Expeditionary Advising: Exploring Options Beyond AFPAK Hands and MoDA

By Colonel Paul E. Szostak, U.S. Air Force; and Major Juan Pizarro, U.S. Air Force

Since the United States’ led invasion following the attacks of September 11th, 2001, the coalition has faced continuous hostilities in Afghanistan.  This conflict has forced the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to conduct extended new missions alternatively labeled as “nation building,” “advising,” and “security force assistance.” [1]   Afghanistan presents one of the most well-known examples of this type of expeditionary advising, where the NATO-led mission shifted to one of “Train, Advise, Assist” on January 1st, 2015, and continues today.[2]  Unlike similar efforts in Japan, Korea, and Europe following cessation of hostilities in WWII, this 21st century military-to-military engagement takes place in an area with significant ongoing hostilities.  In response, the Services have developed various human resource capabilities to prepare personnel to advise our partner nation’s security and defense forces at the strategic level.  Some examples of this effort include attempting to increase overall levels of cross-culturally competent personnel among our expeditionary forces, the creation of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands (AFPAK Hands) and more recently, the Ministry of Defense Advisors (MoDA) program.       However, Foreign Area Officers (FAOs), an OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense)-mandated joint program since 2005, have been almost wholly absent from consideration as a human resource tool available to meet the need for strategic advising in Afghanistan.  Given the nature of advising positions, which work frequently with our partners at strategic levels in the Ministry of Defense (MoD) and Ministry of the Interior (MoI) or in one of our largest Security Cooperation Offices (SCO) in the world,[3] the failure to consider FAOs for roles involving direct contact with Partner Nation (PN) militaries requiring top notch cross-cultural skill sets endangers mission success to the point of mission failure. 

            This article will briefly review the major programs the Services have undertaken to develop cross-culturally capable forces in the 21st century to meet these enduring senior advisor requirements, what level of success has been achieved utilizing these new programs in expeditionary advisor roles, and how the Joint FAO community can be utilized to increase mission effectiveness.  Ultimately, we will explore why DoD should utilize FAOs to fill current and future expeditionary advisor requirements and why the creation of new advisor programs should be carefully considered in light of past experience.

Importance of Cross-Cultural Competence

            To understand how the Department of Defense has responded to the challenge of 21st century advising, we must first look at how the DoD currently defines the unique skill sets required.  Effective engagement with foreign nations requires personnel that are able to successfully communicate, interact, and work with PN representatives to further U.S. national objectives while minimizing any cultural missteps that detract or impede the achievement of those objectives.  This level of cultural awareness is commonly referred to as cross-cultural

competence (3C) which is defined by the DoD as the “set of knowledge, skills, and affect/motivation that enable individuals to adapt effectively in cross-cultural environments.”[4]             Generally speaking, 3C refers to the ability to operate successfully across cultures using particular knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics (KSAOs) germane to effective cross-cultural performance.5  Given this definition of cross-cultural competence as a set of knowledge and skills, we can infer that cross-cultural knowledge can be learned or acquired, with the right amount of training and motivation.  A cross-culturally competent person would not, for example, eat with their left hand in the Middle East or snack on a banana during a meeting in Japan.[5]

            These examples, while harmless in the U.S., may be so repulsive to PN counterparts that it would prevent them from focusing on the message of the engagement and working toward the objective to which U.S. personnel are attempting to secure commitment.  This may ultimately prevent them from achieving their strategic goals.  3C is an important foundation for developing the necessary relationships for an effective advisory mission and engagements with PNs because it demonstrates to PN representatives that their culture and traditions are respected, thereby increasing the possibility of developing trust with the partner, and helps ensure advisors develop a message that the partner will comprehend in the manner intended.  Moreover, 3C skill sets sensitize advisors to the increased possibility of miscommunication that exists when working in another culture if the advisor does not carefully construct the message and confirm understanding through appropriate interaction.

