Such officers possess a unique combination of strategic focus and regional expertise, with political, cultural, sociological, economic, and geographic awareness.
They advise senior leaders on political-military operations and relations with other nations, provide cultural expertise to forward-deployed commands conducting military operations, build and maintain long-term relationships with foreign leaders, develop and coordinate security cooperation, execute security assistance programs with host nations, and develop reports on diplomatic, information, military, and economic activities.
In 2022, the functional area specialties were consolidated from 8 categories down to 5 different categories, including the merging of multiple Asian-concentrated areas down to just one, as well as various other changes:[3] The Army Reserve has a small corps of FAOs who mostly serve in operational and back-up roles at the Defense Attaché Service as Reserve A/ARMAs, and at the Geographical Combatant Commands as Pol-Mil Officers and Country Desk Officers.
PAS development begins in conjunction with Intermediate Developmental Education, at around 10–12 years of commissioned service, and officers serve in similar positions as FAO officers do, but perform duties that require a broad knowledge of political-military affairs rather than regional expertise with foreign language skills.
FAOs are required to maintain their language skills at or above a minimum level (ILR scale reading 2/listening 2/speaking 1+) for the remainder of their career.
As such, these officers tend to have had substantial international experience in their civilian careers that augments the military backgrounds of their AC FAO colleagues.
For combat support activities, such oversight is conducted in conjunction with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
This office's main responsibilities are to oversee and manage the implementation of a comprehensive Department-wide Language Transformation Roadmap; identify policy, procedural, and resource needs associated with providing needed language capability; oversee policy regarding the development, management, and utilization of civilian employees and members of the Armed Forces; and conduct research and analyze studies, reports, and lessons learned from the Global War on Terrorism and current military operations as they pertain to language and regional area expertise.