The U.S. Army’s Unified Quest 2012 war game examines the challenges and opportunities of the future and includes foreign liaison officers (FLO) who are equally interested in the future that for most means a smaller force and budget.
Building partnership capacity to improve coalition efforts and cope with an uncertain future is a given for the United States, most recently stated in the Strategic Guidance from the White House released in January, for which President Obama said, “in contrast to the murderous vision of violent extremists, we are joining with allies and partners around the world to build their capacity to promote security, prosperity and human dignity.”
The Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) has long supported building partnerships with allies through its FLO program. The command, which orchestrates the yearlong effort to examine the future and the Unified Quest future war game, is where the FLOs call home for their two- or three-year tour.
Today, the TRADOC FLO Program includes 68-FLOs from 17 countries located at headquarters TRADOC and at 10 TRADOC subordinate commands, officials told Defense Daily.
Also, FLOs have been part of Unified Quest since its inception in 1996.
FLOs represent their own armies and are expected to present the views of their Army in areas of mutual interest and assist with the exchange of information, officials said.
Numbers of FLOs attended and were active participants in the June 3-8 Unified Quest.
For example, Netherlands FLO Col. Piet Hagenaars was the Middle East Domain Working Group deputy chief of staff.
“It fits into my job description,” Hagenaars told Defense Daily during Unified Quest at Carlisle Barracks, Pa. Foreign officers are on NATO staffs in Afghanistan, for example, and often work with deployed U.S. forces.
Partnership activities go way back, he said. The Netherlands has had an FLO with the United States since 1968–44 years, which makes it a “very special” relationship, he said.
“The U.S. is, of course, our most important ally and for us it is very important to know, to develop with the U.S.A .with respect to doctrine, concepts, training, philosophy–in order for us to be interoperable for us as much as possible for operations,” Hagenaars said.
To be interoperable, the Netherlands needs to know what ideas, doctrine, and background, the United States is working on.
“At the same time, we think we might be able to share our own perspective, even though the scale is different,” Hagenaars said.
A year into his job, he has seen that the Netherlands perspective is valued, the fact that “we share our experiences.”
Throughout the year, Hagenaars, and other FLOs have learned and given their own input as they participated in the Army’s yearlong campaign of learning leading to the war game, to include subjects such as how the Army fights, looking at alternate futures, and in February, a look at building partnership capacity.
Every month, Hagenaars publishes “TRADOC Nieuws,” an unclassified compendium of articles distributed to key people, so the Netherlands army and other interested officials know what he is doing. The articles also include embedded links to documents and full articles.
British Army FLO Col. Toffer Beattie was Adjudication Team Leader for Unified Quest.
“The majority of future military operations that we will be involved in of any scale, almost certainly be in some form of coalition, and largely because of political reasons, they will almost certainly have U.S. involvement and very often be led by the United States,” he said during a momentary lull in scenario moves.
The political realities are that U.S. and U.K. values and national interests are similar, he noted.
“It’s extremely important that we understand how the USA develops concepts and so on and so forth, not necessarily because we’re going to follow blindly, but learn at the very least be aware of what’s going on.”
The United Kingdom has a TRADOC equivalent, Beattie noted: Force Development and Training Command.
FLOs have been part of TRADOC since 1973, when the U.S. Army Continental Army Command (CONARC) split into TRADOC and the U.S. Forces Command, officials said. CONARC FLOs were reassigned to TRADOC.
Back then, there were FLOs from Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands assigned to TRADOC headquarters.
Today, officers participate from Australia, Germany, Korea, Brazil, Greece, Netherlands, Canada, Israel, Singapore, Czech Republic, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Japan, United Kingdom and France.
In addition, the Combined Arms Center (CAC) has a Chilean FLO and both TRADOC and CAC will receive FLOs from Turkey in August 2012.
When Hagenaars, Beattie and colleagues are not participating in the campaign of learning events, with other FLOs they are taking part in other TRADOC engagements to include meetings with the TRADOC commanding general and the director of TRADOC’s Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC), and deputy director/chief of staff of ARCIC.
FLOs also participate in events such as the Army Learning Summit; Association of the United States Army Symposiums; Army Learning Conference; and the Joint Warfighting Conference.
There is also a trip set up for FLOs that takes them to various commands around the country to provide them a better understanding of TRADOC and Army organizations, missions, initiatives, and challenges. For example, recently FLOs visited the Army Sergeants Major Academy and Brigade Modernization Command at Fort Bliss, Texas; the Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, Fort Huachuca, Ariz; and the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif.