Advisers and Advising in the 21st Century - United States military policy - Statistical Data Included

During the recent congressional debate over President Bill Clinton's request for $1.3 billion dollars to aid Colombia's war on drugs, senior officials and policy-makers carefully avoided the word "adviser," apparently out of fear that the mere mention of the word would jeopardize the fate of the aid package.

That attitude reflects the historical baggage that the United States military and the U.S. government still carry from the Vietnam War. Ironically, the advisory effort in Vietnam was one of the war's success stories, even though the recipients of the advice, in the end, were unable to heed it. The purpose of this article is to show that the word "adviser" needs a revival if the U.S. hopes to face the threats of the 21st century in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

Cold War advisers

Advisers were a critical part of U.S. military activities during the Cold War. It was also during the Cold War that American advisory efforts developed a reputation that ranged from the naive to the criminal. Popular novels based on the 1950s exploits of Edward Lansdale (a U.S. Air Force officer seconded to the Central Intelligence Agency for much of his career), including The Ugly American, The Quiet American, and the French Le mal Jaune (Yellow Fever), influenced the reputation of U.S. military advisers. The books' association of the CIA with U.S. military advisory efforts, along with the "secret war" in Laos and the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, led many (both in and out of the military) to believe that advising is primarily a special or covert operation.

In 1969, the murder of a suspected North Vietnamese double agent motivated Daniel Ellsberg, a former reserve Marine adviser who had worked for Lansdale in Vietnam, to leak the Pentagon Papers, which revealed much of the inner workings of the ways the U.S. government had mixed advisory efforts with special operations since the late 1940s. [1] And in Cambodia from 1970 to 1975, an American materiel-equipment delivery team often violated the 1970 Cooper-Church Amendment by providing advice to Cambodian forces while monitoring the end-use of donated equipment from the Military Assistance Program. Senator Frank Church then pushed for the 1976 Arms Export Control Act, which placed additional restrictions on when and how security assistance, including advice, could be provided. [2]

Edward Lansdale was both a proponent and a critic of early U.S. advisory efforts in Vietnam. During the transition between the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, Lansdale wrote an assessment of the advisory effort in Vietnam, which Defense Secretary-select Robert McNamara provided to President-elect Kennedy. [3] Lansdale's assessment criticized the work of the 900 American advisers in Vietnam as "lacking in focus, purpose, or courage. Worst of all, they lacked understanding of either insurgency or nation building." [4] Lansdale believed that fewer advisers, given greater responsibility and authority, would have a greater chance of success. Although Kennedy liked the concept of counterinsurgency and immediately ordered the Army to focus on it, he refused to believe that less could be better, and in 1961, he increased the number of advisers from 900 to 3,200.

One lesson that we should have learned from Vietnam is that the war should have remained an advisory effort, even if ultimately we might have failed. In the words of a former adviser, General Volney Warner: "In retrospect, I'm absolutely convinced that we lost the war wrong. We should have fought that war in an advisory mode and remained in that mode. When the South Vietnamese failed to come up and meet the mark at the advisory level, then we never should have committed U.S. forces. We should have failed at the advisory effort and withdrawn." [8]

The end of the war brought a decline in the use of advisers until Congress authorized that advisers be used in El Salvador in the 1980s. Army Special Forces continued to train for advisory duty, but in the Army and in the Department of Defense, or DoD, the imperative to improve on the lessons learned in Vietnam was gone. The few existing doctrinal publications that pertained to advisory duty were gradually retired.

When the Reagan administration decided to send advisers to assist El Salvador in its counterinsurgency in the 1980s, Congress limited the number of advisers to 55. That restriction allowed a handful of specialists to craft an advisory effort that adroitly placed political, economic and social objectives before military objectives. A former commander of the U.S. Southern Command highlighted the efficacy of a relatively small number of advisers in either a counterinsurgency or a foreign-internal-defense, or FID, effort when he said, in the context of El Salvador, "You don't need a lot of people to fight these wars." [9]

That conclusion, however, depends upon a number of conditions, including the quality of the advisers. Advisory duty requires people of unique talents, and at least one study on El Salvador lamented that the right people were not being recruited or ordered into advisory duty. [10] The success in El Salvador vindicated post-Vietnam doctrine of FID, but the roles and the responsibilities of the advisers themselves were never fully captured in joint doctrine or in Army doctrine outside that of Special Forces.

