As the Air Force's first contribution to the FAO Journal, this article offers a brief overview of the Air Force's new FAO program, to include a discussion of several key program initiatives currently underway.
Air Force FAO Program: Genesis
The Air Force FAO Program is built on the premise that Global Engagement, including the ability to shape, prepare, and respond effectively to events in distant lands, requires officers with military expertise coupled with an intimate knowledge of regional languages, cultures, and security issues. With this goal in mind, Air Force senior leaders, in 1996, set a formal goal for 2005 of building a pool of 10 percent of its officer corps with foreign language proficiency. These officers, according to this goal, would need to "become knowledgeable in political-military, economic, and cultural aspects of the country or region associated with that language." They also represent the primary pool for the Air Force's new Foreign Area Officer Program. The following year the Department of Defense gave added impetus to AF FAO development, publishing DoD Directive 1315.17, Service Foreign Area Officer (FAO) Programs. This DoD directive tasked each of the services to formalize its Foreign Area Office Program, if it had not already done so. Formal stand-up of the Air Force program began in earnest on 1 June 1998, when the Air Force Published Air Force Instruction (AFI) 16-109, Foreign Area Officer Program.
Why a FAO Program?
When Air Force senior leaders tasked SAF-IA to establish a service FAO Program, they were reacting to clear evidence (e.g., DoD and AF Inspector General reports, AF Process Action Teams recommendations, etc.) that the Air Force needed to do a better job of recruiting, developing, managing, and employing officers with foreign language proficiency and international affairs expertise. Furthermore, they were responding to the new, complex global security environment in a post-Cold War world. Under these new security conditions, our Air Force will be asked to operate as coalition partners in joint-combined and regional operations. To do this effectively, we must understand and relate to our coalition counterparts--especially as we find ourselves operating across a broad range of traditional and non-traditional military missions. Since the demands of effective Global Engagement touch many operational and support specialties, the AF FAO Program seeks to cultivate and integrate officer language proficiency and foreign area expertise as broadly as possible across the AF officer corps. In this context, our FAO-qualified officers will constitute a valuable resource, uniquely suited for engagement duties based upon their foreign language proficiency, their political-military duty experience, and their focused academic background.
FAO Game Plan
The Air Force FAO Proponent Office, which officially stood up in June 1997, initially focused on creating a comprehensive game plan for establishing this new Air Force program. These efforts culminated a year later with the publication of AFI 16-109. The AFI lays out the three pillars of the AF program: (1) foreign language proficiency at the professional level; (2) a postgraduate degree in International Relations/Area Studies; and (3) in-region political-military duty experience. During the first year of its existence, the FAO office also focused on resources, obtaining the funding necessary to implement a robust, sustainable program. With these two major achievements under its belt, the FAO Proponent Office has now turned its attention to the day-to-day business of implementing a dynamic FAO program.
FAO Program: A Reality
Currently, the FAO Proponent Office is aggressively working three major program initiatives: (1) convening the first-ever FAO Selection Board; this process will culminate in the identification of an initial pool of 150-200 FAO-qualified officers; (2) providing functional support to Personnel/Manpower specialists who will be recoding 250-350 existing billets as 16FXX/FAO positions; and (3) hosting the first-ever AF FAO Conference, to be held in the Washington DC area on 8-9 December 1998. The goal of the conference will be to develop an AF vision of how to develop a service FAO Program that meets Air Force needs in a smaller, leaner Global Engagement environment. Of course, the FAO conference merely lays the groundwork. Each of the above initiatives, to some degree, contributes to formalizing and integrating the Air Force vision of FAO support throughout the Air Force. In the months to come, the FAO Proponent Office will continue to work these--and other--issues energetically as we strive to develop a FAO program that supports and enhances current and future aerospace operations.