AIR UNIVERSITY

AIR FORCE RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Unity of Mission

Civilian-Military Teams in War and Peace

Edited by

Jon Gundersen

Melanne A. Civic

Air University Press

Air Force Research Institute

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama
Project Editor

Dr. Ernest Allan Rockwell

Copy Editors

Sandi Davis, Carolyn Burns, and

Tammi Dacus

Cover Art, Book Design, and Illustrations

Daniel Armstrong and L. Susan Fair

Composition and Prepress Production

Michele D. Harrell

Print Preparation and Distribution

Diane Clark

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Unity of mission : civilian-military teams

in war and peace / edited by Jon Gundersen, 

Melanne A. Civic.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-58566-247-0 (alk. paper)

1. Armed Forces—Civic action. 2. Civilian-military 

relations. 3. Postwar reconstruction. 4. Postwar 

reconstruction—Afghanistan. 5. Postwar reconstruction—Iraq. 6. Integrated operations (Military 

science). 7. United States—Armed Forces—Stability 

operations. I. Gundersen, Jon, 1945- editor. II. Civic, 

Melanne A., editor. III. Title: Civilian-military teams 

in war and peace.

UH720.U55 2015

355.4’6—dc23

2015016592

Published by Air University Press in April 2016

Disclaimer

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed 

or implied within are solely those of the authors and do 

not necessarily represent the official policy or position of 

the organizations with which they are associated or the 

views of the Air Force Research Institute, Air University, 

United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or any 

other US government agency. This publication is cleared 

for public release and unlimited distribution.

AIR FORCE RESEARCH INSTITUTE

AIR UNIVERSITY PRESS

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AFRI

Air Force Research Institute
iii

Before, during, and after combat, civilian-military cooperation is vital for the civilian 

population to regain its footing in order to build a stable society. Jon Gundersen and 

Melanne Civic have collected a series of invaluable real-life experiences, so that we don’t 

have to repeat the painful lessons of the past. A must read for those leaders trying to sort 

out how the United States will continue its goals after the shooting stops!

—Ambassador Dell Dailey

Lieutenant General, US Army, retired

Former joint special operations commander and Department of State coordinator 

for counterterrorism 

******

There have been innumerable studies on civil-military cooperation—or lack thereof—in 

complex operations. The subject, however, has not been addressed in a single volume 

aimed at scholars and diplomats as well as warriors. Unity of Mission does just that. 

The book offers unique insights by soldiers, AID workers, nongovernmental organizations, and others with on the ground experience. The essays provide a rich, diverse, and 

candid commentary about what worked and what didn’t work. This book will be enormously useful for anyone assigned to a military command, an embassy, or any international mission.

—Hans Binnendijk

Senior fellow, School of Advanced International Studies,

Johns’ Hopkins University

Former vice-president, National Defense University

v

Contents

List of Illustrations ix

List of Tables x

About the Editors and Authors xi

Acknowledgments xxxi

Introduction: Iraq and Afghanistan and Beyond xxxiii

Jon Gundersen

Executive Summary xxxix

Jon Gundersen

PART 1

HISTORY OF CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMS: 

AMERICA’S COMING OF AGE

 1 Nontraditional Missions: Civil Tasks,

Military Forces, and Complex Operations 3

R. Scott Moore

 2 Civilian-Military Teaming (1989–1995):

An Examination of Postconflict Operations in

Panama, Kuwait, and Haiti 25

Dennis Craig Barlow

PART 2

THE VIETNAM WAR (1954–1975)

 3 Measuring Success: Evaluating Counterinsurgency

Progress in Vietnam (1966–1975) 57

Richard W. Stewart

 4 An Eyewitness Account of Counterinsurgency

and Civilian-Military Teams in Vietnam 67

Rufus Phillips
vi

Contents

 5 The Present Past of Vietnam: Implications of 

Civilian Operations and Revolutionary Development

Support for Today’s “Other Wars” 87

Sandra A. Scham

PART 3

THE POST–9/11 WARS: IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

 6 The Origins of Provincial Reconstruction Team:

Almost Present at the Creation 111

Joseph J. Collins

 7 Civilian Agencies in a War Zone: Afghanistan

and Iraq 115

Bernard Carreau

 8 Civilian-Military Capacity-Building Teams: The View

from Anbar Province (2006–2009) 133

James Soriano

 9 Hope Doesn’t Live Here Anymore: An Afghan CivilianMilitary Vision—One Commander’s Experience 149

Eric W. Hommel

10 How Department of Defense Spending Was Used to

Resuscitate Local Business: A Select History of

Civilian-Military Engagement in Iraq 173

Andrew Shaver

PART 4

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES:

BEYOND AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ

11 From Afghanistan to Africa: Civilian-Military Teaming

in a Whole New World 187

Christopher Holshek

12 A Whole Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts, or If It

Were Only Army Stuff, It Would Be Easy 215

Mark N. Popov
vii

CONTENTS

13 Peacebuilding: Germany’s Military Mission; The Soft

Power Approach and Civilian-Military Teaming 237

J. D. Bindenagel

14 The Norwegian Approach to Afghanistan:

Civilian-Military Segregation 263

Karsten Friis

15 So You Are Going to Be Working with the United

Nations: A Few Insights on Integration 279

David C. Becker

PART 5

NONGOVERNMENTAL AND OTHER PERSPECTIVES:

SHARING THE SPACE

16 Civil Society Experiences of, Conflicts with, and

Recommendations for Civilian-Military Teams 297

Lisa Schirch

17 Achieving Coordinated Results in Stabilization,

Reconstruction, and Postwar Peacebuilding: Lessons

from the US Civilian-Military Experience

in Afghanistan 333

Andrea Strimling Yodsampa

18 Civilian-Military Engagement in Afghanistan:

How Market-Based Approaches Enable and Enhance

Counterinsurgencies 359

Joanna Buckley and Ryan Gawn

PART 6

TRAINING, RESOURCING, ROLES, AND MISSIONS

19 Training the Civilian-Military Team in the

Twenty-First Century 375

Omer C. Tooley
viii

Contents

20 Civilian-Military Teaming: The When, Where

and How 381

Mike McCoy

21 Learning to Negotiate Shared Space: US

Civilian-Military Roles in Unsecured Environments 391

Marcia Byrom Hartwell

PART 7

PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE

22 Developing Intelligence Capabilities for 

Counterinsurgency and Stabilization: Learning

from the US Experience with Sociocultural

Analysis in Iraq and Afghanistan 407

Nathan White

23 The Provincial Reconstruction Team Experience

in Iraq: A Case Study for Improving Integration

in Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations 449

Stuart W. Bowen, Jr.

24 Fostering Effective Civilian-Military Integration:

The Need or a Standardized, Field-Based Stabilization

Methodology 461

Jason S. Alexander, James W. Derleth, and Sloan Mann

25 A Civilian Center of Excellence as a Mechanism for

Civilian-Military Coordination 485

James Kunder

26 What Is the Way Ahead for Rigorous Research on

Civilian-Military Teams in Complex Contingencies? 499

Christopher J. Lamb and James Douglas Orton

Abbreviations 523

Bibliography 531

Index 573
ix

Illustrations

Figures

 4.1 Editor Jon Gundersen, as a young military advisory

team member in Vietnam 69

 7.1 Civilian-military team command structure

in Afghanistan 121

 7.2 Root causes of insurgency 125

 8.1 Anbar Province, Iraq 136

 8.2 The author with Anbar Governor Ma’amoun Sami

Rasheed and Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, head of the

Anbar Awakening, October 2007 143

11.1 UNMIL CIMIC civilian-military transition

management process 202

11.2 The Armed Force of Liberia’s first Bailey bridge launch

in December 2008 209

11.3 The Liberian project manager of a youth agricultural

training farm explains the pilot project to the author

and staff officers of the resident Bangladesh

peacekeeping battalion 210

11.4 What’s wrong with this picture? 210

11.5 What’s right with this picture? 211

12.1 Afghan National Security Forces—

primary organizations 218

12.2 The DDCT, December 2009 219

16.1 Humanitarian principles 300

17.1 Model of coordination 353

22.1 US civilian-military chains of command in Afghanistan 416

24.1 PRT lines of authority 467

24.2 Structure of US mission, showing position

of CORDS: May 1967 468

24.3 The District Stability Framework in four phases 473
x

Tables

16.1 Comparison of CSO and military goals 304

16.2 Spectrum of civil society–military coordination 306

17.1 Types of coordinated results 338

17.2 Interorganizational and intraorganizational factors 341

20.1 Conflict stages align with diplomacy and

 military phases 386

26.1 Six types of cross-functional teams 503

26.2 Ten core variables (and subvariables) affecting

civilian-military team effectiveness 505
xi

About the Editors and Authors

Editors

Melanne Civic is a US attorney, focusing on rule of law, transitional justice, security-sector reform, and international human rights. 

She presently is the director of the justice, corrections, and securitysector reform components for United Nations Mission in Liberia as 

the principal rule of law officer in the Office of the Deputy Special 

Representative of the Secretary General for Rule of Law.

For nearly a decade, Ms. Civic served as the senior rule of law advisor to the US secretary of state’s Coordinator for Reconstruction 

and Stabilization (S/CRS) and its successor Bureau of Conflict and 

Stabilization Operations. She facilitated complex negotiations to 

form the Civilian Response Corps, a US interagency expeditionary 

rapid-response force that consisted of up to 1,800 peacebuilding experts, nearly half of whom specialized in rule of law—law enforcement, justice, and corrections advisors and mentors. Ms. Civic also 

served as the Department of State’s (DOS) lead for the rule of law 

component of the US Army Civil Affairs Institute for Military Support to Governance, developing a surge capacity of reservists in 

peacebuilding and stability operations. Previously, Ms. Civic was seconded to the Center for Complex Operations (CCO) at National Defense University (NDU), where she was among the core senior staff 

and a special adviser, establishing a new integrated office advancing 

the comprehensive military-civilian approaches to stability, security, 

and peacebuilding. She also served in the DOS’s Office of the Legal 

Adviser for Human Rights and Refugees; was a Congressional Fellow 

to the late Senator Ted Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee 

and to the ranking member of the House Science Committee on energy and environmental/ climate change. Ms. Civic’s previous United 

Nations (UN) experience includes assignments to the Secretariat, the 

Centre for Human Rights, the Commission on Sustainable Development, the World Bank Office of General Council, United Nations Institute for Training and Research, and the World Health Organization. 

She also has civil-society experience with several nongovernmental 

organizations, including Amnesty International, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, and the Center for International Environmental Law.
ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

xii

As a practitioner-scholar, Ms. Civic has taught as an adjunct professor 

and is co-editor of several books, including Understanding Complex Stability Operations (2014); International Security Reform and Complex 

Operations (2013), and Monopoly of Force: Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration and Security Sector Reform (2011). She also has 

authored numerous book chapters and law journal articles.

Ms. Civic has a masters of law degree with distinction from 

Georgetown University Law Center; was a fellow at the Urban Morgan Center for Human Rights, where she earned her juris doctorate 

with honors; was credentialed at the Rene Cassin International Institute for Human Rights in Strasbourg, France; and received her bachelor’s degree cum laude from Vassar College. She is the founder and 

co-chair emeritus of the American Society of International Law Rule 

of Law group and serves on the boards of Women in International 

Security, the Vassar College Alumni Association, and the American 

Bar Association Steering Committees for Women in International 

Law and International Environmental Law.

Jon Gundersen is a retired senior foreign service officer, currently 

serving as a senior research fellow at the CCO and NDU. He is also 

chair for advanced Nordic area studies at the Foreign Service Institute. In addition, Mr. Gundersen is an adjunct professor at the Joint 

Special Operations University and works for the DOS declassifying 

sensitive documents.

In his 30-year DOS career, Mr. Gundersen served in numerous assignments both in Washington and overseas, concentrating on the 

Nordic region and the former Soviet Union and on arms control and 

political-military issues. He served as chargé d’affaires and deputy 

chief of mission in a number of countries, including Ukraine, Estonia, 

Norway, and Iceland. He opened the first US mission to Ukraine in 

1991, has been assigned to Moscow and the United Nations, and 

served as political advisor to the Special Operations Command and 

senior advisor for Iraqi reconstruction.

Prior to entering the DOS, Mr. Gundersen was an officer in the US 

Army, earning the Bronze Star for service in Vietnam. In addition, he 

was a member of the first US counterterrorism unit in the early 1970s 

and worked as a merchant sailor. He has written numerous papers 

and articles on Nordic, Russian, and political-military affairs, most 

recently “Sharing the Space: A Study on Education and Training for 

Complex Operations” for the US Institute of Peace and “The Oslo 

Syndrome” for American Diplomacy. 
xiii

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

Mr. Gundersen has a bachelor’s degree in international affairs 

from George Washington University and master’s degrees in Soviet 

studies from Stanford University and in strategic studies from the 

National War College. He speaks Norwegian, Russian, German, and 

some Vietnamese. Today, Mr. Gundersen tutors and mentors innercity children and serves on a number of local boards. 

Now retired from the DOS, Mr. Gundersen owns and operates his 

own consulting firm: Gundersen Civilian-Military Consultants.

Authors

Jason S. Alexander currently serves as a foreign affairs officer in 

the Office of the S/CRS. Previously, Mr. Alexander served with USAID 

as a field program officer in Afghanistan, specializing in the district 

stability framework methodology. Upon returning to Washington, 

DC, he served as the training officer for the Office of AfghanistanPakistan Affairs, where he established a formal training program for 

USAID officers deploying to Afghanistan. Before serving with USAID, 

Mr. Alexander served with the DOS as a senior governance advisor 

with the Salah ad-Din Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), where 

he served as the satellite PRT team leader from 2008 to 2009 stationed 

in Ad-Dawr, Iraq. Upon returning to Washington, DC, he was assigned to the Foreign Service Institute, Stability Operations Section, 

where he helped manage the Iraq PRT training program. Mr. Alexander 

has also worked as a consultant in Iraq and in Washington, DC, in the 

fields of strategic communications and training. He served in the US 

Army National Guard as a counterintelligence agent and the US Marine Corps as an infantryman. Mr. Alexander earned a master of arts 

degree in Middle East studies and political science from the University of Utah and a bachelor of arts degree in international and area 

studies from the University of Oklahoma.

Col Dennis Craig Barlow, US Army Reserve, retired, is the special advisor to the vice provost for research and public service at 

James Madison University. He was previously the director of the Center for International Stabilization and Recovery (previously the Mine 

Action Information Center) from 1996 to 2010. He also served in the 

Department of Defense (DOD) as the director of the Humanitarian 

Demining Task Force and the director of policy for humanitarian assistance at the Office for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special 
xiv

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict. He served as the chairman of 

an interagency working group during Operation Uphold Democracy 

in Haiti from 1994 to 1995. He also served in the US Army Reserve as 

a civil affairs officer, retiring with the rank of colonel in 1996. He 

served as an Active Guard/Reserve officer for nine years at US Army 

Forces Command, where he was a planning officer, and at the Joint 

Staff as the chief civil affairs planner. Colonel Barlow earned a master 

of arts degree and a certificate of advanced study from Johns Hopkins 

University, a master of arts degree with distinction from the US Naval 

War College, and a bachelor of arts in history from Purdue University.

David C. Becker is the director for civilian-military activities integration at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy. As 

a senior research fellow at the CCO at NDU, Mr. Becker continued a 

long-held interest in “contested development” and multidisciplinary 

approaches to foreign assistance. Wrapping up a year of research and 

promoting best practices in stabilization and counterinsurgency for 

the “next generation of interventions” (post–Iraq and Afghanistan), 

he is now working on civilian-military integration in difficult environments. From 2007 to 2010 he served at the US embassy in Haiti as 

the stabilization coordinator, leading an experimental interagency 

DOD-funded program to restore control to violent ungoverned urban 

zones by tightly integrating security and development across multiple 

agencies and with the United Nations. Post-earthquake, he was the 

senior civilian advisor to the US military commander for the largest 

US military-supported disaster relief deployment in history. He spent 

23 years overseas as a foreign service officer in countries with weak 

governance, active insurgencies, and transnational criminal networks. Eight of those years were spent supervising large US-funded 

security and counternarcotics efforts in Guatemala (1992–1996) and 

Colombia (1997–2001). He also served as a senior-level advisor to a 

major telecom company’s overseas operations in Ethiopia, Burkina 

Faso, El Salvador, Honduras, and Miami. From 2004 to 2006 he was 

the foreign policy advisor to the US Transportation Command combatant commander, supporting the command’s transformation to 

new public-private operations in difficult global locations. A 2004 

graduate of the National War College, he has published several articles on counterinsurgency, stabilization, and complex and contested 

development. His bachelor of arts degree in international studies is 

from Reed College.
xv

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

Amb. J. D. Bindenagel, retired, is vice president for community, 

government, and international affairs at DePaul University and manages and develops the university’s governmental and international 

relationships. He is an expert on German politico-military history 

and policy. He is a former US ambassador and career diplomat who 

served in Germany throughout the final days of the Cold War, during 

the reunification of Germany and in the midst of the Balkan Wars, 

participating in debates on North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO) security policy and membership and on German national 

security from 1972 to 2002. Prior to his diplomatic career, he was assigned to the US Army’s 3rd Infantry Division. In 1999 Pres. Bill 

Clinton appointed him as US ambassador and special envoy for Holocaust issues, and he served as a special US negotiator for “conflict 

diamonds.” Bindenagel was also the vice president of the Chicago 

Council on Global Affairs. He is a member of the Council on Foreign 

Relations, the German Council on Foreign Relations, the President’s 

Circle of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the American Council on Germany, and the American Institute of Contemporary German Studies. Bindenagel serves on several boards, including the Wilson Center Council. He received the DOS Distinguished Service 

Award, the Commander’s Cross of the Federal Order of Merit from 

the president of Germany, and the Presidential Meritorious Service 

Award from Pres. George W. Bush. He was an American Political Science Association congressional fellow with Congressman Lee H. 

Hamilton. He holds a master of arts degree in public administration 

and bachelor of arts degree in political science from the University of 

Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.

Stuart W. Bowen, Jr., has been the special inspector general for 

Iraq reconstruction (SIGIR) since October 2004. Prior to serving as 

the SIGIR, Bowen was the inspector general for the Coalition Provisional Authority. Inspector General Bowen has received the David M. 

Walker Excellence in Federal Government Performance and Accountability Award and the Gaston L. Gianni Jr. Better Government 

Award in connection with his service as SIGIR. From 2000 to 2004, 

Inspector General Bowen served on the White House staff as deputy 

assistant to the president, deputy staff secretary, special assistant to 

the president, and associate counsel. From 1994 to 2000, he served on 

George W. Bush’s staff during Bush’s tenure as governor of Texas, 

where he held positions as deputy general counsel, deputy general 

counsel for litigation, and assistant general counsel. Inspector General 
xvi

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

Bowen has also served as the assistant attorney general of Texas and 

the briefing attorney to Texas Supreme Court justice Raul Gonzalez. 

He has also worked in the private sector for Patton Boggs, LLP, in 

their Washington, DC, office. He is licensed by the Texas State Bar, 

board certified in administrative law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, and admitted to practice before the US Supreme Court, 

several federal courts, and all Texas state courts. Inspector General 

Bowen served on active duty in the United States Air Force (USAF) 

for four years, rising to the rank of captain. He holds a juris doctorate 

degree from St. Mary’s Law School and a bachelor of arts degree from 

University of the South.

Joanna Buckley has worked on private-sector development initiatives in Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, and Zambia. Ms. Buckley has 

most recently finished working in Kabul for a research consultancy 

where she focused on private-sector market development. She has 

particular interests in the impact of international military spending 

and aid on postconflict recovery and how aid programs can be delivered to result in a greater impact on the local economy. Prior to her 

latest position, Ms. Buckley worked for Peace Dividend Trust, an international nongovernmental organization (NGO), for 18 months, 

managing the research unit and supporting organizational policy 

with regard to Afghan First procurement policy. She went on to conduct an analysis of the local impact of donor aid disbursements for 

the same organization in Sierra Leone. Ms. Buckley has also researched the impact of microfinance loans on small- and mediumsized businesses in Zambia. She earned her postgraduate master of 

research degree in international development and her bachelor of science degree in economics and international development from the 

University of Bath. Ms. Buckley is a member of the 2012 Young Atlanticist NATO Working Group.

Bernard Carreau is deputy director of the CCO at the NDU in 

Washington, DC. He is responsible for collecting and analyzing lessons and best practices from civilian and military personnel serving 

in Afghanistan and Iraq. Prior to that, he was an advisor on trade and 

investment matters and private-sector development to the Coalition 

Provisional Authority in Washington and Baghdad. Mr. Carreau is a 

former deputy assistant secretary of commerce, in which capacity he 

gained many years of experience in international trade negotiations, 

trade law and regulation, and business development and advocacy. 
xvii

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

He has a master’s degree in international relations from the Johns 

Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Col Joseph J. Collins, US Army, retired, is a professor of national 

strategic studies at the US National War College. He served as the 

deputy assistant secretary of defense for stability operations from 

2003 to 2004, as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for peacekeeping and humanitarian affairs from 2001 to 2003, and as a special 

assistant to the secretary of defense for a brief period in 2001. In 2004 

Colonel Collins was awarded the DOD’s Medal for Meritorious Public Service. From 1998 to 2001 he was a senior research fellow at the 

Center for Strategic and International Studies. Prior to that, he served 

a 28-year career in the US Army as an infantry and armor officer. 

During his Army career, he served in various positions, including 

special assistant and chief speechwriter to the chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, special assistant to the chief of staff of the Army, military assistant to the undersecretary of defense for policy, Army staff 

officer for NATO and Warsaw Pact strategic issues, instructor in the 

US Military Academy’s Department of Social Sciences, and various 

command and staff assignments in the United States, Germany, and 

South Korea. Colonel Collins earned his doctorate in political science 

from Columbia University. He also has a master’s degree in national 

strategic studies from the National War College, a master’s degree in 

political science from Columbia University, and a bachelor of arts 

degree from Fordham University. Dr. Collins is also a graduate of the 

US Army Command and General Staff College.

Dr. James W. Derleth is the senior interagency training advisor at 

the Joint Multinational Readiness Center (JMRC) in Hohenfels, Germany. His responsibilities include educating the military on interagency actors and capabilities, integrating the interagency perspective into DOD education and training activities, and serving as a 

stability operations subject matter expert. Prior to joining the JMRC 

staff in 2010, Dr. Derleth was the senior conflict and stabilization operations advisor in the Office of Military Affairs at the USAID. He led 

the team that created and implemented the district stabilization 

framework. Derleth has also designed, prepared, and delivered programs of instruction that have been used to train DOD, DOS, USAID, 

and NATO personnel in stability operations. While at USAID, Derleth was selected as a member of the US Central Command commander’s assessment team. He has deployed to numerous conflict areas, including Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, the Horn of Africa, Uganda, and 
xviii

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

West Africa. Dr. Derleth earned his doctorate in international security from the University of Maryland. He also has a master of art degree in US foreign policy from the American University, a master of 

art degree in comparative politics from the University of Maryland, 

and bachelor of arts degree from the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point. He is the recipient of two Fulbright Lectureships (Bulgaria, 1992–1994, and China, 1999–2001) and a Fulbright Senior 

Specialist award (Uganda, 2003).

Karsten Friis is a senior advisor at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. Most recently, he has been managing the institute’s contribution to the US-led international Multinational Experiment series, which, among other things, has had a particular focus on 

civilian-military relations in nonpermissive operational environments. 

His main area of expertise is security and defense policies, international military operations, and civilian-military relations. He also follows political developments in the western Balkans and has worked 

as political advisor at the Organization for Security and Cooperation 

in Europe in Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo. He has also worked as 

an advisor for the Norwegian Armed Forces in Oslo and in the NATO’s 

Kosovo Force in Kosovo. He has published on European security, western Balkans, international operations, and peacekeeping and counterinsurgency. He holds a candidatus rerum politicarum degree in 

political science from the University of Oslo, a master of sciences degree in international relations from the London School of Economics 

and Political Science, and a candidatus magisterii degree from the 

University of Oslo.

Ryan Gawn is director of Stratagem International, a strategic political affairs consultancy company that provides advice to organizations, parties, governments, and individuals who wish to understand 

and advance their interests in complex political environments. As a 

deployable civilian expert with the British government’s Stabilization 

Unit, he is currently strategic communications advisor at the British 

High Commission in Islamabad, Pakistan. Previously with Peace 

Dividend Trust, an economic development international NGO, he 

spent a year in eastern Afghanistan advising international actors 

(e.g., US military, NGOs, and UN agencies) on local private-sector 

engagement and was the international external relations coordinator 

for Save the Children UK, conducting award-winning advocacy on 

development, humanitarian affairs, and conflict and security issues 

(including civilian-military). Mr. Gawn has also advised militaries 
xix

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

and government departments such as the Defence Academy, International Security Assistance Force Counterinsurgency Training Centre, 

Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Department for International 

Development (DFID), and the United Nations (UN) on civilian-military 

relations and external communications. Having managed numerous 

negotiations with nonstate armed groups, he is the author of various 

publications on peacebuilding and transitional justice, such as “Arms 

to Agreement: Northern Ireland’s Move from War to Peace,” in Strategic 

Analysis. He is a Salzburg fellow and council member of The Royal 

Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), the leading European think tank. Mr. Gawn earned his postgraduate master of arts in 

international relations from Universidad del Salvador, Buenos Aires, 

as a Rotary World Peace fellow and graduated with his bachelor of 

arts degree (honors, first class) from the University of Stirling, Scotland.

Dr. Marcia Byrom Hartwell is a visiting scholar at the US Institute 

of Peace (USIP) in Washington, DC, working on a retrospective of 

USIP’s work in Iraq since 2003, which includes Iraq-led initiatives 

and civilian-military partnerships that supported security and stability. She is a recent public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, working on human security, justice, 

and the future of civilian-military collaborations in a fiscally restricted 

environment. She was a US Army civilian advisor (2009–2011) embedded with US Forces–Iraq (USF–I), first in the Reconciliation Team and 

then in the Force Strategic Engagement Cell (FSEC), where she 

broadened reconciliation initiatives on an operational and strategic 

level. At the Iraqi government’s request and in her capacity as a representative of FSEC, she facilitated collaboration between the US 

DOS, USF–I, and legal and human rights representatives to coauthor a 

paper describing transitional justice mechanisms. She received the 

Joint Civilian Service Commendation Award and Medal for her work. 

Subsequently, she was embedded in USF–I’s Competing Strategies 

Team as liaison to the DOS, working on the transition from military to 

civilian leadership in preparation for USF–I withdrawal. Her publications include scholarly articles and book chapters dealing with US 

Army perspectives on Iraq-based terrorism; why violence increases 

during early postconflict transitions; and perceptions of justice, postconflict identity, and the political processes of forgiveness and revenge 

following violent conflicts (the subject of her doctoral thesis). Recent papers and presentations focus on civilian-military issues, human security, 

and information technologies. This draws upon earlier interdisciplinary 
xx

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

research and fieldwork in Northern Ireland, Serbia, and South Africa 

for her doctorate degree in international development from Oxford 

University and master of sciences degree in international development from the London School of Economics. Her undergraduate work 

on economies emerging from crisis, especially in Eastern Europe and 

Northern Ireland, was completed for a bachelor of arts degree in economics and government from Smith College.

Col Christopher Holshek, US Army Reserve, retired, is a senior 

associate with the Project on National Security Reform and a country 

project manager for the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Defense 

Institutional Reform Initiative, working in Africa on ministerial capacity development in the defense sector in order to promote civilian 

oversight of the military. He retired from the US Army Reserve as a 

colonel in civil affairs with over 25 years of civilian-military operations experience in joint, interagency, and multinational settings 

across the full range of operations. For this paper, he also draws upon 

18 months as senior US military observer and chief of civil-military 

cooperation (CIMIC) in the United Nations (UN) mission in Liberia, 

where he broke new ground in applying and validating CIMIC concepts and later assisted in the development of UN civilian-military 

policy and doctrine. Additionally, he commanded the 402nd Civil 

Affairs Battalion, the first civil affairs unit to deploy to Iraq in support 

of the US Army and Marine Corps and British forces. Over the years, 

he has also had significant input into the development of policy and 

doctrine for NATO and UN CIMIC, US Army civil affairs, and joint 

civilian-military operations, as well as stability operations doctrine, 

the Capstone Concept for Joint Operations, and the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. He holds a master of sciences degree in strategic studies from the US Army War College, a master of 

arts degree in international relations from Boston University, and 

bachelor of arts degrees in international relations, German, and history 

from George Washington University.

Lt Col Eric Hommel, US Air Force Reserve, retired, is the policy 

integration program officer in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy. He has had a long career in the military both on active duty and in the reserve component, as well as experience in the 

fields of logistics and reconstruction. Lieutenant Colonel Hommel 

served as an Active Guard/Reserve officer in the US Air Force Reserve from 2004 until his retirement in 2009. His last assignment was 

as the commander of Provincial Reconstruction Team Panjshir, a 
xxi

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

component of Regional Command–North of the International Security 

Assistance Force. He has previously served in the Air Force’s Office of 

the Legislative Liaison and as the chief of Air Force Auxiliary Requirements at Headquarters, Department of the Air Force, and as the interim 

chief of staff of the Iraq Project and Contracting Office. From 2001 to 

2004, he served as a reserve officer in the position of aide-de-camp to 

the commanding general of Air Force Reserve Command. From 1995 

to 2001, he served as an active duty Air Force officer. Prior to serving 

in the Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel Hommel was a sailor in the US 

Navy (1986–1989) and the Naval Reserve (1989–1994), where he 

rose to the rank of yeoman second class and served in submarine and 

Seabee units. Lieutenant Colonel Hommel is a graduate of the Air 

Command and Staff College and Squadron Officer School. He has a 

professional certificate in city and regional planning and a bachelor of 

fine arts degree in historic preservation from the Ohio State University.

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. He was previously the acting 

deputy administrator and assistant administrator for Asia and the Near 

East at the USAID. Mr. Kunder served in the USAID from 1987 to 

2009, holding the posts of deputy assistant administrator for Asia and 

the Middle East, director for relief and reconstruction in Afghanistan, 

deputy assistant administrator for external affairs, and director of the 

Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. He has also served as the vice 

president for program development for the Save the Children Foundation, the deputy director of the National Republican Senatorial 

Committee, senior transportation analyst for the Commonwealth of 

Pennsylvania, and legislative director for the US House of Representatives. From 1970 to 1973, he served as an officer in the US Marine 

Corps, before being honorably discharged. Mr. Kunder has a master 

of arts in international relations from Georgetown University and a 

bachelor of arts degree in political science from Harvard University.

Dr. Christopher J. Lamb is the director of the Center for Strategic 

Research at NDU’s Institute of National Strategic Studies. His research interests are in national security strategy, policy and organizational reform, and defense strategy, requirements, plans, and programs. Since 2008 Dr. Lamb has led the Project on National Security 

Reform. He previously served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for resources and plans in the Office of the Undersecretary of 
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ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

Defense for Policy. He was responsible for strategic planning, transformation planning, contingency planning guidance, the information operations road map, and oversight of combatant commander 

contingency planning. Additionally, he has served as the director of 

policy planning in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for 

Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, the deputy director for 

military development for the DOS’s Task Force on Military Stabilization in the Balkans, and the director of requirements and plans in the 

Office of the Secretary of Defense. From 1993 to 1998, Dr. Lamb was an 

adjunct professor for the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He also served as a foreign service 

officer from 1985 to 1992. Dr. Lamb has received the Chairman of 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff Distinguished Civilian Service Award, a Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Senior Executive Service, the 

DOS Superior Honor Award, and the DOD Meritorious Service 

Award. Dr. Lamb earned his doctorate degree from Georgetown University.

Sloan Mann is the cofounder and managing director of Development Transformations (DT), a small, veteran-owned company specializing in stabilization and development programming in conflict, 

postconflict, and fragile countries. Prior to founding DT, Mr. Mann 

held a diverse array of jobs in the military, private, and public sectors. 

From 2007 to 2009, he was the USAID development advisor to the 

Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force–Afghanistan based in 

Bagram, Afghanistan. In partnership with US special forces, he developed methodologies regarding effective interagency approaches to 

promoting stabilization in priority communities in the counterinsurgency effort. Mr. Mann has worked for a number of different offices 

at USAID, including the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance 

(OFDA) and the Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI). He was a field 

program officer with OFDA, responsible for all operations in south 

and west Darfur, Sudan. In Iraq as a member of the Disaster Assistance Response Team and OTI, he worked one year as an abuse prevention officer, focusing on identifying, monitoring, and preventing 

human rights violations. Mr. Mann served in the US Army as an infantry officer from 1997 to 2002, rising to the rank of captain and was 

a member of peacekeeping deployments to Bosnia-Herzegovina and 

Kosovo. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations 

and holds a master of arts degree with distinction from Georgetown 
xxiii

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

University’s School of Foreign Service and a bachelor of sciences degree in international politics from West Point.

Col Mike McCoy, USAF, retired, is a senior military analyst at the 

Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He 

provides reviews and processes information and observations received from military operations and exercises as well as joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational organizations. He 

identifies lessons learned and trends in proficiency and force readiness. 

He has spent the last six years as the primary analyst on civil support, 

reconstruction and development, and homeland security as they pertain to interagency involvement with US Army operations. He served 

as a command pilot, flying transport and tanker aircraft. Mr. McCoy’s 

command assignments included a detachment at Diego Garcia and 

an air base group in Bosnia during Operation Joint Guard. He also 

served as the defense and air attaché to Ukraine. His staff tours include working support airlift operations and inspection analysis at 

Headquarters Military Airlift Command, working with Army and 

joint doctrine at the US Army’s Combined Arms Center, managing 

continuing education programs for the Air Force at Headquarters Air 

University, and serving as chief of safety at Fifteenth Air Force. Mr. 

McCoy possesses a master of sciences degree in systems management 

from the University of Southern California and a bachelor of sciences 

degree in mathematics from the US Air Force Academy. He is also a 

graduate of the Air Command and Staff College, National Defense 

University and Air War College.

Col R. Scott Moore, PhD, USMC, retired, is currently the director 

of field programs and historical services at the US Army Center of 

Military History. He has written and lectured extensively on twentiethcentury military history, with particular emphasis on the history and 

conduct of stabilization and reconstruction operations and military 

intervention. He previously served as a special advisor in the Office of 

the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; as the senior director for 

stability operations and a member of the Defense Adaptive Red Team 

at the Center for Adaptive Strategies and Threats at Hicks and Associates, Inc.; and as a division chief at the Defense Threat Reduction 

Agency. A Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer from 1976 

to 2001, Dr. Moore commanded units from platoon to battalion landing team. He also served on operational and joint staffs, as an exchange officer to the British Royal Marines, and on the faculty of the 

political science department at the US Naval Academy. In addition to 
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ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

his current position, Dr. Moore is an adjunct faculty member in the 

security studies program at Georgetown University, teaching courses 

in the resolution of armed conflicts. Dr. Moore earned a doctorate in 

conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University, a 

master of arts degree in history from Duke University, a master of 

arts degree in international relations from Salve Regina University, 

and a bachelor of science degree from the US Naval Academy. He is 

also a graduate of the Marine Corps Command and Staff College, the 

Army Command and General Staff College (nonresident), the Air 

Command and Staff College (nonresident), and the Naval War College’s 

command and staff course.

Dr. James Douglas Orton is a business-school-trained expert in 

organization and management theory and an adept on loosely coupled 

systems, organizational sense making, strategic management, and 

national security reform processes. His 1990 journal article, coauthored 

with Dr. Karl Weick, “Loosely Coupled Systems: A Reconceptualization,” has been cited approximately 1,000 times by other experts in 

organization and management theory. His 1989–1993 dissertation, 

“Reorganizing: An Analysis of the 1976 Reorganization of U.S. Intelligence,” at the University of Michigan focused on the 1976 reorganization of the US intelligence community, drawing upon White House 

documents from Pres. Gerald Ford’s administration. During his six 

years as a strategy professor at Hautes Études Commerciales in Paris, 

France, Dr. Orton studied the Cuban missile crisis and the AspinBrown proposals for intelligence reform. While in Europe, Dr. Orton 

taught graduate courses, conducted executive education seminars, and 

presented research papers in Barcelona, Seville, Sophia, Antipolis, 

Paris, Geneva, London, Istanbul, Frankfurt, Vienna, and Warsaw. In 

the United States, Dr. Orton has taught graduate-level seminars on his 

research topics at Boston College, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Nevada–Las Vegas, the University of California–

Irvine, the University of California–Riverside, Michigan Technological 

University, and the George Washington University. In 2007 Dr. Orton 

started working with Dr. Christopher Lamb at NDU on bringing highend organizational research into the service of national security reform, organizational performance, and interagency collaboration.

Rufus Phillips is the author of Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness 

Account of Lessons Not Learned, published by the Naval Institute 

Press, covering his involvement in Vietnam at various times from 

1954 to 1968. Beginning in 1954, Mr. Phillips was an Army officer 
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ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

detailed to the Saigon Military Mission, where he served as pacification advisor in the field with Vietnamese army troops. Subsequently, 

he was a Central Intelligence Agency case officer advising the Vietnamese government’s civilian civic action program and serving in 

Laos in a similar capacity. From 1962 through 1963 he was assistant 

director for rural affairs in the USAID Saigon mission, where he developed the civilian counterinsurgency program—a predecessor to 

the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support program. Subsequently, he was a consultant to the US DOS. For many 

years after 1968, Mr. Phillips was the president of a private-sector 

transportation consulting engineering firm with projects in more 

than 40 countries. In 2009, he was in Kabul assisting the Free and Fair 

Elections Foundation of Afghanistan, an Afghan NGO. He also consulted informally with the Interagency Office of Provincial Affairs in 

the US embassy on plans for the civilian surge. During the past three 

years he has lectured and participated in discussions at the NDU and 

at the Counterinsurgency Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on 

various aspects of counterinsurgency and nation-building. Most recently he has been conducting seminars for USAID trainees going to 

Afghanistan. He earned a master’s degree in city and regional planning from Catholic University and a bachelor of arts degree in history 

from Yale University.

Maj Mark Popov, Canadian Army, graduated from Canada’s Royal 

Roads Military College with an honors degree in military and strategic 

studies (history/literature) and was commissioned into the Royal Canadian Dragoons in 1995. He has served as a Leopard tank, tracked 

reconnaissance, and Coyote reconnaissance scout troop leader and is 

an advanced armor gunner. He deployed to Bosnia as an armored 

reconnaissance squadron liaison officer in 1998 and served as a 

United Nations military observer from 2001 to 2002. In the latter capacity he served on the Syrian Golan Heights as the deputy commander 

of an observer team in the disputed Shebaa Farms territory, which is 

claimed by Lebanon but occupied by Israeli forces. In 2005 he deployed to Kabul Province, Afghanistan, as the second-in-command 

of an armored reconnaissance squadron, where he was awarded a 

Chief of the Defense Staff Commendation for his performance. He 

earned a master’s degree in business administration (cum laude) from 

Vermont’s Norwich University in 2008 and was his class’s top student 

and valedictorian. Throughout his MBA studies he served at Canada’s 

National Defence Headquarters as the executive assistant to the chief 
xxvi

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

of military personnel. Major Popov was appointed to command B 

Squadron, the Royal Canadian Dragoons, an armored reconnaissance squadron equipped with the Coyote combat reconnaissance 

vehicle, in June 2008, and began training for deployment shortly 

thereafter. In fall 2009, the B Squadron combat team deployed to 

southern Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, as the eyes and ears of 

Canada’s Task Force 3-09 Battle Group. In April 2010, B Squadron 

handed its responsibilities over to the US Army’s 1st Squadron, 71st 

Cavalry Regiment, before moving to another area of operations in 

Kandahar Province. Major Popov returned to Canada in May 2010 to 

become a student, completing the Joint Command and Staff Program 

at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto. He graduated in June 

2011, earning a master’s degree in defense studies that focused on 

Canadian Forces personnel retention in comparison with industry, 

the United States, United Kingdom, and Australian military forces. 

His thesis was nominated for the Brigadier-General George Bell 

Medal for Military Writing. He is currently the G3, or operations officer, of the Canadian Army’s 2nd Canadian Mechanized Brigade 

Group in Petawawa, Ontario.

Dr. Sandra Scham is a research associate at the Center for International Development and Conflict Management, University of Maryland. In her current position she is an advisor to the Asia and Middle 

East Bureaus of the USAID, where she conducted meta-evaluations 

focusing on civilian-military cooperation and counterinsurgency 

and worked with an interagency analysis group (coordinated by 

NDU), evaluating the work of provincial reconstruction teams. She is 

also a lecturer in Catholic University of America’s Department of Anthropology. She has performed fieldwork in the Middle East and Asia 

for the past 20 years, and she was an American Association for the 

Advancement of Science science and technology policy fellow from 

2008 to 2010. She received her doctorate and master of arts degrees in 

anthropology from the Catholic University of America and her bachelor of arts degree from the University of Colorado.

Dr. Lisa Schirch is a research professor at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) and director of Partners for Peacebuilding Policy Human Security, an organization that amplifies civil society perspectives 

on conflict prevention and peacebuilding in US security policy making. With colleagues in the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at 

EMU, Dr. Schirch consults with a network of strategic partner organizations involved in peacebuilding activities throughout the United 
xxvii

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

States, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Schirch has worked 

in over 20 countries, most recently Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and 

Lebanon. A former Fulbright fellow in East and West Africa, Schirch 

has written four books and numerous articles on conflict prevention 

and peacebuilding. Her current research interests include civilian‐

military dialogue, tensions between NGO development and military‐

led stabilization, and the role of the media in peacebuilding. She is a 

frequent public speaker and has TV and radio experience discussing 

US foreign policy. She holds doctorate and master of science degrees in 

conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University, as well 

as a bachelor of arts degree in international relations from the University of Waterloo (Canada).

Andrew Shaver is an independent researcher in the Institute for 

National Strategic Studies CCO at the NDU and a fellow at the Center 

for International Security Studies of Princeton University. Mr. Shaver 

served previously within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense 

for Policy, where he was responsible for analyzing and developing 

policy options for the DOD’s conduct of economic stabilization initiatives in complex environments. Prior to that, he served with the 

US Secretary of Defense’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations in Iraq, where he helped formulate and facilitate efforts to 

deploy Fortune 500 firms throughout the country. Mr. Shaver is currently a doctoral candidate in the security studies program at Princeton 

University, where he also holds a master of public administration 

degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is a graduate of Westminster College, where he 

earned a bachelor of sciences degree summa cum laude in economics 

and international business.

James Soriano retired from the Foreign Service in 2012 after a 28-

year career. In his last assignment, he was the foreign policy advisor 

to the commander of US Air Force, Central Command, at Al-Udeid 

Air Base, Qatar. From 2006 to 2009, he was the leader of PRT Anbar. 

He authored an op-ed piece about his experiences in Iraq in the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times, “Anbar Province: 

Mission Accomplished,” in October 2009. An economic officer by 

specialization, Mr. Soriano served in various capacities at the US embassies in Sana’a, Beirut, Cairo, Amman, and New Delhi. Mr. Soriano 

has a bachelor’s degree in English from Seton Hall University and a 

master’s degree in international affairs from Georgetown University. 
xxviii

ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

Col Richard Stewart, PhD, US Army, retired, is the chief historian 

of the US Army Center of Military History (CMH) at Fort McNair, 

Washington, DC, a post which he took up in September 2006. Dr. 

Stewart previously served as the chief of the Histories Division at the 

CMH from June 1998 to September 2006. From 1990 to 1998 he 

served as the director of history and museums for US Army Special 

Operations Command (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. 

From 1987 to 1990 he served as a historian with the Center for Army 

Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Dr. Stewart was commissioned in the US Army Reserve as a second lieutenant of military 

intelligence in 1972, serving in the reserve component as a combat 

historian for 30 years before retiring as a colonel in 2002. He has 

mobilized for several deployments to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Somalia, 

Haiti, Bahrain, and Afghanistan. Dr. Stewart earned his doctorate in history from Yale University, a master of arts degree in national security 

studies from the National War College, a master of arts degree in history from University of Florida, and a bachelor of arts degree in history 

from Stetson University in Florida.

Dr. Andrea Strimling Yodsampa is a research fellow with the International Security Program, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School. Her work focuses on interagency and civilian-military coordination in postconflict peacebuilding 

and stabilization and reconstruction operations. She has served as 

principal investigator and lead researcher on several multiyear research efforts on assessment, planning, and evaluation sponsored by 

the US Office of the Secretary of Defense, the US Army Corps of 

Engineers, and the Office of Naval Research. Dr. Strimling Yodsampa 

has been the recipient of a Smith Richardson Foundation World Politics and Statecraft Fellowship for her doctoral dissertation on US 

civilian-military coordination in Afghanistan, a Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School Graduate Research Fellowship, and a 

Fulbright Senior Scholarship for her work in South Africa. She served 

for 11 years as a commissioner with the US Federal Mediation and 

Conciliation Service, where she led international conflict management initiatives and worked with the US Departments of Defense 

and State, as well as USAID. She has worked for the Alliance for 

Peacebuilding, a Washington-based NGO, as the chair of the board of 

directors and a member of the board executive committee. She has 

taught in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and numerous 

US universities, training institutes, and military academies. She holds 
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ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

a doctorate in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law 

and Diplomacy at Tufts University, a master of public policy degree 

from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and 

a bachelor of arts degree from Dartmouth College.

Maj Gen Omer Clifton Tooley, Jr., Indiana Army National Guard, 

is the assistant adjutant general for the Indiana Army National Guard 

with duty as the commanding general, Camp Atterbury-Muscatatuck 

Center for Complex Operations. He is responsible for guiding the 

development of a national joint, interagency, intergovernmental, 

multinational collective training and operational testing capability 

based upon the Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center/

Muscatatuck Urban Training Center platform. This is an effort he has 

led since its inception in 2003. Major General Tooley has over 37 

years of public service, 29 years as an active duty Army officer followed 

by eight years as an officer in the Indiana Army National Guard, 

served concurrently with eight years as an executive in the government 

of the state of Indiana. He has served in a variety of staff and leadership positions in combat and in response to domestic emergencies. 

