Commanding Heights 

Strategic Lessons from 

Complex Operations 

Edited by Michael Miklaucic

PUBLISHED BY THE CENTER FOR 

COMPLEX OPERATIONS 

and 

THE CENTER FOR TECHNOLOGY AND 

NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY 

NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY 

WASHINGTON, DC 

July 2009 
The views expressed in these essays are those of the authors and do not 

reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense 

University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. All 

information and sources were drawn from unclassified materials. 

Portions of this book may be quoted or reprinted without permission, 

provided that a standard source credit line is included. 

This book was published by the Center for Complex Operations and the Center 

for Technology and National Security Policy, National Defense University, 

Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC. CCO publications are available 

online at www.ccoportal.org.
iii 

Contents 

Preface vii 

By Hans Binnendijk and David A. Sobyra 

Introduction ix 

By Michael Miklaucic 

Essay 1 

Command in Afghanistan 2003–2005: Three 

Key Lessons Learned 1 

By David Barno 

Essay 2 

Understanding the Situation 9 

By Frederick Barton 

Essay 3 

Reflections on Post-Conflict Politics of 

Reform: A Voice from Inside Iraq 21 

By Nesreen Barwari 

Essay 4 

Preemptive Post-Conflict Stabilization and 

Reconstruction 31 

By Barbara K. Bodine 

Essay 5 

Lessons Learned in the Fog of Peace 39 

By L. Paul Bremer 

Essay 6 

Complex Operations in Practice 47 

By Peter W. Chiarelli 
iv 

Essay 7 

No Formulas: Bosnia, Haiti, and Kosovo 55 

By Wesley Clark 

 

Essay 8 

The Balkans Revisited: Kosovo 1999 63 

By Timothy Cross

 

Essay 9 

Retaining the Lessons of Nation-Building 73 

By James Dobbins 

Essay 10 

Missions Accomplished and Unaccomplished 81 

By Jan Eliasson 

 

Essay 11 

The Politics of Complex Operations 87

By James Kunder 

 

Essay 12 

Reconstructing Post-Conflict Reconstruction: 

Lessons from Iraq 95

By Lewis W. Lucke 

 

Essay 13 

Effective Civilian-Military Planning at the 

Operational Level: The Foundation of Operational 

Planning 105

By H.R. McMaster 

 

Essay 14 

Lessons Learned in Democratic Transition and 

Building Civil Society 115

By William Montgomery 

 

Essay 15 

Striking the Right Balance 121

By William L. Nash 
v 

Essay 16 

Understanding and Responding to Fragile and 

Failed States 127

By Andrew S. Natsios 

 

Essay 17 

Implementation in a Multiparty Environment 133

By Ronald E. Neumann 

 

Essay 18 

Beyond the Cold War: Pakistan and Somalia 139

By Robert B. Oakley 

 

Essay 19 

Every Complex Operation Needs a BG Rich Ellis 149

By Thomas W. O’Connell 

 

Essay 20 

Post-Conflict Reconstruction Challenges: 

Some Observations from Iraq 155

By Robin Raphel 

 

About the Contributors 163

Preface 

By Hans Binnendijk and David A. Sobyra 

he Center for Complex Operations (CCO) was established 

within the Center for Technology and National Security Policy 

(CTNSP) at National Defense University in February 2009. Its 

purpose is to address a widely perceived need for improved interagency 

interoperability in analysis of, planning for, and intervening in complex 

operations worldwide. Complex operations include reconstruction and 

stabilization operations, counterinsurgency, and irregular warfare— 

operations that must draw on all elements of national power to succeed. 

The goal of the CCO is to help improve the effectiveness of U.S. efforts 

in pursuing our national interests in complex operations, and to save 

lives. 

T 

Created as a collaborative initiative by the Departments of State and 

Defense and the United States Agency for International Development, 

the CCO represents a whole-of-government approach to complex 

operations, and embodies the “three D’s” of diplomacy, defense, and 

development. The objectives of the CCO are to: 

• Provide for effective coordination in the preparation of United 

States Government personnel for complex operations. 

• Foster unity of effort during complex operations among 

o the departments and agencies of the United States Government, 

o foreign governments and militaries, 

o international organizations and international nongovernmental 

organizations, and 

o domestic non-governmental organizations. 

• Conduct research; collect, analyze, and distribute lessons learned; 

and compile best practices in matters relating to complex 

operations. 

 vii 
viii • Binnendijk and Sobyra 

• Identify gaps in the education and training of Department of 

Defense personnel, and other relevant United States Government 

personnel, relating to complex operations, and to facilitate efforts 

to fill such gaps. 

This ambitious mandate sets a daunting agenda that must be 

addressed if the United States is to meet the national security 

challenges of the 21st century. These challenges have evolved 

substantially during the past two decades. The existential threat of 

nuclear warfare that dominated national security thinking for 50 years 

disappeared with the collapse of the Soviet Union. What ensued was 

not the global peace some had expected and many hoped for. Instead, 

we entered an era of diffuse and multi-dimensional threats. The enemy 

is not always obvious. Our national security goals are sometimes 

unclear. Recent experience in Iraq and Afghanistan has demonstrated 

the limits of our understanding of complex operations. It is critical that 

we continue to learn from these experiences. The CCO aims to help 

institutionalize the practice of effective learning from experience. 

It is our hope that these essays, which represent 20 different views of 

complex operations, will convey some sense of the magnitude of the 

challenge of complex operations. The essayists include senior 

diplomats, development experts, and military leaders with a broad 

range of experience, not only from Iraq and Afghanistan, but extending 

back to earlier complex operations in the Balkans, Haiti, Somalia, and 

even Grenada. From these diverse views should emerge principles that 

constitute the strategic lessons of complex operations. 

We would like to thank all the authors whose essays appear in this 

volume, as well as the many senior leaders who have pledged to 

support the efforts of the CCO in the future. In particular we want to 

recognize the efforts of Michael Miklaucic, the CCO Director of 

Research, Information and Dissemination, who edited this volume, and 

Ms. Jacqueline Carpenter, whose energy, passion and creative ideas 

kept the project moving. We also want to thank the CCO staff—Neyla 

Arnas, Nicholas Brechbill, Bernard Carreau, Dale Erickson, 

Christopher Maletz, Scott Moore, and Daniel Troy—without whose 

tireless efforts this volume would not have been possible. Finally, we 

would like to thank Lindsey Geddes, Scott Miller, and Robert Ooi for 

their dedicated support throughout this project. 
Introduction 

By Michael Miklaucic 

he natural tendency of people to view problems from the 

perspective of their home organization is widely acknowledged 

in Washington. The corrosive effect this has on unity of intent 

and unity of effort is also acknowledged, documented, and lamented. 

As long as the stakes are small, the costs of such parochialism are 

apparently endurable. Our recent frustrations in Iraq and Afghanistan, 

however, have elevated the problem of so-called “stove-piping” to a 

high profile. 

T 

The proposed remedy to stove-piping is the “whole of government” 

approach to complex problems. Also known as the “comprehensive 

approach,” the putative advantage of whole of government approaches 

is that they lift the level of analysis to a higher altitude, providing a 

better view of the full extent and complexity of the problem in 

question. The inevitable decrease in resolution, or granularity, should 

be more than balanced by an improved strategic perspective. 

Regrettably, however, the discipline of the whole of government 

approach has not been consistently applied, as bureaucratic inertia 

pushes back against proposed new practices. 

Despite countless testimonials of commitment to whole of 

government collaboration, true collaboration remains ad hoc and 

dependent on specific circumstances, rather than institutionally hardwired into the practices and behaviors of departments and agencies. 

Although efforts are being undertaken to improve collaboration, 

interagency secondments remain de-incentivized and bureaucratically 

cumbersome, thus discouraging the growth of a cadre of whole of 

government professionals. Interagency collaboration also remains 

stunted by incompatible communications systems, operational 

practices, and organizational cultures. 

 ix 
x • Miklaucic 

Complex operations, in which multiple agencies assume 

complementary roles and operate in close proximity—often with 

similar missions but conflicting mandates—accentuate these tensions. 

The tensions are evident in the processes of analyzing complex 

environments, planning for complex interventions, and implementing 

complex operations. Many reports and analyses forecast that these 

complex operations are precisely those that will demand our attention 

most in the indefinite future. 

As essayists Barton and O’Connell note, our intelligence and 

understanding of the root causes of conflict, multiplicity of motivations 

and grievances, and dispositions of actors is often inadequate. 

Moreover, the problems that complex operations are intended and 

implemented to address are convoluted, and often inscrutable. They 

exhibit many if not all the characteristics of “wicked problems,” as 

enumerated by Rittel and Webber in 1973: they defy definitive 

formulations; any proposed solution or intervention causes the problem 

to mutate, so that there is no second chance at a solution; every 

situation is unique; each wicked problem can be considered a symptom 

of another problem. As a result, policy objectives are often compound 

and ambiguous. The requirements of stability, for example, in 

Afghanistan today, may conflict with the requirements for democratic 

governance. Efforts to establish an equitable social contract may well 

exacerbate intercommunal tensions that can lead to violence. The rule 

of law, as we understand it, may displace indigenous conflict 

management and stabilization systems. Indeed, the law of unintended 

consequences may be the only law of the land. The complexity of the 

challenges we face in the current global environment would suggest the 

obvious benefit of joint analysis—bringing to bear on any given 

problem the analytic tools of military, diplomatic and development 

analysts. Instead, efforts to analyze jointly are most often an 

afterthought, initiated long after a problem has escalated to a level of 

urgency that negates much of the utility of deliberate planning. 

In addition to good analysis, we know that effective planning is 

essential for the success of a complex operation. However, highly 

diverse planning cultures within U.S. Government agencies make 

effective joint planning difficult. Highlighting merely the most obvious 

discrepancy, the U.S. military planning culture, discipline, and capacity 

is not mirrored in the civilian agencies. State Department planning is, 

for practical purposes, limited to annual program and budget planning 
 Introduction • xi 

 

(using the Mission Program Planning, or MPP, tool), and the planning 

tools developed recently by the Office of the Coordinator for 

Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS). The most notable product of 

the latter is the Interagency Management System (IMS), developed to 

rationalize the U.S. response to complex stabilization and 

reconstruction challenges. Interestingly, the IMS has never been fully 

tested in a real-life situation, and some doubt that it ever will be. The 

U.S. Agency for International Development contributes to State’s 

annual planning exercise, in addition to its own mission country 

strategic plans, which, though atrophied in recent years, are generally 

based on a 3- or 5-year planning horizon. The recent announcement by 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of a new Quadrennial Diplomacy and 

Development Review (QDDR), similar to the Department of Defense 

Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), indicates a step toward 

coordinated, if not joint, civilian-military planning. Yet, one must ask if 

the two processes—the QDDR and QDR—will be synchronized and 

collaborative. Or will the rush to create a first QDDR result in out-ofsynch reviews? 

Field operations are, of course, where tensions between the various 

organizations are most evident. The juxtaposition of fighting military 

forces next to humanitarian relief workers, development specialists, and 

diplomats can cause significant discomfort. In non-permissive 

environments such as Iraq and Afghanistan, military forces are called 

on to participate substantively and substantially in humanitarian and 

development efforts. Humanitarians have raised numerous issues with 

this participation, as have development experts. Does the provision by 

uniformed military of humanitarian services compromise the neutrality 

of humanitarian workers, and thus put them at greater risk? Does it 

narrow the so-called “humanitarian space?” Given the culture, training, 

and primary mission of military forces, is the “do no harm” philosophy 

embraced by many in the development and humanitarian communities 

viable? The U.S. military has in recent years generated a large quantity 

of doctrine that emphasizes the importance of the developmental and 

diplomatic elements of national power. The Department of Defense has 

even committed itself to developing whatever capacities are necessary 

for stabilization and reconstruction in the absence of the corresponding 

civilian capacity, even when a civilian agency would be a more 

appropriate provider. Yet, we have not explored whether the political 

and developmental elements of a counterinsurgency campaign are 
xii • Miklaucic 

compatible with the democratization and economic elements of longterm, sustainable development. 

As Ambassador James Dobbins notes in his essay, the United States 

has unparalleled recent experience in mounting complex operations. In 

the past decade, most agencies of the Federal Government have been 

engaged in complex operations some way or another, particularly in 

Iraq and Afghanistan. From this extensive experience we should have 

learned a great deal. But have we? George Santayana said, “those who 

cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Chastened by 

our recent experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan we Americans have 

become obsessed with learning the lessons of the past. Lessons learned 

and best practices have become a growing cottage industry in the 

interagency community engaged in overseas complex operations. Yet, 

we have not institutionalized processes for articulating, validating, and 

disseminating lessons from past experience in complex operations. To 

date, the civilian departments and agencies lack a systematic approach 

to learning from experience, and a great deal of information, 

experience, learning, and, indeed, wisdom is probably lost as 

individuals transition to other assignments and vocations. 

As acknowledged throughout the essays in this volume, the best 

approach to complex operations is a genuine whole of government 

approach. Joint analysis, planning, and implementation are appropriate, 

not just on the eve of a complex operation, but on a routine and habitual 

basis—in the pre-conflict phase as well as once conflict has begun. Yet, 

many barriers to effective joint collaborative analysis, planning, and 

implementation remain. As 9/11 recedes in memory and Iraq and 

Afghanistan become part of our quotidian experience in the foreign 

policy world, there is a risk of reverting to old habits of stove-piping 

and agency parochialism. Will the whole of government approach that 

has become so popular in response to the Iraq and Afghanistan 

experiences be limited to those experiences? Will the benefits of 

civilian-military collaboration be disregarded as agencies seek to return 

to more “normal” practices? Already it is possible to detect a note of 

impatience to do so, or of whole of government fatigue. If the insights 

of these essays are to be trusted, as I believe on the whole they should 

be, failure to firmly institutionalize a whole of government philosophy 

and associated practices would be a lamentable mistake, and would 

constitute an unforgiveable failure to learn the lessons of our 

experience. 
Essay 1

Command in Afghanistan 

2003–2005: Three Key 

Lessons Learned 

By David Barno 

he operational experience and lessons learned described in this 

article result from my 19 months as the overall commander of 

U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan from 2003–2005. As 

the senior U.S. commander, I held geographic responsibilities to U.S. 

Central Command for a sub-region that included all of Afghanistan, 

most of Pakistan, and the southern portions of Uzbekistan and 

Tajikistan—a four-country joint operations area. My first task upon 

arrival in theater was to establish a new three-star headquarters in 

Kabul from the ground up, while concurrently assuming overall 

command of ongoing training and combat operations across the entire 

area of operations. This unique opportunity provided a host of “lessons 

learned” stemming from a set of challenges few other commanders at 

that time faced. My command responsibilities spanned a set of tasks 

best described on the spectrum of operations as reaching from theaterstrategic/pol-mil through the high end of the operational level; my 

subordinate two-star combined joint task force held tactical and lower 

end operational level responsibilities across our battlespace. 

T 

Three key lessons pertaining to strategic and operational command in 

irregular warfare during this demanding period stand out. First, 

focusing on the big picture: strategy not tactics, winning not simply 

battles, but the war became the central task. Second, the vital 

importance of integrating the civil-military effort, beginning at the most 

senior levels, was crucial to success. Finally, the essential task of 

communicating and building relationships of trust with key players of 

 1 
2 • Barno 

 

disparate backgrounds was a prerequisite to achieving effective results. 

Each of these topics is worthy of an extensive discussion, but this piece 

will attempt to summarize the most salient points related to each. 

Focusing on the big picture seems an obvious principle to promote at 

the senior level of military command. Unfortunately, the U.S. Army’s 

cultural predisposition toward “war-fighting” (fighting and winning 

battles) versus “war-winning” (bringing conflicts to a successful 

conclusion) remains a powerful influence affecting theater level 

leadership, so emphasizing the primacy of the big picture deserves 

strong reinforcement. 

Senior commanders are drawn from an environment that rewards 

tactical level performance. Successful two-star division commanders 

are drawn from successful colonels and brigadiers who have proven 

their mettle not as strategic leaders, but as master tacticians. Three- and 

four-star leaders are chosen from successful two-star commanders—

thus a predilection toward the importance of tactical performance is 

reinforced by our promotion and selection system. Senior commanders 

are often unwittingly pulled toward operating and prioritizing in ways 

that have delivered success in their career—a dynamic that often works 

at cross purposes with the need to understand leadership in new ways, 

which is the sine qua non of successful operational and strategic 

command. 

Moreover, despite the central civil-military dynamic that defines 

effective counterinsurgency, the temptation for the U.S. military to “go 

it alone” and conduct military operations not fully harmonized with 

civil action remains a challenge—and one played out on several 

occasions in Afghanistan from 2002-2008. “War-fighting” may not 

always require civil players to achieve success—“battles” are won, 

after all, by soldiers—but the much more complex notion of “warwinning” almost always requires a whole of government approach. 

Successful counterinsurgency campaigns, in the famous 

characterization of French COIN expert David Galula, are often 80 

percent non-military and only 20 percent military.1

Focusing on the big picture requires a clear understanding of the 

policy goals that the military effort is designed to serve. In most cases 

1

 David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (Westport, 

CT: Praeger Security International, 1964). 
Command in Afghanistan 2003–2005 • 3 

 

those goals will not be simply military in nature; some degree of 

interagency (and sometimes, international) effort will be required to 

achieve most policy objectives. This presents military commanders 

with a dilemma: how much should they get involved outside the 

military sphere? Commanders will not “command” many of the 

interagency actors whose combined actions will be needed to achieve 

the policy goals handed down from Washington. Conversely, in such 

situations, military leaders may not be held fully accountable for the 

outcome. Do military commanders simply “stay in their lane,” work on 

the military and security lines of operation, and define their mission 

statement narrowly to deliver the “military requirement?” Or do 

commanders extend their horizons, seek maximum flexibility in their 

mission statements, leverage their military capacity (nearly always the 

biggest resource available), and drive their organization toward a 

broader set of whole-of-government policy goals to enable the 

overarching policy objectives to be met? 

From 2003–2005 in Afghanistan, my approach was the latter. As I 

shared with an overworked staff officer in my headquarters in late 

2003, “We own it all.” This outlook was strikingly different from the 

approach taken by previous commanders (likely operating under other 

guidance). Previous commanders had limited interaction with the 

civilian leadership and were operating from a military headquarters that 

was a 90-minute drive outside the capital of Kabul. In fact, my orders 

in standing up a new headquarters were explicitly to position it in 

Kabul and build closer connections with the U.S. embassy and newly 

arriving U.S. ambassador. This guidance was in belated recognition 

that (by 2003 at least) geographically separating the U.S. civilian and 

military leadership during a prolonged engagement in Afghanistan was 

not a productive approach. 

Creating a unified, civil-military approach was a second major 

challenge. Fortunately, our new U.S. ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, 

fully understood this necessity and became an ideal partner in this 

formidable task. Personalities matter immensely in conditions of crisis, 

and ours meshed—no small bit of good fortune! Our staffs began to 

recognize that there would be no seams or “white space” between the 

U.S. ambassador and the senior military commander, and that 

expectations were being set for strongly integrated efforts between the 

two organizations. I understood that if the U.S. military “succeeded” in 

Afghanistan—won every tactical engagement, killed more of the 
4 • Barno 

Taliban—yet the U.S. embassy failed—could not facilitate a nationwide presidential election, could not complete the Ring Road project, 

failed to disarm and separate warlords—the overall mission would fail, 

and U.S. policy goals would not be achieved. This was a fundamental 

realization that quickly began to shape all of our military endeavors. 

The implementation of a unified civil-military approach took a 

myriad of forms. My day began and ended at the U.S. embassy (where 

I also resided in a half-trailer)—to better encounter the ambassador at 

off moments. The first 2 hours of the day included meetings with the 

ambassador for country team meetings (to demonstrate our one-team 

approach) and security core group meetings to cross talk among all the 

senior U.S. military and interagency players in Afghanistan and 

synchronize directions. U.S. military officers were seconded to many 

embassy offices, and five senior military planners were provided to the 

ambassador to form an “Embassy Interagency Planning Group” that 

would provide strategic planning for the ambassador and devise metrics 

and performance measures for the overall U.S. mission in Afghanistan. 

Ambassador Khalilzad and I would often travel together to key events 

outside Kabul, and we attended all openings of provincial 

reconstruction teams (PRTs) together. This close relationship paid us 

both huge dividends and was a benchmark for our military and 

diplomatic organizations (Defense coming from “Mars” and State from 

“Venus”), clearly demonstrating the expectations for close and 

supportive relations at all levels. 

Communicating and building relationships with actors of all different 

backgrounds was another critical lesson learned. Military officers are 

raised and schooled in environments consisting largely of other military 

officers. The political-military environment of senior command in 

Afghanistan was anything but military in nature. As the commander of 

U.S. Central Command, General John Abizaid, noted in his concise 

initial guidance to me: “Your job, Dave, is big Pol and little Mil,” 

alluding to the scope of the political-military challenge and the 

priorities needed in our new approach. To implement this guidance, I 

began to spend large portions of my time interacting with the many 

actors in Kabul who significantly influenced the overall international 

effort in Afghanistan. They too would have immense impact on the 

success or failure of U.S. policy objectives—whether Afghan ministers, 

ambassadors from NATO nations, or key UN officials. 
Command in Afghanistan 2003–2005 • 5 

 

Key to achieving some degree of synergy of effort between this 

diverse set of players were personal relationships. I began to realize 

early in my tenure that building a personal relationship with each of 

these key individuals—something which extended beyond simply good 

manners in office calls—became a “force multiplier,” in military 

parlance, and created a wellspring of good will and trust that might be 

of substantial future importance. Mutual trust became an essential 

ingredient to resolving thorny and contentious issues that were inherent 

in the international effort in Kabul. 

A salient example of the importance of trust-building was the 

relationship that evolved between the U.S. military and the United 

Nations in Afghanistan. On a personal level, this was embodied in the 

relationship that developed between the U.S. military commander and 

the Senior Representative of the UN Secretary General (SRSG). 

Institutionally, these two organizations were highly dissimilar—in 

some ways from opposing cultures, and populated by dedicated and 

committed individuals of very different backgrounds who largely 

viewed each other with suspicion. Given the central importance of the 

UN mission in Afghanistan to the legitimacy of the international 

mission, as well as to the looming first-ever Afghan presidential 

election, an uncooperative or contentious relationship between the UN 

and the U.S. military was fraught with peril. 

At his invitation, the SRSG, Jean Arnault, and I began to have 

breakfast every Monday morning at his residence. A Frenchman who 

was a career diplomat, Jean was of dramatically different background 

and interests than any American general. Yet, these informal gettogethers produced not only useful discussions on issues of mutual 

importance, but laid the foundation for an increasingly strong personal 

connection between Mr. Arnault and myself—one that continues to this 

day. We grew to trust each other and to clearly see where our two 

organizations had much in common as we looked to the desired 

outcome in Afghanistan. Moreover, we intuitively realized that neither 

of our organizations could accomplish its objectives without the help of 

the other. 

The importance of a genuine relationship of shared trust and 

confidence between two leaders of different organizations was 

immense. Just as with the institutional diplomatic-military benefits 

accruing to my ties to the U.S. ambassador, SRSG Arnault’s and my 
6 • Barno 

organizations (the UN mission and the U.S. military) quickly began to 

understand that “the bosses got along” and would not brook the “staff 

wars” that often endanger good relations between institutions with 

different outlooks and missions. Conversely, the close relationship 

between the two senior leaders fostered an environment in which 

subordinates could take broad initiatives on a host of issues knowing 

that over-arching institutional goals and objectives were shared. When 

a crisis might erupt in Afghanistan that threatened the security of 

international aid workers—four Médecins Sans Frontières physicians 

were murdered in early 2004, and MSF left the country—our personal 

relationship of trust helped both the United States and the UN evaluate 

the threat and react in ways that, absent that personal relationship, 

might have caused the UN to shut down key parts of its vital operations 

across Afghanistan. 

Relationships of mutual respect and confidence with host-nation 

counterparts are equally crucial in an irregular warfare environment. 

My senior leader engagements regularly took me to meet with the Chief 

of General Staff of the Afghan National Army (ANA), General 

Bismullah Khan. General Bismullah was a Tajik and former mujahid 

who had fought the Soviets and then the Taliban for his entire adult 

life. Though only in his mid-40s, he was prematurely aged by long, 

hard fighting. He spoke always through an interpreter, which further 

complicated dialogue. That said, we struck a very close relationship 

and built close ties between our two organizations. Our discussions 

over tea in his office were always wide-ranging and often very indirect. 

The highest compliment I ever received from an Afghan came from 

Bismullah after I has returned to the United States: “(General Barno) 

never told us what to do in our meetings, but when he left the office, we 

always knew what he wanted us to do.” Indirection and respect for 

cultural norms had a powerful influence when coming from a 

commander whose forces were in very real terms guests within the 

sovereign nation of Afghanistan. 

In sum, my “lessons learned” boil down to this: theater level 

command in an irregular warfare setting demands a broader set of skills 

than those required of conventional war at the same level. Some basic 

questions arise as to whether our selection and development of senior 

officers for command in this environment adequately recognize this 

fact. Our military leaders today are superbly trained and equipped by 

their lifelong experience to lead difficult military contingency 
Command in Afghanistan 2003–2005 • 7 

 

operations anywhere in the world. Where they may fall short is in 

understanding the leadership requirements across the increasingly 

important non-military sphere and their centrality to success in irregular 

warfare. 

Lack of civil resources in most conflict settings will demand that 

military leaders and their organizations play a very large role in the 

non-military dimension of irregular warfare and stability operations. 

Senior military leaders have limited experience and often even less 

preparation for this role—although 8 years of war in Iraq and 

Afghanistan have now provided some hard-won knowledge that is 

slowly becoming more common at senior levels. More and more, senior 

commanders must clearly see the big picture, understand how the 

military can engage to deliver whole-of-government policy objectives 

to achieve strategic ends, and possess the personal and cross-cultural 

skills to build relationships of trust with key actors outside the military 

sphere. In today’s environment of prolonged complex contingencies, 

these talents are paramount requirements for overall success. We need 

to closely examine whether our process of educating, developing, and 

selecting our senior military leaders can meet this strategic leadership 

challenge. 

Essay 2 

Understanding the Situation 

By Frederick Barton 

s the Kosovo situation worsened in late 1998, USAID’s Office 

of Transition Initiatives received a call from Secretary of State 

Madeleine Albright’s office. Her aide, Jim O’Brien, asked if 

there were opportunities to engage the population and political leaders 

as part of an effort to avoid war with Serbia. 

A 

Within 2 weeks, ten or so American field organizers, diplomats and 

political development professionals were sent into Kosovo to see what 

options might be available. On arrival in Pristina, the team broke up 

into sub-teams of two that moved into a handful of cities throughout the 

province. For the next few weeks, each sub-team met with hundreds of 

Kosovo residents, gauged their anxieties and enthusiasms, and searched 

for community initiatives that might engage the population. 

About the same time, the U.S. National Security Council began a 

regular series of Deputies meetings on Kosovo in the basement of the 

White House. At least once a week, the Deputy National Security 

Adviser, Jim Steinberg, would convene a group that included the 

number two persons from State, DOD, the Joint Chiefs, the CIA, and 

the chair of USAID’s working group on Kosovo, plus a few others. 

Each meeting would start with a 5-minute CIA review of the situation 

on the ground. The mood in the room and the discussion often followed 

the information and the tone of that initial briefing. 

When the USAID team returned to Washington, I spoke with the 

CIA briefer right after a Deputies meeting. “I don’t know what assets 

you have on the ground in Kosovo, but we have a team that just spent a 

month in every part of the province and we would be happy to share 

their insights.” “We would be delighted to hear their report,” my CIA 

colleague said, “since we don’t have anyone on the ground in Kosovo.” 

 9 
10 • Barton 

 

Here we were, just weeks before a likely war1 in an area that is smaller 

than Connecticut, and our intelligence was limited to electronic 

surveillance and aerial images. On a cloudy day, America’s ability to 

monitor the movement of Serbian tanks was denied. At least the overt 

USAID operatives were able to feel the ground shake when heavy 

vehicles drove by their guest houses. It seemed hard to imagine that we 

could not be better informed, especially when lives were at risk. 

My experience has confirmed that poor intelligence is more the rule 

than the exception. America’s analysis of countries in conflict is not 

good, and there are not many nations that do it better. Examples of 

inadequacy abound: the UN Department of Political Affairs is 

notoriously understaffed, and also reluctant to provoke a collapsing 

member state with gloomy reports; lead countries, such as France in 

Cote d’Ivoire, seem to be more proprietary than analytical when a crisis 

looms; even Israel, with its sophisticated systems and thousands of 

human contacts, can still be surprised when it ventures into a tiny 

geographic area like Gaza. 

What are some of the chronic shortcomings? 

First, there is a reluctance to anticipate. Almost all experts failed to 

anticipate the rapid collapse of the Soviet Union before the Berlin Wall 

fell in 1989, despite academies full of sovietologists. Hamas’ success in 

the Palestinian elections of 2005 shocked another set of experts. More 

recently, the Taliban advance to within 60 miles of Pakistan’s capitol, 

Islamabad, surprised Washington and produced a crisis mentality. 

Not only are there numerous early warning systems and reports,2

 but 

much of the daily international news highlights disturbing trends. One 

of my favorite bosses, former USAID Assistant Administrator Doug 

Stafford, used to say, “Give me the Reuters wire and I will be able to 

tell you where the next humanitarian crisis will be.” Today, Reuters is 

abetted by blogs, email, and cellular communications, but these 

1

 For more information, see Tim Judah, Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to 

Know (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 2

 Frederick Barton and Karin von Hippel, with Sabina Sequeira and Mark 

Irvine, Early Warning? A Review of Conflict Prediction Models and Systems, 

Center for Strategic and International Studies, Post Conflict Reconstruction 

Project special report, available at <http://forums.csis.org/pcrproject/ 

?page_id=267>. 
Understanding the Situation • 11 

 

 

resources have not initiated a rush to prepare. Overload may now be 

another reason to miss the obvious. 

Denial remains the norm. While many will embrace the longer-term 

predictions of massive and expensive studies by the intelligence 

community,3 or rush to the emergency of the day, there is a seeming 

inability to take the next step and prepare for the crisis of tomorrow. A 

conversation with one of the wisest UN officials about developing 

problems in Pakistan around 2002 serves as a good example. “Pakistan 

cannot collapse,” he said. When asked, “Why not?,” his response was, 

“Because it would be too awful!” 

Of course there are numerous other reasons to resist a thoughtful 

approach, including the usual refuge of scoundrels, the shibboleth of 

sovereignty. By playing that card, miserable leaders can deflect 

international attention and rally nationalist zeal behind their destructive 

patterns. Americans can use the inverse argument to say it is outside 

our jurisdiction. 

Equally distressing are more mundane hazards: a lack of 

imagination; overly busy scheduling of policymakers; and a cloying 

possessiveness by those responsible for a place or problem within the 

bureaucracy. As a colleague recently wrote, “Both parts are 

debilitating; first the principals are so time-pressed that they are often 

tempted by the meretricious call of the glibbest arguments, if argued 

forcefully enough; and, the bureaucratic infighting is endemic.” 

Efforts have been made to address these patterns, but they have not 

gained the upper hand. Under USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios, 

the new Office of Conflict Mitigation and Management,4

 which was 

founded in 2002, began a series of conflict assessment reports that 

detailed the volatility of 20 countries. A valuable innovation, the 

reports were seen to be too controversial, ended up being tightly held, 

and have been cut back to a few per year. Their wise intent was to 

guide future programming to address the central political development 

3

 National Intelligence Council, Mapping the Global Future: Report of the 

National Intelligence Council’s 2020 Project, available at 

<http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2020_project.html>. 

4

 Office of Conflict Mitigation and Management, United States Agency for 

International Development, available at <http://www.usaid.gov/ 

our_work/cross-cutting_programs/conflict/>. 
12 • Barton 

challenges facing many nations. The State Department’s best 

diplomatic reporting should do this, too, but it often addresses the more 

immediate time horizon. Similarly, the often-touted country war plans 

of the Pentagon are unlikely to have the granularity or political insight 

that helps with anticipation. 

Second, these are tough places to work. The qualities that have 

brought a country to conflict are intimidating at most levels, including 

physical danger, closed societies, mafia-like infestations, oppressive 

and exploitive leadership, and widespread corruption. All of these 

elements conspire to produce a noxious blend of misinformation and 

disinformation and a diet of anecdotes that are heavy on rumors and 

conspiracy theories. 

The current situation in Pakistan provides a good example. With the 

top government leadership having been traded back and forth between 

a handful of civilians and the military for nearly 50 years, almost every 

description of a top-level player is framed in some version of near 

character assassination. 

How can you figure out what is going on when so few 

people feel safe enough to speak the truth? 

In the late 1990s the U.S. Government led a well-intentioned effort 

to address impunity in Burundi. A resolution was passed at the UN, and 

recruiting of an international panel of justice experts was initiated. 

When the USAID Office of Transition Initiatives (USAID/OTI) was 

approached by the State Department for core funding to support this 

worthy human rights cause, a fundamental question was asked: who 

will protect the witnesses or the prosecutors, since impunity continues 

to be a core problem in Burundi? 

At the behest of USAID/OTI, a small team of proponents of the idea 

flew to Bujumbura to assess conditions on the ground before any 

financial commitment would be made. While they had planned a 2-

week investigation, the trip was cut short after a few days because, as 

one team member said, “We could have been killed!” The project did 

not proceed. 

In Haiti, the brazen midday assassination in 1993 of Justice Minister 

Guy Malary—a high-ranking official who was seeking to move beyond 

the tyranny of intimidation—marked a turning point in American 
Understanding the Situation • 13 

 

 

understanding of that nation’s long reign of terror. His murder could 

not have been more audacious. 

Many of the practices of the international community do not help. 

“Safety first” and “force protection is job one” policies often limit 

diplomats and soldiers to compounds, bases, and familiar places. 

Investing scarce dollars in the construction of isolated and forbidding 

new U.S. embassies does not foster the flow of information.5

During my work on the Smart Power Commission,6

 I asked 

American audiences to make the following choice: “Would you prefer 

to spend $500 million on the construction of a new Embassy in 

Baghdad or the same amount to prepare and train 500 Americans to 

work in the region with full language, history, and social skills?” Of 

several hundred people in multiple settings who raised their hands, only 

a handful favored the Embassy. 

We have not yet figured out how to strike the right institutional 

balance between caution and a firsthand feeling for a situation, though 

there are many exceptions. The provincial reconstruction teams in 

Afghanistan and Iraq have tried to do this, along with Special Forces 

and Marine Corps units in multiple places. The “surge” strategy in Iraq 

was defined by the placement of soldiers in the communities versus on 

bases or in garrisons, and there are thousands of civilians, many with 

non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who work at extraordinary 

risk “outside the wire.” 

Success will demand a more thoughtful and mutually agreed upon 

risk profile, otherwise field reporting is little different than observations 

that can be made from a desk in the United States. 

Third, there is a strong predisposition to rely on conventional 

wisdom. Dependence on familiar sources or experts, an attraction to 

popular narratives, an inability to appreciate the dynamics of conflictprone situations, and a tendency to exaggerate what we know all 

influence analysis. An April 2008 visit to Quetta in the Baluchistan 

area of Pakistan confirmed how these habits can produce a confused 

picture. As we interviewed dozens of people, the range of information 

5

 “Report on the Embassy of the Future,” Center for Strategic and International 

Studies, <http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/embassy_of_the_future.pdf>. 

6

 CSIS Smart Power Initiative, “Dialogue with America,” Center for Strategic 

and International Studies, available at <http://www.csis.org/smartpower/>. 
14 • Barton 

 

gathered made it clear that it would be nearly impossible to describe the 

situation with much confidence. We heard that there were 800 foreign 

fighters or 10,000; that they were integrated into the community 

including marrying locals or were violent outsiders who were 

beheading people; that the Uzbeks were the most extreme, or were part 

of a multi-generational group that had a row of car mechanic shops in 

Quetta; that the military and the ISI were double-dealing and actually 

responsible for most of the attacks; and that the drone attacks were now 

hitting more foreign fighters (an acceptable result for most Pakistanis). 

And the stories went on. Most of those we spoke with had valid 

personal insights, but only small pieces of a hugely complex puzzle. 

Surely, hundreds of local sources would be needed, and their 

information would have to be cross-checked and filtered, often outside 

familiar channels, to better understand the violence in the region. 

As CSIS began to work on Pakistan in 2005, it became clear that 

several critical elements were missing, including a clear sense of how 

much the United States was spending and on what. Surprisingly, there 

was no single repository for that information at the Office of 

Management and Budget, the Appropriations Committees, or the 

national security agencies. At a gathering of regional experts, we asked 

for estimates of the figure; the consensus was $750 million per year. 

When it was suggested that the number was closer to $2 billion per 

year, there was a howl of rejection. A similar exchange occurred with 

Ambassador Ryan Crocker in Islamabad. The detailed release of the 

numbers has altered the debate.7

A more recent roundtable on the Democratic Republic of the Congo 

(DRC) reached a familiar story line. One of the experts at the table 

decried the lack of international commitment to the DRC. Interrupting 

the discussion, the group was asked, what is the level of financial 

contribution? Within a few minutes, 15 experts had agreed that it was 

close to $3 billion per year, half for peacekeeping forces and a 

significant portion for emergency food. The narrative changed from 

“not enough” to “how could we spend this more effectively.” 

7

 Craig Cohen, “A Perilous Course: U.S. Strategy and Assistance to Pakistan,” 

A Report of the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project, Center for Strategic and 

International Studies, August 2007, available at <http://csis.org/blog/new-pcrreport-perilous-course-us-strategy-and-assistance-pakistan>. 
Understanding the Situation • 15 

The political analysis of conflict cases is also often warped. Take 

Haiti prior to the U.S. invasion in 1994. With an excessive reliance on 

familiar sources, most international observers missed the rapid 

emergence of Father Bertrand Aristide in the 1990 elections and were 

stunned by his first-round election victory over a large field of 

established candidates. As he sat in Washington in exile, the victim of 

one more coup, Aristide continued to be victimized by time-worn 

analysis and characterized by some as a dangerous radical. Those who 

were neither supporters nor opponents of Aristide were assumed to be 

in the middle, and therefore the moderates, and that perception shaped 

America’s official analysis. The two graphics below show the original 

interpretation and the one that eventually led to the U.S. intervention of 

1994. 

Once U.S. policy began to acknowledge that the middle of the bar 

was representative of the moderate voices of Haiti, the logic for 

supporting the restoration of the freely elected President grew. As the 

following graphic became real, the discussion changed and the 

“immaculate invasion” took place.8

 

8

 See Bob Shacochis, The Immaculate Invasion, (New York: Viking Press, 

1999). 

 
16 • Barton 

American official analysis of Pakistan is largely driven by the 

primacy in the minds of policymakers of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. 

Until recently, most Americans who visited Pakistan traveled from 

Islamabad toward Afghanistan, and the dominant view of Pakistan was 

driven by progress in the war in Afghanistan. The significance of the 

war in Afghanistan made it difficult for U.S. analysts to develop an 

independent view of equally serious events in Pakistan. As Pakistan 

moved into crisis and its importance to American interests grew, the 

Pakistan portfolio at State and DOD remained weak. For a while, a 

single, talented, intelligence analyst at State was responsible for 

Pakistan—along with Nepal. At DOD, a vital regional post turned over 

three times in less than a year. The result was a view of Pakistan in an 

Afghan context. For an outsider, it was striking how much the analysis 

differed from Kabul to Lahore. 

A similar effect was evident in the Congo and Rwanda in the 1990s, 

after the genocide and the collapse of the 32 year-long dictatorial rule 

of Mobutu. The views of those who worked in Kinshasa versus those in 

Kigali were dramatically different—and one could detect the origin of 

the argument within the first minute of conversation. 

Even with an in-depth understanding of the community, it is hard to 

sort out a situation. Prior to the genocide in Rwanda, the U.S. 

Ambassador was Dave Rawson, a career diplomat who had spent much 

of his childhood in the region as the son of a Methodist missionary 

doctor, spoke Kinyarwanda, and had numerous unofficial contacts in 

various parts of the country. He loved his work and the people of the 

region and felt blessed to be working on a political solution to the longterm division through direct involvement in regional peace talks. 
Understanding the Situation • 17 

 

 

Dedicated, sincere, and humble, Rawson was a near-perfect fit for the 

job. 

Despite these great strengths, the ambassador may have missed the 

most devastating developing story—the genocide. Perhaps he was too 

hopeful about the peace talks. Maybe he was a prisoner of his own 

great knowledge. Almost surely, he was part of a tiny universe of U.S. 

government experts, working in semi-isolation on a non-strategic part 

of the world, who did not enjoy much support or the engagement of 

senior leadership. 

In a recent Georgetown report, Janne Nolan observed that: 

The case studies reveal a consistent weakness of U.S. strategy in 

engaging other countries at the local and regional level. Each case 

demonstrates how the prevailing concept of U.S. strategic interests is 

defined in a way to overshadow the importance of understanding 

“conditions on the ground.” This appears to be true whether or not the 

United States is maintaining an active presence in the country or 

region.9

In conflict cases, no one has a view of the whole, and the pieces of 

the picture must be assembled painstakingly. These are not moments 

for a rush to judgment. It is hard to charge ahead when the base of 

information is soft. Reluctance, skepticism, even subversion of 

conventional wisdom is advisable, especially when lives are so much at 

risk. 

Suggestions 

This paper has tried to suggest alternative methods and models 

throughout, but a few final suggestions might be helpful. 

Start with an inclusive and expansive model that consults with all 

available regional experts, and then broadens into an integrated 

“wisdom of crowds” model.10 If the process is broad enough, ranging 

9

 Janne E. Nolan, Diplomacy and Security in the Twenty-first Century

(Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, School of Foreign 

Service, Georgetown University, 2009), available at 

<http://isd.georgetown.edu/diplomacy_and_security.pdf>. 10 James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter 

Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, 

Societies and Nation (New York: Doubleday, 2004). 
18 • Barton 

 

from focus groups to surveys and structured conversations, including 

everyone from elementary school students to former Presidents, there 

should be some weight of the evidence that will at least allow a mostly 

accurate first impression of the situation. Conflict cases are best 

understood as “impressionism,” rather than the detailed, “Grand 

Master” precision. 

Sometimes these impressions are perfectly encapsulated by one 

interview. I remember the first U.S. ambassador with whom we worked 

in Angola saying, “On the one hand we have a murderer (Savimbi) and 

on the other a thief (Dos Santos), and the U.S. has decided to go with 

the thief.” 

Spend plenty of time in the place with guides you trust. There is no 

substitute for personal impressions, live contact with people, and the 

time to digest local opinions in the press, on TV, or in conversations. 

Curiosity is the key to sound analysis, and if it is not boundless, then 

the work will not be valuable. 

Use a multi-dimensional and interdisciplinary form of analysis. 

Conflict is a wicked witch’s brew of human failings and depravity, so 

expand the references well beyond economics, power politics, ethnic 

groupings, religion, and many of the other shorthand explanations. If all 

of the optics are used, and the situation is seen as part sociology, 

political science, economics, popular culture and more, then the 

analysis is more likely to be sound. 

Encourage “red teams” and other regular challenges of conclusions 

at every level of the process. Make sure that access is never denied and 

that the rewards for questioning are visible and significant. The Army 

has formally instituted this practice, but already there are reports of its 

marginalization. 

The story of retired three-star Marine Corps General Paul van Riper 

told in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink should be instructive.11 As the 

Pentagon prepared a $250 million dollar war game exercise that would 

confirm the effectiveness of new technologies in a Gulf state 

environment, van Riper was charged with playing the part of America’s 

11 Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, (New 

York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005). 
Understanding the Situation • 19 

 

 

local opponent. Within a day, he had managed to destroy many of the 

U.S. advantages and produced a halt in the exercise.12

Opportunities to improve analysis abound in most big government or 

big bureaucracy settings. 

Conclusion 

With a genuine desire for first-rate preparation, successful conflict 

and stabilization operations are possible. If anticipation, analysis, and 

understanding the context are short-changed, the results will be tragic. 

During the run-up to the 1994 Haiti invasion, Marine General Jack 

Sheehan questioned a gathering of senior U.S. government officials 

about the state of readiness for the operation. As reports were delivered 

from around the table, a certain amount of grade inflation, perhaps even 

bravado, set in. Sensing that, Sheehan said, “Gentlemen (the group was 

all male), that is the kind of preparation that gets young Americans 

killed.” He was right to challenge all of us to do better. 

12 Fred Kaplan, “War-Gamed: Why the Army shouldn’t be so surprised by 

Saddam’s moves,” Slate, March 28, 2003, available at 

<http://www.slate.com/id/2080814/>. 

 

Essay 3 

Reflections on PostConflict Politics of Reform: 

a Voice from Inside Iraq 

By Nesreen Barwari 

n October 1981, at the age of 14, I was thrown into one of 

Saddam Hussein’s political prisons. At 24, I was a refugee, 

struggling for survival on Iraq’s Turkish border. A decade later, 

in 2003, I became the only woman to hold a cabinet post in Iraq’s first 

post-Saddam government. Defying the typical Middle Eastern 

stereotype for what women should and could do, my career to date has 

been a seamless series of opportunities sought to improve the human 

condition, with full-spectrum involvement, from local environments to 

senior levels of responsibility at regional and national levels. I headed 

up the United Nations reconstruction project in the Kurdistan Region of 

Iraq after the Gulf War; after earning a Masters Degree in Public Policy 

and Management from Harvard’s Kennedy School. I later led the 

Kurdistan Regional Government’s reconstruction of 3,000 destroyed 

villages. 

I 

In September 2003, appointed by the Coalition Provisional Authority 

(CPA) and under the guidance of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), I 

inherited a devastated ministry of 45,000 employees, 100,000 

properties, and innumerable pieces of public works’ machinery in 

various states of serviceability. Throughout the country in over 250 

municipalities where most Iraqis reside, the Ministry of Municipalities 

and Public Works was responsible for drinking water supply, 

management of environmental sanitation services (sewerage and solid 

waste), and urban planning and development. 

 21 
22 • Barwari 

As Iraq’s Minister of Municipalities and Public Works I led the 

renovation of ministry facilities that had been thoroughly looted and 

trashed, reorientation and reinvigoration of demoralized and disaffected 

staff, and modernization of outdated systems. In a highly politicized 

environment, and under formidable personal and security threats and 

severe resource constraints, we tried to maintain and advance public 

services to the extent possible. Among many examples, my ministry 

took a lead role in restoring essential public services following highly 

destructive armed conflict in the cities of Najaf and Fallujah. 

During my three ministerial appointments in Baghdad, I attracted 

attention and resources to ongoing works and development activities to 

strengthen responsiveness toward improving the delivery of essential 

public services. I also introduced measures to promote public ethics and 

integrity in ministry contracts and operations. In addition to my 

ministerial duties and responsibilities, I took a lead role in matters 

pertaining to women’s affairs, most notably in a much publicized 

overturning of an Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) resolution that would 

have severely diminished women’s rights. I set out to convince the IGC 

of the vital role women should play in rebuilding the country and 

helped introduce, working with women NGOs, a quota system that 

required that all Iraqi representative bodies include at least 25 percent 

women. 

Transitioning from a traumatic past to a promising future did not just 

happen. Not so long ago, many who are leaders in Iraq today were 

insurgents fighting a despotic regime. Governing through crises has 

been a regular feature of Iraq since 2003. It hasn’t always been handled 

well. There have indeed been inadequate capacities, shortcomings, 

mistakes, and missteps. But there have also been many successes. 

The overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime in April 2003 was a 

milestone in my country’s history. For decades. the people of Iraq had 

faced acute uncertainty to the point where too many, especially among 

the youth, resigned themselves to having no future. The initiative to 

minimize and reduce hardship for the people of Iraq led to effective 

action on the part of all involved—the Iraqi people, the U.S.-led 

coalition forces, UN agencies, and international NGOs and the 

governments and publics who supported them. With the support of 

international organizations, the leadership in Iraq, despite internal 

differences and lack of administrative experience, rose to the occasion. 
Reflections on Post-Conflict Politics of Reform • 23 

The new Iraqi government’s first challenges were to suppress 

terrorism and develop Iraq’s security services; build a democratic, free 

Iraq; revive Iraq’s economy; encourage entrepreneurship and enterprise 

establish adequate safety nets for the less privileged; and achieve 

economic rehabilitation, which required some tough and unpopular 

changes, such as the reduction of government subsidies. 

Creating a functioning Iraqi economy out of failed state economic 

structures was a daunting task. A host of thorny challenges persisted, 

such as: difficulty in restarting vital public services, particularly power 

and water; out-of-work civil servants and former soldiers; Iraq’s 

crushing international debt burden; a number of state-owned industries 

that were not market competitive; a literacy rate that had been falling 

for decades; infrastructure in need of serious investment; shortages of 

gas (for cars and cooking) and other key supplies; and a population that 

is predominantly young. 

The immediate needs were to provide short-term employment 

opportunities to keep people off the streets and to refurbish basic 

services, such as electricity, water, and sanitation, to avoid exacerbating 

political and security problems. 

No one questions that almost 12 years of sanctions in Iraq inflicted 

tremendous suffering on the Iraqi people. Coming in the wake of those 

sanctions, the regime change in April 2003 took place at a moment of 

unprecedented vulnerability for millions of Iraqis. We faced many 

obstacles, including security conditions that offered little freedom to 

operate and a basic social infrastructure, such as water, electricity, and 

accessibility, that was in deplorable condition. Iraqi professionals were 

doing their jobs at considerable personal risk, and some gave their lives 

to this mission. Their compassion is to be celebrated. Even compassion 

has a context, however, and this one is extremely complex. Relief and 

reconstruction in Iraq took place against the backdrop of a military 

occupation. 

Iraq’s reconstruction process needed to take place in a way that 

respected the long-denied basic human rights of all Iraqis. In addition, a 

progressive humanitarian agenda had to recognize the critical 

importance of encouraging local initiative in the rebuilding of the 

country, thereby strengthening an emerging Iraqi civil society. 
24 • Barwari 

Rebuilding Iraq was an enormous task. The first 12 months were 

decisive; the early months were crucial to turning around the security 

situation, which was volatile in key parts of the country. 

Iraqi ownership of the rebuilding process needed to be expanded at 

national, provincial, and local levels while public safety was 

established throughout the country. Idle hands needed to be put to 

work, and basic economic and social services extended immediately to 

avoid exacerbating political and security problems. Short-term public 

works projects were needed on a large scale to soak up sizable amounts 

of the available labor pool. A massive public works rehabilitation 

program in all provinces helped to spur wide-ranging economic activity 

and empower key agents of change, including women. Immediate 

refurbishment of basic services, especially electricity, water, and 

sanitation, was urgently needed. Decentralization was essential. The job 

facing occupation and Iraqi authorities was too big to be handled 

exclusively by the central occupying authority and the IGC. 

Implementation lagged far behind needs and expectations in key areas, 

in part because of severely constrained human resources at the 

provincial and local levels. 

Prewar Assumptions 

The original U.S. plan for establishing an Iraqi government could not 

be implemented after the bureaucratic and administrative structures had 

collapsed and looting had destroyed government ministries. Further, the 

lack of accurate information about the state of Iraqi society and 

infrastructure led to overly optimistic projections. Prior to Operation 

Iraqi Freedom, the historical evidence was that looting was typical in 

immediate postwar environments. It would have been useful if coalition 

planners had anticipated looting and devised a contingency plan. Even 

if the plan had proven imperfect, the process of planning would have 

better prepared the coalition for establishing governing structures. 

Lack of prewar planning left coalition forces and their civilian 

counterparts without the resources or policy guidance needed to 

stabilize and reconstruct Iraq. The State Department’s “Future of Iraq” 

Project considered the wider aspects of Iraqi nation-building. (I 

participated in four Future of Iraq Project workshops in Washington, 

DC, between October 2002 and February 2003.) The project was 

especially noteworthy in that it brought together scores of Iraqi 

opposition figures in 2002 and early 2003 to examine how Iraqi 
Reflections on Post-Conflict Politics of Reform • 25 

politics, society, and government institutions could be reformed after 

the removal of Saddam’s regime. This process usefully assembled 

many of the Iraqi intellectuals and opposition activists who were to be 

involved in post-Saddam politics, and addressed many of the political 

and institutional issues that would have to be considered. However, 

although the project enabled the U.S. government to expand its contacts 

with Iraqi exiles, its product was disregarded as a result of the decision 

to give the exclusive lead for postwar reconstruction to DOD. 

Dismissing this effort and others by non-DOD departments was a 

significant postwar mistake. 

DOD planners and the Iraqi expatriates they engaged and later 

deployed into Iraqi institutions were hampered by assumptions that 

were to prove faulty: that military operations would have a clear and 

decisive end (i.e., there would not be extensive postwar resistance by 

Iraqi forces); that the coalition would have to deal with serious 

humanitarian crises, including flows of refugees and internally 

displaced people; that the coalition could rapidly hand over civil 

governance to robust Iraqi governing institutions such as the line 

ministries and the police; and that most Iraqis would embrace the 

political transition to a “new Iraq” and actively support democratization 

of the political system. 

Postwar Reality 

The reality of postwar Iraq was different. The first surprise was the 

absence of major humanitarian crises. This was in part attributable to 

the rapid collapse of the Saddam regime, which had in any case handed 

out rations prior to the hostilities. The second surprise was the 

disintegration and paralysis of governing institutions, notably law and 

order structures. While a certain amount of disorder and criminality had 

been predicted, the surprise was the complete disappearance of Iraqi 

security institutions during April 2003. Prewar planners had assumed 

that the Interior Ministry and Iraqi police would take the lead in 

ensuring public safety, and that some formed Iraqi army units would be 

available to assist with maintaining order. The Iraqi security sector, 

however, disappeared—army conscripts deserted, army officers and 

police personnel left their posts, and members of the security services 

went underground. 

This wholesale collapse of the security sector was a microcosm of 

the wider paralysis of Iraqi governance at all levels. The nature of the 
26 • Barwari 

bureaucratic authority structures in the Saddamite state meant that the 

removal of the ministers did not simply make room for their 

subordinates to take over and carry on. Power and authority in the 

Saddamite system had been too centralized to allow competent 

subordinates to emerge. 

In addition to the top-down paralysis of governance institutions as a 

result of regime change, the coalition soon discovered that Iraq’s 

administrative, social, and physical infrastructures were in a far worse 

state than had been expected. A common view among prewar 

observers, propagated by the Saddam regime, was that Iraq was a 

relatively modern and developed society. This was certainly true until 

the early 1990s, when Iraq had boasted a relatively highly educated 

middle class and extensive access to world markets. However, by 2003 

Iraq’s governing bureaucracies were hollowed out, its society was 

impoverished and fractured along lines of clan loyalties, and its 

physical infrastructure was often held together by the proverbial wire 

and string. The reality of Iraq’s deteriorated and neglected systems 

meant that reconstruction of social and physical infrastructures was a 

far more challenging task than had been expected. 

The failure to gain UN Security Council support for the invasion of 

Iraq meant that the coalition was unable to draw on the experience of 

the international community with post-conflict reconstruction and 

transition. More concretely, the coalition was unable to draw on tested 

mechanisms and experienced individuals, either in the UN system or 

among a wider range of states. The CPA also dealt with a number of 

rapidly evolving approaches to political transition. These included the 

creation of the IGC, the appointment of interim ministers, the 

revitalization of provincial councils, the long-running debate over 

national elections, and the eventual formation of the Iraqi interim 

Government in June 2004. 

The final surprise was the emergence of a number of insurgent and 

terrorist campaigns. Although a certain amount of resistance by 

paramilitary forces had been experienced during the invasion, it was 

not expected that organized resistance would be a significant challenge 

to the coalition or the new Iraqi state. 

In sum, the prewar planning effort was weakened by both conceptual 

and organizational errors. Conceptually, the coalition’s assumptions 

about the postwar environment proved overoptimistic about the 
Reflections on Post-Conflict Politics of Reform • 27 

prospects for a relatively peaceful transfer of authority to new Iraqi 

governing institutions. Organizationally, the coalition did not prepare 

its institutions responsible for postwar planning or mission 

management early enough or integrate them well enough with other 

government agencies. 

Lessons Learned 

Design and exercise institutional arrangements before a mission, 

and develop personnel policies conducive to deploying the most 

appropriate expertise. Ideally, a mission plan should first start from 

principles—an understanding of the policy goals and desired end-states, 

an analysis of the needs of the post-conflict state, and an understanding 

of the dynamics of the underlying conflict. It should then move on to 

determining a strategy that makes best use of international resources in 

a prioritized and sequenced manner to address the critical issues at the 

right time. 

Question assumptions and assessments. The fact that prewar 

planning assumptions proved to be badly flawed is not a sign of a 

systemic problem in itself—mistakes happen, and the weakness of the 

Iraqi state surprised many observers. The systemic problem was that 

these assumptions could not be effectively challenged in the coalition’s 

political-military planning process. 

Integrate planning, decisionmaking authority, and resource 

allocation and management. These processes were never effectively 

integrated. This was evident both in Baghdad and in the interagency 

process. 

Ensure that planning. resource allocation, and budgeting processes 

are integrated in mission and capitals. 

Set goals commensurate with the available resources. Divergence 

between a mission’s mandate and its resources is one of the key causes 

of failure. All too frequently, even when Baghdad made it clear that 

resources were required to implement the plan, these were not made 

available by London, Washington, or other capitals. 

Build mechanisms that ensure unity of effort in a mission. In the UN 

system, considerable work is being done on the concept of “integrated 

missions;” this will be a step in the right direction in the international 

context. 
28 • Barwari 

Build the required institutions before a crisis, and organize and staff 

them appropriately. 

Early planning must be adequate, and mission leadership must build 

planning and reporting processes into a system that they routinely use 

for decisionmaking. Mechanisms must be built into planning processes 

to challenge assumptions and plan for failures, as well as to audit 

performance. They also need to make appropriate distinctions between 

the international, country, and local levels of planning and 

management, while ensuring transparency and feedback up and down 

the chain of command. The planning process must be integrated with 

the resource allocation and management process if the mission is to be 

able to sensibly align priorities with resources. 

At the institutional level, leaders of institutions need to take into 

consideration that: 

• Compassion heals. Finding meaning in chaos, openly expressing 

feelings, being present physically and emotionally, communicating 

the institution’s values—all of these remind people of their work’s 

larger purpose as they grapple with everyday challenges, inspiring 

action amid agony.

• When organizations cause emotional pain through bad bosses, 

layoffs, and change, a certain breed of “healing” manager steps in to 

keep the organization functioning. What to do: listen empathetically, 

suggest solutions, work behind the scenes to prevent conflict, reframe 

difficult messages. 

• Employees can be helped to find personal fulfillment in ways that 

advance organizational goals by applying three mutually reinforcing 

strategies: (1) Clarify what’s important and focus on—outcome, not 

process; (2) Take time to learn about employees’ personal situations; 

this builds trust and helps create opportunities that capitalize on the 

knowledge that employees bring to the business from outside work; 

and (3) Continually experiment with how the work gets done—

reengineering work processes can improve performance and simplify 

employees’ lives at the same time. 

Finally, significant reform requires two factors that do not often 

come together: a broad-based, popular sentiment that “things have to 

change,” and a leadership that is able to translate this broad 

dissatisfaction into a concrete program that crystallizes the issues and 

points to their solution. Most of the time, democratic politics turns out 
Reflections on Post-Conflict Politics of Reform • 29 

to be quite conservative. Reform is difficult. But, amazingly, reform 

nonetheless happens. 

As I traveled throughout the country visiting and connecting with the 

more than 250 municipal offices, talking to staff, and meeting and 

discussing issues of mutual importance and interest with local tribal 

and religious leaders across the country, it was impossible not to be 

impressed by the character and drive, the dedication and enthusiasm, 

the wearied endurance of the men and women in the field, and the 

enormous opportunities, challenges, and risks before them all. 

Essay 4 

Preemptive Post-conflict 

Stabilization and 

Reconstruction 

By Barbara K. Bodine 

ny decent surgeon will tell you that all operations are complex; 

none are simple, routine or risk-free. Any doctor who would 

say otherwise is ignorant or arrogant and, in either case, 

potentially lethal. A successful surgical operation requires competent, 

experienced leadership, strong staff work, training and experience, an 

understanding of the risks and possible complications, and the 

necessary back up and a willingness to call it in when the situation 

warrants. It also begins with a proper diagnosis of the problem. And so 

it is with complex operations. 

A 

There were four major decision points on Iraq: whether to go in, how 

to go in, what to do the Day After and, in 2006, how to change course 

significantly to pull Iraq back from the brink of the abyss. This is not 

the place to debate whether there was good and sufficient cause to 

invade Iraq in 2003. Most of the rationales and excuses are threadbare 

by now. The merits of the Rumsfeld Doctrine, “shock and awe” and the 

size of the force General Franks ultimately had at his disposal, and 

related issues of martial law all played in the debacle of the Day After, 

and the need to create (or recreate) counterinsurgency doctrine. These 

also have been examined in great depth by others. 

Much has been made of the revolutionary nature of the new COIN 

doctrine, often called the Petraeus Doctrine: the maxim that force can 

lose a counterinsurgency but not win one; the primacy of the political 

over the military; the centrality of protection of the population over the 

killing of the enemy; and, the unity-of-effort or whole-of-government 

 31 
32 • Bodine 

 

approach.1 What is revolutionary is not that these lessons were new, 

that they were unique to Iraq, or to 21st century conflict. What is 

revolutionary was that these lessons had been learned, known, and 

consciously forgotten—ghosts of conflicts past and lost. What is 

revolutionary about the COIN doctrine is that it reached into the past, 

brought it forward, and updated it. It was not the reinvention of the 

wheel, but a rediscovery that the principles of the wheel still applied. A 

core element is not the demilitarization of broader counterinsurgency 

operations, but the de-civilianization of the military. It is a recognition 

that the complexity of an operation and the broad scope of an 

operation—interagency, civilian-military, and multilateral—are 

potential strengths, not inherent weaknesses. 

After leaving the State Department, I was fortunate to land as a 

fellow at the Kennedy School of Government’s Institute of Politics. 

Early on, I gave a lecture entitled “Ad hoc’ing our way to Baghdad,” 

about how our refusal to plan, to draw on the work of the 18-month 

interagency Future of Iraq Project, to adequately staff (we had about 

120 civilians to run a shattered country of 25 million), and our lack of a 

clear mandate or authority made a mockery of our vaulted political 

rhetoric. Regime change in Iraq was not a repudiation of President 

Bush’s pledge not to do nation-building but its manifestation. 

The Rumsfeldian version of unity of effort through not only 

unilateral military action, but also uni-agency operations (both covered 

by fig leafs of coalition partnerships and interagency participation) was 

seductively simple and streamlined on the surface, but ultimately 

counterproductive. It forfeited the expertise, legitimacy, and checks and 

balances of multiple players. Over time, it became insular, isolated, and 

detached. The costs were evident as Iraq spun out of control and we 

lacked not only the doctrine and the tools to respond, but also the 

expertise to properly understand and diagnose the problem. 

The working assumption was that we would go in, dust off the Iraqi 

bureaucracy (which would be in its offices as if on “pause”), patch up 

the infrastructure, install a government (the famously oxymoronic 

concept of “imposed democracy”), and be gone by the end of summer. 

General Jay Garner, the head of the Office of Reconstruction and 

1

 See Field Manual 3-24 Counterinsurgency (Washington, DC: Department of 

the Army, December 2006), available at <http://www.usgcoin.org/ 

library/doctrine/COIN-FM3-24.pdf>. 
Preemptive Post-Conflict Stabilization and Reconstruction • 33 

Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), precursor to Paul Bremer’s 

Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), missed few opportunities to 

remind his staff of the short tenure of his contract, which turned out to 

be even shorter than advertised. 

To the extent there was a plan, it was drafted in Kuwait (by a British 

officer), was no more than an inch thick, explicitly was not shared 

interagency, reflected a grudging acceptance of coalition civilian 

contributions, had little apparent Iraqi contribution beyond OSD’s 

chosen few, and was not systematically coordinated prior to or after our 

arrival with the U.S. military. An insurgency may have been inevitable 

in Iraq, but the size and intensity of the conflagration was not. The 

Future of Iraq Project, even if fully implemented, was no silver bullet, 

but to ignore Eisenhower’s dictum that the value of a plan is in the 

planning—and the planners—and to go in without either evidenced a 

fatal combination of arrogance and idiocy. 

Many have asked when we knew we had a train wreck on our hands. 

It was clear in April 2003 in Baghdad, late March in Kuwait, and even 

early March in the Pentagon. The Presidential mandate giving DOD the 

lead on reconstruction of post-invasion Iraq was not bestowed until late 

January 2003. The Coordinator for Reconstruction for Baghdad and the 

Central Governorates was not recruited until the end of February 2003, 

and started on March 2, 2003. There was no staff, no structure, no 

recruiting process, and no resources. The pretense that ORHA was a 

civilian organization was perhaps more palatable to the American 

public, but the effect of the policy was obscure to those within ORHA, 

ambiguous to the U.S. military, and befuddling to the Iraqis. Donning a 

suit does not make one civilian anymore than my donning desert 

cammies made me military. The top ORHA leadership and the 

coordinators for two of the three regions were retired Army generals. 

All lacked sustained regional expertise and broad post-conflict 

credentials, and all evidenced minimum interagency or multilateral 

experience. The 120 or so civilians in ORHA to manage a shattered 

country of 25 million were dwarfed by the military and nearly crippled 

by a leadership culture that denied interagency and coalition experts the 

communications, transportation, and translation resources necessary to 

get outside the Green Zone to do our jobs. 

This last point was brought home tellingly at the conclusion of my 

ad-hoc’ery lecture. A young man came up afterwards, a former Army 
34 • Bodine 

officer and West Point graduate who had been in Baghdad the same 

time as I. He had been assigned to the Dura neighborhood, later one of 

the bloodiest districts in the city. He recounted his frustration and anger 

at the reconstruction tasks he faced, the expectations of the Iraqis in his 

charge, and the lack of any tools with which to work. How was he to 

fix the electrical grid, the sewage problem, the water, or any of the 

other challenges his district faced? Who could he turn to for advice, 

assistance, or access to city plans? Were there any city plans? 

The irony is that, as he was coping as best he could at the district 

level with no guidance, just a mandate to get it done, my small team 

and I were meeting daily with the mayoralty, the deputy mayors and 

director generals who ran the city before the invasion and had stayed 

after liberation to keep it running. Most were dedicated technocrats 

who had operated under the radar of the Ba’ath Party. In a sense, they 

were those Iraqi bureaucrats we had counted on to run the city, the 

ministries, and the country on our behalf. We had access to the officials 

with the knowledge, the plans, and the experience to fix many of that 

Army major’s problems. The tragedy is that our structure was set up in 

such a way that neither my team and I nor the Baghdad technocrats had 

any way of knowing what the major and his neighborhood needed, or 

any way to get it to him, and he had no way to communicate with us. In 

fact, until we met in Boston, he did not even know there was an 

American operation in the city he could turn to. The firewalls between 

the reconstruction effort and the military effort were impenetrable. The 

cost to our mission and to the Iraqis is incalculable. 

The tectonic shift in approach under the COIN doctrine, the creation 

of provincial reconstruction teams, the establishment of State’s 

Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization Office (S/CRS), and 

the Center for Complex Operations make manifest the necessity of 

thinking through and planning for complex operations, of breaking 

through that firewall we faced in Iraq in 2003. They leave open the 

critical question of how to avoid the next Iraq, the Iraq of the Day 

After. It is not just a question of complex post-conflict operations, but 

complex pre-conflict intervention and planning. 

What is the lesson we are trying to learn here? How to do the next 

Iraq better? How to do Afghanistan? Or how not to have to do Iraq or 

Afghanistan again? If our focus is simply on post-conflict operations, 

or counterinsurgency, we may consign ourselves to an endless round of 
Preemptive Post-Conflict Stabilization and Reconstruction • 35 

low-grade conflicts. The principle threats to our national security, 

global economic interests, and national values will not come from rival 

superpowers, but rather from weak, failing, or failed states. Of the 

countless lessons of 9/11, an important one is that to ignore the remote 

is to invite disaster. We walked away from post-Soviet Afghanistan and 

paid the price. We refused to plan for a post-Saddam Iraq and paid a 

price. And, given the scourge du jour—piracy—we may have ignored 

Somalia long enough to pay a price. If our lessons learned are how to 

better respond to a Taliban, an anti-occupation insurgency, or the 

Barbary Pirates redux, then keep a copy of the FM 3-24 handy and 

learn its basic lessons well. Internalize whole-of-government and unityof-effort approaches, protection of the population, the primacy of the 

political, the centrality of legitimacy, and the requirement for 

sustainable economic development. Those are good lessons and the 

right lessons, and if used as touchstones rather than a template, we will 

do the next Iraq and the next Afghanistan well. (I would strongly 

encourage we resist the temptation to try this in Somalia.) 

Option B to managing the next post-conflict operation well is to take 

these principles of counterinsurgency and post-conflict stabilization and 

front load them. This is not a plea for the hoary matrices that seek to 

predict the next failed state with the same degree of accuracy as 

predictions of California earthquakes. This is not an endorsement of the 

concept of responsibility to protect, which has much to recommend it, 

but also significant drawbacks. But short of an over-quantification of 

the problem, or an over-internationalization of the response, most 

decent analysts and practitioners know which states and governments 

are fraying around the edges but have not yet disintegrated. 

I would propose Yemen as an example. Yemen is the always almost 

failing state. In the late 1970s there was a famous if now forgotten 

series of cables from the Embassy entitled “Yemen at the Crossroads.” 

Yemen is still at the crossroads. It remains impoverished, with a 

capacity-deficit governing structure, an illiterate population, inadequate 

health and medical care, and neighbors who wish it no good. It has had 

to deal with every flavor of insurgent threat, from Marxist-inspired, to 

Saudi-funded, to al-Qaeda wannabes, and, possibly, Iranian 

provocateurs. It has no resource base and no exportable commodity of 

any quantity, other than migrant workers. 
36 • Bodine 

What is remarkable is not Yemen’s fragility but its durability. It is 

held together not by rentier largesse or police-state controls. Rather, it 

sits somewhere between viable if emerging democracy and liberal 

autocracy. It holds together largely because the Yemenis want it to and 

see no credible alternative to the current arrangement—the primordial 

federalism practiced deftly by the central government and the tribal 

leaders. Centrifugal and centripetal forces act as checks and balances 

on the power and aspirations of both sides. There is no viable 

secessionist movement, and neither the regionalism nor the clan 

structure rise to a level that would presage another Somalia or Iraq, or 

even the warlordism of Afghanistan. A strong Yemeni identity predates 

any artificiality of the colonial period and trumps but does not replace 

tribal/clan identities. Yemenis, like the rest of us, can and do hold 

multiple identities simultaneously and comfortably. 

But not failing is not the same as succeeding. It is as dangerous for 

us to overvalue subsidiary identities, such as regionalism or clans, as it 

is to undervalue legitimate grievances of income distribution and 

corruption, or the willingness of outside players to meddle in the affairs 

of state. I was in Yemen in January 2009. U.S. policy toward Yemen 

has become singularly focused, to the point of distortion, on security 

and counterterrorism, and al-Qaeda specifically. And the dialogue has 

become increasingly narcissistic—what has Yemen done for us today? 

How does it support our game plan and our priorities? The embassy 

looks like a mini-Green Zone. 

No serious Yemeni suggests that al-Qaeda and its followers are not a 

problem and a legitimate issue for the United States, or that there are 

not serious security issues in the country that the government needs to 

address. Their lament is that U.S. policy is focused solely on the shortterm and security—the military and the police. The United States is no 

longer seen as being willing to engage with the Yemeni government 

and to seek to address chronic problems of education, health, 

development, and, yes, corruption. The Yemenis suggest rebalancing 

the relationship in terms of a balance between security, development 

and core diplomacy, and also a balance through a broader dialogue. 

What would a policy of preemptive stabilization and reconstruction 

look like, of playing the lessons of complex operations forward, in a 

place like Yemen? 
Preemptive Post-Conflict Stabilization and Reconstruction • 37 

Security first becomes security only. In most weak states, the 

military and the police are very weak links, but an over-reliance on 

building these two sectors prior to strengthening the broader state 

capacity can distort the civilian-military balance, send mixed signals on 

the primacy of civilian control, undermine efforts at governance reform 

and liberalization, and fail to build the core pillars of the state, 

including a competent judiciary, not just competent cops. An overreliance on catching or killing the bad guys without equal commitment 

to the structures of justice and state services is as hollow and selfdefeating as the conflation of democratic processes (elections) with 

democratic governance. 

The military and the police are instruments of state legitimacy, not 

substitutes for or precursors of the state. State legitimacy is critical to 

state security but reflects a broader sense of social contract through 

equitable provision of services, accountability, transparency, and rule 

of law. 

Extension of the authority of the state must be done in parallel with, 

if not on the heels of, expansion of the legitimacy of the state. This 

means education, health, rule of law, and structures of trade and 

commerce. The same investment in teachers, clinic workers and 

midwives, local judges, and the like as in police and military; the same 

investment in the building of schools, hospitals, and courts as in police 

stations and equipment; the same attention to an education system, 

health system and judicial system. This is not social engineering, or 

“nation-building” but state capacity-building. This also need not be a 

U.S.-only endeavor but should be broadly multilateral. 

Diplomats and development officers need to get outside the comfort 

(and confines) of the embassy. We need to understand and work within 

the realities of pragmatic “risk management” and not cling to the 

fantasy of “risk avoidance.” 

