from this are that 

the BCT should no longer be the centerpiece of the 

force generation model and that certain sub-units 

require a higher level of regional expertise than others, with these sub-units needing deeper expertise as 

well.120 However, stabilizing personnel to an aligned 

region would allow units to have a baseline cultural 

understanding from their recent assignments within 

the region, while still keeping BCTs on the ARFOR-
42

GEN cycle of 9 months deployed and 27 months training, thus keeping the BCT as the foundation of force 

generation. 

The SSI monograph’s authors accurately note that 

entire BCTs are not likely to deploy under the RAF 

model, but rather “certain sub-units.” However, by 

limiting stabilization in an aligned unit to these subunits, they undermine the potential of regional alignment within the BCT. As displayed by the RAF brigades deployed in AFRICOM and units participating 

in the “Pacific Pathways” program in PACOM, it is 

not just specialized “sub-units” that are deploying to 

RAF missions, but rather companies, platoons, and 

squads. Therefore, a more effective course of action 

would be the combining of Recommendation 1, align 

more brigades with combatant commands, and Recommendation 2, stabilize soldiers in units aligned 

with a combatant command whenever possible.

As General Odierno stated, well-trained squads 

and platoons are the formations on which the Army is 

based. In order for regional alignment to truly work, 

more brigades must align with combatant commands, 

and the soldiers in those aligned units must remain in 

other similar aligned units to the greatest extent possible if the Army is to maximize the potential of RAF.

Recommendation 3: Where possible, align BCTs 

with Army Special Forces Groups as well as 

Combatant Commands.

With the exception of PACOM and BCTs currently stationed in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington 

State, and the two BCTs currently stationed in Europe, 

there exists little natural geographic linkage between 

BCTs and combatant commands. Lacking any physi-
43

cal imperative to align units based on physical geography, one potential method of regional alignment 

would be to align co-located SFGs with conventional 

Army units. Not only would this drive direction for 

regional alignment away from arbitrary assignment, 

but also the BCTs could gain regional expertise from 

the already-aligned Special Forces units. Additionally, based on FID being one of their core competencies, partnered BCTs could draw advisor lessons from 

the Special Forces units before these units deployed to 

a combatant command to conduct SFA. Lastly, pairing SFGs with BCTs would help ensure that SOF/CF 

interdependence, a hard earned lesson of the wars in 

Iraq and Afghanistan, becomes institutionalized, not 

just in combat, but also in training.121

Active Duty Army SFGs are currently aligned with 

all combatant commands except for Northern Command (NORTHCOM), responsible for North America. 

With the exception of the 7th Special Forces Group at 

Eglin Air Force Base, FL, all SFGs are co-located on 

an installation with at least an Army division headquarters and two BCTs. The case of Joint Base LewisMcChord (JBLM) in Washington provides an ideal 

example of the potential of this proposal. Home to the 

Army’s three-star I Corps, two-star 7th Infantry Division, two Stryker BCTs, and multiple enabler units, 

JBLM is also home to the 1st SFG. Both I Corps and 

1st SFG are aligned with PACOM, and elements of 

the 2nd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division have 

participated in recent “Pacific Pathways” exercises in 

the Asia-Pacific, a sort of “unofficial RAF” mission. 

This model could be extended to multiple other Army 

installations possessing division headquarters, BCTs, 

and SFGs, with several exceptions.
44

While 3rd SFG and the 82nd Airborne Division 

and corresponding BCTs are co-located at Fort Bragg, 

the Global Response Force mission discussed earlier 

could prevent the 82nd Airborne aligning with AFRICOM. Additionally, the 7th SFG, responsible for 

SOUTHCOM, has no co-located major Army unit at 

its post at Eglin Air Force Base. A potential solution 

could be to align units that currently are not co-located with these SFGs but are in geographical proximity 

to their installations in order to keep with the intent of 

this recommendation. 

This recommendation is not perfect, but could help 

to provide regional training focus to brigades while 

furthering SOF/CF interdependence. It also provides 

the potential to pair each combatant command with 

a habitually aligned division headquarters capable of 

functioning as a Joint Task Force, while still leaving 

four division headquarters available to either backfill 

aligned headquarters for longer-duration operations, 

or to “surge” in the event of unforeseen events. It provides a mix of brigades to the combatant commands, 

albeit with some shortages that would have to be addressed, particularly in heavier forces in CENTCOM 

and the disproportional presence of Stryker brigades 

in PACOM.