His military service includes tours with the 101st Airborne Division 

(Air Assault), 82nd Airborne Division, 10th Mountain Division 

(Light Infantry), 38th Infantry Division (Indiana Army National 

Guard), the Institute for Military Assistance, and the Indiana National Guard. His awards and decorations include three awards of the 

Legion of Merit, two awards of the Indiana Distinguished Service 

Medal, the Indiana Public Service Award, and the Chief of the National Guard Bureau Outstanding Achievement for 2010 Award. Major 

General Tooley has a master of sciences degree in strategic studies 

from the US Army War College, a master of sciences degree from the 

University of Southern California, and a bachelor of arts degree from 

Western Kentucky University.

Nathan White is a research associate with the CCO at NDU. He 

researches interagency lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan 

and intelligence support to counterinsurgency and stability operations. 

Since joining CCO, Mr. White has been a member of three research 

missions to Afghanistan, where he studied interagency coordination in 

Regional Command–South, the 2009–2011 Civilian Uplift, and lessons 

from the US Department of Agriculture’s agricultural advisory mission in Afghanistan. Prior to joining CCO, he spent over two years 

with the US Army Human Terrain System (HTS), serving on a human 

terrain team in Basra, Iraq, and as a member of the HTS training staff 
ABOUT THE EDITORS AND AUTHORS

xxx

in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He has also worked as a research analyst 

with the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington, DC, and as a 

defense consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton in northern Virginia. 

Mr. White is in the War Studies master of philosophy/doctoral program 

at the King’s College London Department of War Studies. He also 

holds a master’s degree in intelligence and international security from 

King’s. He is a graduate of University of California San Diego where 

he majored in history and political science.
xxxi

Acknowledgments

In 2010 and 2011, at the height of American engagement in the 

wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Center for Complex Operations 

(CCO) at the National Defense University (NDU) sponsored a series 

of workshops largely devoted to the role of provincial reconstruction 

teams (PRT) in these conflicts. In the course of the workshops, we 

found there was great interest in the larger issues of how, where, 

when—and whether—to deploy civilian-military personnel in future 

operations. We initially limited invitations to American personnel, 

but as the scope of the project expanded, we included the international 

community and nongovernmental organizations. Many participants 

advanced innovative proposals and sometimes conflicting approaches 

to civil-military cooperation. They eagerly shared ideas and proposals 

in the workshops. The editors of this volume actively recruited and 

cajoled them to put their thoughts on paper. 

Hans Binnendijk, then director of the Center for Technology and 

National Security Policy, encouraged us to capture the results of the 

workshops and expand them into a book. Joshua Jones, a PhD candidate working at CCO, marshaled the resources needed to support the 

project. We were ably and unfailingly assisted in the project by heroes 

too often unsung: the unpaid research interns. They did the heavy 

lifting of cataloguing, communicating, and coordinating with the authors of the various chapters and proofreading and formatting the 

manuscript. Those interns were Andrew Shaver, Michael Press, Robert 

Rasmussen, Benjamin Lightle, Samuel Beirne, Trevor Mills, Elliot 

Cheresh, Shannon Corson, Jacob Oldenberg, and Jonathan Reich. 

NDU and CCO leadership actively supported the creation of the 

book. NDU Press, in particular Frank Hoffman and Dr. Jeff D. Smotherman, provided welcome guidance on the publishing process. Garry 

Warkentin, then-CCO staff assistant, was helpful in identifying potential publishers; and PRISM editor Michael Miklaucic offered insights. The project would not come to fruition without the active support of CCO directors Amb. John E. Herbst, retired, Dr. Joseph J. 

Collins. Finally, the publication and distribution of Unity of Mission

was made possible by the unstinting support of the Air University 

Press—including the expert editing provided by Dr. Ernest Rockwell, 

project editor, and Sandi Davis, copy editor, and their team of dedicated copy editors and print specialists. 
xxxii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The editors, of course, owe our greatest debt to the authors, who 

patiently responded to the editors throughout the process of creating this book. As you will note, the authors represent a diverse group 

from US military and civilian agencies, the private sector, and the 

international community. We wish to thank them all for their creativity 

and flexibility.

It is the intention of the editors and the authors of this volume that 

these lessons learned through civilian-military teams in conflicts—

past and present—will be instructive to current and future operations. We hope that Unity of Mission will be of some use for future generations of civilian-military teams. 
xxxiii

Introduction

Iraq and Afghanistan and Beyond

Jon Gundersen

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been an integral part of the 

American consciousness for most of the new millennium. Military 

successes—and failures—have dominated the headlines. Names such 

as Tora Bora, Abbottabad, Abu Ghraib, and Fallujah, unknown to the 

American public (and even regional specialists at the Pentagon and 

Foggy Bottom) a decade ago, have become catchphrases for a new 

generation of political and military analysts. Yet perhaps the most 

enduring legacy of US involvement in these wars has been the evolution 

of US military doctrine and the concomitant growth of the whole-ofgovernment approach that puts stability operations and civil affairs on 

equal footing with combat operations.

The whole-of-government approach is defined as “one where a government actively uses formal and/or informal networks across the different agencies within that government to coordinate the design and 

implementation of the range of interventions that the government’s 

agencies will be making in order to increase the effectiveness of those 

interventions in achieving the desired objectives.”1

 While these principles have exerted influence in national security strategies in the United 

States and among NATO other organizations since the mid-twentieth 

century, the concept was distilled early in the first decade of this century. It underlays work on stability operations, “complex operations,” 

peacebuilding, and counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine. 

The COIN doctrine, an innovative set of principles not unlike 

those guiding the Vietnam-era Civil Operations and Revolutionary 

Development Support (CORDS) program, has become the military 

analyst’s coin of the realm. COIN doctrine puts a premium on protecting civilians over killing the enemy, using minimum force on the 

battlefield, emphasizing governance and development projects, and 

building local capacity and ownership. Said another way, winning local “hearts and minds” is the most basic and difficult element of any 

counterinsurgency operation.

Most recently, new terms have surfaced such as hybrid threats, 

wicked problems, and countless others. Policy makers look to theaters 

and threats beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. And the doctrinal pendu-
Introduction

xxxiv

lum seems to swing back to more conventional solutions, particularly 

with budgetary restrictions. Nevertheless, failed and failing states will 

remain part of the global landscape. Insurgencies, hybrid threats, and 

wicked problems will continue, and, if history is any guide, Americans and others, military forces and civilian experts, will once again 

be deployed in harm’s way. Therefore, in planning for the future, it is 

incumbent on policy makers and practitioners alike to study the lessons of the past to inform the present and future operations and 

training preparedness systems.

 If there is one overarching lesson learned from the wars in Iraq 

and Afghanistan, it is this: US political goals cannot be attained by 

military measures alone. While some have argued that COIN was just 

the flavor of the day, it became clear over the course of the conflicts 

that COIN was the key element of military planning and operations 

in Iraq and Afghanistan. While civilian agencies, understandably, 

were unaware or resisted linking nonkinetic military objectives such 

as good governance and long-term development to COIN doctrine, 

they too, at times, recognized the necessity of closer civilian-military 

cooperation (see, e.g., the DOS’s Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review). Moreover, both former Secretary of State Hillary 

Clinton and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates repeatedly 

called for a more robust civilian component in the civilian-military 

equation through a whole-of-government approach. 

The deployment of mixed civilian-military teams or PRTs to Iraq 

and Afghanistan represented, in many ways, the tip of the COIN—

and the whole-of-government—spear. Numerous learned papers 

have been written on PRTs. To some degree, PRTs inspired a cottage 

industry for a generation of staff college and think tank analysts. This 

volume contains a number of chapter analyses on the PRT experience 

by practitioners, both military and civilian, with on-the-ground experience in these theaters of operations.

Successful stability and COIN operations require both commitment and perseverance—qualities often in short supply in political 

climates with budgetary stresses, in particular. This is reflected in official pronouncements and budgets, such as those which openly discuss geographical resets, lighter footprints, and “offshore balancing.” 

A counterterrorism approach, such as that emphasizing a reliance on 

drones and special operations forces arguably will be more in line 

with the political zeitgeist, at least in Washington, albeit with a new 

set of problems and consequences—often unintentional.
introduction

xxxv

In any case, it is clear that the mood of the United States shifted 

dramatically more than a decade following the 9/11 attacks. The 

American people—and, thus, American politicians—grew weary and 

increasingly skeptical about foreign commitments. Events in Afghanistan, as well as across the Middle East, in the second decade of the 

twenty-first century led both friend and foe to question US policy 

and resolve. As US and allied forces prepared to leave Afghanistan, 

the American president did not declare victory or “mission accomplished.” The public seemed more exhausted than exultant. In other 

words, especially at a time of financial constraint, Washington and 

much of the world seemed to have neither the will nor the way to 

engage in prolonged overseas deployments.

Nevertheless, regardless of the stated desires of policy leaders eschewing peacebuilding and stability operations again of the same 

scope and scale following the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, fragile, 

failed, and failing states remain part of the global geopolitical landscape and undermine national and regional security. Moreover, the 

toxic mix of radical terrorism with extremist elements of all sorts 

regularly confronts US policy makers with difficult choices. The 

“Arab Spring” uprising may have toppled aging autocracies, but it 

also provided fertile soil for sectarian struggles and al-Qaeda offshoots. As this introduction is being written, the so-called Islamic 

State (also known as ISIS, ISIL, or Da’esh) presents a uniquely brutal 

challenge to international peace and security. Yet while a more hawkish 

tone has been introduced into the debate, few leaders are advocating 

the introduction of their own “boots on the ground.”

One may not know precisely where the next crisis will occur, but 

national security professionals can be assured that a wide range of 

complex national security threats will arise again and again—often 

requiring US leadership and comprehensive coordination with friends 

and allies. In other words, retreating to fortress America, while seductive to some, will not advance US national security interests.

While much has been written about civilian-military teams in 

Vietnam and, most recently, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the subject has 

not been addressed in a single, comprehensive publication containing historical context and reflecting a broad diversity of views. It is 

the intention of the coeditors of Unity of Mission to fill this gap. We 

have chosen the title Unity of Mission because we are convinced that 

without unity among military and civilian actors, long-term mission 

success is difficult at best. We believe the essays contained in this volume 
Introduction

xxxvi

attest to this assertion. We are also fully aware that civilian-military 

teams are not a silver bullet. They are, at best, a useful tool in a more 

comprehensive security framework. Nevertheless, in an age of budgetary 

constraints, the need to coordinate military and civilian resources—

hard, kinetic, and soft power—is clear. It is the opinion of the coeditors 

that civilian-military teams are critical to achieving the goals of sustainable peace, stability, and security.

With this in mind, the authors review past American involvement 

where civilian-military units have played a role—from the Philippines 

to Vietnam—and analyze what worked, what did not work, and why. 

They proceed to discuss in considerable depth US, non-US, and 

mixed provincial reconstruction teams (PRT) in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Their analyses look beyond Iraq and Afghanistan to operations in 

other fragile states. In addition, they examine the challenges of respecting the “humanitarian space” and the roles of the United Nations and NGOs in host-nation capacity building in societies with 

entrenched corruption. Our authors offer practical advice on how to 

work collaboratively and in a coordinated manner across US government agencies, as well as with international partners, NGOs and, 

most importantly, with the host-nation local population.

In doing so, the authors draw on recent interviews and reports 

from operators in the field and policy makers in Washington, DC. 

Finally, they look to the future and address certain fundamental 

questions: whether, why, when, where, and how civilian-military 

teams might be deployed—and to what ends. In other words, they 

provide historical context, reflect upon the diverse views within the 

US government and beyond, and offer policy recommendations for 

the present and the future.

Lessons Learned and Unlearned

While these chapters contain important lessons learned, they also 

highlight the limitations of the Iraq and Afghanistan paradigms and 

other historic examples. PRTs were conceived and then deployed to 

Iraq and Afghanistan in singular conditions probably not to be duplicated. Despite a patina of coalition contributions, the United States 

was the predominant and driving player in both operations. In Afghanistan, assisting local forces such as the Northern Alliance, the 

United States intervened unilaterally to oust the Taliban and destroy 

the al-Qaeda network. Washington did not seek allied military assistance (despite NATO, for the first time, invoking the Article V collective 
introduction

xxxvii

defense clause). Similarly, the Iraq War, while ostensibly a “coalition of 

the willing,” was primarily an American operation and was so portrayed 

in much of the world—most notably in the Middle East. Additionally, 

the US military was the predominant actor in both conflicts. The 

Pentagon largely determined strategy and operations on the ground. 

In addition, prior to US intervention, there were no traditional 

American institutions of diplomacy and development in either Iraq 

or Afghanistan; there was neither an American embassy in the capitals 

nor USAID missions in the field. Moreover, the United Nations had a 

limited and circumscribed role. Furthermore, despite a heavy military 

presence in both countries, insurgent forces severely hampered incipient governance and development efforts. The increased violence 

on the ground initially prevented more traditional development 

agencies and NGOs from reaching local communities.

As a nation, we have a convenient yet human tendency to forget 

unpopular wars: Korea, Vietnam, and now, perhaps, Iraq and Afghanistan. Europe was similarly exhausted after World War I. Following that 

war to end all wars, Europe disarmed and America retreated to isolationism. However, a generation thereafter, European youth were once 

again dying in Flanders Fields. After Vietnam, politicians also called 

for America to come home. Defense, State, and USAID budgets were 

drastically reduced. And yet, a generation after the end of the Vietnam War, American soldiers were fighting two land wars on the 

Asian continent. The United States may or may not be engaged in 

land wars in Asia in the immediate future (both former Pres. Dwight 

Eisenhower and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned 

against such endeavors). However, if history is any guide, Americans, 

both military and civilian, will again, in some capacity, be deployed 

in harm’s way overseas. 

Unfortunately, decision makers tend to resurrect lessons learned 

from previous wars only after committing to the next conflict. George 

Santayana, an otherwise obscure American intellectual, famously 

warned that “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” While history may not repeat itself, it has a “tendency to 

rhyme,” in Mark Twain’s pithy phrase. Thus, this volume posits that 

there are lessons to be learned from the past military operations and 

civilian deployments and that some form of civilian-military teams 

will and should be utilized in future complex operations.

xxxix

Executive Summary

Jon Gundersen

Parts 1 and 2: Historical Context

From the Philippines to Vietnam

The United States has a long and mixed history of deploying civilianmilitary teams in harm’s way. Or, more precisely, it has often used 

teams with both military and civilian skill sets in conflict zones. The 

US military has owned and operated most of these teams, which, for 

example, were an integral part of the US occupations of the Philippines and Haiti in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Later, 

US civilian-military teams were intimately involved with nationbuilding efforts in Germany and Japan after World War II. Both nations rapidly rebuilt their economies and gradually became members 

in good standing in the community of nations. The presence of US 

forces and civilian advisors, often under military command, played 

an important part in restoring stability and sanity to these formerly 

totalitarian nations. Of course, numerous other factors contribute to 

the success or failure of US policy, but civilian-military teams have 

often played an integral part in US engagement in any given region. 

Dr. Scott Moore’s chapter provides a sweeping historical overview of 

US policy and practice.

Vietnam and Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development 

Support

As Germany, Europe, and Japan stabilized, a small nation on the 

periphery of Asia entered the American lexicon: Vietnam. To most 

American policy makers from Kennedy to Nixon, Vietnam was seen 

as a continuation of the East-West struggle. Enemy forces (North 

Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong) were seen as surrogates of the Soviet 

Union and China. Therefore, the battle against the new enemy was 

multifaceted; it had both military and political dimensions. US forces 

needed not only to defeat the enemy on the battlefield but also to win 

the “hearts and minds” of the people. In Vietnam this program was 

termed “pacification.” The ultimate goal was to build local capacity, 

“Vietnamization,” so that US forces could declare victory and withdraw 
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

xl

with honor. The primary vehicle in this effort was CORDS, the most 

massive and sustained civilian-military teaming effort in US history. 

Dr. Richard Stewart, Rufus Phillips, and Dr. Sandra Scham have all 

studied and written about the CORDS program. Rufus Philips, in fact, 

was one of the creators of the program. They offer their own perspectives in three chapters of this volume.

1980s and 1990s 

In the immediate aftermath of Vietnam, the military relegated 

COIN to a secondary mission, at best. CORDS was summarily and 

quickly relegated to the dustbin of history. The military reverted to its 

comfort zone: building and maintaining a force to win a war against 

a conventional enemy. Meanwhile, the DOS and, especially, USAID 

budgets and personnel were severely reduced. The main missions of 

the DOD, DOS, and USAID returned to the East-West conflict. With 

the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in 1990 and the demise of the Soviet 

Union in 1991, Frances Fukayama famously prophesized the end of 

history. The great battle had been won; liberal, free market capitalism 

had triumphed. Despite DOD, DOS, and USAID budgets being 

slashed, especially resources devoted to nation-building, US military 

and civilian teams became increasingly involved in a number of conflicts on the periphery of the old Cold War lines. Dennis Barlow, a retired Army colonel, was a key participant in a number of these teams, 

and he describes his experiences in Panama, Bosnia, and elsewhere.

Part 3: Iraq and Afghanistan 

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan represent the longest sustained 

combat operations in American history to date. Yet their historical 

legacy may well be determined not by military campaigns but by the 

success or failure of US and allied efforts to build stable societies after 

the last foreign boot has left the ground. The jury, of course, is still 

out. Nevertheless, practical experiences in the field, especially with 

civilian and military programs such as PRTs, can contribute to what 

the United States does next in these and other troubled regions. With 

this in mind, we offer a wide range of chapter analyses from practitioners and scholars with Iraq and Afghanistan experience.

Joseph Collins, deputy assistant secretary at the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2002 to 2004, was present at the creation of 

PRTs. He offers a unique insight as to the original missions of these 
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

xli

teams and what those missions mean to future deployments. Bernard 

Carreau describes a wide-ranging lessons-learned project that included 

interviewing returning PRT personnel. Andrew Shaver’s chapter addresses a Pentagon effort to resuscitate local business in Iraq. Three 

practitioners who each served in-country—James Soriano (Iraq), Lt 

Col Eric Hommel (Afghanistan), and Andrew Shaver (Iraq)—offer 

their perspectives regarding what worked, what did not, and why.

Part 4: International Perspectives

The United States and the international community have been 

deeply involved in peace and stability operations for many years. The 

International Stabilization Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, 

for example, composed of some 49 nations from Albania to Mongolia 

to the United States and its allies, is the most obvious manifestation 

of this multinational engagement. The missions and contributions of 

various international players, however, reflect their own particular 

national culture, history, and worldview. This section contains different and sometimes differing perspectives on how other nations view 

the role of civilian-military teams, particularly in Afghanistan. Retired 

ambassador J. D. Bindenagel, Karsten Friis, and Maj Mark Popov discuss German, Norwegian, and Canadian perspectives respectively. 

While the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have dominated the Western debate, regional conflicts, some hot and some cold, in all corners 

of the world offer lessons. David Becker and Col Christopher Holshek, 

Americans with extensive experience working in the field with the 

United Nations and host-nation local organizations from Haiti to Liberia, offer their recommendations on how best to work in internationally mandated and supported missions.

Part 5: Nongovernmental and Other Perspectives

Addressing the United Nations Human Rights Commission in 

April 2004, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan argued that the 

“international community cannot stand idle” in the face of genocide 

or widespread human rights violations. The UN enshrined this 

emerging norm as the “responsibility to protect” (e.g., the international community had the right and responsibility to protect populations if the sovereign state could not). Genocide in Rwanda in 1994 

and, arguably, in Darfur in 2003–2004 prompted UN action. However, it was NGOs such as Amnesty International and Doctors without Borders that pressed for international action. Similarly, NGOs 
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

xlii

share the space with official military and civilians in zones of conflict 

throughout the world today. They often have a different mission and 

perspective regarding these conflicts. This section explores the role of 

NGOs, including their relationships with each other and with government officials. It also provides guidelines for interagency coordination 

and economic development in complex operations environments.

Dr. Lisa Schirch, based on her experience with NGOs and government institutions in conflicts throughout the world, outlines the roles 

of NGOs and offers suggestions on how to overcome real civil society-military animosities. Dr. Andrea Strimling Yodsampa discusses 

the findings of her extensive research in interagency and international conflict management in Afghanistan. Joanna Buckley and 

Ryan Gawn, British experts in the field of private-sector development 

in complex political environments, offer suggestions regarding how 

to promote local markets in a COIN environment.

Part 6: Training, Resourcing, Roles, and Missions 

During the past decade, Washington has struggled with how to 

resource and train personnel for the massive and ongoing US commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most would agree that stabilization programs, at least initially, were managed and funded on an ad 

hoc basis and that there was little coordination between and among 

agencies. As the wars progressed, interagency programs were developed; however, too often, roles and missions were unclear, both 

within and among US governmental agencies. While much has been 

written about roles and missions, there is no clear doctrine as to 

when, where, or how to deploy civilian-military teams or how to 

transition to local ownership. To use current parlance, Washington is 

good at “clearing and holding” but not so good at “building.” The 

chapters in this section address these sometimes contentious issues.

Maj Gen Omer Clifton Tooley, commanding general of the Camp 

Atterbury-Muscatatuck Training Center for Complex Operations, 

outlines lessons learned from training interagency teams for duty in 

Afghanistan. Drawing from his experience at the Center for Army 

Lessons Learned, and based on hundreds of interviews, Col Mike 

McCoy offers recommendations as to when, where, and how civilianmilitary teams should be deployed in future complex operations. Dr. 

Marcia Byrom Hartwell of the US Institute of Peace, with field experience in numerous conflict zones, most recently as an embedded civilian 

advisor in Iraq, rethinks the US civilian-military relationship.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

xliii

Part 7: Preparing for the Future

In a democratic society politicians necessarily live in a world of 

fiscal constraints and domestic political accountability. After more 

than a decade of US engagement in two controversial wars, the 

American public and politicians, understandably, are more interested 

in domestic rather than foreign nation-building. The editors and authors of this volume fully appreciate this reality. Nevertheless, just as 

historians offer honest assessments of past wars, policy makers have an 

obligation to offer rational recommendations for present and future 

conflicts. The authors in this volume do so. One may not always agree 

with every proposal. However, in this section, the authors offer innovative suggestions on how to organize for future complex operations.

Nathan White offers a proposal for intelligence and information 

architectures for future campaigns based on an extensive survey of 

civilian and military intelligence personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Noting the numerous temporary and improvised offices in Iraq (“acronymic adhocracy”), Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for 

Iraq reconstruction (SIGIR), calls for the creation of a permanent US 

Office for Contingency Operations (USOCO). Dr. James Derleth, Jason 

Alexander, and Sloan Mann examine the history of civilian-military 

teams from Vietnam to Afghanistan and, based on these experiences, 

propose the adoption of an interagency district stability framework 

to address future challenges. James Kunder identifies the possible role 

of the DOS in civil-military cooperation in stability operations and 

conflict prevention. 

Finally, Dr. Christopher Lamb and Dr. James Douglas Orton discuss common themes and prescriptions, systematically compare and 

contrast research findings from the diverse case studies, and fashion 

a conceptual framework to guide future research. The variables for 

team performance identified by Drs. Lamb and Orton are a good 

place to start planning for the next complex operation.

Notes

1. Anne Friederike Röder, Misha Pinkhasov, Laura Boutin, and Phyllis Flick, 

eds., Whole of Government Approaches to Fragile States (Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development Publishing, 2006), 14.

