Military advisor

Military advisors or combat advisors are military personnel deployed to advise on military matters. The term is often used for soldiers sent to foreign countries to aid such countries' militaries with their military education and training, organization, and other various military tasks.

Foreign powers or organizations may send such soldiers to support countries or insurgencies while minimizing the risks of potential casualties and avoiding the political ramifications of overtly mobilizing military forces to aid an ally.

The French Marquis de Lafayette and the Prussian Baron von Steuben offered key assistance to the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War of 1775–1783.

The Soviet Union deployed military advisors in places like Spain, China, and Angola. "The 1976 treaty of friendship and cooperation provided for Soviet-Angolan military cooperation in strengthening the mutual defense capacity. Moscow immediately provided weaponry and supplies, and some 500 military advisors."

"The Soviet Union also sent about 1500 military advisors to China during this period [1937-1939]. Included were some of the Red Army's best officers [...] Georgii Zhukov [...] Vasilii I. Chuikov [...] P.F. Batitsky [...] Andrey A. Vlasov [...]. Like Spain, China served as a training ground for Soviet officers."

During the Spanish Civil War, Germany deployed a large number of "volunteers," also known as the Condor Legion, to serve as mercenaries and pilots to assist the nationalist forces. Approximately 300 out of a total of 16,000 German citizens fighting in the war were killed.

During the interwar period, German military advisors under Alexander von Falkenhausen were involved in modernising the National Revolutionary Army.

The German Empire sent advisors to the Ottoman Empire, notably generals such as Otto Liman Von Sanders and Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz.