When advising and assisting partner nation security ministries and their institutions, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) leverages the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) from a combination of senior uniformed and civilian personnel, to include contractors to carryout development in a broad range of partner nation ministries and institutional requirements.
This handbook is written for you, the embedded training team (ETT) member. Traditionally, this mission was reserved for Special Forces’ units or teams. With the revision of Army Field Manual 3.0, Operations, this is now a mission for general purpose forces. The Army has not yet officially designated one organization or agency as the ETT proponent; therefore, information concerning TTs circulates at all levels. This handbook has been vetted by the Joint Center for International Security Forces Assistance, 1st Infantry Division, Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, and the Center for Army Lessons Learned Integration Network.
The Multi-National Corps–Iraq logistics staff and the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) support operations cell, an element of the Iraqi Assistance Group, merged at the operational level to publish plans, policies, and procedures that met the strategic aims of the coalition forces, the national goals of the government of Iraq, and the joint campaign plan published by Multi-National Force–Iraq. Corps sustainment planners published operational objectives for execution at the operational and tactical levels in an effort to develop a sustainment-based system for the ISF. Based on experiences and observations over the past 18 months, the partners, advisors, and planners gathered the best practices for advising and assisting security forces at all levels of the sustainment system. This handbook presents partnering considerations in developing a fundamental base for a self-sustaining, host nation security force.
A research report compiled earlier this year by a group of social scientists working for the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System found that members of the Afghan National Army (ANA) are largely seen by coalition forces as unmotivated, highly dependent and making little to no progress. The report, titled “ANA and CF Partnership in Khost and Paktiya”, is based on interviews and observations made during the Human Terrain Team’s time embedded with a U.S. cavalry squadron from November to December 2011. A survey distributed to three other companies also informs much of the report’s findings, which are intended to analyze “the dynamics that influence partnering between the ANA and [coalition forces] and how they contributed to the ANA’s effectiveness in gaining the Afghan population’s support.” The soldier’s candid responses to the survey provide a great deal of insight into the perceptions of the Afghan National Army among coalition forces.
In warfighting and counterinsurgency operations, partnering is a command arrangement between a US security force and a host nation (HN) security force in which both forces operate together to achieve mission success and to build the capacity and capability of the HN force. Partnering is not an end, but a deliberate process, a means to an end. A near-term goal might be the standup and development of a HN force increasingly capable of independent operations and decreasingly dependent upon US partnered support. An intermediate objective might be the transition of lead security responsibility from US to HN force. But the ultimate goal is to become “un”-partnered, to enable the HN force to assume full responsibility for security and stability. In warfighting and counterinsurgency partnering, divorce is not a bad ending, it is the desired outcome.