GAO Report Confirms Civil Planning Need

New GAO report out on US Stability Operations capability and reform (link here is to pdf). From the exec summary:

DOD has taken several steps to improve planning for stability operations, but faces challenges in developing capabilities and measures of effectiveness, integrating the contributions of non-DOD agencies into military contingency plans, and incorporating lessons learned into future plans. These challenges may hinder DOD’s ability to develop sound plans. Since November 2005, the department issued a new policy, expanded its military planning guidance, and defined a joint operating concept to help guide DOD planning for the next 15–20 years. These steps reflect a fundamental shift in DOD’s policy because they elevate stability operations as a core mission comparable to combat operations and emphasize that military and civilian efforts must be integrated. However, DOD has yet to identify and prioritize the full range of capabilities needed for stability operations because DOD has not provided clear guidance on how and when to accomplish this task. As a result, the services are pursuing initiatives to address capability shortfalls that may not reflect the comprehensive set of capabilities that will be needed by combatant commanders to effectively accomplish stability operations in the future. Similarly, DOD has made limited progress in developing measures of effectiveness because of weaknesses in DOD’s guidance.

DOD is taking steps to develop more comprehensive military plans related to stability operations, but it has not established adequate mechanisms to facilitate and encourage interagency participation in its planning efforts. At the combatant commands, DOD has established working groups with representatives from several key organizations, but these groups and other outreach efforts by the commanders have had limited effect. Three factors cause this limited and inconsistent interagency participation in DOD’s planning process: (1) DOD has not provided specific guidance to commanders on how to integrate planning with non-DOD organizations, (2) DOD practices inhibit sharing of planning information, and (3) DOD and non-DOD organizations lack a full understanding of each other's planning processes, and non-DOD organizations have had a limited capacity to participate in DOD's full range of planning activities.

Although DOD collects lessons learned from past operations, planners are not consistently using this information as they develop future contingency plans. At all levels within the department, GAO found that information from current and past operations are being captured and incorporated into various databases. However, planners are not consistently using this information because (1) DOD’s guidance for incorporating lessons into its plans is outdated and does not specifically require planners to take this step, (2) accessing lessons-learned databases is cumbersome, and (3) the review process does not evaluate the extent to which lessons learned are incorporated into specific plans.

The report then confirms what I have said before (in "The Most Unsexy Headline Ever: Planning Capabilities in the Inter-Agency Process"): We need civil planning - or at least: planning for the civilian side of contingency plans. And nobody - including internationally - has the knowhow and the resources to do it but Pentagon.

The Most Unsexy Headline Ever: Planning Capabilities in the Inter-Agency Process

The USG inter-agency process* is dependent upon the planning capabilities of the Pentagon - and maybe it shouldn't be. Increasingly, the inter-agency process is the center of gravity for the United States' aggregate security capabilities (for simplifying reasons, let's stick here to the functional phases of conflict as conceptualized within US defense - phases zero to IV. Obviously, not all conflicts contain use of armed force). But only the US Department of Defense has extensive planning and business development sections working on generalized and concrete preparations for pre-conflict and post-conflict issues.

No-one doubts that the US rules phase III - major combat operations. But the US is not amassing the potential power it has for phases zero and IV. The latter refers to postconflict and the former to preconflict. To each of these belong at set of tasks that are more or less well-described and more or less well-understood. Post-conflict is a more well-described in terms of probable solutions and possibly better understood than pre-conflict. This is because post-conflict is more clearly a challenge for concrete organizations - ours, at least to begin with.

Post-conflict refers to both a complex organizational and logistic task (establishing country and government-wide administrative functioning organizations through military and civilian capabilities while/and handing them over to the host nation) and a strategic task namely identifying the wanted host national endstate, in fucntion of feasibility and ambitions (the choice is evidently shaped by political and anthropological both ramifications and limitations). To this effect, JFCOM has created the SSTR JOC which describes in general terms the challenges and is used as basis for doctrine development; Pentagon has issued the DoD Directive 3000.05, which sets SSTR Ops on par with major combat operations (i.e. the military has to be able to brak stuff efficiently and to hand over the pieces to subsequent civilian authority in accordance with the overall, wanted political endstate); and State has been given coordinate authority over phase IV so that the military in principle only has a supportive function - the chief of State's Office for the Coordinator of Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) is in charge of coordinating this particular element in the inter-agency process (not really sure how it/he formally ties in with the NSC which is in charge of the overall process).

Pre-conflict on the other hand is about identifying and addressing - ultimately managing - emerging conflicts so that they do not evolve into something we cannot live with for humanitarian or security reasons, or both. If we put on the USG glasses then, in principle, this challenge calls for both civilian and security (military and covert) means, because the challenge in itself has a political and anthropological character - it cannot be purely military. Much of the existing framework of international organizations and here especially the UN deals with pre-conflict. Development policy itself is a central piece in this puzzle. Conceiving of development policy as a means in to a pre-conflict management end is controversial but helpful.

Pre-conflict there has not recieved the same institutional attention as post-conflict. Only the JFCOM is developing a new Joint Operating Concept for 'Shaping' operations. The CINC at AFRICOM will be likely to get the responsibility for contingency planning like the other CINCs have. A number of these will be proper war plans. The majority will likely deal with evacuation, humanitarian assistance and especially FID, COIN and counterterrorism - foreign internal defense operations and (support to) counterinsurgency. But the most consequential work, if the AFRICOM commander gets it right, will be based on the conceptual work being done on pre-conflict issues.

There is an institutional trap here: the military traditionally is very strong in war planning. In its self-understanding the military exists to carry out major missions. These are represented in war and contingency plans. But the pre-conflict logic is more civilian, oriented towards day-to-day process of political subjects (but it is at the same time more general, strategic than a war plan case). The challenge for both JFCOM and AFRICOM will be to enhance the pre-conflict stuff to the same institutional importance as those threats that can be addressed through war planning.

The military develops and produces contingency planning and joint concepts at COCOM and JFCOM levels. No such equivalent exists within the civilian apparatus. The US military has some unique institutional strengths in planning and concept development, both in terms of talent and numbers, and in terms of formalization of process. The civilian side could learn a lot from these guys.

But there is an institutional imbalance here. Neither State Department or the NSC have ressources for strategic planning comparable to Pentagon's. Pentagon is 'only' responsible for developing plans and JOCs in support of the overall USG inter-agency process on pre- and post-conflict where the civilian agencies are in the lead. One solution is of course for e.g. the AFRICOM commander to involve or integrate civilian agencies very much up front in strategic planning and forecasting. But even if this is an understandable and pragmatic approach there is something lopsided about a process that will then hinge the institutitional setup of carrying out US foreign policy (State's domain) on the individual character of e.g. the AFRICOM commander. In the end, pre-conflict management can then be boiled down to whether the given commander 'gets' the political and anthropological stuff.

That seems like an unnecessarily contingent element. Maybe State Department or the NSC should get into the conceptual development and planning work on their own account so that they get a better - more strictly institutionalized - chance of getting heard? That might also ensure, that the military winds up with less situations where they are formally in a supportive function while really having to do it all.


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* For the non-US reader: the 'inter-agency process' is the term describing the policy coordination going on inside US Government (USG). The National Security Council is the agency responsible for the process concerning national security matters.

Civilian SSTR Planning: NSC or Private Sector Lead

There's a huge need for a civilian planning capacity related to SSTR and post-conflict situations (I have written about this before). This need may be the single most important element in the organizational transformation need to prepare ourselves for the next time around.

This blog often takes an American perspective - or looks primarily at American developments. This is because US leadership is paramount. Whatever happens elsewhere is likely to be to small to be consequential or effective. But this doesn't mean that other countries - notably the UK or e.g. Denmark - could not in theory either develop interesting concepts or organizational innovations which might either be of use or inspiration to the US institutions (as in e.g. the PCRU).