PART 1

History of Civilian-Military Teams

America’s Coming of Age

Chapter 1

Nontraditional Missions

Civil Tasks, Military Forces, and Complex Operations

R. Scott Moore

For much of the past century, the United States sought to restore 

order and build lasting stability in regions wracked by internal conflict, ethnic and nationalistic turmoil, and political and religious extremism. The record of American involvement in such complex operations is both extensive and instructive. If the United States 

sometimes failed, it also frequently succeeded. Whatever the outcomes, both soldier and civilian left a legacy of hard-learned experience, albeit one apparently now largely forgotten or, at best, selectively remembered. This chapter explores the experiences of the 

United States over the past century when it sent its forces and applied 

its treasure, as it did quite often, to end violence and build lasting 

stability in situations on the verge of or emerging from conflict, tracing the development of the roles and responsibilities of both civilian 

and soldier. In doing so, I seek to add historical perspective to the 

ongoing, and sometimes acrimonious, debate over civil and military 

roles in conflict zones and perhaps offer insights on how one might 

approach complex operations now and in the future.

Confronted with the need to defeat insurgents and terrorists while 

rebuilding shattered governments and economies in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States, despite more than a decade of conflict, 

continues to struggle, both conceptually and practically, with the civilian-military imperatives of stabilization operations. With respect 

to stability operations, the American government remains disjointed, 

its departments and agencies lacking a common operational framework and seemingly unable to agree on organizational roles and missions. At the Pentagon, military planners and policy advisors grouse 

about combat forces having to perform civil tasks in the absence of a 

robust civilian capability, claiming that such tasks detract from the 

military’s traditional war-fighting missions. The Department of State 

(DOS), staunchly defending the secretary of state’s mandated respon-
4 │ MOORE

sibility to lead and coordinate complex civilian-military operations, 

remains marginally capable of assuming that role.2

 After several years 

of internal gesticulation, its anemic and largely symbolic Office of the 

Coordinator for Stabilization and Reconstruction is largely absent 

from conflict zones. The US Agency for International Development 

(USAID)—beyond its impressive ability to provide contractors and 

host nations with millions of dollars—lacks the capacity, and more 

importantly, the cultural proclivity for wartime operations, as its 

ethos of independence is closely tied to foreign aid and development. 

Other government agencies, despite strong efforts to execute niche 

tasks, are hamstrung by modest means and can field only limited 

teams. Attempts to pull these disparate organizations together in Iraq 

and Afghanistan have proven to be, at best, inefficient stopgaps.

A decade of civilian-military stumbling has spawned a sometimes 

heated, too often pedantic, and largely ill-informed debate over the 

roles of civilian agencies and military forces in conflict zones. Today’s 

conventional wisdom places civil tasks within the realm of civilian 

agencies and organizations, while combat and security responsibilities fall to military forces, with the two tasks coordinated but separate. Military forces end violence, restore order, and maintain stability, while civilians work under the security umbrella to rebuild the 

essential political, economic, and social structures of a stable government. If, on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, military forces bear 

the brunt of both security and civil tasks, it is purely out of local necessity, a temporary anomaly to accepted doctrines. The military, 

cynically noting the relative absence of civilians, actively seeks to get 

them to the conflict, even offering funding to do so, so soldiers may 

focus on traditional missions. As if to reinforce this attitude, many in 

the civilian agencies, academia, and nongovernmental organizations 

(NGO) accuse military forces of being ill suited for civil activities by 

virtue of their ethos and apparent narrowness, arrogantly accusing 

military personnel of an intellectual proclivity to do little more than 

destroy. They often blame their relative absence from stability operations on insufficient resources and encroaching militarism. Both soldier and civilian seem to agree on a common vision that divides the 

two, citing organizational theories and images of the past in which 

civil and military operations were distinct entities, perhaps conducted side-by-side but clearly separated between civilian and soldier. As this chapter will demonstrate, such postmodernist thinking 

ignores historical as well as contemporary reality.
NONTRADITIONAL MISSIONS │ 5

The American Approach to Stability: Expansion and 

Intervention in the Early Twentieth Century

The statutory responsibility for conducting diplomacy, representing US interests in foreign states, and concluding treaties has, since 

the first presidential administration, rested squarely with the DOS. 

Even within the North American continent, state envoys negotiated 

with indigenous tribes and the British, French, Spanish, and Russian 

colonials and Mexicans along the expanding US borders. Throughout 

the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, diplomats represented the growing reach of the United States. Yet, the DOS’s responsibilities rarely included the actual conduct of activities or enforcement of policies. Instead, these largely fell to others. Army officers 

explored and policed the frontier and protected US borders, sometimes assuming martial authority and acting as military governors of 

newly acquired territories. The aftermath of the Mexican-American 

War in the late 1840s required commanders to carry out postconflict 

occupation and stabilization in the wake of the fighting. The authority of the state envoy assigned to Gen Winfield Scott’s headquarters 

during his march on Mexico City extended only to the signing of a 

treaty with Mexican ruler Santa Anna; Scott’s army policed Mexico 

from Vera Cruz to Mexico City. In the American South during and 

following the Civil War, the Army maintained civil order, governed 

towns and regions, provided humanitarian relief, established courts 

and served as judges, monitored elections, repaired infrastructure, 

and supported the Freedmen’s Bureau in its mission to integrate former slaves into society. In the West, policing in the face of Native 

American uprisings and widespread lawlessness often fell to the 

Army. Until 1884, Alaska came under the jurisdiction of first the 

Army and then the Navy. The annexations of Hawaii and Samoa in 

the late 1800s thrust Navy commanders into the roles of governors. 

By the end of the nineteenth century, the US military, as well as its 

political leaders, viewed such civil tasks as military missions. If the 

DOS maintained its responsibility for foreign policy oversight and 

guidance, it routinely relied on the American military for its execution.

America’s emergence as a global power created new problems of 

scope if not concept. The collapse of Spanish authority in Puerto 

Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines as a result of the Spanish-American 

War in 1898 raised the specter of long-term US administration of 
6 │ MOORE

overseas territories. Because these former Spanish colonies did not 

emerge as functioning foreign states, they fell outside the accepted 

and statutory responsibilities of the DOS, which neither sought nor 

played a significant role in their postwar stabilization and reconstruction. To deal with these acquisitions, some in the McKinley administration advocated for establishing a colonial office, citing the need for 

a cadre of trained and ready experts. Indeed, the president initially 

considered creating such an office inside the DOS. The US public 

weighed in; spurred by such anti-imperialists as Mark Twain and 

William Jennings Bryan, it quickly rejected any system that smacked 

of overt colonialism. Congress agreed. Indeed, the declaration of war 

against Spain had included the Teller Amendment, prohibiting the 

president from annexing Cuba and, some thought by extension, any 

of the former Spanish territories. If forced to create and sustain governments from the rubble of former European colonies, America 

would not install another colonial administration as a replacement. 

The DOS, citing statutory limitations, did not view governing foreign 

lands among its responsibilities. Policy makers thus decided, with 

some precedent, that military occupation and governance offered a 

legitimate alternative, one that sent a clear message that the United 

States sought no colonies and only wished to ensure indigenous selfsufficiency before granting full sovereignty.

As a result, the United States deployed thousands of troops to the 

Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Faced with three simultaneous 

occupations, Secretary of War Elihu Root formed the Office of Insular 

Affairs to develop policies and provide oversight of military governors.3

 Faced with these duties, soldiers quickly learned to govern 

provinces, police against crime and banditry, supervise sanitation 

projects, build schools, and provide a host of social services hitherto 

unknown to the local populations, in addition to fighting insurgencies and uprisings.4

 Military commanders, if reflecting the racist attitudes of the day about the indigenous population’s inability for selfrule, nonetheless fully understood they eventually would transition 

from military rule to local governance. While US influence remained 

strong in many nations in which the United States had intervened, the 

transition from military occupation to local self-rule fundamentally 

differed from the European colonial model. Cuba achieved independence in 1902, subsequent US meddling notwithstanding. Philippine 

self-rule began just nine years after annexation, with full independence guaranteed. Unlike their European brethren, US soldiers ex-
NONTRADITIONAL MISSIONS │ 7

pected no civil colonial administration to relieve them of their civil 

tasks. Even in the Philippines, where a presidentially appointed high 

commissioner (who, notably, reported to the secretary of war) and an 

entourage of civilian advisors arrived as the insurgency subsided, 

military officers continued to serve as provincial and local governors, 

especially in the violence-prone southern islands. Americans understood that the military would provide stability and governance until 

the indigenous population could rule itself. 

For the next three decades, American military doctrine, eventually 

codified by the Marines in the 1930s, differentiated little between 

military and civil tasks, seeing both as integral to reestablishing stability.5

 More to the point, it viewed the two as parts of one military 

mission. A pattern quickly emerged that saw American forces deployed to quell uprisings or unrest, then remaining to reestablish and 

often enforce political stability before handing the country back to 

local leaders, whom American policy makers had usually carefully 

chosen, and withdrawing. While policy guidance emanated from 

Washington or, in the case of the Latin American republics, US ambassadors or emissaries, military commanders operated largely without a US civilian presence. Beginning in 1906, troops deployed to Cuba 

several times in the ensuing years to restore order; each intervention 

included several months of military governance before transitioning 

power back to Cuban authorities. In 1912, the Marines forcibly ended 

civil war in Nicaragua, monitored an imposed ceasefire, supervised 

elections, and then returned the reins of power back to the Nicaraguans. Other than American consular officials already in Nicaragua, 

no civilians accompanied the Marines. Soldiers and marines landed 

in Vera Cruz, Mexico, in early 1914, remaining for nearly a year as 

occupying forces. In 1915, Pres. Woodrow Wilson ordered a brigade 

of marines to Haiti and, shortly thereafter, another to the Dominican 

Republic to stop widespread violence and political turmoil. They remained to build new political and economic structures for the next 19 

years in Haiti and eight years in the Dominican Republic. When Germany capitulated in 1918, the American Expeditionary Force marched 

into the Rhineland, occupying a sector while politicians debated the 

terms of surrender at Versailles. The Marines again landed in Nicaragua 

in 1925, remaining until 1932 to fight an insurgency led by the charismatic Augustino Sandino, a recalcitrant former rebel commander who 

refused to comply with an American-brokered settlement.
8 │ MOORE

In all these operations, military commanders and their troops performed the full range of tasks associated with ending violence and 

building states. They became policemen, mayors, judges, public 

works officers, social workers, tax collectors, and any number of other 

formal and informal officials associated with rebuilding fractured 

states. In doing so, civil and military duties became almost indistinguishable; both were seen as part of the professional skill sets required 

of soldiers, marines, and sailors. Combat and stabilization resided in 

a continuum of military operations. Gen John J. Pershing, as a junior 

officer, served in the Office of Insular Affairs and later as a military 

governor in the southern Philippines, before leading an expedition 

into Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa in 1916 and then commanding 

the American Expeditionary Force in France in World War I. The 

marines who landed at Santo Domingo in 1916 fought Germans in 

France in 1918 and then redeployed to Haiti in 1919 to quell increasing unrest. On the whole, the US military possessed an extraordinarily pragmatic appreciation of the realities of the operations in 

which it found itself and an equally notable ability to adapt to those 

realities. Commanders and their troops, as well as ambassadors and 

senior policy makers, viewed the wide-ranging civilian-military tasks 

carried out on the ground as an essential part of military capabilities. 

Operations orders, contemporary journal articles, memoirs, and subsequent doctrine reveal little angst over military forces performing 

civil duties or the relative absence of US civilians in the field.

Despite their adaptability, US military forces sometimes stumbled. 

Cultural arrogance and ignorance too often alienated the local populace. Military units in the Philippines resorted to torture to find insurgents, sometimes abused local populations, and, reflecting the era, took 

a decidedly patronizing stance with a population deemed backwards 

and incapable of self-rule without sharp tutelage. In the Dominican 

Republic, marines were accused of arbitrarily arresting and imprisoning locals suspected of crimes or being part of bandit groups. Provost 

marshals responsible for law enforcement—too often young officers 

with little experience—trampled on local laws or customs, thereby 

abusing their powers, at least in the eyes of the local populace. In 

Haiti, the Marines incurred local enmity by conscripting local labor 

to build roads. Frustrated by the local populace’s unwillingness to 

perform such work, which many Haitians deemed socially unacceptable, commanders forced them to do so at gunpoint, with predictable 

backlash. The First World War’s demand for seasoned veterans to 
NONTRADITIONAL MISSIONS │ 9

fight in France significantly lowered both the numbers and quality of 

troops available for other commitments. Newly trained recruits led 

by officers deemed unfit for combat duty led to poor discipline and 

local excesses. In Haiti, Charlemagne Perault, a local warlord claiming special powers against Marine bullets, rallied thousands in an 

armed rebellion after poorly trained marines abused their authority. 

The uprising was only put down in 1919, when the German armistice 

allowed for redeployment of many of the long-term professional officers and noncommissioned officers who had been deployed to 

France.6

 One veteran who returned to Haiti severely criticized the 

poor standards of the marines he encountered, blaming the unrest on 

their undisciplined actions.7

 Yet none of these transgressions negated 

the fact that, until the final withdrawal of the Marines from Haiti in 

1934, military forces bore the brunt of stabilization and reconstruction operations around the globe.

Reliant on the military, and in the context of a public wary of overseas expansionism, US civilian agencies saw little need to develop capabilities for complex operations. Ambassadors and their staffs provided guidance and advice to US forces, and military commanders 

understood they operated in support of DOS policies. Nevertheless, 

civilians rarely worked alongside or replaced military units in the 

field. Those civilians who sought to build indigenous structures 

largely consisted of missionaries, private citizens, and businessmen 

with few common objectives and little inclination to coordinate with 

military forces. The relationship was more one of tolerance than cooperation. The Marine Corps’s Small Wars Manual, written in the 

1930s and based on lessons since the Philippine Insurrection, devoted barely seven pages of its more than 400 to cooperation with 

DOS civilians—beyond recognizing the ambassador’s primacy—and 

made almost no mention of other US government departments or 

NGOs. Conversely, it contained entire chapters on military governance, disarmament, supervision of elections, building local security 

forces, and relationships between military forces and the indigenous 

population.8

 If military commanders clearly understood the need for 

close coordination with in-country embassy officials, they fully expected to be left to carry out the range of tasks necessary to rebuild 

failed states. The scope of operations undoubtedly required the organizational capabilities of military forces, especially in those cases 

where security remained problematic. Only the military possessed 

the necessary equipment, manpower, organization, and logistics to 
10 │ MOORE

conduct extended operations. Moreover, the DOS did not view field 

operations as part of its traditional foreign policy or ambassadorial 

mandates, nor did it feel institutionally challenged by the military. 

The DOS was content to allow them to carry out civil tasks.

Yet operational scope and organizational capacity were neither the 

only nor even the most important reasons soldiers and marines routinely carried out civil tasks. The United States created its own unique 

model for rebuilding failed states, one that meshed with its cultural 

predilections and rejected those of imperial Europe. The European 

colonial approach, at least until World War II, envisioned a transition 

from military subjugation of populations to a large and all-encompassing colonial administration, to local self-rule under imperial tutelage, to, perhaps eventually, independence. In this model, a robust 

colonial office carried out civil tasks. Not surprisingly, given their history and self-image, Americans steadfastly shunned this approach. 

For them, civilian-military operations provided enablers for indigenous political and economic development; US troops offered respite 

from violence and provided the capabilities needed to build democratic states. Embodied in Wilsonian concepts of armed humanitarianism, the goals centered on putting unstable countries on their feet, 

not on establishing US rule. If, on the receiving end, the American 

approach may not have appeared as benevolent as perhaps intended, 

it nonetheless reflected a strongly held view that such interventions 

sought to end strife and build indigenous capacities for self-governance rather than add to a colonial empire. While some later historians and academics, and detractors at the time, labeled the American 

interventionism as imperialism, the fact remained that unlike the 

Europeans, the Americans eschewed establishing a colonial government and always sought to withdraw its forces once stability had been 

regained. Military occupation might be required to end violence and 

build new institutions, but government leaders and the public at the 

time viewed deploying a substantial US civilian capability to govern 

other lands, akin to a European colonial office, as not only unnecessary but also culturally and politically anathema.

Postconflict Stabilization: World War II Occupations

While the Great Depression and interwar isolationism largely 

ended American military interventions, the entry of the United States 
NONTRADITIONAL MISSIONS │ 11

into the Second World War resurrected the need to stabilize foreign 

regions. Within weeks of the Pearl Harbor attack, Pres. Franklin D. 

Roosevelt, anticipating the liberation of areas conquered by Germany 

and Japan, turned to the DOS to meet the demands of postconflict 

reconstruction, largely ignoring the legacy of the past four decades. 

He directed Secretary of State Cordell Hull to create an office to plan 

and execute stabilization and reconstruction operations. Hull, after 

months of grappling with building a radically new capability—one 

without precedent—declared his department unsuited to the task. 

Notably, he pointed out to the president the vast differences between 

diplomacy and administering foreign territories, bluntly stating they 

were mutually exclusive and largely in conflict with each other. Despite his objections, the president persisted in attempting to build a 

structure to assume responsibility for governance, relief efforts, and 

economic development in areas liberated by US forces. Unfortunately, the magnitude of the effort overwhelmed the civilian agencies 

tasked to carry out the missions. Tested in North Africa in 1942 and 

early 1943, the DOS, through its newly formed Office of Foreign Economic Coordination, proved unable to provide the resources, expertise, and organization necessary for stabilizing Morocco and Algeria. 

The many smaller delegations from the DOS, the Department of the 

Treasury, and the independent Board of Economic Warfare that arrived in theater created organizational chaos. In addition, while the 

separation between soldier and civilian seemed clear in Washington, 

in North Africa such divisions quickly lost meaning. Although no 

longer combat zones, both Morocco and Algeria provided vital bases, 

seaports, and communications demanding Army oversight. The 

growing number of civilians imposing their programs on the Army 

units and facilities frustrated Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower, who complained of increasing, rather than decreasing responsibilities because 

of the civilian influx.9

 By mid-1943, the experiment had largely failed. 

Reluctantly, but with Cordell Hull’s endorsement, President Roosevelt reassigned primary responsibility for stabilization and reconstruction to the Department of War.

The Army chose to build an organization specifically trained to 

conduct occupation duties: the Military Governance Corps. Establishing a center in Charlottesville, Virginia, the Army trained officers 

to plan and coordinate the occupation and governance of liberated 

territories and, when the time came, Germany and Japan.10 Starting 

in 1943 in Sicily, military governance detachments followed in the 
12 │ MOORE

wake of advancing combat forces and assumed responsibility for 

maintaining stability, rebuilding damaged or destroyed infrastructure, and supporting development of indigenous political, economic, 

and legal structures. They advised local commanders and, at corps 

and army levels, formed distinct staff sections. In many cases, military governance officers commanded task forces consisting of military police, medical and logistics units, and even combat units to stabilize liberated areas. As US forces moved up the Italian boot and 

then across Western Europe in 1944 and 1945, military governance 

teams followed in the wake of combat, providing humanitarian relief 

to civil populations, establishing local government, helping to rebuild 

shattered infrastructure, and slowly transitioning civil responsibilities to local and national leaders. Notably, plans for the invasion of 

Europe included detailed provisions for the systematic military occupation of liberated cities and provinces.11 Eisenhower would later 

state that the military governance teams proved essential to his ability 

not only to meet the humanitarian needs of the populace but also to 

ensure the security and efficacy of his armies in the field.12 In the Pacific, military governance teams moved with Gen Douglas MacArthur’s forces into the Philippines and eventually Japan and Korea, 

while similarly trained Navy teams assumed responsibility for the islands of the Marshalls, Marianas, Carolines, Bonins, and Ryukus. 

Some have argued that only the mobilization of civilian experts who 

donned uniforms allowed for the creation of a unique organization 

such as the Military Governance Corps and that, therefore, the example is singular and not replicable. However, that explanation ignores the reality of the innovation. Indeed, the same can be said of 

the entire US military that fought a global war largely with inducted 

civilians. A professional cadre led the conscript Army. This cadre included Eisenhower and MacArthur, who knew and understood the 

civilian tasks necessary for reconstruction and directed the planning 

and executing of those tasks. Moreover, while military governance 

officers, many with prior civilian skills, certainly provided essential 

expertise at the operational and tactical levels, combat and support 

units whose primary mission and organization were not intended for 

such tasks executed many, if not all, of the actual operations. Stabilization and reconstruction became firm missions of the US military, 

missions it conducted for more than a decade.

American civilian agencies sent individuals to assist with planning 

and give advice on policies emanating from Washington, but they did 
NONTRADITIONAL MISSIONS │ 13

not deploy substantial numbers of personnel or provide adequate resources. Beyond political advisors assigned to senior headquarters, 

the military assumed virtually sole responsibility for liberated and 

occupied areas. Even with the end of fighting and restoration of order 

in Germany and Japan, military governance continued.

In Europe, with the surrender of Germany, Eisenhower became 

responsible for the occupation and civil administration of the American zone. By Allied consensus, Germany would be subject to military 

occupation, rather than civil governance. The Army, despite its demobilization, assumed responsibility for internal security, economic development, and political reconstruction, guided by the Allied Control 

Authority and directed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.13 In a notable innovation, the Army in occupied Germany formed a specialized unit to 

maintain domestic security and, later, serve as border police. The US 

Constabulary Corps, originally formed from elements of demobilized 

armored divisions and equipped with wheeled armored vehicles, became an elite force only disbanded nearly a decade later, when it 

turned over security and law enforcement responsibilities to the German police and newly formed Bundeswehr.

In Japan, MacArthur chose to develop his own policies based on 

his self-perceived unique understanding of the Japanese and Far East 

cultures. He proved less accommodating to civilian advice. Substantial US military occupation forces remained in Japan for several years, 

performing the full range of civil tasks necessary to put Japan back on 

its feet. Despite differences in how civilian-military tasks were carried 

out between European and the Far East, post–World War II stabilization and reconstruction policies dictated that US military forces performed the bulk of the civil responsibilities, slowly handing political 

and economic control back to indigenous authorities.

Much has been made of the Marshall Plan, which is often cited 

today as a model of the extent of civilian participation in rebuilding 

postwar Europe. The Marshall Plan, however, played little role in the 

postwar occupations of Germany and Japan. The US never intended 

the Marshall Plan to fund reconstruction in Germany, Austria, Japan, 

or any of the other defeated Axis states. Indeed, the Marshall Plan did 

not comprise an element or a driver of postwar military occupation 

or governance; it focused solely on governments of states once occupied by the Nazis that were no longer under US or Allied military governance. It largely proceeded on a separate track, specifically designed 

as a self-help tool to assist European governments to rebuild their 
14 │ MOORE

shattered economies and, more important, create an integrated European financial structure. The staff administering the program, small 

and based largely in the United States, provided monetary aid to 

governments so they might execute previously agreed-upon plans 

submitted to the United States.14 While perhaps a superb model of a 

developmental program applied to states emerging from war—its 

impact on the political and security structures of Western Europe 

cannot be underestimated—the Marshall Plan did not plan or execute 

the many tasks associated with the occupation of Germany.

