Training with partners and allies is critical to building credible and capable relationships between militaries. One way the U.S. highlights its commitment to foreign partners is by combined training during combat training center rotations.

At the October 2023 Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center (JPMRC) rotation in Hawaii, four foreign countries operated cooperatively with forces from U.S. Army Pacific, in this case, the 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division. These American forces included embedded advisers from the 5th Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB) during the large-scale combat scenario.

SFAB advisers are uniquely suited to integrate foreign formations into multinational exercises, since they embed and support units before, during and after an event. After multiple training cycles with embedded advisers, foreign militaries will see the size and scope of their participation grow during annual exercises.

Key to these exercises is increased interoperability, which Army Regulation (AR) 34-1: Interoperability, defines as “the ability to act together coherently, effectively, and efficiently to achieve tactical, operational, and strategic objectives.” Advisers evaluate and improve a partner’s level of interoperability for future military operations.

Although the 5th SFAB’s enhancement to the JPMRC relates to partners in the Indo-Pacific, the lessons learned apply whenever foreign partners train together. Specifically, advisers solve interoperability issues between U.S. and foreign forces at the tactical level across three domains, as outlined in AR 34-1. These domains are:

• Human: Relationships and rapport to ensure access and trust between units.

• Technical: Hardware, equipment, armaments and systems.

• Procedural: Doctrine, tactics, techniques and training.

Before and during the October 2023 Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center rotation, advisers leveraged all three of these domains to increase the training readiness for foreign partners and the U.S. joint force. Here’s how:

Human Domain

SFAB advisers use firsthand knowledge of a partner force’s country, geography and culture to increase rapport. Ideally, advisers collaborate with a unit in their home country before conducting training in the U.S. or at a multinational event. When the same adviser team is unable to travel with the partner force, the team assesses the partner’s training readiness and equipment capabilities, and ensures that critical relationships are preserved. Prior relationships increase trust between the U.S. and partner forces, resulting in achieving more training objectives during the event.

For exercise planners, using forward advisers is vital because the advisers provide a direct line to answer partner-related questions. Before the October 2023 JPMRC rotation, 5th SFAB advisers answered requests for information from exercise planners and the 25th Infantry Division about task organization, capabilities and logistical requirements, and provided their operational assessment. Additionally, advisers provide firsthand knowledge of the structure and culture of the foreign military, which affects how best to incorporate it with U.S. formations.

Increasing the role of NCOs in foreign militaries is one area advisers develop before combined training events. Logistics planning and supply distribution, which typically falls on a platoon sergeant or company first sergeant, is a common topic of discussion and education between advisers and partner forces.

During the JPMRC rotation, advisers liaised between the battalion forward support company of the 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, and the foreign partner, so the support company knew the process of developing logistics status reports. When the partner could not conduct resupply operations itself, the embedded adviser team picked up supplies from the logistics release point to maintain operational tempo without burdening the battalion’s combat trains.

Improved human interoperability generally is the greatest outcome from multinational training. However, U.S. forces must remember that exercises may have a larger meaning for foreign participants. This may be a foreign partner’s only opportunity to train outside of their home country, so leaders must emphasize strengthening lifelong relationships throughout the event.

Technical Domain

The most common interoperability consideration when collaborating with allies and partners is whether equipment and systems are compatible. It is difficult to synchronize operations with different ammunition, fuel types or communications platforms. Understanding a foreign partner’s equipment capabilities and limitations helps integrate the partner more rapidly.

Advisers have noted that night-vision devices are critical to inter-operability at the tactical level. Not every unit attending a training exercise will have personal night-

vision devices, which greatly limits its ability to perform in darkness. Assessments from embedded adviser teams are invaluable to ensure that planners assign partners proper missions for their level of readiness and technical interoperability.

Foreign partners often borrow U.S. weapons systems and equipment during exercises, which requires signed agreements from both militaries before training starts. These agreements should clearly outline the number of requested systems and all the necessary items to use them. For example, a rifle loaned to a foreign partner will require, at minimum, magazines, slings and blank firing adapters to integrate into a simulated combat environment. Again, advisers embedded with foreign partners are necessary to ensure that the equipment request is comprehensive enough to meet expectations.

As for communications, allied radios may receive and broadcast on multiple frequencies and waveforms, but U.S. units must build communications architectures and contingency plans that are flexible enough to collaborate with foreign partners. Typically, the primary communication method pulls partners inside the “communications bubble,” but switching to alternate or contingent forms of communication leaves partners unable to communicate. Staff-level mission analysis should decide how communications platforms will work between U.S. and partners.

When the relationship lacks technical interoperability, advisers will serve critical liaison roles. These liaison officers relay critical and prompt updates to the partner force while also keeping higher headquarters’ common operating picture current. During one battle period at the JPMRC, the fires adviser from the supporting adviser team moved to the 25th Infantry Division battalion’s tactical command post to ensure that the battalion commander knew the location and disposition of partner forces. This adviser also deconflicted local airspace as both the battalion and the adviser used tactical unmanned aerial systems to deduce the enemy’s direction of attack.

Conducting a thorough analysis of partner technical capabilities is vital for successful integration. Rehearsals before operations uncover issues that could be costly during combat. The Reception, Staging, Onward Movement, and Integration phase with the partner should confirm that every system the partner brought works with U.S. systems and identify the location of liaisons between U.S. and partner forces.

Procedural Domain

Often, the first consideration when training with foreign partners is the way soldiers will communicate with each other. Of course, how to speak with partners is important, but having shared understanding goes beyond knowing the same words and phrases. Advisers are critical to ensuring a partner’s understanding of doctrinal terms before exercises.

For example, “line of departure” in U.S. Army doctrine refers to when a unit begins moving along a direction of attack. In one case in 2023 in the Indo-Pacific, advisers found a partner using the term to refer to where friendly forces expected to engage an enemy through one of the forms of contact, which in the Army is known as the “line of contact.”

Clearly, this lack of shared understanding creates confusion when partners report their location to U.S. forces. Similarly, when foreign partners learn U.S. doctrine, they don’t always know the nuanced intent behind a phrase.

For instance, the phrase “360-degree security,” when referring to securing a key site or location, sometimes causes confusion between U.S. forces and partners. Advisers found that partners may interpret this to mean surrounding a location with troops or vehicles. This interpretation creates the potential for fratricide, since the security element may accidentally fire into another friendly position if an enemy engages them from inside the perimeter.

Advisers with the 5th SFAB found this was an issue during an October 2022–March 2023 employment to a partner’s training and education institutions in Thailand, and recommended changes in partner-force doctrine to align with the U.S. definition. This later increased interoperability during the JPMRC rotation to Hawaii in October 2023.

Pre-exercise training that U.S. advisers conduct with partners before events like the JPMRC rotation is vital to increase procedural interoperability. The U.S. Army and its partners achieve elevated levels of readiness when foreign leaders name units to attend exercises at least a year out and allow SFAB advisers to collaborate with them for months in advance.

Early Planning

To build strong relationships with foreign forces, U.S. units should always consider interoperability across the human, technical and procedural domains, which ideally occurs before the two groups meet for the first time at the intermediate staging base. Embedded SFAB advisers also increase success by running partner-force assessments. Any unit expecting to work with foreign partners should seek out the SFAB team aligned with that country to learn the partner country’s language, capability, capacity and any other technical or procedural information.

When done correctly, the partner will arrive at an exercise already knowing who they will work with and what missions they can expect to perform. Preferably, a forward adviser team will train specific individual and collective tasks in their home country before arriving at the event. Similarly, a partner force likely will have their own essential tasks or outcomes they are hoping to achieve during a training event, so advisers can inform exercise planners to tailor events to ensure that all parties receive maximum training value.

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Lt. Col. Matthew Lensing is an infantry officer and a maneuver company commander in the 5th Security Force Assistance Brigade, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. Previously, he was the executive officer for the 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 7th Infantry Division. He deployed three times to Afghanistan. He graduated in 2007 from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York. He has two master’s degrees: one in operational studies, and one in kinesiology.

Maj. William Sherwood is an infantry officer and a maneuver adviser team leader in the 5th Security Force Assistance Brigade.

Capt. Maximillian Holguin is an infantry officer and a company operations officer in the 5th Security Force Assistance Brigade.