The fundamental point of this proposal is that it 

aligns SFGs with conventional forces already co-located on most U.S. bases. This will help facilitate habitual relationships between SOF and CF, which could 

have the added benefit of drawing on Special Forces 

soldiers’ regional and language expertise in their assigned area of operation, as well as helping train tactical level units in the BCTs at advisor skills necessary 

for SFA.
45

Recommendation 4: Create an Army Advisor 

Functional Area/Military Occupational Specialty.

Currently, the only dedicated career path in the 

Army that regularly deals with interactions with foreign militaries is the FAO functional area. Made up 

primarily of field grade officers, FAOs are the Army’s 

primary method of achieving security cooperation 

missions, central to the “Prevent, Shape, Win” strategy.122 Specializing in cross-cultural capabilities, interpersonal communications, and foreign-language 

skills, FAOs serve most frequently as attaches, security cooperation officers in U.S. embassies, politicalmilitary advisors to deployed U.S. commanders, and 

liaison officers to foreign militaries.123 In this role, 

FAOs focus at the strategic levels of advising to foreign militaries and governments and are regional 

experts on military capabilities that help the United 

States in building partner capacity. What they are not 

is advisors to tactical and operational FSF.

Therefore, the Army should consider creating a 

specialized career path for “Army advisors,” separate 

from the FAO functional area. Focused on tactical and 

operational advising, this specialized advisor career 

path would ensure that advisor selection and training 

would be based on more malleable traits of human cognitive ability.124 The focus for Army advisors should 

be on expertise in imparting military knowledge to 

members of foreign military force, not necessarily on 

regional expertise—the mission of FAOs. Rather than 

Nagl’s recommendation to create an entire advisory 

command, this recommendation would create a cadre 

of expert advisors who would be permanently assigned to BCTs to assist in both training and operations, as will be discussed in Recommendation 5. 
46

This functional area must be incentivized to ensure 

that it draws top-notch talent for service as advisors. As 

highlighted in the Iraq case study, a major issue with 

the early advisory effort in Iraq was that the Army did 

not treat service as an advisor as a career-enhancing 

opportunity. In order for this proposal to be successful, advisors must be recruited from top Army junior 

leaders. They should be able to shift between advisor 

and competitive operational command opportunities 

to ensure promotion and, potential advisors should be 

offered additional incentives, such as advanced civilian schooling, for those selected. An elite cadre of advisors will only be successful if the functional area is 

able to bring in the Army’s best young leaders, ensure 

solid performance is rewarded with career opportunities, and provides incentive for the best to leave their 

current branch temporarily.

The Army should also create a new Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) for NCOs that adds to the 

Army’s advising capabilities. Given that tactical advising is inherently the business of NCOs, any new Army 

advisor branch should heavily recruit senior NCOs, 

particularly those from combat branches, to form the 

bulk of its cadre. While officers are well-suited for advising staffs at the battalion level and above, the Army 

would miss a significant opportunity if it did not seek 

out NCOs to contribute to this effort. A major benefit 

of this proposal would be that these NCOs could help 

train units deploying on SFA missions on how to best 

transfer expertise on basic soldiering skills to FSF. The 

advisory effort in Iraq proved, and Army doctrine 

recognizes, that even the best soldiers do not always 

make the best advisors. With pre-deployment training on the best way to train FSF by an expert cadre 

of Army advisors, regionally aligned BCTs tasked to 

conduct SFA could potentially be much more effective 
47

than if they just attempted to transplant U.S. training 

models onto foreign forces. 

The infrastructure to begin to form an Army advisor functional area is already present in the 162nd 

Infantry Training Brigade at Fort Polk. Currently, the 

brigade “trains Advisor Skills, Combat Skills, and Security Force Assistance Skills to provide Army and 

Joint Force Commanders with trained personnel and 

units to build partner nation security capacity.”125 A 

feasible solution for an Army advisor functional area 

would be to institutionalize the 162nd as the advanced 

training center for advisors, building their baseline 

expertise in advising skills and SFA, as well as crosscultural capability, before assigning advisors to the 

Army units.

The Army routinely has proved capable of modernizing its forces to meet the advent of new challenges. One needs look no further than the Army’s September 2014 creation of a cyber branch to counter that 

threat as an example of the Army adapting to changes. 

