Small Wars Journal

Troubled Train-and-Equip US Strategy Sparks Questions

Sun, 10/25/2015 - 3:30pm

Troubled Train-and-Equip US Strategy Sparks Questions by Andrew Tilghman, Military Times

It's been a humbling few weeks for the Pentagon's central strategy of training and equipping foreign forces to fight on the ground so U.S. troops don't have to.

In Syria, a yearlong effort to train and equip a moderate rebel force was abandoned as a failure.

In Iraq, the local army's campaign against the Islamic State remains stalled outside Ramadi despite support from daily U.S. airstrikes and thousands of boots-on-the-ground advisers.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban in September overran and seized a major city for the first time since 2001. A few weeks later, President Obama scrapped his timeline for ending the U.S. military mission there by the end of next year and said the Afghan army will need support from American troops into 2017.

The series of setbacks in short succession is prompting Washington to take an increasingly skeptical look at the train-and-equip model on which the U.S. military is hinging its strategy…

Read on.

Comments

Dave Maxwell

Sun, 10/25/2015 - 4:04pm

This is going to get ugly before it gets better and unfortunately I am afraid there are those who will throw out the baby (UW, FID, political warfare, and counter-unconventional warfare) with the bathwater (a train and equip program that was doomed to failure from the start). Of course there is a lot of mixing of apples and oranges.

But Congressman Cooper should also recognize and admit that our security assistance programs also stimulate US business as well (and for very legitimate and important reasons such as keeping assembly lines open should we need to again mobilize US industry to support a major war.)

QUOTE: Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., noted that in some respects, "security cooperation is almost a host-country stimulus program."END QUOTE