Establishing better integrated military-civilian planning is the only way to construct a strategically realistic "total cost of life" approach to future interventions. Such an approach should make clear e.g. the need for civilian (local or external) police forces. Of course, the Dobbins Handbook gives hints but we need more concrete planning.

Evidently, the Pentagon is not going to open their warplanning to civilians - not even the NSC. But it would be helpful if the civilian side could at least know that the Pentagon planning process had or will be reformed in accordance with the DoD Directive 3000.05 (the problem is here that the NSPD 44 formally gives State the lead, and the S/CRS does not have resources even remotely comparable to OSD, Pentagon itself or even JFCOM.

Of course, some of this planning stuff could be produced or at least introduced in generic form by the private and international public sector - here preferably the non-profit side - like e.g. a combination of UN people (from the UNDP plus the Peace-building Commission) and relevant think-tankers like the Dobbins people, and maybe concerted or hosted by the ICG. But in purely US terms, the NSC could play such a role.

The NSC seems to be the only place where funds can be found for this kind of exercise (given substantive executive interest, i.e. will not happen until the next administration). But this means that now would be a good time to spread such and idea in order for it to be somewhere on the upcoming administrations' agendas. Richard Clarke's great "Against All Enemies" explains and exemplifies how an adept operator can help create leeway for interagency policy development inside the NSC. In fact, as he mentions explicitly, he was part of the process for creating POL-MIL plans starting with Haiti. So the nuts and bolts and precedence are there. As always it is more a matter of political will and focus than anything else.

Pentagon Ups Inter-Agency Capability

Good stuff: this is most important piece of Pentagon reorganization news since the NSPD 44 and the DoD Directive 3000 (extensive quote, but its worth it):

The Pentagon announced on Aug. 28 that it would create a new assistant secretary's position to help coordinate inter-agency operations. Mid-level U.S. military officers will also begin to receive intensive instruction on the planning and command of overseas operations in partnership with civilian agencies. The military is seeking to embed the lessons learned during flawed inter-agency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and protect its own primary leadership role in future overseas interventions. The Pentagon-led effort in Iraq is faltering, but the Department of Defense (DoD) is determined to retain its leading role in planning and executing U.S. operations abroad. To this end, it is seeking to strengthen its role "coordinating" the activities of civilian agencies:

Inter-agency training: Courses at the joint-service National War College and the Army, Air Force and Navy/Marine Corps Staff Colleges are designed to prepare lieutenant colonel-level officers for progression to the most senior ranks. This year, they will also include higher numbers of mid-level officials seconded from civilian agencies.

Iraqi lessons: In Iraq and Afghanistan, the military was poorly prepared for the transitions from war fighting to stabilization and reconstruction operations. The Pentagon hopes that the joint training of senior officers and civilian officials will help establish routine inter-agency cooperation and consultation.

Maintaining control: Although conducted in a spirit of common purpose, the new courses are also an act of self-preservation on the part of the Pentagon. The relative standing of the military and civilian agencies in planning and commanding "multi-agency" operations is in a state of flux and could yet fall between three broad models:

Continued Pentagon dominance: In the wake of the Iraqi experience, future operations are likely to have a significantly enhanced civilian presence at every stage of the planning process. However, civilian agencies may continue to report to the commanding military officer.

Joint military-civilian control: Operations planning may evolve into a dual command structure, with military and civilian commanders sharing authority.

Civilian leadership: An unlikely, but conceivable outcome could be overall civilian command of future operations, with the military performing specific supporting tasks.

In 2004, the administration created a new State Department-based Office of the Coordinator for Stabilization and Reconstruction (S/CRS), a move that was widely interpreted as confirming a shift towards the joint military-civilian command model. However, in practice, the creation of the S/CRS has raised more questions than it has answered about the military-civilian operational relationship:

-- Although based in the State Department and headed by a senior ambassador, the new office has drawn many of its personnel from within the DoD. It has also relied heavily on DoD contingency funding and has worked alongside the operational commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan.

-- The emergence of the S/CRS as a partner to the military in the planning and command processes has coincided with the re-classification of stabilization and reconstruction operations, by the DoD, as a "core" military activity.

This new assistant secretary position along with the initiatives is a very welcome element in implementing the whole ability of the US military to not only conceive of war within a context of everything else (in the words of Thomas P. M. Barnett). But also act that way: in a proper Clausewitzian fashion, that is seing its core job to be a functional element within a larger - political - process were the use of force is not an end in itself, and the mastering of this ability therefore cannot be the sole focus in training, management, doctrine ... in short, in pratice.

Too busy to describe further ramifications, but they include questions like: will this add to a clearer division of labor within US foreign policy (State vs. DoD)? Will they both try to cherry pick the juiciest pieces and leave the hard stuff unassigned? Will the division of labor and cooperation include and to which degree successfully the UN response organizations, NATO and NATO country equivalents of USAID? How much support and weight does the new under secretary get in the Pentagon internal game? Etc.

Anyway, this is truly good news. Danish readers may consult my DIIS-report Transition til statsbygning efter intervention (i.e. Transition to state-building after intervention) from October last year, which included recommendations in this direction. Related earlier posts include (earliest first):

* Blair's Long War Vision
* The Barnier Report: Slow Step Towards A European State-Building Agency
* USAID's Office of Military Affairs
* UN Peacebuilding Commission: Good, but Still Dependent on the Pentagon
* Cato's Critique of S/CRS is Wrong
* A Civilian Transportation Command?
* Transitioning Rocks: Will DoD and State Deliver?

USAID's Office of Military Affairs

The implementation of US policy reform in the area of post-conflict capabilities in the form of inter-agency cooperation and coordination has moved even faster than the publication of the policy documents: as mentioned earlier, the DoD Directive 3000 and the National Security Presidential Directive 44 (NSPD) each institutionalize the new policies regarding the essential necessity of post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction at the Pentagon and the State Department respectively. The Dod D3000 called for further coordination between the Pentagon and other post-conflict/S&R organization stakeholders, including civil society NGO's; while the NSPD 44 gave State the formal lead role for the entire post-conflict process.

Apparently, the goodbye from USAID director Andrew Natsios last month was preceeded, not followed, by changes in the US State Department and Development aid institutional setup: back in late October USAID announced the creation of a new Office of Military Affairs in order to "better coordinate development assistance efforts":

Washington - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is building a partnership with the U.S. military to improve coordination in humanitarian relief efforts. Speaking October 19 at a public hearing of the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid, Michael Hess, assistant administrator for USAID's Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, announced the formation of a new USAID office to coordinate humanitarian efforts, planning and doctrine with the U.S. Department of Defense and the State Department. (...) "Since post-conflict reconstruction is a pillar of the U.S. national security strategy, it is imperative for USAID to have an operational link with the military on how to better coordinate strategic development goals," Hess said.

According to Hess, the Office of Military Affairs will place senior USAID development professionals in staff positions on the five geographic unified Combatant Commands -- Central Command, Southern Command, Northern Command, Pacific Command and European Command -- to assist military professionals in assessing development needs and priorities. In addition to the staff positions with the Combatant Commands, Hess said USAID also plans to participate in joint exercises with the military to add development issues to military planning as well as to "maintain emergency response readiness" for future disasters and conflicts.

"The Office for Military Affairs will also serve as a contact point to increase working relationships between nongovernmental organizations and the U.S. military," he said. "NGOs often have tremendous operational experience in working in various environments and their input into the development process will allow the United States to be more efficient in administering humanitarian assistance," Hess said. (...)Finally, Hess cited recent successes in joint cooperation between USAID and the military through numerous humanitarian operations in Indonesia following the December 2004 earthquake and tsunami. However, he noted the experience demonstrated the need for "a strategic planning relationship between USAID and the military." (emphasis added).

