Within this context, what follows are observations from collective experience: the distilled essence of what those who went before learned. They are expressed as commandments, for clarity, but are really more like folklore. Apply them judiciously and skeptically.
David Kilcullen intended his Twenty-Eight Articles, Fundamentals of Company-level Counterinsurgency as a guide for the company commander facing a COIN operation. Since the article first circulated, hundreds of officers have served as company commanders and in other positions in Iraq and Afghanistan. In this article some of those officers comment on how Kilcullen's thinking applied to their mission in theater. Other former or retired Soldiers measure Kilcullen's points against their own experiences in other countries, conflicts, and years. All -- including David Kilcullen -- are members of the community of interest at the Small Wars Journal and Council.
Part II (Articles 6 -- 12).
6. Find a political / cultural advisor. In a force optimized for counterinsurgency, you might receive a political/cultural adviser at company level: a diplomat or military foreign area officer, able to speak the language and navigate the intricacies of local politics.
CPT Kranc on troop command: Why did Special Forces (SF) traditionally conduct unconventional warfare and foreign internal defense missions? Because being culturally astute are SF imperatives in their doctrine. We, in the conventional force, were never trained that way. Good units pulled in people who knew what they were talking about. I remember learning a great deal from Dr. Hashim. Once in theater, I got hooked into a sheik's family who brought me up to speed on the specific cultural do's and don'ts in my area. It helped place my soldiers in my troop on a higher plain of understanding than other units in theater. Our performance and results spoke to that.
CPT Holzbach on platoon leadership: Your interpreter will be your local advisor. You can't trust them with too much info, just for basic OPSEC reasons, but they are priceless sources of local info on cultural norms.
MAJ Custis on battle captains: I found that the contract linguists are a remarkable source of ground-truth information, if you only listen to them. A lot of what they say has to be taken with a grain of salt, because they love rumors, but after you're done with the shaker, they still provide a lot of context. You'd be surprised what you can pick up over a cigarette and cup of tea.
MAJ Thornton on MiTTs: Tag, advisor you are it! Understand that you are your counterparts' advisor on the U.S. and especially U.S. and Coalition Forces. Moreover, you are the CF's advisor on the IA. As an advisor, you will also be called upon to represent your government and possibly to provide insights into your government's actions or possible actions -- have an understanding of your culture (what you like and dislike about it), avoid selling it as "the best"; and understand your politics.
MAJ Sullivan on MiTTs: MAJ Thornton nails it on the head. You are it! Get politically/culturally smart as possible before arriving in theater. Develop a rapport plan during your train-up. Figure out as a team how you are going to gain a better understanding of your unit's culture (both regional and professional) and politics. Again, look to assign different areas to different personnel. You cannot do everything yourself. A rapport plan should break down different responsibilities based on the personalities of your team. If you have a more social NCO versus a Captain, have that NCO do more of your rapport building.
Former Captain Bill Meara on the role of military advisor in Central America: Cultural factors really do form the equivalent of a terrain feature that cannot be ignored. I started crashing up against cultural differences as a twenty year-old in Guatemala. How could those nice people be so cruel to their Indian Cinderella's? Later, my counterinsurgency classroom El Salvador, with my students who insisted on copying every slide and who refused to answer questions unless I'd previously given an answer provided more reminders that sometimes the foreigners really don't think like we do. In that contra rehabilitation center, I observed the inability of even sympathetic Americans to understand Nicaragua's wounded young. And then there was the contra witchcraft meeting, and all that that memorable incident said about the cultural divide that separates us from the world's peasant warriors.
