The 2nd Security Force Assistance Brigade command team cases the colors for the last time during an inactivation ceremony Nov. 26, 2025, at Fort Bragg, N.C. The 2nd SFAB’s mission included advising and assisting African allies and partners. (Alison Strout/U.S. Army)
An Army brigade that specializes in training foreign troops was inactivated this week in connection with the service’s broader transformation plans, which have implications for how it partners with militaries worldwide.
The 2nd Security Force Assistance Brigade, which focused primarily on training counterparts in the Middle East and Africa, ended its mission Wednesday during a ceremony at Fort Bragg, N.C., Security Force Assistance Command said in a statement.
Activated in 2018 and most recently under U.S. Africa Command, the unit carried out its first overseas mission in Afghanistan in 2019, the command said.
The unit’s end is likely a harbinger of more changes to come for the SFAB command structure. The Army launched the advisory brigade initiative back in 2017.
The program eventually grew to five active component SFABs and one other linked with the Army National Guard.
However, Army budget plans call for supporting just two SFABs in the future, the Congressional Research Office said in a July report, which noted that the service hasn’t specified which four units would be cut.
The 2nd appears to be the first such unit to see its mission officially end.
“This brigade has embodied what it means to advise, assist, and strengthen our partners across the globe,” Col. Mathew Bunch, leader of Security Force Assistance Command, said in the statement.
Training foreign militaries has long been a focus of the Army and was a major aspect of the service’s mission during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The mission often forced the Army to pull apart its traditional combat brigades to build small training-and-advising units.
At the time, the Army saw the SFAB structure as a way to enable traditional brigades to remain focused on their main mission, training to fight.
But now it’s looking to trim in areas not directly related to boosting U.S firepower, as the service seeks to align with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s April directive to prioritize building “lethality.”
“This initiative will reexamine all requirements and eliminate unnecessary ones, (as well as) ruthlessly prioritize fighting formations,” the Army’s top two leaders, Secretary Dan Driscoll and Gen. Randy George, said in a joint letter to the force in May.
Some proponents of the SFAB system, however, say there are downsides to eliminating such units.
“SFABs elevate deterrence by making any potential adversary face a more networked and prepared coalition,” three Army officers wrote in a July essay for the Modern War Institute at West Point.
“A partner force that trains regularly with American advisors, speaks a common operational language, and can leverage US systems in a crisis is far more resilient — and from an adversary’s perspective, more dangerous — than one left to fend for itself,” the authors wrote.
A May story by Task & Purpose that cited Army officials said there were also plans to cut the Europe-focused 4th SFAB and the Guard’s 54th SFAB to get more of those troops into frontline units.
It wasn’t immediately clear Friday whether U.S. Army Europe and Africa still uses the 4th SFAB.
