The Foreign Service Journal, October 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2015 19 A merican diplomats have a long his- tory of working alongside the U.S. military. In many cases, U.S. forces have literally come to the rescue of besieged American diplomats and their families. A cohort of FSOs spent their first assignment in Viet- nam, many working directly with the military in the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support program known as CORDS. More recently, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan gave almost the entire FS cadre a closer look at the military when many members of the Foreign Service worked with provincial reconstruction teams or other military units. Currently the mili- tary’s Combined Joint Task Force–Horn of Africa offers ample evidence of embassies and the military working well together. FOCUS ON CIV-MIL RELATIONS WORKING WITH THE U.S. MILITARY 10 Things the Foreign Service Needs to Know Here are some pointers for members of the Foreign Service working with the military today, from a retired senior FSO and the first political adviser to the U.S. Strategic Command. BY TED STR I CKL ER Ted Strickler, a retired senior FSO, is a graduate of the National War College and the Department of Defense’s Capstone program. He was the first political adviser at the U.S. Strategic Command and is currently an interagency subject matter expert for Army experimentation at the U.S. Army’s Mission Command Battle Lab at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The views and opinions expressed in this article are entirely the au- thor’s own and do not represent official U.S. military policy. The Foreign Service takes pride in its foreign cultural exper- tise and language proficiency. Similar preparation is needed when working with the U.S. military. To be effective in those situations, FS members require a good understanding of military procedures, organization and culture along with a minimum 2+ fluency in the military’s jargon and acronym-laced lexicon. The following 10 points skim the surface of what the Foreign Service needs to know when working with the U.S. military today. 1 THE BASICS Since the National Security Act of 1947 was amended in 1949, U.S. military forces have been organized under the Secretary of Defense in three military depart- ments: the Department of the Army, Department of the Air Force and Department of the Navy (which includes the U.S. Marine Corps). The Coast Guard is the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security. The secretary of each military department and the chief of staff of each Service (known as the commandant in the Marines and chief of naval operations in the Navy) are responsible for recruiting, training and equipping the force and dealing with attendant budget issues. The secretaries of the mili- tary departments then provide forces to combatant commanders as directed by the Secretary of Defense but have no command authority or operational control over how the combatant com- manders use or deploy those forces. There are nine combatant commands (COCOMs), as defined