Regional Affairs Strategist: Deliberate Development for Senior Officers?

Abstract

Abstract : The Air Force's fledgling International Affairs Specialist (IAS) Program is exactly what General Jumper envisioned-and what President Obama expects. Indeed, fashioned after the Army's successful Foreign Area Officer (FAO) program, the IAS program has the best opportunity to date for creating a robust, meaningful cadre of competent internationally-minded airmen. But there's much work to do. A widely varied cluster of skill sets spread across a broad spectrum of age groups creates a significant education and training dilemma for anyone trying to standardize the IAS force. More disturbing, the current scattershot array of abilities signals potential shortfalls for near-term senior officer IAS requirements. As a minimum, mandatory must-fill billets may require assigning inadequately trained and educated During an information visit by staff officers from Secretary of the Air Force/International Affairs (SAF/IA) in August 2008, the Air War College (AWC) Commandant asked if AWC was the right place to train these regionally focused senior officers. This paper will answer the Commandant's question using the following construct, which incrementally analyzes the best method(s) for effective senior officer regional affairs education and training: (1) Definition of FAO, IAS, and Regional Affairs Strategist (RAS); (2) Current status of the USAF RAS program; (3) Challenges to senior officer (O-5 and beyond) RAS development; (4) Options for senior officer RAS development: language, regional experience, and education; (5) Recommendations Everything starts by determining and defining exactly what is needed to be considered a Regional Affairs Strategist within the USAF's International Affairs Specialist program.