The Department of State needs to regain its footing as the 

coordinator for the formulation and implementation of foreign policy 

writ large—not just the validation of the Chief of Mission authorities, 

but recognition that, as a properly functioning NSC staff coordinates 

the policies of the President and acts as honest broker to the many 

department and agency stakeholders, both the embassy country team 

and the Department of State need to get comfortable again with the 
38 • Bodine 

obligations and responsibilities as policy coordinators in Washington 

and in the field. 

We need to approach failing states, or potentially failing states, with 

the same unity-of-effort/whole-of-government policies and programs 

we now recognize are critical for success in failed states and postconflict environments. We need to recognize it will take the same 

commitment of time but, if done properly, need not demand the same 

commitment of resources as we now understand are required for postconflict operations or for counterinsurgency. While it may be useful to 

have a corps of professionals and reservists who can deploy quickly to 

a crisis or post-conflict situation, we must be wary of creating too 

insular a corps, however interagency it may be. The tools and mindset 

needed to work complex operations, and the discipline to go when 

called, should be encouraged, supported, rewarded, and expected 

throughout the civilian interagency. Creating too narrow a community 

would let everyone else off the hook. 
Essay 5 

Lessons Learned in the Fog 

of Peace 

By L. Paul Bremer 

fter the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the United Nations 

designated the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) as the 

government of Iraq. The CPA and Coalition forces faced three 

major challenges: providing security for the Iraqi people, beginning a 

process of political reform, and starting to repair the economy. 

Coalition military forces, under American command, had responsibility 

for security; the CPA, as the civilian arm of the occupation, had 

primary responsibility for political and economic reform. In each case, 

conditions were much worse than prewar planners had anticipated. 

A

Lack of Security 

After Saddam’s fall, looting caused the widespread destruction of 

Iraqi government institutions. Some looters were implementing prewar 

plans of Saddam’s security services. Others looted out of anger, 

revenge, or greed. They roamed the streets at will. The Iraqi army had 

dissolved itself; not a single Iraqi army unit was intact anywhere in 

Iraq. Iraqi police had left the streets. Government leaders had vanished. 

Lacking orders to stop the looting, Coalition forces stood by while the 

destruction continued. Seventeen of Iraq’s 20 government ministries 

were destroyed. Military barracks and police stations across Iraq were 

looted and demolished. The country’s electrical power and oil 

infrastructure were badly damaged. The looting cost Iraq more than $12 

billion, equivalent to half the country’s prewar GDP. 

The early failure to maintain order strengthened militias, encouraged 

insurgents and terrorists, and eroded Iraqi civilian support for Coalition 

political and economic projects. 

 39 
40 • Bremer 

Politics Distorted 

Saddam Hussein modeled the ruling Baath Party on the Nazi party. 

The party controlled every aspect of Iraqi life. Competing secret 

services spied on Iraqis, enlisting children to report on their parents. All 

information was tightly controlled. Criticism was met by imprisonment, 

torture, or death. Most non-Baath party political leaders were 

imprisoned, murdered, or driven into exile. During his 35-year reign, 

Saddam’s regime killed more than one million Iraqis. 

At liberation, there was no political structure on which to build a new 

Iraqi system. Saddam’s “constitution” was a constitution only in name. 

Political parties had been outlawed. Iraq had no laws governing 

elections and no constituency boundaries. The last reliable census had 

been taken in 1957. Iraqi exiles, on whom some prewar planners had 

counted for leadership, were viewed with suspicion by Iraqis who had 

stayed and suffered under Saddam. 

A Shattered Economy 

Iraq’s economy was already flat on its back in 2003. In 1980, per 

capita income had been equal to that of Spain; by 2002 it had fallen to 

that of Angola. During the 1990s, Saddam cut health care spending by 

over 90 percent. According to the World Bank, in 2002, Iraq had the 

region’s lowest life expectancy and highest infant mortality rates. 

The Baath party and its cronies dominated every aspect of the 

country’s economy. Extravagant subsidies ate up half of Iraq’s budget. 

Saddam covered annual fiscal deficits by printing more money. Fridays 

he would call the Central Bank to order the amount of currency to be 

printed the next week. The Iraqi Planning Ministry estimated the annual 

rate of inflation as 115,000 percent at the end of 2002. 

Under Saddam, the country produced only 60 percent of needed 

electricity. Immediately following Saddam’s ouster, Iraq was producing 

only 3 percent of demand. Iraq’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) 

subsisted on politically determined financing, controlled markets, 

access to favorable exchange rates, and corruption. Before the war, the 

Iraqi government estimated unemployment at over 50 percent. 

Lack of security after the invasion magnified these structural 

problems. All of Iraq’s banks were closed. There was no system for the 

electronic transfer of funds; government expenses had to be paid in 
Lessons Learned in the Fog of Peace • 41 

cash all over the country. Seventy percent of Iraq’s hospitals were 

closed; none of the 22 hospitals in Baghdad had emergency generators. 

Three thousand schools and 80 percent of their supplies and equipment 

had been damaged or destroyed. The World Bank estimated that Iraq 

faced an infrastructure deficit of some $100 billion—four times the 

country’s GDP. 

The Coalition confronted the equivalent of a defeated Germany in 

1945 and a failed Soviet Union in 1989 combined. Below are several 

lessons to be learned from the experience of the CPA. 

Providing Security for the Civilian Population is 

Essential to All other Goals. 

 The fundamental responsibility of any government is to provide 

security for its citizens. Coalition forces were slow to do this. During 

the 14-month occupation, attacks tripled. By the end of 2006, as 

sectarian violence mounted, attacks were seven times higher than they 

had been in May 2003. 

Much remains unclear about America’s planning for the post-conflict 

period. Despite the exceptional bravery and dedication of our armed 

forces, their efforts were hampered by three problems: 

The Coalition did not commit sufficient forces. Public prewar studies 

and previous planning indicated that to stabilize a country of 27 million 

people the Coalition would need as many as 500,000 troops; less than 

half that number was deployed. The initial post-conflict plan called to 

reduce this force by 80 percent within 3 months of the end of major 

combat operations. Conditions in Iraq soon overcame this plan; the 

Coalition never had sufficient “boots on the ground”. 

America did not plan for or conduct a modern counterinsurgency 

strategy dedicated to securing the civilian population until 2007. 

During most of the first year, Coalition forces were based in large 

forward operating bases outside main cities in hopes of reducing the 

impression of occupation and rapidly returning security functions to the 

Iraqis. Coalition forces conducted operations into those cities, but 

returned to their bases without leaving behind forces to secure the 

population and support rebuilding the economy. Arguably, in 2003 

American forces were not adequately trained or equipped for 

counterinsurgency operations. Despite increasing improvements in 
42 • Bremer 

these capabilities, the Coalition proved slow in adapting to the growing 

violence and insurgency in Iraq. 

American armed forces were hampered by restrictive rules of 

engagement. They did not have authority to stop the postwar looting. 

Only when conditions worsened and the full extent of the lawlessness 

was understood by senior leaders did ROEs change. Some Coalition 

allies’ troops operated under ROEs that even prevented them from 

coming to the aid of American forces and civilians under attack. 

The Coalition understood that Iraq’s security eventually had to be the 

responsibility of Iraqi forces. But early efforts to train a professional 

army and police force were ill-planned and under-resourced. A 

proposal, supported by Coalition military and political leaders in Iraq, 

for the U.S. Army to train the new Iraqi army was disapproved in 

Washington, this being perceived as a civil governance function better 

suited to non-military agencies and organizations. America lacked the 

capacity to create a professional police force on a national scale, 

especially when the police were simultaneously engaged in 

counterinsurgency operations. The transition to a more effective, 

adequately resourced, civilian-military police strategy took more than 3 

years. 

The CPA’s decision to “disband” the Iraqi army has been much 

commented upon. The decision recognized practical and political 

realities. By the fall of Baghdad in April, Iraq’s army had already “selfdemobilized”, as DOD put it. The question for the Coalition was 

whether to recall Saddam’s army. Practical and political factors argued 

against that course. Saddam’s had been a conscript army, the majority 

of whose enlisted men were Shias serving under often-brutal Sunni 

officers. When the army dissolved itself, those enlisted men went back 

to their homes or farms. To reconstitute the army, Coalition military 

would have had to find the draftees and force them back into service. 

Moreover, there would be no place to put the recalled forces, because 

postwar looting had destroyed all military barracks and facilities—

sometimes leaving not one brick standing on another. 

Political arguments against recalling the army were decisive. While 

Iraq’s army had once been an honorable institution, it had recently 

served as an instrument of Saddam’s tyranny. It had conducted a 

decade-long war against the Kurds, killing hundreds of thousands of 

them, and forcing still more out of their homes. The army had been 
Lessons Learned in the Fog of Peace • 43 

used to suppress the Shia after the first Gulf War, indiscriminately 

killing hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children. Between 

them, the Kurds and Shia represent 80 percent of Iraq’s population, and 

their leaders made clear to the CPA that they strongly disapproved of 

recalling Saddam’s army. Kurdish leaders even threatened to secede 

from Iraq. 

So instead the Coalition trained and built a new, all-volunteer army. 

The Coalition paid severances to all former enlisted men, and pensions 

to all but the top officers from Saddam’s army. Enlisted men and 

officers up to colonel from the former army were encouraged to apply 

for the new institution after proper vetting. By the time the occupation 

ended, over 80 percent of the enlisted men in the new army and almost 

all the NCOS and officers were from the former army. The decision to 

build a new army has proven a correct one. Today, the new Iraqi army 

is the country’s most respected security institution. By contrast, the 

Iraqi police, whom the CPA did recall to duty, continue to be plagued 

by accusations of corruption and brutality. 

Coalition intelligence was slow to focus on the growing threat of 

terrorists and insurgents. For the first 6 months, at the direction of 

Washington, U.S. intelligence focused on the search for WMD. 

Intelligence experts in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency did not 

arrive in any numbers until late 2003. 

Some of these problems were due to unrealistic prewar planning 

assumptions concerning the security situation in the post-conflict 

period, which postulated a functioning Iraqi government and security 

force after the end of combat operations. No prewar plan can anticipate 

all possible scenarios; plans must be flexible to account for realities on 

the ground. But little worst-case planning appears to have been done. 

Insecurity opened the door for al-Qaeda’s vicious strategy of killing 

Iraqi civilians, particularly Shia, as well as for sectarian violence, 

crime, and growing unrest at the perceived Coalition occupation. 

Finding themselves under attack, with neither the Coalition nor nascent 

Iraqi security forces able to protect them, many Iraqis turned to local 

militia or supported insurgent and criminal groups, who came to 

dominate many of the neighborhoods, towns, and villages. After the 

CPA left Iraq, this led to a vicious spiral of violence and sectarian 

killing. 
44 • Bremer 

Political Progress Requires Active but Flexible 

Engagement 

Most post-conflict societies have experienced brutal rule. Iraq was no 

exception. Its political culture was fragile. Repairing it would require 

Iraq’s communities to make concessions. In theory, it might have been 

preferable for the Coalition to take a hands-off approach, letting the 

Iraqis sort out their political future. But distrust, fear, and the lack of 

security made it difficult for Iraqi leaders to take responsibility on their 

own. Active and flexible Coalition engagement was essential, with the 

Coalition playing a balancing role between the various Iraqi 

communities. 

In his April 10, 2003, “Freedom Message”, CENTCOM commander, 

General Tommy Franks outlawed the Baath Party. This action was 

consistent with prewar plans and with recommendations from Iraqi 

political groups in exile before the war. A CPA order in May specified 

that members of the top one percent of the Baath Party, the hard core of 

Saddam’s regime, would no longer be allowed to have government 

jobs. They were, however, free to find work in the burgeoning private 

sector, become journalists or farmers, or retire in peace. This was a 

correct and popular decision. However, as leader of the CPA, I 

mistakenly turned its implementation over to Iraqi politicians, who 

sought to significantly broaden the scope of the CPA’s narrowly drawn 

policy. It would have been wiser to give this responsibility to a select 

group of Iraqi jurists. 

The CPA found it important to establish a clear process with firm 

deadlines for Iraq’s political reconstruction. But the plan had to adjust 

to realities. The CPA initially proposed that Iraqi leaders convene a 

constitutional convention to draft a modern constitution. When it 

became clear that the Iraqis would not take that step, the CPA 

encouraged Iraqis to draft an interim constitution. Only then did Iraqi 

factions begin serious negotiations, with the CPA playing a vigorous, 

behind-the-scenes role to help build consensus on key issues. This 

Interim Constitution became the basis for the National Constitution 

approved by the Iraqi people in 2005. 

CPA plans to establish an elected Iraqi government were altered by 

realities. Conventional wisdom concerning post-conflict countries 

recommends avoiding early elections because they tend to favor the 

best organized and often most sectarian communities. CPA and UN 
Lessons Learned in the Fog of Peace • 45 

election experts understood the danger of holding elections only 6 

months after the occupation ended, but the Shia community and its 

leaders, comprising over 60 percent of the population, insisted on early 

elections as the price for their support of the new constitution. Ignoring 

their demand would have led to a collapse of the entire political 

process. 

Unsurprisingly, sectarian and ethnic tensions persist; they will take 

time to overcome. But the CPA’s vigorous engagement in political 

reconstruction gave Iraqis the opportunity to shape their country’s 

democratic future, based on one of the region’s most progressive 

constitutions. 

Post-Conflict Economies Require Immediate Stimulus 

and Fundamental Reform 

The immediate priority is to stimulate economic activity and restore 

essential services. Decades of bureaucratic caution meant that Iraqi 

civil servants lacked the habit of initiative, so a vigorous but flexible 

Coalition role was essential. Millions of Iraqi civil servants and 

pensioners had not been paid for months; the CPA paid them within 

days, raising pensions ten-fold. Salaries for doctors were raised eightfold, and for teachers 50-fold. Import duties were waived. After these 

measures, economic activity immediately blossomed in all major cities. 

Within 3 months of assuming its role, the CPA reopened all Iraq’s 

banks, hospitals, public clinics, and schools. More than 1,000 schools 

had been rebuilt. Electricity and oil production had returned to prewar 

levels where, despite daily attacks by terrorists and insurgents, they 

remained until the CPA departed. 

The long-term health of a post-conflict economy depends on laying 

the foundations of a modern economy by implementing responsible 

monetary and fiscal policies. The CPA established the independence of 

the Central Bank and freed interest rates to be determined by the 

market, not bureaucrats. Working with Iraqi ministers, the CPA 

produced balanced budgets for 2003 and 2004. 

Iraq’s currency was worthless, so the CPA replaced Iraq’s entire 

currency. This operation meant importing over 6,000 tons of new 

currency—enough to fill 30 747 aircraft—and distributing it through 

hundreds of exchange stations throughout Iraq. The process was 
46 • Bremer 

completed without incident in the midst of widespread violence and 

insurgency. 

As with its political program, realities on the ground forced 

adjustments in the CPA’s economic plans. For political and social 

reasons, the CPA was unable to reduce the huge, Saddam-era food and 

energy subsidies distorting Iraq’s budget. While the economic 

arguments for cutting them were clear, Iraqi political arguments against 

the reductions, influenced by the increasing violence, were decisive. 

Similarly, the CPA’s program to reform the SOEs was deferred in favor 

of keeping hundreds of thousands of employees on a payroll throughout 

the occupation, even when the businesses were shuttered. 

Despite these setbacks, CPA economic policies bore significant fruit. 

By June 2004, when the occupation ended, Iraq’s economy was 

recovering. Oil and electricity production were at or above prewar 

levels, despite constant attacks on Iraqi infrastructure. The banking 

system was rebounding. Inflation had been reduced to about two 

percent. According to the United Nations Development Programme, 

unemployment had fallen to ten percent. The International Monetary 

Fund estimated that Iraq’s economy grew almost 44 percent in 2004. 

The Coalition’s vigorous economic actions did not solve Iraq’s 

problems. After the CPA left, the erosion of security undermined 

progress. Iraq’s economy is still riven by corruption and distorted by its 

over-dependence on a state-controlled commodity base. But the 

elements of sound economics were put in place and should serve the 

Iraqi people well as security improves. 

Mobilizing for Nation-Building 

A final lesson is the need for the entire U.S. Government to be fully 

engaged in planning, preparing for, and supporting post-conflict efforts. 

This did not happen in Iraq, partly because of flawed prewar planning 

and a failure of the interagency coordination process. Even after it 

became clear that Iraq was in worse shape than expected, the U.S. 

Government was not structured to support the effort demanded by the 

realities on the ground. 

Successful post-conflict efforts require that personnel, programs, 

policies, and procedures be in place beforehand. These must draw on 

capabilities in the private sector, too. Fortunately the Executive Branch 

and Congress have recognized this need and begun to fund it. 
Essay 6 

Complex Operations in 

Practice 

By Peter W. Chiarelli

he U.S. experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan underscore the 

complexity of modern conflict and the lack of U.S. Government 

organizational constructs that can effectively deal with this 

complexity. Despite some useful adjustments since 2001, the U.S. 

Government fundamentally remains organized for an era of bipolar 

containment and deterrence rather than the challenges of stabilizing 

failed and failing states. The multi-dimensional challenges of modern 

conflicts have resulted in ad hoc orchestrations of all the instruments of 

national power that are not in tune with the strategic context. 

T 

As the commander of the 1st Cavalry Division in Baghdad during 

Operation Iraqi Freedom II (OIF II), and subsequently as the 

commander of Multi-National Corps-Iraq in 2006, I learned that 

managing the interwoven kinetic and non-kinetic complexity of modern 

conflict, not only within the host nation, but within the joint, 

interagency, and international environments, is the defining 

characteristic—therefore the challenge—of future operations. 

The only national security instrument organizationally designed to 

operate in complex environments—the military, with its numbers and 

resources—swamps the capabilities of other, often more appropriate 

agencies designed for the non-kinetic aspects of complex environments. 

Short of full-scale overhaul of the U.S. Government, how can we create 

the capacity to manage and dominate these environments while our 

national security functions catch up to the speed and flexibility needed 

in an information age security environment? Part of the answer is to 

make adjustments to our military forces so they can respond to a 

greater range of challenges. The Army has taken some major steps in 

 47 
48 • Chiarelli 

 

this direction. The other part of the answer is to get our strategy right, 

being able to identify, understand, and rapidly adjust ways and means 

to achieve strategic objectives to events on the ground. 

A Full Spectrum Army 

The Army concept of full spectrum operations1 recognizes that we 

must work in tandem with joint, interagency, and international 

stakeholders to balance the application of all the instruments of national 

power. It assumes that purely kinetic operations are no longer the norm, 

and in most cases the decisive elements in complex operations are more 

likely to be non-kinetic and informational than kinetic. It fully 

recognizes Sir Rupert Smith’s dictum: 

War amongst the people is different: it is the reality in which the 

people in the streets and houses and fields—all the people, 

anywhere—are the battlefield. Military engagements can take place 

anywhere: in the presence of civilians, against civilians, in defence of 

civilians. Civilians are the targets, objectives to be won, as much as 

an opposing force.2

 

The Army recently published a field manual on stability operations, 

FM 3-07.3

 Written with the assistance and collaboration of multiple 

government and nongovernmental organizations, it provides a 

framework within which Army forces can work in concert with other 

agencies and interested stakeholders. FM 3-07 prescribes a level of 

coordination that will facilitate more rapid movement from concept to 

action to results. 

1

 “The Army’s operational concept: Army forces combine offensive, 

defensive, and stability or civil support operations simultaneously as part of an 

interdependent joint force to seize, retain, and exploit the initiative, accepting 

prudent risk to create opportunities to achieve decisive results. They employ 

synchronized action—lethal and nonlethal—proportional to the mission and 

informed by a thorough understanding of all variables of the operational 

environment. Mission command that conveys intent and an appreciation of all 

aspects of the situation guides the adaptive use of Army forces.” FM 3-0, Full 

Spectrum Operations. 2

 Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force, The Art of War in the Modern World

(New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 3. 3

 Field Manual 3-07, Stability Operations (Washington, DC: Department of 

the Army, October 2008), available at <http://usacac.army.mil/ 

cac2/repository/FM307/FM3-07.pdf>. 
Complex Operations in Practice • 49 

The Army has also moved away from an organizational model based 

on large divisions to a much more flexible, brigade-centric structure. 

This new approach allows the Army to provide a versatile mix of 

“tailorable” organizations operating on a predictable, rotational cycle to 

provide a sustained flow of trained and ready forces for full spectrum 

operations and at the same time hedge against unexpected 

contingencies at a rate sustainable for our all-volunteer force. 

Operational and Strategic Flexibility 

FM 3-07 captures many of the difficult civil-military lessons I 

learned as the operational commander in charge of day-to-day 

operations in Iraq in 2006. This transitional period was complicated by 

a political stalemate and an internally and externally fueled sectarian 

conflict. Sunni and Shia extremist groups were waging not only a 

counter-government campaign, but also a broader, ethno-sectarian 

struggle for power in the country. Once the Government of Iraq (GOI) 

was seated in late May 2006, the level of sectarian chaos that ensued 

stunted the political and economic progress that had been achieved in 

2004 and 2005. 

It was difficult for many to see the Iraqi government as anything 

more than an agent of a Shia conspiracy rather than the hoped for unity 

government. The operational themes, or lines of effort, were no longer 

balanced to support the desired outcome; a pronounced adjustment was 

identified but did not materialize. The design of the operation needed to 

adjust to the shifting context. 

As an enduring lesson for the execution of complex operations, I 

would submit that not only recognizing transitions, but changing the 

campaign design in light of changing realities is fundamental to 

success. This requires structure and leaders who can create and exercise 

strategic flexibility, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable 

bureaucratic inertia. 

Shared Objectives 

Though we approached the GOI strategically as though it were a 

monolithic rational actor, it was clear there were diverse organizational 

dynamics complicated by historical sectarian precedent and 

contemporary politics. During division operations, and later as the 

Multi-National Corps-Iraq commander, I learned the importance of 
50 • Chiarelli 

 

cultural awareness to force protection. We intuitively recognized the 

tactical importance of understanding culture and enforced the strategy 

through training and re-training. 

Understanding the basics of culture is not the same thing as sharing 

objectives with the host-nation government. While the United States 

saw the escalating violence in Baghdad in 2006 as a crisis requiring 

immediate action, the Iraqis did not always share our sense of alarm. It 

seemed the Iraqis were going through a massive, societal convulsion as 

they worked through their differences. As the body count in Baghdad 

continued to rise, I confronted senior Iraqi leaders in an effort to push 

for a coordinated Coalition-GOI solution. Our differing perceptions 

became clear in their response: “What’s the problem? It was worse 

under Saddam.” The cultural disconnect created a mismatch between 

Coalition and GOI visions for the country. This disconnect had major 

tactical, operational, and strategic consequences. 

Fighting the Mission, not the Plan 

According to FM 3-07, unified action is “the synchronization, 

coordination, and/or integration of the activities of governmental and 

nongovernmental entities with military operations to achieve unity of 

effort.”4

 From a Coalition and interagency perspective, clearly working 

to define operational objectives at an interagency as well as the joint 

Coalition Force/GOI level ensures a unified operational approach. An 

important corollary is to continuously fold into the design the strategic 

value of tactical actions. When actions on the ground significantly alter 

the construct of the campaign, it is time to reevaluate the ways and 

means. 

The actions of Multi-National Force-West in the Al Anbar region in 

leveraging a shift of alliances of key informal governance (tribal) 

powerbrokers at the same time the GOI was struggling to establish 

legitimacy and capacity revealed a strategic opportunity that could have 

been leveraged earlier. A unified approach cannot become so rigid that 

parties become slaves to their plan. The approach must adapt as the 

actions and results on the ground reveal tactical opportunities that have 

strategic value. 

4

 FM 3-07, 1–3. 
Complex Operations in Practice • 51 

At the same time, the collaborative approach to unified action needs 

to optimize and leverage the strengths each partner brings to the 

operation and the impact it could have on a joint-campaign plan. 

As the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations, under Paul 

Brinkley, worked diligently to reopen many of Iraq’s 162 SOEs, 

resistance began to emerge in an operational context, where 

development, diplomacy, and defense were pragmatically linked. 

Ideology replaced pragmatism along a critical line of effort focused on 

the Iraqi economy. Incorporating different contextual lessons from 

Eastern Europe, some could not see the impact of employment on the 

force protection of our servicemen and women and the direct impact 

creation of jobs would have in marginalizing extremist elements. 

Opening even a third of the Iraqi SOEs represented a boost in 

employment, which, as demonstrated in OIF II, has a direct and visible 

impact on extremist platforms. Yet, at the national level, there was little 

understanding of complex operations past the establishment of security. 

Keeping it Real 

The hybrid nature of modern wars demands that we address 

information as a domain of the global environment. As we waited for 

the Iraqi government to define itself through the first half of 2006, we 

simultaneously engaged in an intense information campaign targeting 

the Iraqi populace in an effort to marginalize extremists and enhance 

the legitimacy and capacity of the incoming “unification” government. 

Transplanting a Western concept, we developed many suggestions for 

tasks that the GOI could accomplish in its first 100 days. An 

expectation began to emerge of great things to come. 

But we failed to understand that the Iraqis had other priorities. For 

those involved in complex operations over extended periods, the lesson 

is, don’t become too enamored of your own message. The expectations 

we created in the process impacted the expectations not only of the 

populace, but also the Coalition. We created our own perception of 

capacity in a situation where capacity was almost nonexistent, and the 

organizational dynamics of diverse GOI entities—both legitimate and 

illegitimate—did not fit the expectations created in the information 

campaign. 

In many ways we repeated the mistakes of past wars. Robert 

Komer’s 1972 DARPA report on the organizational dynamics and 
52 • Chiarelli 

 

institutional constraints in the U.S. approach to the Government of 

Vietnam is eerily prescient. Replace “GVN” with “GOI” and 

“Vietnamese” with “Iraqi” and you get a sense for how our own 

optimism may have impacted our approach: 

The sheer incapacity of the regimes we backed, which largely 

frittered away the enormous resources we gave them, may well have 

been the greatest single constraint on our ability to achieve the aims 

we set ourselves at acceptable cost ... for many reasons we did not 

use vigorously the leverage over the Vietnamese leaders that our 

contributions gave us. We became their prisoners rather than they 

ours; the GVN used its weakness far more effectively as leverage on 

us than we used our strength to lever it.5

Our intense desire for the GOI to succeed blinded us to the facts 

on the ground. We failed to leverage the control we had over 

ministry and national level capacity and legitimacy because of an 

optimistic belief created by ourselves that unification across the 

sects and a rational-actor approach to governance would emerge. 

Our own doctrine now incorporates this lesson in stark language: 

“Stability operations leverage the coercive and constructive 

capabilities of the military force.”6

The Value of Values 

The U.S. military is an incredible learning organization. No other 

government organization I know can so fundamentally change its 

approach to how it does business with such efficiency and effectiveness 

as the U.S. Military. Yet the force during 2006 was uneven in 

understanding the complexities of counterinsurgency and stability 

operations. We had not yet completed the cognitive transformation to 

full spectrum operations and Rupert Smith’s understanding of how 

integral the populace was to creating progress. 

It is important to note that, as the complexity of operations rises over 

extended periods, the challenges to ethical and moral decision-making 

increase. Exposure to brutal acts grinds on the fundamental belief 

5

 Robert W. Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional Constraints on 

U.S.-GVN Performance in Vietnam, RAND Report R-967-ARPA, August 

1972, iv, available at <http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/2005/R967.pdf> 6

 FM 3-07, 2–2. 
Complex Operations in Practice • 53 

 

systems of our servicemen and women. The clarity of a “just cause” in 

the grey area between peace and war becomes questioned in the mind 

of even the strongest. Balancing the cultural understanding needed in 

complex operations, the impact our culture can have on a host nation, 

and the horrific acts that are witnessed requires leader attention and 

consistent “retraining” of the value sets that define our Nation. When 

the espoused values of the profession of arms are tested by the brutality 

of extended operations in the harshness of a culturally foreign place 

like Iraq, the emerging actual values must be addressed. As Abu Ghraib 

and other incidents have clearly demonstrated, slips in our value set, no 

matter how “grey” the operating environment may become, can have 

clear strategic consequences. 

Conclusion 

Sir Rupert Smith gives us a view into the future of conflict, while 

Robert Komer starkly reminds us that, “we have been here before.” As 

the fundamental nature of how we define war changes—where linearity 

is replaced by the interplay of intertwined operational themes, and the 

populace becomes the battlefield—complexity will rise exponentially. 

The balance between lines of effort must be backstopped by cultural 

understanding, interagency cooperation, unified action, an 

acknowledgement of our values within the operational context, and 

flexibility of operational design. If we are to exist and dominate the 

current and near-term strategic environment, we must address the 

nature of warfare with a singular focus across the instruments of 

national power. 

What we learned from history we are relearning in Iraq and 

Afghanistan: 

Lack of any overall management structure contributed to [the 

strategy’s] over-militarization ... the absence of a single agency or 

directing body charged with [counterinsurgency or pacification] 

contributed greatly to the prolonged failure to carry it out on any 

commensurate scale.7

The complexity of modern wars and the inability to create a 

government-level, unified, security apparatus for the contemporary 

strategic environment forced an ad hoc interagency approach and a 

7

 Komer, ix. 
54 • Chiarelli 

personality-driven strategic realignment in early 2007 that was, in fact, 

quite successful. 

However, without true understanding of the essence of decision, how 

bureaucracies create their own inertia, the complexity of modern wars, 

and the importance of unified efforts, we risk repeating ourselves as we 

continue forward into an era of persistent commitment. 
 

Essay 7 

No Formulas: Bosnia, Haiti, 

and Kosovo 

By Wesley Clark 

he history of the military art is replete with examples proving 

that military power used alone has been ineffective. In fact, 

outside of limited operations—for example, a hostage rescue—it 

is rare that a single arm of the service, such as airpower, or even a 

combined military force would be sufficient to achieve a desired 

outcome. Even World War II, in which we demanded unconditional 

surrender and occupied the territories of our defeated adversaries, 

entailed complicated diplomacy, as well as unusual sacrifices on the 

home front. 

T

Nevertheless, the enormous destructiveness of modern weaponry, 

enabled by precision strike, advanced reconnaissance, surveillance, and 

target acquisition (RSTA), and special operations, fueled by a military 

establishment working to instill a “warrior spirit” in an all-volunteer 

force, combined after the Gulf War to mislead many into believing that 

the “shock and awe” of a modern military strike could in itself produce 

victory against serious adversaries. And this occurred even as it was 

becoming apparent that military proficiency was just one component of 

any larger national security operation. 

Many of us thought we’d learned this already, in Vietnam. But it has 

taken the post-invasion difficulties of Iraq and the struggling, underresourced mission in Afghanistan to create a new interest in complex 

operations. 

Think of complex operations as those whose requirements extend 

beyond the traditional air, land, sea, and space forces of the organized 

military to encompass integrated diplomacy, political and economic 

development, and intelligence operations. During the 1990s, we had 

 55 
56 • Clark 

some experience with all these. In 1994, we occupied Haiti to restore 

the elected President to power. In 1995, we executed an integrated 

diplomatic-military strategy to end the fighting in Bosnia with the 

Dayton peace agreement. And NATO’s 1999 air campaign to end Serb 

ethnic cleansing in Kosovo saved a million and a half Albanians from 

that fate and culminated in a NATO occupation and, ultimately, an 

independent state. All three offer critical lessons. 

Take Haiti first. The “enemy” consisted of 1,400 members of the 

Forces Armées d’Haiti, (FAdH), supporting the ruling junta. Their 

equipment consisted of just five V-150 armored cars. Our initial plan 

was for an invasion. The operation had no exit strategy, no diplomatic 

component, and little interagency support. Over a period of about 10 

weeks, we retooled the plan, secured an authorizing UN resolution, 

created a UN-led force commanded by an American to which we could 

hand over the operation, and pulled together an interagency working 

group to consider how to handle Haiti’s real problems: crime, poverty, 

disease, and lack of infrastructure. In the process, we issued the first 

interagency OPLAN and conducted a full interagency rehearsal. 

Still, the results were meager. President Clinton sent a team of 

“eminences” to talk the junta into surrendering—which they did once 

they learned that a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division was en route. 

The 10th Mountain Division landed without resistance, and President 

Aristide was reinstalled in his palace. It soon turned out that U.S. forces 

had to deputize the corrupt FAdH to do the police work. Army reserve 

lawyers were sent in to try to cope with the Haitian justice system. The 

prisons were abysmal. The Department of Commerce couldn’t win over 

U.S. investors. Department of Justice police training was fundamentally 

flawed in its emphasis on “beat cops” instead of what was needed—

leaders. The infrastructure programs were under-resourced and 

inappropriate. 

After 6 months, we turned the mission over to the UN. In 2004, the 

UN had to intervene all over again, because, as one international police 

trainer told me in 2005, “you boys failed.” Still, we learned some 

lessons. We wrote Presidential Decision Directive 56 to formalize 

interagency efforts. While, we improved our police training, we did not 

fix our woeful capabilities to project good government abroad through 

public health, education, a legal system, anti-corruption, infrastructure 

investment, and business development. These would have required 
No Formulas: Bosnia, Haiti, and Kosovo • 57 

legislative changes, adjustments in Congressional oversight, and above 

all, resources that just weren’t available. 

Bosnia was a little different. Three sides were locked in bitter 

conflict that had cost perhaps 150,000 lives and made millions 

homeless. A feckless UN mission was on the ground, hopelessly 

outmaneuvered diplomatically, as well as out-gunned by at least one 

side. Several peace efforts, including a 1994 U.S.-led effort, had failed. 

We used a revitalized Croatian military force, complemented by a 

simultaneous NATO air retaliation to brush aside resistance from the 

strongest side, the Serbs, and compel them to accede to a new peace 

initiative followed by occupation by more than 30,000 NATO troops. 

We paid special attention to police forces and the judiciary and applied 

other obvious lessons from Haiti when we crafted the agreement. We 

also learned from the failed UN mission in Haiti to get legal authority 

for the military to take any necessary actions, but refrain from making 

them responsible for much more than enforcing a ceasefire and 

cessation of hostilities. 

The operation brought an end to the fighting. With much angst, 

NATO eventually began to detain indicted war criminal suspects. 

Numerous elections were held. But, some 14 years later, refugee 

resettlement has clearly failed, political reconciliation has largely 

failed, and economic redevelopment has stalled. U.S. forces are no 

longer present on the ground. 

Kosovo is a third example of complex operations. More than a 

decade of colonial-style repression in the region known as Kosovo had 

thoroughly angered and alienated the ethnic Albanian majority. Minor 

acts of resistance were met with fierce, violent repression. Efforts to 

mediate the struggle, leveraged by a NATO air threat, failed. As the 

slide into conflict with Serbia became inevitable in the early weeks of 

1999, the U.S. chain of command seemed exclusively focused on the 

proposed bombing campaign, and especially target selection. We 

hadn’t spent years developing the target base for Serbia, but we did 

have more than 8 months to work these targets. In the days leading up 

to the conflict, we had perhaps 200 targets, and these seemed to 

mesmerize the top political and military in the U.S. chain of command. 

On a trip back to the Pentagon, I was alarmed at the extent to which 

these top leaders had lost sight of the vulnerability of NATO forces in 

neighboring Macedonia, the fragility of the government there, and how 
58 • Clark 

little consideration had been given to defining success in the operation 

and what it might take to get there. Washington seemed to be indulging 

in wishful thinking that dropping a few bombs would break the Serbs’ 

will. Experience shows this seldom happens. If Washington had 

understood that the campaign would take 78 days, 1,000 aircraft, and 

the threat of a ground invasion, perhaps we would have lost the 

political will to initiate the operation, and allowed another deeper 

regional conflict to develop. 

It took NATO a week to reach a consensus on our political 

objectives—what we sought from the Serbs. Fortunately, in the failed, 

pre-conflict negotiations, we had already created a plan for the postconflict occupation, but we actually began the operation without hard 

and fast political objectives. Had we pushed harder earlier to define the 

objective, we might, in order to maintain allied consensus, have aimed 

too low. It took a week of Serb intransigence before nations were 

willing to agree that all Serb forces should leave Kosovo, and that a 

NATO force should move in. 

Two weeks into the operation, after some 15 nights of successful 

strikes, I met with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in Brussels. 

“Well, it’s up to you and the bombing,” she said. But it wasn’t. The 

outcome of our meeting was an effort to create a diplomatic out for the 

Serb leader, President Slobodan Milosevic, which culminated in a joint 

mission headed by Finnish President Maarti Ahtisaari and Russian Vice 

Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin. They eventually persuaded Milosevic to 

accept the inevitable. 

Milosevic would never have conceded had he had a realistic 

alternative. It was our job in the military to deprive him of any 

alternative. We did this by escalating the pressures from the strategic 

bombing inside Serbia, striking more targets and more sensitive targets, 

and employing more aircraft and continuous strikes. I asked for things I 

did not get, like Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) strikes and 

the use of the Apache helicopters. But this kept up the drumbeat of 

escalation. 

