As long as we don't think about it as another way of building a government with rule of law or reforming the society via military advising.
But I reject this:
With such a heavy focus upon tactical advising, we must ask if it actually works. After over a decade spent training the Iraqi security forces, the United States watched in dismay as entire units fell apart, almost without a fight, in 2014 against ISIS. [emphasis added]
Training a unit is not like building a perfect widget and putting it on a shelf until 3 years later you need it.
America left Iraq in 2011. Leadership in the Iraqi security forces was made based on loyalty rather than skill; and the normal exit of trained troops and influx of new untrained troops took their toll in less than 3 years.
It takes constant effort to keep units in combat readiness.
So don't blame our training for the 2014 collapse. Blame our absence which ended our training and ended our ability to monitor the quality of Iraqi army and security force leadership.
And given that the author writes about the need to build relationships between the American trainers and the troops they train--perhaps by making such jobs a career path to sustain relationships--I find it odd that he used that example of collapse which would actually bolster the argument that leaving the Iraqi units alone was the problem.
We spend a lot of attention, time. and money to build allied forces. Why are we so unable to spend the additional attention, time, and money to maintain them?
UPDATE: Strategypage notes the "there are no bad troops, only bad officers" expression:
The U.S. has long recognized this when training forces from other nations. Short and long term success depend on establishing and maintaining officer quality. Local politics and corruption often get in the way or prevent initial success from becoming permanent.
That's the main problem that led to the 2014 Iraqi security force collapse in the north.