The Army already possesses much of the institutional 

knowledge in SFA necessary to begin to stand up an 

advisor branch in the 162nd Infantry Training Brigade. 

By creating a full-time career path for advisors—and 

thus ending the decades long practice of “hey you” 

selections of advisors—the Army could go a long way 

to developing a professional cadre of advisors whose 

full-time job would be advising security forces at the 

tactical and operational levels. 

Recommendation 5: Modify BCT structure 

to increase SFA capacity. 

This monograph’s most far-reaching recommendation is for the Army to modify the structure of the 

BCT to increase permanently its capacity for conduct-
48

ing SFA. Even the development of the AAB in Iraq, 

while fixing many of the issues of unity of command 

between the advisory effort and BCT, failed to achieve 

what is truly necessary to ensure the BCT is effective at 

SFA—tie advising to those who have the most contact 

with FSF, the squad and platoon levels. If the Army 

is to be effective at conflict prevention via SFA, the 

Army needs the ability to get advisors to work with 

squads and platoons well before their assumption of 

an SFA mission, teaching soldiers at the lowest levels 

advising skills. 

The principal reason for any restructure would be 

to create more effectiveness between advisory efforts 

and partnered units. Although the AAB placed both 

organizations under the same roof, issues with unity 

of effort constrained the ability of American forces 

to reach maximum effectiveness. Army doctrine on 

SFA defines advising as “the use of influence to teach, 

coach, and advise while working by, with, and through 

FSF.”126 Partnering, on the other hand, “attaches units 

at various levels to leverage the strengths of both U.S 

and [FSF].”127 However, small units that would be 

considered “partnered” forces are receiving cultural 

training and then assuming an advisor/trainer mission. Unlike OIF, where large amounts of both advisors and conventional forces were present, future SFA 

missions will likely place small units in direct contact 

with FSF as their only point of contact with U.S. forces. 

It is therefore imperative that elements within the BCT 

selected for SFA missions are given adequate training 

in advising FSF and that the right soldiers are selected 

for these missions.

A potential solution would be to expand on Recommendation 4 and assign specially selected and 

trained Army advisors not only to the brigade level, 
49

but also to the battalion level. While a cadre of field 

grade officers and senior NCOs is absolutely necessary 

at the brigade to ensure the ability to advise foreign 

security force commanders and staffs at the brigade 

and division levels effectively, it is also imperative to 

get advisors to the battalion level. The presence of senior captains and senior NCOs, selected and trained 

specifically as advisors and assigned to the battalion 

headquarters with the mission of assisting company 

commanders prepare their small units for SFA deployments, would go a long way in ensuring effectiveness in training FSF. These advisors would work with, 

not replace, company level leadership to ensure their 

soldiers are best prepared for their SFA missions by 

providing advice and training as to methods to best 

impart military training to FSF. 

Additionally, these advisors could deploy as standalone force packages to SFA missions based on combatant commander requirements, or could augment 

conventional forces and provide them with in-house 

expertise on SFA, training FSF, and general advising 

principles. In a way, they would serve as advisors to 

the advisors. A benefit to this is that, unlike SFA structures proposed in FM 3-07.1 that place conventional 

companies under the operational control of advisor 

teams, embedding advisors within the BCT before and 

during deployment will help ensure that these smaller 

teams—company-sized elements and below—are able 

to draw upon the expertise of subject matter experts.

This proposal builds on the previous four recommendations, institutionalizing advisors down to the 

lowest level while maintaining focus on a geographic 

region in order to best prepare conventional units to 

conduct SFA missions. The key difference from the 

AAB model is that, rather than receiving advisors upon 
50

receipt of an SFA mission, the BCT would have a cadre of advisors permanently assigned to it. Some might 

argue that this is an unnecessary permanent change 

to the organization of the BCT and that augmented 

advisors are only necessary when a unit receives an 

SFA mission. This contention runs counter to U.S. national security policy, however, which emphasizes the 

role of the U.S. military in building partner capacity. 

Assigning Army advisors down to the lowest levels 

would provide the flexibility and expertise inherently 

necessary to maximize SFA missions within BCTs and 

could ensure that both tactical and operational advising by Army units are conducted to their maximum 

capability, while still enabling the primary focus of 

the BCTs to be that of fighting and winning in the land 

domain.

