Direct Military Support Not Involving Combat Operations
External military forces assigned to FID can provide direct support not involving combat operations. Where security assistance is funded from outside the military, such direct support is funded by the FID-providing nation's military budget, generally do not involve providing equipment, and may not involve direct training of the host country's forces by the nation providing FID assistance. The external nation may train internal trainers, and work with the host nation in civil-military operations.
Civil-military operations, under the FID model, include providing services to the local population. Jointly providing such services indirectly trains the local military in skills including logistics, preventive and reactive medicine, communications, and intelligence operations. Realistically, the FID force will retain some self-defense capability, although geopolitical considerations may make that quite low-profile.
Direct support (not involving combat operations) involve the use of US forces providing direct assistance to the HN civilian populace or military. They differ from SA in that they are joint- or Service-funded, do not usually involve the transfer of arms and equipment, and do not usually but may include training local military forces.
Direct support operations are normally conducted when the HN has not attained self-sufficiency and is faced with social, economic, or military threats beyond its capability to handle. Assistance will normally focus on civil-military operations (primarily, the provision of services to the local populace), psychological operations, communications and intelligence sharing, and logistic support. The decision to conduct US combat operations in FID operations is the President's and serves only as a temporary solution until HN forces are able to stabilize the situation and provide security for the populace. In all cases, US combat operations support the HN IDAD program and remain strategically defensive in nature.
Read more about this topic: Foreign Internal Defense
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