Deadly Insider Attacks on US Troops Won’t End, Experts Say

In the wake of the second deadly insider attack in Afghanistan this year, experts say that these incidents are an unfortunate reality of the train, advise and assist mission: that U.S. troops cannot avoid living among killers in disguise.

The latest suspected green-on-blue attack occurred Monday. Killed in the attack was Command Sgt. Major Timothy Bolyard, the top enlisted soldier for the Army’s new 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade, a unit designed for Afghan advisory missions. One other service member, who was not identified, was wounded. Afghan security personnel or insurgents wearing Afghan uniforms are suspected in the attack.

In July, an insider attack killed U.S. Army Cpl. Joseph Maciel of South Gate, California and wounded two other U.S. service members, who were operating in the Tarin Kowt district of Afghanistan's southcentral Uruzgan province.

Since 2007, insider attacks have killed 157 coalition personnel, according to the Modern War Institute at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

"It's going to happen," Jason Dempsey, an adjunct fellow for the Center for New American Security, told Military.com. "You are talking about a security force of about 300,000-plus. You've got changing loyalties, you've got desertion rates up to 25 percent ... dudes are flowing out of the Afghan military nonstop.

"There is absolutely no way to stop it."  (Military.com, September 5, 2018)
--

With all due respect to Dr. Dempsey, may I suggest that we can in fact stop or at least mitigate these type of attacks with an improved force protection posture.

To do this we need force protection personnel who are actually qualified to advise on these matters (a 40-hour course is not a qualification) and who have experience operating in hostile and non-permissive environments. Have your force protection advisors ever deployed to a combat zone? Have they spent years living and working overseas? Do they at least hold advanced degrees in security management, in intelligence, in strategic studies and analysis?

Too often force protection is an additional duty, something that gets looked at as an afterthought. Or even worse, force protection is based on what can be found with a Google search and little else.

Cut and paste force protection results in dead Service Members.