Military advisors, or combat advisors, advise on military matters. Some are soldiers sent to foreign countries to aid such countries with their

military training Military education and training is a process which intends to establish and improve the capabilities of military personnel in their respective roles. Military training may be voluntary or compulsory duty. It begins with recruit training, proceed ...

, organization, and other various military tasks. The Foreign powers or organizations may send such soldiers to support countries or insurgencies while minimizing the risks of potential casualties and avoiding the political ramifications of overtly mobilizing military forces to aid an ally.

European advisors during the American Revolution

The French Marquis de Lafayette and the German/Prussian

Baron von Steuben Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben (born Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin Louis von Steuben; September 17, 1730 – November 28, 1794), also referred to as Baron von Steuben (), was a Prussian military officer who p ...

offered key assistance to the

Continental Army The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies (the Thirteen Colonies) in the Revolutionary-era United States. It was formed by the Second Continental Congress after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, and was establis ...

during the American Revolutionary War of 1775–1783.

Soviet military advisors

The Soviet Union deployed military advisors in (for example) Spain, China and Angola, where "The 1976 treaty of friendship and cooperation provided for Soviet-Angolan military cooperation in strengthening the mutual defense capacity. Moscow immediately provided weaponry and supplies, and some 500 military advisors." In China, the "Soviet Union ..sent about 1500 military advisors ..during this period 937-39 Included were some of the red Army's best officers ..Georgii Zhukov ..Vasilii I. Chuikov ..P.F. Batitsky ..Andrey A. Vlasov .. Like Spain, China served as a training ground for Soviet officers."

United Kingdom military advisors

T. E. Lawrence Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–1918 ...

("Lawrence of Arabia") became arguably the archetypal British military advisor due to his guerrilla role (1916–1918) in the Arab Revolt.

United States military advisors

Developing capabilities and increasing capacity through advising is an operation the U.S. Army has conducted for more than one hundred years. The Army has performed advisory missions to increase the capability and capacity of foreign militaries from the Philippine Insurrection at the beginning of the 20th century to more recent conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

US advisors in Vietnam

In the early 1960s elements of the

U.S. Army Special Forces The United States Army Special Forces (SF), colloquially known as the "Green Berets" due to their distinctive service headgear, are a special operations force of the United States Army. The Green Berets are geared towards nine doctrinal m ...

and

Echo 31 U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) was a joint-service command of the United States Department of Defense. MACV was created on 8 February 1962, in response to the increase in United States military assistance to South Vietnam. MACV ...

went to

South Vietnam South Vietnam, officially the Republic of Vietnam ( vi, Việt Nam Cộng hòa), was a state in Southeast Asia that existed from 1955 to 1975, the period when the southern portion of Vietnam was a member of the Western Bloc during part of th ...

as military advisors to train and assist the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) for impending actions against the North Vietnamese

People's Army of Vietnam The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN; vi, Quân đội nhân dân Việt Nam, QĐNDVN), also recognized as the Vietnam People's Army (VPA) or the Vietnamese Army (), is the military force of the Vietnam, Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the ...

(PAVN). United States Marines also filled a significant role as advisors to Vietnamese forces.

US advisors during the "War on Terror"

Combat advisors served on the front-lines of the U.S. War on Terror. They were designated as

Embedded Training Teams Embedded Training Teams or ETT is the term used by the US military since 2003 to describe conventional forces used to train and mentor Afghan forces (ANA and ANP primarily). They were formed in 2003 under Task Force Phoenix. Although ETT refers t ...

(ETTs) in Afghanistan and as Military Transition Teams (MTTs) in Iraq. These soldiers and Marines live with their Afghan and Iraqi counterparts (often in very austere and stoic conditions) in remote combat outposts often a great distance away from any U.S. or coalition support. ETTs and MTTs are composed primarily of United States Marines, United States Army, and United States Army National Guard personnel with a combat-arms background. United States Army Reserve, United States Air Force and United States Navy personnel serve as advisors in logistics and other support roles. The advisors on the ground in infantry or commando units of the ANA (

Afghan National Army Afghan may refer to: *Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia * Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity **Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...

) or the

Iraqi Army The Iraqi Ground Forces (Arabic: القوات البرية العراقية), or the Iraqi Army (Arabic: الجيش العراقي), is the ground force component of the Iraqi Armed Forces. It was known as the Royal Iraqi Army up until the coup ...

are soldiers or Marines with combat-arms experience. Special Forces and Navy SEALS also work with ANA/ASF or with the Iraqi Army, but the bulk of combat advisors are infantry and combat-arms soldiers and Marines.

The Combat Advisor Mission Defined. The combat advisor mission requires US officers and NCOs to teach, coach and mentor host nation (HN) security force counterparts. This enables the rapid development of our counterparts' leadership capabilities; helps develop command and control (C2) and operational capabilities at every echelon; allows direct access to Coalition Forces (CF) enablers to enhance HN security force counterinsurgency (COIN) operations; and incorporates CF lethal and nonlethal effects on the battlefield.

Security Forces Assistance (SFA) defines a more in-depth method of embedded mentorship. MTTs have fallen into disuse with shifts in focus and doctrine. Specifically, previous MTTs were drawn from soldiers from separate units, often on an ''ad hoc'' basis. SFATs, on the other hand, provide all personnel from organic, modular

Brigade Combat Team The brigade combat team (BCT) is the basic deployable unit of maneuver in the U.S. Army. A brigade combat team consists of one combat arms branch maneuver brigade, and its assigned support and fire units. A brigade is normally commanded by a ...

s rather than supplying personnel piece-meal from various Army units. By design, these teams are manned by a company command team and selected leaders from one command. This SFAT concept has been in place since 2012, with a "by, with and through" method of combat advising. Current Advisory Teams are trained at Fort Polk, Louisiana at the Advisor Academy, "Tigerland".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Military Advisor Combat occupations