Working Together
FID Brings Diplomacy and
Military Training to Host Nationas
by Dawn S. Onley
The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review addressed many of the future threats the United States military will face. Those threats require a rebalancing in the Department of Defense to adopt unconventional approaches to emerging irregular warfare. “IW [irregular warfare] has emerged as the dominant form of warfare confronting the United States, its allies and partners,” according to the QDR.
One strategy to counter IW is through diplomacy. It is in understanding that if a nation has an unstable government, it could threaten the national strategic goals of the United States. This strategy places the United States military in a position to assist nations in a host of areas—from basic infantry skills such as rifle marksmanship to supporting a nation’s development of counter- terrorism. From this support, the objective is to also improve relationships between the United States and other countries.
This is foreign internal defense (FID), the participation of military and civilian agencies to assist a host nation in protecting its society from subversion, lawlessness and insurgency. The United States military does this by supporting the host nation’s program of internal defense and development (IDAD) by employing a mixture of diplomatic, economic and informational tools and by deploying members of the military services and commands. Before temporary deployment, service members are trained to conduct FID missions. Officials also visit a host nation to conduct an assessment. From that assessment, a tailored training program is devised to enable the country to better provide security for their nation.
FID is a persistent engagement with a host nation, according to military officials, and the objective is to be discreet and low-profile so as not to jeopardize the security of host nation forces. “FID really is about allowing host nations to take care of their host nations,” said one official who requested anonymity. “It is about turning them into good governments. We use FID as a vehicle to ensure the justice apparatus works well.”
Officials even credit the personal relationships established as a result of FID for the recent liberation of 15 hostages in Colombia.
“It allows us to establish and build those personal relationships and trust with our counterparts that have proven critical again and again,” said Army Colonel Joseph E. Osborne, director of the Irregular Warfare Directorate (J-10) for USSOCOM. The J-10 was stood up in June 2007 to provide a concentrated focus on irregular warfare that cuts across all operational and program lines.
In a joint hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on Irregular Warfare and Stability Operations this past February, Osborne told legislators that the Irregular Warfare Directorate was established to “coordinate concept implementation, strategy development, plans integration, and a collaborative network of the DoD and the interagency to facilitate U.S. government
application of irregular warfare strategies in support of U.S. national objectives.” “In effect, our role is as enablers for both USSOCOM and our partners to be as capable in irregular warfare as they are in conventional warfare. We see ourselves as one of the key conduits for irregular warfare collaboration with DoD, and our interagency partners and allies,” Osborne said.
Like USSOCOM, the United States Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) is heavily involved in foreign internal defense and invests a lot of effort in training MARSOC’s special operations forces. The command requires that Marines go through an individual training course (ITC) where they are taught techniques for working with partner nations in areas such as training plan design, implementation and delivery, said John Dailey, deputy director for MARSOC’s Special Operations Training Branch.
“In order to train MARSOF [Marine Corps Special Operations Forces] to conduct FID, it is necessary to first train with a ‘brilliance in the basics’ approach,” Dailey said. This training includes medical, communication, fire support, weapons, mission planning, patrolling and field skills within the first phase of the ITC. “In order to work with a partner nation force, MARSOF Marines must not only understand how to work with these forces and conduct training, but also possess mastery in the skills they are teaching.”
“These skills are practiced during exercises with a simulated partner nation force,” Dailey added. “In order to train specifically for FID, the Marines are trained in FID doctrine and fundamentals, negotiations, culture and instructor skills. All of these skills are evaluated practically during a long duration, high operational tempo exercise.”
Marine Special operators spend about six months during a typical workup with a Marine special operations company conducting professional development courses in their area of expertise. After the courses, the Marines spend about a year refining their skills as they conduct unit level and interoperability training prior to deployment.
The MARSOC deployment phase generally last between one and six months.
“MARSOC has continually demonstrated special operations capabilities and relevance through persistent presence with host nation partnered forces that have greatly developed (the host nation’s) forces core skill sets and provided a greater capacity to combat terrorism and develop their host nation’s national defense,” said a MARSOC spokesman.
On any given day, USSOCOM wakes up in 80 different countries. Roughly 80 percent are in the Central Command region of responsibility—largely performing FID with Iraqi and Afghanistan forces.
“One of the most important benefits of conducting FID missions to SOCOM is it allows our components [Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine special operations] to gain and maintain the critical regional experience and cultural sensitivity that is one of our defining characteristics,” Osborne said. But if experience is a plus, knowing exactly where to place which resources is sometimes a challenge.
“There are a lot of challenges associated with FID, but perhaps the most critical one is knowing where to apply the resources for the most return,” Osborne said. “We typically have a greater demand that we have forces able to accommodate so we have to work very hard with the geographic combatant commands to make sure we’re getting the right forces to the right place to achieve the right effect.” ♦