The new OMA looks like a classic unit for operations, policy and best practice coordination, i.e. what is usually done in order to overcome inter-agency coordination challenges (like, e.g. the CIA's OMA). The official press release refers to this issue of a State e-journal for more info on US military relief and humanitarian assitance efforts. Traditionally, USAID operations have been decoupled somewhat from regular State operations in order to ensure continuity of development initiatives regardless of the political whims of the day. The interesting thing in the announcement is the untroubled mix of "both kinds" of the development world, i.e. both humanitarian assistance/relief and "strategic development goals": one thing is to coordinate and share best practice knowledge for better planning and execution of humanitarian relief efforts -- another is to more deeply coordinate general development aid with military objectives.

As the GWOT from a Pentagon perspective looks set to change into a "Long War" (and here) with a perspective of general democratic transformation and thus far broader political goals the latter would be a logical continuation of the policy directives. Connecting and coordinating between two perceived extremes of US foreign policy is both administratively logical and in practice a revolutionary change.

The question is of course who will get to have what say as the Pentagon moves into more political territory. The humanitarian "left" will be wont to fear a militarily dictated development policy, which will then be not only less efficient because more short-sighted, but also subject to suspiciousness in the donor countries as the ostensible non-political character of development aid is more clearly mixed with security interests. Those within military circles on the other hand, who prize warrior spirit and the perceived Clausewitzian legacy of a functional separation between military and civilian realms of action will be supsicious as to the potential of getting stuck within a largely "soft" political and humanitarian universe, leaving them unprepared for the "real challenges".

Shaping: Clever Slide and New Name

Just a few notes on the coming Shaping JOC. There is a remarkably clever graphic in the 2005 JFCOM capstone document which clearly deserves wider attention. It shows the move from a sequential conception of conflict management (like wagons on a train) to a parallel conceptualization; and also a move from a purely military to an integrated, political conceptualization of the conflict phases. Note e.g. the role of Stabilization and Reconstruction in violet and orange. I can only blame myself for not flipping through the appendixes earlier, but here goes:

Phases, however, tend to imply a sequential approach to campaigns with an associated lack of flexibility and inadequately reflect the importance of integrated effort among all interagency players. The CCJO acknowledges that “complex adaptive” adversaries and other situations will demand an integrated and flexible approach. A new campaign framework should provide a means to plan, execute and assess campaigns in an integrated manner. This appendix retains the traditional phase titles and includes proposed new phase titles--portrayed as lines of effort (Figure D-1).
Instead of showing these lines of effort in a traditional horizontal array, however, it stacks them vertically, emphasizing the potential for all lines of effort to be applicable throughout a campaign. The lines of effort represent the activities in which a JFC must engage to successfully accomplish objectives during a campaign. They are titled Shape, Deter, Seize Initiative, Dominate, Stabilize and Enable Civil Authority. The aggregate of all lines of effort equate to the full level of effort necessary (in planning or execution) or available (in execution or assessment) to accomplish objectives. (...)

The simultaneous execution of activities within each line of effort reinforces the need to continuously consider activities across all lines of effort during campaign planning and execution. This approach also captures the proportionate levels of activity that may be required to achieve priority objectives. In so doing, it helps the JFC visualize the required activities for future transitions and subsequent operations, reflecting increasing or decreasing levels of effort. As the campaign is executed, the JFC acquires knowledge, extends reach and creates effects. Concurrently, the JFC assesses the changing operational environment and varies the amount of effort within each applicable line while focusing on a series of priority objectives that contribute to achieving the strategic objective. The level of effort will vary depending on the type of operation, and the actual events that occur. Figure D-2 depicts a proportional level of effort for a notional campaign where actual events have modified the framework from what was originally planned (Figure D-1).
Lines of effort demonstrate a more sophisticated approach the future joint force could take in planning, executing, and analyzing campaigns. Although all lines of effort are considered concurrently, some lines will be given priority due to their relevance to the specific objectives assigned. Identifying priorities will help the JFC allocate and re-allocate resources between lines of effort. Figures 1 and 2 reflect the likely need for multiple instruments of national power to engage based on the objectives and therefore helps reinforce the need to integrate interagency activities throughout the campaign.

The 'lines of operation' concept necessitates a broader civil-military (or: properly strategic) conceptualization of conflict. It therefore basically synthesizes the basic challenge in modern warfare and conflict management we are faced with. This includes the clausewitzian goals of transitioning to and from civil ownership of the aggregate process, and the implication of COIN approximate wider political, administrative and economic means and ends. These thoughts looks like a path way toward what Antulio J. Echevarria called for - from a way of battle to a way of war in a proper clausewitzian (i.e. political) context.

Another thing is that apparently, it is likely that the JOC will have its name changed as 'shaping' carries a too meddling connotation. The possible change is understandable to the extent that it follows the same logic as the CENTCOM reasoning behind giving up on the Long War concept.

But it is less sensible if the change merely results in newspeak, i.e. if the JOC will not refer to actual "meddling" practices (with the risk of rendering the exercise futile). Of course, we are here in the midst of the whole, very politically laden "post colonial" debate - over sovereignty. Personally, I'm all for calling things what they are - and it seems that some euphemisms in the development policy circuit could be done without. But that is (albeit only slightly) a different matter.

Marine Corps Humanitarian Task Forces

The need for military capabilities other than the perceived essential task of warfighting is evident - indeed it has been central to e.g. what the Marine Corps and the US Army have been doing in practice since at least the mid 19th century.

This is something that the Navy and Marine Corps has always done,. LeFevre said, "and now we’re planning doing it."

Indeed, the Marine Corps is now counting on putting together battalion size humanitarian task forces (from military.com):

Marines and sailors are not diplomats and they can’t make foreign policy. But at sea and in foreign ports they can and have practiced a kind of diplomacy that has benefited the United States in peace and war.

And now the Corps is incorporating those kinds of missions into its mission planning with the creation of Security Cooperation Marine Air-Ground Task Forces, built around the standard infantry-battalion unit but tweaked to emphasize humanitarian aid, medical and civil operations. (...) As envisioned, the new MAGTFs sometimes would be deployed for emergencies, and sometimes when there is no urgency but where its presence can do good and generate good will for the United States, said Marine Lt. Gen. Richard Natonski deputy commandant of plans, policies and operations, during a discussion on strategic engagement and maritime diplomacy March 19 at the annual Sea Air Space Exposition in Washington, D.C. The SC MAGTF would be manned and equipped to carry out anything from military training of foreign forces to humanitarian, civil and medical operations, he said.

These kinds of missions have paid diplomatic and strategic dividends in the past, Natonski argued, including in the period building up for the invasion of Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. and, later, Iraq. Rear Adm. Michael LeFevre, director of military personnel, plans and policy division, said the cooperation the U.S. got for staging or moving forces through a number of Middle Eastern countries near or bordering those countries was due in part of relationships built between the sea services’ leadership and senior officials in the various governments.

On general level, this is both a welcome development as the US military is the only organization with global reach and since it therefore always gets these kinds of assignments (in disaster response e.g.) it makes sense to formalize what has for a long time been part of tasking. Moreover, the Barcelona Report (pdf) called for the development of humanitarian brigades in the European context, aimed at fulfilling somewhat comparable tasks - an example of the sense of utility. Of course, these were envisaged more like deployable PRTs with large constituent of civilians. But as these have been in short supply and less forthcoming in e.g. Afghanistan - and as the military, as said, will always be the organization of last resort - then it makes sense to plan for what will inevitably come their way anyway.