Furthermore, in the 1990s, the special-operations community shifted its emphasis away from FID and into coalition-warfare support, direct action, special reconnaissance and counterterrorism. As a result of the shift, the concept of advising -- "Influencing the host nation military institutions to support a democratic process can only be done with the long-term presence of U.S. military personnel working alongside host nation forces," as described in FM 31-20-3, Foreign Internal Defense Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Special Forces (20 September 1994) [11] -- has almost ceased to exit. [12] Even military assistance and advisory groups are restricted by DoD regulations to providing advice only if it does not interfere with managing the sale of American defense articles and services. [13]

21st-century imperatives

Today's security environment presents a range of opportunities to promote stability, democracy and the rule of law before a country (or a group within a country) falls victim to the destructive effects of insurgency, civil war, ethnic strife, separatism, drug trafficking, environmental exploitation or anarchy. And for those countries that have managed to survive such internal conflicts, the opportunity exists for the U.S. to help them recover. Philosophically, we must start by embracing the idea that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. On paper, we have done this: The White House's most recent National Security Strategy begins with a quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt's final inaugural address: "We have learned that we cannot live alone at peace. We have learned that our own well-being is dependent on the well-being of other nations far away. We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community." [14]

Secretary of Defense William Cohen expressed similar sentiments in 1997: "Today, there are some who would have us pull back from the world, forgetting the central lesson of this century: that when America neglects the problems of the world, the world often brings its problems to America's doorstep." [15] The National Military Strategy goes so far as to state that in the immediate post-Cold War era, "We have an unprecedented opportunity to shape the future security environment." [16]

But are we shaping a future security environment that will guarantee the safety of our children and grandchildren? The National Military Strategy claims, "Our strategic approach uses all appropriate instruments of national power to influence the actions of other states and nonstate actors, exert global leadership, and remain the preferred security partner for the community of states that share our interests." [17]

Are we using all appropriate tools within the military instrument of national power? In 1999, the Joint Chiefs of Staff began requiring regional commanders in chief, or CINCs, to submit theater engagement plans that explain how they plan to implement their strategy, goals and objectives. Yet the author is not aware of any studies that correlate peacetime-engagement activities with the actions of other states and nonstate actors. In fact, our peacetime-engagement activities are, in general, characterized by a lack of vision, a lack of resources, an overemphasis on force-protection, and a near total reliance on short-term events that contribute very little to a host nation's capabilities.

That is not to say that those activities should be scrapped, but rather that they should complement an incountry program that supports our national interests. History has shown that to be successful in assisting a troubled state, an assisting country must demonstrate three qualities: presence, persistence and patience. If those qualities are missing, as they were when the U.S. abandoned Cambodia five years after Congress legislatively limited our assistance effort in 1970, the consequences can be disastrous: In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge took power and slaughtered 1.7 million Cambodians. For demonstrating presence, persistence and patience, an appropriate tool of foreign policy and of the military instrument of national power is the military adviser.

The key in determining whether providing military advisers would be appropriate is to identify countries in which preventive action can make a difference, as it can in the following categories: [18]

Transitioned democracies whose continued development of a professional military will contribute to regional security. This could refer to most eastern European states and to countries such as Thailand and Mexico. U.S. objectives that would be supportable by an advisory effort include assisting in formulating strategic plans and policy; developing and executing modernization and professionalization requirements; enhancing interoperability with U.S. and regional forces; and executing a theater-engagement plan designed to assist weaker allies in the region in traditional defense matters and in countering transnational threats such as drug trafficking and illicit environmental exploitation.

* Democratic regimes that are under duress from internal forces. "Internal forces" could include insurgency, drug trafficking, ethnic warfare, corruption, human-rights abuses, and environmental exploitation. This category could include large countries such as Colombia, Russia and India, and smaller nations such as Sri Lanka, Nepal, the Philippines and Cambodia. The key is to select countries that have sufficient political legitimacy to ensure that our intervention would be welcome. Ideally, we would begin by assisting countries that have not yet developed serious problems, but that could develop them.