Fluency in foreign languages is the indispensable key to understanding. Even with strong language skills, it is difficult for us to really understand people like the contras—without strong fluency, we have no chance of understanding them. We don't need people like that fellow from Washington who wandered uncomfortably through the contra camp until he found the English-speaking politico from Miami, or the colonel-crat from Ft. Bragg who seemed so proud of his inability to speak Vietnamese. In order to be effective, you need to be able to sit in those late-night clouds of cigarette smoke and coffee fumes and understand the anguished stories of peasant guerrillas. You need to know what they mean when you hear them referring to you as a "chele," and you definitely need to know the difference between hablando paja and haciendo paja! You need to be able to curse like a contra when necessary, and if you want to really understand them, you need to have a level of fluency that lets you feel the same goose bumps they feel when they sing that song about those who've been lost. If you can't do these things, you run the risk of never understanding them, of never seeing them as real, complicated human beings. You will be prone to seeing them as mono-dimensional caricatures, like the stereotyped characters of Doonesbury... From "Contra Cross --- Insurgency and Tyranny in Central America, 1979-1989" by William R. Meara Published by Naval Institute Press, 2006
SFC Reber on teams: I am inclined to cover articles 1 thru 6 under one category. Well informed, prepared and appropriately trained for Goma was the only way Colonel Odom and I made it through. One missing element would have spelled disaster for our two-man team. What he didn't cover, I did and vice versa. Neither of us had the time to check on the other but we knew each other quite well. When we got more help from visiting defense attachés, Colonel Odom placed them in the right spots. In some cases, he had to sort some out and one went home.
MAJ Mark Leslie on advisors: To me this is one if not the key issue in Iraq today. Culturally sensitivity is often viewed as a weakness and when planning combat operations it must be used in the MDMP and mission analysis process. A school-trained cultural advisor per company may be a pipe dream, but does not mean the idea is dead. I believe that it is worth the cost, time, and commitment to train a guy per squad trained as a cultural advisor. This would pay off huge dividends in Iraq. If we cannot do it at the squad, then we need it at the platoon level, perhaps as another additional duty for someone. The person chosen would have to become an expert to the best of his ability. Language proficiency's importance cannot be overstated. Every soldier should know, study, and carry the Defense Language Institute language survival guide. A few words learned a week in train-up and a few words used in conversation on a mission can and will pay huge dividends in a COIN environment.
LTC Odom on country teams: This goes back to point one; never stop seeking knowledge. I sought others' opinions. But be a questioning seeker of such knowledge. I have met FAOs whose actual time on the ground was almost none. I have served with Foreign Service Officers who had years inside a single country but never learned a thing. And on interpreters, always filter what they say to you through the prism of agenda: why are they telling you what they are telling you?
MAJ McDermott on company command: See point one, and then find a local and develop the trusted network. You are going to have to rely on your interpreter and whatever else you might have learned in your education and career. Understand that sometimes your subordinates might know more than you, listen to them.
MAJ McDermott on MiTT: Find a couple of honest broke interpreters. They often can give you some very good insights into what is going on in a unit. Make sure you visit with the soldiers and the NCO's. You can learn a lot about the units morale and capabilities from these guys. Key is developing a relationship with an interpreter to the point that you trust one another with your respective lives because that is what your are really doing in the long run.
7. Train the squad leaders, then trust them. Counterinsurgency is a squad and platoon leader's war, and often a private soldier's war.
CPT Kranc on troop command: On the high intensity battlefield, I, as a troop commander, can maneuver individual sections much easier than the COIN environment. The abilities of my junior leaders are paramount to everything I do. They conduct independent operations. Most of my patrols in my troop were lead by an E5 or E6. I had 3 officers in my troop. They couldn't be everywhere. I, as did my PLs, had to trust my NCOs to do the right thing constant with the commander's intent I wrote.
CPT Holzbach on platoon leadership: Ensure that your NCOs are applying Article 1 before and during the deployment. Make it formal training if you must. It is the nature of NCOs to take pride in their job and their performance of that job. If you make Article 1 part of their job, you'll have squad leaders and patrol leaders who you will be able to trust. Always ask for their advice. Give them a sense of ownership of any particular mission, and then let them execute. This is basic leadership.
MAJ Custis on battle captains: Get your COC people to as much formal and informal training as possible, even if it means foregoing multiple COC exercises. The Battle NCOs may think that steady state operations are mind numbing, but when you have rockets impacting around the COC, troops in contact, and a developing CASEVAC situation, a properly trained NCO truly shines. My battalion had an ops idiot savant who amazed me daily with his ability to pull in COP feeds, re-wire the COC after displacement, and sense when things needed to happen. He was a graduate of an operations specialist course, and it paid off during both deployments.
