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
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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