Military Review English Edition January-February 2017 | Page 41

POLITICS-AND-POLICY OFFICER

Department of Social Sciences, spent the summer of
2015 working with the Office of Security Cooperation–
Iraq at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and the department considered ways to send another officer to
support the joint force land component commander in
Iraq again during the summer of 2016.
Additionally, during the summer of 2015, I functioned as the 3rd BCT’s politics-and-policy officer, providing the brigade commander with regional and political
analysis of the major stakeholders for Iraq, as well as analysis of U.S. influences on policy decisions and recommendations. This analysis was informed by participation in
key-leader engagements every day and was disseminated
by publishing a daily report that gave commanders, staff
officers, and soldiers down to the platoon level the ability
to understand the politics relevant to their operations and
to leverage that understanding in their advise-and-assist
mission. Buzzard believes his building-partner-capacity
and advise-and-assist missions could be enhanced if he
and his team assigned a staff officer to generate a political
understanding of 3rd BCT’s HN and coalition partners;
despite how critical political understanding is, even at
the tactical level, the Army did not provide him with an
officer dedicated to this task.10
MILITARY REVIEW  January-February 2017

A role player portraying an Afghan provincial governor addresses security concerns to Col. Michael Getchell, commander of 4th Stryker
Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, and other brigade
leaders 11 June 2012 during a key-leader engagement exercise at the
National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California. Such engagements
are greatly enhanced by the presence of trained and experienced
political officers. (Photo by Sgt. Christopher M. Gaylord, U.S. Army)

The success of this “proof of concept” has generated
interest from multiple brigade commanders who are interested in enhancing their units’ understanding of their
operational environments and their ability to accomplish
their missions. For the Army to truly benefit from the
creation of a politics-and-policy officer billet, there must
also be value added to the BCT organization in garrison
or during home-station training, not just a deployed
mission requirement. The lessons learned from 3rd BCT’s
preparation and deployment provide unique insight into
how the potential functions of a brigade politics-and-policy officer could enhance predeployment training.
Buzzard describes his brigade’s predeployment training
focus in the following manner:
Upon receipt of the mission, the BCT had
to conduct a rapid mission analysis—there
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