We also attempted to ratchet up the effectiveness of the tactical 

strikes against Milosevic’s army and police in Kosovo, a total of 

perhaps 60,000 mostly mechanized forces. We increased unmanned 

aerial vehicle (UAV) coverage, used B-52s in area strikes, and 

deployed Special Forces to the borders. Although it was denied at the 
No Formulas: Bosnia, Haiti, and Kosovo • 59 

time—and I was kept out of the know—it’s possible that a combined 

U.S.-UK intelligence effort was arming the Kosovo Liberation Army in 

an effort to put a friendly force on the ground against the Serbs inside 

Kosovo. Somehow, they did get weapons, and they did advance into 

Kosovo against Serb resistance. 

Finally, we began a planning effort that could culminate in early 

autumn in a six-division, U.S.-led NATO invasion of Kosovo through 

Albania and Macedonia. And we made sure the Russians knew this so 

that Milosevic would be in no doubt about what was coming. 

In the midst of the conflict, Milosevic was indicted for war crimes by 

the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia. He had become an 

outlaw, which blocked his ability to squirm diplomatically away from 

NATO’s grip. 

It was the inevitability of defeat that finally crushed Milosevic. The 

NATO strikes began in a restrained manner, and NATO nations quaked 

and quavered under the domestic political backlash of the inevitable 

accidents and collateral damage of the strikes. But NATO held 

together. Nothing was more important than this. 

In addition, the insurgency blossoming inside Kosovo was on our 

side, and bitterly opposed to the Serbs. It could only get stronger the 

longer the Serbs continued their repression and ethnic cleansing. 

As the commander of NATO forces, I was in a unique position. 

working two parallel chains of command—one through the NATO 

Military Committee to the NATO Secretary General, the other through 

the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to the Secretary of Defense and the 

President. I also had spent hundreds of hours with Milosevic in a 

relationship dating back almost 4 years to the Dayton peace process for 

Bosnia. I made my recommendations with a full understanding of the 

Serb leader. I knew he understood military operations, because he was 

a graduate of the Serb’s Command and Staff College. He also was a 

trained lawyer who spoke English and understood it perfectly. I knew 

he was fundamentally rational, and would at some point give in and try 

to salvage what he could, rather than resist to the bitter end. Few 

commanders in history have had a better insight into the mind of the 

opposing leader. 

In Kosovo, we bent the laws of war to suit the “laws of politics,” 

helping fearful democracies to move forward to take successful military 
60 • Clark 

action. We did not use mass or surprise. Instead, we gave plenty of 

warning and used air attacks piecemeal. In politics, force is used only 

as a last resort, after warnings, and then using the absolute minimum of 

force. 

One element we did get right—and its contribution is fundamental—

is legal authority. Missions must be legitimate, not just in U.S. law, but, 

more importantly, in the law of the land in which we are at work. 

Authorizing UN resolutions, as detailed as possible, are essential. 

The weaknesses in complex operations that we never fixed were in 

interagency support, and those weaknesses have continued to plague 

U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nation-building remains a 

dirty word, and yet the success of our operations often depends on it. 

But where are the contingency budgets, reserve personnel, and trained 

and willing experts in the fields of public health, agriculture, business 

development, accounting, police and law enforcement, public affairs, 

youth activity, family counseling, and dozens of other disciplines that 

we desperately need? How is it that every provincial reconstruction 

team in Iraq doesn’t have a youth activities leader, doctors who can 

work public health, a microcredit bureau that establishes banks and 

microlending, and agricultural representatives with direct access to 

experimental farms and the seed developers who could revolutionize 

agricultural productivity? Where are the legions of trained 

anthropologists and native-fluent scholar-linguists who will dedicate a 

couple of years to promoting economic and political developments at 

the local level? 

Today, above all looms the problem of Pakistan, where a democratic 

government’s own military institutions have sown the seeds of internal 

conflict. Surely, this situation requires the most artful blend of 

diplomacy and discreet assistance in the military, economic, and 

political development areas. 

Now is the time to seek the deeper reforms and more robust 

resourcing we missed in 1994. But to do so we also need to move 

beyond the Quadrennial Defense Review as the Nation’s principle 

strategic planning document. It was never meant for that. Where is the 

real interagency plan for the United States in foreign affairs and 

national security? Who should be responsible for writing it and tying it 

to resources? And how do we create and sustain the tens of thousands 
No Formulas: Bosnia, Haiti, and Kosovo • 61 

of trained non-military professionals we need as a nation to succeed in 

complex operations? 

The foundations of complex operations remain tactical and technical 

proficiency in the military art. Forces must “move, shoot, and 

communicate.” Losses must be avoided and collateral damage 

minimized. Missions must be defined and rules of engagement 

formulated. But there are no formulaic solutions. Each situation is 

different, each challenge unique. And we must be wary that in learning 

the lessons of past operations we haven’t blinded ourselves to the 

emerging challenges of the future. 

 

Essay 8 

The Balkans Revisited: 

Kosovo 1999 

By Timothy Cross 

ver the years I have served on UK operations in Northern 

Ireland, with the UN in Cyprus, with Coalition Forces in the 

Gulf, and with NATO forces in Bosnia. However, Operation 

Agricola, the deployment to Kosovo in 1999, was the first time that I 

came face to face with a large-scale humanitarian crisis. It was a 

challenging and demanding deployment for me, professionally and 

personally, but it was nonetheless “simply” another in a series of 

operations where UK Armed Forces have been faced with humanitarian 

action. Armed conflict in Rwanda, Angola, East Timor, and Sierra 

Leone, natural disasters in Mozambique and elsewhere—all created 

widespread human suffering. On the evidence of recent years, such 

deployments are on the increase. Amongst many challenges that they 

bring with them is working alongside, and indeed for, large numbers of 

non-military agencies. These can be international, like the UNHCR and 

WFP, governmental, like the UK Department for International 

Development (DFID), or NGOs, like the ICRC, the Oxford Committee 

for Famine Relief (OXFAM), and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), 

and the reality of intrastate conflict and natural disasters is that such 

organizations are present in large numbers; they bring real strengths to 

bear, and they are key players in bringing relief to those who suffer. A 

key lesson for me from this deployment was that we, the military, 

needed to learn more about these agencies, about how they operate and 

how we can work better with them. 

O

I was appointed to what was to become the 101 Logistic Brigade 

earlier in this tour, and it was in this capacity that I found myself 

preparing to go back to the Balkans in late January 1999. The initial 

intent was to support and help implement an imminent peace agreement 

 63 
64 • Cross 

that was, at the time, being negotiated at Rambouillet, France. Our aim 

was to move out from the UK by sea into Greece, entering through the 

port of Thessalonica. There we would receive the totality of the UK 

contribution to the NATO-led KFOR and stage it through to Macedonia 

by road and rail. It would then be integrated, and some in-theater 

training would be conducted before we moved on up into Kosovo to 

conduct some form of peace support operation. 

This is all referred to as the reception, staging, onward movement, 

and integration process (RSOI), and, although it had always produced 

surprises and unexpected developments in previous deployments, 

events this time were to really overtake us. By mid-February, elements 

of my brigade were settling into Thessalonica and a number of 

locations around Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, and we had begun 

the process of bringing in 4 Armoured Brigade—the bulk of the initial 

UK combat power. As the armoured vehicles of the first battle group 

were being offloaded in Thessalonica, the talks began to falter. By the 

end of February, we had received over 2,000 military personnel and 

several hundred vehicles into theatre, but the situation was deteriorating 

quickly, and we realized that the operation was not going to be 

anything like as straightforward as we had originally thought. While 

ships and aircraft continued to flow into theatre, the Rambouillet talks 

soon completely broke down, and NATO commenced the bombing of 

Belgrade. Early reports began to indicate that the fighting inside 

Kosovo was escalating, and by mid-March over 200,000 internally 

displaced persons (IDPs) were reportedly on the move, with several 

tens of thousand of people crossing Kosovo’s international borders into 

northern Albania and Macedonia. The refugee flows had started in 

earnest, and the bombing served only to exacerbate matters. 

In the port itself we quickly faced riots as the Greek people played 

out their opposition to the NATO bombing, and local opinion polls 

showed an overwhelming majority against our presence. The rioters 

presumably hoped to keep us blockaded in the port. While they failed 

in that intent, several of our rail convoys were ambushed on their way 

up to Macedonia, and quite a few of our vehicles were damaged. I had 

established my brigade headquarters in a hotel complex south of the 

Macedonian capital, Skopje, and with my staff began to produce a raft 

of contingency plans for what we thought might emerge. It was 

abundantly clear to me that the refugee crisis would get worse, so we 

produced a number of ideas; as usual, of the three options we planned 
The Balkans Revisited: Kosovo 1999 • 65 

for it was the fourth that actually happened but—and this was perhaps 

my first key lesson—commanders and their staffs must not only make 

military contingency plans, but they must be capable of adapting 

themselves quickly to non-military requirements as events unfold. 

On Thursday 1st April, I drove out to look at several sites that the 

Macedonian Government was intending to develop as refugee camps. 

They were small and in poor locations, very close to the border with 

Kosovo. The government-led reconnaissance was badly organized and 

chaotic, but I was able to meet with some key UN officials, in 

particular the head of the UNHCR mission to Kosovo, Jo Hegenauer, 

and the U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues, David 

Scheffer. I outlined my thoughts on the situation. In essence, someone 

was going to have to construct at least one major refugee camp. I 

advised that this should be near a grass airfield and range complex that 

we had discovered alongside the main road running from Pristina to 

Skopje, 10 kilometers south of the border crossing at Blace. The area 

was big enough to create humanitarian maneuver space to deal with the 

refugees, had a good river source for water, and was an excellent site 

for a logistics base. In the meantime, we agreed to help the Macedonian 

Government construct a small camp at Bojane, some 20 kilometers 

away. 

Shortly afterwards, on 2nd April (Good Friday in the UK), I was 

contacted by Jo Hegenauer. Large numbers of Kosovar Albanians had 

been arriving at Blace over the last few days, by road and now by train, 

and things were getting extremely serious. There was no shelter, food, 

or medical cover, and the tired and hungry people were in a bad way; 

indeed, some were dying. They did not have the resources to do 

anything effective; could we help? I was in no doubt that we should do 

so. In my mind there were two imperatives. First, from my 

conversations with the Macedonian Government it was clear to me that 

they were in serious trouble, and a mass influx of refugees could be the 

catalyst for some form of collapse. This was the political military 

strategic issue. The Macedonian Government needed KFOR’s strength, 

otherwise it would fall, and we needed them to maintain their resolve if 

we were not to find ourselves in the midst of a civil war. Alongside this 

strategic issue, however, was the humanitarian and moral imperative; 

there was a striking human catastrophe emerging. 
66 • Cross 

There was no time to seek the views of others; the decision was mine 

alone. Over the previous 5 years, I had worked for the then KFOR 

Commander Lt. Gen. Mike Jackson on a number of deployments. I 

knew him well and had absolute confidence in him. While I was 

therefore pretty certain that he would back any decision I made, it has 

to be said that I was not so certain about the UK chain of command, 

and, somewhat unhelpfully, it was to them that I formally reported. My 

instinct was that if I attempted to get any timely clarity from the UK I 

would be sadly disappointed, and I might well have not liked any 

answers they did provide. While all commanders must understand their 

higher commanders intent if they are to make appropriate command 

decisions—and they should ideally have had the time to get to know 

each other well—I realized that I now needed to be prepared to make 

appropriate and timely decisions as these unexpected events unfolded, 

and then be prepared to live with the consequences. 

I rang my Chief of Staff (COS) and ordered him to establish our 

tactical headquarters (Tac HQ) at the location near the airfield and 

implement the initial elements of our contingency plan. The immediate 

task was to establish a focal point where we could work with the 

UNHCR, ferrying food, blankets, and medical supplies up to the 

border. Tac HQ was up and running within 4 hours, and I ordered the 

release of both fresh food and operational rations. Our field kitchens 

started up and food was being moved forward by about 2300 hours on 

UNHCR vehicles loaded at our logistic base, some 9 hours after Jo 

Hegenauer’s call. The temperature was not much above freezing, and it 

had been raining or sleeting for 36 hours. Images of the thousands of 

people crammed into the fields around the border crossing were 

beginning to be shown around the world. The scenes there were 

disturbingly chaotic, with no evidence of a coordinated response. 

Pressure was mounting on the Macedonian Government, and on the 

UNHCR, whose small team was clearly going to be overwhelmed. 

Various government officials visited my Tac HQ during the following 

day, Saturday 3rd April—most importantly, in retrospect, Julia Taft 

from the U.S. State Department. The United States was putting real 

pressure on the Macedonian Government, who clearly needed 

convincing that the situation at Blace could not be allowed to continue. 

This was my next lesson: forceful and effective diplomacy is essential 

at all stages of a complex emergency, and such diplomacy must be 
The Balkans Revisited: Kosovo 1999 • 67 

sustained alongside any military options that are developed, even if 

further discussions may at the time seem futile. 

While there was inevitably a great deal of uncertainty, as the hours 

passed I became convinced that the dam at the border would break at 

short notice, and when it did we had to be able to deal with the torrent 

of refugees that would be released. The reality was that no other 

organization was in a position to help. So, after a night of detailed 

planning, I ordered major construction work to start. 

The brigade engineers pulled aside the crop-spraying Antonov-2 

aircraft, built a bridge across the fast-flowing stream that ran alongside 

the airfield, opened up access tracks from our logistic base out onto the 

range and airfield, and began to dig deep trench latrines. Elsewhere, 

amongst a myriad of other tasks, the logistic regiment, working with 

UNHCR, continued to move supplies forward to the border; the medics 

began to prepare their reception centers, and the first tents were set up. 

At 0800 hours on 4th April (Easter Sunday morning in the UK), the 

Macedonian Deputy Foreign Minister , Boris Trajkovski, rang me to 

ask that we should indeed implement our plan. International pressure, 

particularly from the United States, had clearly worked. The tempo of 

work increased. Water purifying and pumping systems were set up, and 

reception and registration areas were established. General Jackson 

visited and authorized assistance from other KFOR nations, and small 

attachments from the German and Italian contingents arrived to help 

put up tents. At 1700 hours, Macedonian police informed me that the 

first refugees would be allowed across the border at 1900 hours. One of 

the sites, eventually known as Stenkovic 1, was just about ready to 

accept some, and overnight several hundred arrived. However, around 

30,000 were estimated to be crammed into no-man’s land at Blace, and 

the situation there continued to deteriorate. 

On Monday, 5th April, the dam broke. The UK Secretary of State for 

International Development, Claire Short, arrived with the UK 

Ambassador and a number of other officials; a large media presence 

was also gathering. Authorizing DFID financial and political support, 

which was to prove absolutely invaluable, she asked to look around. As 

we were approaching the main airfield site, Stenkovic 2, a number of 

buses arrived crammed to bursting point with refugees. The pictures of 

Claire Short helping them off the buses became worldwide prime-time 

news. Work continued but no more refugees arrived. Then darkness 
68 • Cross 

fell. Suddenly buses by the dozen poured in. Arriving five at a time, 

with 80–100 refugees per bus, they disgorged their human loads and 

were replaced 15 minutes later by another 5 buses—and on it went, 

hour after hour. As dawn broke, the flow stopped, but by then around 

20,000 refugees had arrived. All through the night soldiers from the 

brigade put up tents, helped families into them, issued food and 

blankets, and provided medical support. I watched as a tiny baby died, 

but many other refugees, both young and old, were successfully treated 

by the multinational medical facility. It was a grueling night, but it was 

just the first of many. Day after day, the brigade erected more tents and 

provided more water, food and other supplies. Night after night, the 

buses arrived. It was only later that we realized that during the day 

these buses were being used to ferry children in Skopje to and from 

school, and adults to and from work; as soon as it got dark they moved 

to the border to ply a different trade. By 9th April, there were around 

40,000 refugees in the two major camps; while some were being flown 

out there was little space left. 

Over 2,800 tents had been erected, 1,600 meters of water pipeline 

had been laid, and tens of thousands of meals had been cooked and 

distributed, along with over 103,000 jars of baby food, 11,000 loaves of 

bread, 264,000 liters of bottled water and 430,000 bars of chocolate; 

400 deep-trench latrines had been dug and thousands of refugees had 

been treated in our medical facilities—five died, but 24 babies were 

born, our proudest statistic! 

In one sense the worst was over. Initially, the NGO presence on the 

ground had been minimal. OXFAM arrived first, and quickly became 

effective, playing a key role in the development of the water and 

sanitation systems. Other organizations began to arrive, but slowly. The 

UN became more effective as the weeks progressed. Various senior 

officials arrived and were briefed, the UNHCR and WFP teams were 

strengthened, and several key individuals emerged as real “players.” 

For a few days the flow of refugees slowed, and the various NGOs 

finally began to get organized, which helped to release some of the 

pressure on my military assets. Coordinating their activities was far 

from easy, but on Sunday 11th April, we were able to hand over most of 

the medical support to MSF and the Red Cross. Although we began to 

plan the hand-over of all aspects of the camps, the following week was 

still a demanding one. The camps had to be extended as more refugees 

arrived, policing and security became a problem, and the temperatures 
The Balkans Revisited: Kosovo 1999 • 69 

began to soar. Rubbish clearance, sanitation, and the threat of disease 

became key issues; once again our military resources had to lead the 

way. Further influxes of refugees continued, and thunder storms 

flooded the camps. The ability of the various agencies to cope remained 

suspect, and we were asked, by the UNHCR, to stay on for a few more 

days. Finally, we withdrew over the period of the 17th–19th April, 

leaving behind a military liaison team. 

After a gap of about 8 days, during which time the brigade was 

immersed in the RSOI of the 2nd Battlegroup and the training program 

of 4 Armoured Brigade, our attention was directed back to the 

humanitarian aspects of the situation once again. Inside Kosovo, 

additional waves of Kosovar Albanians were being rounded up and 

moved to the borders. The camps in Macedonia were full, and the ones 

in Northern Albania, where NATO AFOR was operating, were 

overflowing. The Macedonian Government was adamant that it would 

not allow additional camps to be built in their central and southern 

regions, and so attention focused on southern Albania. Numerous 

meetings were held and reconnaissance trips conducted. Finally, 

UNHCR and HQ KFOR agreed that we should use brigade assets to 

establish a series of camps in the Korce region of Albania, around 40 

kilometers south of Lake Ochrid. Dividing the brigade, and the HQ, 

over such a distance—we would now have elements of the brigade in 

three countries, Greece, Macedonia and Albania—was far from ideal. 

My main HQ was heavily involved with military support to KFOR, 

particularly 4 Armoured Brigade, and our primary mission was to 

support the UK move into Kosovo. Nonetheless, there seemed little 

likelihood of any such move in the short term. Indeed, we were 

beginning to plan forced entry options, which would inevitably take 

weeks to prepare and implement. The lead elements of Tac HQ thus 

deployed to Albania on 8th May, and I joined my COS there the next 

day. 

The problems were very different to those we had encountered in 

Macedonia over Easter. Although there was a time imperative, it was 

not as urgent as before. The UNHCR and NGO presence was 

considerable, and the emphasis was on developing sustainable camps 

suitable for refugees to live in throughout the winter, if necessary. It 

was, however, a demanding few weeks. Local politics was riven with 

corruption, and there was criminality in abundance. Superimposed on 

this was an unclear military command structure—we were operating in 
70 • Cross 

AFOR’s area of responsibility, with both AFOR and KFOR forces 

working with us—and an equally unclear link between the UNHCR in 

Albania and Macedonia. Our first few situation reports apparently read 

more like a John Le Carré novel than a military update, particularly 

when rival gangs in Korce began open warfare, and anticorruption 

officials, appointed from Tirana, began to stir things up. Nonetheless, 

by 6th June, and in very close concert with DFID, the UNHCR, and the 

NGOs, four substantial camps were constructed, and other locations 

surveyed and planned. In all, we created capacity for well over 60,000 

refugees. As it turned out only 12,000–15,000 spaces were used as, 

once again, events were to turn. This time they turned for the better. 

At the beginning of June, planning for the B option had begun in 

earnest, and additional elements of the brigade, still based in UK, were 

deployed. At short notice, 5 Airborne Brigade and a large RAF Support 

Helicopter force were in-loaded and configured to go north into 

Kosovo. Entry into Force was 10th June, D-Day 12th June. By 18th June, 

my Tac HQ had moved up into Pristina, along with literally hundreds 

of journalists and NGOs, of every acronym imaginable. In addition to 

providing military engineering, logistic, and medical support to the UK 

Forces, the brigade repaired and ran a large part of the Kosovo railway 

system, and established a firefighting capability in Pristina and a 

civilian criminal detention centre in Lipljan. In addition, a temporary, 

emergency refugee camp was constructed just outside Pristina to enable 

several thousand Romany gypsies to be relocated. In all of these areas 

we attempted, with lesser or greater success, to work with the various 

non-military organizations and agencies, which by then were pouring 

into Kosovo. Individual relationships were excellent, but tensions 

between KFOR and the UNHCR at the operational level meant that the 

brigade’s assets were under-utilized, particularly our rail capability. By 

the beginning of August, the situation was settling, and we began to 

prepare to hand over our responsibilities. We finally withdrew and 

returned to the UK in late August. 

This deployment was, without doubt, a turning point in my 

understanding of the changing nature of conflict. In some respects there 

is nothing new in any operation, but I came away convinced that the 

pendulum had swung firmly away from using just military force to 

bring a conflict decisively to an end. The end of the Cold War had seen 

an alarming increase in the number of complex emergencies around the 

world, and these conflicts had resulted in historically high levels of 
The Balkans Revisited: Kosovo 1999 • 71 

military commitment. Military commanders were clearly having to 

work ever more closely with non-military organizations and agencies. 

The deployment to Macedonia/Albania/Kosovo was but one example 

of this trend, with 101 Logistic Brigade leading the NATO/KFOR 

response to the developing humanitarian crisis. 

It became clear to me that there are significant differences between 

the military and humanitarian agencies, both in structure and approach. 

These reflect our respective missions, expectations, values, and 

perceptions, but above all our psyche and professional ethos. While 

these differences are significant, and will certainly not disappear, on 

balance I came to the conclusion that the tensions can be creative, not 

disruptive. This is not, or at least should not be, a battle between 

“bloody hands” and “bleeding hearts.” Both sides have weaknesses, but 

both bring real strengths to bear. The trick is to understand and accept 

the differences, bring together the positive strengths, and focus them on 

overcoming the crisis, be it man-made or natural. 

It is important to recognize that the military role is to support, not 

supplant, the work of the non-military players; we are there to serve, 

not to be served. The establishment of a secure environment, along with 

logistic, medical and engineering support—encompassing the 

management of airheads and seaports, transportation, shelter and route 

protection—are all key roles. Our collective and joint doctrine must 

reflect agreed principles on everything from intelligence gathering and 

analysis, provision of the means, including funding, the roles of the 

military, and the links with and status of non-military aid agencies and 

civilian contractors. Ideally, there is a need for an integrated campaign 

plan, covering the political, economic, legal, and humanitarian 

imperatives, alongside the military ones. While inevitably events on the 

ground will dictate and modify, and commanders will need to respond 

to these changes, such a campaign plan, prepared jointly by the key 

players using a framework set within an agreed doctrine, will guide and 

educate, support, and, where necessary, constrain. 

There is certainly much work to be done, particularly in the areas of 

education, training, and doctrine, if we are to better orchestrate and 

execute more effective joint action. This will not be easy, but the 

realities of these deployments is that the various players, including 

government departments, must enhance their links and work more 

closely with each other, and with the other key players, agencies, and 
72 • Cross 

donors. Through understanding and patient leadership, strong 

relationships can and should be developed. The two halves of the 

humanitarian operation have the potential to form a strong and effective 

team. 
 

Essay 9 

Retaining the Lessons of 

Nation-Building 

By James Dobbins 

bserving America’s first year in Iraq, one might be forgiven for 

thinking that this was the first time that the United States had 

embarked upon such an enterprise. In fact, this was the seventh 

occasion in little more than a decade that the United States had helped 

liberate a society and then tried to rebuild it, beginning with Kuwait in 

1991, and then Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and 

finally Iraq. Six of these seven societies are dominantly Muslim. 

O 

Thus, by 2003, there was no army in the world more experienced in 

nation-building than the American, and no Western army with more 

modern experience operating within a Muslim society. How, one might 

ask, could the United States perform this mission so frequently, yet do 

it so poorly? The answer is that neither the American military nor any 

of the relevant civilian agencies had regarded post-conflict stabilization 

and reconstruction as a core function, to be adequately funded, 

regularly practiced, and routinely executed. Instead, the U.S. 

Government had tended to treat each of these missions as if it were the 

first ever encountered, sending new people with new ideas to face what 

should have been familiar challenges. Worse yet, it treated each 

mission as if it were the last such it would ever have to do. No agency 

was taking steps to harvest and sustain the expertise gained. No one 

was establishing an evolving doctrine for the conduct of these 

operations, or building a cadre of experts available to go from one 

mission to the next. 

Since the end of the Korean War, America’s conventional battles 

have ended in a matter of days in overwhelming victories with few if 

any friendly casualties. Nation-building, counterinsurgency, and post-

 73 
74 • Dobbins 

conflict reconstruction, on the other hand, have always proved much 

more time-consuming, expensive, and problematic. One reason for this 

disjunction is that the U.S. Government is well structured for peace or 

war, but ill-adapted for missions that fall somewhere in between. In 

both peace and conventional war, each agency knows its place. 

Coordination between agencies, while demanding, does not call for 

endless improvisation. By contrast, nation-building, stability 

operations, counterinsurgency, and irregular warfare all require that 

agencies collaborate in ways to which they are not accustomed. 

Consequently, these missions are among the most difficult for any 

President to direct. The U.S. Government simply is not structured for 

the purpose. 

Administrations get better at these types of operations as they gain 

experience. Unfortunately, their improved capacity does not 

automatically carry over to their successors. The expertise acquired has 

been developed on an ad hoc and largely personal basis, and is not built 

into the relevant institutions. Therefore, it can be easily lost. One can 

trace this process of progress and regression in the decade following the 

end of the Cold War, which saw an upsurge in nation-building-type 

missions. 

Nation-Building 

During his 8 years in office President Clinton oversaw four 

successive efforts at stabilization and post-conflict reconstruction. 

Beginning with an unqualified failure in Somalia, followed by a largely 

wasted effort in Haiti, his administration was eventually able to achieve 

more enduring results in Bosnia and Kosovo. Each successive 

operation was better conceived and more competently conducted than 

its predecessor, as the same officials repeatedly preformed comparable 

tasks. 

The Clinton administration derived three large policy lessons from 

its experience: employ overwhelming force, prepare to accept 

responsibility for the provision of public security, and engage 

neighboring and regional states, particularly those making the most 

trouble. 
Retaining the Lessons of Nation Building • 75 

Overwhelming force should be applied until security is 

established 

In Somalia, President George H.W. Bush originally had sent a large 

American force to do a very limited task: protecting humanitarian food 

and medicine shipments. Bill Clinton reduced that American presence 

from 20,000 soldiers and marines to 2,000, and gave the residual force 

the mission of supporting a UN–led, grass roots democratization 

campaign that was bound to antagonize every warlord in the country. 

This sent capabilities plummeting even as ambitions soared. The 

reduced American force was soon challenged. The encounter 

chronicled in the book and movie “Blackhawk Down” resulted in a 

firestorm of domestic criticism and caused the administration to 

withdraw American troops from Somalia. 

From then on, the Clinton administration embraced the “Powell 

doctrine” of applying overwhelming force, choosing to super-size each 

of its subsequent interventions, going in heavy and then scaling back 

once potential adversaries had been deterred from mounting violent 

resistance and a secure environment had been established. 

Planners and policymakers should assume the 

responsibility for public security until local forces can 

meet the local security challenge 

In Somalia, Haiti, and Kosovo, the United States had arrived to find 

local security forces incompetent, abusive, or nonexistent. Building 

new institutions and reforming existing ones took several years (and in 

Somalia was not even seriously attempted). In the interim, 

responsibility for public security devolved on the United States and its 

coalition partners. The U.S. military resisted this mission, to no avail. 

By 1999, when they went into Kosovo, U.S. and NATO military 

authorities accepted that the responsibility for public safety would be a 

military task until international and local police could be mobilized in 

sufficient numbers. 

Engage all neighboring parties, including those that 

are most obstructive 

Neighboring states played a major role in fomenting the conflicts in 

Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. This problem was largely ignored in 

Somalia, but faced squarely in Bosnia. The Presidents of Serbia and 
76 • Dobbins 

Croatia, both of whom bore heavy responsibility for the ethnic 

cleansing that NATO was trying to stop, were invited by the United 

States to the peace conference in Dayton, Ohio. Both men were given 

privileged places in that process, and continued to be engaged in the 

subsequent peace implementation. Both men won subsequent elections 

in their own countries, their domestic stature having been enhanced by 

their exalted international roles. Had Washington treated them as 

pariahs, the war in Bosnia might be underway still. 

By 1999, the Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, had actually been 

indicted by the international tribunal in The Hague for genocide and 

other war crimes. Yet, NATO and the Clinton administration negotiated 

with his regime again to end the air campaign and the conflict in 

Kosovo. 

Starting Over 

Each of these lessons was rejected by a successor U.S. administration 

initially determined to avoid nation-building altogether, and 

subsequently insistent on doing it entirely differently, and in particular 

more economically. 

Ironically, the Powell doctrine of overwhelming force had been 

embraced only after General Powell left office in 1993, and was 

abandoned as soon as he returned in 2001. Secretary of Defense 

Rumsfeld’s views were diametrically opposed. He argued in speeches 

and op-ed articles that flooding Bosnia and Kosovo with military 

manpower and economic assistance had turned these societies into 

permanent wards of the international community. The Bush 

administration, he explained, by stinting on such commitments, would 

ensure that Afghanistan and Iraq more quickly become self-sufficient. 

This line of thinking transposed the American domestic debate over 

welfare reform to the international arena. The analogy could not have 

proven less apt. By making minimal initial efforts at stabilization in 

Afghanistan and Iraq, and then reinforcing its commitments of 

manpower and money only once challenged, the Bush administration 

failed to deter the emergence of organized resistance in either country. 

The Rumsfeld vision of defense transformation proved well suited to 

conventional combat against vastly inferior adversaries, but turned out 

to be a much more expensive approach to post-conflict stabilization and 

reconstruction. 
Retaining the Lessons of Nation Building • 77 

During the 2000 Presidential campaign, Condoleezza Rice wrote 

dismissively of stability operations, declaring that “we don’t need to 

have the 82nd Airborne escorting kids to kindergarten.” Consistent 

with this view, the Bush administration, having overthrown the Taliban 

and installed a new government in Kabul, determined that American 

troops would do no peacekeeping in that country, and that peacekeepers 

from other countries would not be allowed to venture beyond the Kabul 

city limits. Public security throughout the rest of the country was to be 

left entirely to the Afghans, despite the fact that Afghanistan had no 

army and no police force. A year later, President Bush was asking his 

advisers irritably why such reconstruction as had occurred was largely 

limited to the capital. 

The same attitude toward public security informed U.S. plans for 

post-invasion Iraq. Washington assumed that Iraqi police and military 

would continue to maintain public order after Saddam’s regime was 

removed. The fact that this had proved impossible not just in 

Afghanistan a year earlier, but also in Somalia, Haiti, and Kosovo, was 

ignored. In the weeks leading up to the invasion, the Pentagon 

leadership cut the number of military police proposed for the operation 

by U.S. military authorities, while the White House cut even more 

drastically the number of international civilian police proposed by the 

State Department. Lest there be any doubt that these police were not to 

do policing, the White House also directed that any civilian police sent 

to Iraq should be unarmed. For the next several years, as Iraq 

descended into civil war, American authorities declined to collect data 

on the number of Iraqis getting killed. Secretary Rumsfeld maintained 

that such statistics were not a relevant indicator of the success or failure 

of the American military mission. Only with the arrival of General 

Petraeus in 2007 did the number of civilian casualties become the chief 

metric for measuring the progress of the campaign. 

America’s quick success in overthrowing the Taliban and replacing it 

with a broadly based government owed much to the assistance received 

from nearby states, including such long-term opponents of the Taliban 

as Iran, Russia, and India. Yet, no sooner had the Karzai government 

been installed than Washington rebuffed offers of further assistance 

from Iran and relaxed the pressure on Pakistan to sever its remaining 

ties with violent extremists groups. The broad regional strategy, so 

critical to both Washington’s initial military victory and political 

achievement, was effectively abandoned. 
78 • Dobbins 

A regional strategy was not even attempted with respect to Iraq. The 

invasion was conducted not just against the advice of several of 

Washington’s most important allies, but also contrary to the wishes of 

most regional states. With the exception of Kuwait, none of Iraq’s 

neighbors supported the intervention. Even Kuwait cannot have been 

enthusiastic about the announced American intention to make Iraq a 

democratic model for the region in the hopes of inspiring similar 

changes in the form of government of all its neighbors. Not 

surprisingly, neighborly interference quickly became a significant 

factor in stoking Iraq’s sectarian passions. 

In his second term, President Bush worked hard to recover from 

these early mistakes. In the process, his administration embraced the 

mission of post-conflict stabilization with the fervor of a new convert. 

The President issued a new directive setting out an interagency 

structure for managing such operations. Secretary of State Rice 

recanted her earlier dismissal of nation-building. The State Department 

established an Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization charged with 

establishing a doctrine for the civilian conduct of such missions and 

building a cadre of experts ready to man them. The Defense 

Department issued a directive making stability operations a core 

function of the American military. 

In Iraq, more forces and money were committed, public security was 

embraced as the heart of a new counterinsurgency strategy, and efforts 

were made to better engage neighboring states, not even excepting Iran. 

The lessons of the 1990s had been relearned, and Iraq was pulled back 

from the abyss. 

Retaining Hard Won Lessons 

The 2008 American elections returned a new President of a different 

party, and consequently offered every prospect of another abrupt fall 

off this hard-won learning curve. Fortunately, President Obama decided 

to keep Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense, General David Petraeus 

at Central Command, and Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, along with 

a team of professional military, diplomatic, and intelligence officers 

advising him and organizing the interagency management of both wars. 

The result has been a degree of continuity that leaves some Democrats 

uneasy, but offers hope that the lessons of the past two decades will not 

be lost once again in the transition from one administration and 

governing party to the next. 
Retaining the Lessons of Nation Building • 79 

As articulated so far, the Obama strategy for Afghanistan is an effort 

to replicate the success achieved in Iraq in 2007 by employing many of 

the same elements: a counterinsurgency doctrine focused on public 

security, increases in U.S. and Afghan military manpower needed to 

execute such a mission, financial incentives to economically motivated 

insurgents to change sides, intensified regional diplomacy—particularly 

with Pakistan, but also Iran, Russia and India—and a willingness to 

envisage accommodation with some elements of the insurgency. 

President Obama has sought to distinguish his approach rhetorically 

from that of his predecessor by downplaying nation-building and 

focusing instead on counterterrorism as the reason for being in 

Afghanistan. Yet he accompanied this apparent narrowing of the 

American mission by increasing manpower and money devoted to it. 

Further, the President’s immediate rational for an increase in American 

troop strength was the need to secure the upcoming Afghan elections. 

Nation-building thus remains at the core of the American strategy for 

Afghanistan (and Iraq), even if the term is still officially eschewed. 

While the Bush administration made a start, after 2005, in building 

institutional capacity for stability operations, much still needs to be 

done if the current level of expertise is not to degrade again after the 

immediate crises recede. Forestalling such a regression will require the 

establishment, by legislation, of an enduring division of labor between 

the White House, State, Defense, and USAID. There must be an 

allocation of responsibilities that cannot be lightly altered by each 

passing administration, for no agency will invest in activities it may not 

long need to carry out. 

In assigning these responsibilities, the role of the White House 

should be to set policy and make sure agencies adhere to it. The role of 

the State Department should be to ensure that all programs conducted 

overseas, by any agency, support the President’s policies and are 

optimized to achieve his objectives. The Defense Department should 

execute only those programs for which the military has a comparative 

advantage. Other programs should be executed by civilian agencies—

the default agency should be a reformed and expanded USAID, which 

should be given cabinet status and renamed the Department for 

Development and Reconstruction. But control over funding for all nonmilitary activities conducted in stabilization missions should remain 

with State, as this is the only means that agency has to play its assigned 
80 • Dobbins 

role as the operational link between a policy-setting White House and 

the multiple program-executing agencies. 

America’s experience in Afghanistan and Iraq has illustrated the 

costs of unprepared nation-building. The cost of sustaining the capacity 

to conduct these operations, and thus retaining the lessons of the past 

two decades, is trivial by comparison. 
 

Essay 10 

Missions Accomplished 

and Unaccomplished 

By Jan Eliasson 

y background in complex international operations is mainly 

in the area of mediation and peacekeeping under the auspices 

of the United Nations or a regional organization. 

