Asymmetric Warfare Group Travel Awareness Handbook

As globalization rapidly condenses physical and digital spaces, the virtual space to reach out across the world has become more dense and complex. Methods and means of cheaper more efficient travel draw the world closer. The interconnectedness of the United States Army to the world has made it necessary for habitual visits to bolster relationships with partner countries. These global partnerships require the United States Army to move its leaders and Soldiers to unfamiliar areas on a routine basis. Official travel has become a part of the decision calculus for commanders sending Soldiers on missions. Because of travel’s inherent operational risk, travelers should observe the methods, means, and best practices to prevent or mitigate this risk, before, during, or after travel to ensure mission success.

Many of the United States Army’s relationships leverage burgeoning and legacy technology for conducting meetings or conferences in a virtual domain. The virtual realm compensates for the inability to be physically present. Even as the United States Army uses technology to continue engagement when they cannot do so in person, face-to-face engagement remains optimal. Additionally, while strategies and methodologies for virtual training continue to develop, real world exercises will remain and require moving United States Army personnel around the world.

The means and capability exist for the United States Army to utilize direct travel to foreign countries on a regular basis. How do we prepare for the associated risks? Efficiency, commonsense and deliberate forethought. This handbook will review pre-travel planning considerations for staff planners to supplement their mission analysis. It will also provide considerations for operational security (OPSEC), cyber awareness, hotel selection, and hotel room considerations, as well as an example trip emergency plan.

This handbook seeks to present the current best practices and codify topics to consider from pre- travel to post travel operations. This handbook will describe available and resident capabilities within a traveler’s operational environment and applications of learned best practices using vignettes of real world situations. This handbook should serve as a supplement, not a replacement to mandatory 350-1 AT Level 1.. The world presents ever-evolving risks when placing Soldiers in unfamiliar environments. The United States Army must be highly active in adapting to this need/challenge and become comfortable with worldwide movement by capturing and learning from best practices. This handbook seeks to address known travel vulnerabilities and to prepare United States personnel, in order to mitigate risk. Applying critical thought and analysis prior to any mission is a common foundation for preparation. The idea of reinforcing a possible vulnerability is noted in Epitoma Rei Militaris (Epitome of Military Science) by Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, in which he states, “The part which the enemy is expected to approach one should be particularly careful to reinforce.”
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In April 2018 the Asymmetric Warfare Group (AWG) published a restricted (FOUO) Travel Awareness Handbook. I contacted AWG and requested a public version of the handbook.

AWG has now made the Travel Awareness Handbook releasable to the public, and I have included a copy in my Google Drive for anyone that wants it.