            Unfortunately, the current expeditionary tasking process for military personnel does not routinely contemplate cross-cultural competency during the sourcing process, which can lead to a failure to request cross-culturally competent personnel to advise Partner Nation representatives.  Instead, taskings for expeditionary advisor billets are typically generic or focused on the occupational specialty of the PN representative(s) whom the individual will advise.  For example, PN infantryman would be advised by a coalition infantryman.  Some traditional military training and professional military education courses discuss 3C, however, these courses alone are insufficient to consistently produce 3C leaders that are able to affect meaningful PN change. 

            In order to lessen the training time required to prepare individuals to deploy, 3C requirements are minimized and incorporated into the individual’s training spin-up.  Typically, the deployer completes advisor training, such as that offered at Fort Polk or Joint Base McGuire, where they undertake three to six weeks of 3C familiarization training, depending on the course.  As noted, the goal of this 3C training is familiarization, not proficiency, potentially leaving them unready for their advisory role.  Moreover, one key aspect of effective 3C is that it requires someone to develop empathy for another and take on their point of view, yet most people who receive pre-deployment 3C training are not volunteers for it, but rather “voluntold,” or forced to attend.  Even though pre-deployment 3C training is provided to all advisors, someone forced into 3C training may not be as motivated to embrace it, with the end result being a reluctant advisor that is unprepared for the mission.

Afghanistan/Pakistan Hands Program

            The Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands (APH) Program, started in 2008, was designed to meet the challenge of creating a sizeable cadre of regional experts with 3C skill sets.  The brainchild of General Stanley A. McChrystal, APH is perhaps the most well-known program of this type.[6]  APH’s stated goal is to “create greater continuity, focus, and persistent engagement” by developing “a cadre of military and civilian experts who speak the local language, are culturally attuned, and focused on regional issues for an extended duration.”[7]  APH personnel are developed to “engage directly with Afghan or Pakistani officials at the ministerial (strategic and operational) level.”[8]

            Employment of APH personnel consists of two one-year rotations, with five-month pre-deployment training prior to each period of service in theater.  The two deployments would be broken up by a one-year tour “Out-of-Theater” at a designated organization with “responsibilities related to” Afghanistan and Pakistan.[9]  Initially, the program established more than 200 positions for APH personnel to fill, but those numbers have been steadily reduced by US Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A) and now number just over 100.[10]

            On the surface, the APH program makes sense.  However, close examination of the program reveals several serious flaws.  First, program management was assigned to the Joint Staff Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate (J-5) to provide “policy, guidance, and oversight of the APH Program by serving as the office of primary responsibility.” [11]  While this was likely done as an expedient means to raise the program’s profile and thereby obtain the military departments' commitment, the placement of a human resources program in the J-5 is a mismatch of roles and responsibilities that are reflected in the poorly conceived structure of the program. 

            This shows up most notably in the chasm between the APH program’s stated goal to have “experts who speak the local language” and the actual training program design, which sets a “speaking/listening goal for Phase I training is 1 (as measured on the Oral Proficiency Interview).” [12]  According to the Interagency Language Roundtable definitions, speaking level 1 implies an elementary proficiency, “able to satisfy minimum courtesy requirements and maintain very simple face-to-face conversations on familiar topics…simple, personal and accommodation needs…exchange greetings…and predictable and skeletal biographical information.” [13]  A program goal of “1” on the ILR skill level hardly defines “experts who speak the local language.”  This low bar results in the vast majority of APH personnel remaining dependent upon an interpreter, just like those advisors with no training in the language, thereby significantly reducing the utility and efficacy of a “Hand.”  This reality undercuts overall brand reputation.

