The Department of the Navy is in the final stages of completing revisions to its Foreign Area Officer (FAO) Program, a program mandated by the Defense Department last April. Rear Adm. (sel.) Phil Cullom, N5SP director of strategy and policy, said the purpose of the community is to work relations between the State Department and the Defense Department at a foreign embassy and to facilitate naval forces that would come into an area so that they could be effective with the host nation. "This community will help us win 'the long war' in ways we probably thought were not as important in the past," said Cullom. Also as an FAO, an officer could be attached to a fleet commander and provide cultural expertise to assist with relations with the fleet commander's area of responsibility.