MAJ Thornton on MiTTs: Advisors on a small team have to be allowed the type of decentralized independence to get things done. Running a MiTT like a rifle company is counterproductive.
MAJ Sullivan on MiTTs: You are a small unit, not a company or platoon. Build trust in your subordinates early and gain a good understanding of both their strengths and weaknesses. Understand their strengths and harness those to gain results. Work on or avoid exposing their weaknesses to your FSFs to both save face on their part and prevent any doubt in your team's competence from bubbling to the surface.
MAJ Mark Leslie on advisors: NCOs and even soldiers make strategic decisions on the battlefield in a matter of seconds. Trusting them to make the right decision is not even a question. That bond of trust and confidence is only developed if we train them, develop them, inform them, and trust them on a daily basis. There is no close-hold information about a sector; you cannot hold back information they may need to make a decision. There simple is no room for micro-management here. Every soldier is a decision maker in COIN.
LTC Odom on country teams: The smallest possible unit is two. There is neither time nor people to allow the luxury of micro-managing a two-person shop in a place like Goma, Zaire or Kigali, Rwanda. I had to first assess that my fellow team members knew their job and then let them do it.
MAJ McDermott on company command: COIN is about decentralized operations this means you are going to have to balance risk against security. If you as a company commander don't have the confidence in you platoons and squads to go out and do great things alone, then you need to take a good look at yourself in the mirror. You have the responsibility to get these guys ready to go out do these missions. If they can't successfully do theirs, you are not going to be successful in yours.
MAJ McDermott on MiTT: A MiTT is basically a squad, MiTT's need to find out one another's strengths are task organize accordingly so that there isn't a drop off in capability while on operations.
8. Rank is nothing: talent is everything. Not everyone is good at counterinsurgency. Many people don't understand the concept, and some who do can't execute it.
CPT Kranc on troop command: Goes back to the rule of thirds that Tom Ricks talks about in Fiasco. Some are really good at COIN, some suck. Some of our best COIN operators are E5s and E4s who are out there every day. They understand how 2nd and 3rd order effects work. They see them up close and personal.
CPT Holzbach: You'll have to work with the soldiers and NCOs Uncle Sam gives you. Many Joes will not "get" counterinsurgency, usually because of inadequate training. You must constantly work to improve this problem by explaining why you're doing whatever it is you're doing. This will be especially difficult if one of your soldiers gets killed. Your platoon will want to take the gloves off. After one of my soldiers was killed, an E-5 I had stated that it would be effective if we dropped HE mortar rounds on one of the neighborhoods until the locals gave up the bad guys. This was mostly just blowing off steam, but you have to cut it off immediately. Explain that such things have been tried before by less civilized nations, and they don't work.
Of equal importance is to seriously examine your own COIN abilities. Just because you're reading this article does not mean you're good at COIN, or will become good at it. If you have an E-3 who really seems talented at this stuff, ask for his opinion. Rank is nothing.
MAJ Custis on battle captains: See article 7. If the square peg won't fit into the round hole, keep searching until you find a fit.
MAJ Thornton on MiTTs: This goes with point 7. I would add that a guy who comes to do one thing might not be very good at that one thing. You must put your round pegs in round holes and your square ones in square holes. Trying to force the issue is a waste of time and talent. Some of my best team members took on responsibilities that fell outside their MOS. We had two fire support NCOs, but little need to call for fire. One proved to be a fantastic collection manager and detainee affairs specialist. The other was very adept at Adobe Photoshop; he became my IO specialist.
MAJ Sullivan on MiTTs: This is an important statement for future advisors to understand. Substitute "advisory work" for "counterinsurgency." Serving as an effective advisor is not for everyone. Just because an officer or NCO has had a successful career up to this point is not an indicator of their ability to advise FSFs. Take a look at the type of person T.E. Lawrence was, a loner, truly in love with the language, culture and with little to no military training. Was his lack of military training a hindrance? On the contrary, it was a huge benefit. Lawrence did not have any of the preconceived notions of "proper" warfare during his time as an advisor to the Bedouin forces. Take a hard look at the character of your team members. If you have someone who just does not "get it", seriously look to replace that team member.