Changing the Paradigm: The Cold War Years

Despite nearly 50 years of almost continuous experience, the exigencies of the Cold War changed how policy makers viewed America’s 

role in complex operations. Developing states in Africa, Asia, Eastern 

Europe, and Latin America, many just emerging from colonialism, 

became key political, and sometimes military, battlegrounds. New 

concepts of limited war, most famously proffered by Robert Osgood, 

advocated swift, decisive military victory.15 As a result, stabilization 

became synonymous with propping up governments able to maintain 

political control against internal uprisings, usually labeled, rightly or 

wrongly, as communist-inspired. The suppression of violence through 

the heavy application of force and buttressing of strong central governments became the primary objective. If previously military and 

civil tasks dovetailed in an attempt to rebuild fragile states, the links 

became more tenuous. Policy makers came to view military operations as rapid and decisive applications of force for the military’s own 

ends, rather than integrated civilian-military campaigns as in the 

past. What civil tasks followed focused on building strong local government capable of suppressing internal unrest and maintaining political order. The United States provided sufficient military and economic aid to keep the new regime in power. Thus, interventions in 

Lebanon, the Dominican Republic, and Thailand propped up existing governments. Stabilization and reconstruction, when applied at 

all, became instrumental adjuncts to Cold War military and political 

expediency, and thus viewed, in a sense, as proxy wars in a larger 

global struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The deployment of large numbers of combat units to Vietnam in 

the 1960s, however, raised the specter of extended civilian-military 
NONTRADITIONAL MISSIONS │ 15

operations again. Reared on Cold War doctrines, US commanders 

initially viewed the Vietnamese conflict as a conventional military 

problem, leaving the US embassy and civil agencies to build strong 

indigenous political structures able to support military operations. 

Nonetheless, military units in the field, faced with an insurgency as 

well as a conventional fight, could not avoid addressing the civil 

problems they confronted. The Marines in the north instituted the 

combined action platoon program, through which small teams 

posted to villages and hamlets provided security, trained self-defense 

forces, guarded crops, and generally became part of the daily lives of 

the local populace. In other areas, Army civil affairs detachments also 

attempted to address grassroots issues afflicting the population. In 

addition, combat units routinely supported local authorities, if largely 

as a way to isolate enemy forces. Beginning in 1968, for example, the 

Army deployed five-person mobile advisory teams to advise Vietnamese Regional and Popular Forces, the poorer cousins of the Army 

of the Republic of Vietnam. Some 354 of these teams were deployed 

until 1972. The Military Assistance Command of Vietnam viewed 

these teams as key links to providing security to the countryside and 

to counteracting Viet Cong influence. Overall, however, civil programs were limited in scope and mostly intended to support combat 

operations. The American military commander in Vietnam, Gen 

William Westmoreland, viewed “pacification” as the purview of the 

host government and the embassy and thus a diversion of US troops 

from the main effort of battling enemy forces.16

As the war progressed, policy makers could not deny the need for 

civilian-military operations as an essential element of the war’s strategy. 

As a result, the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development 

Support (CORDS) program emerged. CORDS began as a way to harness US civilian agencies’ efforts to provide civil and humanitarian 

support to the Vietnamese government, and, more to the point, to the 

local populations often neglected by their government. It became an 

integrated civilian-military program, blending the activities of the US 

civilian agencies and military units. Consisting of provincial and district-level teams of civilians from USAID, the US Information 

Agency, other government agencies, and military personnel all under 

a single head, CORDS advised and supported local Vietnamese authorities engaged in economic development, political reform, police 

and militia training, and a host of other activities associated with 

solving the many political, economic, and social problems confronting 
16 │ MOORE

the populace. Either a civilian or a military officer commanded a 

CORDS teams at provincial and district levels and tasked these teams 

to plan and conduct civil programs down to the hamlet level. In addition, in theory if not always in practice, US military units operating 

near CORDS teams or projects provided security and logistics support 

and coordinated combat and security operations to ensure synchronization. Although not always supported by General Westmoreland 

during his tenure as commander in Vietnam, CORDS became a key 

element of US strategy beginning in 1968, when the newly appointed 

US military commander in Vietnam, Gen Creighton Abrams, shifted 

his efforts to address underlying problems rather than hunt enemy 

forces. By 1970, CORDS had become a mainstay of American strategy to both transition operations onto the Vietnamese and attempt to 

address the underlying issues presumed to be driving the conflict.17

If CORDS offered an important attempt to mesh civilian and military activities, it also remained shrouded in mythology.18 Much rhetoric today extols the program as an example of the efficacy of a properly resourced civilian capacity, but the facts show this to be a 

somewhat exaggerated claim. Although a host of diverse civil and 

military efforts began under the supervision of the US embassy, the 

initial years were plagued by stovepiped agency funding, inadequate 

resourcing, and interagency bickering. The embassy proved incapable of effective coordination, especially since it possessed no real authority to direct other agency representatives whose reporting chain 

and funding stretched back to Washington. As a result, in mid-1967, 

the US military command in Vietnam established CORDS and placed 

all those assigned to pacification programs, military and civilian, under the leadership of Robert Komer, designated deputy to the commander for CORDS. Komer was a civilian and had the trust of President Johnson as well as the military and civilian leadership in Saigon. 

The decision to place both military and civilian pacification operations under military command stemmed from multiple needs for security to protect civilian activities and the substantial personnel, logistics and transportation, and funding, resources provided by the 

Department of Defense (DOD). Komer later wrote that only the 

military command could bring all the diverse elements together and 

direct military and civilians toward a common goal.19 While civilians 

and military personnel served together in Saigon at the provincial 

and district levels and on corps staffs, the balance heavily tilted to the 

military. In 1970, the authorized strength of CORDS called for more 
NONTRADITIONAL MISSIONS │ 17

than 6,000 military personnel and fewer than 1,000 civilians. In the 

field, only 96 civilians served in the 190 districts in Vietnam, the rest 

of CORDS being military. In addition, nearly 4,000 soldiers and marines directly carried out rural pacification programs independent of 

CORDS. Funding also reflected the heavy military presence in 

CORDS; during 1970, the DOD provided nearly 94 percent of the US 

contribution to the program, with USAID offering the bulk of the 

remainder.20 While CORDS undoubtedly demonstrated the effectiveness of civilian-military integration, later claims that it marked a fundamental shift in America’s historical reliance on military forces to 

address civilian-military issues in conflict zones greatly overstated 

the reality of the program and civilian-military operations as a whole 

in Vietnam.21

An Emerging Dilemma: Post–Cold War Interventions

For the American public in general, and the military in particular, 

Vietnam left a lasting and noxious aftertaste, one that largely caused 

military planners to reject any notions of military forces conducting 

operations other than those that were decisively combat. The doctrines of rapid military victory, forged during the Cold War, again 

moved to the forefront. In a widely read and quoted book written a 

decade after the war, US Army colonel Harry Summers assailed US 

policy makers for failing to adequately adhere to the classical principles of war and use force decisively.22 Indeed, in the rush to forget the 

experiences in Southeast Asia, by the early 1980s, civil-military concepts associated with armed conflict bifurcated. For the military, and 

most national security policy makers, battlefield victory became the 

primary purpose of military forces; political, economic, and social 

rebuilding fell to others, preferably not Americans, once the troops 

withdrew. Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger codified this division of labor when he pronounced a set of rigid rules for the use military force. In what became known as the Weinberger doctrine, he 

included in his list of essential factors for employing military force 

that force must be a last resort, its purpose must be to defend vital 

interests, and military victory must be the goal.23 His ideas appeared 

to be validated by the rapid victories achieved in Grenada in 1983, 

Panama in 1990, and Kuwait in 1991.24 In each, overwhelming military victory against a weak enemy defined the outcome, requiring 
18 │ MOORE

little need for lengthy stability operations in the aftermath. If force set 

the stage for follow-on political and economic rebuilding, those tasks 

largely lay outside the purview of the military and could be dealt with 

at leisure in a secure environment. Reconstruction and stabilization 

became the responsibility of the international community, perhaps 

coalition forces, or increasingly the NGOs that came to inhabit conflict zones. Fresh from its military victories in Panama and Kuwait, 

overwhelming and quick force remained the prevalent US approach 

to creating stability. In a barely disguised throwback to the Weinberger doctrine of an earlier decade, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff, Gen Colin Powell, argued for overwhelming force to quickly 

end conflicts, followed by the quick exit of US military forces, replaced either by civil agencies or international peacekeepers.25 His 

words became a cornerstone of US stabilization strategy for the remainder of the 1990s.

If the military rejected stabilization and reconstruction missions, 

US civil agencies made little attempt to build the necessary organizational capabilities to assume them. Instead, they increasingly looked 

to the international community, coalition partners, and the United 

Nations (UN), while denying that a Vietnam-like conflict would ever 

again occur. If US forces might employ their superior firepower to 

suppress or eliminate violence and warring factions in another nation, regional or international coalitions would assume responsibility 

for building stability and protecting international organizations dedicated to political and economic redevelopment. For the DOS and 

USAID, US involvement in the civil aspects of stabilization and reconstruction depended largely on outsourcing to international organizations or contractors executed by local authorities, in the wake of 

military operations or, preferably, without the need for US troops at 

all. Increasingly, civilian agencies came to view military involvement 

in civil reconstruction as a challenge both to their authorities and to 

their self-image. Yet, despite their stance, neither the DOS nor USAID, 

nor any of the other agencies, attempted to include such missions in 

their core capabilities. No new offices or bureaus, let alone field capabilities, were added, nor was any real attempt made to institutionalize. Indeed, the DOS largely took the approach it had applied since 

the turn of the century, relying on ambassadors to coordinate civil 

tasks without actually carrying them out. USAID, suffering through a 

decade of personnel and funding cuts in the 1980s, assumed its longterm developmental and democratization programs fit equally well 
NONTRADITIONAL MISSIONS │ 19

into conflict situations. Unfortunately, while the military focused on 

its combat duties, doctrinally and organizationally eschewing involvement in postconflict missions, the civilian agencies failed to institutionalize the largely abandoned civil tasks.

If force set the stage for follow-on political and economic rebuilding, those tasks now largely lay outside the purview of the military, 

relegated to other government agencies, perhaps to coalition forces, 

and to the plethora of NGOs that followed in the wake of violence, 

natural and manmade. US policy makers increasingly turned to the 

UN to provide follow-on civilian capabilities to rebuild shattered political and economic structures. The UN largely obliged, sending substantial numbers of civilian experts and coordinators to Somalia, 

Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Often protected by UN peacekeeping 

troops, which sometimes included US forces, UN authorities worked 

with NGOs and local leaders, provided humanitarian supplies, and 

established interim governance structures. When US agencies participated, as they often did, they did so through surrogates. Following 

a business model developed in the wake of Vietnam as a result of 

substantial personnel cuts and congressional restrictions, USAID relied on private contractors and direct funding to local authorities for 

its humanitarian and development programs. It saw no need to 

change to meet the demands of conflict zones. Other departments 

also relied heavily on contractors. Given the necessary funding, 

which Congress tended to provide during crises, it proved much easier and more efficient to hire others to carry out what were seen as 

relatively short-term tasks. With the military eschewing the role, the 

US government made little attempt to create a permanent capacity 

for conducting stabilization and reconstruction operations. 

A pattern emerged by the late 1990s in which US forces and those 

of its most robust allies—usually NATO members—employed or 

threatened overwhelming combat power to subdue warring factions, 

after which UN or regional organizations assumed stewardship and 

protection over the many civil organizations who arrived to conduct 

reconstruction. Even where US and allied forces remained for extended periods, as in Bosnia and Kosovo, they did so to provide military deterrence and protection, rather than with the express purpose 

of carrying out civil tasks. The fact that they often found themselves 

carrying out these tasks seemed to be conveniently ignored by policy 

makers. While both soldiers and civilians understood that lasting stability required a sustained, coordinated civilian-military effort, they 
20 │ MOORE

saw the transition as one of stages and division of labor, starting with 

military operations and, once security had been restored, handing off 

the civilian activities. Military forces would continue to impose security and stability, after which civilian organizations and agencies 

would rebuild broken societies. To make it work, complex coordinating mechanisms would be formed to deal with interagency planning; 

mutual consensus between agencies and bureaucracies would determine how operations would be conducted.26 In that sense, civilianmilitary plans and operations might be considered integrated, but 

both civilians and military were thereby brought down to the lowest 

common denominator. In their doctrines and policies, military and 

civilian occupied parallel worlds, perhaps mutually supporting, but 

rarely touching. Both had forgotten the past; civil actions could not 

be, and never had been, separated from military operations.

Coming Full Circle: Iraq and Afghanistan

Unfortunately, the United States paid a heavy price in Iraq and 

Afghanistan for its amnesia. The dynamics of civilian-military integration in both conflicts are discussed in depth in other chapters of 

this book; however, a few general observations within the context of 

this essay are in order.27 Aside from the anomaly, both historical and 

cultural, of installing what turned out, at least for a year, to be a colonial-style government in Iraq, US policy makers should not have 

been surprised that the civilian departments and agencies proved incapable of any but a token response to the challenges of postconflict 

reconstruction and counterinsurgency. The creation of the Office of 

the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization in the Department of State (S/CRS) in 2005 largely sought to provide the needed 

personnel and expertise to conduct civil activities in the wake of military forces through the nascent Active and Standby Response Corps. 

Plagued by bureaucratic opposition and marginalization within the 

DOS, initially not funded other than through a DOD transfer of 

money, unsure of its role, and lacking authority, S/CRS quickly became irrelevant.28 USAID, with a robust expert capacity for field deployment—albeit largely ensconced in contractors—remained aloof, 

seeking to separate itself from the escalating violence in theater. It 

also sought to remain “neutral” with respect to including military operations conducted by US and coalition forces. It relied mostly on 
NONTRADITIONAL MISSIONS │ 21

contractors and often NGOs, often creating an institutional tension 

that precluded close cooperation with military forces. Other US civilian agencies were unable to meet the demands of overseas operations 

without the institutional history, mandates, congressional authorizations, or funding that would have enabled them to do so. Military 

commanders, although frustrated with being saddled with “nontraditional” missions, turned inward, using their own funding and forces 

to fill in gaps.29 In both Iraq and Afghanistan, they found themselves 

carrying out the full range of military and civil tasks, much as they 

had in past conflicts, but seemed wedded, at least initially, to the idea 

that the past had never occurred. As these conflicts progressed, the 

commanders began to remember the past and reconsidered old models, including CORDS. Meanwhile, unable to field a robust capability 

and equally forgetful, their civilian counterparts groused about the 

militarization of civil tasks.

In the midst of this organizational chaos the provincial reconstruction teams (PRT) emerged. An attempted grassroots-level response to the problem of interagency integration, the PRT meshed 

military and civilian into a single team whose functions centered on 

helping the local populace use US funding and assistance to rebuild. 

Begun as embedded adjuncts to brigade-size units in Iraq, the PRT 

evolved in Afghanistan into independent entities under the control of 

the US ambassador. Modeled on CORDS from the Vietnam War, the 

PRT embodied both the best and worst of its predecessor. While military personnel comprised the majority of PRT members, and the civilian positions proved difficult to fill with competent personnel, 

PRTs nonetheless offered a cohesive civilian-military construct. 

Working among the populace and coordinating with local military 

commanders, the teams provided a link between military operations 

and many civilian activities and a means for smaller unit commanders to access civil programs immediately. However, PRT and military 

commanders, often located in the same place, reported to different 

chains. The former eventually reported to the ambassador, and the 

latter answered to the senior military commander. Short-term, temporary civilian hires from outside the government served for periods 

of about a year, while military personnel filled many of the gaps agencies could not fill and usually commanded the teams.30 In the field, 

many civil programs did not emanate from the PRT, originating instead either in the embassy or, quite often, Washington, limiting the 

ability of the PRT to work effectively. USAID, in particular, chose in-
22 │ MOORE

stead to centralize management of many of its programs independently of the PRT. In that sense, the PRT more resembled CORDS in 

its worst years before 1968, rather than its more successful later years 

when it was under a single chain of control. Friction sometimes arose 

between the PRT and US military commander in the province or district, the latter being held responsible for PRT safety and thus tending 

to restrict movement and operations that could not be safeguarded. 

The PRT concept, while sometimes a locally beneficial tactical innovation, failed to resolve the problem of competing civil and military 

roles. At best, it proved a stop-gap measure conducted with little institutional backing.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States, despite continuing assertions to the contrary by both civilians and soldiers, had come full 

circle. Despite the theories of the late 1990s, and a decade of refusal to 

reexamine them, both civilian and soldier found the realities on the 

ground to be more reminiscent of those in the Philippines in 1901, 

Haiti in 1919, or Vietnam in 1968 rather than Bosnia in 1995. Military forces, as they had for more than a century, conducted the full 

range of tasks—civil and military—necessary to rebuild war-torn societies. The civilian departments and agencies provided expertise and 

guidance but lacked a robust capability for wartime operations in the 

field. The transition from combat and security to resumption of political, economic, and social responsibility moved from US military 

forces to the indigenous population, without an interim period of 

neocolonial oversight. Attempts at the latter or a hybrid of both resulted in organizational confusion and too often operational ineffectiveness, if not incompetence. In effect, the two wars of the early 

twenty-first century largely validated the basic doctrine that has underwritten US involvement in stabilization operations for most of the 

country’s history, one that relies primarily on military forces to conduct the full range of military and civil tasks necessary to fight armed 

enemies, reestablish stability, and then rebuild the structures necessary for lasting peace.

Notes

1. National Security Presidential Directive 44, Management of Interagency Efforts 

Concerning Stabilization and Reconstruction, 7 December 2005; and Duncan Hunter, 

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009, Public Law 110–417, § 1602.
NONTRADITIONAL MISSIONS │ 23

2. Notably, this office would function for almost four decades, assuming responsibility for overseeing several military interventions in the 1920s and 1930s. Although 

a military institution, it may have been the closest approximation to a colonial office 

developed by the United States, albeit one that employed soldiers as its professional 

cadre. Earl S. Pomeroy, “The American Colonial Office,” Mississippi Valley Historical

Review 30, no. 4 (March 1944): 521–32.

3. A New York Times article in December 1900, citing the secretary of war’s annual 

report to Congress, listed military operations against insurgents, civil administration, 

customs enforcement, public works, education reform, relief operations, building 

roads, and preventive medicine as among the various duties being conducted by the 

Army in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines. “Secretary of War Submits his Report,” New York Times, 4 December 1900.

4. Doctrine used in the early twentieth-century US military sense connoted a 

commonly accepted set of precepts and lessons for conducting operations rather than 

formal written guidance. Lacking the highly structured doctrinal process of today, 

such concepts in the early 1900s were usually transmitted though the small officer and 

NCO corps though training, practice, and occasionally professional journals. Not until the 1930s did the Marine Corps produce its Small Wars Manual to codify nearly 40 

years of practice.

5. Perault was finally killed during a raid on his camp, and, to prove his voodoo 

had failed him, the Marines publicly displayed his body, an action that did not irritate 

local sensitivities.

6. Frederick M. Wise and Meigs O. Frost, A Marine Tells It to You (New York: J. H. 

Sears and Co., 1929), 301–04.

7. US Marine Corps, Small Wars Manual (Washington, DC: GPO, 1940).

8. Harry L. Coles and Albert K. Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors, 

US Army in World War II series (Washington, DC: GPO, 1964).

9. The Navy soon realized it also required a civilian-military capability, but one 

much smaller in scope, to assist island commanders in the Pacific. Thus, it established 

its own cadre of personnel, trained at Stanford University. During and after the war, 

naval officers governed many of the Pacific islands recaptured from the Japanese.

10. Carl J. Friederich, American Experiences in Military Government in World 

War II (New York: Rinehart and Company, 1948).

11. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (New York: Doubleday and Company, 

1949), 127–33.

12. Friederich, American Experiences in Military Government, 197–237; Eisenhower, 

Crusade in Europe, 433–36.

13. Nicholaus Mills, Winning the Peace: The Marshall Plan and America’s Coming of 

Age as a Superpower (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2008), 79–81, 104.

14. Robert E. Osgood, Limited War: The Challenge to American Strategy (Chicago: 

University of Chicago Press, 1957).

15. Additionally, some unit commanders resented civil affairs programs for siphoning off their best men and too often diverting their units to protecting populated 

areas rather than fighting main-force North Vietnamese and Viet Cong units, which 

they saw as their primary mission.

16. See the chapters in part 2 of this book.
24 │ MOORE

17. See chapter 4 of this book, as the author, Rufus Phillips, provides a first-person account of the CORDS program.

18. Robert Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional Constraints on U.S.–

GVN Performance in Vietnam (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1972), 86–87.

19. Senate, Civil Operations and Rural Development Support Program: Hearings 

before the Committee on Foreign Relations on US Senate, 91st Cong., 2nd sess., February–

March 1970.

20. In recent years, civilian agencies engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan reconstruction, most often USAID, have cited CORDS as being the prototype of civilian agency 

capabilities in conflict zones. The reality of CORDS tempers that claim.

21. Harry G. Summers, On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War (Novato, 

CA: Presidio Press, 1982).

22. Caspar W. Weinberger, secretary of defense, “The Uses of Military Power” 

(address, National Press Club, Washington, DC, 28 November 1984).

23. See chapter 2 in this book.

24. Colin L. Powell, “U.S. Forces: Challenges Ahead,” Foreign Affairs 71, no. 5 

(Winter 1992/1993): 32–45. Ironically and apparently ignored by Powell, large numbers of US marines and soldiers remained in Panama for many months after combat 

operations ended, providing governance and economic development at the provincial 

and local levels. Few civilians deployed to assist them. (Author’s personal experiences.)

25. See, for example, Presidential Decision Directive (PDD-56), signed in 1997, and 

a follow-on handbook issued by the National Security Council later that year, Complex 

Contingency Operations Handbook. Both outline a system for civilian-military coordination while dividing specific tasks along agency and department lines. The latter specifically addresses planning for transition to “follow-on operations” by the UN.

26. For example, see chapter 7 of this book, written by Bernard Carreau.

27. Section 1207 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of FY 2006 

and FY 2007 authorized the DOD to provide up to 200 million dollars over two years 

in funds, services, and defense articles to the DOS for security, reconstruction, and 

stabilization.

28. The term “nontraditional” was most famously coined by Secretary of Defense 

Robert Gates in a speech given at Kansas State University in November 2007 in 

which he called for developing robust civilian capabilities to work alongside military 

forces. Robert M. Gates, secretary of defense, Landon Lecture (address, Manhattan, 

Kansas, 26 November 2007), http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid

=1199.

29. US Code Title 18 US § 3161, Employment and Compensation of Employees.
Chapter 2

Civilian-Military Teaming (1989–1995)

An Examination of Postconflict Operations

in Panama, Kuwait, and Haiti

Dennis Craig Barlow

The rubble that until weeks earlier was the Berlin Wall was still 

strewn on the ground when operations to topple the Manuel Noriega 

regime in Panama were under way. During the six years following the 

fall of the Iron Curtain, the United States would engage in a whirlwind of civilian-military missions unlike anything it had ever planned 

or conducted. Among these were taking down the oppressive Noriega 

government, driving Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait, providing life-sustaining services to Iraqi Kurds, trying to bring order 

among long-festering factions in the Balkans, divining the nature of 

warlords in Somalia, responding to genocide in sub-Saharan Africa, 

and seeking to restore basic human well-being in Haiti. All defied 

conventional approaches to national security challenges, and the 

United States responded with an evolving set of civilian and military 

packages to meet these new challenges.