            The second flaw of the APH program comes about from the poorly conceived selection criteria.  Aside from the request for personnel with “previous Operation ENDURING FREEDOM/FREEDOM SENTINEL” experience, the remaining criteria are poorly defined and not restrictive enough to serve as useful screening criteria that ensure human resource experts find quality candidates to meet quotas.  The desired traits include “Communications Skills” (able to listen and absorb non-traditional concepts), “Respectful” (promotes dignity, open-mindedness), “Flexibility” (not rigid in traditional thinking), “Operational Competence” (basic military skills), and “Entrepreneurial Mindset” (capable of developing problem-solving networks).[14]  While all good aspirational traits, almost none would bar any officer from filling the requirement.  Absent are hard criteria like previous command experience, in-residence professional education, Defense Language Aptitude Battery minimum scores, etc. 

            The third and perhaps most important challenge of the APH program is the expectation for APH personnel to serve in a 44-46 month tour — a long tour for all of the services — and especially long for a program that fills no critical career development for officers from the Army and the Navy.[15]  The severity of this disconnect is hard to overstate but can be clearly seen in two statistics: the high rate of non-volunteers for the program and low promotion rates for APH personnel.  According to the Director of Afghan Hands Management Element Forward in October 2017, Captain Herschel Weinstock, the Army and Navy’s APH personnel both suffered promotion rates well below 50% to lieutenant colonel, significantly below average. 

            These low promotion rates lead to a type of “death spiral” for the program.  First and foremost, few volunteers come forward, resulting in higher rates of non-volunteered officers who then chose to separate or retire rather than serve in the assignment, which then produces low fill rates.  Over time, these empty billets then present a dilemma for senior leadership: keep a vacant APH billet on the books, or convert the billet to another specialty with higher fill rates?  The choice has often been to convert the billet away from APH. 

            Surprisingly, this declining level of APH billets comes at the same time that the NATO mission has transitioned to TAA (Train, Advise, Assist), which should argue for an increase in an APH-like skill set since the mission shifted from a kinetic one to that of 100 percent advising.  According to the forward-deployed program director, this combination has led to a crisis in the program for 2018.  As of the summer of 2018, program leadership was evaluating how to move forward and were considering options that included a vast scaling back or even outright program termination.

Ministry of Defense Advisors (MoDA)

            The MoDA program was developed in 2010 to respond to operational requirements in Afghanistan and to an increased U.S. Government emphasis on civilian-led capacity building at the ministerial level.[16]  In order to effectively engage Partner Nation colonels and generals, U.S. civilian GS-13 through GS-15 positions are encouraged to apply to the MoDA program to serve in one-year assignments to a specific AOR.  MoDA program advisors support a wide range of key functional areas in Afghan MoD and MoI ministries, including policy and strategy, resource management, logistics and acquisition, human resource management, and facilities maintenance.[17]

            The MoDA Program was designed to leverage the subject matter expertise of the DoD civilian workforce to address partner ministerial-level development objectives, and to provide these civilians with the requisite cultural, operational, and advisory training necessary to ensure that the advisory effort is appropriate and effective.[18]  After selection, and prior to deployment, MoDA program advisors assigned to Afghanistan first participate in an eight-week training course that includes professional advisor training, cultural awareness, country familiarization, language instruction, security training, senior-level consultations and briefings, and practical exercises with native Afghan role-players.[19]  Personnel selected for the program are afforded the opportunity to extend their deployment or serve in subsequent deployments after re-accomplishing the application process. 

            MoDA’s primary purpose is to address the DoD’s history of carrying out advisory efforts on an ad hoc basis, utilizing military or contract personnel whose functional expertise and advisory skills were not always well matched to address technical processes and gaps in government ministries.[20]  To select advisors to fill International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) requirements, the MoDA program recruits from GS civilians and applicants to the Civilian Expeditionary Workforce (CEW).[21]  Résumés are reviewed by a screening panel for professional experience, advisory skill, education and international background.[22]  Unlike most APH personnel, all MoDA personnel self-nominate (i.e. volunteer) to be a part of the program. 

