Options to Modify Title 10 U.S. Code to Improve U.S. Security Force Assistance

Major James P. Micciche is a U.S. Army Strategist and Civil Affairs Officer. He holds degrees from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and Troy University and can be found on Twitter @james_micciche. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the USG. Divergent Options’ content does not contain information of an official nature, nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group. 


National Security Situation:  Without modifications to Title 10 U.S. Code (USC), Subtitle A, Part I, Chapter 16, §321 and §333, U.S. Security Force Assistance (SFA) contributions to strategic competition will not be fully realized.

Date Originally Written:  March 23, 2022.

Date Originally Published:  April 4, 2022.

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The author believes SFA can address strategic competitors’ most likely and most dangerous courses of action while also supporting competitive efforts through other instruments of national power. 

Background:  The DoD defines SFA as “activities that support the development of the capacity and capability of foreign security forces and their supporting institutions[1].”   SFA improves the ability of the Joint Force to support, enable, and enhance campaigning across all elements of the competition continuum[2].  Despite SFA’s prominent role in supporting the Integrated Deterrence concept underlying the 2022 National Defense Strategy, current statutory authorities limit SFA’s effectiveness. The 2022 National Defense Authorization Act’s (NDAA) Section 1323 (Study on Certain Security Cooperation Programs) and Section 1261 (Report on Security Cooperation Authorities and Associated Resourcing in Support of the Security Force Assistance Brigades) of the Senate’s proposed NDAA signal Congressional interest in improving SFA authorities to address strategic competition[3][4].  

Significance:  Allies and Partners are a cornerstone of U.S. policy. The first National Security Strategy identified an “area of U.S. strength and Soviet weakness is alliance relationships[5].” Current DoD leadership continues to emphasize Allies and Partners as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities testified to the House Armed Service Committee “The U.S. network of alliances and partnerships is a strategic advantage our competitors cannot match[6].” That advantage enables the realization of Integrated Deterrence, the foundation of the 2022 National Defense Strategy. Integrated Deterrence synchronizes Joint Force and Interagency capabilities with those of Allies and Partners to deter or compel strategic competitors[7]. SFA builds the requisite partnerships and interoperability with Allies and Partners in key locations to generate Integrated Deterrent effects mitigating threats to U.S. interests. 

Sun Tzu prioritized negating an adversary’s strategy and then destabilizing their alliances[8]. China, America’s identified pacing threat, did this by investing in capabilities preventing the deployment of U.S. military power. China also uses diplomatic, information, and economic instruments of national power to degrade U.S. access, influence, and presence globally. From Anti-Access Area Denial technologies to coercive economic and diplomatic practices, China is denying options and increasing the costs for the U.S. military. Due to these concerted efforts, the Joint Force now faces two strategic challenges, “time and distance[9].” 

SFA provides options for combatant commanders to compete below levels of armed conflict through establishing or maintaining access, presence, and influence while improving partners’ military capability and interoperability with U.S. forces. SFA increases adversarial escalation costs and allows the Joint Force to begin conflict at a positional advantage. Despite SFA’s capabilities, the current statutory authorities do not enable the DoD to maximize its employment of purpose-built SFA formations, like the Army’s Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs) and the Air Force’s Mobility Support Advisory Squadrons.

Title 10 USC, Subtitle A, Part I, Chapter 16, authorizes the majority of DoD security cooperation activities, of which SFA is a subset. The current chapter 16 authorities represent the unipolar world of 1991-2003 or the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) from 2001-2017. Within the current legislative framework §321 (Training with Friendly Countries) and §333 (Foreign Security Forces: Authority to Build Capacity) are the primary mechanisms for the DoD to conduct SFA. Each authority has limitations and strengths but neither is optimized for strategic competition. 

Option #1:  Congress changes “only with the military forces” to “security forces” within the limitation clause of §321.

§321 authorizes general-purpose forces of the United States to train only with the militaries of partners for the overall benefit of the U.S. unit[10]. §321 prevents the development of new partner capabilities and restricts materiel, construction, or contract support to training events only. While §321 is a flexible option for combatant commanders to establish access, presence, and influence it limits the development and integration to indirect benefits of training with U.S. forces. 