Of course, there's in principle and in operational terms a huge difference between preparing for disaster response and fighting a counterinsurgency campaign. But a the strategic level, it seems of obvious importance that the US military has a continuous experience with warfighting in the context of everything else - to borrow Tom Barnett's term - and so an institutionalized understanding of the strategic connection between military operations and the political situation to which they pertain.

JFCOM: Shaping Ambition (Sort of) Implodes II

(This post is a follow up to yesterday's post, found here).

Why do I think that the apparent change in ambitions regarding the Shaping/CSE JOC is a missed opportunity?

First, a rehash of events. 1) Iraq: Invasion goes fine. Phase IV/Stabilization and Reconstruction plus handover does not. 2) December 2005, Gordon England signs DoD Directive 3000.05 which puts S&R on par with major combat operations inside US military. 3) The NSPD44 (National Security Presidential Directive) is issued. It hands ultimate responsibility for S&R/Phase IV to State. 4) State is not given substantial additional means and still has about half as many employees as Pentagon has lawyers, but does get the S/CRS: the Office of the COORDINATOR of reconstruction and stabilization. 5) S&R, which in the meantime has become SSTR gets its own JOC, which defines them as 'Military SUPPORT to Stabilization, Security, Transitioning and Reconstruction Ops'.

Why is this relevant for Shaping/CSE JOC question? Because, where Phase IV is the handover from military to civilian agencies (ours or host nation) and marks the beginning of the transition from war to peace (or regular politics) and from conflict to mere confrontation ... there Phase Zero is where prevention can happen; where initiatives are made in order to avert a conflict cycle. It is hence of crucial interest to the military. It furthermore contains many of the same civil-military dynamics and paradoxes as Phase IV. These are again the same dynamics that are in play within the COIN and interagency paradigm: How do you enable, plan for and execute a whole of government approach to issues that consist of a mix of political confrontation and possible conflict (often inside 'host nation')?

The problem is that when SSTR or Shaping/CSE doctrinally is defined as 'military support to', then the military is not the lead actor. And that makes it unlikely that the 3000.05 will get to function properly. Or that CSE will become a priority in Pentagon proper (notwithstanding the effect of the new presidency on the OSD).

There are therefore two reasons why the apparent change of ambition concerning Shaping/CSE is a missed opportunity: Mass and strategic attention. The two are related, in the sense of structured attention: If just a bit of Pentagon's structured attention gets diverted to political conflict prevention issues, then a lot will be gained. Pentagon has a budget of a size which means that a relatively small bit may equate a complete budget for other, related agencies. Only Pentagon has global logistical reach, extensive planning and analysis capability, and sufficient operational and executive mass.

The recurrent argument against dealing with the entire conflict cycle - as described in the Capstone document - is that, after all, war is about warfighting? Alas, not just. Given the means available in the Pentagon budget (again relative to State, CIA, USAid, NSC, etc) it will, in practice, be the military, which is left with the responsibility when things go awry. Just look at this chart from the great Crane/Terrill analysis from February 2003 (whole file here, pdf):


The US military - and the NATO armed forces as well - will in fact be asked to be able to if not formally manage then at least very substantially support whole conflict cycles. Or rather: They will be asked to deal extensively with the Phase IV things, as in Afghanistan, and not many civilian organizations will be there to help. Hence the PRTs.

But exactly this means that the military organizations should see an immediate self-centered interest in getting Shaping/CSE right. This not just conceptually, but also institutionally as an assured part of any two- or three-star's mindset. Shaping/CSE needs strategic attention. And a few bucks. But investing in systematic prevention planning and analysis capabilities will not be expensive.

Coming from a NATO country perspective the change in ambition for the Shaping/CSE JOC is therefore a disappointment. This kind of stuff will not emanate from NATO (SAC(T)). JFCOM needs to show intellectual leadership on this account. But, of course, I have no clue how the change played out - if there was involvement from elsewhere in the process once the scale of the ambition came clear.

And so, nonetheless, it will still be very interesting to the see the final text of the coming CS JOC.

It would be logical if Tom Barnett picked up on this, but he's busy writing the next book (and going to Springsteen concerts).

African Command: Funky Pentagon Visions

Apparently, the visions working their way around the Pentagon for the expected new African Command are far more colorful than one would have imagined just a few months ago. According to the Voice of America:

The U.S. Defense Department established a working group Monday to develop a detailed plan by early next year for a possible new Africa Command in the U.S. military structure. But an official familiar with the process says such a command could look very different from the five existing U.S. regional commands. The Pentagon has established an Implementation Planning Team, and it takes the effort to create an Africa Command to a new level of intensity. The issue has been under discussion by the staff of the top U.S. military commanders for about two months.

Now, according to a Pentagon official who requested anonymity, the effort is being expanded to involve a couple of dozen people working full time. (...) The spokesman says the Pentagon is seeking more effective ways to improve counter-terrorism cooperation, prevent and respond to humanitarian crises, and promote stability in Africa. He says the U.S. government is consulting what he calls "key foreign security partners" as the Africa Command plan is being developed. (...)

This official says, if Africa Command is created, it could look quite different from the other U.S. regional commands. Those commands are organized first and foremost to fight wars, although they are also involved in a variety of non-combat operations, such as humanitarian relief and training. The official says the planning group is considering flipping that model for Africa Command, organizing it primarily, or perhaps even exclusively, for non-combat operations designed to prevent wars.

The official also says the team working on the Africa Command issue recognizes that the continent's problems are not primarily military. He says that is why representatives of other U.S. government agencies have been brought into the process, and may also have more substantial representation in the structure of the command itself than they do in other U.S. regional commands.

Basically, then, the new African Command would deal with foreign policy: economic development and political stabilization. It will be interesting to see whether Pentagon really means it -- and will be willing to integrate and coordinate with (even on some choices subordinate itself to) e.g. USAID. The sensible international version would essentially include the already existing multilateral universe, from foreign development partners such as IMF, WB, UNDP ... and the EU, whose civil crisis management capabilities are growing and are being considered deployed to Afghanistan to support the NATO operation there.

Even merely partially played out this way would be akin to the intention of the QDR Long War conceptualization. The narrower we-didn't-mean-it-that-much version would keep African Command focussed on security issues (but as said not warfighting), meaning that it would do PKO coordination and training (like the African PKO training programmes) plus different kinds of internal assistance ranging from (military) security sector reform to foreign internal defense operations and operational assistance with counterinsurgency.

This latter model is the minimum -- but it would be interesting to see elements of the former included, at least in terms of organs for operative coordination (the inter-agency problem revisited). The challenge here is to find a way of organizing coordination without hierarchy -- between only partially aligned mission definitions and especially self-conceptions from civil multilateral to military national perspectives.

Cato's Critique of S/CRS is Wrong

Back in early January, Justin Logan and Christopher Preble, with the Cato Institute, published the first counterargument in the ongoing academic, military and policy discussion about reinforcing military and civilian post-conflict S&R capabilities: Failed States and Flawed Logic. The Case against a Standing Nation-Building Office (here, pdf).

Their argument is three-pronged: a) there is no direct necessary threat from failed states, and quantifying state failure shows this; b) the US have been doing a bad job at this before and is likely to do so again; c) the present system will be able to carry the weight if the US intervenes only when absolutely necessary. In that case, there will be no need for neither reform nor the S/CRS. My post at the time dealt with the first part of the argument (will get back to that below). The two latter parts of the argument are tied together in a weird way. Logan and Preble seem to want to have it both ways; to argue both that nationbuilding costs are inhibitive; that the US cannot learn from its mistakes ... AND that the present capabilities are sufficient provided we just don't do more, or do less, nationbuilding.