CONCLUSIONS

In a 2014 interview, Nagl stated, “Regionally 

Aligned Forces are a poor man’s Advisor Corps, but 

they’re better than nothing.”128 His central idea is that, 

while the Army remains institutionally fixated on defeating any ground force in conventional combat, it 

also has a “responsibility” to advise friends and allies 

around the globe.129 In reality, the Army cannot restructure itself as an advisory force, nor should it, as its 

core mission remains to fight and win America’s wars. 

This does not mean, however, that the United States 

can wish away the ugly wars of the past decade. Strategic reality dictates that the United States will have to 

rely increasingly on its partners and allies to fight on 

their own to help achieve U.S. objectives. Therefore, 

the Army must be better postured to help others win 

in a complex world. This is where the central question 
51

this monograph attempted to answer comes into play: 

How can the Army best organize, train, and equip itself to ensure it is more effective at SFA?

There are many lessons to be drawn from recent 

experience. Examining the development of SFA in OIF 

provides several key lessons in what to do—and not 

to do—to achieve effective results in SFA. Primary 

among these lessons in the imperative to get the right 

people assigned to advisor duty, avoidance of ad hoc 

creation of advisor teams, and ensuring that those 

most talented are brought into this mission. Additionally, unity of effort must be achieved between the 

advisory effort and the land-owning maneuver elements responsible for combat operations. The Army’s 

eventual shift to centrally-selected advisors who were 

given key and developmental credit for their advising 

duties, coupled with the combination of the tactical 

and advisory effort under the Advise and Assist Brigade in Iraq provide a model in adapting the organization to meet the challenges of SFA.

As the Army looks to the future, its RAF concept, 

carried out principally in conventional BCTs, is likely 

to be the tool it uses to conduct SFA. The Army cannot 

afford to repeat the same mistakes of Iraq in future advisory efforts. Upcoming assistance to FSF will likely 

not have the benefit of the more than 100,000 American troops present as in OIF, therefore SFA missions 

will have to be more efficient and effective at training 

partner and allied security forces.

There are several ways the Army can ensure that 

RAF units tasked to conduct SFA succeed. First, it 

should align as many BCTs as possible with combatant commands, giving commanders a regional focus 

for culture, capabilities, tactics, and potential operating environments, while also creating the potential 
52

for recurring relationships with FSF while providing 

GCCs with a predictable, tailorable pool of forces to 

draw from. Second, it should change its personnel 

management policies to enable soldiers to remain in 

units aligned with a particular combatant command. 

This would allow for greater regional expertise at both 

the individual and organizational levels while also 

enabling enduring relationships with FSF. It could 

also have the benefit of greater stability for soldiers 

and their families. Third, the Army should draw on 

already existent co-located SFGs and conventional 

forces on U.S. bases and formalize alignment between 

the two as well as with combatant command regions. 

This would build on the first two recommendations 

while also having the benefit of drawing from Special 

Forces’ expertise in training FSF based on their inherent Foreign Internal Defense mission as well as ensuring the degree of SOF/CF interdependence gained 

during OIF and OEF does not disappear. Fourth, the 

Army should create a new “Army advisor” officer 

Functional Area and enlisted MOS. Different from 

FAOs, Army advisors would be experts in SFA at the 

tactical and operational level and would be skilled 

in imparting military knowledge to FSF. Finally, the 

Army should institutionalize and improve BCT capacity for SFA by assigning these Army advisors down to 

the battalion and BCT levels. This would enable a BCT 

to have its own in-house experts on training FSFs at 

the tactical and operational level and would help commanders train small U.S. units in how to better train 

and advise partner and allied militaries.

Taking all these factors into consideration, it is important to note that SFA is not a cure-all for building 

partner capacity. Writing in 2009, former managing 

editor of Small Wars Journal Robert Haddick outlined 
53

the “promise and perils” of SFA, asking several important questions regarding any potential SFA mission the United States will undertake in the future. 

First, will the partner receiving U.S. assistance help 

the United States with its objectives? One needs to 

look no further than the troubles experienced with the 

Hamid Karzai and Nouri al-Maliki governments to 

recognize the challenge. Second, can foreign military 

forces do the job? The collapse of the Iraqi army in 

the face of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in 2014, 

despite years of training and billions of U.S. dollars 

spent in SFA, serves as a timely reminder of this fact. 

