Overview | Types of DFTs | DFTs 2002

Overview:

"Deployment for Training" (DFT) is a broad term used to describe the practice of sending U.S. military personnel -- an individual, a group, even an entire unit -- overseas on a short-term basis for training. In most cases, the primary purpose of DFTs is to train the U.S. personnel themselves, though training host-country military personnel is usually a secondary result. DFTs are funded through the Department of Defense's Operations and Maintenance (O&M) account.

This study has so far been unable to ascertain the number of DFTs that take place in a typical year. As the table indicates, the U.S. Southern Command (Southcom) deploys about 50,000 military personnel on temporary missions in Latin American and Caribbean countries each year. Not all of these deployments are for training purposes; many are sent to relieve active-duty personnel or to provide other operational support. According to a 1997 Southcom publication, about 17,000 of those temporarily sent to the region in 1996 were on counter-drug missions -- about half performed detection and monitoring tasks, and many of the rest were deployed for counter-drug training.¹

Types of DFTs:

The list in this section, much of it taken from a May 1997 Southcom document, is by no means comprehensive, and includes some deployments whose purpose would more accurately be described as "operational support" rather than training.⁴ The list includes some deployments whose primary purpose is to train foreign personnel, not U.S. forces, and some that are not funded through the Defense Department's O&M account. It nonetheless illustrates the variety of military deployments that rotate through Latin America and the Caribbean.

• Mobile Training Team (MTT) [Descriptions of recent MTTs]

  Mobile Training Teams, according to a Pentagon publication, are made up of Defense Department personnel "on temporary duty in a foreign country for the purpose of training foreign personnel in the operation, maintenance, or other support of weapon systems and support equipment, as well as training for general military operations." A country may purchase a course taught by an MTT through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program, or the MTT may be subsidized through security assistance programs such as the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program.⁵ As they are not funded through the Pentagon's O&M account, and their primary purpose is to train foreign personnel, MTTs are not technically considered deployments for training.

• Mobile Education Team (MET) [Descriptions of recent METs]

  Mobile Education Teams are made up of Defense Department personnel on temporary duty in a foreign country to educate foreign personnel in defense resource management. METs, according to a Defense Department publication, "are normally funded from Expanded IMET program funds."⁶ As they are not funded through the Pentagon's O&M account, and their primary purpose is to train foreign personnel, METs are not technically considered deployments for training.

• Logistics Training Team (LTT)

  Logistics Training Teams are made up of Defense Department personnel on temporary duty in a foreign country to educate foreign personnel in defense logistics. A Defense Department manual defines "logistics" as "the science of planning and carrying out the movement and maintenance of forces."⁷

• Riverine Training Team (RTT)

  Riverine Training Teams are made up of Defense Department (usually Navy or Coast Guard) personnel on temporary duty in a foreign country to educate foreign personnel in operations that take place on rivers. An RTT normally teaches riverine counter-drug interdiction skills.

• International Maritime Law Enforcement Training (IMLET)

  IMLET programs are carried out by the U.S. Coast Guard. Coast Guard personnel help partner countries develop their own maritime law enforcement programs, improve port security, and improve institutional capabilities. The Coast Guard may also be a part of training programs that involve many U.S. agencies, if their particular area of expertise is needed.

• Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET)
  
  JCETs are small Special Forces teams sent overseas to work with, or to train with, foreign militaries. The average JCET group is comprised of 10 to 40 troops, though groups can include as many as 100. The law dictates that the training of U.S. special forces must be these activities' primary purpose. The program, according to a Defense Department spokesman, "is not designed to train the forces of other countries. It's designed to train our Special Forces in how forces of other countries operate."⁸ The JCET program operated in 101 countries in 1997, and about 95 countries worldwide in 1998.
  
• Tactical Analysis Team (TAT)

  Tactical Analysis Teams do not have a training mission. TATs are Defense Department groups deployed to a country to gather, analyze and share intelligence on narcotics traffickers. Intelligence on key drug traffickers is assembled into "tactical-information portfolios." According to a 1994 General Accounting Office (GAO) report, TATs "use a sophisticated communications system that can securely transmit and receive classified documents, photographs, text, or radar images on a real-time basis to and from U.S. counternarcotics personnel in the Western Hemisphere."⁹

• Security Assistance Survey Team

  Security Assistance Survey Teams do not have a training mission. A "security assistance survey," as defined by the Arms Export Control Act (P.L. 90-269, or the "AECA"), is "any survey or study conducted in a foreign country by United States Government personnel for the purpose of assessing the needs of that country for security assistance," including "defense requirement surveys, site surveys, general surveys or studies, and engineering assessment surveys." The Security Assistance Survey team's study, available upon request to the Speaker of the House and the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, often forms the basis for future arms sales to the country in question. Security Assistance Surveys are part of the security assistance process, and are normally not considered to be DFTs.