* Countries that aspire to achieve a democratic transition, even though they may have faltered, in part, because of external or transnational sources of instability. A prime example of this category is Indonesia. If we had agreed 10 years ago to provide advisers to the Indonesian armed forces, our influence might have prevented the human-rights violations and threats to constitutional authority that have occurred there recently. Our primary challenge in providing assistance to countries in this category is to garner the domestic American political will to assist a country that has faltered. Providing assistance is not an easy choice, but when we assist a country that has the potential for progress, we are investing in the future.

* Areas in which nonstate actors or "hosts" (vs "host nation") require our support. Nonstate actors could be insurgencies or separatist groups that have legitimate reasons for wanting to replace, or to split away from, illegitimate regimes. Our involvement could run the gamut from providing peacetime strategy to providing wartime tactical advice on conventional military operations. Other nonstate actors could include international and non-governmental organizations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Food Program, and large relief agencies such as CARE. These organizations often engage in programs that directly support U.S. interests in an area or region.

* Countries in which larger U.S. geostrategic interests are at stake. This category is the most problematic, because in its countries, advisers could be placed in complex and demanding situations, including those in which the U.S. may not always succeed. Perhaps the most common situation would grow out of negotiated settlements between belligerents. Advisers could play a role similar to that of a United Nations observer; they could be assigned to one or both of the belligerents, or they could become part of a peacekeeping mission. U.S. objectives in such situations should be limited to conflict resolution and mediation.

The categories listed above are examples meant only to provoke thought and to raise the issue of whether the U.S. is considering all available options as it tries to achieve its foreign-policy objectives. Many of our advisory efforts will be interagency operations, and we may find ourselves working side-by-side with members of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department or even the Commerce Department.

21st-century missions

The most important advisory positions should be those that assist the host in planning and implementing a national military strategy that supports the national interests and the national security strategies of both the U.S. and the host. That type of assistance requires working at the operational level of the host's military organization. The most common tasks will include identifying friendly, enemy or threat centers of gravity, strategic and operational objectives, decisive points, culminating points, and measures of effectiveness.

Unless strategic, operational and tactical tasks are synchronized first, there will be no point in fielding functional advisers. Historically, communist military advisers have grasped that concept better than we have. When the Soviet Union dispatched an advisory team to assist Chiang Kai-shek's newly-formed Nationalist Army in 1925, it chose General Vasilii Blucher (known in China as Galin or Galen) to lead 20 officers (including an admiral, six other generals, and five colonels) who provided advice in the areas of strategy, artillery, communications and logistics. [20]

Similarly, when Mao Zedong dispatched a 79-man military advisory group to assist the Viet Minh in 1950, the group focused on strategy and operations. It is worth noting that Mao personally briefed the senior leaders of this advisory team before they deployed, and that their mission ended only after the Vietnamese defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu. [21]

Advisers will assist the host in writing and executing campaign plans, including theater engagement plans, if appropriate. Functional advisers also will play a critical role in the future, advising their hosts in logistics, communications, intelligence, automation, and comprehensive information management. Simple yet robust systems that can merge many of those capabilities will enable our allies to use technology in order to gain an advantage over their opponents.

Advisers must be active and aggressive, but defeating the threat(s) may require a decade or more. Thus patience and commitment become equally important. Advisers are not merely mentors: Our purpose in spending our time and money in a foreign country is to advance the combined national interests of the U.S. and the host country. If a host country invites us in, it must agree to follow our advice to the greatest extent possible. Our advisers should identify talented individuals in the host's organization and actively recommend that those individuals be promoted within their hierarchy.

Organizations, procedures

Although a CINC can use operations and maintenance funding to deploy advisers, the preferred method is to use existing security. assistance procedures as well as Foreign Military Financing, or FMF, grant credits allocated by Congress. FMF credits would provide necessary funds to those nations and entities that cannot afford the cost of a Foreign Military Sales purchase. Although the costs of deploying advisers are minor compared to the costs of an intervention, convincing Congress to allocate FMF credits will require a paradigm shift, beginning with the ambassador and the CINC and extending upward through the Department of State, or DoS, and DoD. Those two agencies, with the support of the president, must convince Congress that an advisory effort is worth the investment.