Closely related is the question of whether the foreign 

partner can sustain the military capabilities created by 

U.S. security assistance. Questions about the Afghan 

National Army’s ability to maintain U.S. equipment 

after the American withdrawal serve as a prudent 

warning here. Finally, Haddick asks if a U.S. security 

assistance mission might create a “Frankenstein monster” that will later haunt the United States? Examples 

too numerous to name come to mind in this respect.130

While these are strategic level questions that must be 

considered at the president and secretary of defense 

level, they bear continued relevance to advisors and 

trainers on the ground conducting SFA.

There is another major factor to keep in mind with 

SFA—effectiveness vs. accountability. U.S. forces historically have been successful at creating tactically effective FSF. However, security force accountability to 

host nation governmental control is a strategic issue 

that must be incorporated into tactical level advising; 

long-term successful SFA depends on more than just 

tactical advising. Therefore, SFA can be made more 

powerful by encompassing military effectiveness, accountability, and reform as well as rule of law and 
54

integrity training, ultimately seeking to form norms 

and standards of the legal framework that regulates 

civil-military relations in a democratic system.131 If the 

Army is to have a role in building partner capacity 

in the prevention of conflict, the issue of accountability must be incorporated into how we train units and 

advisors. 

Finally, it is unlikely that any near-term SFA missions involving the BCT will resemble the scope of 

OIF. The Iraq example was that of a defeated nation 

that the United States was initially rebuilding, and 

then became entangled in a civil war. Future SFA 

missions, if conducted properly, will occur before the 

onset of major combat. That does not mean, however, 

there is no value in the SFA lessons from Iraq. The 

Army consistently trains its forces for full-scale warfare, recognizing that if it trains to that standard, less 

intense missions, such as COIN or SFA, will be achievable with focused mission-specific training prior to 

deployment. This same logic can be applied when 

looking at the SFA lessons found in OIF, and then at 

how to apply them to more permissive environments 

in the realm of conflict prevention.

What is certain is that the Army will again find itself in conflict in the future. Given manning and budget constraints, it becomes imperative that the Army 

get better at helping others, as the Army’s operating 

concept puts it, “win in a complex world”—SFA can 

be a sound means of achieving this if done correctly. 

OIF proved that the Army could conduct institutional 

change to carry out effective security force assistance, 

but only after years of inattention. The U.S. Army will 

not have the luxury of the manning or budget it had 

in OIF for future SFA missions, so it must be smart 

about how it takes on this task, particularly in region-
55

ally aligned brigades. In order to get better at helping 

others secure themselves, the Army must get better at 

SFA capability within its core formation. 

The recommendations outlined in this monograph 

are one method to help ensure that the organizations 

inside the BCT are best manned, trained, and equipped 

to conduct effective SFA at the tactical and operational 

levels. While not meant to serve as the comprehensive 

list or a “how to” for SFA, what this monograph has 

aimed to do is to institutionalize SFA lessons from 

Iraq and apply them to potential future missions. If 

the BCT is to have a role in conflict prevention, SFA 

principles and expertise must be institutionalized 

within the BCT for these missions to be as effective 

and efficient as the Army will need them to be. 
56

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63

ENDNOTES 

1. Robert M. Gates, “Helping Others Defend Themselves: The 

Future of U.S. Security Assistance,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 89, No. 3, 

May-June 2010, p. 2.

2. Department of the Army, Field Manual 3-07.1, Security Force 

Assistance, Washington, DC: Headquarters, Department of the 

Army, May 1, 2009, p. 2-2.

3. Department of the Army, Field Manual 3-07: Stability, Washington, DC: Headquarters, Department of the Army, June 2014, 

p. 1-16.

4. FM 3-07.1, p. 2.

5. U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) 

Pamphlet 525-3-1, The US Army Operating Concept 2020-2040: Win 

in a Complex World, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, VA: TRADOC,

October 7, 2014, p. 7.

6. Ibid., p. 8.

7. Ibid., p. 14.

8. Department of the Army, Army Doctrine Publication 3-0: 

Unified Land Operations, Washington, DC: Headquarters, Department of the Army, October 10, 2011, p. 5.

9. Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review 2014, 

Washington, DC: Department of Defense, March 14, 2014, 

pp. 12, V.

10. The Army Operating Concept 2020-2040, p. 7.

11. Raymond T. Odierno and John M. McHugh, Army Strategic Planning Guidance: 2014, Washington, DC: Department of the 

Army, 2014, p. 2.

12. Ibid., p. 5.

13. Ibid.
64

14. Ibid., p. 15.

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid., p. 14.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. James J. Lovelace, Testimony to Congress, House, Armed 

Services Committee, U.S. Military Transition Teams in Iraq, 109th 

Cong., 2nd Sess., Washington, DC, December 7, 2006, p. 65.

