Foreign Area Officers Unbound

          As noted above, the Army frowns on FAOs changing between AOCs. This includes not only wanting to permanently change from one AOC to another, but also taking a single assignment out of one's AOC. For example, assigning a 48C (European FAO) to a 48E (Eurasian FAO) slot is anathema, effectively, unless all required 48C slots are filled, and no 48E is interested in the job. These situations do occur, but they are, according to assignment officers, rare indeed. This reticence to allow FAOs to broaden their assignment experience seems to be based on the idea that the basic FAO knowledge of a regional language, as well as currency in regional economic, political-military, social and cultural issues is best used in their AOC and only their AOC.

          In fact, these and other FAO skills, knowledge and experience make us much more flexible and useful outside our AOCs than many in the Army might believe. Furthermore, in view of the ongoing conflicts with radical Islam and the large demand for officers with political-military acumen on the various combined, joint and component staffs, the Army may want to consider changing its policy on out-of-AOC tours as a last resort to one a bit more flexible. The author (a 48C European FAO) served a one-year tour in Afghanistan, a country in the South Asia (48D) area of concentration. Some obvious and some not-so-obvious skills and experiences not tied to any particular AOC made it possible for someone totally unfamiliar with the area to become a net contributor to the joint force commander's mission in Afghanistan. These include foreign language skills (not necessarily those of the country of assignment); an ability and habit of thinking strategically, particularly in an international relations arena; knowledge of the inner workings of embassies; and finally experience working in the interagency, particularly with the State Department.

          Speaking the language of the country of assignment is without question a boon to a FAO's ability to do his or her job. Communicating in the native language demonstrates respect for the culture of the people with whom one is dealing, helps establish familiarity and trust with the local people, and gives insight and depth to understanding of a conversation or written document that might be lost in translation. Nonetheless, the fact that all FAOs speak, and have had to deal with foreign cultures in a foreign language is a valuable skill itself. Those who have had to serve as interpreters can understand the challenges and pitfalls one faces trying to rapidly and accurately convey ideas from one language (and culture) to another. With this harrowing experience in their background, the average FAO is then more sensitive to the use of interpreters, as well as some of the common pitfalls in translation, such as false cognates (e.g. a prezerwatyw--pronounced "preservative"--in Polish is a condom, not an ingredient to maintain freshness) or bad hearing on the part of the interpreter (e.g. Black Hawk being run together and translated into Polish as "Czarny Kogut"--Black Cock/Rooster.) Additionally, people accustomed to operating in a non-native language, such as FAOs, become more attuned to non- verbal cues that help supplement an oral translation. Finally, no matter how good a FAO may be in his/her target language, odds are that we have used an interpreter several times in a given FAO tour. Subsequently, we are more at ease with using an interpreter and understand the proper way to utilize one-- speaking to one's interlocutor, not to the interpreter, taking the conversation in translatable bites, speaking clearly and with no jargon or acronyms, etc. Although seemingly common sense, the ability to work accurately and efficiently with an interpreter is an art, and one that FAOs learn early on while other officers serving on a staff composed of individual augmentees might not.

          Any FAO who has served on a combatant command staff or as a security assistance officer or attaché has been exposed to a strategic level of thinking. This does not make the average FAO a strategist by any stretch of the imagination; it does, however, give the FAO experience in viewing things from a different perspective. Coupled with an advanced degree that likely involved the study of international relations or cultures to a greater or lesser degree, the FAO can apply the habit of strategic, international thinking to any given problem facing him or her. Many Army officers prefer to remain at the tactical level, maneuvering troops and units, talking on the radio and drawing arrows on map overlays. This is where many of us are most comfortable, in an area with which we are familiar and experienced, and one that is much more tangible than the world of strategy and international politics. Because of their education and experience, FAOs can add a strategic view or perspective of whatever region to which they may be assigned. A 48B (Latin American FAO) may not know the details of the pol-mil situation between Burkina Faso and Mali (in the 48J, Sub-Saharan Africa region) but he or she does understand the general intricacies of relations between nations and the common points of friction and cooperation among many of them. Beyond this, the FAO can see the potential connections between countries outside his or her AOC and US national strategy and interests by applying similar, more detailed understandings from the AOC of origin. An ability to think at this level, analyze a situation and make recommendations to a senior leader is not at all common among all other officers serving in the military, perhaps resulting from a combination of discomfort and a lack of experience in operating in a less defined, intangible environment. A FAO can fill in this gap at higher level staffs not only for the commander, but for other staff members as well.