• Joint Planning Assistance Team / Planning Assistance Team (JPAT / PAT)

  Joint Planning Assistance Teams do not have a training mission. Their role, according to a National Defense University (NDU) publication, is to "assist foreign forces in developing operational plans around intelligence collection activities."¹⁰

• Subject Matter Expert Exchange (SMEE)

  Subject Matter Expert Exchanges are short visits by three or four U.S. military experts who exchange information with host-nation counterparts on a mutually-agreed topic. Topics may include "personnel, intelligence, operations, logistics, civil affairs, information processing, and others that may be of interest." Usually, both countries' subject-matter experts brief each other on their methods and procedures for dealing with the topic.¹¹

• Humanitarian and Civic Assistance (HCA)

  Under the Humanitarian and Civic Assistance program U.S. military personnel, while deployed overseas, carry out activities like building schools, vaccinating children and animals, and digging wells. HCA programs are often executed with the involvement of host country civilian and military personnel. Many HCA activities involve National Guard or reserve units. The deployment's primary purpose must be training of U.S. forces, readiness exercises or military operations.

• Engineer Readiness Training Exercise (ENRETE)

  Participants in an ENRETE practice building basic infrastructure like schools, roads, bridges, and wells. There is significant overlap between ENRETEs and HCA.

• Medical Readiness Training Exercise (MEDRETE)
• Veterinary Readiness Training Exercise (VETRETE)

  MEDRETEs and VETRETEs practice medical and veterinary skills by providing these services to civilians and their livestock. There is significant overlap between these deployments and HCA.

• Extended Training Service Specialist (ETSS)

  Extended Training Service Specialists are Defense Department personnel, both military and civilian, who are "technically qualified to provide advice, instruction, and training in the installation, operation, and maintenance of weapons, equipment, and systems." ETSS may be deployed for up to a year; they are attached, but not formally assigned, to the Security Assistance Organizations (SAOs) stationed at U.S. embassies.

• Military Information Support Team (MIST)

  A MIST is deployed from the U.S. Army's Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command. They provide information in an effort to influence host-country opinion in a way that benefits U.S. interests.
  
  

 USSOUTHCOM Training Deployments 2002

Sources:

¹ Richard K. Kolb, "Tracking the Traffic. U.S. Southcom Counters Cocaine at the Source," Dialogo: The military forum of the Americas, (U.S. Southern Command: July-September 1997) <http://www.allenwayne.com/dialogo/julsep97/frames/article.htm>.

² United States Southern Command, Operations Directorate (J3) Exercise Overview, (U.S. Southern Command: May 21, 1997).

³ United States, U.S. Southern Command, “Posture Statement Of General Charles E. Wilhelm, United States Marine Corps Commander In Chief, United States Southern Command Before The Senate Armed Services Committee,” March 4, 1999.

⁴ United States Southern Command.

⁵ United States, Department of Defense, Defense Institute of Security Assistance Management, The Management of Security Assistance, 17th ed. (Wright-Patterson AFB, OH: May 1997): 736.

⁶ Defense Institute of Security Assistance Management 736.

⁷ Defense Institute of Security Assistance Management 734.

⁸ Kenneth H. Bacon, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, U.S. Department of Defense, "Department of Defense News Briefing," The Pentagon, Washington, March 26, 1998, 1:45 PM EST, April 1998 <http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar1998/t03261998_t0326asd.html>.

⁹ United States, General Accounting Office, Drug Control: Interdiction Efforts in Central America Have Had Little Impact on the Flow of Drugs, document number GAO/NSIAD-94-233, Washington, August 1994 <http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/useftp.cgi?IPaddress=wais.access.gpo.gov&filename=ns94233.txt&directory=/diskb/wais/data/gao>.

United States, Department of Defense, National Defense University, "Chapter 12: Unconventional Military Instruments," Strategic Assessment 1996: Elements of U.S. Power, 1996, April 1998 <http://www.ndu.edu/ndu/inss/sa96/sa96ch12.html>.

¹⁰ National Defense University.

¹¹ United States, Mission to the Organization of American States, "Note From the Permanent Mission of the United States of America Forwarding an Inventory of Confidence- and Security-Building Measures," I Regional Conference on Confidence- and Security-Building Measures in the Region, Santiago, Chile, November 8-10, 1995, Document no. OEA/Ser.K/XXIX.2: 10.

¹²United States, Department of Defense, U.S. Southern Command, "USSOUTHCOM Training Deployment," Slideshow document, April 2003.