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n any given day, the United States has approximately 200 personnel deployed worldwide on securityassistance missions. Security assistance, designed to achieve global security by providing advice and equipment to developing nations, is a valuable part of the overall U.S. foreign-assistance program. Since the early 1970s, the U.S. Army Security Assistance Training Management Organization, or SATMO, has assembled, prepared, deployed and supported security-assistance teams, or SATs, operating outside the continental U.S., or OCONUS.
SATMO is the single source for providing SATs and training-related support to U.S. security-assistance organizations, such as military groups and offices of military cooperation. These organizations carry out U.S. foreign and national-security policies by providing military assistance, equipment and training to developing nations to help them become self-sufficient.
SATMO is an element of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, or TRADOC, which is headquartered at Fort Monroe, Va. SATMO and the Security Assistance Training Field Activity, or SATFA, make up TRADOC's Security Assistance Training Directorate. SATFA is responsible for all security-assistance training in the continental U.S., or CONUS, and has overall financial management responsibility for all Army security-assistance training. SATMO is attached to the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, which provides SATMO with operational oversight as well as administrative and logistics support.
SATs are composed of soldiers and civilians drawn from Army organizations located within CONUS. In assembling the teams, SATMO is authorized direct coordination with CONUS and overseas commands and has broad tasking authority over all CONUS-based Army assets.
From Jan. 1, 1999, through November 1999, SATMO deployed 297 SATs (involving 634 personnel) to 47 countries. Of the 297 SATs, 34 were Special Forces-specific and required 103 SF soldiers.
Funding
Funding for SATs is provided in part through U.S. government programs such as the Foreign Military Financing Program, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, the International Military Education Training Program, and the 506A2 Presidential Drawdown. These programs provide finding to eligible countries to assist them in self-defense, in counterdrug operations, and in promoting democracy and human rights. With the exception of 506A2, the funding is provided by congressional allocation. Under the authority of 506A2, the U.S. president can direct an organization to provide equipment, supplies and personnel to a foreign government. The losing organization is responsible for...