12 Questions for a Writer: Frank Sobchak

Frank Sobchak is a retired Special Forces officer, PhD, and historian. His latest effort is professionally useful, reads like a popular history, and tells the warts and all story of combat advising.

1.     Who are you, what have you written, and why?

I’m Frank Sobchak, a retired Special Forces Colonel with 26 years of service and deployments to Kuwait, Kosovo, and Iraq.  After getting out of the Army, I went back to school and completed a PhD, which formed the basis for my book, Training for Victory: U.S. Special Forces Advisory Missions from El Salvador to Afghanistan.  I decided to write the book because of a curious puzzle.  The U.S. spent billions trying to build capable Iraqi and Afghan security forces, but failed catastrophically, with a few notable exceptions.  The Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) fought a classic retrograde across northern Iraq, preventing Baghdad from falling to ISIS and giving time for coalition forces to muster.  In Afghanistan, the Afghan Commandos helped hold the perimeter circling the Kabul airport as their country disintegrated around them. What was it that made those efforts at building partners successful, while other efforts were colossal military disasters?  Training for Victory answers that question by looking at those Special Forces advisory efforts as well as in El Salvador, The Philippines, and Colombia. 

2.     What is it that draws you to writing generally?

I started my academic career as a historian, and, while it might sound a bit odd, I really enjoyed doing research.  I love discovering things during research and see the process a little bit like what happens on CSI television shows.  There is a mystery or a puzzle that begs to be understood and explained, and it is fun to work through different methods to try and figure things out. 

3.     Despite beginning as a doctoral thesis, a product not always known for being compelling reading, this book IS both interesting and fun to read. How hard was it to make it so?

Thank you so much for the kind words! I have some scar tissue on this topic…  My dissertation was around 150k words, and I had to cut that down to 100k for publication, so it took considerable effort to translate it from academic jargon and scientific variables into something more enjoyable to read.  That said, I used quotes and vignettes from the veterans of the different missions, and they have some amazing stories to tell.

4.     Training for Victory is an exhaustively researched book. Tell us about the process you undertook to write it.

Thank you, I definitely worked hard at it.  The first thing I had to do was to figure out how I would evaluate how effective each unit was.  There are volumes upon volumes on how military effectiveness is defined (and, spoiler alert, we didn’t do a great job at “measuring” this during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), so determining that was no easy task.  Next, I had to determine what factors I would study to assess the different advisory efforts: basically, what did each one do differently? Then I conducted 109 original interviews of participants.  I was also able to obtain large amounts of declassified and unclassified primary source documents through archival research and donations from veterans.

5.     What did you learn in the writing process and what surprised you?

At my peak, I was a 2+/2+/3 in Modern Standard Arabic, and 3/3 in Spanish, and was proud of being a strong linguist.  In Iraq, I loved doing a “circus act” where in mixed company (American and Iraqi forces), I would talk completely in Arabic.  It was fun to see U.S. officers slowly- and incredulously- process “wait-WHAT!? that American dude is speaking in only in Arabic” and then order their interpreters to translate me into English. I give that as context because my finding on language skills was difficult for me to come to terms with at first. It really surprised me that advisors didn’t have to speak the host nation’s language to produce a combat effective SOF partner force at the tactical level.

6.     Who should read this book and why?

This book should be of interest to anyone interested in national security.  Working with partner forces and building allied armies is a core function of modern warfare, whether it be in Iraq and Afghanistan or Ukraine and Taiwan.  Training for Victory helps demystify those missions and provide best practices that can help future operations.  Likewise, those who are security force assistance professionals or advisors would find great value in the case studies, vignettes, and lessons of the book.  And those who simply enjoy reading of the exploits of elite forces such as the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, or “Green Berets,” will also enjoy the book.

7.     Would you write another book?

Absolutely.  Finishing a book is like finishing a marathon, with a similar sense of accomplishment once you are done.  I have three different options that I’m looking at currently for my next project, and (lol) will likely go with whichever one I can get funded and supported by my publisher!

8.     What do you want people to take away from this book?

Some pundits and academics would have you think that America can’t build foreign militaries and that such efforts are destined to fail.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Our failures during the post-9/11 wars occurred because we did not prioritize force structure or funding for security force assistance before the wars, and instead relied on ad-hoc efforts that had little historical knowledge of what worked or didn’t work.  Training for Victory highlights examples of where the U.S. was able to build capable partners.

9.     What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

Never quit.  You will have good days and bad days.  On the good days it is like uncovering hidden treasures that you get to reveal to the world.  On the bad days, you just have to focus and be disciplined and keep forward progress and momentum.  For days like that, it can be like working in a factory where you just have to keep producing words on the production line.  Fortunately, I had more good than bad days in this book. I would also say never fall in love with your own writing.  Editing is critical and you are probably your own best editor.  A rule of thumb that I have come to is that on a first draft, fully one-third of my work is extraneous and should be cut.  And your work will always be better when you leave words on the cutting room floor.  Succinctness is holiness.

10.  What is your favorite book and why?

There are so many that it is extremely difficult to identify just one.  That said, I have always been a fan of George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair), an intellectual who hated authoritarianism but who could write in ways that everyone could understand and appreciate.  Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four are fabulous works that are every bit as relevant today as when they were first published.

11.  You’re a Special Forces officer writing about Special Forces and in some cases, operations in which you played a role. How hard was it to remain objective in the effort?

I was fortunate to have a very tough dissertation committee that would not allow me to take any shortcuts.  They questioned every assumption and conclusion and examined every piece of evidence to make sure that my writing was solid.  Nonetheless, it is a difficult task that requires constant attention and safeguards.  Cross-referencing interviews with each other and with documentary evidence was critical, and it helped to talk to participants of all nationalities, ranks, and roles (including those not SF qualified but involved in the missions). I actually went into the effort thinking that the Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) would be the most effective partner forces produced out of the five case studies, which showed my initial bias from being in one of the Special Forces Groups involved in their training, but the evidence revealed that the Colombian SOF (AGLAN and BACOA) were far better than they were.

12.  What have I not asked that I should have?

“You note that the language skills of the advisors aren’t as important as we think they are towards building combat-effective partners during long missions.  Why is that?”  This challenges a core orthodoxy within the advisory communities and budget priorities worth millions of dollars and I literally have people who want to fight me over this finding.  While the explanation is complex, it is because of the length of the mission, the importance of rapport-building skills and tactical proficiency over language, and the fungibility of communication skills from one language to another.

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Order Training for Victory here, here, or here. Read the review in the November volume of Lethal Minds Journal.