Security Force Assistance Logistics: The Key to Self-Reliance?

When are a nation's security forces deemed self-reliant? Security force assistance (SFA) is one process of building or rebuilding a nation's security forces. If the ultimate goal of SFA is producing a self-reliant force capable of responding to a nation's security requirements, then accurately assessing that force's ability to sustain itself should be of great interest to assisting and assisted nations alike. A self-reliant security force with an autonomous sustainment system gives the assisted nation a measure of independence and self-determination. In turn, the assisting nation benefits from the regional (perhaps even global) stability generated in addition to relief from having to provide trainers, materiel, and funding. This monograph proposes that fully integrating efforts to build logistics capability, capacity, and infrastructure into the overall SFA effort will produce enduring, self-reliant foreign security forces able to sustain themselves across the spectrum of the logistics functions. However, achieving self-reliance not only requires the integration of efforts. It also means providing honest assessment and appraisal of the foreign security force (FSF) by the assisting nation's advisors and senior leaders. Not fully integrating logistics development into our SFA programs or not providing candid assessments of SFA logistics efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and future venues risks the formation of unsustainable security force structures that will ultimately collapse after assistance ends.