US military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan faced a difficult challenge. The soldiers and marines needed to combat a vicious, irregular force of insurgents. At the same time, utmost care had to be taken to avoid civilian casualties. Avoiding collateral damages was easier said than done. Senior US military leaders like Admiral Mike Mullen, General Stanley McChrystal, and General David Petraeus implemented a number of doctrinal changes to avoid civilian casualties. But changing the mindset and training of US soldiers was not an overnight task, especially when restraints on the use of force put US personnel at risk.
Read more
Patrick Paterson's monograph, Training Surrogate Forces in International Humanitarian Law: Lessons from Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, and Iraq, leverages the author’s vast experience in Latin American history to examine how US Special Operations Forces (USSOF) train surrogate forces. He argues that it is necessary to employ United States Special Operations Command's (USSOCOM) indirect approach to grow and build partnership capacity through foreign internal defense (FID) and to find a balance with international humanitarian law (IHL). Paterson also examines the legal issues and restrictions on training and equipping foreign forces and the impact of these exchanges with our partners. His research methodology includes extensive interviews and incorporates a historical case study approach, examining FID efforts in Peru, Colombia, and El Salvador for lessons learned, and then compares and contrasts USSOF train and equip efforts in Iraq.
Read more