I have been the Personal Representative of the UN Secretary General 

during the Iran/Iraq conflict, the Special Envoy of the UN in the Darfur 

conflict, and the chief mediator in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict for 

the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe). I 

also have conducted humanitarian diplomacy in crisis situations in the 

Horn of Africa (Sudan and Somalia) and in Myanmar/Burma, dealing 

with issues such as opening humanitarian corridors and repatriation of 

refugees. 

M 

This is an attempt to draw some general conclusions and formulate 

some lessons learned from these experiences, spanning a period of over 

25 years. I shall also attempt to identify some specific trends in conflict 

resolution and in the organization of operations in crisis areas. 

Cooperation With Parties and Among Actors 

No conflict can be terminated without a minimum of cooperation and 

political will among the parties. There are examples of imposed 

solutions, but such solutions tend to be short-lived, fragile, and fraught 

with built-in tensions. 

In my view, too few efforts are required to learn about and deal with 

political, economic, social, and cultural roots and causes of conflicts. 

Some interventions demonstrate lack of cultural sensitivity, and even 

blatant lack of respect for the history and traditions of foreign 

 81 
82 • Eliasson 

countries. Much more attention must be given to enhancing cultural 

understanding and adequately preparing and training personnel heading 

for complex operations. 

It is also important to constantly be aware of the need to maintain 

balanced and fair contacts with all parties to the conflict. The party 

representing a government in civil war situations is usually well 

organized and easily available to mediators. It is, however, equally 

essential to be in close contact with opposition movements, which often 

are dispersed or splintered and lack the resources of a government 

apparatus. 

To deal effectively with the parties in complex crises, it is 

increasingly necessary to cooperate with other relevant organizations 

and actors. In the Darfur crisis it has proved indispensable to have close 

cooperation between the UN and the regional organization, in this case, 

the African Union (AU). This cooperation includes both mediation and 

peacekeeping operations. For 18 months, I worked closely with Dr. 

Salim Ahmed Salim of the AU. In July 2007, Resolution 1769 of the 

UN Security Council confirmed a merger between the AU and UN 

peacekeeping operations. 

The role of regional arrangements was foreseen in the UN Charter in 

1946. Chapter VIII underlines the responsibility of regional actors to 

find solutions to conflicts, even before they reach the UN Security 

Council. There is clearly a great, underutilized potential for cooperation 

between international and regional organizations. Such cooperation, 

however, is not without problems. There are differing cultures and 

traditions as well as varying circumstances when it comes to training 

and financing of operations. A major issue that cries out for solutions is 

whether regional peacekeeping operations can be financed by assessed 

contributions from the UN. In my view, this should be possible when a 

regional organization is acting on a mandate assigned by the UN 

Security Council. This should be a concrete and meaningful way to 

reflect the spirit and letter of chapter VIII of the UN Charter. 

A Comprehensive Approach to Peacemaking, 

Peacekeeping, and Peacebuilding 

To effectively carry out complex operations, a comprehensive 

approach is necessary. By this I mean that peacemaking, peacekeeping, 

and peacebuilding should be combined and seen as one process. This 
Missions Accomplished and Unaccomplished • 83 

assures a long-term perspective on the operation and requires close 

coordination of political, military, economic, and social efforts to 

stabilize situations and make real nation-building possible. There is no 

peace without development, there is no development without peace, 

and there is no lasting peace and development without respect for 

human rights. 

This, of course, also requires institution-building and a measure of 

good governance in the conflict area or affected country. There has to 

be a combination of effective action from the outside and sufficient 

absorption capacity and political will in the country concerned (see the 

results in Afghanistan today). 

When it comes to Darfur, I would go as far as to say that peace will 

continue to be elusive as long as the interplay and coordination between 

peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding is deficient or absent. A 

serious mediation effort requires not only effective peacekeeping to 

stabilize the situation, but also concrete plans for peacebuilding in the 

form of recovery and reconstruction programs. In addition, there should 

also be credible efforts by the central government to achieve social and 

economic development for all parts and citizens of the country after a 

political settlement. 

To illustrate, around a billion dollars is spent in Darfur every year on 

humanitarian assistance to a population of 2.4 million internally 

displaced persons (IDPs) and another 1.5 million people in 

impoverished areas in Darfur. This enormous operation, involving over 

12,000 humanitarian workers, is almost exclusively aimed at the daily 

survival of this population by supplying food, medicine, water, and 

basic necessities. 

Very little, if any, of this assistance goes to recovery and 

reconstruction programs preparing for future peace in Darfur. 

Admittedly, such programs are difficult to implement while conflict 

continues, as is the case in several parts of Darfur. But there are areas 

where relative stability prevails and conditions for normalization could 

be created. Progress toward stability could be achieved by drilling wells 

for water in the distant and dried-out villages, setting up modest health 

clinics, and opening a country school and building a road between two 

towns, thereby giving jobs to demobilized soldiers and militia. 

Not only would such programs—which would yield results within 6–

12 months—provide a degree of dignity to hundreds of thousands of 
84 • Eliasson 

people, they would also create incentives for and pressures on the 

parties to the conflict to sit down at the negotiation table and find 

formulas for a peaceful settlement. They would not have to prove to or 

convince their followers that peace pays off, or that it is a better 

proposition than continued war. 

The comprehensive approach also includes the growing need to 

involve and take into account civil society in peacemaking and 

peacebuilding. Civil society’s involvement in peace processes is 

indispensable and reflects the need for public support during and after a 

peace process. Civil society is often a lobby for peaceful solutions and 

plays an important role—together with the media—in molding public 

opinion with regard to the international presence in complex 

operations. However there are situations where NGOs are seen as being 

partial or leaning in favor of one of the parties. If an international 

organization or a mediator tends to rely on such NGOs—even if they 

have justified causes and motives—their own neutrality and credibility 

may be endangered. 

Reflections on Darfur and Mediation 

Dr. Salim and I started our cooperation as mediators for the AU and 

UN in the Darfur conflict in December 2006. We made substantial 

progress in the middle of 2007 mainly due to two developments: 

• UN Security Council Resolution 1769 of July 31, 2007, which 

established a strong link between the UN and the AU, 

particularly in peacekeeping; and 

• the common platform for negotiations elaborated by seven of 

the eight most important movements in Darfur, which was met 

by the Government of Sudan with serious interest. 

However, the situation in Darfur, Sudan, and the region deteriorated 

drastically during the following few months. In early September 2007, 

one of the most important movements, the Justice and Equality 

Movement (JEM), split into two competing factions. One splinter 

group chose to cooperate with the UN and AU, while the other, led by 

JEM founder Khalil Ibrahim, declined the invitation to start the talks in 

Sirte, Libya, in October 2007, and rejected the inclusive invitation to all 

movement factions. 
Missions Accomplished and Unaccomplished • 85 

In October 2007, the SPLM (Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement) 

of the Government of National Unity (GNU) in Khartoum chose to 

suspend the work in government with the leading National Congress 

Party (NCP). The tensions between the coalition partners had grown 

considerably during the preceding few months. This development 

further complicated the dialogue with the Government of Sudan on the 

Darfur issue. 

Relations between Chad and Sudan took a negative turn at the end of 

2007, commencing with several border clashes, which were followed 

by mutual accusations of meddling in each other’s internal affairs. The 

important Zagawa tribe is as strong in Chad as it is in Darfur, and tribal 

loyalties extend across the border. In fact, peace in Darfur can hardly 

be achieved without normalization between Chad and Sudan. This 

became tragically evident in the spring of 2008 when the capital of 

Chad, N’Djamena was attacked and, later, when Undurman, a suburb 

of Khartoum, was surrounded by groups loyal or close to the 

government in Chad. 

These events led me to the following conclusions when I reported to 

the UN Security Council in New York on June 24, 2008. Peace in 

Darfur cannot be achieved, if: 

• there is not a minimum of unity in the Security Council, and if 

the Council’s resolutions are not implemented (Resolution 1769 

was seriously lacking in this regard at that time); 

• the neighbors of Sudan—notably Chad, Libya, Eritrea, and 

Egypt—are not pulling in the same direction (which was not the 

case); 

• the Government of Sudan is not truly working as a Government 

of National Unity (the GNU was far from a reality); 

• the movements are splintered and cannot unify, or at least 

choose a common negotiation team for the peace talks (they had 

tried and failed, and been boycotted by a major, Paris-based 

movement, the Sudan Liberation Movement, led by Abdul 

Wahid el-Nur). 

These reflections underline the fact that a mediator has limited 

possibilities to reach a peaceful solution without the active support of 

major powers and neighboring countries, and without the parties’ 

genuine interest in a political settlement. During my mediation efforts 
86 • Eliasson 

in different parts of the world, I often thought of myself as a man trying 

to bring horses to a waterhole, and then finding that they do not want to 

drink. Has anyone ever successfully forced a horse to drink? 

Peace efforts must be pursued simultaneously on several levels, and 

in several dimensions, if positive and lasting results are to be achieved 

in today’s world of complex crises and operations. 
 

Essay 11 

The Politics of 

Complex Operations 

By James Kunder 

hile serving as Director of the Office of U.S. Foreign 

Disaster Assistance at USAID, I was ordered to Somalia in 

November 1992, when that nation was in the throes of a 

major humanitarian and political crisis. In January, 2002, while 

working as a private consultant, I was asked to rejoin the U.S. 

Government and was ordered to Afghanistan to reopen the USAID 

mission there. Aside from these two deployments, from the early 1990s 

until leaving USAID in January 2009, I conducted assessment missions 

or managed government or non-governmental programs in a range of 

complex operations venues, including Angola, Bosnia, Colombia, 

Georgia, Iraq, Liberia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and 

the West Bank/Gaza. From these varied experiences I have distilled 

three lessons I would like to share in this essay. 

W 

Let me begin in a spirit of sincere humility. Complex operations are, 

as the term suggests, inherently difficult. My Chief of Mission when I 

arrived in Kabul, Ryan Crocker, had previously served as U.S. 

ambassador to Pakistan, Syria, and Lebanon, before going on to high 

achievement in Iraq. Ambassador Crocker was fond of noting the 

number of difficult assignments he and I had attempted before arriving 

in Kabul, then dryly joking that, “it is obvious Jim and I will continue 

to be sent to these places until we get it right!” That is to say, I 

recognize that whatever lessons learned I convey here can serve only as 

data points, not formulas, for those grappling with complex operations 

in the future. 

My first observation or lesson is that every one of these complex 

operations in which I have served was, pure and simple, a political 

 87 
88 • Kunder 

event. Now, it may seem unnecessary to state this simple lesson, but I 

do so for a purpose: to urge that we practitioners in complex operations 

not become excessively enamored of technique, or prisoners of our own 

elegant programs. Let me elaborate. 

One of the positive developments in complex operations in recent 

decades is progress in the techniques available to practitioners, both 

civilian and military. To our credit, we have developed military 

doctrine to enshrine the advantages of working closely with civilian 

partners. Commanders now arrive at the site of complex operations 

with Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP) funds to 

address local community needs. USAID has developed stand-by rosters 

of specialists in complex operations, a precursor to a much expanded 

Civilian Response Corps, We link State, Defense, and USAID 

personnel in provincial reconstruction teams. And the linkages between 

demobilized fighters, jobs, and recruitment are better delineated. This 

list of enhanced techniques could be extended. In short, the civilian 

crisis manager or military commander shows up at a complex operation 

today with a much more effective toolkit than his or her predecessor of 

just two decades ago. 

The downside of having this 21st-century toolkit is that we spend a 

very large amount of time, from the highest levels of the U.S. 

Government to the most isolated forward operating base, sorting 

through our tools for the array of programs that we will employ. And 

each tool in the kit has a bureaucratic constituency. Will we focus on 

microenterprise job creation to offset the recruitment appeal of 

insurgent groups? What increment of additional power generation will 

best promote restoration of stability? Are the critical ministries 

functioning properly, with good financial accounting systems and 

home-grown inspectors general? Are we tracking revenue collection 

closely enough? Now, all of these issues, in a given complex operation, 

may be important, even essential. But they may also cloud the 

essentially political nature of the crisis. 

In each of the complex operations in which I have served, I have 

been struck by the deep-rootedness of the underlying political conflict 

that spawned the complex crisis. The political conflict often goes to the 

heart of identity issues, those dynamics—driven by religion, ethnicity, 

tribe, clan, language, heritage—that are close to the core of the human 

condition. And, although complex operations practitioners can apply 
Politics of Complex Operations • 89 

their program and budget toolbox to ameliorating such issues, neither 

programmatic interventions nor better program coordination can 

substitute for addressing underlying political conflict. Let me give a 

concrete example. 

While deployed to Bosnia in 1991–92, I had occasion to observe 

residents destroying Yugos, the compact automobile that had been the 

pride of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Now, Yugos may 

not have run that well, but they were produced in factories where 

laborers received wages comparable to those paid in Western Europe, 

and the destruction of the market for the cars—as well as the cars 

themselves—made absolutely no rational sense by the standards of 

complex operations practitioners. We wanted to create high-paying 

jobs, in the familiar logic, so that people would have hope for the future 

and put aside their inter-ethnic difficulties. But here was a society that 

was destroying high-paying jobs by destroying Yugos—hence 

suppressing the market for them—because the name of the automobile 

conjured up a political entity with which they no longer identified. 

In a world where political issues, and underlying issues of human 

identity, produce such counterintuitive results, it is essential that 

complex operations address the political issues head-on to achieve 

stability. A positive trend in both Afghanistan and Iraq, in my view, is 

the new policy of incorporating three to five individuals carrying full 

ambassadorial rank into the senior leadership of the U.S. embassies. 

We need more senior diplomats, buttressed by strong language skills, 

on the site of complex operations. But this is only a down payment. 

Developing a sound, complex operations strategy for Afghanistan, for 

example, requires a substantial national investment in understanding 

Pashtun nationalism and the reaction that nationalism provokes in 

Hazaras, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and others. There is no shortcut, no elegant 

combination of employment programs and donor coordination centers, 

that will stabilize the country without taking on the underlying political 

conflicts of Afghanistan. In this sense, Afghanistan is like every other 

complex operation. 

The second lesson I would like to share from my experience in 

complex operations is the imperative that we get serious about effective 

civilian command and control in reconstruction and stabilization 

operations. In my view, the current state of coordination among civilian 

agencies–American, other governments, international agencies, the UN, 
90 • Kunder 

the NGOs and private contractors, the Red Cross/Red Crescent 

movement, and, not least, the government we are supposedly trying to 

help–veers between tragedy and farce, and always exhibits chaos. The 

costs of under-coordinated civilian response, in delay, wasted motion, 

and funds are apparent in many complex operations. This is an area ripe 

for improvement. 

Let me be clear about what I mean by effective civilian command 

and control in complex operations. I am not addressing the issue of 

conflict between civilian and military policy, nor suggesting that 

civilian agencies need more control over military forces in complex 

operations. The necessity of integrating civilian and military policy is a 

serious issue that deserves further attention, but that is not the point 

here. Rather, the command and control issue that, in my observation, 

most needs attention is ensuring that the many civilian reconstruction 

and stabilization agencies that operate in a complex operation 

synchronize their efforts. Minimal coordination among civilian 

agencies is the rule in most complex operations, and the costs of 

minimal coordination are high. Moreover, the highest-profile complex 

crises with the highest strategic stakes often draw the largest number of 

outside civilian organizations, thus exacerbating coordination issues 

precisely where synergy is most needed. 

Let me return to Afghanistan for an example. The numerous civilian 

agencies operating there cannot perfectly harmonize their 

reconstruction and stabilization efforts, but they can, at the absolute 

minimum, maintain a standard, transparent database indicating where 

and on what they are working in order to avoid duplication. The need 

for a centralized civilian agency database of projects and programs was 

recognized in Afghanistan soon after Coalition forces arrived in 2001. 

In 2002, donors, led by the U.S. government, created a reconstruction 

data center in the Afghan Finance Ministry to serve as a central 

clearinghouse of civilian projects. But, as recently as May 2009, a 

senior United Nations official in Kabul reported to me that several 

major donors do not even report their program data to the Finance 

Ministry, which renders the data hub only minimally useful as a 

coordination tool. 

This example barely scratches the surface of the problem. There is, 

in reality, no accepted system of civilian agency coordination during 

complex operations. The closest that practitioners come in most 
Politics of Complex Operations • 91 

complex operations is a degree of voluntary coalescing around the 

leadership of the United Nations, especially when the severity of the 

crisis leads to the appointment of a Special Representative of the 

Secretary-General (SRSG). Even this arrangement tends to fray when 

the international response to a complex operation is a “coalition of the 

willing,” as opposed to a formal UN peacekeeping mission under 

chapters VI or VII of the UN Charter. 

The problem of civilian coordination is profound. Simply put, there 

is no global legal, doctrinal, treaty, or other basis on which to establish 

an authoritative command and control wiring diagram when a complex 

operation begins. There is no civilian NATO. The large, bilateral donor 

nations (the United States included) that arrive at a crisis venue with 

deep pockets and their own technical reconstruction staff often 

determine their reconstruction priorities based on direction from their 

capitals. The International Committee of the Red Cross, or other 

elements of the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement, may have a large 

presence, but they report neither to the UN nor to any bilateral donor. 

The UN agencies sometimes barely coordinate between themselves. 

The major multilateral financial institutions, like the World Bank, often 

strive to establish–with the best of intentions–their own coordination 

centers and processes. Non-governmental organizations and civilian 

contractors may cluster around combinations of each category of 

donors as funding support becomes available for one priority or 

another. Often at the periphery of all this activity is the entity that 

should be at the center of the action: the government of the country in 

crisis. As is widely recognized, outside troops and civilian agencies are 

likely to leave a complex operation only once the host-nation 

government is functioning. 

Efforts have been undertaken to solve this civilian coordination 

conundrum. In the complex operations I have observed, various 

combinations have been tried with varying degrees of success. These 

include strenuous efforts by the SRSG to establish central control, 

creation of a range of “trust funds” coordinated by a central team into 

which donor agencies can make contributions, creation of donor 

coordination centers or humanitarian operations centers, and 

establishment of sectoral councils (for employment, health, education, 

transportation, energy, and other sectors), with each council headed by 

the relevant minister of the host-nation government. But none of these 

mechanisms has achieved more than limited or passing success. 
92 • Kunder 

Ineffective command and control of civilian agencies is an unfortunate 

but ubiquitous feature of complex operations. 

My third lesson is that practitioners–and I include myself–often pay 

too little attention to success stories and invest too little time in 

disseminating information on what works. In workshops and afteraction reviews I have noticed a disproportionate focus on a limited 

number of case studies—Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, and Rwanda come 

to mind. It is perhaps natural to focus on the most interesting or 

compelling case studies, especially those in which U.S. or other foreign 

troops played a major role. Unfortunately, interesting and compelling 

cases often are those in which something did not work very well. In my 

view, there are a number of quite successful strategic and tactical 

responses to complex crises in places like El Salvador, the Philippines 

(especially Mindanao), Mozambique, and even Tajikistan. I have 

seldom encountered serious discussions of these examples. 

In Mozambique, the brutality and tribal nature of the long civil war 

during the 1980s and 1990s made prospects for a successful resolution 

seem bleak. Now Mozambique is a relatively successful model of 

stability and economic growth in southern Africa. The intercommunal, 

peacebuilding techniques employed there, and the role played by an 

international religious organization with contacts on both sides of the 

fighting (the Community of Sant Egidio), are elements that could be 

usefully studied by complex operations practitioners. 

El Salvador, in my view, is an extraordinarily useful model of how a 

carefully negotiated peace agreement that addresses underlying issues 

of exclusion and political repression can serve as a catalyst for peace 

and stability. El Salvador is not without problems, but, the decades of 

violence there from the 1930s to the 1980s, and the historical dynamic 

of ethnicity and Marxism, made peace seem a distant prospect during 

many of those years. The peace treaty ending the civil war is an 

extraordinary and voluminous document that addresses issues ranging 

from reconstitution of the security forces, to land reform and political 

access, to the establishment of truth commissions for those accused of 

atrocities during the fighting. 

In my experience, I seldom hear discussion of these positive case 

studies as examples that might usefully impact an Iraq or an 

Afghanistan, even though I have heard some thoughtful analysts 

suggest that Mindanao is perhaps the single best example worldwide of 
Politics of Complex Operations • 93 

successful coordination between military counterinsurgency operations 

and development/reconstruction efforts. As lessons learned in the field 

of complex operations are developed further, it would be worthwhile to 

examine carefully such lesser-known examples of successful attempts 

to address problems of failed states, complex contingencies, and 

integrated civilian-military interventions. 

 

Essay 12 

Reconstructing PostConflict Reconstruction: 

Lessons from Iraq 

By Lewis W. Lucke 

began my association with USAID’s Iraq planning effort in late 

October 2002. I had previously been USAID Mission Director in 

three countries including Jordan (1996–2000), and thus was one of 

the few senior USAID officials with extensive Middle East experience. 

I had also studied Arabic for several years in the United States and 

Jordan. I retired from USAID just prior to September 11, 2001, but 

rejoined USAID post-9/11 at the request of agency management and in 

light of contingency planning for USAID’s role in the Iraq 

reconstruction program. This program would eventually become the 

largest development and reconstruction program ever undertaken by 

USAID. 

I 

I arrived in Kuwait in early November 2002 to interface with the 

U.S. military in Kuwait, scout for office space and other facilities for 

USAID, and develop relationships with other organizations (UNDP, 

WFP, etc.) with which we would likely need to work and coordinate. 

As far as I know, I was the first American civilian official to deploy to 

theater, and certainly was the first USAID employee there. 

In the meantime, USAID in Washington was beginning to conceive 

what a post-conflict USAID program would look like and draft scopes 

of work that would eventually become contracts and grants for work in 

all the necessary response sectors, such as infrastructure, health, 

education, community development, economic governance, and local 

governance. USAID management tried to coordinate our planning with 

other U.S. Government departments and agencies to some extent. 

 95 
96 • Lucke 

Overall, however, I recall at this point a total lack of coordinated 

planning within the U.S. Government for post-conflict Iraq, though we 

were all at least aware of the State Department’s “Future of Iraq 

Project,” led by Tom Warrick. USAID fought for a voice at the socalled Deputies Committee in late 2002. 

In late December 2002, I was deployed by USAID Washington to 

proceed to Qatar to meet with Jay Garner, soon to be head of the Office 

of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), to discuss 

early post-conflict planning. While there, we met with CENTCOM 

Deputy Commander General John Abizaid and discussed plans and 

progress to date, lessons learned from other conflicts, the need for rapid 

response, etc. 

In January 2003, ORHA was formed and I was recalled to join the 

organization in Washington as Jay Garner’s Deputy for Reconstruction. 

Apparently some seven previous candidates for the post had been 

rejected by DOD. I had good rapport with General Garner and liked 

him from the start. 

ORHA was formed by a Presidential Directive that was clearly a 

DOD product. The directive described ORHA’s role and assigned the 

leadership of each sector of post-conflict reconstruction to a 

corresponding U.S. Government department: health to the Department 

of Health and Human Services, education to the Department of 

Education, trade to the Department of Commerce, and so forth. This 

key document made no mention of USAID—the U.S. Government’s 

lead economic development and humanitarian response agency. 

Thus began what was to become increasingly an OSD-led and 

directed initiative that was ignorant or dismissive of other parts of the 

U.S. Government, including the Department of State and USAID—a 

blatant power grab by OSD to the detriment of the overall U.S. effort. 

ORHA assembled in the Pentagon. USAID hurried to identify and 

hire core mission staff to oversee our Iraq programs. We relied on a 

personnel contract in place with a Washington-based firm, International 

Resources Group (IRG), to quickly fill gaps that should have been 

filled by USAID’s own staff—had they been available in sufficient 

quantity. In my view, ORHA was in chaos at the Pentagon, with little 

progress being made on office space, other logistics needs, and 

procedures. I decided I would be more useful helping set up the 
Reconstructing Post-Conflict Reconstruction • 97 

operation in Kuwait City and departed Washington with the full 

blessing of Jay Garner and USAID. 

Upon arrival in Kuwait I secured USAID’s office space and lodging, 

met with advance teams from the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance 

(OFDA), USAID’s humanitarian/disaster response branch, and initiated 

coordination with relevant U.S. military and Kuwaiti officials in 

preparation for ORHA’s arrival in Kuwait City airport by chartered 

aircraft in late January 2003. 

The next 3 months were spent in various training drills, meetings, 

bio-chem preparations, and office moves. USAID prepared staff as 

much as we could for management and oversight of our contracts, 

especially the Bechtel contract—USAID’s largest ever, and the key 

contract for our part of infrastructure repair, which included port, 

airports, water treatment and conveyance, electricity, bridges, 

telecommunications, and schools. One early objective for Bechtel was 

to secure a dredger for the Umm Qasr port, which would be key to the 

docking of ships carrying food and other essential supplies in case of a 

humanitarian disaster. The equipment arrived at Umm Qasr from Dubai 

in time to dredge the port area. 

When hostilities began in March 2003, we continued planning and 

preparations as best we could. We drilled down to who among our staff 

would enter Baghdad in the first wave and who would follow later. 

Lack of connectivity kept contracting staff in Kuwait well into June 

2003; they would not have been able to function from Baghdad. 

Though part of USAID, OFDA was not in my chain of command. 

OFDA staff in Kuwait did not consider themselves to be under the 

auspices of ORHA, either. They refused to attend ORHA meetings and 

resisted cooperation with Garner and other ORHA officials. This 

rupture was entirely wasteful and unnecessary, and pointed to many 

future interagency clashes and turf battles that would emerge. This 

particular battle with OFDA soon surfaced in Washington at the levels 

of the Secretaries of Defense and State. 

It was clear from the start that the entire post-conflict reconstruction 

program was inadequately planned and inadequately staffed. Even with 

the best of intentions, and despite the fact that USAID was planning 

contracts, (ordering armored vehicles, mobilizing staff, etc.) as early as 

November 2002, in my view no part of the U.S. Government was 

remotely prepared to implement a well-oiled and coordinated post-
98 • Lucke 

conflict reconstruction program. Problems caused by lack of time and 

preparation were compounded by DOD’s “seize the turf” attitude and 

the apparent neutering of the Department of State and, by extension, its 

smaller development agency, USAID. 

On the infrastructure side, we grossly underestimated the degraded 

state of Iraqi electricity plants, the port of Umm Qasr, water treatment 

plants, and sewerage treatment (there was none in Baghdad), and, 

therefore, the cost and the time required to restore infrastructure. It is 

worth repeating that, with the exception of the telecommunications 

sector and three highway bridges, little of the infrastructure damage had 

been caused by the invasion. Rather, it was the result of lack of 

maintenance. No one had known the extent of neglect by the Saddam 

regime and its impact on the state of Iraqi infrastructure. This 

underestimation was a significant factor regarding timing and expense, 

but we simply did not have access to better information. 

I arrived in Baghdad on April 23, 2003, with two other ORHA 

deputies, Michael Mobbs and George Ward, and rejoined Jay Garner. 

The Republican Palace, our new home, was devoid of everything 

except heat, dust, and a mosaic of Saddam Hussein on the wall. I stayed 

in Baghdad while ORHA transitioned to CPA. Once a USAID Mission 

was formally established, I assumed the role of USAID Mission 

Director. By the end of 2003, USAID had about 130 core staff, 

including our first Iraqi Foreign Service Nationals (locally hired, nonU.S. employees of USAID), 12 or so large contracts or grants 

employing hundreds more U.S. and local staff worth about $2 billion at 

the time, and an increasingly robust, expensive, and necessary security 

staff. 

I departed Baghdad in February 2004 after 15 months in theater with 

a development and humanitarian program that covered all of Iraq at a 

cost of some $4 billion and had tallied thousands of successes and 

accomplishments: thousands of repaid microfinance loans, children 

vaccinated, schools refurbished, new text books published, health care 

systems restored, airports and Umm Qasr port fixed and functioning, 

other infrastructure up and running, hundreds of participatory 

community development projects completed—all to the credit of our 

good and courageous U.S. and Iraqi staff, contractors, and grantees. 

Only a few of these accomplishments received much attention in the 
Reconstructing Post-Conflict Reconstruction • 99 

press. Apparently this kind of news does not sell newspapers or 

generate much interest from TV networks. 

None of my extended staff was killed or injured during my tenure 

there, thanks to armored cars, good security procedures, attention to 

detail, and an excellent USAID Deputy Director, Earl Gast, who 

oversaw security and security personnel. Regarding security in the face 

of a growing insurgency, we did our best to be prepared. At times we 

were just plain lucky. 

Based on this experience, I would like to offer two conclusions. 

Conclusion One 

We were inadequately prepared for the post-conflict stage in Iraq. 

Others have discussed this point at length, so I will not belabor it. The 

following are related recommendations, plus discussion, and additional 

anecdotes from my experience. 

Develop, staff, and adequately fund a civilian reconstruction surge 

capacity. Establishment of S/CRS was a good first step but will not 

work without adequate permanent staff, excellent recruitment, and 

followup with volunteers who cover the spectrum of 

reconstruction/stabilization needs and funding. An enhanced, enlarged, 

and empowered USAID should have the lead, along with the State 

Department. DOD should do what DOD does best, and that does not 

mean leadership on reconstruction. USAID was strapped from the start 

trying to recruit staff to fill key positions. There are or were no civilian 

“civil affairs divisions” we could mobilize. 

Alternatively, if the U.S. is serious about the “three Ds” of defense, 

diplomacy and development, for once strengthen the diplomatic and 

development legs of the stool with adequate staff and funding. USAID 

can be a great and essential organization in this post-9/11 world, but it 

cannot run on ether. 

Teach project management and U.S. Government contracting rules 

and procedures to U.S. agencies participating in post-conflict 

reconstruction. CPA was full of many well-meaning people with no 

knowledge whatsoever of U.S. Government contract regulations and 

accountability, which by law must be followed. 

Teach next-conflict responders that a complex, government-run 

reconstruction effort will succeed only if there is a collaborative, “one 
100 • Lucke 

team” approach and mindset established from the top. This was not the 

case in Iraq. DOD seized the turf and then did not know what to do 

with it. Interagency fights were common and preventable. Many true 

experts from the State Department and USAID (some of whom would 

return after CPA was abolished to fill key U.S. Embassy positions) 

were marginalized. 

I was a career USAID officer with service in ten countries in Africa, 

Latin America, and the Middle East for over 28 years. If I were asked 

which of the various governments I worked with around the world was 

the most difficult to deal with, the answer would be clear: the United 

States Government in Iraq was by far the worst, most complex, anticollaborative, and in too many cases, ineffective one—and I served in 

West Africa for 8 years. Here are just a few examples of the problems 

we encountered. 

CPA management wanted to control all money, including that of 

USAID, which had major ongoing projects because of its separate 

appropriation and comparatively early planning and contracting start—

in stark contrast to most other parts of CPA. 

CPA appointed a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral with no 

development experience whatsoever to reformulate the overall CPA 

program budget, including USAID’s, for the 2003 supplemental 

appropriation. In place of an ongoing USAID health program, this 

official proudly told me he “had taken care of the health program.” The 

solution? He had budgeted, he said, for six garbage trucks for Iraq—a 

positively preposterous notion, but not atypical of the kind of 

challenges and, frankly, idiocy we were continuously confronted with. 

When I protested this decision to highest CPA management, I was told 

that I was about to have USAID’s money “taken away and distributed 

by CPA in the streets of Hillah.” That outburst, in the presence of 

senior project contractor staff (several retired USAID mission directors, 

and as capable a bunch as I could ever hope for), led to their wholesale 

resignation, withdrawn only when the CPA official apologized the next 

day. 

As a corollary to teaching a collaborative approach, recruit staff in 

key positions who have the minimum required qualifications—rarely 

the case in CPA, except for such professional organizations as the 

Department of Treasury, USAID, and the U.S. Army Corps of 

Engineers—and keep them in place for at least a year. By the time we 
Reconstructing Post-Conflict Reconstruction • 101 

converted new arrivals to effective allies and friends, they were gone, 

sometimes after only 3 months. They were replaced by another new 

crew with whom we had to start all over again. 

Conclusion Two 

CPA lacked the organizational structure, coherence, experience, 

leadership, and qualified staffing to carry out its mission effectively. 

Based on my experience, I would recommend the following. 

Develop, recruit, and vet a reconstruction and post-conflict roster of 

skilled professionals who are willing and able to be deployed quickly in 

future post-conflict situations. I know this has been started with S/CRS, 

but with so few staff and such meager resources provided to it so far 

(and a website for registration that does not work), it is not reassuring. 

Hire the right people to do post-conflict reconstruction work. Match 

personnel with qualifications, regional experience, and, if possible, 

language skills with the full range of skill sets necessary in future 

conflicts—local government, microcredit, primary health care, 

community development, water management, etc. Hire skilled 

development officials (retirees from USAID, NGOs, private 

companies, etc.) as leaders in managing this initiative. Keep the roster 

current and useful. 

Organize the umbrella organization that manages reconstruction in a 

way that is coherent and includes all relevant actors. 

Treat coworkers in other agencies as allies, not enemies. Spread the 

notion that we are all on the same side. This principle is not rocket 

science, but it was missing in CPA. 

When specialists and sector experts are identified and hired, assure 

them input and access to decisionmakers and help them perform as 

agents of change. Be careful not to simply allow reconstitution of the 

former organizational structure (in the case of Iraq, very centralized, 

top-down decisionmaking) in place of newer, better structures. This is 

related to the “not prepared” discussion above, and the ad hoc way 

CPA tried to recruit and manage its way forward. The Iraqis told me 

CPA stood for “Can’t Provide Anything,” and at times they were 

correct. 

Leadership of CPA was at times ineffective, poorly informed and 

poorly advised. To be fair, this was a tough job with overlapping 
102 • Lucke 

authorities in the midst of a conflict situation, and with the stress of 

making a hundred major decisions a day. One example of being poorly 

advised—though the matter was “not in my lane,” as the military would 

say—was the abolition of the Iraqi Army. Why anyone would decide to 

turn more than one million armed ex-soldiers into the street with their 

weapons, effectively swelling the ranks of the insurgency, when they 

otherwise could have been paid to “work for the reconstruction of their 

country as allies” (as Jay Garner told me) is frankly inexplicable. I have 

read the rationale offered by the former head of CPA and one of his key 

advisors at the time. They were dead wrong, and shockingly so. 

The same CPA advisor went to the Kurdish region and told the CPA 

official in charge there that he “needed to demobilize the Peshmerga” 

(the Kurdish defense force), a wild recommendation that the regional 

CPA official, an experienced veteran, chose to ignore. 

An example of bad leadership was CPA’s daily senior staff meeting 

at 7:00 AM, which devolved into a one-man show (some called it “the 

shooting gallery”), because agency heads grew tired of being yelled at 

when they dared to speak up at the meeting. It became clear to me that, 

to protect and implement our programs, it was crucial to not tell CPA 

leadership what we were doing. I was not the only one who came to 

that conclusion. 

CPA was also unfortunately populated with inexperienced and very 

junior staff whose qualifications were not readily apparent. One 24-

year-old American working in a key ministry position told me his prior 

job had been stuffing envelopes in Wisconsin for the 2000 political 

campaign. We could have done better, and must do so next time. 

USAID hired a number of dedicated and qualified contractors who 

were truly experts—skilled, world-class people who were determined 

to serve in Iraq, often at a considerable sacrifice of income and 

security. Yet, CPA sometimes marginalized their contributions by reinstituting the top-down, centralized structure imposed by the former 

regime. For example, our well-staffed and well-run local governance 

program was frustrated by lack of access to and support from CPA and 

ministry officials. 

I remain an optimist about Iraq and am putting my money and my 

feet where my mouth is. I have two companies of my own currently 

operating in Iraq, one trying to attract American investment into Iraq’s 
Reconstructing Post-Conflict Reconstruction • 103 

petroleum and infrastructure sector, and another building schools. I 

spend considerable time there. 

Iraq is these days a place of increasing stability and opportunity. I 

continue to believe that Iraq will “make it” because of its resources and 

the hard work and skills of its people. When they do actually make it, 

most of the credit will be theirs. I know we, the United States and our 

coalition partners, despite everything, will have successfully assisted 

these good people in many ways. 

It is incumbent upon us as Americans that we adequately prepare for 

post-conflict situations such as occurred in Iraq and learn from past 

mistakes and experience. 

 

Essay 13 

Effective Civilian-Military 

Planning at the Operational 

Level: The Foundation of 

Operational Planning 

By H.R. McMaster 

ne of the most important lessons of the war in Iraq is that 

achieving an outcome consistent with U.S. interests demands 

effective interdepartmental and multinational planning at the 

operational level. Although it is clear that decentralization is an 

essential feature of effective counterinsurgency operations, success at 

the tactical level, if not connected to well-designed operational plans 

and a fundamentally sound strategy, is unlikely to be sustained. 

