Military Review English Edition January-February 2017 | Page 40
what might otherwise be a somewhat ad hoc effort,
and relieve some of the task-saturation problem for
other staff officers.
The brigade was also constrained by a number of
other factors, particularly restrictions on the number of
personnel in theater and an inability to operate outside
forward operating bases. The operational environment
was also complicated by numerous other U.S. and
coalition government agencies as well as many factions
within the Iraqi government and security apparatus. The
BCT quickly recognized that regional and Iraqi-specific
context and information were critical to accomplishing
its training and advising mission. Buzzard explains,
Without this context and understanding,
multiple units could have easily inadvertently
caused a long-term problem while pursuing a
seemingly logical short-term solution. Given
the complexity of the operational environment,
the brigade prioritized a “mission first” perspective over concerns about lines of authority, task
organization, or who received credit—3/82’s
deployment adopted a “one team” approach.9
Despite this “mission first” attitude, some missions
conflicted with others, and adjacent units, superior and
subordinate command headquarters, and peers on the
brigade staff did not have refined processes for evaluating the myriad of stakeholders’ interests. Various parties’
interests, both within and external to the immediate
BCT battle space, influenced the area of operations and
decision making for applying combat power. This is not
an indictment of any individual or command—on the
contrary, it is an observation that the task organization
of the Army’s unit of employment, the BCT, has not
been adapted to meet the changing battlefield environment, and it is less than ideally suited to operate and
exercise lethal and nonlethal force among large populations of noncombatants. Operations that require the
skills of a politics-and-policy officer include—
training an HN security force,
equipping an HN security force,
advising and assisting HN military and political
leaders on employment of their force, and
conducting lethal and nonlethal fires in support
of HN ground maneuver.
BCTs will not be able to effectively balance these
tactical missions and their strategic consequences unless we task-organize and manage our talent
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appropriately to bridge the gap described above.
Therefore, the brigade politics-and-policy officer
should be given the following duty description:
An assigned officer on the BCT staff will be responsible for making tactical recommendations to the brigade
commander based on an assessment of governmental
influences on HN security forces training, equipping,
and employment. This recommendation should include
the officer’s evaluation of data from multiple sources and,
upon the brigade commander’s approval, it can be used to
create products that support advise-and-assist teams at
the battalion level in their evaluation of partnered forces.
Equally important, a focus on this type of HN security
forces assessment will help provide the brigade commander with an accurate understanding of the capabilities of
training units, enabling better decisions about employment in support of all aspects of urban land operations.
The brigade politics-and-policy officer should be
given the following key tasks:
understand HN political leaders’ party affiliation,
legal obligation, and election cycle;
identify informal or opposition leaders not in government (by definition, a key leader engagement only
allows us to interact with the winners of the democratic process even if they do not represent more
than 51 percent of any given population); and
track political and policy outcomes of numerous
interested governments and assess the potential
impact politics and policy will have on HN security
force capacity building.
The purpose of formalizing this staff position is to
institutionalize intellectual capital within the BCT in the
same way we already focus on building tactical and operational expertise for our company commanders and field
grade officers. Interestingly enough, the Army already
has a repository of officers that could immediately fill
this gap. They have already completed advanced civilian
schooling, many have published in the fields of political
science and force employment, and all have proven to be
successful company grade officers at the tactical level.
Prior to making any changes to the modified
table of organization and equipment, a pilot program
could allow the Army and BCT commanders to test
this concept. Officers teaching in the U.S. Military
Academy’s Department of Social Sciences are already
spending their summers attached to fielded-force units
to provide this support. Col. Cindy Jebb, who heads the
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January-February 2017 MILITARY REVIEW