Military advisor

The French Marquis de Lafayette and the Prussian Baron von Steuben offered key assistance to the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War of 1775–1783.

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The Soviet Union deployed military advisors in places like Spain, China, and Angola. "The 1976 treaty of friendship and cooperation provided for Soviet-Angolan military cooperation in strengthening the mutual defense capacity. Moscow immediately provided weaponry and supplies, and some 500 military advisors."{{cite book|last1=Mott|first1=William H.|title=Soviet Military Assistance: An Empirical Perspective|series=Contributions in military studies, ISSN 0883-6884|issue=207|location=Westport, Connecticut|publisher=Greenwood Press|date=2001|page=155|isbn=9780313310225}}

"The Soviet Union also sent about 1500 military advisors to China during this period [1937-1939]. Included were some of the Red Army's best officers [...] Georgii Zhukov [...] Vasily Chuikov [...] Andrey A. Vlasov [...]. Like Spain, China served as a training ground for Soviet officers."{{cite book|last1=Garver|first1=John W.|chapter=The Sino-Soviet Alliance of 1937-1939|title=Chinese-Soviet Relations, 1937-1945: The Diplomacy of Chinese Nationalism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_eddVnC3paoC|location=New York|publisher=Oxford University Press|date=1988|page=40| isbn=9780195363746|access-date=11 September 2020}}

During the Spanish Civil War, Germany deployed a large number of "volunteers," also known as the Condor Legion, to serve as mercenaries and pilots to assist the nationalist forces. Approximately 300 out of a total of 16,000 German citizens fighting in the war were killed.{{Cite book |last=Whealey |first=Robert H. |title=Hitler And Spain: The Nazi Role in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |year=2015 |isbn=9780813148632 |pages=64}}

During the interwar period, German military advisors under Alexander von Falkenhausen were involved in modernising the National Revolutionary Army.

The German Empire sent advisors to the Ottoman Empire, notably generals such as Otto Liman Von Sanders and Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz

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T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") became arguably the archetypal British military advisor for his role in the guerilla (1916–1918) during the Arab Revolt.{{cite book|last1=Sullivan|first1=Michael D.|chapter=Leadership in Counterinsurgency: A Tale of Two Leaders|title=Military Review|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7a45AQAAMAAJ|volume=87|issue=5|publisher=United States Army Command and General Staff College|date=September–October 2007|page=120|issn=0026-4148|access-date=11 September 2020|quote=[Lawrence] discusses the troubles, motivations, and strengths of an Arab insurgency, as well as the challenges he faced as military advisor.}}

{{See also|Military Assistance Advisory Group}}

Developing capabilities and increasing capacity through advising is an operation the U.S. Army has conducted for more than one hundred years. The Army has performed advisory missions to increase the capability and capacity of foreign militaries from the Philippine Insurrection at the beginning of the 20th century to more recent conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.{{cite web|last1= Jaworski|first1=Pace|title= Conventional Advising: A Tactical Leader's Assessment of a Strategic Initiative|url= https://www.benning.army.mil/armor/eARMOR/content/issues/2013/JAN_MAR/Articles/Jaworski.pdf|website=The Cavalry & Armor Journal, JAN 2013|publisher=US Army Maneuver Center of Excellence|access-date=25 October 2016}}

File:NARA 111-CCV-423-CC39152 Special Forces advisor providing M79 instruction to CIDG trainee 1967.jpg advisor instructing a Vietnamese Civilian Irregular Defense Group trainee on operating an M79 grenade launcher during the Vietnam War, 1967]]

In the early 1960s, elements of the U.S. Army Special Forces and Echo 31 went to South Vietnam as military advisors to train and assist the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) for impending actions against the North Vietnamese Army (PAVN). [[U.S. Marines] also filled a significant role as advisors to Vietnamese forces.{{Cite web |url= http://covan.org/ |title= United States Marine Corps Advisor's Association |access-date= 2014-01-30 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140118175016/http://covan.org/ |archive-date= 2014-01-18 |url-status= dead }}

Combat advisors served during the U.S. War on Terror. They were designated as Embedded Training Teams (ETTs) in Afghanistan and as Military Transition Teams (MTTs) in Iraq. The soldiers and marines lived with their Afghan and Iraqi counterparts (often in very austere and stoic{{clarify|date=September 2020}} conditions) in remote combat outposts, often a great distance away from any U.S. or coalition support.

ETTs and MTTs were composed primarily of U.S. Army, National Guard, and Marine Corps personnel with a background in combat arms. U.S. Army Reserve, Air Force, and Navy personnel served as advisors in logistics and other support roles. The advisors on the ground in infantry or commando units of the ANA (Afghan National Army) or the Iraqi Army were soldiers or marines with experience in combat arms. U.S. Army Special Forces and Navy SEALS also worked with the Afghan Army or Special Forces and with the Iraqi Army, but most combat advisors were infantry and combat-arms soldiers and marines.

The Combat Advisor Mission Defined. The combat advisor mission requires US officers and NCOs to teach, coach and mentor host nation (HN) security force counterparts. This enables the rapid development of our counterparts' leadership capabilities; helps develop command and control (C2) and operational capabilities at every echelon; allows direct access to Coalition Forces (CF) enablers to enhance HN security force counterinsurgency (COIN) operations; and incorporates CF lethal and nonlethal effects on the battlefield.{{cite web|url=https://sill-www.army.mil/firesbulletin/2008/jul_sep_2008/Jul_Sep_2008_pages_38_41.pdf|title=Preparing Air Defenders for the Combat Advisor Mission|date=2008|last=Scott|first=Cory N.}}

Security Forces Assistance (SFA) defines a more in-depth method of embedded mentorship. MTTs have fallen{{when|date=September 2020}} into disuse with shifts in focus and doctrine. Specifically, previous MTTs were drawn from soldiers from separate units, often on an ad hoc basis. SFATs, on the other hand, provide all personnel from organic, modular brigade combat teams rather than supplying personnel piecemeal from various Army units. By design, those teams are composed of a company command team and selected leaders from one command. The SFAT concept has been in place since 2012 with a "by, with and through" method of combat advising. Current Advisory Teams are trained at Fort Polk, Louisiana, at the Advisor Academy, "Tigerland."{{cite web|last1= Jaworski|first1= Pace|title= Conventional Advising: A Tactical Leader's Assessment of a Strategic Initiative|url= https://www.benning.army.mil/armor/eARMOR/content/issues/2013/JAN_MAR/Articles/Jaworski.pdf|website= The Cavalry & Armor Journal, JAN 2013|publisher= US Army Maneuver Center of Excellence|access-date= 25 October 2016}}

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• Foreign internal defense
• Embedded Training Teams
• Military transition team
• Military Assistance Command, Vietnam
• Chinh–Hunnicutt affair
• Prince Rupert of the Rhine (1619–1682)
• Tadeusz Kościuszko (1746–1817)
• Jean Victor Marie Moreau (1763–1813)
• Charles François Dumouriez (1739–1823)
• Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–1882)
• Dmitry Pavlov (1897–1941)
• Cuban intervention in Angola (1975–1991)
• Nicaraguan Revolution (1978–1990)
• Salvadoran Civil War (1979–1992)
• United States invasion of Grenada (1983)
• Group of Belarusian military specialists in Venezuela (2008–2013)

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Category:Military advisors

Category:Combat occupations

Category:Combat occupations of the late modern period