by Simon A. Johnstone
Another stop in the middle of “nowhere”
The bright Gobi sun pierced through the front windshield of our SUV as I pulled the visor down for shade to check my GPS. We had stopped temporarily at a COVID checkpoint so the provincial police could check our official passports, vaccination statuses, and entry pass since we were traveling across country during a country wide COVID lockdown. Stops like this were not unusual, our journey across Mongolia from the capitol Ulaanbaatar over 800 miles west to Khovd had been slow up to this point; in total we would cross through six provinces and at each border crossing the same process repeated. But this time, things were a bit slower, and I became increasing restless, eager to keep moving and get to our overnight location before the sun went down – traveling across the Gobi desert with the nearest US Advisors hundreds of miles away at this point felt a bit exposed, to say the least.
Surveying our surroundings, I saw the checkpoint was at a four-way intersection; to my right a road leading north, to my left leading south. Consulting my GPS, I followed these roads on the map interested to see where they led. Tracing on the map, I noticed the road leading north connected to a road network extending up into Russia. Similarly, the road to the south extended down into China. It was a surreal moment processing the significance of our activity in Mongolia and fully realizing our current position relative to these two strategic competitors. As a Team Leader of a small five Advisor Logistics Advising Team (LAT) from 5th Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB), it was my responsibility to ensure our team’s mission was successful and my Advisors made it home safe to their families – the weight of the responsibility at that moment felt crushing. Though not in overt danger at any point during our time in Mongolia, the possibility of the uncertain remained constantly on my mind.
Building Trust across the Pacific
At the 5th SFAB Activation Ceremony in May 2020, we heard our outgoing commander, Brigadier General Curtis D. Taylor state, “True military power is often better measured by the depth of our relationships, than it is by the number of battalions we have on the field. In coalition warfare, trust is combat power, and building trust takes time. Trust cannot be built remotely, so we will engage in this competition forward, in the contact layer, across the International Date Line (IDL), where our concept of a free and open Pacific stands in contrast to a darker vision of the future.” This message was instilled in each of us before employing across the IDL by both then-Colonel Taylor and our Force Package commander, then-LTC David B. Rowland; it was the reason we now found ourselves crossing the Gobi Desert to link up with a partner force unit that had never hosted a United States military contingent for training at their location up until this point.
Our team, LAT 5611, was the first Logistics Advisor Team established in 5th SFAB and the first LAT to employ west of the IDL with 1st Battalion, 5th SFAB in Thailand, 8 months prior, and then with the entire Force Package 21-1-I in Mongolia. In Mongolia, our team partnered with multiple units from the Mongolian Land Forces Command conducting combined interoperability logistics training with Land Forces Command’s logistics elements. We built relationships with the Mongolian logistics officers and noncommissioned officers training together, sharing meals together, and experiencing their vibrant culture – building trust all the while.
The Crossroads of Strategy and Tactics
After completing our rotation in Mongolia and returning to the US, we reintegrated with our families and reset before beginning our next training cycle to prepare for the next rotation west of the IDL in the coming year. As part of this train-up, we went to train in the Mohave Desert at Fort Irwin, California, a Combat Training Center rotation to sharpen our skills and test the Advisor capability in a conflict environment. During this rotation, we heard from senior leaders from within the Security Force Assistance Command Enterprise. During one session, a senior leader remarked about SFABs operating “at the crossroads of strategy and tactics, where tactical efforts have strategic effects.” Sitting in the crowd and hearing this, I thought back to that moment in Mongolia at the COVID checkpoint, checking my GPS, and I realized we had been quite literally at the crossroad of strategy and tactics. This senior leader’s words felt very real to me in that moment. Our nation had sent us to Mongolia to promote a free and open Indo-Pacific; our tactical efforts put us squarely between two strategic competitors on our way to build combat power (trust) with a new partner force. We had, quite literally, been at the spearhead of logistics advising.