            In order to offset any negative impacts of losing a GS civilian for a year, MoDA funds a GS replacement for the duration of the deployment until the GS employee returns to their assignment post-deployment. Due to the program’s success, MoDA was granted global authority in the FY12 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and is currently supporting advisors in the European, African, Pacific, Central, and Southern Command areas of responsibility.[23]

            While the MoDA program strives to represent a more deliberate DoD effort towards expeditionary advising, as of the publication of this article, there isn’t a DoD Directive or Instruction currently in place which governs the MoDA program. Without written guidance that establishes policy, assigns responsibilities, and outlines procedures, the MoDA program may not evolve as well as otherwise would be possible. Written guidance would aid MoDA by facilitating a dialogue with other communities, further institutionalizing program support, improving training, and thereby ensuring continued program success to the mission in Afghanistan.[24]

Foreign Area Officers

            In 2005, the OSD first issued directive 1315.17, “Department of Defense Foreign Area Officer (FAO) Program”.  This joint policy guidance mandated that each service establish its own FAO program.  OSD’s vision for FAO’s role is wide-ranging, as seen in this excerpt:

“DoD Components shall use FAO capabilities to advise senior US military and civilian leadership, to provide liaison with foreign militaries operating in coalitions with U.S. forces, allies and partners.  They shall also use FAOs in the US DoD attaché corps, and support the Department’s security cooperation and assistance, intelligence, and political-military affairs staff functions in roles that include planners and advisors.”[25]

            Other key hallmarks of the program include “competitive selection” for FAOs who are “managed as a professional community with career paths” and perhaps most notably, “education, training, and professional development necessary to attain, sustain, and enhance an in-depth knowledge of international political-military affairs, language, regional expertise, and cultural (LREC) skills.” [26]  In other words, the FAO program was envisioned as a full-fledged human resource program with an imperative to “recruit, assess, develop, retain, motivate, and promote a cadre of Officers to meet present and future DoD needs.” [27]  The FAO program places development and sustainment of 3C skill sets at the forefront, and other traditional specialties as a secondary consideration, a characteristic unique to FAOs in the military departments.

In terms of specific requirements to create a qualified FAO, the directive is explicit.  There are four primary requisites:

1. “Qualification in a principal military specialty;”

2. A regionally focused Masters’ degree;

3. Attainment of foreign language proficiency at the 2/2 level or better on the Defense Language Proficiency Test; [28]

4. “One year of In-Region Training (IRT) or In-Region Experience (identified as duty experience involving significant interaction with host nationals and/or host nation entities in the foreign countries or regions in which they specialize)” [29]

            These rigorous requirements come with a high training cost and the average time to train an average FAO often exceeds three years.  Language training programs that develop foreign language proficiency in select service members, such as the Air Force’s Language Enabled Airman Program, have increasingly provided language-enabled personnel for the FAO program, thereby reducing the training timeline.  Despite the high training costs and extensive training pipeline, the services responded positively and have rapidly expanded their FAO ranks.  As of the end of Fiscal Year 2015, the time of the most recent OSD assessment, the military departments collectively tout 2,874 FAOs (2,688 in the Active Component and 186 in the Reserve Component), a 12 percent increase over 2014.[30]

            Today, each military department celebrates the many successes and achievements of their respective FAOs and senior-level commitment to the program has grown steadily in the last decade.  The military departments continue to drive toward the goal of creating DoD’s “foremost regional experts and foreign language professionals” through programs that develop “professional-level foreign language proficiency, regional expertise, and cultural (LREC) competencies.”[31]  These cross-culturally competent warriors, however, have been almost wholly absent from expeditionary advisor missions despite their robust skill sets.

Conclusion and Recommendations

            The Department of Defense has clearly expended a great amount of energy and resources to meet the challenge of conducting strategic-level advising in Afghanistan.  However, our review of the major recent efforts, which include AFPAK hands and MoDA, show the challenges of taking an expedient approach toward solving this issue.  Given that the FAO program enjoys broad support across all of the military departments, the failure to consider it as part of the solution certainly seems like an oversight that should be addressed in the near future.  In addition to this general observation, below we propose a series of additional recommendations to improve the possibility of mission success in this critical strategic effort.