Risk:  Expanding the amount and type of security forces that U.S. conventional units can train without State Department concurrence risks over-militarizing aspects of U.S. foreign policy and delegitimizing whole of government efforts to develop capacity in non-defense sectors. §321 expansion risks potentially duplicating authorities within §322 (Special operations forces: training with friendly foreign forces) without an overarching program manager like U.S. Special Operations Command’s Joint Combined Exchange Training. 

Gain:  Increasing the aperture of who U.S. conventional forces can train with increases the flexibility and utility of using §321 to establish access, presence, and influence. This is especially beneficial within nations that have internally-focused security forces that are not part of a traditional military architecture. 

Option #2:  Congress creates a tenth capacity category authorizing “improved combined military interoperability” in §333.

§333 authorizes materiel, training, and operational support to foreign partner forces in developing capabilities across nine different mission types with seven of the nine being focused on GWOT-era objectives. Unlike §321 activities, §333 missions require Department of State concurrence and coordination and have specific Congressionally appropriated funding through the international security cooperation programs account. 

Risk:  Despite developing long-term partner capabilities, §333 activities take 18-24 months to approve, preventing its use in emergent and unforeseen requirements. Additionally, both conventional and special operations forces use §333 and its associated funds and adding additional mission types will increase competition for an already limited resource, especially with the loss of overseas contingency operations funding. 

Gain:  SFA works best over prolonged periods through persistent presence. §333’s ability to build partner capacity and provide materiel and operational support make it ideal for improving the effectiveness of partner forces to deter aggression and generating interoperability with U.S. Forces. Department of State concurrence and monitoring of §333 also facilitates the integration of other instruments of national power.  

Option #3:  Congress creates an SFA-specific authority and funding source. 

§321 broadly allows combatant commanders some flexibility in where they conduct SFA requiring months to approve and fund but vastly limits the long-term impact of their activities. Inversely, §333 is specific in allowing concerted efforts with a given partner that takes years to approve and its codified mission types constrain use to developing nations. Creating a responsive SFA-specific authority and funding source provides the Joint Force the ability to address strategic competition and prioritizes Partners and Allies.

Risk:  After the failures of the Afghan National Security Forces in August 2021 and the deaths of four U.S. Army Special Forces Soldiers during an ambush in 2017, there is substantial pushback on increasing the autonomy of the DoD to execute SFA. Increasing SFA’s ability to employ military members in advisory roles requires Congress to assume risk and put faith back into the DoD to execute global competition missions. 

Gain:  An SFA-specific authority and funding source highlights U.S. commitment to allies, partners, and strategic competition. This authority, with an accompanying appropriated funding source, will generate the long-term strategies needed to maximize the effects of SFA. 

Other Comments:  Combatant commanders continue to warn of legislative inaction in a world defined by competition between autocracies and democracies. In competition autocratic states enjoy an asymmetric advantage in speed, responsiveness, and reach due to no bureaucratic restrictions or adherence to international norms and laws. The Commander of U.S. Africa Command highlighted the issue of speed warning that U.S. assistance, “can sometimes take a long time to unfold, and that sometimes forces our African partners to go with the bird in hand, which is sometimes China, sometimes Russia[11].” The Commander of U.S. Southern Command outlined the need for flexibility when asking Congress to explore a “21st century flexible and responsible tool to allow us to outcompete and win by meeting our partner’s needs[12].” Inaction risks potential degradation of U.S. access, presence, and influence needed to establish integrated deterrence.

Recommendations:  None.


Endnotes:

[1] Joint Chiefs of Staff (2021), DOD Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. page 192. Retrieved from https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/dictionary.pdf

[2] Joint Chiefs of Staff (2019) Competition Continuum (Joint Doctrine Note 1-19). Retrieved from https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/jdn_jg/jdn1_19.pdf?ver=2019-06-10-113311-233 defines three competition as having three nonlinear elements nonexclusive elements cooperation, competition below levels of armed conflict, and conflict.  