US plans for operations in Panama, the first of these national security challenges, envisioned virtually no civilian-military coordination. 

The military responded to the call to take down the Noriega regime 

with a combat force that, while paying lip service to civilian-military 

auxiliary planning, conducted modified civilian-military operations 

only in the face of mission failure. Operation Desert Storm once again 

placed almost total emphasis on combat operations, but the fortuitous 

assignment of key personnel and the timely—and frequent—oversight 

of key policy makers assured that the Kuwaiti infrastructure and rule 

of law would be supported by key civilian-military actions. US government activities in Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti not only 

were buttressed by civilian-military plans but also choreographed on 

a daily basis by a comprehensive and integrated interagency team 

that oversaw and reacted to events as they happened.

This chapter is based on the firsthand observations of one participant involved in developing the policy-operational continuum relating 
26 │ BARLOW

to civilian-military actions in three post–Cold War operations: Panama (1989–90), Kuwait (1990–91), and Haiti (1994–95). Six key suggestions have been culled from these operations to help inform the 

planning and implementation of future civilian-military plans.

Panama 1989: Operation Blind Logic—

An Unfortunate but Appropriate Name

Depending on one’s perspective, the Panama intervention was one 

of the most successful or unsuccessful US military operations in the 

second half of the twentieth century. The reason for the disparity is 

that war fighters who measure an operation by doctrinal application 

of combat capabilities, tactical coordination, precision targeting, logistical support, lack of friendly casualties, and swiftness of mission 

accomplishment can point to Operation Just Cause, also known as 

Operation Blue Spoon, the combat plan for Panama, as a model of 

such efficiencies.1

 However, those who look to the accomplishment of 

political and economic goals and the integration of national assets to 

cooperate in achieving restoration and societal stabilization can point 

to Operation Promote Liberty, the restoration plan for postcombat 

Panama, as a primer of what not to do.

From the beginning, the two plans were entirely bifurcated, and 

there was virtually no interagency planning.2

 As amazing as it may 

seem, a mission that included as one of its four goals the development 

of “a plan to assist any government that might replace the Noriega 

regime” did not involve the Department of State (DOS), United States 

Agency for International Development (USAID), or the Department 

of Justice (DOJ) in any element of planning.3

 Further, when the operation transitioned to civilians, both the DOS and the DOJ were 

slow and reluctant to respond. They were not prepared or programmed for the kind of situation that Just Cause presented. To the 

very end of Operation Just Cause/Promote Liberty (January 1991), 

no interagency team was ever constituted.4

The Army civil affairs (CA) staff officer who was charged with coordinating and reviewing the restoration plan was Lt Col Rex Burns. 

Although he held the highest security clearances, he was denied access to the combat portions of the Panama plan within the Pentagon. 

He also was directed specifically not to coordinate or even to make 

contact with civilian agencies—especially the DOS—regarding the 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING (1989–1995) │ 27

civil affairs plan. This was not isolated guidance; even senior officials, 

such as the US Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) commander, 

Gen Frederick F. Woerner, Jr., had been prohibited from coordinating 

the civilian-military plan with the DOS, ostensibly to maintain operational secrecy.5

Lieutenant Colonel Burns coordinated planning for the stabilization and restoration of basic services and normalcy in postconflict 

Panama, working with his counterpart on the USSOUTHCOM J-5 

(Civil Military Sections) and five US Army Reserve CA units that 

were aligned to the Latin America region. Collectively those units 

possessed extensive linguistic, cultural, and professional knowledge 

of Panama. By traveling to each unit (they were all located in the 

southeast United States), Burns was able to meet with command representatives of each unit and develop a scheme of postconflict assignments designed to quell disturbances, prepare for a military police 

presence, restore rule of law, maintain public safety and health, and 

deploy advisors with civilian professional and social expertise who 

would consult with Panamanian officials. The plan, however, was 

based on the assumption that the national security authorities would 

implement the presidential authority to activate the selected US 

Army Reserve CA units.6

 This never happened.

During the weeks preceding the military intervention, Burns and 

I, then on the Joint Staff, issued several papers recommending that 

the National Command Authority approve the activation of the Reserve units and recommended coordinating with the DOS with regard to developing reconstruction guidelines and criteria for the 

transition from a military to civilian lead. We also requested that the 

Pentagon convene the interagency Joint Civil Affairs Committee 

(JCAC) mandated by an overarching Pentagon document, the Joint 

Services Capability Plan. However, no action was taken based on 

these staff recommendations.7

 The two staff officers were told repeatedly that the combat phase was the most important; the restoration 

phase would just have to wait. We were also told that no one wanted 

to burden the president and other decision makers with distracting 

political decisions, for example, determining to exercise activation 

authority.8

When it became unclear if the Army Reserve CA units would be 

activated, the CA staff officers in the Pentagon recommended to 

Army staff brigadier general William W. Crouch that a volunteer civil 

affairs task force be mustered from the five units previously identified 
28 │ BARLOW

for deployment. His concurrence began five hectic days in which the 

CA reserve volunteer task force, known as the Civil Military Operations Task Force (CMOTF), was selected and prepared for deployment. 

The delay proved extremely costly; the five days of resultant lawlessness and rioting caused over a billion dollars in damages to an already 

poor and suffering nation. To some Americans, the scenes of looting 

became the overriding image of the operations in Panama. None of 

the plans to implement public safety procedures were included in the 

final operational plan.

As a result of the chaos in the streets, Gen Maxwell R. Thurman 

directed Air Force brigadier general Bernard Gann to assume command of the derived CMOTF and, in conjunction with the chargé 

d’affaires at the US embassy, to “assist the newly inaugurated Panamanian government.”9

 Placing an Air Force general in the role of government liaison, giving a staff officer the role of commander, and 

placing an ad hoc USAR CA force under his control contravened 

both doctrine and common practice.10 The DOS in Panama, understaffed and ignorant of the planning and personnel involved, did not 

accept the mission. General Gann was forced to proceed on his own.11

The CMOTF, as a composite unit, found itself without its own flag 

rank officer in command and without the normal logistical and administrative support of regular military units.12 It was difficult to 

achieve consistent support, gain recognition of legitimacy, or operate 

within clear lines of authority. Nevertheless, General Gann and his 

Army Reserve CMOTF commander, Col Bill Stone, directed the field 

grade officers who comprised the 25-man task force to establish 

themselves as advisors to the various government agencies in Panama. 

In a generally unheralded mission, these diplomat warriors brought 

clarity, competence, and calm to the newly organized government of 

Panamanian president Guillermo Endara in the early days of 1990.

A more immediate problem, both as a result of the rioting and the 

military destruction, was the restoration of lifesaving services and 

public safety. The 96th CA Battalion, an active duty unit deployed as 

part of Operation Just Cause, immediately went into action and provided billeting, food, and emergency medical services to the displaced persons of Panama City. Literally overnight, the battalion created a tent city at Balboa High School, built latrines and water points, 

and promulgated waste disposal and other sanitary procedures. This 

unit of fewer than 200 soldiers provided stability and calm in the otherwise frantic and dangerous combat zone in Panama City.
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING (1989–1995) │ 29

However, the greater challenges of disarming the dreaded Panamanian Defense Force, developing an ad hoc police force, and developing long-term civilian government plans fell to the main combat 

force of the operation, Joint Task Force Panama. The challenge of 

bringing all the postcombat missions under the cognizance of one 

organization was met by creating an omnibus unit called the Military 

Support Group (MSG). Handpicked active duty soldiers were selected based on education or prior experience in the region; the 

CMOTF consisting of civil affairs reservists was included as were the 

active duty CA and psychological operations units. The MSG and its 

component parts, although poorly coordinated internally, worked 

hard and long at creating nascent and effective relationships and governance solutions.13

A Lack of Civil-Military Cooperation in Panama

From the beginning, the combat phase took complete precedence 

over the “residual” postconflict phase.14 The DOD isolated itself from 

other agencies, as it allowed both inter- and intraservice considerations to drive the composition of forces and command and control 

relationships throughout the Panama postconflict operations of 

1989–90. 

It is perhaps unfortunate that the brilliant combat leader General 

Thurmond replaced the politically astute General Woerner. Thurmond 

later admitted that he did not even spend five minutes considering the 

reconstruction plan as he hastily prepared to conduct operations.15

It is easy to point fingers at the US military leaders in Panama in 

December of 1989. It must be remembered, however, that this was 

the first major military operation after the end of the Cold War, and 

in spite of incredible obstacles, the staff and operators crafted an ad 

hoc postconflict civilian-military system that sufficed. A greater inhibitor to implementing an effective postconflict mission might take 

cognizance of national political leaders who set initial goals for the 

mission but seemed to take no special efforts to shape or influence 

the ongoing operations. Richard Shultz, in his early and classic examination of restoration missions, In the Aftermath of War: US Support for 

Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause,

concluded that “in the future, senior officials have to be more interested.”16

Unfortunately, several subsequent operations and policy decisions 

jump to mind to remind us that senior officials often seem detached 
30 │ BARLOW

once operations are under way. The reasons for this phenomenon 

would make interesting research material but are beyond the scope of 

this work.

Operation Desert Storm: Restoring Kuwait (1990–91)

The lessons of Panama were not entirely lost on participants in the 

next military operation, the liberation of Kuwait. Many of the same 

officials in Washington, DC—military and civilian—occupied the 

same offices as they had during the Panama operations; however, 

most of them were oriented to the Middle East and were not directly 

impacted by the events in Latin America. Moreover, they had not 

necessarily gleaned any “take-aways” from the operations in Panama.

Many contend that the success of postconflict operations in Kuwait 

was due mostly to the fortuitous circumstance of the “deep pockets” of 

the Kuwaitis and that the financial and operational support of others—

Saudis, Europeans, and Japanese—obviated any real need for a robust 

and complete civilian-military plan for transition and reconstruction. The facts suggest otherwise.

Monitoring events in the Middle East, CA staff officers in Washington, DC, were considering possible civilian-military responses 

prior to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990. Many of the action officers had been involved in developing plans for Operation 

Promote Liberty in Panama the year before and had seen those plans 

scuttled just prior to the execution of the mission. They were resolved 

not to let that happen again. A key civilian-military issue had been 

framed by Pres. George H. W. Bush when he identified one of the four 

“simple” goals driving US participation as “restoring Kuwait’s legitimate government in place of a puppet regime.”17 However, accomplishing that goal would be anything but simple. Some Kuwaiti officials had gone to ground, while others emigrated abroad to await the 

conclusion of the ground war. The puppet regime installed by Saddam Hussein would follow the Iraqi dictator’s every wish and could 

wreak havoc on the society and infrastructure of Kuwait. Trying to 

help the Kuwaitis restore the country and install a legitimate postSaddam regime in Kuwait was a daunting task. While the mission 

seemed to point to the DOS, recent operations in Panama suggested 

that aid from the DOS would not be available until well after hostilities had ceased. 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING (1989–1995) │ 31

In spite of the imminence of action, the US Central Command 

(USCENTCOM) had not developed a civilian-military plan (the required Annex G [Civil Affairs] to its operational plans) for Iraq.18 The 

Joint Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) were 

given no assurances that any consideration would be given to postcombat missions. Therefore, there was reason to fear that civilianmilitary missions and forces would again be given short shrift in war 

planning consideration as was the case in Panama.

On 14 August 1990, less than a week after President Bush demanded the immediate and complete withdrawal of all Iraqi forces 

from Kuwait, Assistant Secretary of Defense Jim Locher, with the lessons of Panama in mind, developed a paper recommending that the 

OSD consider raising the issue of postconflict planning. It suggested 

that the DOD consider its role in the “restoration of Kuwait;” coordinate restoration plans with the DOS; and activate the JCAC, a board 

of senior advisors designed to provide advice to the chairman of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff on CA matters.19 Locher believed that the president’s statements provided clear guidance to begin civil-military 

planning at once.20 He and Assistant Secretary of Defense Henry 

Rowan sent a joint memo to the director of the Joint Staff (DJS) on 22 

August, requesting comments and approval to develop an approach 

to crafting a postconflict strategy.21 Within a week, Locher received a 

handwritten note from the DJS that rejected the idea from Locher 

and Rowan, noting that activation of the JCAC would be inappropriate.22 While no explanation accompanied this response, there were 

verbal discussions within the Joint Staff that characterized the activation of the JCAC as relatively unimportant compared to the urgent 

mission of preparing combat operations plans.

During the next six weeks, neither the USCENTCOM nor its 

Army component took any significant action to develop civil-military or postconflict plans in conjunction with rapidly developing war 

plans. Nor, for that matter, were there plans to request presidential 

authority to call up CA reservists and units. Concurrently, message 

traffic was quite explicit in concluding that “USCENTCOM was illprepared to conduct CA operations.”23 Discussion among rank and 

file action officers in the Pentagon focused on emphasizing combat 

missions and said that other considerations—specifically postconflict 

or restoration operations—must be attended to after the war fighting 

was over. Despite requests from the Joint Staff and the OSD, responses 

from the staffs of USCENTCOM, the Department of the Army, and 
32 │ BARLOW

Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) did not promise any 

postconflict planning related to Operation Desert Shield.24 A common response to these requests was that no one wanted to tell a regional commander—and especially not a strong-willed leader like 

Gen Norman Schwarzkopf—how to do his job.

Locher, nevertheless, decided that it was time for the OSD to construct a policy directive on civilian-military goals that would benefit 

“the field.”25 He believed it would be the kind of guidance General 

Schwarzkopf would find helpful. To ensure the fullest participation in 

the process, the ASD–SO/LIC invited representatives from the Army, 

USSOCOM, and the Joint Staff to develop the directive. Accordingly, 

a draft version was completed around 25 August. Over the next several weeks, however, the process slowed significantly as the Army 

staff raised concerns and continually offered alternatives. The process 

dragged on into early October when the project, which had slowed to 

a near stop, was ended. General Schwarzkopf, who had become aware 

of the effort within the Pentagon, declared that no policy guidance 

should be provided because he required none.26

On 20 September 1990, an event occurred that broke the stalemate. The Kuwaiti government-in-exile dispatched 20 specialists to 

Washington to establish a reconstruction planning structure under 

the authority of Amb. Saud Nasir al-Sabah.

Col Randall Elliott, a member of the 351st Civil Affairs Brigade, was 

a senior officer assigned to the DOS and knew ambassador-designate 

to Kuwait Edward “Skip” Gnehm. Gnehm informed Elliott of the 

newly arrived Kuwaiti team of specialists. Elliott told Gnehm that his 

Army Reserve CA unit possessed the kind of planning, cultural, and 

functional expertise that the Kuwaitis might find useful. Gnehm 

wasted no time in taking the information to the Kuwaitis, who wanted 

to hear more.27 The Kuwaiti government-in-exile sent a request to the 

director of the Joint Staff, Lt Gen Michael P. C. Carns, for a DOD 

department briefing, and the request was quickly approved.

On 4 October 1990, the Joint Staff civil affairs staff officer briefed 

the Kuwaiti contingent, now known as the Kuwait Emergency and 

Recovery Program (KERP) in the Pentagon. Also present at the briefing were Ambassador Gnehm; the J-3 of the Joint Staff, Lt Gen Tom 

Kelly; Headquarters, Department of the Army and USCENTCOM 

representatives; and OSD officials. At the conclusion of the presentation, 

the Kuwaitis showed considerable interest in obtaining US Army CA 

support to help restore their country; a request was duly delivered to 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING (1989–1995) │ 33

the president on 9 October 1990.28 A scant 10 days later, ASD–SO/LIC 

Locher attended a deputies committee meeting in which the topic of 

support to KERP was on the agenda. The committee agreed to provide restoration and planning advice and assistance to the government of Kuwait.29

The deputies committee met on 15 October and approved CA support to the Kuwaitis. A mid-level Pentagon civilian-military team 

was tasked to develop guidelines for CA support to the Kuwaitis, 

while senior leaders were acting on decisions made at the 19 October 

deputies committee meeting.30 National Security Council (NSC) 

member Robert Gates recommended that the DOS, OSD, and Joint 

Staff establish a steering group to develop a postconflict plan in conjunction with the Kuwaitis.31

The steering group produced the terms of reference that specified 

that the DOS and the DOD share responsibilities for developing a 

civil-restoration program, assisted by other departments and agencies when appropriate. The steering group committee, chaired by the 

DOS, was to oversee the planning effort along with members from 

the OSD and the Joint Staff. The government of Kuwait was expected 

to execute applicable contracts for services and equipment with US 

civilian firms, and the US government was to be allowed to request 

reimbursement for the cost of services rendered. Semimonthly reports were to be distributed to the DOS, OSD, Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

NSC, and USCENTCOM.32

On 22 October, a DOS official attending an interagency meeting 

hosted by Assistant Secretary Locher volunteered to draft a memorandum of understanding between the United States and the government of Kuwait. At the same time, the Joint Staff would distribute a 

message from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Colin 

Powell, asking the Department of the Army to create a task force to 

assist in planning with the Kuwaiti officials.

On 1 November, the KERP received an update briefing. The same 

day, the deputies committee confirmed the members of the steering 

group committee. The steering group authorized the establishment of 

a United States–Kuwait Civil Affairs Group, specifically to oversee 

civil-military planning efforts, and endorsed working groups for each 

of the CA functional areas.33

In spite of the fact that high-ranking policy officials in Washington 

had authorized this plan, it nevertheless became stuck in the Pentagon. With reservations about the capabilities of its reserve CA units 
34 │ BARLOW

and concerns that it had been forced into an unfamiliar role, the 

Army staff and USSOCOM offered numerous objections to the formation and employment of the Kuwait Task Force (KTF). The Army 

staff felt that the DOS and other civilian agencies should have assumed the role that the CA reserve soldiers were to shoulder. After 

all, the restoration of government dealt with traditional civilian, not 

military, matters.34 While the concept of interagency play finally had 

been articulated, the Army CA role was encountering opposition 

from within the Army itself. Doctrine entirely supported the concept 

of operations, and a vast amount of resources had been directed to 

the training, equipping, and employment of the CA force to conduct 

this kind of mission. However, there were those in the Army who felt 

uncomfortable with such a mission or who were afraid that the civil 

affairs forces would not measure up. The issue of Army prerogatives 

in conflict with interagency actions poses a perennial issue in Washington: the primacy of policy guidance over organizational prerogatives. The question revolved around determining how firm and how 

binding was the guidance of interagency representatives (National 

Security Council, the deputies committee, the DOS, and DOD officials) that called for the formation of a CA task force, over the Army, 

the USSOCOM, and the commander of USCENTCOM.

The draft Joint Staff message authorizing activation of the KTF required concurrence from the Army, and the decision became contentious. The arguments of the Army and elements within the Joint Staff 

and a silent USSOCOM had given General Carns, the director of the 

Joint Staff, pause.35 He delayed the activation order for the selected 

reserve members of the 352nd CA Command as he considered other 

alternatives, including declaring the mission a DOS responsibility. 

On the evening of 21 November, after an exasperating and frustrating 

week, Assistant Secretaries of Defense Locher and Rowan requested a 

meeting with General Carns, and together they argued that giving 

the mission to the reserve CA unit was doctrinally correct and the 

smart way to go.36 Carns agreed and gave a “thumbs up” to the deployment order that tasked the chief of staff of the Army and the commander 

of the USSOCOM to activate a CA task force to support the government 

of Kuwait in developing restoration plans in Washington, DC.37

The Army—as it had done in Panama—inexplicably and at the last 

moment precluded the unit commander from deploying with his 

unit; so command of the KTF fell to Colonel Elliott. His team consisted of reserve soldiers who had previous experience in Panama the 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING (1989–1995) │ 35

year before and highly qualified members of the unit whose professional skills matched perceived requirements in Kuwait. His designated 

deputy was Maj Andrew Natsios (in civilian life, the director of the 

Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance [OFDA] in USAID).38 The team 

assessed hot-button issues such as due process of law regarding suspected Iraqi sympathizers, possible sabotage, reconstruction of electrical grids, possible oil fires, and provision of needed food and medicine. 

The unit worked every day—including Christmas—between its 

activation and its eventual deployment date of 26 January 1991. Elliott 

put into place an ambitious phased plan that culminated in the creation 

of the preliminary Annex G, Civilian Action Plan, designed to become 

part of the USCENTCOM’s operational plan.39 The KTF developed 

these plans in coordination with 27 US government agencies—a happy 

circumstance owing to operating in the nation’s capital. Elliott introduced the Kuwaitis to Army engineering personnel who were later to 

deliver critical support to Kuwait in the spring and summer of 1991. 

The KERP group also received briefings from the Federal Emergency 

Management Agency and OFDA.40 Colonel Elliott made the most of 

his task force’s location in downtown Washington, DC.

The creation of bonds of trust between KTF members and their 

Kuwaiti counterparts on the KERP made the KTF’s crucial work possible. While much of the planning support took the form of KTF 

members acting as “honest brokers” to identify reliable contractors 

and develop workable procedures, a great deal of effort was focused 

on the sequencing of postconflict actions and identifying agencies 

(both US and Kuwaiti) that would support a comprehensive plan of 

action. Of particular import to the US was ensuring the rights and 

safety of Palestinian and other third-party nationals after the liberation of Kuwait, since the region was rife with rumors of these groups 

committing atrocities against Kuwaitis.41

In January 1991, the emir of Kuwait, apprised of the progress of the 

KTF, requested that it deploy to the area of operations. USCENTCOM 

concurred with this request. The steering group committee and the 

undersecretary of state for political affairs coordinated the effort with 

the Pentagon, and on 31 January, the KTF deployed to Saudi Arabia.42

The KTF acted quickly, continuing to coordinate with the Kuwaiti 

ministerial representatives. However, a problem remained. Colonel 

Elliott assumed that his long-term planning with Kuwaiti government officials would continue after his deployment. Nevertheless, 

when in theater, the KTF was, as is usual, placed under the control of 
36 │ BARLOW

the commander of USCENTCOM. There was an expectation that the 

KTF would “fall in” under the normal chain of command.43 This was 

a crucial moment. US policy makers had created the KTF to develop 

long-term and high-policy issues relating to the restoration of the society of Kuwait. USCENTCOM, however, focused on the immediate 

CA missions of managing displaced civilians and assuring that lifepreserving goods and services were delivered.

Ambassador Gnehm and General Schwarzkopf hammered out a 

solution via a meeting in which they decided that the KTF would 

continue its higher-level coordination while providing liaison duties 

for US Army Central Command (ARCENT) and USCENTCOM. 

The focus of KTF work, however, shifted from long-term to shortterm (emergency) restoration projects.44

The creation of a Combined Civil Affairs Task Force (CCATF) allowed 

synchronization of all civilian-military actions. In turn, the CCATF became part of Task Force Freedom, a composite service-support unit commanded by the deputy commanding general of ARCENT, Brig Gen 

Robert Frix, who provided the KTF a “home” within the USCENTCOM 

structure in which it could conduct its civilian-military activities.45

The US-led coalition ground war began on 24 February 1991. The 

CCATF moved into Kuwait City on 1 March. The KTF accomplished 

its work within the context of Task Force Freedom’s missions and 

continued to do so until 15 April, when it handed the job over to Maj 

Gen Patrick Kelly, the head of the Defense Reconstruction Assistance 

Office, an agency of the US Army Corps of Engineers. Although the 

government of Kuwait requested that the KTF remain until December 1991, KDF redeployed with its parent unit, the 352nd, on 10 May.