Moreover, junior leaders and soldiers must understand how their 

actions fit into the overall plan to defeat the enemy and accomplish the 

mission. Defeating insurgent organizations and addressing the 

fundamental causes of violence require a comprehensive approach that 

must be visualized, described, and directed by an operational 

commander. Commanders at the operational level—that is, the level of 

war that “links the tactical employment of forces to national and 

military and strategic objectives” through the integration of “ends, 

conditions, ways, and means”—must prioritize efforts and integrate 

them to achieve clearly defined goals and objectives.1

 Clear operational 

objectives and plans help ensure that the full range of activities and 

O 

 105 

 

1

 Joint Publication 3.0, Joint Operations (Washington, DC: Department of the 

Army, September 17, 2006), xiii, xx, available at <http://www.dtic.mil/ 

doctrine/jel/new_pubs/jp3_0.pdf >. 
106 • McMaster 

 

programs are consistent with and contribute to the achievement of 

policy goals. Sound and continuously revised operational plans are also 

essential to ensure consistency of effort among units, between military 

organizations and civil military teams, and over time as the mission 

progresses. 

In addition to integrating the efforts of subordinate organizations, 

operational commanders and senior civilian officials must also help 

ensure consistency of effort within multinational coalitions and the 

interdepartmental, civilian-military team. While an integrated 

interdepartmental effort in Washington will help in that respect, 

working together as an integrated team at the operational level is vital. 

A campaign plan that is understood and accepted by all members of the 

multinational, civilian-military team is the foundation for achieving 

unity of effort. The U.S. Army Counterinsurgency field manual 

emphasizes the importance of integrated civilian-military operational 

design: 

Through design commanders gain an understanding of the problem 

and the COIN operation’s purpose within the strategic context. 

Communicating this understanding of the problem, purpose, and 

context to subordinates allows them to exercise subordinates’ 

initiative. ... While traditional aspects of campaign design as 

expressed in joint and Service doctrine remain relevant, they are not 

adequate for a discussion of the broader design construct for a COIN 

environment. Inherent in this construct is the tension created by 

understanding that military capabilities provide only one component 

of an overall approach to a COIN campaign. Design of a COIN 

campaign must be viewed holistically. Only a comprehensive 

approach employing all relevant design components, including the 

other instruments of national power, is likely to reach the desired end 

state.2

 

The military commander and the senior civilian official must form 

interdepartmental, civilian-military planning teams. Planners must have 

relevant expertise, knowledge of the situation, and the seniority and 

2

 Field Manual 3-24 Counterinsurgency (Washington, DC: Department of the 

Army, December 2006), available at <http://www.usgcoin.org/ 

library/doctrine/COIN-FM3-24.pdf>., 4-4. 
 Effective Civilian-Military Planning at the Operational Level • 107 

 

authority to speak for their departments.3 When possible, the planning 

team should include representatives of the supported government, 

including its security forces. If political sensitivities do not permit their 

direct participation, it will be essential to consult government 

representatives to ensure that the operational plan will help achieve 

unity of effort with the supported government. 

Operational design begins with the commander and the senior 

civilian official deriving their mission and operational goals from 

policy guidance. A solid connection between policy and operational 

plans is critical to ensuring that plans are relevant and sufficient 

resources are available to accomplish the mission. Armed with an 

understanding of what is to be achieved, the commander and senior 

civilian official should use their planning team to help them understand 

the nature of the conflict. 

Senior commanders and civilian officials must ask first-order 

questions to ensure that plans and efforts are feasible and appropriate. 

Inquiry might begin with an effort to identify and describe the causes of 

violence. Fundamental causes might include grievances or fears, 

actions of malign external actors (e.g., hostile states or transnational 

terrorist organizations), the weakness of the government, and 

communal competition for power and resources. Ultimately, 

operational design must address fundamental causes of violence if 

operational plans are to be effective. If operational design is 

inconsistent with policy or the nature of the conflict, planning is likely 

to be driven by what planners might like to do, such as minimize the 

number of forces committed, avoid difficult state-building tasks, or 

transition rapidly to indigenous government and security forces that are 

unprepared to assume full responsibility for security and critical 

government functions. 

Because counterinsurgency operations are inherently complex and 

uncertain, planning will be based on assumptions. Planners at the 

operational level must identify assumptions explicitly and ensure that 

they are logical, essential to the plan, and realistic. If assumptions 

critical to the success of the plan are unrealistic, the plan is likely to 

have no effect, or do more harm than good. As the conflict evolves, 

3

 Areas of expertise include intelligence, security, security sector reform, 

diplomacy, international development, public finance, economics, 

reconstruction, rule of law, and governance. 
108 • McMaster 

 

commanders and their staffs must continue to reexamine assumptions, 

and adjust the plan if events or conditions invalidate them. 

An accurate, comprehensive, and constantly revised intelligence 

estimate is the foundation for planning. Intelligence efforts at the 

operational level must place the military situation in the context of the 

political, social, and economic dynamics that are shaping events. The 

vast majority of intelligence in counterinsurgency comes from below, 

and from human, rather than technical sources. Although some believe 

that operational net assessment and other information-based processes 

can deliver a “system of systems” understanding of the situation, 

intelligence that is not placed in nuanced political, historical, social, 

and cultural context, and is not subjected to expert analysis, is useful 

only for targeting the enemy, and not for understanding the dynamics 

that are most critical in shaping the outcome of the conflict. Whenever 

possible, those charged with developing plans at the operational level 

should travel to sub-regions within the country to gain a detailed 

understanding of the enemy and political, economic, and social 

dynamics at the local level. Visits should include meetings with local 

government officials, tribal or community leaders, and security force 

leaders. Planning teams must include military and civilian officials with 

deep historical and cultural knowledge of the country and the region. 

After developing the mission and broad objectives, and armed with a 

comprehensive intelligence estimate, operational planners assist the 

commander and the senior civilian official in developing the 

operational logic that will underpin the effort. The operational logic is 

communicated in the form of commander’s intent4 and the concept of 

operations.

5

 The commanders’ intent describes the broad purpose of 

operations and identifies key objectives that must be accomplished to 

ensure mission success. The concept of operations may be the most 

4

 “A concise expression of the purpose of the operation and the desired end 

state. It may also include the commander's assessment of the adversary 

commander's intent and an assessment of where and how much risk is 

acceptable during the operation,” DOD Dictionary, available at 

<http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/data/c/11499.html>. 

5

 “A verbal or graphic statement that clearly and concisely expresses what the 

joint force commander intends to accomplish and how it will be done using 

available resources. The concept is designed to give an overall picture of the 

operation. Also called commander's concept or CONOPS,” DOD Dictionary, 

available at <http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/data/c/3316.html>. 
 Effective Civilian-Military Planning at the Operational Level • 109 

important part of an operational plan, because it describes to military 

and civilian leaders how they will combine their own efforts and 

coordinate those efforts with the partner government to accomplish the 

mission. The concept describes how the operational commander and 

senior civilian official see the effort developing over time based on the 

actions and programs they initiate, as well as the anticipated interaction 

of those actions and programs with the enemy and other sources of 

instability. A sound concept is essential for allowing subordinate units 

and civilian-military teams to take initiative. Moreover, a commonly 

understood concept serves as a foundation on which planners can 

develop detailed plans in critical focus areas, or along what are now 

commonly called “lines of effort,” while ensuring that those plans are 

consistent with the overall concept and are mutually reinforcing. 

The Essential Elements of Operational Plans 

Because an insurgency is fundamentally a political problem, the 

foundation for detailed counterinsurgency planning must be a political 

strategy that drives all other initiatives, actions, and programs. The 

general objective of the political strategy is to remove or reduce 

significantly the political basis for violence. The strategy must be 

consistent with the nature of the conflict, and is likely to address fears, 

grievances, and interests that motivate organizations within 

communities to provide active or tacit support for insurgents. 

Ultimately, the political strategy must endeavor to convince leaders of 

reconcilable armed groups that they can best protect and advance their 

interests through political participation, rather than violence. 

The political strategy must also foster and maintain a high degree of 

unity of effort between the supported government and the foreign 

forces and civilian authorities supporting them. Unity of effort depends, 

in part, on a common understanding of the nature of the conflict, 

definition of the problem set, and agreement on the broad approach 

necessary to defeat insurgent organizations and achieve sustainable 

security. If the indigenous government pursues policies or takes actions 

that exacerbate rather than ameliorate the causes of violence, the 

political strategy must address how to influence the government by 

demonstrating that an alternative approach is necessary to avert defeat 

and achieve an outcome consistent with its interests. If institutions or 

functions of the supported state are captured by malign or corrupt 

organizations that pursue agendas inconsistent with the political 
110 • McMaster 

strategy, it may become necessary to employ a range of cooperative, 

persuasive, and coercive means to reverse that situation and restore a 

cooperative relationship. 

The military component of operational plans must be derived from 

and support the political strategy. The concept for military operations 

must be grounded in the intelligence estimate. Planners must 

understand the nature and structure of enemy organizations, their 

ideology or political philosophy, the strategy that they are pursuing, 

their sources of strength, and their vulnerabilities. At a high level of 

generalization, operations should aim to isolate enemy organizations 

from sources of strength while attacking enemy vulnerabilities in the 

physical, political, informational, and psychological domains. 

Defeating the insurgents’ campaign of intimidation and coercion 

through effective population security is a necessary precondition for 

achieving political progress and gaining the intelligence necessary to 

conduct effective offensive operations. Military forces pursue 

“irreconcilables” not only to defeat the most committed and dangerous 

enemy organizations, but also to convince “reconcilables” to commit to 

a political resolution of the conflict. 

Operational plans must integrate reform of the indigenous 

government’s security agencies and the development of capable and 

legitimate security forces into the overall security effort. To defeat an 

insurgency or end a communal struggle associated with an insurgency, 

people must trust their own government and security forces to fulfill 

their most basic need—security. While local military units and civilianmilitary teams focus on training and operating alongside indigenous 

police and Army units, senior commanders, civilian officials, and their 

staffs should focus on building the administrative capacity and 

professionalism of security ministries. Senior commanders must work 

with the host government to craft a plan for the development of 

ministerial capacity that is grounded in a common understanding of 

security force roles and missions, and the force structure necessary to 

perform those roles and missions. The plan must be long-term. Plans 

must initiate work on systems and capabilities that take time to mature, 

such as leader development, public financial management, personnel 

management, logistics, and infrastructure. Because indigenous forces 

will ultimately be responsible for maintaining security, security force 

capability and capacity must be sufficient to maintain security after 

foreign supporting forces depart. 
 Effective Civilian-Military Planning at the Operational Level • 111 

Identifying and developing capable leaders who are committed to 

improving the security of all citizens rather than advancing a 

particularistic agenda or personal interests may be the most critical 

requirement. Because a lack of trust and confidence in security forces 

often fuels an insurgency, particular attention must be paid to the 

loyalty and professionalism of those forces (e.g., through leader 

development and thorough screening of recruits), and a sustained effort 

must be made to mediate between those forces and their own 

populations to build confidence. Because all insurgencies include a 

dimension of civil conflict, it is important that operational planning for 

security sector reform be closely integrated with the political strategy 

and ensure that security forces are generally representative of the 

population and contribute to improved security rather than to conflict 

between communities competing with one another. Operational plans 

must also emphasize fostering cooperation between indigenous military 

forces, police forces, and intelligence services. 

The integration of reconstruction and economic development into 

security operations is critical to rekindling hope among the population 

and demonstrating that tangible benefits will flow from sustained 

cooperation with counterinsurgent forces. Local commanders and 

civilian-military teams need access to funds and development expertise. 

Technical assistance should put indigenous systems and leaders at the 

center of the effort and focus on such critical functions as public 

financial management. Programs that initiate sustainable economic 

growth and employment, such as agricultural programs and microloans 

and medium-size loan programs, are particularly valuable. Operationallevel plans should identify and advance macroeconomic policies that 

remove obstacles to economic growth (e.g., legal impediments to 

foreign direct investment, and subsidies that provide a disincentive to 

entrepreneurship or incentivize corruption) and provide a stable 

economic environment (e.g., low inflation). Plans should also account 

for international and non-governmental organizations’ development 

programs to reduce redundancies and identify opportunities for 

collaboration and burden-sharing. If improvements in this area are to be 

sustained, local efforts must be recognized by and connected to 

governmental institutions. For example, an effort to build clinics at the 

local level will fail without ensuring that the health ministry hires 

health care providers and funds maintenance of the facility in its 

operational budget. Similarly, efforts to improve governance and law 
112 • McMaster 

 

enforcement at the local level must be tied to efforts at the provincial 

and national levels. Despite the best efforts to improve security and 

move communities toward political accommodation, the pool of 

popular discontent from which an insurgency draws strength will grow 

if local government is ineffective. 

Because establishing the rule of law is a particularly important 

element of effective counterinsurgency operations, it must receive 

focused attention from military and civilian officials at the operational 

level. Senior commanders and civilian authorities must work with 

indigenous government personnel to help establish a legal framework 

that allows the government to defeat the insurgency while protecting 

basic human rights. Because effective rule of law poses a threat to the 

insurgent organization, insurgents will seek to intimidate police and 

judges. Counterinsurgents, therefore, must protect as well as build 

police investigative and judicial capacity. Until security conditions 

permit the normal functioning of the judicial system, government and 

counterinsurgency forces may have to develop a transparent, reviewbased detainee system that ensures humane treatment. While it is 

important to ensure that innocents are not imprisoned, it is also 

important to keep committed insurgents behind bars. As David Galula 

observed, if the counterinsurgent releases insurgents back into a violent 

environment, “the effects will soon be felt by the policeman, the civil 

servant, and the soldier.”6

 Because detention facilities are critical 

battlegrounds, it is important to assist the supported government in 

extending counterinsurgency efforts into those facilities. Important 

measures include the segregation of leaders, intelligence collection, and 

rehabilitation prior to release and reintegration. 

Operational level commanders, civil authorities, and the local 

government must infuse all of their activities with effective 

communications to relevant audiences, especially the indigenous 

population and the leaders of the supported government and security 

forces. Critical tasks include clarifying the counterinsurgents’ 

intentions, countering enemy disinformation and propaganda, and 

bolstering the legitimacy of the government and its security forces. It is 

also important to trace the population’s grievances back to the enemy 

while exposing the enemy’s brutality and indifference to the welfare of 

6

 David Galula, Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (Westport, 

CT: Praeger Security International, 1964), 62. 
 Effective Civilian-Military Planning at the Operational Level • 113 

the population. Operational plans must connect themes and messages to 

appropriate media platforms and establish a means of assessing how 

communications are perceived by the population. Decentralization is 

critical, because local political and cultural dynamics (and their 

associated messages) will vary considerably. Senior commanders and 

civil authorities must, however, provide guidance such that local efforts 

in this area are mutually reinforcing. 

Operational planning must also develop an “external solution” to 

complement the counterinsurgency effort inside the country. 

Diplomatic, economic, and international law enforcement efforts are 

necessary to help isolate insurgent organizations from external support. 

In general, diplomatic efforts should aim to integrate the supported 

government into the region and enlist the support of reluctant or 

uncommitted neighbors. Diplomatic or military efforts might also be 

necessary to convince malign regional actors to desist from activities 

that undermine the effort. 

Once the plan is framed and broadly consistent with the nature of the 

conflict and the situation, it is important to identify long-term, 

intermediate, and near-term goals in each focus area and identify the 

key tasks, programs, and actions necessary to achieve those goals over 

time. Planners and analysts should identify obstacles to progress in 

each focus area and propose how to overcome those obstacles. Plans 

must identify and allocate the resources necessary to accomplish tasks 

and affix clear responsibility for accomplishing them. Near-term goals 

should contribute to the first priority of achieving sustainable security 

and stability. Longer-term goals should aim to help transform the 

society such that the fundamental causes of violence are dramatically 

reduced. Ideally, actions and programs undertaken in the near term 

build toward achieving long-term goals. While it is important to keep 

long-term objectives in mind, it is also important to understand that 

there may be no long term if the supported government is unable to 

achieve visible progress and gain the trust of the population. Critical, 

long-term efforts, such as civil service reform, the implementation of 

anticorruption measures, establishment of the rule of law, and the 

development of leaders in the security sector must be initiated early if 

adequate progress is to be made in time to stabilize the situation. 
114 • McMaster 

Continuous Reassessment 

It is difficult to overstate the importance of constant reassessment. 

The nature of a conflict will continue to evolve because of continuous 

interaction with enemies and other destabilizing factors. Progress will 

never be linear, and there will have to be constant refinements and 

readjustments to even the best plans. Commanders and senior civilian 

officials should be aware that overreliance on systems analysis can 

create an illusion of control and progress. Metrics often tell 

commanders and civilian officials how they are executing their plan 

(e.g., money spent, numbers of indigenous forces trained and equipped, 

districts or provinces transferred to indigenous control), but fail to 

highlight logical disconnects. Estimates of the situation often 

underestimate the enemy and other sources of instability. These 

estimates, in turn, serve as a foundation for plans that are inconsistent 

with the nature of the conflict. An overreliance on metrics can lead to a 

tendency to develop short-term solutions for long-term problems and a 

focus on simplistic charts rather than on deliberate examinations of 

questions and issues critical to the war effort. Moreover, because of 

wide variations in conditions at the local level, much of the data that is 

aggregated at the national level is of little utility. 
 

Essay 14 

Lessons Learned in 

Democratic Transition and 

Building Civil Society 

By William Montgomery 

was privileged to be present and, to some extent, a participant, in 

the downfall of Communist rule in Bulgaria in 1990–91, the end of 

the authoritarian government of the Croatian Democratic Union in 

1999–2000, and the electoral defeat of Slobodan Milosevic and his 

subsequent arrest and extradition to the International Criminal Tribunal 

for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague in 2000–2001. All three of 

these cases attracted wide media attention, and all were celebrated as 

major steps forward by Western powers. 

I 

The most important lesson I learned from these experiences is that 

they shouldn’t be seen as the happy endings we Americans love in our 

movies, when the oppressed democrats overcome persecution and live 

happily ever after. Instead, these events are merely the end of one 

chapter in a country’s history and the beginning of another. Bringing 

down authoritarian rulers is comparatively simple in comparison with 

the follow-on work of accomplishing a democratic transition and 

establishing a competitive, market-oriented economy. The less 

historical experience the countries have with these concepts, the harder 

the task will be, and the longer it will take. 

In these three cases, there was a complex web of beliefs, prejudices, 

ingrained practices, and historical experience in place that conflicted 

with Western values and practices. Transforming these societies is a 

challenge spanning generations. In each instance it was particularly 

difficult to bring change to academia, the security services, and the 

judiciary. One still finds professors in state universities teaching 

 115 
116 • Montgomery 

economics who held the same posts in the Communist era. Senior 

intelligence personnel are still in place from the earlier eras, and still 

view their primary task as monitoring the local population; the new, 

“democratic” political leaders are discouragingly pleased with the 

information these operatives convey. Many of the most senior judges 

came up through the former Communist system and still feel that it is 

their responsibility, or is in their personal interest, to support the system 

in power rather than the rule of law. Overriding all of the above is 

ingrained corruption that touches all levels of society. In fact, it is a 

bigger problem now than 10 years ago. 

Despite billions of dollars of assistance, advisors of all kinds, and 

consistent pressure to change, we have in most cases only been able to 

have a marginal impact on this process. Clearly it will take far longer 

than a generation to complete under the best of circumstances. When 

analyzing the problem, one should think about American attitudes in 

the 1950s on such issues as smoking, the environment, civil rights, and 

gay rights. We have made great progress in each of these areas, but it 

has taken us 50 years and a lot of pain and controversy to do so. 

Moreover, all of these issues remain alive today. We need to see the 

process of democratic transformation in exactly the same way, in 

exactly the same sort of time-frame. 

The second lesson is related to the first. President Obama recently 

described his Iraq policy by saying, “We will not let the perfect get in 

the way of the achievable.” This is a huge, costly lesson learned from 

the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. I only hope we keep it mind 

when considering future interventions. We certainly did not apply it to 

the Balkans. Bosnia is a classic example. Out of a combination of 

principle and naiveté, we forged our policy on the pillars of “no change 

in the borders of Bosnia through use of force” and rebuilding a fully 

functioning, multi-ethnic society in that war-scarred country. It’s hard 

to argue against either of those goals. Even now, 15 years after the 

Dayton Agreement, doing so will bring down a hailstorm of criticism 

from almost every expert in the U.S. foreign policy establishment. 

The reality is, however, that we have spent billions of dollars in 

resources, treated Bosnia as one of our major foreign policy priorities 

for the 8 years of the Clinton Administration, and have maintained a 

huge international presence there for 15 years now—and there is no end 

in sight. Bosnia remains at best a second-class country on the fringes of 
Democratic Transition and Building Civil Society • 117 

Europe. Senior officials such as Richard Holbrooke and Paddy 

Ashdown have sounded the alarm in recent editorials that Bosnia risks 

sliding backward toward its violent past. 

The reason is simple: the international community is insisting on 

pounding a square peg (a multi-ethnic, fully functioning Bosnia with no 

border changes) into a round hole. I know this full well: I was one of 

the main “pounders” for a lot of my diplomatic career. The three ethnic 

parties have never abandoned their prewar goals, assumptions, fears, 

suspicions, and hostilities toward each other. If anything, the war 

sharpened them. Forget all the figures and other measures of success 

advanced by those trying to put a positive face on our policy approach. 

Look at the percentage of multi-ethnic marriages. In the prewar period 

it was over 20 percent. Now it is zero. 

The Dayton Agreement put in place a constitution and a system of 

government that was, to recast President Obama’s words, “perfect but 

not achievable.” The agreement contains a fundamental inconsistency: 

it created two entities and gave each of them a great deal of 

autonomy—so much autonomy that the central government was 

impossibly weak. Moreover, all three ethnic groups were given 

countless safeguards and veto power over anything that could remotely 

be conceived as threatening their “national interests.” 

The end result is that the Bosniaks want to have the International 

Community abolish the Republika Srpska altogether, or at least take 

away a lot of its autonomy. The Bosnian Croats look to Croatia in 

terms of dual citizenship, education, and employment. The Bosnian 

Serbs don’t even consider themselves to be Bosnians, but citizens of 

the Republika Srpska. These factors constantly prevent real cooperation 

or interaction between the entities or the three ethnic groups. The UN, 

recognizing the dangers of a reversion to violence, keeps extending the 

mandate of its High Representative. Bosnia remains a backwater: poor, 

unstable, an exporter of young people seeking better lives, a festering 

crisis waiting to happen. And all because we are insisting, as we have 

for 15 years, on the perfect and not simply the achievable. 

The third, hard-won lesson is that for the process of democratic 

transition to have a chance to succeed where fighting or widespread 

violence has occurred, intensive cooperation is required between our 

military and civilian components. The initial phase of the Balkan 

experience was not good. In 1996 and most of 1997, the U.S. military 
118 • Montgomery 

in Bosnia adamantly refused to participate in what they considered 

civilian activities. They saw their role as providing basic security. They 

went so far as to refuse to apprehend indicted war criminals such as 

Mladic and Karadzic, who traveled with ease through our checkpoints, 

gave TV interviews on the ski slopes of Jahorina, and attended political 

rallies with impunity. The military actually opposed return of refugees 

to places where they would be the ethnic minority on the grounds that 

their return could cause conflict. 

The fault wasn’t only on one side. At the time, each military unit had 

a certain amount of funding for civic action programs in its area of 

responsibility, and civic action experts to carry out these tasks. They 

concentrated on small-scale projects such as repairing a small bridge 

and putting a roof on a school. The idea was to win over the local 

population. When they approached USAID for additional funding for 

these projects, they were rudely rejected. USAID had its own priorities 

and was not even civil in brushing off the assistance requests. 

Judging from reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, we have learned 

that we need to work together. But a lot more must be done. The State 

Department, in particular, needs to be greatly expanded and its 

personnel given extensive training in building civil society. That is not 

done now—it is all learning on the job. Furthermore, the fundamental 

shortage of Foreign Service Officers means that, in times of need, the 

Foreign Service cannot respond without gutting its other 

responsibilities. So, time and again, our government is forced to turn to 

the military to do tasks that should fall on the civilian side. The military 

has the personnel and resources, which the State Department lacks. 

Secretary of Defense Gates’ recent efforts to convince Congress of the 

need for greater State Department resources and personnel are 

encouraging, and indeed in DOD’s institutional interest. 

A start on improving this whole process would be to design a oneyear course on nation-building techniques, similar to the one year 

courses offered by the National War College, and perhaps offered at 

National Defense University. An equal number of military and civilian 

personnel from key agencies would attend, learning to work together 

based on case studies and practical experience. Not only would this 

course build expertise, it would create the sort of networking ties for 

which the National War College is justly renowned. We also need a 

forum or some organization to look hard at lessons learned to create a 
Democratic Transition and Building Civil Society • 119 

basic “bible” on how our agencies will work together and what tasks 

are the most essential to accomplish to lay the foundations for 

democratic transition and civil society. 

Finally, while the United States may have been—and may still be in 

the future—the primary outside force attempting to bring about 

democratic transition and build civil society around the world, it 

absolutely cannot do the job alone. It needs partners, both like-minded 

allies and international institutions such as the UN, IMF, World Bank, 

NATO, and the OSCE. Creating such partnerships has always been a 

very difficult process, as other countries and institutions have their own 

agendas and practices, which under the best of circumstances will never 

be identical to our own. 

American influence in this area will decline further as the world 

continues to shift away from the “American century” and becomes 

inevitably far more multi-polar. What this means is that the world will 

become increasingly chaotic and unpredictable while the mechanisms 

we have for dealing with crises become less reliable and less effective. 

The lesson to be learned here is a particularly difficult one for 

Americans. One of our greatest strengths—and also one of our greatest 

weaknesses—has been our willingness and determination to take 

decisive, unilateral action when we believe it necessary. We are 

impatient and often dismissive when confronted with what we see as 

obstructionism, bureaucratic delays, or timidity to act. We are going to 

have to learn an entirely new set of skills: how to work most effectively 

in this complex web of countries, non-state players, and institutions. 

What should be glaringly obvious after Iraq, but also after Kosovo, is 

that acting unilaterally or with a “coalition of the willing” inevitably 

makes it much harder to carry out the far more difficult, long-term task 

of building civil society and democratic practices. We must work much 

harder to get consensus before we act, and at times grit our teeth and 

not act, absent consensus. This is the toughest lesson of all. 

 

Essay 15 

Striking the 

Right Balance 

By William L. Nash 

hen asked to reflect on my experiences in dealing with 

complex operations, most people expect me to discuss my 

service as a multinational division commander in a peace 

enforcement mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995–1996 or my 

duties as a civil administrator for the United Nations in Kosovo in 

2000. But as I look back on my military service and post-retirement 

work, the place to begin is my experience as a platoon leader in 

Vietnam in 1969. Also relevant is the immediate aftermath of 

Operation Desert Storm in 1991, when I was an armored brigade 

commander in southern Iraq. 

W 

I had little or no training in humanitarian relief, political-military 

issues, economic development, or the rule of law—the very subjects 

that confronted me when I was on operations. With the exception of 

some counterinsurgency exercises in my pre-Vietnam military 

experience and in the 4 months before my division’s deployment to 

Bosnia, the United States Government did not address the non-military 

challenges. We fought battles in our training exercises, where we 

learned that civilians were something to be kept away. The civil affairs 

officers and units were charged with handling the civilians; the fighters 

were not to be bothered while we went about the serious work. 

But all was different in the real world. There were civilians 

everywhere. In Vietnam, we seldom went a day without running into 

small villages, clusters of thatched huts with women, children and old 

men present. Many were sympathetic to our enemy, but they were 

noncombatants, and all too often our hatred or fear of the enemy 

combatants affected how we behaved toward the noncombatants. We 

 121 
122 • Nash 

treated few with the dignity and respect that they deserved as fellow 

humans. We did not realize to the degree necessary that our behavior 

toward these people could affect our ability to achieve success on the 

battlefield in the long term. From time to time we did some medical 

community action program missions, or “MEDCAPs,” to provide a 

modicum of short-term health care, or we pulled security while 

engineers fixed a road and repaired a bridge, but improving the overall 

circumstances of the ordinary citizen was not part of a coherent plan. It 

certainly was not part of a political, economic, and security plan that 

the soldiers with all the guns understood. It was not that we harmed 

civilians; we just did not know how important it was to help them. We 

did not know when to build instead of fight. 

In Iraq, I was told by a senior commander not to build a refugee 

camp for the thousands of Iraqis fleeing Saddam’s terror for our area of 

operations. I told him I could do the job “organized or unorganized,” 

which would he prefer? He then told me, “not to build a permanent 

one!” For the next two months, we made it up as we went along. Again 

the strategic plan was unclear to us on the ground until it was time to 

execute the next action: evacuate the refugees that wanted to leave—

prepare for redeployment—no, we need a Post-Desert Storm strategic 

reserve force, you’re it, Nash—go establish a base camp near Kuwait 

City, and prepare contingency plans. 

Militarily, we were much better prepared for the Bosnian mission. 

The 1st Armored Division had worked a variety of plans since late 

1992. The military provisions of the Dayton Accord, though limited, 

were well thought through with an eye to the practicalities of on-theground implementation. So when we deployed in late 1995, the hard 

part was getting there and setting up a very large footprint of forces 

throughout the country. 

Each of the warring factions had made a strategic decision to stop 

fighting, so our efforts at enforcement were focused on the specific 

details of the peace agreement, not the process of stopping the fighting. 

But it soon became clear that not fighting and peace were two different 

things. Also, the political and economic aspects of the Dayton Accord 

were not as precise as the military aspects, and the resources and 

leadership to implement the civilian aspects were not forthcoming. So 

we achieved routine, habitual compliance with the military terms of the 
Striking the Right Balance • 123 

Dayton Accord, and over time the force levels were reduced, but the 

political confrontations and the economic stagnation continued. 

Kosovo was my first experience on the other side of the civilianmilitary line. I was the Regional Civil Administrator in Northern 

Kosovo, with headquarters in Mitrovica—that is where the Albanian 

majority in the south changed to a Serb majority in the north at the Ibar 

River, which ran through the middle of town. This division had an 

overriding influence on everything we did. Hatred and fear were 

manifest every day in the eyes and actions of citizens—much worse 

than in Bosnia. Maintaining law and order was a constant challenge. 

The organization of KFOR, the UN police, courts and civil authority 

was not suited for an effective, efficient, or consistent rule of law 

environment. On the infrastructure and economic front, I had projects, 

not programs. That meant that while there were many individual 

projects being implemented by the KFOR, UNDP, USAID, the British 

DFID, and scores of NGOs, there was no international, national or 

regional integration authority to bring everything together. Many 

officials tried to make sense of all these projects, but the results were 

much less than what was required. The impact was negative because 

economics affect politics, and vice versa. Therefore, decisions taken by 

an individual authority, without regard to consequences on other areas 

or functions meant various actors could work the system by making 

mutually exclusive promises to serve selfish needs. In the end, statebuilding requires the integration of political, economic, security, legal, 

and social actions to create a cohesive whole. 

Don’t ever forget that complex operations are about people. The 

reasons for intervention may be clouded in self-serving, interests-based, 

realist politics or even in humanitarian values that seek to right years of 

wrong, but at the point of action, it’s about people. 

It’s about an 8-year-old Vietnamese boy who shows up to play catch 

with a Frisbee whenever the Americans come by to get supplies near 

his home; and it’s about the quizzical look on his face when he’s 

presented the Frisbee one day, and everybody in the platoon comes by 

to shake his hand because we’re leaving his area. What happens next? 

It’s about a soon-to-be refugee who pauses a few minutes to look at 

the waiting C-130 and the surrounding desert, clearly deciding whether 

or not he should board the aircraft and leave his native land for an 
124 • Nash 

unknowable future. Finally, he sighs and grabs a hand full of sand, 

thrusting it in his pocket before boarding the plane. 

It’s about a Croatian Corps commander who strongly objects to a 

very minor adjustment to the Inter-Entity Boundary Line in BosniaHerzegovina, explaining that the 25x50-meter plot taken from his 

territory was the reason he fought in a 4-year war—it was his 

grandmother’s farm! 

It’s about two Albanian and Serb leaders who, when allowed to 

escape the press of events—the constituents who demand extreme 

political positions, the inquiring press who demand explanations for 

every past and future action—can sit down, drink a cup of coffee 

together, and bargain, explain, argue, and agree on steps to achieve 

some progress on the political and economic issues facing them. 

This lesson about people is so important, yet so easy to overlook as 

events press in on those who are there to lead, command, and manage 

an intervention. Soldiers have long known how to take care of the 

troops; now we also need to take care of the people. Customer-based 

operations are an essential part of what needs to be done. The key 

question for the population is whether or not their lives are better today 

and their opportunities are greater than before the intervention. 

Everything is related to everything. The hallmark of complex 

operations is that they are so damned complicated. There are too many 

players, too many issues, too many problems. Working on and fixing 

just one problem all too frequently causes troublesome, unintended 

consequences. Digging a well, and providing fresh water in Southern 

Iraq is only part of the problem. Who owns the land? Who will control 

access when U.S. forces move on? Have you just empowered a 

“warlord” and lessened U.S. credibility? It took me 3 weeks to sort out 

the business and political issues involved in putting a bus station in 

Mitrovica. There was no avoiding making both a friend and several 

enemies with that decision. Transparency in decisionmaking normally 

helps, but only partially. Empowering the indigenous population is 

essential, but this is new territory for most, and the quest for power and 

wealth seldom remains dormant. 

The elusive goal is to understand the interrelated nature of the 

political, economic, social, and security factors. A military-style 

execution matrix that provides visibility to these elements, even if not 

perfect, is a start. Getting lots of input from staff, subordinate 
Striking the Right Balance • 125 

commanders, and local players is important. Taking the time to find the 

right people with diverse views to talk to is very important. 

There is an understandable tension here with wanting to make 

progress early on in an operation—the window of opportunity—and 

taking the time to make sound decisions after considering the myriad of 

related issues. I would advise focusing fast action on security, 

humanitarian relief, the provision of basic services (electricity, water, 

sewage/garbage and basic health care), and road repair. There are 

dangers here, too, as I earlier noted, but if the population as a whole is 

served, then missteps can be corrected over time. 

Know when to shoot and when to build. I return to an impression 

from Vietnam about not fully understanding what today is called 

kinetic vs. non-kinetic solutions. When you’re in a fight, there’s not 

much doubt that you must succeed and care for your soldiers. We are 

very good at that—sometimes too good, in that we tend to overuse 

firepower. But the larger picture, the Nation’s welfare today and 

tomorrow demands that we be judicious, and be seen not as a force for 

destruction, but as a force for good in the world. 

At the strategic and operational level, we have to be ready to shoot 

and be building all the time. Even in a fast-paced attack to seize critical 

objectives, care must be taken to integrate, follow, and support 

operations that help improve the affected population even if the fight is 

still ongoing. This is a “walk and chew gum” exercise! There’s no 

alternative. Much has been written of late about how to conduct 

counterinsurgency operations. The very best counterinsurgency strategy 

is to avoid the rise of an insurgency by comprehensive planning that 

looks over time through an intervention and provides for more building 

than fighting. 

The same soldiers who played a major role in the destruction of the 

Republican Guards in Desert Storm built and operated that “temporary” 

refugee camp I mentioned. There was no special training required; the 

soldiers were given a reasonable mission, and they got the job done. It 

could be argued that the longest-lasting contribution of the 1st Armored 

Division to Bosnia-Herzegovina was the support given to the creation 

of what has become known as the Arizona Market. The responsible 

brigade commander noticed that the only place where Serbs, Croats, 

and Bosniaks ever gathered peacefully was near an American 

checkpoint. There they bartered food, cigarettes, gasoline, and 
126 • Nash 

whatever else they had. Instead of breaking up this congestion on one 

of our most important military routes, the brigade commander 

recommended clearing some space off to the side to allow commercial 

activity to continue. It only took a few truckloads of gravel and 

willingness to take a bit of risk to get the market started. Today, the 

Arizona Market is a multi-million dollar, multi-ethnic wholesale/retail 

complex near the town of Brcko. 

The bottom line is that I believe it is very important to understand 

and accept the complexity of our post-Cold War/post-9/11 operations; 

organize accordingly, and use all the skills and abilities of our Nation in 

achieving better conditions for the people we seek to influence. It’s 

their world, too. 
 

Essay 16 

Understanding and 

Responding to Fragile and 

Failed States 

By Andrew S. Natsios 

he U.S government has spent tens of billions of dollars 

responding to crises in fragile and failed states since the end of 

the Cold War. What have we learned about the nature of these 

crises, their internal dynamics, and how best to respond to them given 

their frequency? 

T

To respond effectively to complex crises we must understand not 

only the humanitarian aspects that often receive the bulk of our 

attention, but also the internal political and economic dynamics of the 

situation. 

The most serious mistake made regularly by NGOs, UN agencies, 

IFIs, and donor aid agencies has been focusing on the purely 

humanitarian consequences of complex crises without understanding 

the internal political and economic dynamics that produced them. 