1.  Identify the key expeditionary advisor billets where FAO skill sets would have maximum impact and utilize FAOs to fill those billets to the maximum extent possible. In our own experience, these would include the U.S. colonel billets directly advising at the senior levels of the Afghan Ministry of Defense at RS (Resolute Support) HQ.  Currently, these positions number approximately 58 according to a recent JCS/J7 study.[32]

2.  Allow for “generic” FAO coding.  By “generic” the authors wish to communicate that the billet coding would allow FAOs from any region to fill the position.  This may seem to contradict the idea of obtaining a FAO with the right regional skill set, but we recommend generic coding for two reasons.  First, the FAO community is relatively small and cannot easily accommodate the creation of a large pool of Dari speakers, as their utility out of theater is very limited due to the small number of countries that speak Dari or a derivative of this language.  Second, it’s not really required.  Given that none of the current solutions produce professional level speakers (3/3/3 on the ILR) in the native language, the priority should be placed on finding those with deep 3C skill sets.  FAOs have more depth in 3C than perhaps any other military specialty, since 3C is a significant portion of their initial training.  This “generic” coding would also allow for FAOs to fulfill service deployment requirements in their FAO specialty, rather than any other occupational specialty they may have.  Lastly, FAOs' knowledge of an additional language — even one from another region — allows them a significant advantage when working with a translator, as they are more sensitive to the possible miscommunication that can occur across languages.

3.  Require FAO skill sets in key contractor advisor positions.  While RS HQ has only relatively few U.S. military senior advisor positions, there are many contract advisors that support the coalition advisors, which far outnumber U.S. strategic advisor positions.  The performance work statement (PWS) for those positions currently fails to identify FAO or 3C experience as mandatory criteria, but this would represent a significant additional way to bring in retired FAOs into the mission without the impact on active-duty forces. Of the 153 Contractor positions in the PWS assigned to advise the MoD and MoI for Resolute Support, only 23 (i.e. 15 percent) required some degree of 3C skills under the Essential Qualifications necessary for employment.[33] Those billets requiring 3C were primarily for translators, not advisors. PWS for contract advisor positions should be revisited and should prioritize hiring personnel with 3C skill sets.

4.  Develop additional policy guidance for MoDA.  While already a successful program, MoDA would benefit from policy guidance as found in DoD directives and instructions that govern the FAO program.  In addition, MoDA should consider targeting civil service series 0130/0131 — the identifier for International Affairs and International Relations — as a core experience required for MoDA.  This would favor entry for retired FAOs into these positions and would generally prioritize 3C skill sets over other occupational specialties that do not guarantee 3C.

5.  Terminate AFPAK Hands.  Due to its limited utility and the negative perception it suffers in the Army and Navy, it may be time to consider focusing those resources elsewhere.  Certain positions would need to be filled through other means — flying positions that require high levels of language skills, for example — but these requirements may be better met by changing them to “language designated positions.”

6.  Develop improved measures of 3C skill sets and code positions that require those skill sets, where needed. 

            In summary, it’s time to re-consider how the DoD responds to the human resource challenges of strategic expeditionary advising.  While our analysis has focused on Afghanistan, these lessons are equally relevant for other theaters with expeditionary advisor roles, such as Iraq or Syria.  As FAOs ourselves, we know firsthand the 3C capabilities resident in this community of experts and hope to one day see better utilization of this skillset going forward.  The success of our most critical missions depends on it!

About the Authors

               Colonel Szostak is a Latin America FAO and has been the FAO proponent for the Air Force since August 2015.  He studied Spanish history and International Relations as an Olmsted Scholar in Spain and later received a Master's Degree in Western Hemisphere Security Studies while a student at the Inter-American Defense College.  He served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

J-5/Latin America division and also was the Air Force Section Chief in the Security Cooperation Office in Bogotá, Colombia.  He deployed to Afghanistan from April 2017-October 2017 as the Senior Advisor to the Afghanistan Deputy Minister of Defense.

