IV. Who Should Deliver Training?

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Notes

1 Linda Robinson, ‘SOF's Evolving Role: Warfare “By, With, and Through” Local Forces’, RAND blog, 9 May 2017.

2 Kateri Carmola, Private Security Contractors and New Wars: Risk, Law, and Ethics (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010), pp. 45–47.

3 Land Warfare Development Centre, ‘Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) Land Operations’, AC 71940, 2017, Ch. 7-30.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid., Ch. 7-35.

6 Robinson, ‘SOF's Evolving Role’.

7 Ibid.

8 Ann Scott Tyson, American Spartan: The Promise, The Mission, and the Betrayal of Special Forces Major Jim Gant (New York, NY: William Morrow, 2015), pp. 40, 89.

9 Andrew Feickert, ‘U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and Issues for Congress’, Congressional Research Service, RS21048, 11 March 2020, pp. 3–4.

10 Ibid., p. 5.

11 Kristen R Hajduk, ‘Let SOF be SOF’, Defence360 Transition45 paper, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 21 December 2016, p. 3.

12 Indeed, the East India Company routinely put British officers in charge of Indian units. See Dalrymple, The Anarchy.

13 Jonathan B A Bailey, ‘Contemporary Operations: Reflections on and of Empire’, IDA Paper P-4198, Institute for Defense Analysis, 2007, pp. 18–20.

14 In the case of the UK, see British Army, ‘Specialised Infantry Group’, <https://www.army.mod.uk/who-we-are/formations-divisions-brigades/6th-united-kingdom-division/specialised-infantry-group/>, accessed 10 May 2020.

15 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US officers advising Afghan Logistics Command, February 2020.

16 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US Army officer and senior NCO who served as advisors to the ANA and Iraqi Army, February 2020.

17 Ibid.

18 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US officers advising Afghan Logistics Command and 201st Corps, February 2020.

19 Interviews by Jack Watling with UK police trainers who had worked in Iraq and Yemen.

20 Interviews by Jack Watling with Spanish diplomats, Iraq Interior Ministry officials and members of Iraq’s National Security Advisor’s office, Baghdad, September 2019.

21 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US Army officer and senior NCO who served as J2 advisors to the Iraqi Army’s 14th and 15th Divisions, February 2020.

22 Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2008); Iain Overton, Elisa Benevilli and Laura Bruun, ‘Britain is the World Centre for Private Military Contractors – and it's Almost Impossible to Find Out What They're up to’, Open Democracy, 20 December 2018.

23 MoD, Annual Report and Accounts 2018–19, HC2347 (London: Stationery Office, 2019), pp. 31–32, 49.

24 Shawn Engbrecht, America's Covert Warriors: Inside the World of Private Military Contractors (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2011), p. 81.

25 Ibid., pp. 77–81.

26 Aldrich and Cormac, The Black Door, pp. 50–51.

27 Abigail Watson and Liam Walpole, ‘Why is the UK Going to Mali?’, Oxford Research Group blog, 30 July 2019.

28 James Chandler, ‘UK International Defence Engagement Strategy: Lessons from Bassingbourn’, Research Paper, Chatham House, 2016, pp. 12–13.

29 International Institute of Strategic Studies, Iran’s Networks of Influence.

30 Bergman, The Secret War with Iran.

31 Ali Alfoneh, Iran Unveiled: How the Revolutionary Guards is Transforming Iran from Theocracy into Military Dictatorship (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2013).

32 Timothy Paris, Britain, the Hashemites and Arab Rule: The Sherifian Solution (London: Frank Cass, 2003), pp. 135–37.

33 Ali Fathollah-Nejad, ‘Opinion: There’s More to Iran’s Protests Than You’ve Been Told’, PBS Newshour, 3 April 2018.

34 Interview by Jack Watling with an Iranian close to the foreign minister, 2018.

35 Department of Defense, ‘Oct 2017 Niger Ambush: Summary of Investigation’, Special Report, 10 May 2018, <https://dod.defense.gov/portals/1/features/2018/0418_niger/img/Oct-2017-Niger-Ambush-Summary-of-Investigation.pdf>, accessed 30 May 2020, p. 1.

