ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the important role that U.S. Operations and Planning Assistance Training Teams (OPATTs) played in helping the El Salvadoran government successfully end its 12-year civil war in 1992. This “minimalist” approach to counterinsurgency is occasionally referred to as the “Salvador Model” and often touted as a success, yet it could have been far more effective had the OPATTs been employed at the beginning of the war. The chapter describes how the field advisory mission evolved into the creation of the OPATTs, a wholly unique organization at the time. It also discusses some of the challenges the mission faced, including a lack of unity of effort and an arbitrary and low “manpower limit” that constrained the program’s effectiveness.