Cause and consequence should not be conflated. Complex crises are 

caused by destabilizing political and economic forces, not vice versa. In 

virtually all such crises, economic forces combine with political 

dynamics in insidious ways to cause chaos. As Douglass North has 

pointed out, chaos is a natural tendency of all social orders under stress 

that do not have strong institutions to bind society together. Most aid 

agencies conduct rapid humanitarian assessments in the early stages of 

a crisis to determine needs in four areas so that they may respond 

appropriately: public health, including water and sanitation; food and 

nutrition; shelter; and emergency medical care. Western military forces 

engaged in aid efforts compound this counterproductive tendency by 

reducing aid programs to logistics operations to move around relief 

commodities in the case of disaster relief in civil conflicts or 

infrastructure projects during reconstruction after a conflict. 

 127 
128 • Natsios 

Instead of focusing only on the humanitarian nature of the crisis, we 

should be conducting simultaneous analysis to determine the 

economics of chaos operating in the society: are markets functioning? 

Why? Who controls them? What are the principal sources of wealth, 

and who controls them? How do the sources of wealth interact with the 

forces that are causing the chaos and violence? What populations are at 

risk of human rights abuses and mass atrocities, and who or what is 

putting them at risk? Complex crises are nearly all about power and 

wealth, and who controls them within a social order. Without 

understanding those dynamics the humanitarian aid effort can 

unintentionally contribute to spreading chaos instead of relieving it. 

Stability operations are about stability, not only humanitarian aid, and 

the restoration of equilibrium in a society so that the self-sufficiency of 

a society can be reestablished as soon as possible. 

We experimented with several techniques for determining the 

dynamics of dissolution at work in societies under severe stress. First, 

deploying microeconomists with substantial field experience in 

development work and conflicts to observe local markets in operation 

over a several-week period can produce hard analysis about the 

economic forces at work. Market analysis in Somalia in 1992 proved 

central to our understanding of how looted donor food aid had become 

the medium of economic exchange and the means for warlords to hire 

irregular troops and keep discipline in their militias. Observing local 

arms markets in Bosnia and Somalia in the early 1990s helped us 

understand the movement of small arms into the conflict zones. We 

commissioned a survey by university researchers of people in Panama 

City following the overthrow of Noriega, and of 1,200 people in 

Afghanistan in early 2002 and in 2004, randomly chosen within six 

provinces, with each person interviewed for on average 2 hours on their 

household economic situation, coping mechanisms, and priorities for 

survival; no political issues were addressed. In the Afghan surveys we 

found that the severe indebtedness of families accumulated through 5 

years of drought and war was damaging the social order and 

community life, and that water and personal security were the greatest 

needs and were driving family decisionmaking. These three 

conclusions in the Afghan surveys helped us redesign our 

reconstruction strategy to focus more resources on economic growth 

through agriculture and more funding for water projects, particularly 

for animal herds and irrigation. Thirdly, we developed a conflict 
 Understanding and Responding to Fragile and Failed States • 129 

 

analysis instrument that has been tested in 15 countries and helps us to 

understand the forces encouraging the dissolution of a society and those 

forces contributing to its stability. At a minimum, U.S. policy should 

try to avoid making matters worse (the “do no harm” principle) and try 

to support and encourage the stabilizing forces in the society. How this 

is done varies widely from crisis to crisis: local context is essential in 

undertaking this analysis. 

Among the two most destabilizing yet common events in societies in 

crisis are violence against civilian populations and subsequent mass 

population movements. Finding out what groups are at risk and why is 

not easy, and yet it is essential to designing a strategy to prevent or 

mitigate it if it breaks out. Atrocities inevitably ignite cycles of 

retributive violence, where survivors of the initial atrocities take 

revenge on civilians from the groups that committed atrocities against 

their families. These cycles of violence can complicate reconstruction 

efforts. 

We have found some effective ways of limiting retributive violence. 

Burundi, a society with the same caste and ethnic cleavages as Rwanda, 

did not descend into the same sort of blood bath as did Rwanda1

, 

because religious leaders in Burundi were given access to the public 

radio stations to broadcast religious messages of peaceful resolution of 

disputes, non-violence, and forgiveness. Leaders of the Parliament from 

both ethnic groups walked through community neighborhoods and told 

people to stay calm and remain in their homes. In other words, 

carefully planned and quickly implemented public action using high 

visibility means such as mass media can contain potentially explosive 

situations. Conversely the infamous radio station, Radio Mille Collines, 

used the airwaves to organize the atrocities against the Tutsi population 

and moderate Hutus during the Rwandan genocide. Had the United 

States (or another western power) blown up or at least jammed the 

broadcasts of the station, there is a chance the violence could have been 

limited. 

Population movements are among the most socially destructive, 

economically damaging, and politically destabilizing of any of the 

consequences of a complex crisis. Disease epidemics spread much 

more rapidly when populations move en masse, nutritional status 

1

 The Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were assassinated together in a plane 

crash in April 1994 that ignited the genocide in Rwanda. 
130 • Natsios 

deteriorates precipitously, economic productivity declines as people 

usually cannot move their jobs and livelihoods with them, violence 

against women increases exponentially as the protection of male 

relatives and community structure evaporates, and property ownership 

becomes a politicized and divisive issue as other people move in and 

take abandoned land and homes, causing later legal disputes over 

ownership. Under international law people cannot be physically 

prohibited from moving, particularly if they feel threatened, so that 

option ought not to be considered (it has been ineffective in the past 

operationally, in any case). Instead, efforts should be made to 

determine why people are moving, and design a strategy to change the 

incentives causing the population movements. In Iraq we know that 

there was a rural-to-urban migration taking place because of the virtual 

collapse of the rural economy even before U.S. and coalition forces 

arrived. Some of the young men who moved to urban areas became 

homeless and hungry on the streets and were recruited into the militias. 

A rural agricultural development program in Iraq immediately 

following the U.S. military intervention could have reversed the 

economic incentives for migration by reviving the rural economy. The 

CPA refused to fund a $100 million USAID agriculture program in Iraq 

designed for immediate implementation. This decision was reversed in 

late 2005, too late to slow the migrations to the cities that later helped 

to fuel the insurgency. 

Another example of what we could have done to change destructive 

economic dynamics on the ground in a complex crisis took place in 

Afghanistan. We distributed to Afghan farmers an improved wheat 

seed variety in early 2002 that was drought resistant and very 

productive, doubling wheat production per hectare. Combined with the 

first good rains in 5 years, Afghanistan produced the best wheat crop in 

its history—so good that wheat prices collapsed to 20 percent of the 

average yearly price. The price was so depressed that some farmers did 

not even harvest the wheat and let it rot in their fields. Farmers decided 

to grow poppy for heroin the next year because it was a more reliable 

income producer. In the same year, 200,000 MT of U.S. food aid, 

mostly wheat, was distributed by the World Food Program (WFP) and 

non-governmental organizations to returning refugees, displaced 

people, and impoverished families. Federal law requires all U.S. food 

aid to be purchased in the United States. Had we been able to purchase 

the food aid locally from the large Afghan wheat surplus we could have 
 Understanding and Responding to Fragile and Failed States • 131 

stabilized prices and created incentives for farmers to grow more wheat 

the following year. More flexibility in the U.S. food aid program, 

which the Bush Administration attempted unsuccessfully to get through 

Congress (the proposal was to allow up to 25 percent of U.S. food aid 

under PL 480 to be purchased locally) could have had profound 

economic consequences for the agricultural system in Afghanistan. 

With the exception of conflicts in the Balkans, virtually all complex 

crises over the past 30 years have taken place in countries whose 

economies were essentially agricultural. Programs to stimulate rural 

economic growth, reduce food insecurity, implement quick-impact 

programs to improve agricultural productivity, and their relationship to 

agricultural markets and pricing systems could yield prompt and 

powerful results—if food aid could be used to support rather than 

undermine these programs. 

The implementation and coordination of aid programs presents 

mind-numbing challenges in failing, failed, and recovering states with 

high levels of insecurity, collapsed or non-existent institutions, and a 

weak indigenous government. Five international development banks, a 

half dozen UN specialized agencies, dozens of non-governmental 

organizations and private for- profit companies, and two dozen donor 

aid agencies make up an extraordinarily complex international aid 

architecture for the spending of funds on humanitarian assistance (to 

save lives) and long-term development and reconstruction. We have 

learned five management lessons from our experience in a dozen 

complex crises concerning how we might improve performance of the 

international aid system. 

The first lesson is that while this complex system is not under any 

central control, it relies on a loose system of voluntary coordination 

among independent actors that is only effective if there is strong UN 

and World Bank leadership with a mandate to get aid agencies to share 

this sort of information and undertake joint strategic planning with the 

indigenous government (if there is one of any competence). Without 

competent and strong international leadership, properly staffed through 

these institutions holding a robust mandate, coordination will fail. 

Second, the complexity of the aid system can be reduced by donors 

placing funds in each other’s program implementation mechanisms (if 

they like what they see) rather than insisting on their own, thus 

reducing the number of independent management units doing work. 
132 • Natsios 

This is being done on a much more regular basis by donor aid agencies 

than ever before, as internal business systems of aid agencies are being 

redesigned to allow them to fund each other’s programs. 

Third, we face serious accountability problems if we put aid funds 

directly into the local government treasuries through what is called 

budget support, to fund the new, but weak governments in post-conflict 

circumstances. We developed several mechanisms to try to get the 

ownership and buy in of these fledgling governments, and yet ensure 

accountability. To get Afghan government officials’ salaries paid just 

after the Karzai government was formed in 2002, UNDP set up a salary 

payroll system under its control, funded with donor government 

contributions, that was independent of the Afghan government but 

ensured that every verifiable public employee got paid on a regular 

basis. 

Fourth, to avoid weaknesses in the Afghan government’s virtually 

non-existent procurement system, USAID used its own procurement 

systems to put contracts in place to improve Afghan government 

ministries. To get Afghan buy in and ownership in the contracts, 

competent ministry officials were put on the USAID decisionmaking 

committees that analyzed the bids and chose winning bidders. This 

arrangement ensured local ownership and participation, but avoided the 

corruption in the Afghan government procurement system. 

Fifth, when the Afghan rural development ministry put in place a 

local grants program, the ministry chose a U.S.-based contractor, DAI, 

as the fiduciary agent for donor funding for the program to make sure 

money was disbursed using accountable and transparent systems. 

These innovations in management did not solve all of the 

extraordinarily complex management problems in complex crisis 

response, but they improved the international aid system and ought to 

be replicated elsewhere. 

More sweeping proposals for reform are sometimes proposed in the 

international aid architecture without realizing the enormous obstacles 

to change. Embracing an incremental approach that makes small 

improvements carefully and systematically over time has a higher 

likelihood of success. 
 

Essay 17 

Implementation in a 

Multiparty Environment 

By Ronald E. Neumann 

uman relations trump organizational charts and theories of 

coordination. My experiences in Iraq under the Coalition 

Provisional Authority (CPA) and as U.S. Ambassador in 

Afghanistan provide the following examples of the complexity of 

multi-party environments and some suggestions for action. 

H 

You don’t know what you don’t know, and it’s harder to 

find out what you don’t know than you think 

A recurring frustration comes when leaders find problems they 

hadn’t known existed. In Afghanistan, decisionmakers agreed on 

assistance programs only to find out several months later that nothing 

had moved. “We’re having trouble getting consensus in the working 

group,” was a frequent answer.1

 General Karl Eikenberry and I each 

traveled incessantly, and each of us found problems in police training 

that neither had known about. In one case it was that trainees had no 

ammunition for live-fire training. In another, that equipment 

distribution was not keeping up, so trainees were being sent back from 

training without full uniforms, or sometimes even weapons. Over time I 

realized that there were common human elements contributing to these 

problems. 

One is that people don’t like reporting to their superiors that they 

cannot fix a problem. Especially if there is a continuing discussion, 

 133 

 

1

 In Afghanistan, more than 20 working groups were formed of all the 

international donors and the relevant Afghan ministries for each major subject 

area such as power, agriculture, finance. 
134 • Neumann 

there is a tendency to think or hope that resolution will be reached in 

another meeting, another week, a week after that, and so on. So 

problems don’t come up the chain of command, leaders are irritated, 

and, much worse, time is lost. The problem is magnified when 

difficulties need to be reported across institutional lines. USAID 

officers instinctively don’t want to pass decisionmaking to political 

levels of the Embassy. Military officers would rather not hand off a 

problem to civilians. And contractors have no incentive to tell the 

contracting agency that things are not working, or to report problems 

that are not directly part of the contract responsibility, e.g., that 

equipment whose delivery is outside the training contract responsibility 

isn’t arriving. 

In many cases, the failure to report problems promptly is neither 

deliberate nor the result of a failure in supervision. Rather, it is more 

likely an instinctive behavior that goes unchallenged because it is 

unexamined. In any event, the question is what to do about it? Yelling, 

pleading, lecturing, and cajoling down the chain of command all gave 

limited results. In some circumstances, the “can do” approach of the 

military may also make it difficult to recognize that some difficulties 

are not “challenges” but, rather, problems that need a solution from 

higher up. 

Our current management technique focuses on extensive matrices of 

factors that need to be tracked. The matrices are supposed to reveal 

problems in progress toward assigned benchmarks. Sometimes this 

works, but the systems I have seen used in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer 

from a number of problems. They too often measure inputs rather than 

outputs; and the latter can be enormously difficult to define. They tend 

to focus excessively on what can be measured and exclude subjective 

judgments. As multiple “indicators” are combined for presentation 

higher up the chain of command, they become increasingly strategic 

and general, obscuring particular problems that may need command 

attention. And for Embassy and USAID operations, the data 

management of a really complex matrix requires staff support that 

frequently is not available. 

One possible solution for economic donor coordination occurred to 

me too late in my Afghan tour to really try it out. Hence, I suggest it 

while noting that it is not a proven principle. My proposal is to institute 

a requirement that problems not fixed within a specific time, say 30 
Implementation in a Multiparty Environment • 135 

 

days, must be reported. Since not every problem is worth raising to the 

top, a small cell would evaluate each month’s set of problems and 

recommend which ones needed to be reported to the Ambassador. The 

Ambassador would not necessarily try to solve them all, but could 

decide which ones needed to be taken to higher levels of the host 

government, worked on with other nations’ senior leaders, or dealt with 

across agency or military command lines2

. More rapidly identifying 

multinational disagreements leads to the next issue. Once you know the 

problem, what do you do about it? 

International operations; leading from behind 

The United States has natural leadership qualities: the size of our 

budgets and staffs, and frequently the forces or personnel we contribute 

to a multinational or multi-donor process. But with those attributes can 

come resentment and problems. One is in the nature of international 

coordination, be it in military alliances or civilian donor enterprises. 

When operations are messy and results are imperfect, often there are 

calls for a unified strategy or a single coordinator. These responses 

have value, but their ability to provide a solution is frequently 

exaggerated. 

In slightly oversimplified terms, a strategy is a series of linked steps, 

actions, or maneuvers to achieve one or more objectives. Strategies are 

broad statements and have to be handed off for implementation to a 

commander, a CEO, or some other leader to make and execute 

hundreds or thousands of decisions. In a corporation or an army the 

chain of command is clear. In multinational operations it is not. Nations 

will accept a certain amount of guidance, but they won’t take orders. 

Worse still, when it comes to development and diplomacy, many 

nations do not have even a unified national chain of command. The 

development departments of most European nations are separate from 

the foreign ministries, and very explicitly do not take orders from them. 

British troops in Afghanistan may be fighting in Helmand Province, but 

the British aid agency, the Department for International Development, 

reports to London, not to the NATO/ISAF commander, and not to the 

British Ambassador in Kabul. Germany’s large police-training mission 

2

 Embassy Kabul, like Baghdad, now has an Ambassadorial rank deputy for 

economic and assistance affairs who could frequently replace the Ambassador 

in the role I describe. 
136 • Neumann 

reports to the Ministry of the Interior and depends for trainers on 

voluntary contributions from the German Länder, or states. Multiple 

nations implementing a strategy can coordinate only through mutual 

agreement. Coordination can be particularly frustrating for the United 

States when it supplies the majority of the resources but cannot get all 

the international actors to pull in one direction. Efforts to go it alone, 

compel obedience, or just ignore other troop contributors and donors 

have not been particularly successful and have bred resentment and 

impeded progress. 

While institutional solutions, strategic refinements, and appointment 

of coordinators have their place, they do not fill the need for the myriad 

of detailed decisions required in the field. However, a combination of 

problem solving and leading from behind make it possible to improve 

performance, although not to cure the underlying problem. 

Because of its size, the United States often has a broader view of 

issues than many other nations. In Afghanistan, USAID officers are 

present in every one of the international/Afghan working groups, 

although we do not lead every one. If we use our breadth of knowledge, 

we can often provide leadership without causing offense. Two 

examples from Afghanistan stand out. 

One was in electrical power transmission and generation. We were 

one of several donors building a large electrical transmission system to 

bring power from several central Asian states to Kabul. We became 

aware of problems caused by a lack of coordination between donors 

and between Afghan ministries. We produced an interagency 

discussion paper detailing our understanding of the problems and 

recommendations for solution. Next, we passed the paper to the UN, 

and the head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) 

convened a meeting of the parties involved, the Ambassadors from the 

United States, India, and Germany, and the heads of the World Bank 

and Asian Development Bank teams. Together we worked out a 

consensus position embodying most of our recommendations. We were 

then able to take a unified approach to the Afghan government that 

over a number of months brought about changes. 

Working in this way, we avoided creating the impression that the 

United States was trying to order others around. We were able to build 

and maintain consensus and, most importantly, get results. We repeated 

the pattern in dealing with the question of which ministries should have 
Implementation in a Multiparty Environment • 137 

priority of international effort for building their internal staff capacity, 

although in that case we were able to reach consensus at a lower level. 

This approach enabled us to build greater authority for the UN and get 

more cooperation from other donors than if we had convened the 

meetings or simply gone unilaterally to the Afghan government with 

views different from those of the other donors. Not every situation can 

be met in this way, but the approach of flagging problems and 

proposing solutions, but letting others lead, can often be effective and 

should be used more frequently. When it turns out that policy changes 

or resources are needed from national capitals, this approach also 

results in different national representatives all recommending the same 

solution to their superiors. Because national governments tend to give 

deference to the views of their own representatives on the ground, this 

approach is often more effective than having the issue pressed 

unilaterally by Washington at the level of capitals. 

Planning and coordination; hindrance as well as help 

Proper planning and coordination are so broadly accepted as 

essential to effectiveness that to suggest they can also cause problems 

borders on the sacrilegious. Yet, it is so. In Afghanistan, and to some 

extent in Iraq, the number of effective national officials is small. There 

are direct tradeoffs between how much they can be involved in 

planning and getting things accomplished. Large, international staffs, 

all clamoring for national counterparts and participation in planning 

groups, can drown limited local staffs so that everyone is planning and 

no one is executing. 

Further, because the locals have limited personnel, the foreigners 

often do the planning and then try to “sell” the results. Sometimes this 

works, but often I observed that we had ignored local political 

problems, neglected local preferences for how they wanted to solve a 

problem, or decided to solve problems that the locals were not 

concerned about. Because we control the funds, we can often drive 

agreement in principle. But without real acceptance of both problem 

and solution, much of what we were funding was destined to remain 

either unworkable or unfinished. Sewerage systems that never 

connected to houses, power plants without a continuing source of fuel, 

and administrative structures that remained ineffective because they 

had not resolved issues of local power litter the landscape in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. Highly paid foreign advisors often provided advice better 
138 • Neumann 

suited to America than Iraq. And a proliferation of technical advisors 

from multiple donors sometimes provided conflicting advice that left 

the locals either confused or picking the advice that best suited extrinsic 

political concerns. 

There is no perfect solution to these dilemmas, but some bits of 

advice can be offered. 

On the broad level, look carefully at how much coordination and 

planning is essential. The United States has built the world’s greatest 

economy on a decentralized basis, yet Americans are remarkably given 

to central planning when helping others develop their economies. 

Before starting new planning mechanisms or expanding existing ones, 

consider closely—in dialogue with the locals—whether they agree with 

the need and can hold up their end of the exercise. 

On a more detailed level, spend a lot of time discussing with the 

locals their conception of their problems. Far too often I have seen us 

try to push solutions before we have agreement on the problem. Local 

officials have a tendency to agree to our proposals because we have 

power and money, but this does not always mean they intend to 

implement the plan. Substantial time for building relationships may be 

necessary before one has an adequate grasp of local views on a 

problem; not only its technical nature but the political or social factors 

that may be involved. 

A final point, although there could be many more: stop using 

PowerPoint presentations unless absolutely required. Non-native 

English speakers may be having trouble dealing with language or 

translation. Putting a PowerPoint presentation in front of them simply 

divides attention and reduces comprehension. Conceptual diagrams, of 

which we seem increasingly enamored, are frequently meaningless 

across cultural lines, lead to more confusion than clarity, and cause 

disagreement through misunderstanding. 

Lessons learned for implementation will no doubt fill volumes and 

will always be influenced by specific circumstances. Yet I hope that 

these reflections on a few common problems and possible solutions 

will be useful. 
 

Essay 18 

Beyond the Cold War: 

Pakistan and Somalia 

By Robert B. Oakley 

would like to offer lessons learned from two complex operations in 

which I was involved in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The first 

was in Pakistan—linked to Afghanistan then as now by Islam, tribal 

connections, and cross-border war—in the final years of the Cold War, 

when the Soviet Union was beginning to come apart at the seams, in 

some measure because of the strain of occupying Afghanistan. The 

second was in Somalia immediately after the end of the Cold War, 

when U.S. policymakers expected to reap a “peace dividend.” Years 

later, conflict continues in both areas. 

I 

Pakistan 

During the first 3 years of the Carter administration, U.S. policy 

toward Pakistan was dominated by concerns about nuclear 

proliferation, in large measure because of legislation that imposed 

sanctions against non-nuclear states attempting to develop nuclear 

weapons.1

 In April 1979, the Carter Administration imposed military 

and economic sanctions on Pakistan after determining that it was 

 139 

 

1

 The Indian detonation of a “peaceful nuclear explosive” in 1974 had caused 

Pakistan to accelerate its program to develop nuclear weapons. The U.S. 

Government generally, and the Congress in particular, were alarmed by the 

prospect of a new nuclear arms race. The 1977 Glenn Amendment to the 

Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 prohibited U.S. assistance to any non-nuclear 

weapon state (as defined by the 1967 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). The 

1978 Nuclear Nonproliferation Act prohibited the export of nuclear 

technology to non-nuclear weapon states that did not accept full International 

Atomic Energy Agency safeguards and threatened sanctions against any state 

that attempted to acquire unsafeguarded technology. 
140 • Oakley 

constructing a uranium enrichment facility. After the Soviet invasion of 

Afghanistan in December 1979, President Carter offered to resume 

military and economic aid, but Pakistan initially declined the offer. 

With the approval of Congress, the United States resumed military 

assistance for Pakistan. 

Throughout the 1980s, American policy toward Pakistan continued 

to be dominated by opposition to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, 

despite concerns about Pakistan’s ambitions to become a nuclear 

power—and constant congressional pressure to enforce sanctions. 

Pakistan became the linchpin in President Reagan’s Cold War 

confrontation with the USSR, and his administration consistently 

certified to Congress that Pakistan did not possess nuclear weapons. 

American involvement in the war in Afghanistan was massive but 

indirect. The fighting was done by Afghans and Muslim volunteers. 

Training and materiel were supplied through the Pakistani InterServices Intelligence (ISI). The United States embraced the use of 

Islam to inspire and reinforce the Afghan mujahedeen and supported 

Saudi efforts to recruit thousands of volunteers from everywhere in the 

Muslim world for the fight to liberate Afghanistan, Many of the 

volunteers looked beyond Afghanistan to liberation of Soviet Central 

Asia. To promote its fundamentalist version of Islam, known as 

wahhabism, Saudi Arabia established hundreds of mosques and Islamic 

schools in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area. These Saudi efforts, 

combined with ISI and CIA military assistance, eventually gave rise to 

Al Qaeda, which gained strength in Afghanistan in the mid to late 

1980s. 

On August 18, 1988, Zia-ul-Haq, President of Pakistan and Army 

Chief of Staff, and U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel were killed in an 

airplane crash that was apparently the result of sabotage. No one really 

knew what or who was behind the crash. Because Pakistan was 

funneling massive amounts of U.S. support to the Afghan mujahedeen, 

the USSR was an easy suspect. India was another. The Pakistani 

political leadership saw enemies everywhere. President Reagan 

responded immediately, sending a high-level delegation led by 

Secretary of State Schultz to attend Zia’s funeral on August 20. The 

delegation included CENTCOM Commander George Crist, Assistant 

Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage, senior members of Congress, 
Beyond the Cold War: Pakistan and Somalia • 141 

and myself, the new ambassador. By the time the planes reached 

Pakistan, my appointment had been confirmed by the Senate. 

During the flight we developed a strategy and a series of steps and 

resources required to achieve its objectives. Our top priority was to 

reassure Pakistan and its potential adversaries (the USSR, India, and 

Afghanistan) that the United States was prepared to provide any 

assistance required to secure Pakistan’s stability and territorial 

integrity. More specific U.S. objectives were to ensure continued 

support of the mujahedeen, stop further development of the Pakistani 

nuclear program, see to it that the elections Zia had promised for 

September 1988 were held, and stabilize Pakistan. The key to achieving 

these objectives was Pakistan’s Army, and its new leadership. The U.S. 

plan included the supply of new weapons systems, spare parts, and 

training. This step required lifting sanctions applied by the Carter 

Administration. By the end of 1989, all sanctions had been lifted, and 

the United States was providing hundreds of millions of dollars to the 

Afghan Mujahedeen via the CIA and the ISI. 

Within a year, circumstances in the region changed radically, as did 

American policy. In early 1990, tensions mounted with India over 

violent confrontations in Kashmir. Pakistan was strained by the 

presence of 3–5 million Afghan refugees, and suspension of American 

military and economic assistance was imminent. The Soviet Union had 

withdrawn from Afghanistan, and pressures for U.S. sanctions against 

Pakistan were increasing. The Pakistani Army leadership decided to 

reactivate the nuclear weapons program, despite U.S. warnings that this 

step would block all U.S. military and economic assistance. On October 

1, 1990, President Bush stated that he could no longer certify that 

Pakistan did not possess nuclear weapons. The United States stopped 

all assistance, including delivery of F-16s already paid for, 

unintentionally causing Pakistan to turn to North Korea for ballistic 

missiles in exchange for nuclear assistance. The now infamous A. Q. 

Khan network was involved in many such operations throughout the 

1980s and 1990s and beyond. 

The U.S. withdrawal of military and economic support infuriated all 

Pakistanis, not just the military and ISI. Anti-American sentiment also 

arose among the mujahedeen, who were abandoned by the United 

States upon Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. More than a decade 

of war had ravaged the Afghan economy and armed much of the 
142 • Oakley 

populace. Factional fighting among the mujahedeen increased, which 

created political and military opportunities for the Taliban. Throughout 

Afghanistan and Pakistan, and especially along the border of the two 

countries, Islamist extremism and anti-Americanism flourished and 

were exploited by the Taliban and, later, al Qaeda, which came to 

dominate the Taliban. 

Somalia 

Serious U.S. involvement in Somalia started in the late 1970s, also as 

a result of the Cold War. The Soviets were providing major military 

support to Ethiopia and were seen by U.S. policymakers, especially 

National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, as preparing to 

overrun Somalia. Because Somalia’s strategic location could enable the 

Soviets to block the vital shipping lanes bringing oil from the Persian 

Gulf, the United States began setting up a string of bases (or military 

operating facilities) along the periphery of the Indian Ocean (Kenya, 

Oman, Somalia). The United States provided large-scale military and 

economic assistance to Somalia, despite the dictator Siad Barre’s 

horrendous human rights record. 

After the end of the Cold War, the Soviets stopped their support for 

Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, and the United States cut 

back sharply on assistance to Somalia. Civil war broke out in 1991, and 

Siad Barre fled the country. He was replaced by several clan-based 

“warlords,” who fought each other. This internal conflict made it 

almost impossible to grow food in Somalia’s “bread basket.” The food 

shortage was compounded by 3 years of severe drought. The ensuing 

famine caused probably 300,000–400,000 civilian deaths. International 

efforts to provide food were unsuccessful; the warlords either blocked 

delivery or seized the food for their own purposes. Perhaps for the first 

time, such immense human suffering was brought by television into our 

living rooms. President George H. W. Bush felt a deep humanitarian 

commitment, and Congress and the American people overwhelmingly 

favored American action to relieve the suffering. 

A small UN peacekeeping force of lightly armed Pakistanis sent to 

Somalia was a total failure. This led President Bush in late November 

1992 to endorse an option proposed by DOD to deploy urgently a 

multinational force (MNF) built around a core of two U.S. divisions 

under U.S. command but approved by the United Nations Security 

Council (UNSC). President Bush and his very experienced national 
Beyond the Cold War: Pakistan and Somalia • 143 

security team (who had up to 12 years in office)—including the U.S. 

Central Command, which had operational command of the MNF 

(UNITAF)—had a very good understanding of what was likely to 

succeed, and what limits should be placed on U.S. operations (applying 

the Weinberger-Powell doctrine). They were realists, while committed 

to an idealistic mission. The United States had no interest in Somalia 

other than humanitarian. 

President Bush was a “lame duck” and did not believe he could 

commit the United States to long-term political or economic 

obligations. Nation-building would be up to the next President and 

Congress. Troops from 20 other countries (10,000 personnel) also 

participated. France, Italy, Canada, and Belgium sent combat forces 

that reinforced the overall military capability of UNITAF. A number of 

African and Arab Forces participated, primarily for political reasons. 

These governments wanted to be part of the rescue effort for an African 

Muslim state, but did not really have the capability or will to fight. 

However, they did make U.S. forces more acceptable. 

The U.S. mission was to stop violence, get the International 

humanitarian assistance flowing, and prepare the way for a follow-up 

UN Force and a UN Special Representative to take on the larger 

humanitarian task of nation-building. 

I was selected by President Bush and his national security team, 

several of whom I had worked for previously, to operate in tandem with 

USMC Lt Gen Bob Johnson. One of the lessons President Bush’s team 

had learned from U.S. defeats in Vietnam and Lebanon was that 

effective diplomacy and political actions could help military forces 

avoid potentially costly casualties. I got to Mogadishu on December 9, 

1992, with a small but experienced staff; my DCM had been with me in 

1973, and the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) had 

been in the country for almost a year. General Johnson and I virtually 

integrated our staffs; my DCM became his POLAD, and he appointed 

USMC BrigGen Tony Zinni to work directly with me. 

We were in constant communication and agreed that the first option 

in dealing with the warlords would be dialogue backed up by threat 

and, very rarely, the use of military force. The UNITAF commander, Lt 

Gen Johnson, paid particular attention to establishing a single chain of 

command for UNITAF. Each national contingent was assigned a 

particular geographic region (there were eight, plus Mogadishu). Each 
144 • Oakley 

had U.S. liaison officers and their own liaison officers at UNITAF 

headquarters. The contingents that were not combat-capable were 

assigned to guard the Mogadishu airport and port and military and 

humanitarian installations, such as warehouses. All contingents were 

happy to serve under U.S. command. There was full unity of effort. 

This approach of giving dialogue primacy over the use of force 

proved successful. By February 1993, warlord violence had largely 

ceased. All heavy weapons were impounded subject to UNITAF 

inspection. International organizations and non-governmental 

organizations were providing food and medical assistance for the very 

large population of Mogadishu and most of the southern parts of the 

country, where the famine had hit the hardest. The Chairman of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, in accordance with the original 

plan, initiated the phased removal of U.S. forces in preparation for the 

deployment of the new, much larger UN force (UNOSOM II). The 

UNSC appointed a new Special Representative, Admiral John Howe, 

who was selected by the new President, Bill Clinton, to demonstrate 

strong U.S. support for UNOSOM II. I went back into retirement. 

President Clinton and the civilian members of his national security 

team had no experience—or no recent experience—with national 

security matters, and their relations with the uniformed military were 

strained. They also had no previous experience in nation-building or in 

dealing with a situation as complicated as Somalia. However, a major 

theme of Bill Clinton’s campaign had been the rebuilding of failed 

states, greater use of the United Nations, and the spread of democracy. 

Somalia seemed the perfect place to put theory into practice. 

Accordingly, the United States led the UNSC into a drastic change of 

mission for UNOSOM II: it would have the tasks both of building new 

democratic political institutions and rebuilding an economy that had 

been totally destroyed. A large, colonial-type UN infrastructure was 

envisioned for the entire country, not only the southern half. The 

warlords were to be disarmed—by military force, if necessary. They 

were to be told what to do, not consulted. And all of this with a much 

weaker military force that would contain no U.S. units. There was 

provision for a small, separate, U.S. Quick Reaction Force (QRF) that 

could be used to assist UNOSOM II if it ran into serious trouble, but 

that force was not in the UNOSOM chain of command. 
Beyond the Cold War: Pakistan and Somalia • 145 

It was not long before this new UN approach led to political 

confrontation with the most powerful warlord in Mogadishu, Mohamed 

Farrah Aidid. Aidid had played a leading role in ousting Siad Barre and 

had aspirations to take his place. He also had a profound distrust of UN 

Secretary General Boutros-Gali dating back to the latter’s tenure as 

Egypt’s Deputy Foreign Minister, when he had strongly supported Siad 

Barre. The political face-off quickly turned into a military 

confrontation when UNOSOM sent a small number of Pakistani 

peacekeepers to inspect the compound in which Aidid’s weapons were 

stored, in accordance with the agreement worked out by UNITAF. The 

compound was also the site of Aidid’s radio station, which he 

considered essential to his political power. Fearing that this was the 

first part of a UN plot to destroy him, Aidid ordered his force to attack 

the Pakistanis, which they did, ruthlessly. 

This event quickly led to a new UNSC Resolution (drafted by the 

United States) that essentially called for UNOSOM II to “get” Aidid. 

The (unforeseen) consequences of this resolution produced another 

critical change of mission. The goals of political and economic 

reconstruction, and even continuing support for humanitarian activities, 

were subordinated to military action against Aidid and his militia. Over 

the summer, UNOSOM II launched a number of attacks on Aidid’s 

forces in Mogadishu, none of which accomplished the objectives of 

capturing Aidid or breaking the back of his force. 

The U.S. QRF came to the assistance of UNOSOM II by launching a 

no-warning helicopter gunship attack on a compound where Aidid’s top 

military and political clan members were conferring. The pot boiled 

over. Aidid suddenly became the hero of all Somalis, who are by nature 

very xenophobic. Attacks on UNOSOM II multiplied, and President 

Clinton felt obliged to come to their help, as well as to find a way to do 

away with the confrontational Aidid. Aidid had become a domestic 

political embarrassment. 

President Clinton dispatched U.S. Special Operations Forces units to 

do the job. This operation led to the infamous “Black Hawk Down” 

incident of October 3–4, in which 18 Americans were killed and 78 

wounded. The impact on an unsuspecting Congress (which had not 

been aware that U.S. forces were engaged in direct combat) and the 

American people can be likened to a volcanic eruption. 
146 • Oakley 

On the ground in Somalia, the large, highly professional, 

experienced staff commanding the powerful UNITAF—whose top 

commanders had served in Vietnam, Lebanon, and other operations of 

a civil-military nature and had conducted exercises in Somalia and 

Kenya—had been replaced by a small, pick-up staff commanding a 

much weaker UNOSOM II force. Admiral Howe was an excellent 

officer, but he had only limited experience abroad, and none at all in 

Africa. The unity of command that had marked UNITAF had been 

replaced by a collection of separate national contingents with little 

cohesion that often relied upon their superiors at home, rather than the 

UNOSOM II commander, for much of their guidance. Yet the 

UNOSOM II mission was much more intrusive and confrontational 

UNITAF. These changes constituted one of the major failures in 

creating the situation that led to the fateful decision by President 

Clinton to deploy U.S. forces in an effort to capture or kill Aidid. 

Another important factor was the absence of a U.S. interagency body 

paying full-time attention to Somalia. In the State Department, the only 

official working full time on Somalia was the Country Director—four 

echelons down from the Assistant Secretary for Africa. The 

Department of Defense was following things a bit more closely, but the 

focus was on withdrawing U.S. forces, and there was little 

communication with the State Department. 

The extremely strong, negative reaction to the Black Hawk Down 

incident caused a rapid reevaluation of policy by the Clinton 

Administration. Withdrawal of all remaining U.S. Forces was a given; 

the only question was timing. After a long, tough meeting with some 20 

leaders of Congress, President Clinton was able to obtain a delay of 6 

months. This period was to be used to persuade other countries to 

increase their contingents substantially, with assistance from the United 

States in weapons and funds, so that UNOSOM II would not leave 

along with the U.S. forces. A U.S. task force of some 5,000 personnel 

with aircraft, tanks, helicopters, and other weapons was dispatched to 

provide protection for the U.S. withdrawal. However, initial plans, 

approved by the President, for using this force to help UNOSOM II 

regain and control Mogadishu were cancelled. The President’s political 

advisors did not want to run the risk of even a single casualty. The U.S. 

withdrawal was completed by the end of March 1993. Despite its 

reinforcements, UNOSOM II lasted only another year, departing in 
Beyond the Cold War: Pakistan and Somalia • 147 

March 1994. Somalia had largely returned to the chaotic situation that 

had prevailed in 1991, with feuding clans and no effective government. 

