Early Mistakes with Security Forces Advisory Teams in Afghanistan

PHOTO: LTC Michael McDermott, commander, 3d Zone, Afghan Border Police (ABP), Security Forces Advisory Team, speaks to Afghan LTC Gholam Rasoul, operations officer, 3rd Zone Afghan ABP. Kandahar Province, Afghanistan,15 April 2011. (U.S. Army, SGT Joseph J. Johnson) I MID-2011, THE commander-in-chief announced the withdrawal of combat troops in Afghanistan by 2014. Overnight, the security forces advisory team (SFAT), rather than the brigade combat team (BCT), became the focal point of the war effort. Senior level military planners had the unenviable task of converting the theoretical into reality. When the first wave of these advisory teams were set to deploy in spring of 2012, the entire leadership of several BCTs received orders to start planning for a short-notice deployment as combat advisors. Such a dramatic strategy shift from the BCT to the 12-man SFAT in Afghanistan was a necessary change in methodology, but brought with it the natural friction and challenges inherent to any rapid change of mission. Future SFATs will be more prepared with more advance notice and a more deliberate train-up prior to deployment. However, senior leaders must address other significant shortcomings before the next wave of advisors arrives or we are doomed to fight through the same “ambush” repeatedly. Most critically, we must organize SFATs more appropriately for their assigned missions, and once assigned, it should be rare if not unheard of to alter that SFAT mission or partner. Frivolous reassignments can, at the stroke of a pen, render weeks or months of training useless and indicate an attitude that predeployment training is irrelevant. Defining command and support relationships (a headache for the majors and lieutenant colonels of division, brigade, and battalion level staffs) must be clearly outlined. We wasted weeks while members of our small advisory team muddled through the steps of learning how to support themselves in an austere outlying base, determining who to report to, and more importantly, who was their higher headquarters. Was it the landowning battalion commander or the brigade? Early Mistakes with Security Forces Advisory Teams in Afghanistan