In spite of the fact that the invading Iraqis and subsequent plundering and vandalism caused much infrastructural damage, within 

one month after the end of the fighting, 50 percent of the telecommunications and transportation systems in Kuwait were restored, 

and 30 percent of the devastated electrical grid was repaired. More 

importantly, not one Kuwaiti died from thirst, starvation, or lack of 

medical attention after the liberation.46 Civil rights were immediately 

restored and, astonishingly, there were virtually no acts of retribution 

or vigilantism directed against suspected collaborators.

Due to the scores of contracts facilitated by the KTF and coordination among military units, 2.8 million liters of diesel fuel, 1,250 tons of 

medicine, 12.9 million liters of water, 12,500 metric tons of food, 250 

electric generators, and 750 vehicles were delivered to the devastated 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING (1989–1995) │ 37

country.47 By the time the KTF departed, the Kuwaiti medical system 

was operating at 98 percent of its prewar capacity, the international 

airport was reopened, and the police force was fully operational. All 

major roads were opened—as was one port—while two others were 

being swept of mines.

The postconflict planning and execution of the KTF has drawn 

high praise. From the New York Times to officials of the DOS and 

DOD, there is unstinting praise for both the levels of expertise and 

the passion and dedication KTF members brought to this task.48

The members of the KTF must have been pleased when Secretary 

of Defense Dick Cheney said to them, “Your role in the US government 

assistance to the Government of Kuwait in the reconstruction of that 

country was exceptional, both for its swiftness and the depth of expertise which you provided. The extraordinary skills resident only in the 

Reserve Component were absolutely essential to these successes.”49

Desert Storm: Civilian-Military Cooperation Improves: 

Lucky or Smart?

While the civilian-military plan for Kuwait faced many of the same 

challenges as the operation in Panama, those who executed the plan 

were able to overcome those obstacles because senior US government 

leaders took an energetic interest in it; many of the US officials involved had been cross-trained among various government agencies; 

many of the planners were to become implementers, thus insuring 

continuity; and interagency communications and coordination efforts were timely and efficient. Unfortunately, each of these situations 

was to some degree serendipitous and unlikely to be replicated.

On the negative side, Army intraservice issues again hurt unit 

composition, planning, deployment, and effectiveness. Additionally, 

the issue of Washington officials walking a fine line between giving 

guidance and respecting the commander’s (or chief of mission’s) authority proved delicate indeed.

Operation Uphold Democracy: Haiti (1994–95)

After the success of CA actions in Kuwait and Northern Iraq (Operation Provide Comfort), CA enjoyed a time of relative high-level 

cognizance during which decision makers and senior officials in various agency positions were aware of and valued the capabilities that 
38 │ BARLOW

CA afforded. CA planners were included in the process, as options 

were considered for dealing with the junta installed in Haiti by Gen 

Raoul Cédras.

Fortunately for the United States, there was strong international 

support, including a clear and strong stance from the United Nations 

(UN), to restore Jean-Bertrand Aristide to the presidency of Haiti 

and to oust the usurper, Cédras. Unfortunately, the United States had 

no clear idea of what to do after Aristide was reinstalled.50

For months in early 1994, the US Atlantic Command (USACOM) 

had been planning two possible scenarios for entering Haiti: permissible and forceful. While developing the alternate plans, the 10th Infantry Division and the XVIII Airborne Corps generally kept to themselves and were not accessible to other US government agencies.51

Nevertheless, in April Secretary of Defense William Perry insisted 

that his department begin a strong interagency planning effort.52 This 

process evolved throughout the summer and culminated in a Washington-wide team of very high-level officials, the executive committee (EXCOM), which met frequently and garnered a quick reputation 

for its direct and no-nonsense approach to crafting an interagency 

process to accomplish policy goals in Haiti.

The aggressive and energetic Richard Clark of the NSC chaired 

EXCOM. Clark kept the meetings short, employing a brisk and direct 

style that held each member—senior or not—strictly accountable. 

Principals who attended these meetings included US Marine Corps 

general John J. Sheehan (commander of USACOM), Adm William A. 

Owens (vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), Deputy Secretary 

of State Strobe Talbot, Amb. James Dobbins of the DOS, Deputy Secretary of Defense John Deutch, and directors of various agencies, 

principally the USAID.

The EXCOM often held meetings on Saturday mornings, precluding interference from day-to-day business, frequently at Jefferson 

Square, in the Pentagon, or even in the Situation Room of the White 

House. Clark encouraged members to bring action officers with them 

to provide in-depth background but ultimately held each principal 

responsible for his agency’s actions.

Daily teleconferences supplemented the EXCOM meetings, attempting to drive policy guidelines down the chain while receiving 

feedback and recommendations back up the operational-to-policy 

apparatus. It was not unusual to have nine military headquarters and 

US government agencies participate in the morning teleconferences. 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING (1989–1995) │ 39

It was also not unusual to have agency members of the highest rank 

participating on a regular basis.

Meetings and teleconferences of the EXCOM not only fostered a 

coordinated planning and phasing system but also, perhaps more importantly, became the accepted fora to explore potential problems 

and suggest possible solutions. Additionally, it became easier for 

mid-level agency counterparts to coordinate with each other and to 

know more fully the context in which they were working.53

On 16 September, when a mission to Haiti led by former president 

Jimmy Carter, Senator Sam Nunn, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff Gen Colin Powell had successfully negotiated the resignation 

and departure of the Haitian military junta, the game changed entirely for the US military, which had been primarily concerned with 

the now moot combat phase. Fortunately, the postconflict plans formulated by the USACOM under the guidance of the EXCOM were 

executed nimbly and effectively.

There were problems. The rules of engagement were vague and resulted in several deadly and high-profile breakdowns of law and order.54 The despised Force Armee d’Haiti (Fad’H), which had gone to 

ground, was capable of emerging stronger than ever. Most towns 

were without decent water, electricity, and medical care of any kind. 

The populace was hungry, scared, ill, suspicious, unemployed, and 

prone to mob violence.

Gen David Meade, commander of the 10th Mountain Division, 

took a minimalist view of the security he was to maintain and basically kept his troops in garrison. This resulted in criticism from those 

who thought the US military force was showing a lack of fortitude or 

commitment.55 Eventually a multinational police force provided security in the larger cities, while special forces teams provided security 

for scores of towns in the hinterland.56

However, the basic questions of the US troops on the ground 

were, “How much do we do?” and “What are we not to do?” There 

existed an international legal requirement to establish a safe and 

healthy environment. In Haiti those conditions were difficult to achieve 

in the best of times. Nevertheless, there was also the clearly stated policy not to engage in mission creep or to conduct nation-building activities.57 To a special forces sergeant, to a USAID coordinator, to a civil 

affairs ministerial advisor, when was one restoring life-sustaining services and when was one engaged in nation-building? It is interesting to 

note that 18 years after Operation Uphold Democracy, critics of the 
40 │ BARLOW

mission remain divided between those who would have done more 

and those who would have done less.

At the highest levels, the interagency machinery had worked. The 

USAID Office of Disaster Assistance was first on the ground, brokering needs and assistance. Office of Transitional Initiatives contractors 

carried out that work. The former commissioner of the New York 

City Police, Ray Kelly, worked with the International Police Monitors 

to create an effective police force, designed to prepare the way for a 

new force to be created under the auspices of the Department of Justice’s International Criminal Investigative Program.58 Special forces 

teams fanned out through the countryside to provide both immediate security and life-saving services to those in the rural areas. The 

Office of the Secretary of Defense had created a high-ranking CA 

team that redesigned the penal system. General Sheehan had been 

convinced that he needed to establish a civil-military operations center (CMOC) in Port au Prince to coordinate the activities of nongovernmental organizations (NGO) with military operations. This effort 

to engage local NGOs and get them back on their feet was Admiral 

Owens’s particular emphasis.59 CA officers coordinated with the head 

of each ministry to get them back on track.60 Other Army CA teams 

tackled the problem of providing clean water, electricity, and medicine to suffering communities. These teams applied the civic action 

model of helping the Haitians plan the engineering improvements 

but having the inhabitants conduct the work and receive credit for 

doing so. Nevertheless, it was difficult not to do more or conversely 

not to create high expectations among the citizenry as to what they 

could expect from the Americans.61

Back in Washington, the EXCOM had established the interagency 

mid-level Haiti Working Group to prioritize and coordinate aid provided by US agencies and NGOs. A five-phase program, based on CA 

functional areas, was being implemented to insure a proper handoff 

to the UN on the last day of March 1995. Washington officials made 

periodic trips to Haiti to gauge the effectiveness and progress of the 

US team effort. One such effort was a tactical tour by Undersecretary 

of Defense Walt Slocombe and the head of the strategic plans and policy directorate of the Joint Staff, Lt Gen Wesley Clark. Both men were 

advocates of a clear exit strategy for Haiti, as they accompanied Maj 

Gen David Meade throughout the country to gain a better understanding of the nature and effectiveness of the operation.
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING (1989–1995) │ 41

When the time came to hand off to the UN, it went easily. USACOM 

had developed a “UN Staff Training Program” to prepare UN personnel for their mission. Maj Gen Joseph Kinser assumed the dual role of 

US and UN commander. Even the special forces elements developed 

ad hoc procedures with their new UN counterparts.62

Operation Uphold Democracy:

The Policy Operational Gap

While the core mission in Haiti had a clear goal—the restoration 

of the legally elected president—its objectives relating to providing 

security, life-sustaining services, stability, and a healthy environment 

for the Haitians were nebulous.

Perhaps never before had so many senior interagency players come 

together to plan, implement, coordinate, and conduct transition activities on behalf of a limited national security operation. The result was 

clarity among virtually all of the US government agencies as to roles 

and schedules. The credit for this has to go to a dynamic band of highranking leaders, including William Perry, Richard Clark, James Dobbins, Strobe Talbot, Walt Slocombe, Wesley Clark, and John J. Sheehan.

However, the consensus was that while senior leaders knew the 

intent and intended flow of the mission, policy makers failed to impart this vision completely to the units and organizations on the 

ground. Army units were continually wondering about rules of engagement, the level of expected or tolerated nation-building activities, and what to do when confronted with the threat of violence. 

Some unit commanders erred on the side of doing nothing; others 

stepped up and became virtual provincial governors.

Routinely, deployed US military units did not know how, where, or if 

USAID was doing its job. DOS officials on the ground were either absent or invisible to their military counterparts. This situation was even 

more baffling since policy makers had brought so many mid-level staffers and officials into the coordinated planning process in Washington. 

Perhaps they were too busy to push such mundane matters as liaison 

and coordination down the chain. Perhaps they were concerned with 

crossing over into another agency’s bailiwick, or perhaps—as is most 

likely—they left it to the soldiers and officials on the ground to settle 

on ways of working together. Whatever the reasons, it seems clear 

that while individual operators, units, and agencies were doing heroic 
42 │ BARLOW

and energetic work, they were mostly operating in an uncoordinated 

fashion, even though their bosses thought their mission was clear.

Lessons from Civilian-Military Operations of the 1990s

1. Policy makers must set and reiterate clear goals and objectives. 

Exit strategies may change, but their modifications must be clear 

and pervasive. Washington leadership and intent must be 

identifiable and unmistakable.

National security policy goals do not have to be “wordy,” but they 

must be clear and attainable. Policy makers must understand that the 

words they choose will be interpreted by civilians and military alike 

as they are massaged and developed into mission statements, warning orders, terms of reference, rules of engagement, phases, transition 

points, and desired end states. Sounding good or “humanitarian” at a 

press conference or in The Washington Post should not be the goal. 

One must select a goal that truly captures the commander’s intent 

and is clear to all involved. Moreover, if policy makers modify that 

goal, then they must alert the entire policy-operational continuum.

In Panama, the regime change of Noriega was basically all that was 

desired. Yet without the ability to assure safety in the streets and basic 

life-sustaining needs, a regime change was superfluous. Civilian-military 

planning to assess and plan for the exigencies of regime change was 

sacrificed on the altar of swift and decisive combat operations. After 

the administration deduced the initial enormity of the operation, 

policy makers needed to redefine the mission. It is difficult to imagine why no one higher than planners in the DOD could understand 

the need to articulate and assure the restoration of law and order in 

Panama in 1989.

In Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, policy makers once 

again oversimplified the mission and allowed the combat portion of the 

plan to assume almost total focus. Fortunately, mid- and senior-level 

officials in the DOS and the DOD requested guidance or rather persevered until their requests for further guidance and direction were 

granted. The result was that an energized deputies committee provided strong and timely oversight to an interagency team that developed a civilian-military restoration plan that was very successful and 

widely heralded.
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING (1989–1995) │ 43

Policy makers planned Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti 

from the beginning as an operation that would require strong and 

comprehensive interagency action to assure success. Not content to 

let one mission statement drive its actions, daily meetings of the principals were held, phased schedules were monitored, and situation reports gauged progress and requirements on a frequent basis. The decision of a key national security advisor to personally and energetically 

lead this effort left no one in the dark as to the overarching goals and 

policies of the administration.

However, policy makers did not articulate fully the nature of the 

restoration mission, and this had a profound effect on ground operations. Both USAID and military personnel were perplexed as to what 

constituted forbidden nation-building activities, yet international law 

and human decency required them to rectify serious problems. Special forces teams took the initiative and conducted well drilling, sanitation, medical, and electrical projects in rural areas, while many other 

units hunkered down for the duration. Soldiers and USAID personnel 

were confused as to what they were to do and how they were to cooperate to do it. Organizations on the ground were frequently unaware 

of each other or of overlapping responsibilities. Even the rules of engagement were unclear, resulting in several touchy incidents.

2. Plans must be coordinated, or at least considered, with all

involved or interested agencies, including UN agencies and 

NGOs.

It is now understood in Washington, DC, that a successful civilianmilitary operation may require more than a “whole of government” 

approach to accomplish its mission best. UN field agencies, “for-profit” 

corporations, and NGOs can all bring value to a comprehensive stabilization or reconstruction plan carried out by the US government, as 

can the right players from the Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, Transportation, and so forth. That, however, is easier said than 

done. Organizational prerogatives, not to mention budget constraints, 

political behaviors, and institutional divides, will not be going away 

anytime soon. The wise leader of such a mission will find ways to reward and cite those who do participate. No one wants to be left out. 

Those who are ignored will not be happy, and almost every plan gains 

from review. However, it is important to note that inclusivity requires 

good management.
44 │ BARLOW

Operation Just Cause occurred at a time when US policy makers 

had not flexed military muscle for some time. The Army, especially, 

felt the need to demonstrate its ability to deliver swift lethal force in a 

controlled and decisive way. Not only was there no recent precedent 

for interagency action, but also the stated need for regime change 

caused few in the Pentagon to lose focus on what promised to be a 

“good show.” The fact that policy makers allowed no interagency coordination plans to proceed out of the Pentagon should have surprised 

no one in 1989, but one has to wonder why the leadership in the administration, with a greater national perspective, did not require it.

Interagency actions taken with regard to the creation of the KTF 

were both timely and crisp. Deputies committee requirements were 

met within hours. DOS and DOD operatives acted in a seamless fashion, and Washington agencies offered up supporting services in a 

breathtaking fashion. However, one must remember that the DOS was 

fortunate enough to have a key official in one of the CA units and that 

all preparatory actions were accomplished in Washington, DC. Still the 

myopia of the Army staff (with its lack of confidence in Reserve CA 

personnel) and the pushback from the theater commander, who resented receiving further policy guidance, almost stymied the operation. If it had not been for the Kuwaiti government-in-exile pleading 

for the activation of a civilian-military planning organization, it is very 

likely that none would have been created or deployed.

Policy makers developed and coordinated Haiti policy in 1994–95 

in textbook fashion. The NSC chaired frequent and detailed meetings 

of the EXCOM and expected participating agencies to follow up. Actors synchronized plans, roles were articulated, and virtually every 

organization participated in face-to-face or teleconference venues. 

When direct questions were met with embarrassing periods of silence 

or puzzled faces, the resultant demand for better responses insured 

that such noncompliance would not be tolerated. Policy makers discussed and agreed upon tasks and phases. Subordinate groups handled issues in the same manner. Members of major agencies took 

trips to Haiti to oversee activities of their own agencies and to “see the 

battlefield.” Once on the ground, agency representatives soon realized 

that they also needed to bring others into the planning and implementation circle: allied forces, UN field agencies, and international 

and local NGOs.
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING (1989–1995) │ 45

3. If decision makers do not develop coordination mechanisms at 

the strategic or operational level, deployed soldiers or officials 

will develop those mechanisms tactically on an ad hoc basis.

We are fortunate that Americans are good at improvising, but it 

should not be up to an Army sergeant or USAID disaster assistance 

response team worker to develop foreign policy on the fly. While bureaucrats may try to develop policies that are flexible (sometimes intentionally vague), the result is usually bad. It would be much better if 

policy makers and their lawyers would take the time to develop policies 

with sharp and clear distinctions, rather than taking the easy way out 

and hoping that the operators will find a way to muddle through.

The fact that the original civilian-military operation in Panama—

Promote Liberty—was scuttled at the eleventh hour left a gaping hole 

in the policy fabric. No one was engaged with the Panamanian ministries, there was no police control or training program, sanitation 

was at a standstill, and areas affected by combat operations were in 

chaos. While the CMOTF took matters into its own hand and engaged with the ministries of President Endara, so did other members 

of USSOUTHCOM. With the duplication of effort came internal friction and lack of efficient coordination. Eventually police training and 

basic human services were restored, but only after billions of dollars 

of destruction occurred, organizational friction arose, and makeshift 

organizations were developed. It is difficult today to comprehend an 

effort to revitalize the society and economy of Panama without the 

leadership, support, and engagement of the Departments of State, 

Commerce, Education, and Agriculture and the USAID.

While the policy guidance and interagency support rendered to 

the KTF were effective in Washington, DC, these attributes might 

easily have evaporated in the field. Upon deployment to Kuwait, the 

USCENTCOM commander quite properly wanted the KTF assigned 

as part of his forces. However, the high-level nature of its work argued 

that the task force should continue to provide support directly to the 

Kuwaiti government. Fortunately, Ambassador Gnehm met with 

General Schwarzkopf and developed a compromise in which the task 

force continued to work with the Kuwaitis while being assigned to 

the Army component in theater and given additional CA missions. 

Since both NGOs and other US agencies were not resident in Kuwait 

in any numbers, the need for complex interagency coordination was 

unnecessary, thus simplifying this mission.
46 │ BARLOW

In 1994 the Haitian population was in desperate shape. Great numbers of people went hungry routinely, sanitary conditions were universally appalling, and local NGOs tried heroically to feed 6,000,000 

people daily. With the demise of the dreaded police force and development of a sudden medical and food vacuum, the situation was critical. 

Fortunately, the effective planning of the EXCOM set things in motion 

quickly. USAID personnel were on the ground rapidly, NGOs were 

bringing needed and validated goods into the country, CA officers (legal experts) were reengineering the penal system, and international 

police experts were reinventing the police.

USACOM and the Joint Staff agreed early that NGOs and UN field 

agencies needed to be brought into coordination mechanisms. General Sheehan approved the creation of a CA civil-military coordination center that acted as an information and planning hub where 

NGOs and other military planners could coordinate activities. These 

actions obviated many friction points and pinpointed areas of need 

and concern. Without the coordination center, the full weight of 

feeding and providing medical services for the entire nation could 

have fallen on the US forces on the ground.

4. Plans must address the accessibility of all required personnel, 

whether civilian or military. When accessed, these organizations 

must not lose their identities.

Fortunately, the United States has a plethora of capabilities it can 

array against challenging civilian-military missions. Unfortunately, 

accessing those capabilities can present a host of quandaries, including facing a nebulous authority to legally deploy civilian personnel, 

dealing with departments that claim to have insufficient budgets and 

personnel, determining relationships of disparate participating agencies, arranging and prioritizing logistical support activities, and caring for a very diverse group in international and likely very austere 

conditions. Therefore, it is one thing to count and measure assets and 

capabilities; it is quite another to assume availability in the event.

Plans can appear complete with the addition of reserve forces, civilian surge organizations, and various US departments and agencies. 

However, the real accessibility and other challenges associated with 

each of these categories make it mandatory to specify how each piece 

will be accessed in order to be activated and deployed. 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING (1989–1995) │ 47

Plans utilizing military reserve units or personnel must require 

their availability; therefore, a trigger mechanism for their activation 

must be part of the plan. The same goes for other US agencies. Planners must also understand the legalities and politics of accessing civilians. Recent events have shown that those who are very interested 

in supporting a contingency notionally often react differently when 

actually directed to deploy. Buy-in must occur early in the process. 

Time spent in getting agency agreement and senior approval of these 

aspects of plans will be time and effort well spent.

Once organizations are integrated into the plan, let them do what 

they do best. Often military or civilian bosses will try to make the attached unit or organization look like them. Military leaders especially 

like to deal with familiar and doctrinal organizations. Leaders must 

resist this impulse. Reserve units and civilian agency officials in the 

Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, and Treasury know their 

jobs and can be trusted to act according to their own levels of professionalism. Smart leaders will find the appropriate time and place to 

employ these assets and then plug them in and let them play. Modifying and cobbling together “new” units from existing units without 

significant time to rehearse or to be part of an organizational family 

is likely to be dysfunctional in the extreme and is almost certain to 

result in very low morale in the modified organization. It is very unlikely that an organization thus employed will succeed.

The fact that the ad hoc CA plan for Panama depended on US 

Army Reserve units led by attached active duty Army and Air Force 

leaders who did not understand or trust the CA capability virtually 

doomed it. Since reserve CA assets eventually carried out the program 

successfully in spite of substantial logistical and personnel hurdles, all 

signs indicate that the original plan would have succeeded. By all indications, senior leaders did not ever consider the deployment of assets 

other than active component military personnel, even though Operation Promote Liberty was a plan to restore government functions.

The KTF made maximum use of its time in Washington, DC, to 

visit and receive important guidance from other government agencies. 

Although the restoration plan for Kuwait did not request activation 

of civilian officials, it made maximum use of key personnel while in 

the critical predeployment preparation phase. Since the main job of 

the KTF was to prepare future contracts that would kick in after the 

liberation of Kuwait, getting advice from the government agencies 
48 │ BARLOW

led to the development of a comprehensive and effective package of 

postconflict deliverables.

However, other military leaders in Operation Desert Storm did 

not understand the capability of the KTF’s civil affairs forces. In Saudi 

Arabia there were instances of CA units being given the job of putting 

up tents, while commanders were struggling with the dilemma of 

how to deal with dislocated civilians—the doctrinal purview of those 

same CA soldiers!

The plan for Haiti did not call for the activation of civilian organizations that did not have deployment experience, but it maximized 

the use of organizations designed to deploy. USAID organizations 

were among the very first to hit the ground and initiated many actions which civil affairs, special forces, allies, and the DOS were able 

to take over. As USAID teams developed the framework for subsequent 

relief work, the military fell in behind and solidified the process.

