US Air Defense Artillery Foreign Advising

The strategic NCO leveraging the operational art

- Maj. Christopher Garnet

Working themes

Get them to see themselves

Work within the HN system

Keep it simple

Stay on message

Patience: capabilities take time to mature

As the global trend for air defense capabilities to deter regional actors continues, so will the need for U.S. Army air defenders to possess the operational flexibility to conduct theater security cooperation or U.S. State Department-led Foreign Military Sales’ long-term advisory missions in order to train, advise, and assist foreign militaries.

For training basic-to-intermediate gunnery and campaign planning implementation to be effective while working in small teams, advisors must go beyond simply providing foreign disclosed documents and training manuals in an effort to train the host nation defense forces. While working with host nation defense forces with highly centralized decision-making, and immature systems and processes, the advisory team leaders must be able to properly assess both the current defense forces’ as well as the advisory team’s capabilities. This will ensure they devise a realistic plan with broad lines of operation (LOOs) and realistic lines of effort that are supported with attainable objectives.

Though the officer has a defined strategic role on the advisory team, it is the noncommissioned officer that must be able to operate at the tactical level while being able to influence leaders at the strategic level thru key leader engagements, classes and briefings. This article provides both a concept and considerations for advising foreign air defense forces with the end-state of “working oneself out of a job.”

Inform and influence