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. The 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. European advisors during the American Revolution 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. Soviet military advisors The Soviet Union deployed military advisors in (for example) Spain, China and Angola, where "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." In China, the "Soviet Union ..sent about 1500 military advisors ..during this period [1937-39]. 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." United Kingdom military advisors T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") became arguably the archetypal British military advisor due to his guerrilla role (1916–1918) in the Arab Revolt. United States military advisors Developing capabilities and increasing capacity through advising is an operation the U.S. Army has conducted for more than one hundred years. The Army has performed advisory missions to increase the capability and capacity of foreign militaries from the Philippine Insurrection at the beginning of the 20th century to more recent conflicts in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. advisors in Vietnam In the early 1960s elements of the U.S. Army Special Forces and Echo 31 went to South Vietnam as military advisors to train and assist the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) for impending actions against the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN). United States Marines also filled a significant role as advisors to Vietnamese forces. U.S. advisors during the War on Terror Combat advisors served during the U.S. war on terror. They were designated as Embedded Training Teams (ETTs) in Afghanistan and as Military Transition Teams (MTTs) in Iraq. These soldiers and Marines live with their Afghan and Iraqi counterparts (often in very austere and stoic