Cause for Engagement: Examining the Case for Foreign Area Officers in Army
Abstract
There is currently a gap in foreign engagement that threatens to degrade the high level of cultural awareness now required by Army. Similarly, there are a number of programs existing in and available to Army that could be drawn upon to empower a new specialisation similar to the United States military Foreign Area Officer. This article examines the possibilities and advantages of such a stream and offers some proposals for starting a venture in this direction.
Introduction
A number of articles have appeared recently talking about ‘cultural awareness’ in Army, and that very phrase has found its way into Defence policy1 without much more understanding than that it is needed, and that commanders are responsible for implementing it. While foreign affairs per se is not the Army’s responsibility, Army would benefit greatly from having its own cultural and political knowledge of where it was going before it got there. Army’s ability to develop its own organic cultural experts may even lie within existing programs and personnel which just need to be refocused. Arguably, Army could commence a number of cultural awareness initiatives across different time frames, but one option is a career specialisation for middle to senior ranking officers designed to be most effective over a period of seven to ten years. This specialisation, called a ‘Foreign Area Officer’ (FAO) would enable Army to engage with its operational environment in a continuous and enriching way.
The Engagement Gap
Some Definitions
Before proceeding, a definition of ‘engagement’ is required. It can risk sounding quite grand, when the term might just be referring to soldiers speaking the same language. Paul Keating wrote a book on engagement during an important period in foreign affairs, during which the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation was established. In this book, Keating describes the Australian people as ‘...slowly coming to terms with the implications of their place in the world’.2 This interpretation removes any remaining thoughts of conquest or exploitation, and puts the emphasis on how we are received. The Army would do well to consider how it is received as well as how it proceeds when planning intervention operations.
There is an emerging Army framework for regional security that describes engagement in terms of improving understanding, developing relationships and influencing perceptions. This framework emphasises that engaging in peacetime activities precipitates stability by actually relieving the conditions that lead to conflict, particularly in fragile states.3 This strategy, adopted as a kind of foreign ‘insurance policy’, allows military forces great opportunity to act by themselves, at their own pace, and with some creativity. Somewhere between these two definitions—one of reception and one of cultivation—is probably where Army needs to pitch its engagement practice.
The scope of these activities is wide. Army understands that it plays a part in a larger government strategy, as part of foreign policy or capacity building in developing nations. This is probably the upper end of the engagement spectrum. The other end is probably down in the village where the soldier on patrol negotiates with a local chief to draw water from a well. This is all engagement, but the scope is linear and restricts us to a meaning of personal communication based on mutual benefit. There is more to it than this.
Understanding our operating environment involves immersing ourselves in it. This means we have to study its history, geography, politics and sociology. We have to analyse its patterns of success and failure, over time and from different points of view. This may mean stepping out of our environment for a while. Isolation, as has been argued in a previous edition of the Australian Army Journal,4 does nothing to assist cultural understanding. Integration and immersion, on the other hand, allow cultural knowledge to grow. This form of engagement requires us to ‘be’ in a cultural space, ‘act’ within it, and ‘observe’ what goes on around us. ‘Awareness’, as satirist Christian Lander reminds us, is unlikely to solve all the world’s problems, as much as going to different restaurants is unlikely to produce cultural diversity!5
Understanding our operating environment involves immersing ourselves in it.
Identifying The Gap
If we take this layered approach to engagement, we now need to determine where the greatest need for engagement is and where an engagement gap exists. The answer to both these questions lies in the same area. The biggest need for engagement and the lack of engagement mechanisms is most evident at what Army calls the ‘key leadership level’. This is the level of national decision makers, controllers, commanders and chiefs, and it is invariably dealt with by the commander on the ground. This immediately presents two problems. First, it assumes that engagement strategies have not been applied early on in the planning process; and second, a ‘commander only’ approach takes the commander away from commanding the force, and restricts the distribution of cultural knowledge to the select few around him.
This solution is also reductionist in that it omits the fact that decision makers, controllers, commanders and chiefs are products of their society and holders of office within that society. Where then is the study of that society? We lament that there is no more ‘Smith of the China Desk’; indeed ‘Smith’ had a career’s knowledge of people and patterns and rises and falls over time, which provided perspective. In the modern quest for generalists, we have lost the expert. ‘Smith’ is no longer an efficient solution, and consequently we are all instant experts, wading about in the proverbial Pierian spring.6
We need to bring back the expert; someone to be our authority. Someone who has studied the country from within and without. In a regional setting, this expert needs to know the head of state, the head of the army, and their anointed successors. This expert needs to know the difference between national, sub national and local issues; to be able to identify who holds the power and who holds the authority; and what the difference is between the official and unofficial networks. This expert needs to know who else is interested in the state, and who is investing. This expert needs to be fluent in one of the languages and understand most of the others. This expert needs to know where the last tsunami was and where the next epidemic will be, and above all to be able to identify what is normal and what is not. In addition to this, we need someone who can also understand air and sea points of entry, lines of communications and supply, and level of threat. We need the Foreign Area Officer.
We need to bring back the expert; someone to be our authority.
It would be tempting here to claim that diplomatic staff already provide this role; however, three aspects of diplomatic practice prevent it from providing Army with specific knowledge. First, the need for diplomatic generalists results in a similar frequency of rotation of diplomatic staff through regional desks, making regional experts equally scarce. Second, the homogeneity of the consular environment limits a wider cultural or context specific understanding. Third, the level of diplomatic engagement is focused more on state and less on local governance, where Army may be asked to assist in humanitarian and disaster relief operations. Although Army may deploy in support of a wider whole-of-government mission, Army’s information requirements will be tailored to the particular job it undertakes within the spectrum of joint operational contingencies.7
Finally, it is worth mentioning that ‘the expert’ may be needed for other areas that lie outside our cultural understanding. If we continue to engage with Indigenous communities within Australia, then we may need to cultivate people versed in Indigenous engagement. If we develop our interagency operations, we may need to cultivate ‘interagency experts’.8 Neither of these discussions will be taken up in this article; however, consideration of them follows naturally from this subject.
Current Practice
Official Approaches
There is currently no coordinated approach to building regional expertise across Army; however, managers of various capabilities within Army have contributed to maintaining ‘cells’ of regional specialists. For example, Manager Languages – Army maintains an independent database of Army linguists, and administers Language Study Tours for qualified and current intermediate and advanced level linguists.9 These tours enable a linguist to maintain regular contact with his language environment regardless of his current posting. The Directorate of Officer Career Management – Army manages diplomatic postings for Defence Attaché staff and postings to regional areas in the Defence Intelligence Organisation. While these are examples of official management of regionally related jobs, they are not planned for the long term or coordinated in any way, and are primarily driven by the individual officer.
There is currently no coordinated approach to building regional expertise across Army ...
Unofficial Approaches
In reality, an unofficial approach exists. This is multi layered. With a return of service obligation that specifies how long but not where to for long courses at the Defence Force School of Languages,10 officers who have invested time there may choose to seek out postings that use their language skills. These postings may be located in Australia or overseas, and may include operational tours on unilateral, coalition or United Nations deployments. Operational tours may themselves be the start of an individual’s interest in a region. A military deployment may be followed by the pursuit of a position with the Defence Cooperation Program, or United Nations mission based in that country. A personal family connection with a foreign area may also inspire an officer to seek further knowledge and engagement with that country. In the case of reservists, a professional connection may be the source. In these last two cases, private study and engagement off duty may be practiced by the officer and may very well be unknown to Army.
In most of these examples of unofficial management of regional expertise, the individual becomes ‘commonly known’ as a regional specialist, and occasionally consulted. A dilemma soon develops: the officer must forego this narrow profile for a competitive career, or become so ensconced in successive foreign postings as to become invisible.
Success Of These Approaches
The data on personnel graduating from the School of Languages, deployed on operations, holding post graduate qualifications, and attending overseas staff college can certainly give Army a false sense of security in this field. Indeed these official and unofficial practices have somewhat hidden the engagement gap that is now emerging. What cannot be hidden, however, is the way in which the Australian Army is continuously embarrassed by the superior language skills and cultural awareness of other military forces operating in our neighbourhood and engaging with our neighbours. Fully aware of this, Army has actually exacerbated the problem by insisting that cultural awareness is a measurable qualification, and introduced rather superficial training as a precondition of deployment. An unfortunate consequence of this is that on occasion, supplementary staff have had to be deployed into theatre to bridge the gap.
The United States System
After the Second World War, the United States realised that its new peacetime role would require the promotion of a new kind of cooperation among states, to achieve the political and economic reconstruction necessary to maintain international peace. Out of the Marshall Plan and an expanded expeditionary focus on the Pacific, the Foreign Area Officer program emerged.11
The United States Department of Defense runs the FAO program, which it considers to be essential to the ‘war fighting capabilities [that will] achieve success on the non-linear battlefields of the future’.12 The program is run out of the proponent office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, with each department (service) developing their own group of FAOs in line with their departmental training regimes:
...the Military Departments shall deliberately develop a corps of FAOs, who shall be commissioned officers with a broad range of military skills and experiences; have knowledge of political-military affairs; have familiarity with the political, cultural, sociological, economic, and geographic factors of the countries and regions in which they are stationed; and have professional proficiency in one or more of the dominant languages in their regions of expertise.13
Army and Marine FAO programs are currently further developed than Navy and Air Force; however, the programs all differ slightly. Army and (only recently) Navy have a single-track approach to FAO career management (which means, the officer is streamed into an FAO career specialisation, and competes within that stream); while the Air Force and Marine Corps have a dual-track approach (in which the officer serves alternately between his primary career field and FAO assignments). Evaluation for the success of each stream is still immature, but the disadvantages of dualtrack officers having less time available to devote to FAO training appears to be countered by the greater opportunities to remain current and competitive in their basic military designation.14
Selection
Selection to the FAO programs commonly require seven to ten years of commissioned service (with the exception of Marines, which requires only three), a compartmented security clearance, wide military experience within the primary career field or military occupation specialty, a high score at language aptitude testing, and an undergraduate degree with a grade point average typically sufficient for entry into a Masters degree.
Training
Training for FAOs takes between three to five years and consists of a number of courses and postings taken in no prescribed order. These include a joint course; the three-day (Army-led) FAO orientation course, which provides the newly selected FAO with an overview and understanding of the program; career field, and regional or country specific information. The course is conducted twice a year at different service training locations. The officer will undertake one year of full-time post graduate study in national security or international relations, with an emphasis on the target region. These courses are offered by a number of approved universities across the United States that have standing arrangements with the Department of Defense for mid-career courses. The longest module of the FAO curriculum can be language training. Depending on the level of language required, the candidate can spend from six to fifteen months in full-time language training. After the events of 11 September 2001, the Department of Defense conducted a complete overhaul of its language capability, resulting in a language roadmap released in 2005. This roadmap identified tracking of accession, separation and promotion of FAOs as one of its four main goals.15 In-country training from six to twelve months provides the candidate with immersion into the culture of the host and neighbouring country, exposure to the host’s military units and schools, and familiarisation with United States embassy practice. One or more tours in an FAO role are then undertaken to complete the initial training towards full FAO designation.
In-country training from six to twelve months provides the candidate with immersion into the culture of the host and neighbouring country ...
Once an officer is deemed to have completed an advanced degree, completed the language proficiency test with a high score, achieved a high score of ‘regional expertise’, and has at least one tour in progress or completed, then he or she is awarded the FAO designation and listed as such.
Further Training
Professional development for FAOs is a current priority for the proponent office, and as such a skills sustainment course was approved in December 2008. The Joint Foreign Area Officer Skill Sustainment Pilot Program is an advanced education and skill sustainment initiative for FAOs from all services and provides online distance learning and in-residence courses. The goal of the program is to find innovative ways to provide foreign language and regional sustainment training for experienced FAOs to enable them to meet growing joint mission requirements. A number of seminars are also available, conducted both in the United States and in foreign areas of operation. These seminars are regionally based and focus on exchange of ideas from FAOs, academics and foreign policy experts operating in a specific area.
Reservists
The United States FAO specialisation is also available to reservists. The Army and Marine Corps have dual-track reserve programs, while the Navy and Air Force programs are still in development. The Department of Defense believes that the Reserve Component FAOs are a key component to the success of the overall joint FAO program, and includes this as a priority despite the difficulty in managing and monitoring the personnel.
Employment
United States FAOs serve as defence attachés, security assistance officers, political-military planners in service headquarters, joint staff, combatant commands, or part of a defence agency. They also serve as arms control treaty inspectors and liaison officers to host nation or coalition allies, but the Defense Intelligence Agency remains the largest single user of FAOs in the department. All defence attaché billets require skills equivalent to an FAO and some level of proficiency in the principal language of the country of assignment.16 While promotion levels vary between the branches, retention rates of FAOs are higher than Service averages.
Critique Of The US FAO System
While the American system has been a good test case, it is not without criticism. The 2005 Language Roadmap stated that retention rates were lower among military personnel with language skills in some services, primarily due to poor use of linguists, and because of this, ‘FAO jobs are viewed as career ending in some service officer communities’. In the subsequent list of desired outcomes, the document included: managing linguists and FAOs as ‘critical strategic assets’, establishing professional career paths for FAOs, and tracking and managing FAO personnel more effectively.17
‘FAO jobs are viewed as career ending in some service officer communities’.
At the same time there was some criticism that the European theatre was over billeted with FAO positions that were too ‘cushy’ and too similar to those of an attaché.18 This criticism also claimed that the FAO program placed too much focus on language and not enough on strategic studies:
The Army needs to address strategic studies as a core skill. Language, while important, must be viewed as an enabler. The Army should enforce a broader assignment set and change its FAO personnel policy to overcome its Cold War bias and address new regional priorities. The central question facing the FAO career field over the next few years is whether FAO can overcome its own Cold War paradigm to become a more effective instrument of national policy during the 21st Century.19
Deployed and prospective FAOs have mixed feelings about their positions, some of which echo the points above. Their blogs offer these observations:
‘I looked at it. Europe is hard to get. Everybody wants Europe.
‘A lot of the training is for a Masters Degree. They waive that requirement a lot now because they need FAOs in the embassies, not school. Even a lot of the language training is not being done all the way. My friend was Sub-Saharan Africa and was only sent to learn French instead of both French and Swahilli and was not sent to get a Masters...
‘If you make the jump to FAO, you often lose touch with the rest of the military.’20
‘...ex-FAOs are in great demand by civilian companies doing business in their area of expertise.’21
‘As for training, if your service doesn’t give you enough—train yourself: read, travel, engage. You should spend time alone in the country (or countries) interacting with the people in their language.’22
‘We dual track our FAOs specifically so that they remain viable and relevant Marine Corps officers. Something the Army is struggling with.’23
‘I had to beg for 6 weeks of Russian refresher (last refresher class? 1990!). Now I’ve managed a 2+/2+ on the DLPT V, but after one month in Russia, I’ve found that this result means exactly squat. Funny, but I don’t find any salesmen here who want to talk about healthcare reform...’24
‘I am one of the extremely lucky AF guys to actually get assigned to a country where they speak the language that I was trained/selected for. I really feel bad for the AF FAOs who get assigned to stateside postings where they do not get to hear ‘their language’ everyday.’25
‘We met with the Consulate General there, who proceeded to tell us, strangely, that he would prefer working with a basic branch officer rather than an FAO because we carry too much of our own opinions/views on matters.’26
There is no question that the United States system is not perfect. The FAO programs differ between the services and have developed and improved at different rates. They do, however, provide a starting point for an analysis of our own ability to provide such a program.
How We Can Adapt The System For Australia
Personnel Problems
In 2008, there were 1770 designated FAOs across all four United States services. The United States Army held 1122 of those and for the United States military, this is still not sufficient for their needs.27 These numbers represent 0.16 per cent of regular service numbers and 0.24 per cent of regular Army numbers. Translated to the Australian Defence Force, this is the equivalent of having 88 permanent FAOs, with the Army providing 66 of those. This is a big ask, particularly when the Army has agreed to hand back 450 uniformed positions to a civilian force as part of the Strategic Reform Program.
Most of these 450 positions are in organisations other than the Army. These positions are mutually beneficial, in that they give non Army organisations the skills and experience of an Army member, while giving the Army member depth in his or her career, often with the added benefit of stability and predictability. For this reason they are often called ‘respite postings’ as they give the member a break from the high demands of a regimental or combat posting. Respite postings lengthen an Army officer’s career. When these positions do not exist, the Army officer gets exhausted and leaves the force early. This does not leave much room for the FAO, single or dual track system. The answer may lie in turning staff positions, which already exist in headquarters, into FAO billets. Branches such as plans, intelligence and civil-military cooperation are examples. As long as they assist operations, they are useful.
These positions are mutually beneficial, in that they give non Army organisations the skills and experience of an Army member ...