Logan/Preble's rundown of the structural challenges connected to nation-building are pretty fair: both the Defense Science Board reports, the James Dobbins/RAND reports and Quinlivan's research point to a negative structural challenge in terms of country/population size. With a 20 personnel per 1000 inhabitants requirement for ambititous operations, Quinlivan noted in 1995, some countries are simply to large to become subject to S&R (see my report's literature section for references). My report pointed to a further negative condition: the level of previously inculcated expectations of statehood. This is a far more anthropological measure, but clearly a contributing factor to success in the cases of Japan and Germany post-WWII. Unfortunately, exactly the absence of an historical legacy of successful statehood is often correlated with weak and failing states, making succes harder to obtain.

Yet, when Logan/Preble argue that "there simply is no 'model' for nation-building" it is stretching the truth -- and this weakness goes hand in hand with their attack on S/CRS for being both to small and a bureaucratic monster in spe, possibly prone to produce demand for its product.

What has changed since 9/11 is the increased attempt to shoehorn American interests into nation building. As Gary Dempsey wrote in 2002: "Liberal internationalism, in short, is back, and this time it is posing in the realist attire of national self-interest. But its utopian premise is still the same: if only we could populate the planet with “good” states, we could eradicate international conflict and terrorism." A standing nation-building office with dedicated funding and institutional support would likely become a vocal advocate of nation building. Bureaucracies are remarkably inventive in finding ways to justify their own existence. In the case of S/CRS, justifying its existence would involve agitating for a costly, dangerous course of foreign policy that would generate reconstruction and stabilization missions to work on.

The bureaucracy argument looks correct -- "if we really stink at doing something we are less likely to do so" -- but its fallout is fallacious: Anything that is worth doing is difficult. Taking into account the positive structural conditions (our input variables: time, men, money, political determination) and the negative structural conditions (situational input: size, security situation, statehood legacy) is not enough. We need the dynamic variables as well in order to estimate the future ability to conduct nation- and state-building operations. Arguing over the size of the S/CRS is missing the point. For the time being, the S/CRS has a coordinating role -- and the operative, executive and planning organizations on both sides must be included in order to fathom the machinery. This includes the Pentagon, USAID, OCHA, UNDP and the new UN Peacebuilding Commission (UNPC), and it includes all of the foreign equivalents of these organizations who are willing participate and fund such operations. The S/CRS is but a small element in this machinery, but it might prove to be very important.

With the recent realignment of USAID within State, with the (coming implementation of the) DoD Directive 3000, and the UNPC in the works, the S/CRS has the potential to be a central element in the best practice based planning and training for future interventions. The overriding conclusion of the Dobbins reports was not so much the difficulty of the operations, but that the US had been as bad as the UN (actually: worse) in learning from past mistakes. State- and Nation-building are unlikely ever to be "add water and stir"-operations but there is an incredibly amount of lessons being learned within all of the relevant policy sectors. Proposing that we cannot learn to this at the very moment where initiatives are launced in all sectors to ensure exactly knowledge accumulation is pushing the envelope of reason.

Where Logan and Preble do have a valid point is the first part of their paper: that there is an absence of direct correlation between threats to national security and failed states. That claim is valid and original, and deserves attention. This is also where their repeated call for a proper debate on nation-building is warranted. But absence of evidence of utility in the short term is not evidence of absence of utility in the medium or long term: basically, the Cato logic of minimal state interference is a function of an allready well-functioning state (i.e. the US) and is just not valid in low-quality state situations. When the GWOT becomes the Long War it will probably take a far more political turn, framing military operations according to their political effect. Rooting out terrorism can only happen through succesful development policy, which again may very well hinge on (coordination with) effective military policies. In this context, nation-building missions are important showcases for our will to integrate the developing world in the democtratic political community and the global economy.

Furthermore, a more speculative argument can be made, that post-conflict states have better potential for far-reaching reform than non-conflict states who have less of an incentive. Measured in relative progress over time this area may just be the growth stock of international donor policy. Add to this the more cynical observation, that our willingness to spend is larger when "security", not "development", heads the bill. The latter point is of course what Logan and Preble oppose: when they argue that nation-building proponents are in a sense "liberal internationalists" this is not incorrect in a philosophical way.

But the fact that this has been the strategic, not ideological, choice made by a Republican administration that came into office with a strong opposition to nationbuilding is an remarkable indication of the need for better capabilities here. Unfortunately, the otherwise healthy dose of libertarianism at Cato is a weird starting point in matters of national security. As noted in my first post on the Cato-report, the minimal state approach makes them misjudge what US national security "means" and has "meant" ever since WWII: namely something much more forward than just homeland defense. Applying that logic would result in a hands-off isolationism whose effects are likely to be far more pernicious in the long term than a balanced activism.

Cato on State-Building: National Security as Homeland Defense

Cato's new policy analysis piece is the first to explicitly attack the arguments behind the push for better post-conflict or state-building capacities - as expressed in the creation of State's Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Development (S/CRS). The argument can be resumed in three subsections: a) there is no direct necessary threat from failed states, and quantifying state failure shows this; b) the US have been doing a bad job at this before and so is likely to do so again; c) this is why we should intervene only when absolutely necessary, because then the present system will be able to carry the weight, and so there will be no need for neither reform nor the S/CRS.

One philosophically interesting thing about the state-building policy push is the concomitant realignment of the old left-right repartition of producers of meaning. That would be a good general indicator of the issue's validity - as it is with all political subjects which do not summon the usual opinions along this continuum. The Bush administration came into office waving the small government conservative Big Power politics flag, and then did a 180 on the topic after 9/11 with the National Security Strategy. Liberals tend to be pro anything on the soft end of the transition process from intervention to statebuilding, while realist conservatives prefer the hard end, used sparingly. So, the fault lines are approximately the same as regarding humanitarian intervention.

Now, the classic liberals of the CATO Institute enter the fray about post-conflict reconstruction, transitioning and, concretely, the attempts at administrative preparation for the next time through State's Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Development (S/CRS). In a 32-page interesting piece entitled Failed States and Failed Logic (here, in pdf), Justin Logan and Christopher Preble make their case against a "Standing Nation-Building Office". The executive summary:

In July 2004 the State Department opened the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS). Its official mandate is to “help stabilize and reconstruct societies in transition from conflict or civil strife, so they can reach a sustainable path toward peace, democracy and a market economy.” The idea of a standing nation-building office has strong support in the Bush administration, among academics and foreign policy analysts, and from key players in Congress.

The arguments in favor of creating such an office are rooted in the belief that failed states are threats to U.S. national security. S/CRS’s early projects included postconflict planning for Sudan, Haiti, and Cuba, all countries largely unrelated to U.S. national security concerns. Although failed states can present threats, it is a mistake to argue that they frequently do. The few attempts that have been made to quantify what “state failure” means demonstrate that it is not inherently threatening.

Moreover, attempting to remedy state failure would pose serious problems for U.S. foreign policy. U.S. nation-building projects in the past had a highly dubious track record, and there is no indication that future projects would fare any better.

A standing office devoted to nation building is a cure worse than the disease. Sober assessment of the U.S. national interest and a more judicious approach to intervention abroad would be better guiding principles than assuming that all failed or failing states pose a threat. When interventions are absolutely necessary, existing institutional capacity is sufficient to carry out stabilization and reconstruction missions.

Logan/Preble make one semi-valid point about the faulty logic of anti-failed states arguments in the name of national security, but miss the larger picture in its insistence on the sanctimony of parsimony in policy choices. A more valid argument is made more implicitly, concerning the stimulation of demand through generous supply (risks of too-frequent use once a reasonably effective mechanism has been established, in other words). In this piece, we have a look at the first of the three subsections of the Cato argument, and then hopefully return to the rest later.