21. Peter R. Mansoor, Surge: My Journey with General David 

Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War, New Haven, CT: Yale 

University Press, 2013, p. 19.

22. Lovelace, p. 64.

23. Ibid.

24. Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in 

Iraq, New York: Penguin, 2005, p. 394.

25. Mansoor, p. 19.

26. Steven E. Clay, Iroquois Warriors in Iraq, Ft. Leavenworth, 

KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2007, p. 34.

27. Ibid., pp. 34-35.

28. Pete Fedak, Personal recorded interview, February 15, 

2006, p. 12. (Digital Recording done by Operational Leadership 

Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Ft. Leavenworth, 

KS, in possession of Combined Arms Research Library, Ft. 

Leavenworth, KS.)

29. James R. Helmly, Personal recorded interview, December 

2, 2006, p. 7. (Digital Recording done by Operational Leadership 
65

Experiences Project, Combat Studies Institute, Ft. Leavenworth, 

KS, in possession of Combined Armed Research Library, Ft. 

Leavenworth, KS.)

30. Linda Robinson, Tell Me How This Ends: General David 

Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq, New York: Public 

Affairs, 2008, p. 73.

31. Ibid., p. 76.

32. Lovelace, p. 64.

33. Ibid.

34. Joshua J. Potter, American Advisors: Security Force Assistance Model in the Long War, Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies 

Institute Press, 2011, p. 38.

35. John Nagl, “Institutionalizing Adaptation: It’s Time for an 

Army Advisor Command,” Military Review, September-October 

2008, p. 23. 

36. Brennan F. Cook, “Improving Security Force Assistance 

Capability in the Advise and Assist Brigades,” Ft. Leavenworth, 

KS: School of Advanced Military Studies, April 2010, p. 30.

37. 162nd Infantry Training Brigade, “Advise and Assist Brigade: Augmented Advisor Block A Training,” PowerPoint presentation, “The Modular Brigade Augmented for Security Force 

Assistance,” Ft. Polk, LA, June 1, 2009.

38. George W. Bush, Decision Points, New York: Broadway 

Books, 2010, p. 356. 

39. Ricks, Fiasco, p. 394.

40. Lovelace, p. 65.

41. Mansoor, p. 22.

42. Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble: General David Petraeus and 

the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008, New York: 

Penguin, 2009, p. 50.
66

43. Carter Ham, Testimony to Congress, House, Armed Services Committee, U.S. Military Transition Teams in Iraq, 109th 

Cong., 2nd Sess., Washington, DC, December 7, 2006, p. 10.

44. Ibid.

45. Cook, p. 30.

46. Lovelace, p. 68.

47. Ibid.

48. John Nagl, Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War in Theory 

and Practice, New York: The Penguin Press, 2014, p. 159.

49. Ibid.

50. “Commander’s Handbook for Security Force Assistance,” 

Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Joint Center for International Security Force 

Assistance, July 14, 2008, p. 25.

51. Timothy Deady, “MiTT Advisor: A Year with the Best 

Division in the Iraqi Army,” Military Review, NovemberDecember 2009, p. 44.

52. Lovelace, p. 67.

53. Nagl, “Institutionalizing Adaptation,” p. 23.

54. “Commander’s Handbook for Security Force Assistance,” p. 25.

55. Mansoor, p. 169.

56. Ibid.

57. Ibid.

58. Ronald J. Metternich, “Security Force Assistance: Organization for the Long War,” Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 

March 2010, p. 18.
67

59. Cook, p. 29.

60. Potter, p. 41.

61. “Advise and Assist Brigade: Augmented Advisor Block A 

Training,” slide 13.

62. Ibid., slide 15.

63. Kate Brannen, “Combat Brigades in Iraq Under Different 

Name,” Army Times, August 19, 2010, available from archive.armytimes.com/article/20100819/NEWS/8190324/Combat-brigades-Iraqunder-different-name, accessed November 29, 2014.

64. Philip Battaglia and Curtis Taylor, “Security Force Assistance Operations: Defining the Advise and Assist Brigade,” 

Military Review, July-August 2010, p. 3.

65. Potter, p. ix.

66. United States Forces-Iraq, “Operation New Dawn,” 

available from www.usf-iraq.com/operation-new-dawn/, accessed 

July 23, 2015. 