United States Military FAOs are hybrid creatures. They are a combination of an Australian defence attaché, a defence intelligence desk officer, a linguist, a qualified civil-military cooperation officer, a joint planner, a United Nations military observer, a political or social scientist, a liaison officer, an international policy advisor and a foreign affairs representative. The answer to how we create an FAO may lie in this list. Army owns some of the positions in this list, and common FAO training for all of them may be the first step.
Borrowing The Good Bits, Rejecting The Bad
The US program is clearly not without problems, and individual experiences differ greatly. Some areas, however, are already tested and would survive transfer. These are as follows:
-
A longer qualifying period before selection would suit an Australian model as it would ensure that Australian Army General Service Officers complete all basic courses for both regimental and specialised Corps employment.
-
A high language aptitude test score means that Australian FAO candidates are able to study languages across all three language groups at the Australian Defence School of Languages, making the candidate more flexible to Service needs.
-
A relevant undergraduate degree with a high grade point average will allow candidates quicker access to specific postgraduate courses around Australia.
-
Current Defence institutions are already set up to provide the individual modules of FAO training (orientation, joint and languages).
-
Professional development seminars can easily be facilitated due to the relatively close proximity of officer postings in Australia and the region.
-
Using reserve officers as FAOs would suit the Australian model, particularly former regular members.
-
The wide variety of employment opportunities is mirrored in the Australian system, to the extent that General Service Officers at major and lieutenant colonel rank are increasingly asked to perform some of these roles without any specialist training.
Some aspects of the United States program are not as suitable to an Australian model. These are as follows:
-
The requirement for a compartmented security clearance is probably overestimated. Access to compartmented information is job specific, not role specific, and may be applicable to some FAO tasks more than others. The security clearance process in Defence is under resourced and in arrears and should not be used to reject an FAO candidate who will otherwise be immersed in open source information. By definition of the candidate’s seniority, the officer will regardless possess an adequate security clearance to allow a sufficient level of access.
-
Spreading the training over three to five years is too long for the Australian officer career. We will lose the officer in the operational whirlwind and key promotion window. Short, intensive training, followed by five to six years service as an FAO will be of more benefit.
-
Completing courses in no specific order is not useful. Unless the training system builds upon itself in enhancing the officer’s qualifications, the knowledge will be lost. The United States training system cultivates an FAO over a longer period of time, for proven greater retention rates and benefit. The question for an Australian model needs to be: how much time can we afford to invest before we reap?
-
Unlike the US model, financial remuneration is necessary for retention incentive. FAOs need a higher pay grade. This may not be as unachievable as it seems. If Army were to offer a first year major a pay grade jump of two grades,28 the difference in salary over six years would still be less than paying Language Proficiency Allowance at the highest level each year for six years. The FAO would lose an allowance in favour of a salary rise which would better reflect the overall increase in skills.
A Possible Model
There are a number of options for creating FAO positions in Army. First, we could create a career stream along the lines of the Recognition of Professional Experience (RPE) program.29 Second, we could create FAO billets in the Reserve Force only. Third, we could create billets in formation headquarters and post qualified officers into them (in the same way we post officers to ‘Information Operations’ positions). Fourth, we could create an FAO branch in Headquarters, Joint Operations Command, but have officers work out of various locations around Australia and overseas. Fifth, we could make them seconded positions in organisations other than Army. Sixth, we could request defence civilian positions be created within headquarters, and offer transition employment for separating Army officers.
The first RPE, with the addition of the fourth—being remotely posted to Joint Operations Command—would enable the officer to be removed from some of the pressures of the career posting cycle, while allowing him or her to live, study and work in proximity to a headquarters, university or organisation that supports that officer’s region of expertise. Being managed centrally at Joint Operations Command allows quick movement to wherever a planning group is convening for the officer’s special region, whether that group is in Australia or overseas. New cells and branches are being created all the time that need FAO support. A previous Australian Army Journal article proposed a Complex Warfare Branch;30 the Task Force Headquarters in Timor Leste created a Key Leadership Engagement cell. What is important is that FAOs go where they can help plan and conduct operations.
What is important is that FAOs go where they can help plan and conduct operations.