Using FMF credits, the in-country security-assistance organization -- working through the ambassador and the CINC and using the appropriate planning documents of both chains of command -- initiates a Foreign Military Sales, or FMS, case for the host nation or the entity to "purchase" the adviser's services. [23] Our assistance to the Saudi Arabian National Guard is an example of this type of effort, except that Saudi Arabia is a cash customer.

Posting one adviser to a Third World country or to a developing country costs approximately $150,000 per year. (Depending on the security situation, an adviser's family may locate in a nearby country.) A typical 12-man advisory team could be as inexpensive as $1.8 million per year. Placing such teams in 30 troubled countries would thus cost $54 million -- an amount comparable to the annual budget for international military education and training, or IMET. In some cases, a host nation may rather have advisers than a robust IMET program, and to that end, DoS and DoD could request that Congress transfer a portion of the IMET budget to FMF credits. The same amount of IMET funds that would pay for a half-dozen officers to receive professional military education in the U.S. could pay for an instructor from the U.S. to train hundreds of host-nation officers in their own institutions.

Another funding consideration related to our advisory efforts will be the need to determine the extent to which other funding for the host nation will be forthcoming from the U.S. It is pointless to advise a host-nation force on a specific capability if acquiring that capability is not within the host-nation's means. The ideal advisory effort would prepare the host nation to operate within its means or with a modicum of U.S. funding. Self-sufficiency should be one of the objectives of our advisory effort. To the greatest extent possible, we should share the costs of our advisory efforts with our allies who would benefit from our success.

In terms of command and control, advisers work for the chief of the security-assistance organization, or SAO, who works for the CINC but is under the ambassador's local control. Determining whether the CINC or the ambassador is in charge can be handled in two ways. First, the objectives that the advisory effort has been designed to achieve should be spelled out in the CINC's theater engagement plan and in the embassy's mission-performance plan. The objectives in the plans should be identical and, ideally, detailed down to the individual advisory positions.

Second, the mission and the nature of the threat should determine who is in charge. If the primary threat facing the target country is internal, and if the adviser is operating exclusively inside the country's boundaries, the ambassador would be in charge. If the threat is transnational or if the adviser is advising an insurgency, the CINC would be in charge. In any case, the relationship should be clarified in a memorandum of agreement. Just as military operations have supporting and supported CINCs, interagency FID campaigns should have supporting and supported agencies. For instance, DoS and DoD (through the CINC) could both serve as supporting agencies for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The ideal adviser would be a full-time, dedicated officer or senior NCO who would serve for at least one year, but preferably three or four, and who would return for subsequent assignments in the same country or region. He or she might have taken foreign-language training, but language training would not be a necessity. [24] In many cases, functional expertise in an area that the host requires is more important than intercultural knowledge.

In terms of force protection, the chain of command must accept the fact that an adviser may have to be placed in harm's way in order to be effective. No areas should be off-limits, and the judgment of the adviser, with respect to his own security, must be trusted.

Hypothetical effort

What would an advisory effort look like, and how would we measure its effectiveness? Let us examine a hypothetical situation: a kingdom that elected a coalition government in July of 1998. During testimony before Congress, the deputy assistant secretary of state of the regional bureau stated that the election process had been peaceful, orderly and free of intimidation. The election results indicated that the people had voted freely. Turnout had been greater than 90 percent, and six out of 10 voters had chosen a party other than the one in power. But because the opposition had split the vote, the old regime maintains its grip on power. The same hypothetical congressional testimony also pointed out human-rights abuses committed by security forces, including more than 100 unresolved and uninvestigated extra-judicial killings dating back to factional political fighting several years ago.

The kingdom's armed forces consist of a 100,000-man amalgamation of four former enemies: the former communist regime, which is now the elected government; former insurgent units that had surrendered and were integrated into the national army in recent years; former republican forces that had fought against the regime as insurgents for 10 years; and former royalist forces that also had opposed the government for a decade, with U.S. support. The most powerful group within the military are the officers who are loyal to the old regime party These officers remain politicized; many are members of the ruling party. Many of the generals are members of the ruling party's central committee, and many are loyal to the prime minister rather than to the constitution or to the king.