The argument goes: No direct necessary threat from failed states, and quantifying state failure shows this. The two contain a welcome deflation of a recurring claim - on the face of things, at least. Logan and Preble do have a valid point about the direct necessary threat from failed states. In a concrete sense, the usually made argument about failed states as vaccum which attracts and allows terrorists to roam freem and prepare to strike out is clearly too simplistic, and it was probably about time someone said it out loud. Starting out with three different attemps at coding and listing the world's present and potential failed states, Logan and Preble make a reverse argument about what the data are not saying:

If one assumes that state failure in itself represents a threat, then the logical conclusion is that American security concerns for the Ivory Coast would be greater than they are for any of the less-failed nations. But that is obviously not the case. There are much better metrics for assessing levels of threat than the degree of state failure. The lists of “failed states” and “security threats” will no doubt overlap, but correlation does not equal causation. The obvious nonthreats that appear on all lists of failed states undermine the claim that there is something particular about failed states that is necessarily threatening.

This point is completely valid and it was probably about time someone made it, because it has been reiterated in every policy report on the subject since 9/11. Yet, what the failed states category can yield is of course exactly correlation and it is thus a useful heuristic device for the security people.

But that the fall out from this analysis must be, that the entire US national security community should by definition be doing everything else than getting better at state-building and post-conflict process administration flies in the face of reason. No, correlation is not causation, but if there is correlation then it could easily be that there is another framework which will solve the security/state stability/development equation. Maybe there is another reason for dealing with failed states, one that while not aligned with clear and present danger may still be very much grounded in valid national security reasons. It would be possible to make several very different arguments about the benefits of long-term policy planning etc., but we'll have to do with just one of them for now.

What is really at stake here, in the way that Logan and Preble pose their question and make the argument is not as much the definition and role of 'failed states' as it is the definition and role of 'national security'. Do we conceive of 'national security' as 'national defense' , i.e. the mostly defensive and very limited notion of homeland defense?

Or do we mean something more forward, outreaching, with the goal of defending and sustaining not merely our territories, but also our way of life, i.e. including sustaining and protecting the globalized economy? While the CATO people would probably love a 'minimal state' version of national security they must have missed most of the last 50 years foreign policy developments if they think it possible. National security IS about a lot more than national defense: that was why the term was invented around 1947, to account for all the stuff that was less than war but more than regular diplomacy, around the time the conceptual chips fell into place after the turmoil of WWII (see Yergin's Shattered Peace).

US 'national security' has always been about more than mere homeland defense - because for as long as the concept has existed, the US has conceived of a much broader challenge and responsibility for itself, as the ultimate defender of freedom. Exactly what this means and entails is evidently open to a lot of interpretation, but one thing it does not mean, in spite of the sometimes recurring calls for it, is that functional isolationism in security especially, but in practically anything, is a proper and possible option.

So, to return the scholastic Logan/Preble argument: What is true in the logic of Economics is not necessarily true in Politics. In fact, politics IS the framework which lets the principle of the free market function. Looking at the very big constitutive spheres of society - a sort of conceptual Lego bricks - Security is one of the essential Politics Lego pieces which serve to support the Economics pieces. An absence of evidence about impact in the short term is not evidence of absence of the importance of failed states for US national security, in neither the middle nor the long term.

The Coming JFCOM 'Shaping' JOC: A Revolution In Development Policy?

The creation of African Command (AFRICOM) is accompanied by a the development of a new Joint Operating Concept (JOC) with potentially huge ramifications for the continent and for the whole development sector -- including the largest non-American partners, from the national development agencies (DfID, Danida, etc) over the EU and especially the UN to of course the 'host nations' in particularly Africa.

This new JOC is called Shaping. It is the logical prequel to the SSTR JOC -- published in its final version in December 06 after several years of preparation. The SSTR JOC deals with Stabilization, Security, Transition and Reconstruction Operations and is the new version of the old S&R. The inclusion of especially transitioning points to the growing understanding within the Pentagon system of the importance of founding the conceptual thinking about use of force on a properly clausewitzian basis: namely that military operations must always be thought of as an element in a larger political concept (not to say that MCOs do not have to function in a more clearcut independent way). The philosophical critique has been expressed particularly well by Antulio J. Echevarria, e.g. in this paper Toward An American Way of War. The SSTR JOC basically underpins all MOOTWs including counterinsurgency.

SSTR Ops are those contained inside what is known as Phase IV: what comes after Phase III or MCO (Major Combat Operations). As I wrote in a report on Transitioning (in Danish), back in summer '05, this distinction between the phases is breaking down: the subsequent publication of the DoD Directive 3000.05 which puts SSTR on par with MCO within the US military; the NSPD 44, which gives States responsibility for Phase IV; and the extensive work going on in all sectors of USG to improve inter-agency cooperation, planning and training (without much to show for it so far) shows how the breakdown is real but also causing a lot of headaches.

Where SSTR equals Phase IV, the Shaping JOC is then tasked with dealing with Phase 0. Phase 0 is about prevention of conflict, and should in this perspective be understood as an element in the Long War ... or the GWOT (global war on terrorism) as it apparently and weirdly still is called in Pentagon circles. This PPT file shows not only the timeline for the new Shaping JOC (version 1.0 is due in August '07) but also the basic aspirations of the JOC:

Military Problem: In the complex future environment, economic, demographic and societal stressors will lead to areas of instability. Future state and non-state adversaries, to include extremist ideologues, will use all means available to:

• exploit this instability by undermining partnerships and further destabilizing weak governments,
• deny or disrupt US influence or access, and
• gain sanctuary in ungoverned, unstable, and remote areas

The future Joint Force Commander must be capable of working both unilaterally and closely with multinational, interagency and other partners to maintain or enhance stability, prevent or mitigate crises and set the conditions for access and responsive crisis intervention.

Scope: This JOC will focus on the actions a joint force commander might take in the context of unified action to advance US interests by:

• building partnership capacity
• influencing non-partners and potential adversaries
• mitigating the underlying causes of conflict and extremism; and
• setting the conditions that enable rapid action when military intervention is required

Proposed Solution: The Joint Force, as a part of a larger multinational and interagency effort, conducts continuous, anticipatory shaping operations that build partnerships with governmental, nongovernmental, regional and international organizations and reduce the drivers of conflict and instability in order to prevent or mitigate conflict or other crises and set the conditions for success in other operations—all aimed at a secure global environment favorable to US interests.

How do you '[mitigate] the underlying causes of conflict and extremism', and 'mitigate conflict and other crises'? Well, this is exactly the work of the aggregate development organisations: from the UKs PCRU and USAID plus international NGOs like the ICG to more long-term development organisations like UNDP. Mitigating underlying causes of conflict means addressing grievances before they turn into rebellion ... it means strengthening the local state so that it delivers to its citizens: from basic infrastructure, a working, stable and sustainable economy that provides jobs, rule of law and a decent political system.

The Pentagon will have their hands full -- and it is extremely important that they get the conceptual thinking right here. I hope the drafters will consult leading civilian development and political science experts and the extensive social science insights inside the CIA.

As a consequence of the NSPD 44, both the SSTR and the Shaping JOC are entitled "Military Support to..." but the Shaping PPT nevertheless underlines the probably necessity for the military to be able to deal unilaterally with the issue, i.e. have the capabilities to carry out these things without the interagency process. This is true also for SSTR: in many situations the military is the only organization present, as is visible in e.g. Afghanistan.

What are the ramifications? On the Pentagon side, the answer depends not only on the thinking to be done, but also on the implementation. The interesting thing here is that AFRICOM will offer the Shaping JOC a natural home (EUCOM shares the lead on the JOC development with JFCOM: will probably be transferred to AFRICOM?) -- it will not have to battle (a losing) struggle to get influence within the other COCOMs. Its reception within SOCOM is, however, very important. As Tom Barnett has noted, the existing CJTF-HOA will probably form the basis for AFRICOM even if it is placed in Stuttgart to begin with. Stuttgart is also the home of a SOCOM force (10th Special Forces Group, 1st Battalion). This may be a coincidence but it is probably not: The Long War's shaping missions will not solely be about development-like issues but will also include sharp-end elements, which is where the special forces come in handy as they excell in these more surgical operations. AFRICOM's tasks may be very political in nature but they will include very military means.