Training
The training schedule could fit into two years. It would start with an orientation course conducted in Canberra so that speakers from the Australian Defence Force, Department of Defence and other departments and agencies can be close to give relevant presentations. This would be followed by a joint operations course aimed at bringing all single service officers to a standard qualification, regardless of previous joint experience.31 This course could be expanded to include modules from other joint courses including Civil-Military Cooperation, Information Operations, and the United Nations Military Observers Course. In March, when university semesters begin, officers would return to the institution of their choice to undertake a Masters degree, which is generally a standard eighteen months’ full-time study. The final six months would be spent at the Defence Force School of Languages (DFSL) undertaking a course at grade four (professional user – operations) or grade five (professional user – strategic). The advantage of the grade four operational course is that it involves a package of languages appropriate to the country, and could be designed to fit into a six month program; however, it may not provide the candidate with sufficient language skills for strategic engagement. The advantage of the grade five course is that it is designed for people involved in strategic engagement, but takes twelve months to complete.
Employment
The qualified FAO would then be posted to Joint Operations Command and work from an appropriate headquarters, Defence organisation or overseas posting location. Deployments would be treated as any other rotational staff officer position, with Joint Operations Command maintaining FAO billets in each deployed Task Force headquarters. The important aspect of the FAO employment is that each opportunity adds to the officer’s expertise and builds up a specific body of knowledge in one person. The person, rather than the position, provides the continuity, and the person can be moved to where they are needed most.
Critique Of The Model
The greatest weakness with this model is that it presents an addition to current regular Army manning caps and compensatory positions would have to be found. Ideally, an initial cohort of five officers would cover a sufficient variety of countries to add weight to operational planning, but the program could commence with just two. The training schedule provides no significant weaknesses, and can be strengthened further by subsequent training in languages in particular. The strength lies in the posting arrangement, which provides a permanent relationship between the officer and an organisation or research centre that specialises in his or her region of expertise; and enough flexibility to provide Army immediate access to the FAO.
Summary
Army needs to be more engaged with the people in future areas of operation. To a certain extent it engages already, but only in an ad hoc way, which is a great drain on resources. By formalising the engagement process and using some lessons from the US system, Army can invest in a specialised program that becomes more efficient the longer it runs. The training assets needed to kick-start the program already exist, and post graduate study currently being pursued by individual officers can be harnessed by Army for its own needs. The program will assist the retention of officers at the critical rank level, and cultivate associations with external agencies and departments. The cost increase in salaries and university fees is offset by forfeiting the language allowance and delaying promotion. The main weakness is the additional positions it creates in an already overmanned Army.
Conclusion
Army can no longer afford to maintain superficial levels of knowledge about the places with which it continues to be involved. It needs to understand where it is going before it gets there. Our neighbours invest a considerable proportion of their defence budgets to this, and we need to as well. Whether in the irregularity of the current war, or the conventions of a future continental war, or as part of the ongoing stability of the region—we need the Foreign Area Officer now more than ever.
About the Author
Major Cate Carter has served as an Australian Intelligence Officer for fifteen years. She has been posted to Army Headquarters, the 16th Aviation Brigade, Defence Intelligence Training Centre, Land Warfare Development Centre, Headquarters 1st Division and the 1st Intelligence Battalion. Operations include Bougainville and East Timor, and she is currently undertaking graduate studies in International Relations. Recent publications include The East Timor Pre-Deployment Handbook for Adaptive Warfare Branch and ‘Citizen Soldier’ in the Australian Army Journal.
Endnotes
1 Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030, Defence White Paper 2009, Department of Defence, Canberra, 2009; Adaptive Campaigning – Future Land Operating Concept, Department of Defence, Canberra, 2009.
2 Paul Keating, ‘Engagement: Australia Faces the Asia Pacific’, Macmillian, Sydney, 2000.
3 The Regional Security Framework Concept (draft), v 0.2, Land Warfare Development Centre, Puckapunyal, 2010.
4 Major Cate Carter, ‘Citizen Soldier’, Australian Army Journal, Vol. VII, No. 1, Autumn 2010.
5 See <http://www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.com> for a satirical view on the pseudo-politics of American socially conscious liberal progressives, accessed 9 October 2010.
6 Alexander Pope, ‘An Essay on Criticism’, 1709. In this often quoted poem, the Pierian Spring is the fountain of knowledge from which we can either taste, or drink our fill.
7 ADDP 3.0 – Operations (Provisional), Chapter 1, Annex A.
8 Army currently has exchange arrangements operating with Australian Federal Police and AusAID. Additionally, Army provides personnel on secondment to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the recently established Asia Pacific Civil-Military Centre of Excellence. This is an evolving capability for Army, and has been encouraged by the appointment of a National Security Advisor in December 2008.