36 Ibid., p. 2.

37 Sean D Naylor, ‘Special Operations Boom Years May Be Coming to a Close,’ Yahoo News, 13 September 2018.

38 Whitney Grespin, ‘From the Ground Up: The Importance of Preserving SOF Capacity Building Skills’, Journal of Strategic Security (Vol. 7, No. 2, Summer 2014), p. 38.

39 Richard Holmes, Sahib: The British Soldier in India 1750–1914 (London: Harper, 2006), pp. 203–08.

40 Elizabeth J F Hunt et al., ‘The Mental Health of the UK Armed Forces: Where Facts Meet Fiction’, European Journal of Psychotraumatology (Vol. 5, 2014).

41 Todd C Helmus, Advising the Command: Best Practices from the Special Operations Advisory Experience in Afghanistan (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2015), p. 15.

42 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US J1 officer advising ANA forces, February 2020; Kyle Rempfer, ‘Soldiers Will Spend Longer Deployments in Asia’, Army Times, 20 February 2020; Todd C Helmus, ‘Success of First SFAB in Afghanistan Proves “Army Got it Right,” Commander Says’, US Army press release, 23 May 2019, <https://www.army.mil/article/221627/success_of_first_sfab_in_afghanistan_proves_army_got_it_right_commander_says>, accessed 19 June 2020.

43 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US Army officer and senior NCO who served as advisors to the ANA and Iraqi Army, February 2020.

44 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US Army senior NCO who served as advisor to the ANA, February 2020.

45 Watling and Shabibi, ‘Defining Remote Warfare’, pp. 2–3, 9.

46 Forrest F Crowell, ‘Navy SEALs Gone Wild: Publicity, Fame, and the Loss of the Quiet Professional’, master’s thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, 2015.

47 Marty Skovlund Jr, ‘Tempers Flare Among Special Forces Vets Over New Unit's Beret — And Mission’, Task and Purpose, 29 October 2017.

48 Feickert, ‘U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF)’, p. 8.

49 Kyle Rempfer, ‘Navy SEAL and Marine Raider May Face Life in Prison as They Go to General Court-Martial for Death of Green Beret’, Army Times, 20 September 2019.

50 British Army, ‘Specialised Infantry Group’.

51 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US Army senior NCO who served as advisor to the ANA, February 2020.

52 Ibid.

53 Grespin, ‘From the Ground Up’, pp. 37–38.

54 Helmus, Advising the Command, pp. 27–29.

55 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US officers advising Afghan Logistics Command, February 2020.

56 Ibid.

57 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US officers advising Afghan Logistics Command and 201st Corps, February 2020.

58 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US Army officer and senior NCO who served as advisors to the ANA and Iraqi Army, February 2020.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid.

61 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US Army officer who served as J2 advisor to the Iraqi Army’s 14th and 15th Divisions, February 2020; interview by Nick Reynolds with US Army officer and senior NCO who served as advisors to the ANA and Iraqi Army, February 2020.

62 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US Army officer and senior NCO who served as advisors to the ANA and Iraqi Army, February 2020.

63 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US Army officer and senior NCO who served as advisors to the ANA, February 2020.

64 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US Army senior NCO who served as advisor to the ANA, February 2020.

65 Ibid.

66 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US officers advising Afghan Logistics Command, February 2020.

67 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US Army officer and senior NCO who served as advisors to the ANA and Iraqi Army, February 2020.

68 Interview by Nick Reynolds with US officers advising Afghan Logistics Command, February 2020.

69 Interview by Nick Reynolds with senior US Army officer who commanded an advisory unit to the ANA, February 2020.