page_title: Robin Fontes
section_title: As a field grade officer
hierarchical_section_title: Robin Fontes / Career / As a field grade officer
caption_attribution_description: Army Col. Robin Fontes, Regional Support Command-North commander, presents Maj. Puntsag Tumenjargal, the commander of the Mongolian contingent deployed to RSC-N, with the non-article 5 NATO medal at Camp Mike Spann, near Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. The soldiers are part of a Coalition forces team that trains Afghan National Army soldiers in the use of field artillery, specifically the D-30 Howitzer, a 122-mm, Soviet-designed artillery gun. (Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Mike Andriacco)
context_page_description: Robin Louise Fontes is a United States Army major general. In July 2017 she took command of Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan, becoming the highest-ranking female military officer in Afghanistan since the American invasion of that country in 2001. A mustang officer, Fontes was commissioned in 1986 and focused on Central Asia, eventually serving in Tajikistan, Pakistan, and India, including a few years in Afghanistan. She assumed her current position after the resignation of Michael Flynn from the Trump Administration ended her announced role as senior director for India, Pakistan and Central Asian Affairs on the United States National Security Council.
context_section_description: Early in the Global War on Terror, Fontes served at US Central Command J5 overseeing issues of political-military cooperation in Afghanistan. In June 2004, she was moved to Combined Forces Command - Afghanistan headquarters in Kabul and served under David Barno as the head of the CJ5 staff for political-military coordination. Her staff was responsible for keeping General Barno "on message", overseeing the policies impacting military operations, and performing liaison work with both the Afghan Ministry of Defense and United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. At the end of her first year in Afghanistan and following Karl Eikenberry's assumption of command from Barno, Fontes volunteered to lead the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Tarinkot. Daniel Green, the political adviser for the PRT, reported that though some Soldiers at the PRT had initial concerns due to her gender, those worries were shortly put to rest. She had been active in engaging with the Afghan people. Green said that Fontes, then a Lieutenant Colonel, pitched in a few hundred dollars of her own money to host a lunch on the PRT for local Afghan leaders. An article in Vanity Fair relates a story that she once refused to depart a meeting with Afghan elders in Chora District under threat of small arms fire, for fear of appearing weak in the face of the Taliban. Green asserts that in early 2006, she survived the first suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device attack in Urozgan Province due in part to the device's failure to detonate all of the mortar shells of which it was comprised. She departed Afghanistan in May 2006 to attend the US War College, graduating in 2007. She had been promoted that year to colonel. She was subsequently assigned as the chief of the American Security Assistance Office in Pakistan.
   In July 2011, Fontes began a one-year tour at Mazar-i-Sharif in charge of Regional Command North, the NATO command of occupation forces in Northern Afghanistan. From 2012 to 2013, she was one of fifteen fellows at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
caption: Fontes, while in command of Regional Command-North, awards a Mongolian General Purpose Force officer with the non-article 5 NATO medal for his service near Mazar-i-Sharif.
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