Deadly attacks on U.S. and other NATO advisers in Afghanistan have attracted a lot of media coverage in recent months. But while these reports have raised the public profile of advisers, there's still little awareness of what they do. USIP's Nadia Gerspacher helps train U.S. advisers who work with foreign governments on security-sector reform. Here, she explains why advisers are so important and how we can make sure they're ready to hit the ground running.

Gerspacher analyzes this subject in more detail in "Preparing Advisers for Capacity-Building Missions," a USIP Special Report to be published in August.

We keep reading about the dangers U.S. and other NATO advisers are facing in countries such as Afghanistan, but why are they there to begin with?

In almost any transition from war to peace, there's a period where the national government needs assistance to reform itself so that it can manage the country more effectively—and often more fairly—than in the past. Among other things, post-conflict governments benefit greatly from the help of experts with years of professional experience handling complex, technical matters such as logistics, human resources, and legislative affairs. This kind of expertise tends to be in short supply in countries recovering from violent conflict, so it needs to be brought in from abroad. That's where advisers come in. Foreign governments and international organizations ask some of their highly experienced people to work for a while alongside officials in the post-conflict country. In Afghanistan, several NATO allies have sent advisers—some military, some civilian—to share knowledge and establish lasting professional networks with different parts of the peacebuilding and reform process. For the countries, such as the United States, that have deployed advisers to Afghanistan, they are a way of accelerating Afghanistan's post-conflict recovery and—to quote former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates—a way to "sustain security over the long term."

What exactly does an adviser do?

Advisers come in different shapes and sizes and work at different levels and in different areas of government. At one end of the scale, a relatively junior U.S. Army officer or police officer might find himself or herself advising an Afghan police officer or sergeant in a remote provincial town. At the other end of the scale, senior-level U.S. personnel might advise ministers at the apex of the Afghan government in the capital, Kabul.

What all effective advisers have in common are three things. First, they advise; they don't dictate to their local counterparts. They offer ideas and knowledge; they don't insist on particular strategies. Second, they tailor their suggestions to suit cultural, institutional and political realities. They recognize—and respect—the traditions and practices of their hosts. Third, they don't shoot for the moon. Instead, they look for realistic targets and work for incremental reform.

Let me provide a concrete example. I've been involved in a program run by the Department of Defense that's called the Ministry of Defense Advisers Program (the MoDA program). MoDA sends senior civilian professionals from the U.S. government to Afghanistan as strategic advisers to officials in Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior. USIP has contributed to the program in various ways; for instance, USIP staff have taught several training sessions. Once trained, MoDA advisers are deployed for up to two years to help their Afghan counterparts strengthen the ability of ministries to handle such challenges as recruiting personnel, devising government strategies and managing finances.

What kinds of things have the MoDA advisers accomplished?

Quite a variety! They have piloted a simple, Afghan-designed logistics tool that has proved remarkably successful in tracking the location and status of Afghan National Police vehicles. Other advisers have assisted Afghans in improving business operations and health standards at the Afghan National Army slaughterhouse. MoDA advisers have also developed and implemented a way for the Afghan government to assess how well its reform efforts are going. Each of these achievements is contributing to a significantly more effective and accountable government.

That all sounds very technical. Does that mean that advising is chiefly a technical exercise?

Without professional expertise, an adviser wouldn't be able to do the job they've been recruited to do. But having that technical knowledge isn't enough by itself. Advising is essentially a process of transferring the knowledge you have to someone who might need it. To do that, you need not only to have the knowledge in the first place, and not only to identify which part of your knowledge might be useful, but also to be able to transfer it in a way that makes it useful and acceptable. That last task is probably the hardest, because it means you have to be good at analyzing the local landscape, good at communicating across cultural differences and good at building relationships with your local counterparts.

So the advisers' toughest job is coping with a foreign culture?

That's only part of the challenge! You also have to be able to waltz diplomatically through a maze of relationships with your "own" people. Advisers are usually deployed to countries that are already crowded with a host of international actors: representatives of different governments, members of different multilateral organizations (NATO or the United Nations, for instance), and the staff of nongovernmental organizations (such as human rights groups or humanitarian aid agencies). To avoid duplicating effort, an adviser will need to coordinate with a lot of these people.

And an adviser also needs to be an astute manager of conflict—a juggler, of sorts—because he or she has multiple bosses. A U.S. adviser in Afghanistan, for example, is recruited and trained by the U.S. government, which is focusing primarily on U.S. national interests; is part of the wider NATO mission in the country, which has a somewhat different focus; and is working within and for the benefit of an Afghan institution, which has its own agenda and objectives. Sometimes, too, advisers can find themselves in the middle of a tug-of-war between, on the one side, civilian practices and approaches to governance and regulatory activities, and, on the other side, military goals, priorities, and cultural predispositions.

How can one prepare an adviser to handle so many different tasks?

Advising is a tough job, and training advisers to do that job is correspondingly demanding. In the past, some advisers have found themselves well trained in terms of, say, personal security but unprepared for other parts of their mission, especially the process of transferring knowledge. Fortunately, many are learning from past experiences and training programs are being enhanced.

The MoDA program has certainly taught some valuable lessons. And I've learned a good deal from teaching capacity-building courses at USIP's Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding and other venues.

It seems that a good curriculum for training high-level advisers in any sector of government should have four parts. One part is knowledge about how to be an effective adviser, including techniques for building relationships and communicating across cultures.

The second part is briefings on the situation in the country. These briefings shouldn't cover only broad subjects, such as national history and politics, but also very specific topics, such as the reputation that the adviser's predecessor acquired locally.

The third part is substantive knowledge about the sector in which the adviser will work. In the security sector, for example, the adviser needs to know how reform of the military, police, and associated ministries is supposed to take place and what success would look like.

The fourth part is preparation through practice. An opportunity to practice new skills in a "safe" environment—where one can make mistakes and learn from them—is crucial to preparation. Practicing takes place through role-playing simulations, planning exercises, real or fictional scenario analysis exercises, and analysis of case studies.

It's not just trainers who have a responsibility to ensure that advisers are properly prepared. So, too, do the policymakers who are increasingly relying on advisers to help countries create stable, effective, and democratic governments. Preparation of advisers should be an integral part of strategy; it should be factored into budgets for mission; and it should be deeply embedded in the planning process. Time and money are always in short supply in government, but an effective advising program needs both.

Explore Further

• Preparing Advisers for Capacity-Building Missions
  Special Report by Nadia Gerspacher