9 ‘Post Graduation Support’, <http://intranet.defence.gov.au/armyweb/sites/LANGSARMY> accessed 7 October 2010.
10 Chief of Army Determination on Return of Service Obligation (Army schedule 1/09) dated 6 July 2009.
11 After the Cold War, an even greater need arose for influencing security structures in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, and the George C Marshall European Center for Security Studies was established in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. The centre focuses on facilitating international, interagency and interdisciplinary cooperation in future security in the region. See <http://www.marshallcenter.org>.
12 United States Department of Defense Directive 7375.77, 28 April 2005, para 3.1.
13 Ibid, para 3.3, 3.4.
14 Department of Defense Annual Foreign Area Officer Report, June 2009. During the collection of the 2006–08 metrics for the 2008 report, it was noted that the dual-track programs—Marine Corps and Air Force—exceeded service average promotion rates for O-5 and O-6 in FY 08, while the single-track programs—Army and Navy—were below their service averages.
15 Defense Language Transformation Roadmap, January 2005, <http://www.faoa.org/resources/documents> accessed 12 October 2010. Assumptions included ‘Conflict against enemies speaking less-commonly-taught languages and thus the need for foreign language capability will not abate. Robust foreign language and foreign area expertise are critical to sustaining coalitions, pursuing regional stability, and conducting multi-national missions especially in post-conflict and other than combat, security, humanitarian, nation-building, and stability operations.’ and ‘Changes in the international security environment and in the nature of threats to US national security have increased the range of potential conflict zones and expanded the number of likely coalition partners with whom US forces will work.’
16 Despite this requirement, between 2003 and 2008, more than 70 per cent of officers nominated to attend the Joint Military Attaché School arrived with no proficiency in the principal language of the country of their assignment.
17 Defense Language Transformation Roadmap. The timeline for the Language Roadmap has not been completed, and so the results of these outcomes are not yet available.
18 Brigadier General Michael A Vane, US Army, and Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Fagundes, US Army, ‘Redefining the Foreign Area Officer’s Role’, Military Review, June 2004, <http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/milreview/vane.pdf> accessed 13 July 2010.
19 Ibid.
20 ‘Has anyone been a Foreign Area Officer in the Army? Did you love/hate it and why?’ <http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AhW0IwOU40JjZwm_Od9aBVTX7B…; accessed 13 July 2010.
21 ‘Is Foreign Area Officer a good job?’, <http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AoeXBFPgNzQLRe2MNA3K0crX7B…;
22 ‘What is a FAO – besides a famous toy store?’ comments at FAOA blog, 22 January 2010, <http://www.faoa.org/Default.aspx?pageId=498959&mode=PostView&bmi=253289…; accessed 13 July 2010.
23 Ibid, accessed 17 November 2010.
24 ‘FAO Training - Big promises and expectations but missing the mark’, 4 January 2010, <http://www.faoa.org/Default.aspx?pageId=504600&mode=MessageList&ei d=255502> accessed 15 November 2010.
25 Ibid, accessed 17 November 2010.
26 ‘Greetings everyone!’ Army Strong Stories, 17 November 2010, <http://www.armystrongstories.com/blogger/wayne-wall/greetings-everyone/…; accessed 13 July 2010.
27 Department of Defense Annual Foreign Area Officer Report, June 2009.
28 Based on a move from pay grade 5 to 7 at increment 0, at ADF permanent pay rates – 12 November 2009.
29 DI(A) Pers 47-1 Career Management of Australian Army Officers, Annex E, Amdt 5, 31 July 2008. The RPE program allows majors at pay grade 5 and above, with graduate qualifications, to specialise in a technical area. Promotions in this stream are possible without completing a staff college. The only specialisations that exist so far are Capability and Acquisition, and Military Personnel.
30 Albert Palazzo and Antony Trentini, ‘Hybrid, Complex, Conventional, Fourth-Generation Counterinsurgency: It’s Decision that Still Matters Most’, Australian Army Journal, Vol. VII, No. 1, Autumn 2010.
31 The Joint Warfare, Doctrine and Training Centre (JWDTC) offers several courses suitable for incorporating into FAO training. The two-week Joint Operations Planning Course would suit here.