On the civilian side, including the whole of the development universe: You better wake up and follow this development closely. The Pentagon has so much logistical and funding clout that if the Shaping concept does indeed get feet, then there will be some very real opportunities to move the development agenda forward. My guess is, however, that most likely the development crowd will shy away from cooperation with the Pentagon. This is especially the case for the European development agencies.

Finally, there is NATO: This is stuff which should interest the CIMIC Centre of Excellence, but also people at higher echelons: anyone in the NATO militaries dealing with strategic planning.

This is a thing to be followed closely!

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EDIT: This old post gets a lot of readers. Please do not miss the later posts on Shaping, either by clicking here (and show all posts on shaping); or by going to these two posts, which further follow and evaluate Shaping/CSE:

• JFCOM: Shaping Ambition (Sort of) Implodes
• JFCOM: Shaping Ambition (Sort of) Implodes II

Shaping Input: Africa's Horn in Foreign Affairs

The new issue of Foreign Affairs features a fine article on the conflicts – present and lurking – on Africa’s Horn, and the weaknesses of US policy ("Blowing the Horn", subscription required).

People at JFCOM currently working on the coming Shaping JOC are well advised to read John Prendergast and Colin Thomas-Jensen’s article. The challenges and solutions that they outline are basically what the JOC will have to address: learning full-scale diplomacy not in its diplomatic sense, but rather as a holistic problem-solving approach, which includes addressing grievances and issues over livelihoods.

The essential lessons of U.S. counterterrorism policy over the last five years – apparently unheeded by the Bush administration – is that in order for local Muslim populations to take the United States’ counterterrorism agenda seriously, the United States must take their state-building and power-sharing agenda seriously, too. Ironically, the strategy is already there on paper. In its 2002 National Security Strategy and elsewhere, the Bush administration has argued that failing states foster terrorism and has laid out a comprehensive approach to counterterrorism that involves promoting peace building, state reconstruction, and good governance. When it comes to the Greater African Horn, however, the Bush administration has simply not implemented its own policies. By relying on sporadic military strikes and continued support for autocrats without broader political planning, it has combined the worst elements of its current strategy in Iraq with the Cold War-era policy of cronyism. Conflict resolution and good governance are, in fact, the keys to countering terrorism in the Greater Horn of over the long term.

More on the Shaping JOC in this post – including the natural African focus of the JOC and here especially the CJFT-HOA. People who should also read their article include the CIA analysts involved not only with HOA related stuff, but also those working on projects similar to the Shaping JOC.

A final aside: Not surprisingly, the sharpest minds on the intricacies of policy development are no longer to be found in academia: they are more often at the best think tanks – and among them evidently the ICG where both authors reside.

The New UK Security Strategy: Thin, Somewhat Timid

The text is finally out, here. It is fairly brief, and structured this way:

This strategy (...) sets out the guiding principles of our approach (Chapter Two); our assessment of the major security challenges and drivers of insecurity (Chapter Three); our responses to them (Chapter Four); and how we will work together in taking the strategy forward (Chapter Five).

Content:

Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Guiding principles
Chapter Three: Security challenges
Chapter Four: The United Kingdom’s response
Chapter Five: Working together

It was expected that the strategy would emphasize interagency capability. It does. The initiative is sound: in principle, this would enable the UK government to combine and converge the three D's - diplomacy, development and defense. As such this makes for more effective counterinsurgency - or statebuilding within conflict - campaigns. As development and security converges in and around failing states the most cost-effective form of development in the long run is contested statebuilding.

5.8 This National Security Strategy shows that the Government is committed to working with the whole of society, to build confidence in our core values, our shared approach, and our strong security capabilities. It sets out a new and clearer understanding of what security means and how we need to work together in an integrated and coherent national and international effort. That will enable us to work together to manage risks, harness the opportunities of globalisation, and achieve the single overarching national security objective set out at the beginning of this strategy: protecting the United Kingdom and its interests, enabling its people to go about their daily lives freely and with confidence, in a more secure, stable, just and prosperous world.

The contextual process to the UK National Security Strategy involves a yearly report on progress on challenges and solutions. But the strategy does not - as I suggested should be the case in the previous post - contain inside its concomitant process a systematic role of overview for Parliament. Such a role is being merely being looked into:

5.7 We will publish an annual update on the challenges we face and progress on implementing this strategy. We will consult all Parties and the Parliamentary authorities about how Parliament can play a stronger role in overseeing the development and implementation of this strategy. We have recently concluded a consultation to consider the ways in which Parliament should be involved in decisions relating to the deployment of the Armed Forces into conflict.

The process as envisaged is at least a credible wish list:

Priorities include:
• consulting on a joint Parliamentary National Security Committee to help monitor the implementation and development of this strategy;
• strengthening the work of horizonscanning and forward planning;
• strengthening the capability to offer a strategic perspective on security priorities and improve connections between defence, development, foreign and domestic security strategies;
• creating a national security forum, including representatives from government, politics, academia and others, to discuss strategy and exchange ideas; and
• publishing the National Risk Register (as set out in Chapter Four) and an annual update on the security challenges facing the United Kingdom and progress on implementing the strategy.

That is disappointing. Since the process is not yet formalized at the launch the ship risks being taken over by bureaucratic pirates of e.g. the Foreign Office. Consulting (viz. the 'joint Parliamentary National Security Committee') can mean anything and nothing. And neither that committee nor the 'national security forum' are really given any role that would constitute checks and/or balances. Who will bang together the heads of DfID, Foreign Office and Whitehall?

Finally, the strategic vision itself seems pretty thin. Not much text compared to the number of themes.

UN Civil-Military Handbook Out

There's a new UN CIV-MIL handbook out. The focus is kind of a field manual level - the full title is "The United Nations Civil-Military Coordination (UN-CMCoord) Officer Field Handbook". The manual was funded and initiative was taken by both OCHA and the EU's 'ministry' (Directorate General, DG) for humanitarian aid:

Jointly launched by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Humanitarian Aid Department of the European Commission (DG ECHO) in Brussels on 10 March 2008. Funded in part by DG ECHO.

The preface is followed by sort of a statement of general purpose:

The essential dialogue and interaction between civilian and military actors in humanitarian emergencies that is necessary to protect and promote humanitarian principles, avoid competition, minimize inconsistency, and when appropriate pursue common goals. Basic strategies range from coexistence to cooperation. Coordination is a shared responsibility facilitated by liaison and common training.

Here's the table of contents:

Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Key Concepts and Principles
Chapter 3: Key Policies and Selected Guidelines
Chapter 4: Transportation and Logistics
Chapter 5: Security, Safety and Medical Services
Chapter 6: Communications and Information Management
Chapter 7: UN Civil Military Coordination (CMCoord) Assessment
Chapter 8: Development of Country Specific Guidelines
Chapter 9: CMCoord Action Plan
Chapter 10: Establishing Liaison with Military Forces
Chapter 11: The Cluster System
Chapter 12: Deployment Considerations
Annexes

Each of the substantial chapters deal with the substance from both civilian and military perspectives, and a description of standards and best practices, e.g. as "The Military Perspective; The Humanitarian Perspective; Key Military Actors; Minimum Information; Possible Tasks and Activities; Planning Considerations; Lessons Observed and Best Practices". The annexes, moreover, contain a host of practical info - like NATO acronyms, military ranks and insignia.