The annual budget of the armed forces is $250 million, or 40 percent of the woefully inadequate national budget of $628 million. The military services are administratively joint, and they share a administration system. Operationally, the chiefs of the services report to a commander in chief who reports to the minister of defense. In addition to the kingdom's army, navy and air force, there is a French-trained and -equipped national police force, the gendarmerie. As in France, the gendarmerie is part of the ministry of defense but performs civil duties. In reality, the gendarmerie are thugs who have been implicated in drug running and extortion. In the armed forces, a private's monthly salary is $18 and 22.5 kilograms of rice. Typically, a private receives his rice, but his pay may be late by 1-3 months. A general officer officially receives $40 per month, but his special allowances vary between $500 and $1,000. In order to survive, most officers run private businesses, some legitimate and some criminal. New l ieutenants come from a small military academy There is one small, barely functioning school for NCOs. There is a three-month staff-college course that is mandatory for all majors and colonels. There are less than one dozen computers in the entire military. All administrative actions for the 100,000-man force are processed using pencil and paper. There is not one fax machine. The kingdom has had no IMET program and no military contacts with the U.S. for several years. Approximately one dozen officers are trained in France every year, and a smaller number are trained in Indonesia, Malaysia, and more recently, in China.

The kingdom has no external threats, although there are constant and often substantiated cases of encroachments from its eastern and western neighbors. Each of the neighbors has six times the kingdom's population. There is no longer an insurgency Banditry is minimal, but illegal logging and fishing pose a significant problem. The kingdom is on a list of countries that the U.S. says have a substantial drug-trafficking problem, but the kingdom has received several presidential waivers. The kingdom's road network is abysmal. The malnutrition rate among children is among the highest in the world, and life expectancy is less than 50 years. One out of every 254 people has stepped on a mine. The HIV rate among the military is between 4 percent and 8 percent.

Based on the consensus of the country team and the CINC, an advisory team is formed that will focus on professionalization, standardization, training, downsizing and civil-military relations. Because of both the nature of the threats and the kingdom's geographic location, the kingdom also requires a capable navy. The advisory team would be composed of the following:

1. Colonel or lieutenant colonel. Serves as the team leader and as the adviser to the kingdom's joint staff on national security strategy, national military strategy, defense reorganization, and professionalization. Also serves as an adjunct professor to the kingdom's armed forces staff college and command and general staff college.

2. Lieutenant colonel or major. Serves as an adviser to the joint staff and the training bureau on training reorganization and on theater-engagement activities. Also serves as an adjunct professor to the kingdom's armed forces staff college and the command and general staff college.

3. Lieutenant colonel or major. Serves as the senior adviser to the joint staff on reorganization, demobilization, downsizing, budget reform, pay-system reform and automation.

4. Captain, warrant officer or NCO. Serves as an adviser on reorganization, demobilization, downsizing, budget reform, pay-system reform and automation.

5. Major captain, warrant officer or NCO. Serves as an adviser to the engineer command on civil-engineering, road-building and demining.

6. Major or captain. Serves as an adviser to the health command on medical training, especially basic preventive medicine.

7. Navy lieutenant commander or lieutenant. Serves as the senior adviser to the navy on coastal patrolling, drug interdiction and environmental protection.

8. Navy lieutenant commander, lieutenant or petty officer. Serves as an adviser to the navy on the patrolling of inland waterways.

9. Major, captain or NCO. Serves as an adviser to the deputy chief of the general staff for Civil Affairs on the reintegration of former insurgent units into the armed forces. Plays a critical role in integrating military civic action with the activities of non-government organizations and independent organizations. Augmented by active-duty Civil Affairs personnel and by Army Reserve CA personnel who are on temporary duty.

10. Major or captain. Serves as the legal adviser to the judge advocate general of the military. Assists in writing a military code, getting it passed into law, reforming the military court system, and training military lawyers. Serves as an adjunct professor at military schools, teaching classes in human-rights, the law of land warfare and military law.

The advisory team should deploy to the kingdom with a live-year mandate. At the end of five years, the technical-functional advisers, such as the engineer, medical and naval personnel, might be withdrawn. The effectiveness of the team would be measured by the following criteria:

* Professionalization and depoliticization, as indicated by the number of officers who no longer belong to political parties, who no longer serve in the national assembly, and who no longer serve on the central committee of political parties.

* Improvement in the human-rights situation and in the rule of law, as evidenced by the prosecutions of military human-rights violators and by the military's full cooperation with civil authorities.