[3] United States. (2022). National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year: Conference report. Washington, D.C: U.S. G.P.O. Retrieved from https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/1605/text

[4] United States. Congress. Conference Committees 2022. (2022). JOINT EXPLANATORY STATEMENT TO ACCOMPANY THE NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2022: Washington :U.S. Govt. Print. Off.. Retrieved from https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/17S1605-RCP117-21-JES-U1.pdf 

[5] Reagan, Ronald  (1987). National security strategy of the United States of America. Executive Office of The President Washington DC Washington United States. Retrieved from https://history.defense.gov/Portals/70/Documents/nss/nss1987.pdf

[6] C-SPAN (2022). Defense and State Officials Testify on U.S. Engagement with Allies. Retrieved from https://www.c-span.org/video/?518194-1/defense-state-officials-testify-us-engagement-allies 

[7] Garamone, Jim (2021). “Concept of Integrated Deterrence Will Be Key to National Defense Strategy, DOD Official Says.” U.S. Department of Defense – DOD News. Retrieved from https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/2866963/concept-of-integrated-deterrence-will-be-key-to-national-defense-strategy-dod-o/ 

[8] Griffith, S. B. (1963). Sun Tzu: The art of war (Vol. 39). London: Oxford University Press.

[9] McConville, James (2021).  Army Multi-Domain Transformation: Ready to Win in Competition and Conflict, Chief of Staff Paper #1. Headquarters Department of the Army. Retrieved from https://api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/2021/03/23/eeac3d01/20210319-csa-paper-1-signed-print-version.pdf 

[10] 10 U.S.C. § 321 (2016), accessed 5 March 2021, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2016-title10/html/USCODE-2016-title10-subtitleA-partI-chap16-subchapIII.htm.

[11] Senate Armed Service Committee. (2022). HEARING TO RECEIVE TESTIMONY ON THE POSTURE OF UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND AND UNITED STATES AFRICA COMMAND a.” Retrieved from https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/22-12_03-15-2022.pdf 

[12] House Armed Service Committee. (2021). National Security Challenges and U.S. Military Activity in North and South America.” Retrieved from https://armedservices.house.gov/2021/4/full-committee-hearing-national-security-challenges-and-u-s-military-activity-in-north-and-south-america  

Allies & Partners Capacity / Capability Enhancement Competition James P. Micciche Option Papers U.S. Air Force U.S. Army

Assessing Agile Gaming: War is Hard, Wargames Don’t Have to Be

Philip S. Bolger-Cortez is a Wargame Director with the LeMay Center for Doctrine Development and Education at the Air University whose previous job was in Agile Gaming at Headquarters Air Force (HAF) A5.  Alexandria Brill is an Agile Gamer with HAF A5.  Divergent Opinions’ content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group. 


Title:  Assessing Agile Gaming: War is Hard, Wargames Don’t Have to Be

Date Originally Written:  June 12, 2021. 

Date Originally Published:  July 12, 2021. 

Author and / or Article Point of View:  The authors are professional wargamers and Agile Gaming practitioners. 

Summary:  With Department of Defense leaders so busy, they can rarely participate in large-scale wargames.  Agile Wargames approach a large problem by taking small bites rather than swallowing the whole elephant.  While a large-scale and highly detailed wargame may be viewed as perfection, perfection can be the enemy of good enough.  A tightly focused Agile Wargame that actually takes place, is superior to a large-scale wargame that can never fit into a schedule.

Text:  The most valuable commodity for any military commander is time. On any given day, a typical flag officer has a wall-to-wall schedule packed with meetings, decisions, more meetings, inspections, presentations, yet more meetings, and precious little time for anything that isn’t scheduled weeks or months in advance. Getting a full day of a general’s time is a Herculean task. Getting a full week is impossible without a signature from a higher ranking general or a congressional mandate. Getting the same amount of time out of field grade officers is not much easier.

Officers still want, and need, wargames. Discussions around large games run by the Air Force[1] have driven discussions in the defense community, in Congress, and at Headquarters Air Force[2][3]. 

Wargames are an essential step for military leaders to ensure confidence in plans, decisions, and concepts. Stakeholders, sponsors, and players agree that wargames can answer certain questions or problem sets. Yet, the average player’s demanding schedule remains an obstacle for participation.

Large wargames can account for the needs of many stakeholders and organizations. In a large game, hundreds of moving pieces compete for attention from many players. In an agile game, the focus is narrower—much of the war is abstracted out into a series of mechanics designed to show how the broader war impacts a narrow slice, without needing to focus on these other parts. Players often face only three to four decisions in a turn, such as where to place resources, what to use for operations, or who should conduct an action. The result is a lower fidelity game—but one easy to play, in only a few hours[4]. Similar fidelity games in the commercial space include Axis & Allies[5], World at War ’85[6], and Thunderbolt Apache Leader[7].