All of the practical elements seem straightforward and very much called for. But as the diagram of 'range of approaches' shows, the sets of roles attributed to each set of actors is still far from settled.

The publication can be found here (pdf).

Iraq: Pace Recommends Finally Taking Reconstruction, Political Side Serious

The Pace study is finished and Bush has been briefed on the top brass recommendations. Crucially, they agree with the Baker-Hamilton report on turning from combat to training -- plus more focus on and effort in reconstruction. Here, from the Washington Post:

The chiefs do not favor adding significant numbers of troops to Iraq, said sources familiar with their thinking, but see strengthening the Iraqi army as pivotal to achieving some degree of stability. They also are pressing for a much greater U.S. effort on economic reconstruction and political reconciliation.

Sources said that Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is reviewing a plan to redefine the American military mission there: U.S. troops would be pulled out of Iraqi cities and consolidated at a handful of U.S. bases while day-to-day combat duty would be turned over to the Iraqi army. Casey is still considering whether to request more troops, possibly as part of an expanded training mission to help strengthen the Iraqi army.

The recommendations Casey is reviewing to overhaul the military mission were formulated by Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the outgoing top U.S. ground commander, officials said. The plan positions the U.S. military to be able to move swiftly to a new focus on training, one of the key recommendations from several reviews of U.S. strategy, including from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

Under the plan developed by Chiarelli's staff, the military would shift about half of its 15 combat brigades away from battling insurgents and sectarian violence and into training Iraqi security forces as soon as the spring of 2007, military and defense officials said. In northern and western Iraq, U.S. commanders are already moving troops out of combat missions to place them as advisers with lower-level Iraqi army units, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, spokesman for the military in Iraq, said yesterday at a briefing in Baghdad.

Administration officials stressed that Bush, under pressure from Congress and the electorate to abandon the United States' open-ended commitment, has made no final decisions on how to proceed in Iraq. But the new disclosures suggest that military planning is well underway for a major change from an approach that has assigned the bulk of responsibility for security in Iraq to more than 140,000 U.S. troops.

The chiefs also want to see a new push on political and economic issues, especially employment programs, reconstruction and political reconciliation, to help quell the problems that have fueled both the Sunni insurgency and Shiite-Sunni sectarian strife, say defense officials and U.S. military officers in Iraq. A new jobs program is considered key to pulling young men from the burgeoning militias.

Pentagon chiefs think that there is no purely military solution for Iraq and that, without major progress on the political and economic fronts, the U.S. intervention is simply buying time, the sources said. They particularly want to see U.S. pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to offer amnesty to Sunni insurgents, approve constitutional amendments promised to the Sunni minority, pass laws to ensure equitable distribution of oil revenue, and modify the ban on members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party taking government positions.

Bush alluded to this proposition when he met briefly with reporters after his meeting at the Pentagon. "Our military cannot do this job alone," he said. "Our military needs a political strategy that is effective."

But Bush also showed no sign that he is retreating from his basic proposition that the U.S. military must be engaged in Iraq for some time. "If we lose our nerve, if we're not steadfast in our determination to help the Iraqi government succeed, we will be handing Iraq over to an enemy that would do us harm," he said, adding that he would not be "rushed" into a decision.

This is evidently the right choice: the training mission was announced 2½ years ago, but has not had the substantial weight and smell of strategic-choice-importance until now. Yet, focusing on training properly brings its own problems. Greg Jaffe had fine piece on this in the WSJ recently, "U.S. Commanders Advance Plan To Beef Up Training of Iraqi Army":

Senior U.S. military commanders in Baghdad, eager to shift the fight in Iraq to that country's army, are advancing a plan that could more than double the number of American troops involved in training Iraqi soldiers. The tentative plan, which calls for breaking up some big U.S. combat units into military-training teams, reflects a major shift in U.S. tactics, and meshes with one of the key recommendations of a high-profile report released Wednesday by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. The new approach isn't expected to require a marked change in the overall number of American troops in Iraq. But it would increase the number involved in advisory roles to as many as 10,000, from the current 4,000, senior military officials said. (...)

Senior military officials are betting that larger U.S. military training teams that would live and work with Iraqi units could speed the development of an Iraqi army force that has shown some promise, but is still bedeviled by corruption, absenteeism and logistical problems. How quickly the Iraqi army improves could ultimately determine how quickly U.S. troops could withdraw from the country.

However, even the staunchest advocates of building up the Iraqi army warn that the strategy carries significant risks that could derail it. In the near term, commanders say, shifting more U.S. troops into training and advisory jobs could lead to an increase in sectarian violence in Baghdad, because there would be fewer U.S. troops patrolling the streets. Iraqi army units and their U.S. trainers would have to pick up the slack.

The idea of shifting more U.S. troops into training roles has been kicking around in Baghdad and the Pentagon at least since spring. Multiple internal studies by the U.S. Army have concluded that its current training teams in Iraq, typically 10 to 12 U.S. soldiers per an Iraqi battalion, are too small to be effective. (...)

A big concern with the plan is how to protect U.S. soldiers serving on advisory and training teams. These troops would be prime targets for insurgents and sectarian militias seeking to stymie the progress of Iraqi units. They would also be vulnerable if their Iraqi units were overrun by the enemy. Senior U.S. military commanders also warn that without progress on rebuilding Iraq's economy and without a political accommodation between Iraq's Shiites and Sunnis, no military force will be able to impose order in the country. "The military cannot win this alone -- it's flat impossible," said one senior U.S. official.

U.S. training teams now live and focus on advising Iraqi battalion commanders, who each oversees about 500 troops, plus staff. Under the new plan, the expanded teams would spend more time with the lower-ranking commanders and their troops who do most of the day-to-day fighting and patrolling in Baghdad. U.S. commanders say the larger teams would be better able to prevent abuses by the Iraqi units and ensure that they do their jobs properly. "Beefing up the training teams will give us a 24/7 presence in the Iraqi units that we haven't had so far," said a military official. Some officers who have recently served on U.S. military training teams in Iraq praised the effort to focus more troops on the training mission. But they cautioned that this wouldn't fix many of the Iraqi army's biggest problems. Many Iraqi units continue to be hamstrung by ineffective or corrupt commanders who have the support of key officials in Iraq's Ministry of Defense. "Right now we cannot even fire Iraqi army leaders [whom] we know cooperate with insurgents or are incompetent," said Lt. Col. David Coffey, who returned last month from Iraq, where he had served on a 10-man training team.

The supply system often fails to deliver Iraqi troops the fuel, food and bullets they need to carry out their missions. Several advisers said there is also pressure to inflate the capabilities of the Iraqi units in readiness reports. "There is tremendous pressure on the training teams to show steady progress in the abilities of the Iraqi battalions," Col. Coffey said. "This ignores the fact that many units actually get worse as key leaders are killed or go AWOL, as unit equipment degrades, as the enemy situation gets worse, or as combat operations prevent ongoing training."

The U.S. soldiers who make up the military training teams cannot order Iraqi commanders to carry out missions. Instead, their job is to advise, cajole and set a good example for their Iraqi counterparts. The teams help the Iraqi forces plan raids, set training schedules and get necessary supplies. They also act as a conduit to U.S. forces in the area.

Moreover, as Tom Barnett points out, under the heading "One More Thing The Military Is Good For", the Pace recommendations are politically useful for President Bush:

On the Joint Chiefs' recommendation, I don't see much difference from the ISG. In sum, it also says pullback from combat, train up Iraqis and support them, and... Oh yeah... always hunt terrorists. I think we have a consensus, but since the Chiefs won't comment on dialogue with Syria or Iran (foreign policy turf), this way Bush can say he's listening to his generals while he blows off the ISG's call for a regional security/diplomatic initiative. That, my friends, is some military cover.

Hardly part of the Chiefs analysis, but hey, useful nonetheless.