67. FM 3-07.1, p. 7-4.

68. Ibid., pp. 7-3, 7-4.

69. Raven Bukowski, John Childress, Michael J. Colarusso, 

and David S. Lyle, Creating an Effective Regional Alignment Strategy for the U.S. Army, Officer Corps Strategy Monograph, Vol. 7, 

Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 

November 2014, p. 3.

70. Yochi Dreazen, “Army to Promote Training As Career 

Path,” The Wall Street Journal, June 19, 2008, p. 3.

71. Nagl, “Institutionalizing Adaptation,” p. 23.

72. John T. Fishel, Rob Thornton, Marc Tyrrell, and Mark 

Lauber, “SFA Case Study-Mosul, Iraq,” White Paper, Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Joint Center for International Security Force Assistance, 2008, p. 36.
68

73. Nagl, “Institutionalizing Adaptation,” p. 22.

74. Potter, p. 42.

75. Curtis B. Hudson, “Security Force Assistance: An Institutional Recommendation for the Army,” Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army 

War College, March 2013, p. 19.

76. Lovelace, p. 67.

77. Ibid.

78. Michelle Tan, “AFRICOM: Regionally Aligned Forces Find Their Anti-terror Mission,” DefenseNews, October 20, 

2013, available from archive.defensenews.com/article/20131020/

SHOWSCOUT04/310200014/AFRICOM-Regionally-Aligned-ForcesFind-Their-Anti-terror-Mission, accessed March 30, 2015.

79. Ibid.

80. Martin L. O’Donnell, “Army’s 1st RAF Brigade Briefs 

Congress in DC,” Ft. Riley, KS: 1st Infantry Division Public Affairs Office, June 11, 2014, available from www.riley.army.mil/

News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/98/Article/485481/armys-1st-raf-brigadebriefs-congress-in-dc.aspx, accessed March 30, 2015.

81. Rosa Brooks, “Portrait of the Army as a Work in Progress,” Foreign Policy, May 8, 2014, available from foreignpolicy.

com/2014/05/08/portrait-of-the-army-as-a-work-in-progress/, accessed 

March 30, 2015.

82. Operating Concept 2022, Ft. Bragg, NC: U.S. Army Special 

Operations Command (ARSOF), September 26, 2014, p. 1.

83. U.S. Special Operations Command, “USSOCOM 101,” 

PowerPoint presentation at Tufts University, Medford, MA; 

December 17, 2014, slide 27. 

84. Russell J. Ames, “Interdependence Between Army Conventional Forces and Special Operations Forces: Changing Institutional Mental Models,” Ft. Leavenworth, KS: School of Advanced 

Military Studies, 2013, p. 3. 
69

85. Joint Doctrine Note 1-13: Security Force Assistance, 

Washington, DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff, April 29, 2013, p. viii.

86. Derek C. Jenkins, “Distinguishing Between Security Force 

Assistance & Foreign Internal Defense: Determining A Doctrine 

Road-Ahead,” Small Wars Journal, December 10, 2008, available 

from smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/distinguishing-between-sfa-andfid, accessed March 30, 2015, p. 2. 

87. Jeffery N. James, “Understanding Contemporary Foreign 

Internal Defense and Military Advisement: Not Just a Semantic 

Exercise,” Ft. Leavenworth, KS: School of Advanced Military 

Studies, 2008, p. 3.

88. Ibid., p. 5. 

89. Nunn-Cohen Amendment to the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, Public Law 99-

433, 99th Cong., October 1, 1986.

90. James, pp. 6-7.

91. John R. Groves, Jr., “PfP and the State Partnership Program: Fostering Engagement and Progress,” Parameters, Spring, 

1999, p. 45.

92. Charles F. Wald, “New Thinking at USEUCOM: The Phase 

Zero Campaign,” Joint Forces Quarterly, National Defense University Press, Washington, DC, Issue 43, 4th quarter 2006, p. 73.

93. John J. Jansen, “National Guard State Partnership Program: A Whole-of-Government Approach,” Carlisle, PA: U.S. 

Army War College, March 23, 2010, p. 2.

94. Ibid., p. 14.

95. Peter Howard, “The Growing Role of States in U.S. Foreign Policy: The Case of the State Partnership Program,” International Studies Perspectives, Issue 5, 2004, p. 192.