MAJ Mark Leslie on advisors: Once again you have to tailor your teams to your mission profile and the personalities of the team, whatever size element that "team" may be. Some teams are better at some things than others. Waiting until you are in country in a COIN fight is not the place to develop a team. Exploit the apparent strengths of your teams and subtly work on weaknesses if possible. Just tell me what to do and not how to do it and you may be pleasantly surprised.
SFC Reber on teams: Colonel Odom mentioned me several areas on the Small Wars Council. I don't consider what I did extraordinary. Most good NCO and Officer teams can perform equally well, providing they know what they're getting into. Fixing Colonel Odom's phone so it would last for days, scrounging disposable weapons, and running logistics support for the Joint Task Force were all based on my knowledge of the country coupled with the situation at hand.
LTC Odom on country teams: Just as you assess who can do a job and leave them to it, you must weed out those who cannot. COIN and stability operations environments exhibit the strategic compression of action and events. A single talented individual can do wonders; a lesser-talented individual can be disastrous. Working three different languages, Sergeant First Class Reber negotiated and coordinated multi-national use of an over crowded airfield in Goma. A field grade officer I had working for me in contrast ended up going home early when he proved unable to work in that environment.
MAJ McDermott on company command: You have to —to take an honest look at your subordinate leaders. You also have to be —to move people around based on strengths. This means don't let the administrative burden prevent you from doing what needs to be done. That being said, rank does matter. You have to observe your guys and determine who should work with whom in order to offset any large gaps in capability between people (i.e. kick ass team leaders with a week squad leader, etc.).
MAJ McDermott on MiTT: With your partner unit, you have to enable the chain-of-command to develop into an effective tool. This means that you have to look at the long term systemic fix as being the better course of action than the short term immediate fix. A pratfall is utilizing an Iraqi platoon leader over the company commander based on capabilities of the two individuals. You have to empower the leaders, or else you going to create an undisciplined mob that will not fight well. Work with you partner unit in developing and appointing good subordinate leaders. Help your counterpart identify and place into leadership roles those junior officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers that should be in positions of responsibility based on merits, not other non-relevant reasons.
9. Have a game plan. The final preparation task is to develop a game plan: a mental picture of how you see the operation developing.
CPT Kranc on troop command: It may be surprising to you that many units go into an area without one. This ties back into points 1-4.
CPT Holzbach: This will rest heavily on your commander's intent. Depending on how much freedom you have to control your own AO, you may need to develop a fairly detailed, long-term plan.
MAJ Custis on battle captains: Treat the deployment as a marathon, not a sprint. Rehearse your actions in garrison and develop a rough plan to support ops in the area of operations, but don't become enamored with that plan. Don't be afraid to employ tricks you pick up during the relief in place and transfer of authority (RIP/TOA). It wasn't until we'd been in country for over four months and had fought the second battle of Fallujah that our battle captain system really started to click and run smoothly. During a RIP in Ramadi, we even stole some tactics, techniques, and procedures from the Army.
MAJ Thornton on MiTTs: Here the advisor helps the counterpart to develop a "vision" with the understanding that you the advisor have a one-year shelf life!
MAJ Sullivan on MiTTs: This starts at your training location. Whether its at Fort Riley or another location, sit down with your team and start building a game plan. Include rapport, culture, advising and team survivability in that plan. Will it change once you get with your unit? Absolutely. Your plan is like a fighting position...you are constantly improving it whenever you have time. But It is better to take the time while in CONUS to develop a plan rather than wait until you are in the 130 degree heat worried about IEDs in country. Start planning EARLY!!!
MAJ Mark Leslie on advisors: It is critical to develop a game plan or vision, but not a rigid one. When reality smacks you in the face, your plan or vision will change once in theater due to a number of competing priorities. Don't resist it, "knowing your neighborhood" means being able to remain flexible and change your priorities based on the needs of your clients-the people of your sector.
LTC Odom on country teams: Anything you do outside a plan is probably reactive or at best opportunistic. As Defense Attaché in Goma, Zaire I had a 6-person team drawn from missions in four different countries. As Defense Attaché in Kigali, Rwanda I wrote an inter-agency campaign for Rwandan recovery plan that was accepted at U.S. European Command. In the same capacity, I made sure that my team --whether my non-commissioned officer assistant and me or a larger group--understood what we were trying to do and how we would seek to do it. The only times that my team and I had problems was when someone got "off plan".