* Demobilization to a practical and manageable level of no more than 50,000 troops.

* Training enhanced through the formation of an armed forces staff college that teaches courses of professional military education for colonels and general officers. The staff college should become a command and general staff college for captains and majors. The kingdom should make maximum use of exchange assignments to military schools in neighboring countries.

* Administrative activities reformed by automation. Pay should be deposited automatically and on time in soldiers' bank accounts.

* Health care improved to the point that basic medical care is available to all soldiers, and that soldiers understand and employ simple preventive measures such as mosquito nets, hand-washing and condoms.

* The navy plays an active role in policing illegal fishing and in interdicting drug traffickers.

* The engineer command is dedicated to horizontal construction and demining. The priority of effort should go to constructing and rehabilitating secondary roads that will connect the most remote and poorest areas of the country --historically the base areas for insurgents -- to the main roads.

Conclusion

Critics of any effort to expand the role of the U.S. military overseas, in particular through the provision of advisers, will range from ideological opponents who believe the U.S. has no business interfering in the internal affairs of other nations, to supporters of the concept who will question its feasibility on practical grounds such as budget and personnel constraints. In the first camp, there will also be those who are skeptical of the ability of a small number of individuals to make a difference. In the second camp, there will be those who support the concept but who prefer security assistance without advisers or, if advisers are necessary, advocate hiring contractors. [25]

Despite the arguments against advisers, there is an intangible benefit in placing an American serviceman among a group of foreigners who are working toward a common cause. A military adviser represents the values of the U.S. Constitution in a way that an ordinary citizen, retired military or not, cannot. Granted, he risks becoming a target, but he also demonstrates American commitment and resolve. He not only provides advice, he also demonstrates that the U.S. is willing to define "global engagement" and "forward presence" by sending a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine forward. By his presence, the adviser demonstrates that our values are worth putting an American at the pointy end of the spear. [26]

Advisory efforts benefit the U.S., as well. In addition to enhancing national security by helping others achieve a more stable, secure and democratic environment, advisers serve as the eyes and ears of the U.S. That does not mean that advisers should be used as spies; however, an analysis of ground truth from the point of view of uniformed "strategic scouts" may be critical to those who need to make informed decisions in Washington.

The response to the isolationist argument is simple: An ounce of prevention is worth (and cheaper than) a pound of cure. Surely risking $1 million today to save $100 million, or $1 billion tomorrow -- not to mention the potential loss of life in a contingency operation -- is worth the price. We should not underestimate our abilities to steer people in the right direction. We must build friendships. We must stand witness to the value of a politically neutral, professional military. We cannot expect people of other countries to believe in human rights and to value life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness if they perceive that we are getting wealthy while they decay.

We may not see immediate results from our advisory efforts. In fact, it may take a decade for a country to find its way back to a democratic path or to completely halt the production and export of narcotics. Presence, persistence and patience are key.

From the bookshelves of military history to the halls of Congress, the role of advisers has been both glorified and pilloried. In the 21st century, this neglected aspect of the military instrument of national power will become a vital component of not only the national military strategy but also of a coordinated interagency national security strategy.

Advisers will not only be experts only in counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, and other "counter-" and "anti-"' disciplines, they will also be strategists and humanitarian-assistance officers. They will be able to advise a democratic country (or a country aspiring to become democratic) on the role of the military; on the importance of human rights and the rule of law; on the importance of both a national-security strategy and a national military strategy; on campaign plans and theater-engagement plans; and on planning and conducting operations. Functional experts in the fields of logistics, communications, information operations, professionalization, modernization, and even downsizing will help the U.S. and our allies to become true citizens of the world and members of the human community.

Major Paul Marks is assigned to the Bureau of Political Military Affairs, U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C. In previous assignments, he served with the 2nd Infantry Division and as commander of the Military Intelligence Detachment, 3rd Battalion, 1st SF Group. Major Marks recently completed a three-year tour in Cambodia as a CINCPAC programs officer His duties included advising the Royal Cambodian armed forces and managing security-assistance and interagency humanitarian-demining programs.

Major Marks is a 1986 graduate of the United States Military Academy and a 1988 graduate of the University of London, where he completed a master's degree in Chinese politics as a George C. Marshall scholar: He is a recent graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.