               Major Juan Pizarro is a Latin America FAO and has been assigned to 12th Air Force (Air Forces Southern) since 2016. He served as the Chief of the Security Assistance Management Office at the Security Cooperation Office in Bogotá, Colombia from 2014-2016. He deployed to Afghanistan from May-November 2017 as the Ammunition Branch Chief and MoD/MoI Logistics Advisor at Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A).

End Notes

1. Wuestner, Scott G. Building Partner Capacity/Security Force Assistance: A New Structural Paradigm. US Army Strategic Studies Institute. February 2009. http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ssi/partner_capacity_wuestner_feb2009.pdf

2. US Central Command. Resolute Support. February 2018. http://www.centcom.mil/OPERATIONS-AND-EXERCISES/RESOLUTE-SUPPORT/

3. According to Congressional Research Service, the annual U.S. military aid to Afghanistan currently averages almost $1B in International Military Education and Training (IMET) and approximately $5B in DoD aid in the form of Afghan Security Forces Fund (ASFF). (“Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy”, Congressioinal Research Service, October 2, 2017)

4. Abbe et al., 2008: vii

5. http://www.businessinsider.com/american-customs-that-are-offensive-abroad-2015-8

6. Interview with CAPT Herschel Weinstock, Director of Afghan Hands Management Element Forward, Oct 2017

7. CJCSI 1630.01B, Para 4. “Policy”, p. 1

8. CJCSI 1630.01B, Para 5.a. “Afghanistan/Pakistan Hands”, p. 1

9. CJCSI 1630.01B, Para 5.b. “Afghanistan/Pakistan Hands”, p. 2

10. Interview with CAPT Herschel Weinstock, Director of Afghan Hands Management Element Forward

11. CJCSI 1630.01B, Para 1.a. “Joint Staff Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate (J-5) Responsibilities,” p. 1.

12. CJCSI 1630.01B, Para 5.b. “Afghanistan/Pakistan Hands”, p. 2

13. http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale2.htm#1, “Speaking 1 (Elementary Proficiency)”

14. CJCSI 1630.01B, Enclosure B, Para 1.e. “The following traits and elements”, p. 2

15. By contrast, the Air Force career development includes a “career broadening” tour at the O-4 level which allows for a program like APH and can be seen in their slightly above average promotion rates which are .5% above average, according to CAPT Weinstock, the forward deployed program director in 2017.

16. Department of Defense. Ministry of Defense Advisors Program Annual Report. Overview and Fiscal Year 2014 Highlights. p.1 https://defenseoversight.wola.org/primarydocs/1412_moda.pdf

17. DoD MoDA Annual Report, p. 2

18. DoD MoDA Annual Report, p. 1

19. DoD MoDA Annual Report, p. 2

20. DoD MoDA Annual Report, p. 1

21. DoD MoDA Annual Report, p. 3

22. DoD MoDA Annual Report, p. 3

23. DoD MoDA Annual Report, p. 1

24. DoD MoDA Annual Report, p. 2

25. Department of Defense Directive 1315.17, DRAFT (as of July 2018), “Department of Defense Foreign Area Officer (FAO) Program”, p. 4

26. DoDD, p. 4

27. DoDD, p. 8

28. http://www.govtilr.org/Skills/ILRscale2.htm#1

29. DoDD, p. 8

30. “Department of Defense Fiscal Year 2015 Foreign Area Officer Annual Program Report”, p. 5.

31. “Department of Defense Fiscal Year 2015 Foreign Area Officer Annual Program Report”, p. 6.

32. “Senior Advisor Training Gap”, briefing developed by JCS and OSD, on about Mar 2018

33. MoD & MoI Performance Work Statement, 2017.