MAJ McDermott on company command: Understand where you make a difference as a Company Commander. Have a plan that will support what you have to achieve in the non-lethal range of operations as an individual against what you have to do as a leader. This means you are going to have to develop what your command team is going to divide up as far as responsibilities. You are going to have to empower subordinates to make decisions in your absence, you have to plan on this. You are going to have to develop a plan based on your pre-deployment training of how you and your company leadership are going to interact with the local leadership. Do you as the commander always take the lead, or are you going to appear for special events in order to increase the bargaining power of your subordinates, and therefore your own bargaining power. You have to develop this plan before you deploy, and you have to make sure all of your subordinates understand it.
MAJ McDermott on MiTT: You have to plan on living with your unit, and sticking to that plan. You might get the opportunity to live elsewhere, you have to avoid the temptation to become a "commuter" advisor by living on an American FOB. The important plan you have as an advisor is realizing that you are not fighting with a US unit, and that you have to plan on reducing the friction between your unit and the American units in the area. Your primary responsibility as a MiTT is increasing your unit's capability. This means that you have to focus your plan on your unit, not the individuals. Define your success on the improvement and success of your unit, not your individual counterpart. For everything else, plan on being flexible.
10. Be there. The first rule of deployment in counterinsurgency is to be there. You can almost never outrun the enemy. If you are not present when an incident happens, there is usually little you can do about it. So your first order of business is to establish presence.
CPT Kranc on troop command: Near and dear to my heart. As a reconnaissance tactics instructor, it's my job to communicate to the force that reconnaissance and surveillance planning and operations work in COIN just like they do in high intensity environments. If you're unable to place effective fires at the critical point and time (which in COIN is 3-7 seconds) you'll lose the engagement. Developing named areas of interest (NAIs) on areas that have high improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and over watching them will eliminate IEDs in given area. Again, goes back to IPB and planning
CPT Holzbach: If you know what's going on in your neighborhood, you can be present for any important local events (if your invited). But this mostly goes back to spending as much time with the locals as is feasible. Living amongst them is the ideal.
MAJ Custis on battle captains: As a battle captain, you can't be there if you are exhausted. Those days will come for sure, but the companies outside the wire deserve better, and if you are starting a 12-hour watch after only fours hours of sleep because you were playing Xbox, then you are simply negligent. Build a duty rotation like Marine Security Guard duty. Try to give the battle staff time off, if possible. At one point when we were in Ramadi for a few months, our rotation had it where the battle captain and his NCO could have 36 hours off, after a 3-day duty period. It keeps everyone rested and maintains his or her sanity. You will need it when the worst days come. Another component to "being there" is to have a semblance of depth. My task force had to split to support the Fallujah fight, and we learned the hard lesson that we did not have enough well-trained battle captains to do so without incurring more risk than we needed to. The senior personnel went forward and the junior guys did a stellar job, but they had to violate the first point in this paragraph.
MAJ Thornton on MiTTs: The fact that our battalion lived in a combat outpost (COP) on key terrain allowed us to influence the population directly and continuously. Out of the entire brigade MiTTs we were the only ones who lived in the same building as our counterparts. This scared many a CF guy who feared we might be compromised. But when somebody had to know what was really going on, we got the call. Finally on tactics random patrolling of contested areas is the next best thing to HUMINT that allows you to get the bad guy in his house the day before he plans to hit a target.
MAJ Sullivan on MiTTs: You MUST embed with your unit. Advisors who "commute" to work do not share the same dangers, hardships and experiences with their unit. Advisors need to be there, 24/7 with their unit. If higher commanders try and unembed your MiTT, jump up and down screaming. Unless there is a verifiable threat against your MiTT, you not only lose most if not all your credibility with your unit, you expose yourselves to increased risk while traveling back and forth to see your unit. Live with them, fight with them!
