| Summary: | The responsibility in its broad sense of building the capacity of partner states has been termed 'security force assistance' (SFA). SFA ties into several interests of Congress, including security assistance, security cooperation, foreign military financing, foreign military sales, foreign affairs, foreign aid, overseas contingency operations, and legislative authorities associated with training foreign forces. Each of the military services has undertaken to organize, train, and equip themselves for SFA. However, while SOF have units specifically dedicated to a long-term role in SFA, the conventional forces services do not. Each of the services does have Security Cooperation and Security Assistance organizations that are dedicated to SFA activities, although they do not have SFA in their titles. The services also standardize training for deploying forces to support combatant commanders in their SFA mission. This effort to 'train the trainers, ' although an object of consistent inquiry in congressional hearings, has been endorsed in testimony by combatant commanders. This report provides the following elements: An overview of the SFA rationale, focused primarily on Department of Defense support for and relations with foreign security forces. -- Description of the possible employment of U.S. conventional forces and platforms in support of the SFA mission. -- Exploration of current operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. -- Resident training capability in U.S. forces as a tool for geographic combatant commanders. -- Issues Congress may consider. The report summarizes congressional reaction to SFA proposals and provides a detailed account of the issues raised by SFA concepts and programs.
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