96. Ibid., p. 183.
70

97. Ibid., p. 193.

98. Groves, p. 47.

99. Jensen, p. 34.

100. Nagl,”Institutional Adaptation,” p. 21.

101. Ibid., p. 25.

102. Scott G. Wuestner, Building Partner Capacity/Security Force Assistance: A New Structural Paradigm, Carlisle, PA: 

Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, February 

2009, p. 50.

103. Battaglia, p. 4.

104. Ibid.

105. Peter W. Chiarelli, “Learning From Our Modern Wars: 

The Imperatives of Preparing for a Dangerous Future,” Military 

Review, September-October 2007, pp. 7-8.

106. Joseph Escandon, “The Future of Security Force Assistance: Is the Modular Brigade Combat Team the Right Organization?” Masters of Military Art and Science thesis, Ft. Leavenworth, 

KS: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, 2008, p. 104.

107. Metternich, p. 21.

108. Brian S. Eifler, “Welcome (Back) to the Jungle,” Infantry 

Magazine, January-March 2014, pp. 43-45.

109. Raymond T. Odierno, Chief of Staff of the Army Remarks 

at the Association of the United States Army Eisenhower Luncheon, October 23, 2012, Washington, DC, available from www.

army.mil/article/89823/October_23__2012____CSA_Remarks_at_

AUSA_Eisenhower_Luncheon__As_Delivered_/ , accessed March

30, 2015.

110. John R. Bray, “Strategic Analysis of Regional Alignment 

of United States Army Forces,” Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War 

College, March 2013, p. 13.
71

111. Army Regulation 525-29: Army Force Generation, Department of the Army, Washington, DC, March 14, 2011, pp. 3-4.

112. Ibid., p. 2.

113. Andrew Feickert, “Army Drawdown and Restructuring: 

Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service Report, Washington, DC, February 28, 2014, p. 6.

114. Charles Flynn and Joshua Richardson, “Joint Operational 

Access and the Global Response Force: Redefining Readiness,” 

Military Review, July-August 2013, pp. 38-39.

115. Ibid., p. 41.

116. Bukowski et al., p. 13.

117. Army Regulation 614-200: Enlisted Assignments and Utilization Management, October 11, 2011; and Army Regulation 614-100: 

Officer Assignment, Policies, Details, and Transfers, January 10, 2006, 

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Army.

118. Jeffrey W. French, “Fighting With One Arm Behind Our 

Back: Cultural Capability in the 21st Century,” Carlisle, PA: U.S. 

Army War College, March 2013, p. 25.

119. Bukowski et al., p. 13.

120. Ibid., p. 14.

121. In the author’s experience, current relationships between 

CF and SOF at co-located installations do occur, but are based 

entirely on personal relationships or compatible resource requirements rather than organizational effort. For instance, combined 

training between small units of the 101st Airborne and 5th Special Forces Group occurred occasionally during the author’s time 

there from 2007-09, but the same type of working relationship 

was nonexistent between CF units at JBLM and 1st Special Forces 

Group from 2010-13. For more on this topic, see Michael R. Fenzel and Joseph G. Lock, “A Strategy for Future Victory: Institutionalizing SOF-CF Interdependence,” Infantry Magazine, October 

2014-March 2015, pp. 28-32.
72

122. Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-3: Commissioned Officer Professional Development and Career Management, Washington, DC: Headquarters, Department of the Army, February 1, 

2010, p. 277.

123. Ibid.

124. Cook, p. 34.

125. 162nd Infantry Brigade mission statement, available from 

www.jrtc-polk.army.mil/Transition_Team/, accessed March 12, 2015.

126. FM 3-07.1, p. 2-9.

127. Ibid., p. 2-10.

128. “Learning to Drink Beer through a Straw: 20 Questions 

With Dr. John Nagl,” blog post, November 3, 2014, available from 

https://medium.com/@Doctrine_Man/learning-to-drink-beer-with-astraw-93308b1649d6, accessed March 25, 2015.

129. Ibid.

130. Robert Haddick, “The Promise and Perils of Security Force 

Assistance,” Stimson Center Budget Insight blog post, September 1, 

2009, available from https://budgetinsight.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/

the-promise-and-perils-of-security-force-assistance/#more-1332, accessed March 25, 2015.

131. Richard Shultz Jr., Security Force Assistance and Security 

Sector Reform, Joint Special Operations University Report 13-5, 

MacDill Air Force Base, FL: The JSOU Press, 2013, p. 60.
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

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