The extreme reluctance to incur casualties for fear of domestic 

political consequences became the dominant consideration of U.S. 

policy on humanitarian intervention for the next decade. The United 

States refused to become involved in stopping genocide in Rwanda. 

The U.S. intervention in Haiti was conducted with overwhelming force 

and only suffered two casualties. There were no U.S. casualties in the 

Bosnia and Kosovo operations. However, the Clinton Administration 

did organize itself for the orderly conduct of U.S. interventions. New 

interagency organizations and procedures were developed that worked 

well for the Somalia withdrawal. One of the new mechanisms was an 

interagency executive committee at the assistant secretary level that 

met weekly to assign tasks and monitor ongoing operations. Jim 

Dobbins at the State Department, Dick Clarke at the NSC, and I were 

members. I was the co-chair. They worked even better when applied to 

Haiti. Jim Dobbins describes this very well in his books on nationbuilding. 

U.S. policymakers initially saw these two conflicts in the context of 

the Cold War and intervened to protect American interests. Military 

assistance and diplomacy were shaped more by the nature of the Soviet 

Union than by the nature of the cultures where Cold War battles were 

waged. With the end of the Cold War, Washington expected to 

extricate itself from both conflicts, and seemed for a while to have 

succeeded, but developments in Southwest Asia and the Horn of Africa 

have drawn the United States back to those regions. The developments 

are rooted in local cultures, but they have been energized and shaped 

substantially by past and current U.S. interventions. 

Policymakers should absorb the many lessons of American 

experiences in these two regions—most especially the need to 

understand and respect the strength of other cultures—when 

considering whether and how to intervene in any of the troubled areas 

that are now the objects of our attention. The consequences of 

intervention are unpredictable, and can persist long beyond the tenure 

of the officials who initiate military operations. 

 

Essay 19 

Every Complex Operation 

Needs a BG Rich Ellis1

By Thomas W. O’Connell 

s a participant in Operation Urgent Fury, (Grenada, 

October 1983), I was stunned by the lack of clarity in 

strategic, operational, and tactical mission orders and 

intelligence provided to tactical forces. From the super-quick 

Phase One through Phase Four set points, each operational phase 

suffered from: 

A 

• poor human intelligence (HUMINT), 

• a lack of clear estimates on enemy (Cuban and Grenadian) 

dispositions and intentions, 

 149 

 

• confusing and imprecise mission orders, and 

1

 BG Rich Ellis, USA, died suddenly in May 2009, and a Celebration of Life 

Ceremony was held at Fort Myer Main Chapel in Arlington, VA, on 29 May. 

Attendees included the current Director, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 

The Honorable Leon Panetta, the former Director CIA, General Mike Hayden, 

USAF (Ret), the Director, National Security Agency, LTG Keith Alexander, 

USA, and Director of Intelligence, Joint Staff, MG, Mike Flynn, USA. 

Speakers included the Director of the National Intelligence Community Staff, 

LTG Jeff Kimmons, USA, LTG Rick Zahner, USA, Army G2, (who served as 

escort officer), former XVII Airborne Corps Commander, LTG(R), USA, John 

Vines (who served in Iraq as a Corps Commander with BG Ellis as his G2), 

MG (R), USA Barb Fast, who served several tours with BG Ellis, Army G2 

SES Gerry Turnbow, and Sergeant Major Gary Creclius, USA of Fort Bragg 

who put a perfect relationship with soldiers into sharp perspective. All joined 

many hundred celebrants to pay tribute to Rich, Ms. Meri Ellis and their two 

sons, one a newly commissioned ROTC officer. Rich never got to pin on his 

bars. 
150 • O’Connell 

• overconfidence in the joint interoperability of participating forces. 

Launched in the immediate wake of the Beirut Marine Corps 

barracks bombing, the first priority for conventional forces in Urgent 

Fury seemed to be to prevent a similar explosive ramming of the 82d 

Airborne Division Command Post established in the partially 

completed terminal at Point Salinas Airport after Army Ranger forces 

had seized the airfield with a parachute assault. Airborne manpower 

was heavily committed to this initial task, as Rangers, and Marines 

along with Special Operations Forces completed initial combat tasks 

around the island. 

Although the pre-assault national intelligence collection activities 

conducted on the island were lauded as heroic and effective by some in 

Washington, the Special Operations personnel charged with early entry 

and target-specific assaults knew this was not the case. Several died 

and many were wounded as operations went awry. Later, 82d Airborne 

aviators and paratroopers were killed in a tactical insertion accident 

during an unnecessary air assault on a nonexistent enemy force. My 

battalion had five paratroopers wounded when a Navy A-7 strafed a 

hilltop where a U.S. soldier had inadvertently fired a burst of antiaircraft fire from an abandoned enemy antiaircraft artillery piece near 

our position. 

Despite these incidents, all objectives were seized, the medical 

students at True Blue Campus were rescued, the Cuban construction 

forces (about 780 in number, with about 45 actual Cuban military) were 

dispatched or captured, and resisting Grenada forces (both People’s 

Revolutionary Army and Grenadian militia) were quickly eliminated. 

Numerous hostile embassies were closed, with “diplomats” sent 

packing. Civilian casualties and collateral damage were minimal. 

For almost 20 years before Grenada, U.S. Atlantic Command had 

conducted contingency scenarios for the Nation’s Rapid Reaction 

Force, (XVIII Airborne Corps). SOLID SHIELD alternated Command 

Post and Field Training Exercises on a yearly basis. The types of 

operational scenarios were very much like the Operation Urgent Fury

OPLAN. A review of the after action reports (AAR) of these exercises 

would provide an accurate template for constructing an AAR of 

Operation Urgent Fury. 

Typically, these reports start out at company and battalion level and 

tend to be brutally honest. The soldiers that draft them went through all 
BG Rich Ellis • 151 

the sweat and exhaustion of the ground phases and are not shy about 

pointing out shortcomings. As the reports are edited at brigade, 

division, and corps levels, they tend to become pabulum, with the 

bottom line reading “we did this well.” In my experience, every lesson 

from Urgent Fury had already been well documented in previous 

SOLID SHIELD AARs. 

This deficit was not unique to Grenada. In Haiti, Panama, Iraq, 

Afghanistan, Colombia, the Philippines, Lebanon, and any number of 

counterterrorist operations, our ability to put key assets on the ground 

or have them in place, in my experience, has been less than optimal. 

Quite simply, we owe our forces a better effort. 

A quarter-century after Urgent Fury, we find the nation in conflicts 

that have lasted longer than WWII. As these conflicts persist, the nation 

must stand ready to conduct worldwide, short-notice, complex 

operations like Urgent Fury. Those operations might be executed in the 

current theaters of major conflict, Iraq and Afghanistan, or in 

neighboring countries. Options might include: attack and defeat of a 

massed or trapped insurgent or terrorist force, killing or capturing a 

High Value Individual, interdiction of a nuclear weapon (or related) 

shipment, destruction of a known piracy base, resolution of a hostage 

barricade situation, strike at an insurgent sanctuary, recovery of 

MANPADS, vessel recovery, etc. 

Our military and intelligence forces are certainly in a better position 

now to execute complex operations than at perhaps any time in history. 

Battle-hardened, experienced in diverse theaters, and justifiably 

confident in their joint capabilities, today’s forces enjoy many benefits 

from our recent operations: 

• (many) Combatant Command Staffs are accomplished operators, 

• communications are more robust and capable, 

• persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance is flexible, 

more available, and capable, 

• logistics procedures and routes are well established around the world, 

• specific contingency authorizations are in place to streamline 

response times and enable quick approval for launching operations, 
152 • O’Connell 

• operating arrangements with allied forces are better understood and 

practiced, and interagency operations are enhanced through 

significantly improved cooperation. 

I see much hope for future improvement in solving the quest for 

those critical last minute operational and intelligence requirements. 

New authorities have been granted to our forces that allow recruitment 

and training of surrogates. Thus far, I have not addressed the general 

officer mentioned in the title, BG Richard Ellis. In the course of our 

respective careers, we often had occasion to look at recent operations or 

ongoing problems and discuss “what ifs”. As intelligence officers, often 

supporting Special Operations Forces, we were familiar with the 

demands for access to target areas, precise intelligence on opposition 

threats, and the problems associated with providing information on last 

minute changes in the tactical situation. In assessing needs for US 

forces in what was once called the Global War on Terrorism, we 

discussed the incredibly diverse requirements placed on our 

intelligence systems and operatives. 

In later discussions with BG Ellis at his CIA Community Staff 

office, we talked about the need for a network against the network. For 

decades, members of our Special Forces trained and fought with 

numerous allies in all theaters. We have a magnificent corps of 

potential operatives that can easily access key areas of operational 

interest with minimal risk. Many of these retired or separated soldiers 

would gladly volunteer to help the United States with our current global 

conflicts. Obtaining agreement from donor countries would be possible 

in many cases. BG Ellis’ exceptional range of critical assignments 

combined with his HUMINT skills allowed him to envision the wisdom 

of such a program. He knew the value of an offensive program 

designed to put unrelenting pressure on an enemy that often enjoys 

freedom of action and movement. His experiences in Korea, Iraq, 

SOUTHCOM, Europe, Special Mission Units, Special Forces, Army 

Intelligence, and the CIA placed him in a position where few U.S. 

officers could match his insight and imagination with respect to 

complex operations. Success in the future likely will demand many 

more officers like him. Moreover, a network of capable clandestine 

operatives would be equally valuable and essential in supporting 

complex operations. General Ellis was routinely pressed during his 

career to come up with immediate solutions to overwhelming demands 

from combat forces in “crunch time’. The risk of establishing such a 
BG Rich Ellis • 153 

network would be minimal, the potential payoff could be immense. We 

can do this and do it now. Surely, in the not too distant future, a young 

intelligence officer in a key position will be searching for answers he 

wished he had. He will be wondering what he could do with a force 

envisioned by Rich Ellis. 

The swiftness of a developing crisis with attendant complexity can 

overwhelm policy officials and commanders alike. Establishing this 

network now would be a fitting tribute to his legacy. Reflecting back on 

Urgent Fury, a BG Rich Ellis would certainly have had a different 

approach to the intelligence aspects of the problem. The benefits of his 

vision and tireless efforts against our adversaries should be embraced 

and focused on the sudden emergencies that will continue to challenge 

the nation and our allies. 

 

Essay 20 

Post-Conflict 

Reconstruction Challenges: 

Some Observations from 

Iraq 

By Robin Raphel 

he challenges to post-conflict reconstruction that I address here 

cover both processes and programs. They are drawn primarily 

from my experience working on the U.S. reconstruction effort in 

Iraq between 2003 and 2007, first as an advisor to the Ministry of 

Trade and Coordinator of Ministerial Advisors for the Coalition 

Provisional Authority, then as the Department of State Coordinator for 

Iraq Reconstruction, and finally as the Deputy Special Inspector 

General for Iraq Reconstruction. 

T 

Finding the most appropriate partner for U.S. reconstruction 

assistance efforts. USAID and other traditional aid institutions, 

concerned about legal frameworks and often still bound by established 

procedures, have been rightly criticized for automatically seeking a 

host-government partner with which to sign a traditional assistance 

agreement. Post-conflict governments are inherently weak—ministers 

have fled and bureaucrats have disappeared, whether in reaction to new 

policies (de-Baathification, in the case of Iraq) or the general disruption 

of war. Going directly to individual ministries can work; in Iraq, the 

Ministry of Oil remained competent, if thinly staffed. The Ministry of 

Health, on the other hand, was plagued with problems. Waiting for 

bureaucracies and governments to reinvent themselves (or, worse still, 

be reinvented by outsiders) can take an unacceptable amount of time 

when citizens are expecting rapid improvement in their lives. Local 

 155 
156 • Raphel 

communities may articulate their immediate, local priorities, but when 

it comes to providing basic social services, they often need to be tied 

into the national level system—the power grid, the canal system, the 

national school and health systems—which requires professional staff 

and supplies. 

Thus, we need to look for other partners. NGOs that are still 

functioning can often be useful partners in meeting local needs. The 

conceptual answer to identifying the right partner lies in finding an 

entity that can get things done and understands what is appropriate for 

local communities and what is inherently in the purview of the national 

or provincial government. Post-conflict assistance teams need to work 

with groups that can repair schools and clinics, but know not to build 

new ones unless it is clear they will be supported by the government in 

due course; help power plants get back up and running, but not order 

new generators that local technicians cannot maintain; repair existing 

water and irrigation facilities, but not plan new ones that could disrupt a 

fragile water table; and, finally, can assist communities to improve 

community life in very local ways—building parks, digging wells, etc. 

Ensuring local buy-in and avoiding aid dependency. Much has been 

written about the need to have local understanding and support for 

assistance projects and programs. We know about the clinics and 

schools built in Iraq that had no staff because they were not part of the 

national ministry staffing plan (which provided all the government 

doctors, nurses, and teachers countrywide) or were in dangerous 

neighborhoods where local people dared not travel. These problems 

could have been avoided by taking the time to find people in the 

ministries in charge of staffing and placement of facilities. Similarly, 

costly mistakes about the types of power generators, buildings that 

were too high for the modest pressure in Iraqi water pipes, imported 

flour that was unsuitable for baking Iraqi bread, etc., could have been 

avoided by consulting with Iraqi officials. 

The excuse often offered for not consulting the Iraqis was that “we 

did not have time.” This is a fallacy. Rushing to spend reconstruction 

resources without proper consultation with the Iraqis wasted resources, 

and often the process was ultimately slower, and certainly less 

effective. We need to avoid the tendency to do things ourselves when 

they are not done by local officials or citizens on our timetable. Pushing 

aside the locals is unwise, even when it applies to simple procedural 
Post-Conflict Reconstruction Challenges • 157 

matters—getting badges for access to the Green Zone, obtaining travel 

documents, gaining access to computers, furniture, cars, and gasoline. 

In an effort to expedite all things, U.S. personnel made Iraqis 

dependent on them, the result of which was simmering resentment 

among Iraqis at the humiliation of not being able to do the most basic 

things themselves, or a passive, do-nothing, “let the American take care 

of it” attitude. 

Procedures need to be developed early on to give local officials and 

citizens the wherewithal and responsibility to manage their basic 

affairs. This may take more time on the front end of the reconstruction 

process, but the payoff from people having ownership of projects and 

programs earlier in the process would be enormous. 

Finding the appropriate focus for governance programs: the Center 

vs. Provincial/regional institutions. As U.S. assistance officials entered 

Iraq in early 2003, they were under instructions to strengthen local and 

regional institutions as part of an overall effort to ensure that another 

strongman would not emerge in Baghdad. This was understandable, 

given what the autocratic regime of Saddam Hussein had done to Iraq 

and its people. But in fact, Iraq had been a centralized state for decades. 

To make it function required restoring national institutions, not just 

“empowering” provincial politicians, many of whom had little 

experience in governance and were more interested in the perks of 

power than the work. Soon the focus was changed to capacity 

development in the national ministries. At the same time, we wanted to 

be able to spend money more quickly and visibly at the local level. So, 

we began to coach newly established provincial assemblies on 

developing budget priorities and building consensus on a reconstruction 

budget for the provinces. All these activities were legitimate. But the 

key to successful assistance to a country is to balance central and 

regional assistance in a way that respects the established division of 

labor between the central and regional governments. That division of 

labor is different in Iraq than in, say, Afghanistan, where the national 

government has never reached much beyond the capital. In Iraq, the 

national government had run the food rationing system, the petroleum 

industry, and other sectors, all of which were crucial to progress in the 

reconstruction effort. 

Promoting constructive civilian-military cooperation in the field. 

This issue has been much discussed, but it is not yet clear that we have 
158 • Raphel 

reached practical conclusions. On the positive side, military and 

civilian officials in the field have come to appreciate what each brings 

to the table, and in some ways they even attempt to emulate each other. 

Military officers now regularly seek cultural context and study tribes 

and customs. Civilians wear combat boots and seek to learn to plan like 

their military colleagues, and adopt their pervasive acronyms. The 

demand for political advisors seems insatiable—easily ten percent of 

the Foreign Service could be employed as POLADS. At the same time, 

the military complains about being forced to do civilian tasks because 

the civilians do not “come to the fight.” The State Department has 

scrambled to avoid this criticism, raiding other Foreign Service posts, 

offering costly incentives for service in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 

hiring hundreds of temporary employees. Results are mixed. 

Temporary hires often find it difficult to operate in a government 

bureaucracy, and in any case in their numbers do not begin to bridge 

the gap between military and civilian resources. The difference in scale 

is simply too vast. There will still be 20 colonels breathing down the 

neck of every civilian reconstruction manager, ready to take on the task 

if it is not finished in accordance with the often unrealistic timetable of 

their commanding officer. Even with the plans in train for a civilian 

reserve, the civilians will always be the smaller player. The sooner that 

fact is accepted, the sooner we can focus on ensuring that everyone, 

civilian and military alike, plays to their comparative advantage. No 

matter how much civilians and military officers try to learn how the 

other works, the differences in training, experience, resources, and 

mission will make it difficult for one to effectively replace the other. 

The overall message should be, “vive la difference”! 

How to more effectively promote the rule of law and fight corruption.

Rule of law programs in Iraq were the subject of persistent bureaucratic 

infighting and harsh rhetoric by critics of the reconstruction effort. 

There was an active debate about who should be in charge—the 

Department of State’s Bureau of Narcotics and Law Enforcement, 

which had traditionally managed police training? The Department of 

Justice, which was training judges and court officials, and with some 

logic saw itself as arbiter of legal programs? USAID, which managed 

substantial funds for rule of law programs? The Regime Crimes Liaison 

Office, which had the mission to hunt down and try Saddam-era 

officials? The result of the infighting was perpetual confusion, and 

wasted time and resources. The casual observer found it difficult to 
Post-Conflict Reconstruction Challenges • 159 

 

understand what “rule of law” really meant. Was it shorthand for 

building prisons for the thousands of new detainees Coalition forces 

were picking up, and creating courts and judges to try them? Or was it 

police training, which in Iraq quickly took second place behind training 

the army? Or was stamping out corruption, which one Iraqi minister 

dubbed “the second insurgency?”1

The Iraq experience demonstrates the need to: 1) clarify and 

articulate the purpose of various parts of the rule of law mission, 2) 

prioritize rule of law activities in line with host-country needs, 

recognizing that this is likely to mean putting more effort into 

neighborhood policing and arbitration of basic grievances at the 

expense of training the army and trying alleged terrorists, 3) concerning 

corruption, be realistic about the time it takes to establish the 

procedures and transparency that lessen the temptation of corrupt 

practices, avoid rhetoric that cannot be matched by effective action, and 

build on existing institutions rather than create new, unfamiliar 

institutions. 

Managing risk. In the early days in Iraq, the environment was 

relatively safe, and there were few rules, because there was a very 

limited management structure in the mission. Civilians drove around 

Baghdad at will, visiting ministries and meeting with counterparts. As 

security deteriorated and the Mission became more structured, civilian 

movements were strictly controlled. Insufficient resources for convoys 

and security details made it difficult to leave the Green Zone to oversee 

projects and programs. The minimal- or no-risk policy for civilian 

security has continued to hamper the effective implementation of 

reconstruction programs in Iraq. The situation was similar regarding 

reconstruction spending. At first, there was little oversight, but intense 

public scrutiny and cries of “waste, fraud and abuse” severely 

undermined the incentive for professionals and contractors to find ways 

to move money quickly. The no-risk culture needs to be replaced by a 

risk-management/risk-mitigation culture with respect to both physical 

1

 To combat corruption, the Coalition created a new Commission on Public 

Integrity, which competed with established Iraqi institutions as they all traded 

accusations about corruption within each others’ ranks. The first head of this 

commission, a well intended, apparently honest, but perhaps too eager judge, 

was eventually driven into exile by progressively more hostile disputes with 

other oversight organizations. Meanwhile, the man in the street was no closer 

to getting the basic “justice” he was pleading for. 
160 • Raphel 

security for civilian assistance workers and expenditure of assistance 

funds. It is preferable, for example, to take some risk of corruption or 

mismanagement in allowing local officials to begin early to manage 

procurement and other programs, rather than continue to let U.S. 

officials and their contractors do it all, thereby prolonging the period of 

dependency—which carries its own high, though unquantifiable, cost. 

Toward more appropriate oversight. Under the CPA it was not clear 

who had authority over what funds (U.S or Iraqi), and thus who had 

responsibility for overseeing them. The one exception was USAID, 

which had supplemental funds programmed before the fighting began. 

USAID arranged for early visits to Iraq by their IG. Funds that were 

spent by CPA and its home agency, DOD, did not receive much 

oversight in the early period. Similarly, since the Department of State 

was not in charge of the Iraq mission, its IG officials did not travel 

there. The unprecedented $20 billion supplemental appropriation for 

reconstruction passed in November 2003 provided for a Special 

Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR). Starting from 

scratch and drawing staff from other IG offices and contractors, SIGIR 

began a process of rapid assessment and reporting on the reconstruction 

effort that provided much-needed insight into key issues and problems. 

As time went on, however, agency IGs began to send teams to Iraq, and 

by 2007 IG teams were bumping into each other all over the country 

and competing for programs to audit and inspect and potential cases to 

investigate. Thus, while SIGIR was essential in Iraq in the early years, 

it became redundant when the agency IGs began to get the funding they 

needed to operate in Iraq. SIGIR continued to cost the taxpayers close 

to $30 million each year. It would be more cost-effective for agency 

IGs to provide oversight to their projects in post-conflict areas from the 

beginning. They should have the authority and funding to do so. 

These observations can be summed up in a few simple concepts. 

• Patience is essential. New governments, new economic models, 

new social contracts—all take more time than we seem to be 

capable of imagining. In fact, Americans have become notorious 

for their hyperactivity and unrealistic timetables. Some processes 

simply cannot be compressed. Accepting that fact from the 

beginning will save considerable energy and reduce frustration. 

• Along the same lines, it is helpful to recall the adage often 

repeated by military engineers: “you can have it fast and good, but 
Post-Conflict Reconstruction Challenges • 161 

not cheap; you can have it cheap and good, but not fast; you can 

have it fast and cheap, but not good; you can never have it fast, 

good and cheap.” This speaks to the myriad tradeoffs that 

policymakers and program managers must make on a daily basis. 

These limitations need to be more broadly appreciated by 

policymakers and oversight institutions, including the Congress. 

• The most effective and sustainable reconstruction and 

development programs are demand-driven. Designing such 

programs requires taking the time to listen and understand hostcountry priorities—not simply supplying advisors and programs 

preplanned in Washington. An achievable, post-conflict exit 

strategy begins with strong partnerships with local officials and 

citizens. 

163 

About the Contributors 

Lieutenant General David W. Barno, USA (Ret.), served as overall 

U.S. and coalition commander in Afghanistan from 2003–2005. He 

commanded over 20,000 U.S. and Coalition forces as part of Operation 

Enduring Freedom with responsibilities across Afghanistan, Pakistan 

and portions of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. He is currently Director of 

the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the National 

Defense University. 

Frederick Barton is a senior adviser in the CSIS International Security 

Program and co-director of its Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project. 

Previously, Barton served as the chair of the Obama for President 

Subgroup on Post-Conflict Reconstruction. He has also served as UN 

deputy high commissioner for refugees in Geneva (1999–2001) and as 

the first director of the Office of Transition Initiatives at the U.S. 

Agency for International Development (1994–1999).

Nesreen Barwari is the minister of municipalities and public works in 

Iraq. She was first named to the post in 2003, the only woman 

appointed to the 25-member provisional cabinet. She is the top Iraqi 

official in charge of water treatment, waste management, 

environmental sanitation, and municipal facilities. She promoted the 

empowerment of municipal governance and helped the Provincial 

Coalition Authority in drafting the Local Power Law, which introduced 

decentralization to Iraq. 

Hans Binnendijk is the Vice President for Research and Theodore 

Roosevelt Chair in National Security Policy at National Defense 

University (NDU). He is also the founding Director of the Center for 

Technology and National Security Policy at NDU. He previously 

served on the National Security Council as Special Assistant to the 

President and Senior Director for Defense Policy and Arms Control 

(1999–2001). From 1994 to 1999, Dr. Binnendijk was Director of the 

Institute for National Strategic Studies at NDU. Prior to that, he was 

Principal Deputy Director and Acting Director of the State 

Department's Policy Planning Staff (1993–1994). In academia, Dr. 
164 • Commanding Heights 

Binnendijk was Director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at 

Georgetown University (1991–1993) and Deputy Director and Director 

of Studies at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies and 

Editor of Survival from 1988–1991. He is author or co-author of more 

than 100 articles, editorials, and reports. His most recent book is 

Civilian Surge: Key to Complex Operations, published by National 

Defense University Press in 2009. 

Ambassador Barbara K. Bodine is a lecturer and diplomat-inresidence at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public 

and International Affairs. She served over 30 years in the Foreign 

Service, primarily on Arabian Peninsula and Persian Gulf issues. She 

was ambassador to Yemen from 1997 through August 2001, Deputy 

Principal Officer in Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1983), in 

Kuwait as Deputy Chief of Mission during the Iraqi invasion and 

occupation (1990–1991), and the senior State Department official and 

the first coalition coordinator for reconstruction in Baghdad and the 

Central governorates in the spring of 2003. In addition to several 

assignments in the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, 

she was Associate Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Director of East 

African Affairs, Dean of the School of Professional Studies at the 

Foreign Service Institute, and Senior Advisor for International Security 

Negotiations and Agreements in the Bureau of Political-Military 

Affairs. 

Ambassador L. Paul Bremer was appointed by President Bush in 

May 2003 as Presidential Envoy to Iraq and Administrator of the 

Coalition Provisional Authority. A career diplomat for 23 years, his 

service spanned eight Presidencies during which he served on four 

continents and as Special Assistant or Executive Assistant to six 

Secretaries of State. He was the U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands 

and Ambassador-at-large for Counterterrorism before leaving the State 

Department for 14 years as a businessman, most recently as Chairman 

and CEO of Marsh Crisis Consulting. 

General Peter W. Chiarelli, USA, is the Vice Chief of Staff of the 

U.S. Army. In his previous assignment, he was the Senior Military 

Assistant to the Secretary of Defense from March 2007 to August 2008. 

He commanded the 1st Cavalry Division during Operation Iraqi 

Freedom II, and commanded Multi-National Corps-Iraq. His principal 
Contributors • 165 

staff assignments have been as the Operations Officer, 1st Cavalry 

Division; Executive Assistant and later Executive Officer to the 

Supreme Allied Commander, Commander United States European 

Command; and as the Director of Operations, Readiness and 

Mobilization, at Headquarters, Department of the Army. 

General Wesley K. Clark, USA (Ret.), served as NATO's Supreme 

Allied Commander, Europe, 1997–2000, during which he commanded 

Operation Allied Force in Kosovo, which saved 1.5 million Albanians 

from ethnic cleansing, and NATO’s peacekeeping operations in Bosnia. 

In previous duty, General Clark was the Commander-in-Chief, US 

Southern Command, 1996–1997, and the J-5, Joint Staff, 1994–96, 

where he helped plan the 1994 operation in Haiti, helped negotiate an 

end to the war in Bosnia, and served as the lead author of Joint Vision 

2010 for the U.S. Armed Forces. After his retirement in 2000, he 

became an investment banker, author, commentator, Presidential 

candidate, educator, and businessman. 

Major General Timothy Cross is a retired British Army officer who 

served as Deputy of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian 

Assistance in Iraq in 2003. Previously, he served as the Commander 

Supply of the 1st (UK) Armored Division during Operation Desert 

Storm. He also served on three operational tours in the Balkans during 

the 1990s, with the UN in Cyprus in 1980, and in Northern Ireland in 

the 1970s. General Cross retired in 2007. 

Ambassador James Dobbins is a Senior Fellow at RAND, where he 

directs the International Security and Defense Policy Center. He has 

served the State Department and White House in a number of positions, 

including Special Assistant to the President for Latin America, 

Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, and Ambassador to the 

European Community. He served as the Clinton administration’s 

special envoy for Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo, and was the 

Bush administrations first special Envoy for Afghanistan after 9/11. 

Ambassador Jan Eliasson is a former UN Special Envoy for Darfur 

and current Senior Visiting Scholar at USIP. He served as President of 

the UN General Assembly, Swedish Ambassador to the United States 

and to the UN, and Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs. Mr. Eliasson 

has been Visiting Professor at Uppsala and Göteborg Universities in 
166 • Commanding Heights 

Sweden, has authored and coauthored numerous articles and books, and 

is a frequent lecturer on foreign policy and diplomacy. 

James Kunder is a Senior Resident Fellow at the German Marshall 

Fund of the United States. He advises on international development 

issues, including the modernization of foreign assistance and the nexus 

between security and development. Previously, Mr. Kunder served as 

Acting Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International 

Development (USAID). Beginning in July 2004, he served as USAID 

Assistant Administrator for Asia and the Near East. From July 2002 to 

July 2004, he was Deputy Assistant Administrator for Asia and the 

Near East. From January to May 2002, he was Director for Relief and 

Reconstruction in Afghanistan. 

Ambassador Lewis Lucke was the first USAID Mission Director in 

Iraq, a Senior Foreign Service Officer, and Coordinator for 

Reconstruction within the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian 

Assistance. Ambassador Lucke served for 26 years with USAID in nine 

countries, including postings as Mission Director in Iraq, Haiti, Bolivia, 

and Jordan, and subsequently as USAID Deputy Assistant 

Administrator for Iraq. As the first USAID Mission Director to Iraq 

from 2003–2004, he directed a $4.0 billion development and 

reconstruction portfolio, the largest USAID program in history. He 

subsequently served as US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Swaziland 

from 2004–2006. He received USAID's highest award, the 

Administrator’s Distinguished Career Award in 2001, the Presidential 

Merit Service Award in 2001, USAID’s Award for Heroism in 2004, 

the Secretary of Defense’s Award for Exceptional Public Service in 

2004, and five USAID Superior Honor or Meritorious Honor Awards. 

Brigadier General H.R. McMaster, USA, is the Director of Concept 

Development and Experimentation at the Army Capabilities Integration 

Center, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. Previously, BG 

McMaster served as a senior research associate at the International 

Institute for Strategic Studies in London, and as Special Assistant to the 

Commander, Multinational Force Iraq. His command assignments 

included command of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment at Fort 

Carson, Colorado and in Iraq from 2004 to 2006; command of the 1st 

Squadron, 4th Cavalry, in Schweinfurt, Germany from October 1999 

until June 2002; and command of Eagle Troop, Second Armored 
Contributors • 167 

Cavalry Regiment, in Bamberg, Germany, and Southwest Asia during 

Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm and the occupation of 

southern Iraq. He also served as director of the Commander's Advisory 

Group at U.S. Central Command from 2003 to 2004. He holds a PhD in 

history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and served 

as an assistant professor at the United States Military Academy. He has 

published numerous works on history and national security affairs, 

including his award-wining book Dereliction of Duty. 

Michael Miklaucic is the Director of Research, Information and 

Dissemination at the Center for Complex Operations (CCO) at National 

Defense University. Prior to this assignment he served in various 

positions at the U.S. Agency for International Development and the 

Department of State, including service on the Civilian Response Corps 

Inter-Agency Task Force, as the Senior Program Officer in the USAID 

Office of Democracy and Governance, and as the Deputy for War 

Crimes Issues at the Department of State. He received his education 

from the University of California, the London School of Economics, 

and the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International 

Studies (SAIS). 

Ambassador William Montgomery was U.S. Ambassador to Serbia 

and Montenegro from 2001–2004 and Chief of Mission to Yugoslavia 

from 2000–2001. He served as Ambassador to Croatia from 1998 to 

2000, Special Advisor to the President for Bosnia in charge of 

implementation of the Bosnian Peace Plan from 1996–1997, and U.S. 

Ambassador to Bulgaria. Ambassador Montgomery’s career includes 

tours as an economic-commercial officer in Belgrade, commercial 

officer in Moscow, political officer in Moscow, and as Deputy Chief of 

Mission in Dar Es Salaam, as well as assignments in Washington. He 

was executive assistant to Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger and 

Deputy Secretary of State Clifton Wharton. 

Major General William L. Nash, USA (Ret.), was an armored 

cavalry platoon leader in Vietnam and an armored brigade commander 

in Operation Desert Storm, and commanded the 1st Armored Division 

from June 1995 to May 1997. MG Nash has extensive experience in 

peacekeeping operations, both as a military commander in BosniaHerzegovina from 1995–1996 and as a civilian administrator for the 

United Nations in Kosovo in 2000. He was a senior fellow at the 
168 • Commanding Heights 

Council on Foreign Relations from 2001–2009. He is also a 

professorial lecturer at Georgetown University, a visiting lecturer at 

Princeton University, and a military consultant for ABC News. 

Andrew Natsios is a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of 

Diplomacy at the Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service at 

Georgetown University and fellow at the Hudson Institute. From 

2001—2006, he served as Administrator of USAID. President Bush 

also appointed him Special Coordinator for International Disaster 

Assistance and Special Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sudan. Mr. 

Natsios also served as U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan from October 2006 

to December 2007. His previous service at USAID includes Director of 

the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance from 1989–1991 and 

Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Food and Humanitarian 

Assistance (now the Bureau of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian 

Assistance) from 1991–1993. Between 1993 and 1998 he was Vice 

President of World Vision, the largest faith-based NGO in the world. 

Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann is the President of the American 

Academy of Diplomacy. Ambassador Neumann served as ambassador 

to Algeria, Bahrain, and Afghanistan. Before Afghanistan, Mr. 

Neumann served in Baghdad from February 2004 with the Coalition 

Provisional Authority. Prior to working in Iraq, he was Chief of 

Mission in Manama, Bahrain, from 2001–2004, Deputy Assistant 

Secretary in the Bureau of Near East Affairs from 1997–2000 and 

Director of the Office for Iran and Iraq from 1991–1994. 

Robert B. Oakley is a member of the faculty of the Institute for 

National Strategic Studies at National Defense University. After 

graduating from Princeton University in 1952, Ambassador Oakley had 

a distinguished career in the Foreign Service, during which he served in 

embassies in Abidjan, Saigon, Paris, and Beirut. In 1977 he was named 

Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific 

Affairs. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Zaire from November 1979 

to August 1982, and then became Ambassador to Somalia, where he 

served until September 1984. Next he became Director of the State 

Department Office of Combating Terrorism. On January 1, 1987, he 

was named to the National Security Council Staff as Assistant to the 

President for Middle East and South Asia, and in August 1988 became 

Ambassador to Pakistan. In December 1992, President George H. W. 
Contributors • 169 

Bush named Ambassador Oakley Special Envoy for Somalia, where he 

served with Operation Restore Hope until March 1993. In October 

1993, President Bill Clinton called Ambassador Oakley back to 

Somalia, where he served until March 1994.

The Honorable Thomas W. O’Connell is an independent defense and 

intelligence consultant and member of several boards. He served as the 

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low 

Intensity Conflict from 2003–2007. Upon leaving the Pentagon, he 

received the Department’s highest award for civilian service, as well as 

that of the U.S. Coast Guard. Previously, he served with the Raytheon 

Corporation for 7 years. Colonel O’Connell’s 27-year military career 

included participation in four conflicts: Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, 

and Southeast Asia, as well as various assignments to 33 countries. 

Additionally, he was selected as an original member of the CIA Office 

of Military Affairs in 1993. 

Ambassador Robin Raphel served in the Coalition Provisional 

Authority in Iraq as Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Trade. She 

subsequently served as Coordinator for Iraq Reconstruction in the 

Department of State, and Deputy Inspector General in the office of the 

Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. Prior to deploying to 

Iraq, she was Vice President of the National Defense University. In 

1993, Ambassador Raphel became the first Assistant Secretary of State 

for South Asia. She served as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of 

Tunisia in the late 1990s. Today she manages the international practice 

at Cassidy & Associates. 

David A. Sobyra is the Acting Director of the Center for Complex 

Operations (CCO). Mr. Sobyra is a retired Marine Corps aviator and 

career civil servant in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He is on 

detail to NDU from OSD (Policy) in his position with CCO. He has 

combat experience in Operation Desert Storm, served with the 

Presidential Helicopter Squadron (HMX-1), and, prior to retirement, 

was the Technology Transfer Branch Chief on the Joint Staff J-5. Mr. 

Sobyra served with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s 

Office of International Affairs and Policy from 2003–2004. Prior to 

assuming Directorship of CCO in May of 2008, he served in OSD 

(Policy) in the International Security Programs office from 2004–2006, 

and the Office of Stability Operations Capabilities from 2006–2009.