For concept writers looking to develop immature concepts, low fidelity games are helpful. The low time demand and ease of learning means the game can be played multiple times.  This increase in repetition of iterative low fidelity games feeding higher fidelity games in an event series has previously been identified as useful by wargaming grandmaster Matt Caffrey in his work On Wargaming[8]. 

It is the aim of agile games to use time wisely and concisely without sacrificing objectives and outputs. The goal of agile games is to approach any problem by taking small bites rather than swallowing the whole elephant, ideally leading to further concept refinement through either more detailed games, modeling and simulation, or concept writers using game insights to further their writing.

Agile gaming answers questions that are pressing or urgent—not completely, but just enough to set the decision makers in the right direction. Agile gaming requires being comfortable with sacrificing total fidelity to focus on a more playable, approachable game—for many nascent defense concepts, a 70% solution in three hours may be more useful than a 95% solution in a week of gameplay. Compare the commercial games Afrika Korps and Campaign for North Africa—the former is not perfectly realistic, but it is easily teachable and playable in a few hours, compared to the latter, which while more realistic, requires an excessive amount of table space, players, and time[9][10].

In the agile gaming methodology, a series of three or four iterations of the same game or topic may be necessary, with one difference between them. These multiple iterations could allow the gaming team to conduct difference-in-difference analyses. For example, an agile game might give players slightly more resources between iterations would allow for conversation and insights about how priorities change, or how resource allocation decisions are made under certain budgetary conditions[11]. 

To keep games quick and intuitive, agile gaming leverages gaming mechanics from the world of commercial recreational board gaming. The commercial gaming world is both broad and deep—thousands of designers have come up with game mechanics for everything from how to assemble a hamburger[12] to how to outfit an F/A-18 Hornet[13] to how to manufacture a car under the Kanban Just In Time manufacturing system[14].  Leveraging knowledge of these mechanics can shape the effectiveness of an agile game, showing how to translate complex systems to easily learnable game mechanics. 

With games varying in topic, complexity, and required expertise, the ideal agile gaming team will be a small footprint, modular team able to operate independently or with additions from external agencies. A small team allows for quick turns for gaming, while the modularity ensures that the team consults subject matter experts to ensure sufficient fidelity.

Agile gaming is not a perfect solution, more than any other approach to wargaming is—but agile gaming is a way to conduct rapid, iterative games. While agile gaming will not provide conclusive answers to national security problems, it can refine concepts and provide insights on how the US will conduct warfare today and tomorrow, as well as provide valuable stage setting for more detailed wargames.


Endnotes:

[1] Both authors adjudicated a Title 10 USAF game last year

[2] Insinna, V. (2012, April 12). A US Air Force war game shows what the service needs to hold off — or win against — China in 2030. Retrieved from Defense News: https://www.defensenews.com/training-sim/2021/04/12/a-us-air-force-war-game-shows-what-the-service-needs-to-hold-off-or-win-against-china-in-2030

[3] Trevethick, J. (2021, April 12). Today’s F-35As Not Worth Including In High-End War Games According To Air Force General. Retrieved from The Drive: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40142/air-force-general-says-current-generation-f-35as-not-worth-including-in-high-end-wargames

[4] Of the more than 15 games the Foxes conducted in 2020, the mean time of a game was below three hours

[5] Harris, L. (1981). Axis & Allies. USA: Milton Bradley.

[6] Tracton, K. (2019). World at War ’85: Storming the Gap. USA: Lock ‘n Load Publishing.

[7] Verssen, D. (2012). Thunderbolt Apache Leader. USA: Dan Verssen Games (DVG)

[8] Caffrey, M. (2019). On Wargaming. Newport, RI: Naval War College Press. Pg. 318

[9] Roberts, C. (1964). Afrika Korps. USA: Avalon Hill, Inc.

[10] Berg, R. (1979) Campaign for North Africa. USA: Simulations Publications, Inc.

[11] Observed by the authors in multiple agile games at HAF A5.

[12] Parkes, M. (2016). Burger Up. Australia: Greenbrier Games.

[13] Verssen, D. (2010). Hornet Leader: Carrier Air Operations. USA: Dan Verssen Games (DVG).

[14] Lacerda, V. (2014). Kanban Driver’s Edition. Stronghold Games.

Alexandria Brill Assessment Papers Georgetown University Wargaming Society (GUWS) Philip S. Bolger-Cortez U.S. Air Force Wargames and Wargaming