Military Review English Edition January-February 2015 | Page 20

decreased situational awareness—fewer bases and personnel meant fewer sensors to monitor operations and gauge atmospherics on the ground. The ISAF Joint Command continued to support the ANSF with enablers and other assets but at ever decreasing levels. With the reduction in platforms, the Command maintained situational awareness by inserting coalition forces into operations coordination centers—the Afghan version of command fusion cells—at the provincial and regional levels. Complementing this effort, the ISAF Joint Command developed a strategic communications plan to counter the insurgents’ abandonment narrative, especially when it came to base closures and transfers, and to ensure that the ANSF understood the nature and implications of the changes. Honesty and transparency were critical. Ultimately, force posture reductions, with the concomitant reduction in enabler support, prompted the ANSF to adapt and substitute their own capabilities for coalition assets. Changing Missions While reducing its force posture, the ISAF Joint Command executed a change in mission. Beginning in the summer of 2014, the Command transitioned from providing unit-level training, advising, and assisting at the brigade- and battalion-levels to providing functionally based security force assistance (SFA) from corps-level platforms to Afghan National Army corps, type-A provincial chiefs of police, and regional operations coordination centers.1 Functionally based SFA, distinct from tactical-level training, advising, and assisting, is focused on providing institutional advisory support with an emphasis on improving organizations, systems, and processes. Advisor focus. During Operation Enduring Freedom, small-unit mentors, previously focused on their counterparts’ immediate challenges, were limited in their ability to provide long-term sustainment and development advice. During Resolute Support, corps-level advisors began focusing instead on the development of ANSF systems and institutions. These specialized advisors possessed the skills to advise the ANSF on operational and strategic matters, and were capable of applying a systems approach to affect institutional change. In this new construct, advisors integrated their efforts vertically and horizontally 18 by linking ministerial-level systems with corps-level practices. Command organization. This change in mission informed the composition and structure of train, advise, and assist commands (TAACs) and the new headquarters of NATO’s Resolute Support mission. TAACs represented a distinct type of organization, not simply a scaled-down regional command. TAACs would have no operational warfighting responsibility, and commanders configured them based on local conditions, optimizing their staffs to deliver functionally based SFA. At the ISAF (and later at Resolute Support) headquarters, Napoleonic staff structures such as personnel, intelligence, and operations staff became dual hatted, charged with traditional staff duties and the integration of functionally based SFA from the national to regional levels. Colloquially referred to as “mainstreaming,” this practice promoted unity of effort for the essential SFA functions. Security force assistance priorities. The ISAF Joint Command created systems and processes to target and prioritize functionally based SFA. For example, they established the SFA Working Group and the SFA Synchronization Board to identify systemic development issues and target resources to resolve them. This process required a disciplined approach. Issues brought forth from the SFA Working Group to the SFA Synchronization Board were restricted to those that subordinate commanders could not resolve. Regional command and TAAC input ensured that ANSF priorities were captured. The ISAF Joint Command used the SFA Synchronization Board to inform ISAF’s functionally based SFA approach. Overall, the SFA Working Group and SFA Synchronization Board increased awareness of ANSF development shortfalls and SFA implementation challenges across the ISAF Joint Command staff (integrating the staff horizontally) and created feedback loops for issues from the national to the regional levels (integrating functionally based SFA efforts vertically). Realigning Headquarters Recognizing that functionally based SFA required an entirely different type of headquarters, commands were realigned to set conditions for the new Resolute Support mission. These changes, requiring significant manning modifications, entailed extensive coordination with ISAF, NATO’s Allied Joint Forces Command-Brunssum, United States Central Command, and the Joint Staff. January-February 2015  MILITARY REVIEW