MAJ Mark Leslie on advisors: Enough cannot be said about living among the population in combat outposts. Our small advisory detachment had had a better feel for our sector, had more informants, and gathered more intelligence than the rest of the task force combined. This is critical in developing an IO campaign, a vision, and objectives during a tour. The populace respects you more and your rapport with them grows as does your credibility.
LTC Odom on country teams: If a tree falls in the forest and no hears it, did it make a noise? Yes. If you are not out and looking at your area of operation, will "trees" fall unheard in your absence? No. The locals will hear them. If you do not get out and look you will never establish what is normal for your area; that means you will never really know what is abnormal.
MAJ McDermott on company command: You have to figure out your battle-rhythm based on what you see as decisive activities. This means you have to accept that you are not going to be as involved in the "exciting stuff" (i.e. hunting down insurgents), as the more important yet mundane and often frustrating roles that you will have to perform based on your rank and responsibility (negotiating with the tribal and local political leaders). You have to understand ahead of time where you can make the biggest difference and enable the greatest level of success.
MAJ McDermott on MiTT: You have to plan on living with your unit. Opportunities might arise to live elsewhere and commute, but you are more effective if you are enduring many of the same conditions that your unit is as well. Don't be a commuter advisor.
11. Avoid knee jerk responses to first impressions. Don't act rashly, get the facts first. The violence you see may be part of the insurgent strategy, it may be various interest groups fighting it out, or it may be people settling personal vendettas. Or, it may just be daily life: "normality" in Kandahar is not the same as in Kansas.
CPT Kranc on troop command: First reports are wrong 95% of the time. Insurgents know when RIP/TOA is happening. Depending on where you are, some lay low and some hammer the new unit. Those laying low can paralyze a new unit into inaction. Going into the game with a plan and sticking to it is better than initial improvisation.
CPT Holzbach: Due to the high impact your face time with the locals creates, you must think shrewdly about what to say and what to do. We're all trained on what to do when under fire, and that's great. But what about when a local asks you to arbitrate some disagreement? Do you strictly enforce the law, even to the detriment of the greater good or your mission? What if the person you rule against is one of your best informants? Is that really wise? Would doing otherwise be favoritism? Would that tarnish your Honor and Integrity? In the often dirty world of COIN, does it even matter? You must think out the impact your words and decisions will have, as much as time permits.
MAJ Custis on battle captains: I'll trump CPT Kranc a bit and say that initial reports are wrong 99% of the time. Every time you press an RTO for more details, the urge to embellish creeps in and reporting morphs into speculation. Give the unit 30 minutes to submit a follow-up report, and preferably after the senior man on the scene has made his assessment of just what the hell happened. In a running gunfight, remember that silence on the net probably means the commander has a helmet fire going on. He is busy...give him some space.
MAJ Thornton on MiTTs: Absolutely! It takes time and effort to understand the AO. Our desire to impose our rules and standards in some ways works against us. This goes back to points 1 and 2.
MAJ Sullivan on MiTTs: This goes for what you see in your FSF unit. Just like good commanders take time to assess the climate in their unit, do not try to make rapid changes to your FSF unit. Also, understand the difference between a cultural norm and a professional military culture. You have to understand what the cultural norm. However, we need to work on a professional military culture which is rooted in that FSFs culture, but also allows that unit to perform its mission, regardless. Take the time to look at your unit from all sides and keep in mind the culture from which they are coming from. Do NOT judge a FSF using U.S. standards. This sets you up not only for disappointment, but also to make rash decisions or snap judgments of your unit.
Former Captain Bill Meara on the role of military advisor in Central America: Regional expertise and experience are obviously important. People working on insurgencies shouldn't be doing so on their first trip to the region. In Yamales I found myself making use of lessons learned as far back as my student days in Guatemala. Insurgency is serious business and amateurs should not be allowed to dabble in it. From "Contra Cross --- Insurgency and Tyranny in Central America, 1979-1989" by William R. Meara Published by Naval Institute Press, 2006.
MAJ Mark Leslie on advisors: Important to keep in mind and instill in your soldiers that "tactical patience" is even more important in COIN than most other environments. Insurgents plan their actions to elicit overreaction on our part. This is part of their strategy and key in their support base.
LTC Odom on country teams: See point 10. Also remember that different cultures define normality differently.