Notes:

(1.) Jeff Stein, A Murder In Vietnam (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), 13.

(2.) The Cooper-Church Amendment is an excellent example of the unintended consequences of Congress legislating national security policy. By permitting only equipment support to the Lon No1 regime, the law afforded the Khmer Rouge sufficient operational space to eventually win and then kill 1.7 million fellow Cambodians.

(3.) Cecil Currey, Edward Lansdale, The Unquiet American (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988), 224. Accompanying the report was an appendix on a community that under the leadership of a Catholic priest had organized its people to fight the Viet Cong. President Kennedy placed a personal call to Lansdale to recommend that he publish that part of the report. Lansdale thought the call was a prank. Ultimately the Saturday Evening Post published the article anonymously under the title: "The Report the President Wanted Published" (Currey, 225).

(4.) Currey, Lansdale, 224.

(8.) General Volney F. Warner, Oral History Transcript, Senior Officer Debriefing Program, 1983. U.S. Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Penn., cited in H.R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies That Led to Vietnam (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 197.

(9.) Lieutenant Colonels A.J. Bacevich, James Hallums, Richard White and Thomas Young, American Military Policy in Small Wars: The Case of El Salvador, for the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis (Washington D.C.: Pergamon-Brassey's International Defense Publishers, 1988), 16.

(10.) Bacevich, et al., 16-17; and Peter M. Dawkins, "The United States Army and the 'Other War' in Vietnam: A Study of the Complexity of Implementing Organizational Change" (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1979), cited in Andrew Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1986), 207-8.

(11.) Headquarters, Department of the Army, Field Manual 31-20-3 Foreign Internal Defense Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Special Forces (20 September 1994), I-1.

(12.) Sam C. Sarkesian, Unconventional Conflicts in a New Security Era: Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993) decries this trend toward Spetsnaz-type missions. An example of the shift can be seen in Susan L. Marquis, Unconventional Warfare: Rebuilding US. Special Operations Forces (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1997), which makes no mention of the use of SOF as advisers. The U.S. Special Operations Command's compact disc Special Operations Forces Reference Manual, Version 2.1 (January 1998), contains only two references to advising foreign forces, and both of those are in the section on the role of Air Force SOF in a foreign-internal-defense environment.

(13.) Department of Defense Regulation 5105.38-M, Security Assistance Management Manual (SAMM) (30 December 1998), para 3002.C.11.d.(2). Security-assistance office is the generic term for organizations that have names such as Military Assistance Group, Military Advisory Group, Office of Defense Cooperation, or Office of Defense Programs.

(14.) The White House, A National Security Strategy for a New Century (December 1999), iii.

(15.) Office of the Secretary of Defense, The United States Security Strategy for the East Asia-Pacific Region (1998), 4.

(16.) Joint Chiefs of Staff, The National Military Strategy (1997), 6.

(17.) National Military Strategy (1997), 6.

(18.) I adapted two and one-half of these cases from a discussion on the policy imperatives of troubled states contained in Strategic Assessment 1999 (Washington D.C.: National Defense University 1999), 238.

(20.) C. Martin Wilbur, "Military Separatism and the Process of Reunification under the Nationalist Regime, 1922-1937," in Ping-ti and Tang Tsou, eds., China in Crisis, vol 1, book 1 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1968), 203-35.

(21.) Qiang Zhai, "Transplanting the Chinese Model: Chinese Military Advisors and the First Vietnam War, 1950-1954, The Journal of Military History 57 (October 1993), 693-95, 714.

(23.) Department of Defense Regulation 5105.38-M, Security Assistance Management Manual (SAMM) (30 December 1998), paragraph 30002.C.11.d.(1).

(24.) Knowing a host nation's native language can do wonders for both communication and building rapport, but a talented individual can get by with an interpreter. Edward Lansdale had no affinity for foreign languages, and he went out of his way to high-light ways by which the lack of language skills could be overcome (Currey, 6). In more and more countries, senior military officers speak English. Computer software that can perform the majority of document translation for even obscure languages is proliferating quickly.

(25.) K. Adams, "The New Mercenaries and the Privatization of Conflict," Parameters (Summer 1999), 103-16.

(26.) Lansdale believed strongly in this point; see Currey, 263.

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