FAO JOURNAL VOLUME VIII, NUMBER 2 June 2004
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FAO JOURNAL VOLUME VIII, NUMBER 2 June 2004 Redefining the Foreign Area Officer’s Role Nepal’s Insurgency The Foreign Area Officer Program: How Well do the Services Support the United States Pacific Command FAOA Board of Governors Election Ballot DISCLAIMER: FAOA Journal, a quar- terly professional publication for Foreign Area Specialists, is printed by the Foreign FAO JOURNAL Area Officer Association, Herndon, VA. The views expressed are those of the authors, not of the Department of De- A Professional Journal for fense, the Armed services or any DoD Regional Specialists agency. The contents do not reflect the DoD position and are not in any way in- tended to supersede information from official military sources. Use of articles or June 2004 VOLUME VIII, NO. 2 advertisements constitutes neither affir- mation of their accuracy nor product en- dorsement by FAOA or DoD. PURPOSE: To publish a journal for dis- seminating professional knowledge and furnishing information that will promote INSIDE THIS ISSUE understanding between U.S. regional specialists around the world and improve their effectiveness in advising decision- makers. It is intended to forge a closer ARTICLES bond between the active, reserve, and retired FAO communities. Redefining the Foreign Area Officer’s Role SUBSCRIPTIONS / ASSOCIATION MEMBERSHIP: Subscription to the jour- Brigadier General Michael A. Vane, USA pg 4 nal comes with membership in the asso- LTC Daniel Fagundes, USA ciation. Membership information may be obtained through FAOA, P.O. Box 710231, Herndon, VA 20171. The office Nepal’s Insurgency telephone/fax number is (703) 913-1356. E-Mail address is: [email protected] or Cadet Jessamyn Liu, USMA pg 12 [email protected]. For those only inter- ested in subscribing, cost is $25.00/year and may be requested at the above ad- dress. The Foreign Area Officer Program: How Well do the Services Support the United States Pacific Command SUBMISSIONS: The Association is a totally voluntary enterprise. For the Jour- Major Thomas L. Sands, Jr., USA pg 19 nal to succeed, we need articles, letters to the editor, etc. Contributors should mail articles to the above address or e- mail to [email protected] or [email protected]. Articles are subject to edit- ing by the FAO Journal Staff, to ensure that space constraints of the publication are met. WEB SITE: The Association Web Site is FEATURES at — www.faoa.org. ADDRESS CORRECTIONS: FAOA is a Association Letter from the President pg 3 private organization. We rely on the membership to update their mailing ad- Articles, Books, and Web Site Reviews dresses on a regular basis. E-mail ad- dress changes to [email protected] or Middle East pg 29 [email protected]. Service Proponent Notes FAO Journal Editor Army pg 30 LTC Steve Gotowicki Air Force pg 31 US Army (Retired) Board of Governors Election Ballot pg 32 Middle East FAO [email protected] Page 3 FAO Journal ASSOCIATION NEWS LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT based on my experience as a Board Member of the 2003 Those of us fortunate enough to enjoy the Army Colonels’ Promotion FAO Dining-Out on 7 May will remember an evening Board. While there are some of friendship and mutual commitment. The event differences in our services’ brought together over sixty National Capital Area FAO programs, I think it is FAOs, from all the services, active and retired, many useful for all our services’ FAOs to have a perspec- with their spouses. Credit – HUGE KUDOS – be- tive on what constitutes professional “success.” I do longs to a dedicated group of FAOs led by Major Don not offer my thoughts as the Solution; rather as ob- Baker, USA, from Human Resources Command servations and material for further dialog. I also offer (HRC). Others instrumental in the success of the my thoughts (privileged as I am to be serving in the Dining-Out were: Mrs. Diane Baker, LTC(P) Ray Pentagon) in all humility – with all respect to my fel- Hodgkins, LTC Steve Ayers, LTC Barry Blackmon, low FAOs who are OUT FRONT at this moment pro- LTC Brey Sloan, LTC Kelly Zicarello, MAJ Paul De- tecting our Nation. cecco, MAJ Clayton Holt, MAJ Andrew Jenkins, and MAJ Anthony Sebo. GO TO THE GUNS. The most important ele- To take advantage of that FAO enthusiasm, ment of success for Army Foreign Area Officers is on 21 May, the HRC FAOs, led by LTC Kelly Zi- their readiness to deploy to -- and record of success carello, sponsored the latest in a series of FAO in serving in -- challenging overseas assignments as Runs, on the Mall. Another outstanding team- Foreign Area Officers. Assignments in FAO-coded building event! positions in hardship areas, at the cutting edge of US political-military efforts, are the reason we have Of note, the Army G-35, MG Keith Dayton, is FAOs in the first place. in the planning stages for an Army FAO Conference, to be held in the Spring 2005 period, along models POLITICAL-MILITARY COMPETENCE. The successful in Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Al- second element of success is demonstrated political- though Army G-35 will be the host for the Confer- military competence. Without question, FAOs’ thor- ence, other FAO Service Proponents and FAOs will ough grounding in Army operations is essential to be invited. Among the events considered for the con- successful application of political-military skills. But ference are FAO Proponent presentations, presenta- the political-military skills are unique to FAOs; these tions by Combatant Command J-5s, DSCA, and skills are what set FAOs apart from their fellow basic DHS, and perhaps most important, working groups to branch Soldiers, and from the other Career Fields. discuss and develop recommendations on issues of FAOs must work well within a Joint-Interagency- importance to FAO professional development. Multinational context. FAOs need to be able to ad- vise senior military leaders, senior Defense Depart- ment officials, and representatives from State, other This issue of the FAO Journal offers out- agencies, and Coalition partners. And a successful standing articles. One of the articles is a reprint (by FAO should be able to do so not only in his or her permission) from the May-June 2004 Military Review, Area of Concentration, but be able to apply graduate- entitled “Redefining the Foreign Area Officer’s Role.” level political-military skills in other regional areas as Let’s hope the article generates lively debate among required. our membership. REGIONAL EXPERTISE. Third (recognizing In the spirit of addressing FAO attributes, I’d the danger of prioritizing among three ALL-important like to provide a summary of the lessons learned (Continued on page 11) from the Army Foreign Area Officer perspective, Page 4 FAO Journal Redefining the Foreign Area Officer’s Role Brigadier General Michael A. Vane Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Fagundes Reprinted with permission from the May-June future force.4 Transforming the way the Army re- 2004 edition of Military Review. FAOA members are cruits, trains, and fields soldiers is vital to achiev- encouraged to send comments on this article to ing this vision. Secretary of Defense Donald H. [email protected] or [email protected]. Rumsfeld summed this up best: “All the high- tech weapons in the world won’t transform our Long before 11 September 2001 brought Armed Forces unless we also transform the way the reality of asymmetric warfare to the Ameri- we think, train, exercise, and fight.”5 can homeland, statesmen, military theorists, and others were grappling with what the end of the In The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Cold War would mean for U.S. security interests Friedman argues that globalization is the new around the world. New theories of external dominant international system whose defining threats to the United States (such as wars of feature is the interaction between politics, cul- civilizations, resurgent Chinese or Russian na- ture, finance, national security, technology, and tionalism, rogue or failed states, and interna- 6 1 ecology. He believes that to understand interna- tional crime) were postulated. President George tional relations, foreign-policy practitioners must H.W. Bush called this state of affairs “a New think globally and traverse all six areas seam- World Order.” lessly. He states, “Unfortunately, . there is a deeply ingrained tendency to think in terms of A firm belief was that America’s contain- highly segmented, narrow areas of expertise, ment strategy, backed by forward-deployed, which ignores the fact that the real world is not heavily armored and mechanized forces poised divided up into such neat little beats, and that the to fight and win a future East-West confrontation boundaries between domestic, international, po- in Europe and, to a lesser extent, a conflict in litical and technological affairs are collapsing.”7 Korea, was obsolete. Operations in Kuwait, Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, with their imma- The foreign area officer (FAO) career field ture infrastructures, exposed U.S. forces’ limita- must also adapt to the new paradigms. Officer tions in deployability and sustainment. Techno- Professional Management 3 provided this oppor- logically sophisticated nonstate threats with tunity by establishing a separate career field with asymmetric capabilities further exposed U.S. vul- its own promotion and school-selection process. nerabilities and heightened a sense of urgency. However, several changes must be made in FAO career development, assignment, and utili- Believing that the United States would face no zation to ensure FAO provides the necessary ca- global or regional peer competitors for 20 years, pabilities and skills to meet the Nation’s current the George W. Bush Administration seized this and future needs. window of opportunity to initiate a transformation effort throughout the Department of Defense The Army needs to address strategic studies 2 (DOD).