CPT McDermott on company command: CPT Holzbach brought up a lot of good points. As company commander, you have to accept that you are the "adult leadership" on the ground. You have to understand how to balance immediate security fixes against systemic repairs.
MAJ McDermott on MiTT: You have to truly figure out what you are being told. This goes back to understanding your unit. You have to separate legitimate information from hyperbole, listen to what your trusted HN members are telling you. Often your trusted unit members are the first to give you a more accurate report of what happened.
12. Prepare for handover from Day One. Believe it or not, you will not resolve the insurgency on your watch.
CPT Kranc on troop command: We reinvent the wheel on each rotation. It has been said we fought the Vietnam War for one year 11 times, rather than for 11 years. Many units get the RIP/TOA files and paperwork and never look at them again. That's a travesty. Additionally, some units are preparing to RIP/TOA with indigenous forces. That needs to be planned from Day 1.
CPT Holzbach: Don't set up your relief for failure. Teach them everything you know. Don't assume they know anything about the local situation, the country at large, or even COIN in general.
MAJ Thornton on MiTTs: Yes, but in the MiTT case what you want to do is work yourself out of a job. During your RIP/TOA you can make recommendations about where to redistribute effort. We went with electronic products for handover and that worked. But all transitions demand context and even if you do a good handover, that context does not become apparent until the new guys have a chance to understand the problem they face differs from what they expected. If possible bring the new team in on your thoughts prior to their deployment, it will help them get read in.
MAJ Sullivan on MiTTs: Working yourself out of a job is great...but do not expect it to happen on your watch. Work on a continuity file from the first day you get on the job. Keep copies of all your assessments, reports and files on members of your unit. Try and conduct internal (MiTT) AARs, capture these comments and have them accessible to the new team that will eventually take your place, whether in 90 days or a year. This gives your replacements and idea of what steps you have taken, training you have conducted and operations which occurred during your time as an advisor.
MAJ Mark Leslie on advisors: Turnover was on my list of "coulda, shoulda, woulda" things. My biggest regret is that I did not do the electronic version in a legible, coherent, organized manner, mostly due to time issues. I should have made time. I did hand over three "green pocket size, NSN, field books" crammed with information on the sector, informants, caches, and other tips to my successor. All grids were coded for OPSEC but they proved invaluable to him. I wish I had done a better job of keeping a day-to-day journal. I would prefer that from the guy I am doing RIP/TOA with more than an electronic copy.
LTC Odom on country teams: Understand that you will leave and they --the locals--will not. Fight for an effective transition before you go and fight for one when you leave. My longest running "dispute" with headquarters from Rwanda was the need to make the Defense Attaché Office in Kigali permanent. I succeeded. Had I not persisted in that effort, the National Command Authorities' ability to get reliable information on the Congo Wars from 1996 until present (2007) would have been severely crippled. On a related note in the fall of 1994, I was fortunate that the officer who would ultimately replace me in 1996 came out for 60 days to help me. He was and still is a great officer and a great analyst who never stops asking hard questions and seeking harder answers. His very first night in country, I had to tell him to slow down, as we were unlikely to "fix" Rwanda before dinner. Much later he thanked me for that, saying it helped him keep the issues in proper perspective.
MAJ McDermott on company command: Determine what your piece of the bigger picture is, and then determine what you can truly achieve in 15 months. Back on point nine, in developing a game plan, you already know that you are going to perform security/combat operations. You have to figure out what types of realistic objectives that you can establish on other lines of operations. Your PDSS could potentially serve you well in this area.
MAJ McDermott on MiTT: You have to develop an early assessment of your unit. Find out as much as you can before you arrive. WITH YOUR COUNTERPART, establish some realistic goals on where you two would like the unit as far as capabilities are concerned in a year. Explain to your counterpart, that this is not a fixed mark on the wall but a goal. Therefore, adjust accordingly. Furthermore, temper these goals with reality, and reinforce with your counterparts, what activities and actions support reaching the goal. Also develop a draft proposal of the way ahead for the unit after your year is up. Many things can change, but if you have a concept that you can share with your replacement it will help make the transition less painful for all involved, especially for the client unit.