          A good number of FAOs have served in embassies worldwide, either as security assistance officers or as attachés; other officers in the Army, as well as the other services have not. Although they vary in size, the general organization of an embassy remains the same regardless if it is in Ottawa or Hanoi. Generally speaking, each embassy has an ambassador or chief of mission, a second in command (known as the Deputy Charge of Mission or DCM), a general services officer (in charge of administrative support for the embassy staff), a regional security officer (in charge of embassy and personnel security), etc. Knowing, and having worked within an embassy, any embassy, gives a FAO an advantage and an increased ability to contribute in any other embassy. Just by knowing the difference between an RSO and a GSO, or knowing what a country team is and how it generally operates puts a FAO in a position to be able to assist those on a deployed staff who don't know the intricacies of navigating the confusing world of a US diplomacy abroad. This knowledge and experience can help avoid pitfalls in referring an issue to the wrong office, thereby wasting time in solving the issue, perhaps irritating the office you have disturbed and offending the office you did not turn to immediately. Since most embassy military positions are filled by FAOs, at least in the Army, the pool of other officers with this experience is limited, in any geographic area, and makes the FAO a useful and valuable commodity, even out of his or her AOC.

          The same experience of working in embassy also gives the FAO a fairly unique perspective on working in an interagency environment, particularly with representatives of the State Department. Numerous recent studies and commissions have commented on the lack of interagency experience and training among the uniformed military and the other members of the interagency alike. (See for example, the Hart-Rudman Commission on Security in the 21^st Century as well as the Center for Strategic and International Studies--CSIS--report Beyond Goldwater-Nichols: Defense Reform for a New Strategic Era.) Although the number of officers from the general population with interagency experience is likely greater than those who have worked in embassies, FAOs again bring a depth of experience in the interagency due to their repetitive assignments to embassies, senior-level staffs and even as pol-mil advisors to the State Department. As Rick Rife and Margaret Hansen noted in a well-known article on the Pentagon-Foggy Bottom relationship, "Defense is from Mars, State is from Venus." The cultural differences between these two major practitioners of US foreign policy can make it a challenge for the novice officer not to aggravate or anger his interlocutor in the State Department. Not only are the cultures different, but the modus operandi tend to be different as well--Foreign Service Officers operate in a much more collegial way and do not emphasize long range planning as much as uniformed officers; they are often rewarded for individual, instead of team, achievement. The cultural and work norms in the State Department are largely consistent among Foreign Service Officers no matter what part of the world to which they are assigned. Hence, a FAO experienced in dealing with the State Department or other Executive Branch residents of an embassy can assist those with less or no experience with these groups in gaining support or consensus on military ideas and plans, as required in joint doctrine for interagency operations. In fact, the FAO can act as a liaison between State and Defense as needed, passing and gathering information in a language each is happy with until they are comfortable enough to do so on their own. This is a particularly valuable contribution to continuity in a situation such as Baghdad or Kabul where State and Defense must cooperate, but where some members of the team, particularly from State, rotate on a much more frequent basis than the military members. Again, interagency experience transcends any AOC, so that a FAO who has spent time in US embassies in the Middle East can easily use his or her experience in working with the State Department in Southeast Asia.

          In our nation's ongoing struggle with radical Islam (more commonly referred to as the War on Terror) the fight may be worldwide, but is focused, at least at present, in discrete geographical areas--the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Horn of Africa. The fight is likely to be a long one, taxing the resources of our military in general and FAOs in particular to provide the international relations expertise expected of us. FAOs should be allowed, encouraged and perhaps even be required to serve an out-of- AOC tour in direct support of the War on Terror. European, Latin American and Sub Saharan African FAOs would all benefit from the experience of working out of area in the fight on terror, as would the staffs on which they would serve. Arbitrary lines or groupings of countries should not be allowed to limit the flexible and versatile application of broad FAO capabilities. Our inherent skills as FAOs-- foreign language skills; an ability and habit of thinking strategically and internationally; knowledge of the inner workings of embassies; and experience working in the interagency, particularly with the State Department--can be applied to the benefit of all concerned on a staff in a country in which that FAO may have never served. First and foremost the FAO must be a professional and an expert in those hard FAO skills. Once mastered, those skills can, with ingenuity and flexibility, be applied in any country and military situation.