A few thoughts on the future of the advisory effort: Contracting didn’t work, and neither will a separate advisory corps

By Col. Robert Killebrew, U.S. Army (ret.)

Best Defense chief mentor

On contracting, the current arrangement has been shown not to work, for a number of reasons — and I have top-notch friends who went that route so I know it’s not quality of people, just the fact that contracts don’t take the place of enlistments.

On "advisory corps," I’ve long been on record saying that it’s an exceptionally sucky idea.

With regard to special qualifications of advisors, we are in agreement again. I was an advisor in a long-ago war, and I’ve been around the business for a long time. I think that advising, training, and equipping allies will be — has been, in fact — a core competency of the armed services — we have been in the advising business in every war since WWII, to include Desert Storm, but we consistently refuse to embrace the business between wars, so it’s always a surprise. (Like those guys who are always surprised by the premature arrival of lunch.)

If I could, I’d tackle the job on several fronts, starting with consistent joint and service doctrines so we could learn how to put DOTLM-PF standards against the advisory mission. We should insure that advisory tours reward people who seek them, and have a school for advisors that teaches the doctrine, applies the resources, and that can be expanded as it is needed.

I wouldn’t make advisory training mandatory unless there was a requirement for large numbers of advisors, but when we need the capability, we should have a doctrine and be able to expand the schooling. We can go back and forth about the differences between advising and training and equipping and so forth, but that will be dictated by the specifics of each situation; the important thing is to have the school, have a way that encourages the best and the brightest to pull an advisory tour without damage to their careers, and have a surge capability. There are things that have to be fixed at State, but the military still has a way to go.

Tom addendum: Maj. Matthew Billings, based on his time in Iraq, seem to think differently:

Really what I think that the Army should do, since we’ve seen two recent conflicts using this type of mission set, I really think that the Army ought to consider having entire advisor brigades formed. A unit that they can deploy to a certain area for a certain mission and all it needs is maybe a little bit of focused cultural training before they deploy. That way you have people who have been working together, training together, and know each other, and all of the personality conflicts have been worked out ahead of time and don’t come to a head during the deployment. That can be very dangerous. That is the direction the Army should be heading.