Policy makers identified early a senior CA team that was deployed 

to Haiti with its own commanding general and the specific charge to 

revamp the penal system of the entire country. This was the first time 

in a generation that a reserve CA element was deployed as planned.

5. Someone needs to be in charge—overall and by phases of the 

operation. If some personnel who develop the policy can be part 

of the mission throughout, they can facilitate and improve this 

process.

No one disputes that in an operation there must be an overall authority. However, in a complex civilian-military operation, the shifting 

nature of the mission, as well as the diverse nature and sheer numbers 

of players, makes this a difficult challenge.

Initially, there is the Washington level of play. If decision makers 

develop plans according to the guidelines above, the appropriate 

agencies and departments will have participated and planners will 

have designated an administration official and designated a lead 

agency. However, the nature of the mission may presage a shift from 

an emphasis on military capabilities to political or diplomatic or vice 

versa. When such transitions occur, authorities need to recognize the 

fact and design a mechanism to transfer authority and responsibility. 

Also, after planning has been accomplished and the mission is deployed, US authorities in the host country must be prepared to exercise support and authority as the mission unfolds in that country. Too 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING (1989–1995) │ 49

often in the past the mission does not change hands simply because it 

is felt that continuity would be disrupted or that the current lead 

would feel disenfranchised. Egos often get in the way. This too may 

result in the embassy team feeling bypassed and unable to use its substantial power to influence events. A successful civilian-military plan 

must tackle the sensitive issues of “who’s in charge,” based on planned 

phases, deployment schedule, end state conditions, and in-country 

authorities. One way to assure that continuity prevails even though 

the nature and authority of the mission transforms is to assign policy 

advisors to take part in the mission until it is concluded.

Policy makers developed Operations Just Cause and Promote Liberty without the knowledge or participation of the DOS in Washington or in Panama City. The result was that the DOS was silent when 

called upon to support it. In the short term, the US military was 

forced to accomplish all diplomatic and government missions with a 

makeshift CA task force composed of conventional Army officers and 

Army Reserve volunteers. Unfortunately, no one involved in the Panama operation was outside the military chain of command.

The KTF enjoyed the happy circumstance of having one highly 

qualified diplomatic Army officer designated as the task force commander to plan the Kuwaiti restoration. He did so by coordinating with 

all interested organizations and conducting a transparent operation. 

When he deployed to Kuwait, the situation changed. Ordinarily Colonel 

Elliot would have lost his authority upon deployment, but because the 

theater commander, Kuwaiti officials, and the ambassador crafted a 

line of authority for the KTF, it continued to exist and flourish.

It should also be noted that CA needs arose that were not foreseen 

in Washington, DC, and the authorities on the ground (notably Generals Schwarzkopf, Frix, and Howard Mooney) were able to tackle 

such issues as displaced civilian camps and emergency food distribution by relying on the expertise of the units and proven doctrine.

Policy makers based the Haiti restoration plan on a six-phase operation that identified key players, expected time lines, major culminating activities, and areas of responsibility. Handoffs were handled 

efficiently and monitored daily in Washington and throughout all 

involved organizations via daily teleconferences. While the director 

of the NSC and the EXCOM controlled the policy reins in Washington, the theater commander exercised clear operational control in 

Haiti and coordinated activities with numerous civilian agencies.
50 │ BARLOW

There was a problem with control in Haiti. Tactical elements on 

the ground did not know who else was working beside them. Part of 

this was because the rules of engagement in Haiti did not encourage 

an “out-and-about” attitude. Nevertheless, the agencies and military 

organizations on the ground tended to run stovepiped operations, 

not coordinating efforts with each other. In spite of clear guidance 

from the top, there existed an operational gap among tactical players, 

suggesting that policy makers need to pay more attention to coalescing varied organizations that are involved in the mission.

6. Face-to-face and real-time meetings help enormously.

In an age when distance learning and virtual reality are hot topics, 

one must not forget that human interaction remains the key ingredient in developing successful activities in any culture.

The two operations (combat and restoration) in Panama began as 

separate and severable issues. The fact that the planners worked in 

the same office did not assure that they actually shared ideas or concerns. They did not. Even though interagency experts were available, 

they were not consulted. In addition, even when on the ground and 

involved in delivering civilian-military services, the various military 

task forces seldom met.

While the bifurcation of plans at the beginning of the planning 

cycle for Desert Shield mirrored that of Operation Just Cause, things 

quickly changed. The genesis of the KTF was a briefing to the Kuwaiti 

government-in-exile in the Pentagon. Kuwaiti officials met and developed a bond with their CA counterparts. That bond continued after 

the preparation phase of the operation and through the unit’s deployment. It was a special request from the Kuwaiti government that helped 

convince General Schwarzkopf to maintain the relationship between 

the KTF and its Kuwaiti counterparts. The results of the partnership—

accomplished in a very short time span—have been saluted universally.

The creation of the CCATF under the rubric of Task Force Freedom 

gave CA units access to force commanders and vice versa. The open 

style of General Frix allowed CA units that had previously been misapplied to attend to the demanding requirements relating to the proper 

disposition and care of civilians in the area of Desert Storm operations.

A succession of physical and teleconference meetings among both 

high- and mid-level officials hallmarked the Haiti mission in 1994–95. 

Not only were ideas and concepts immediately on the table, but also 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING (1989–1995) │ 51

lower ranking officers could discern clearly the intent of superiors. In 

this environment, direct authorization to communicate across staff 

and unit lines was encouraged strongly; action officers met other action officers, just as decision makers talked to other decision makers. 

The concept permeated the entire policy and planning process as interagency working groups toiling under the authority of the EXCOM 

developed a like methodology. As simple as it sounds, the meetings 

provided much needed contact points and answered the often uncomfortable questions, such as “Who does what in what order?” and 

“Who’s in charge for each phase of the operation?”.

The face-to-face nature of the operation continued on the ground 

as the theater CA force opened and operated the CMOC. It encouraged NGOs, the military, and other organizations to come and coordinate planned activities. Many have credited the CMOC with providing a nonthreatening umbrella under which each participant felt 

welcome and comfortable.

Final Thoughts

It will come as no shock to any who have participated in interagency missions that communication is the key to success. What is 

surprising is the continuing lack of communications and coordination 

mechanisms that continue to hallmark US efforts in civilian-military 

ventures. If policy makers articulate—and continually monitor—a 

clear set of objectives, including measures of success and mission 

conclusion, staffers and operators alike are likely to operate in a 

clearer and more confidant manner. Further, if plans, phases, and 

transitions are coordinated among all involved—perhaps even all interested—agencies, the chances of success become even greater.

Policy makers cannot adopt a “fire and forget” attitude toward 

whole-of-government operations. Complex civilian-military challenges require more frequent and crisp emphasis from the top than 

do pure combat operations. This does not equate to micromanaging—quite the contrary. If decision makers are clear about the intent, 

subordinates and operators will develop sound and effective tactical 

means of achieving goals and will feel more comfortable in coordinating with other agencies and organizations.
52 │ BARLOW

Notes

1. William J. Conley, Jr., “Operations ‘Just Cause’ and ‘Promote Liberty’: The Implications of Military Operations Other Than War” (student research paper, US Marine 

Corps Command and Staff College, Marine Corps University, Quantico, VA, 2001), 1.

2. Richard H. Shultz, Jr., In the Aftermath of War: US Support for Reconstruction 

and Nation-Building in Panama, Following Just Cause (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1993), 63.

3. Conley, “Operations ‘Just Cause,’” 10; and Shultz, In the Aftermath of War, 18.

4. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War, 64.

5. Conley, “Operations ‘Just Cause,’” 11.

6. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War, 20.

7. Several inquiries were subsequently made (one by the Army Times) as to why 

these recommendations were not acted upon. No explanation was forthcoming.

8. Many considered the decision to activate reserves a very strong indication of 

political will at the time. Reserve call-up authority had not been granted during the 

entire conflict in Vietnam, or subsequently.

9. Conley, “Operations ‘Just Cause,’” 21.

10. Policy and doctrine for civil-military operations and applications had been 

promulgated within the Joint Staff, Army staff, and US Special Operations Command. Decision makers ignored all such policy and doctrine.

11. Conley, “Operations ‘Just Cause,’” 21.

12. The Army and USSOCOM had refused to activate any reserve CA officers as 

part of its volunteer force.

13. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War, 33–4.

14. Ibid., 19.

15. Conley, “Operations ‘Just Cause,’” 8; and Shultz, In the Aftermath of War, 16, 21.

16. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War, 69.

17. George H. W. Bush, National Security Directive 45: U.S. Policy in Response to 

the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait, memorandum, 20 August 1990.

18. John R. Brinkerhoff, Andrulis Research Corporation, “Waging the War and 

Winning the Peace” (report Office of the Chief, Army Reserve, Washington, DC, 9 

October 1991), 4.

19. Patrick W. Carlton, “The Kuwait Task Force: A Unique Solution to Kuwait’s 

Reconstruction Problems” (Box 1, Carlton Papers), 5. Although the JCAC has never 

officially convened, it has been part of DOD policy for over 50 years.

20. John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School and Civil Affairs Association, “Read Ahead for the Civil Affairs Symposium–October 25, 1991,” in Civil 

Affairs in the Persian Gulf War, a Symposium: Proceedings (Fort Bragg, NC: US Army 

JFK Special Warfare Center and School, 1991), 211.

21. Ibid., 212.

22. Carlton, “The Kuwait Task Force,” 5.

23. Ibid., 8.

24. United States Department of Defense, Final Report to Congress on Conduct of 

the Persian Gulf War (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, April 1992), 625. 

Prepared by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz and signed by Sec-
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING (1989–1995) │ 53

retary of Defense Richard Cheney, this report confirms that early CA planning for 

Operation Desert Shield was insufficient.

25. John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School and Civil Affairs Association, “Read Ahead for the Civil Affairs Symposium,” 212.

26. Ibid.

27. The fact that Skip Gnehm was a former deputy assistant secretary of defense 

was no doubt of great value in his ability to work the processes within the Pentagon.

28. John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School and Civil Affairs Association, “Read Ahead for the Civil Affairs Symposium,” 213.

29. Carlton, “The Kuwait Task Force,” 10.

30. John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School and Civil Affairs Association, “Read Ahead for the Civil Affairs Symposium,” 214.

31. Ibid.

32. Carlton, “The Kuwait Task Force,” 11.

33. Brinkerhoff, “Waging the War and Winning the Peace”, 50.

34. Ibid., 51.

35. John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School and Civil Affairs Association, “Read Ahead for the Civil Affairs Symposium,” 214. USSOCOM generally 

remained silent as this issue developed. Several times when it had the opportunity to 

state a position, it took no stance or interposed no objection to actions being contemplated by the Joint Staff and OSD.

36. Carlton, “The Kuwait Task Force,” 15.

37. Dennis C. Barlow, “Joint Staff Civil Affairs Actions During Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm,” in Civil Affairs in the Persian Gulf War, a Symposium: 

Proceedings (Fort Bragg, NC: US Army JFK Special Warfare Center and School, 

1991), 217.

38. John T. Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of 

Panama (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 

1992), 22.

39. Brinkerhoff, “Waging the War and Winning the Peace,” 55.

40. Fishel, The Fog of Peace, 22.

41. Carlton, “The Kuwait Task Force,” 22.

42. Ibid., 25.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid., 26.

45. Ibid., 28.

46. Brinkerhoff, “Waging the War and Winning the Peace,” 56.

47. Carlton, “The Kuwait Task Force,” 30.

48. John Kifner, “After the War: US Army Doing the Work in Kuwait,” New York 

Times, 5 April 1991; and Brinkerhoff, “Waging the War and Winning the Peace,” 56.

49. Carlton, “The Kuwait Task Force,” 31.

50. Margaret Hayes and Gary Weatley, Interagency and Political-Military Dimensions of Peace Operations: Haiti; A Case Study (Washington, DC: Institute for Strategic 

Studies, National Defense University, February 1996), 17.

51. Christopher Jones, “Achieving Unity of Effort at the Operational Level 

through the Interagency Process” (master’s thesis, US Army Command and General 

Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KS, 2005), 32.
54 │ BARLOW

52. Hayes and Weatley, Interagency and Political-Military Dimensions, 5.

53. A continual problem in Washington, DC, is the need for action-level officers 

to know precisely what their bosses and other agency heads have agreed upon. Principals often meet one-on-one, arriving at decisions that lack specificity and clarity 

when passed down to subordinates. When their staffs can communicate informally 

across staff lines, they are much more likely to arrive at a clear and shared understanding.

54. Walter E. Kretchik, Robert F. Baumann, and John T. Fishel, Invasion, Intervention, “Intervasion”: A Concise History of the US Army in Operation Uphold Democracy (Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Army Command and General Staff College Press, 

1998), 75.

55. Ibid., 58.

56. Ibid., 70.

57. Ibid., 64.

58. Hayes and Weatley, Interagency and Political-Military Dimensions, 13.

59. Local NGOs provide food to approximately 6,000,000 Haitians. Had such a 

burden fallen upon the US military occupying force, it would have been burdensome 

in the extreme.

60. Once again, it was difficult for US officers to determine what conditions were 

life threatening and what constituted nation-building. Haiti, the poorest nation in 

the Western hemisphere, is continually lacking sufficient services.

61. Kretchik et al, Invasion, Intervention, “Intervasion”, 75.

62. Ibid., 82.
PART 2

The Vietnam War (1954–1975)

Chapter 3

Measuring Success

Evaluating Counterinsurgency Progress in

Vietnam (1966–1975)

Richard W. Stewart

One of the critical attributes of any counterinsurgency (COIN) or 

nation-building campaign organization is that it must have a way to 

measure success, or at least progress, in attaining its long-term goals. 

Military officers, civilian managers, and policy makers must constantly ask themselves a number of questions. What does success 

look like, how will we know if we are doing the right things, and how 

will we know what additional resources or management focuses are 

needed unless there is a way to measure success? Is a program doing 

well, or is a course correction needed? What measurements do we 

need, and how do we take them? Even after we collect data points, 

what does the data really mean? And, how long does it take to know 

whether or not we have attained success even if we do manage to 

measure it carefully?

All of these issues have been raised before, at no time with more 

interest than during the long pacification struggle in Vietnam. And 

the solution at the time lay, according to Secretary of Defense Robert 

McNamara and his “whiz kids,” in the amassing of larger and larger 

quantities of data through which they could measure progress. McNamara, whose management style and belief structure derived from 

the systems analysis world of business and project management, was 

convinced that only through statistical collection and data analysis 

could one measure progress and plan for future success.1

Such a strong belief in the power of numbers can easily delude one 

into thinking that numbers are accurate reflections of truth and can 

lead to a misplaced confidence that war can be treated in a scientific, 

stimulus-response manner. Certainly any number of engineering 

problems or even operations research studies benefited from the rigorous collection of statistics, facts, and percentages to calculate costs, 

acceptable tolerances, and projected benefits. But, measuring loyalty 
58 │ STEWART

to a government? Measuring “hearts and minds”? Calculating “trust,” 

security, or progress? Can these measures be captured in numbers?

Statistical analysis may work well for designing and building aircraft or ships, but how would this technique of statistical analysis help 

in COIN, pacification, or stability operations? How do you measure 

those intangible things like security, rural development, or good governance? By whose standards and with what internal milestones of 

success can one measure these? To assess trends and developments, 

US pacification managers in Vietnam certainly tried hard to measure 

all of these things using a variety of sophisticated techniques and automated programs. The results and accuracy of the measures, however, were decidedly mixed.

Robert Komer and later William Colby, as deputy commanders of 

the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) for the Civil 

Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS)—

the interagency headquarters tasked with managing US support to 

Vietnamese pacification efforts—were only partly in the McNamara 

camp of believers in statistical compilation as measurements of success. Each was, in his own way, deeply committed to the success of 

the US effort in Vietnam and eager to find ways to calculate such intangibles as “trust of the government,” “sense of security,” and “degree 

of economic improvement.” However, both were suspicious of the 

degree to which numbers reflected reality. Yet they saw that it was 

necessary to measure things in order to manage programs. Komer 

and Colby always grappled with ideas about how to put numbers to 

concepts like security or trust in government and track progress over 

time as an aid to managing the always-limited COIN assets. Then 

they would look for other avenues to double-check those numbers 

using a variety of tools. Their efforts over time built up a system with 

at least some degree of success at measuring progress.

One of the principal measures of success used by CORDS, and one 

that quickly gained currency from headquarters from MACV up to 

the White House, was the still controversial Hamlet Evaluation System (HES). This system was developed by the Central Intelligence 

Agency, introduced incrementally during 1966, and fully instituted 

country-wide in January 1967 but continually revised and modified 

over time in attempts to refine its accuracy.

HES was devised initially as a management tool to help district 

and province advisors determine, over time, how successful their efforts, and especially those of their South Vietnamese counterparts, 
MEASURING SUCCESS │ 59

were in achieving progress in their regions.2 Part of the HES monthly 

survey included raw data collection on the number of enemy incidents 

or attacks in the previous month, garnering a sense of the degree of 

corruption of local officials, numbers of refugees, condition of the 

roads, and so forth. This useful compilation of basic statistics could, 

eventually, give a sense of what was happening in the provinces if not 

define what those data meant.

The most controversial part of the HES was the hamlet rating portion of the form. Each month, a US district advisor was supposed to 

individually evaluate every hamlet in the country—over 14,000 separate communities—and rate those communities in six major areas: 

Vietcong (VC) military activity, VC subversion and political activities, capabilities of friendly forces, actions of the local Vietnamese 

government, and economic development. For each of the major areas, the advisor filled out three questions and assigned one of six ratings from “A,” the strongest rating, indicating complete government 

control; down through “B,” “C,” “D,” “E,” to “V,” or complete VC control.3

 It was a somewhat subjective rating by the district advisors that 

indicated what they felt was the security posture of the hamlets in 

their areas of responsibility. Each advisor could define for himself the 

differences and weights in words like “frequently,” “systematic,” “satisfied,” “being met,” and other explanatory words. With advisors receiving only a few hours of training in-country on how to fill out the 

form, consistency of meaning was a constant problem.

There were other problems with the HES right from its inception. 

Although its district and provincial advisors viewed it as an internal 

management tool, HES rapidly became the “report card” of choice 

that CORDS used to evaluate programs and the capabilities and effectiveness of the district and province advisors and their counterparts. Yet the advisors were the ones responsible for collecting and 

analyzing the data. The HES rating was thus often the result of highly 

subjective judgments by some of the people whose job performance 

was being graded by how they reported the data they collected. This 

left the system wide open to potential abuse, although it was at least 

an attempt to be more systematic and useful than statistics of irrigation ditches dug or schoolhouses built. It was a good measurement 

tool for specific accomplishments or events, but was not necessarily 

good for more intangible statistics such as true political progress.

Despite the regular attempts by CORDS leaders to explain that HES 

was just one data point in the larger picture of pacification activities, the 
60 │ STEWART

press often viewed HES results with great suspicion as being overly optimistic and self-serving. Ambassador Colby continually tried to point 

out that the HES was only an “aggregate guide” to security to assist in 

management. In his memoirs he commented on the HES: “No one pretended that these categories were accurate in themselves.” He wrote, 

“They could be influenced by the advisors not getting to the hamlet that 

month, by his district chief pushing him to give [him] a better grade, or 

by his own inexperience early in his one-year term.”4

 However flawed, 

Colby and others still considered that even this rudimentary attempt to 

quantify progress was better than most other measures adopted by US 

forces in Vietnam in terms of amount of money spent, number of troops 

trained and to what standard, or the infamous “body count” measure of 

progress in the field. Those quick and very dirty measures of “success” 

were deeply flawed and ripe for abuse. In fact, they were at best misleading and at worst directly counterproductive.

The problems inherent in HES caused the entire program to be 

one of the centerpieces in a congressional investigation of pacification 

by the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 1968. A member of the 

committee, Cong. John V. Tunney (D-CA), traveled to Vietnam in 

May 1968, and in his report, he blasted the HES as inaccurate and 

unreliable. In his introduction he stated, “I found it difficult to believe 

that such a precise evaluation of the political sympathies of rural people 

could be made; yet this information was being used at the highest levels of the US Government as a guide to operational planning and as a 

means of informing the American people on the progress in the war.”5

In his report, Congressman Tunney discussed the methodology of 

HES and criticized its tendency to “average” A-, B-, and C-graded 

hamlets together as all being “secure.” He further objected to the subjective nature of the judgments made by American advisors on their 

short tour in their post, the lack of detailed training on the HES either 

during the superficial training of advisors in the United States or after 

arriving in Vietnam, the random nature of data collection in the field, 

the subjective and unreliable information collected, and its overall 

unreliability as a measure of political success or grading the loyalty of 

the people for their government. In short, the congressman focused 

clearly on the most critical flaw of the HES: garbage in; garbage out.6

Colby and his staff were not unaware of the problem and even suspected that the way data was collected often led to inflated results. In 

January 1969, partially in reaction to Tunney’s report and partially 

due to the suspiciously high rating of 76 percent of the country being 
MEASURING SUCCESS │ 61

“secure” less than a year after the Tet offensive, Colby requested that 

MACV establish a regular inspection team to conduct sample inspection visits in various districts and review with each advisor how he 

filled out his forms.7

 This activity would seek to double-check some of 

the assumptions and subjective judgments made by each district senior 

advisor and validate, or refute, those assumptions. For several weeks 

in February, teams of evaluators, both American and Vietnamese, 

collected data from 159 hamlets, looking for the “potential for error 

at any stage in the evaluation system” and for “personal perception 

and subjective analysis of the DSA [District Senior Advisor].”8

The results of this internal investigation were mixed. The team reported to Colby in April that the HES was “quite unreliable” for the 

determination of “a specific piece of information about a specific 

hamlet” and that advisors tended to err “significantly” on the side of 

optimism. They acknowledged that the short tours of district advisors (on average only six months in duration) compounded the problem since most advisors found it hard to visit all of their hamlets 

(with over 14,000 hamlets and villages in the country this was always 

a challenge) during their tour and accepted many Vietnamese reports 

and data at face value, “filling in” information gaps with assumptions 

and second-hand data. The HES rater was “ultimately required to 

make extensive subjective determinations without clear guidance,” 

which made specific facts for particular hamlets suspect. In fact, the 

team reported, “It is not unusual for an advisor to simply decide what 

overall rating he feels a hamlet deserves, and then to check the appropriate boxes necessary to give a hamlet that rating.”9

 However, 

when the data was compared with other, independently gathered material from MACV J-3 or the Pacification Studies Group, the team 

reported that nationally many of the subjectivities evened out. They 

further reported that overall, despite its flaws, the HES was “reasonably accurate” when viewed on a national basis over time. However, it 

was still very weak on defining what really constituted “relative security” in a hamlet and weaker still on really measuring political loyalty 

or support for the government.10 This was a critical flaw that was 

never fixed.

Other methods were used to verify the degree of security attained 

in the countryside and thus measure the degree of success of various 

pacification initiatives. One interesting measurement tool was the Public 

Attitude Analysis System (PAAS) developed in October 1969 in conjunction with the Vietnamese government. The PAAS was basically a 
62 │ STEWART

long running, systematized, public opinion poll program that would 

send teams of samplers out to the countryside with the mission of 

determining “trends in rural Vietnamese attitudes towards pacification and development.”11 Random hamlets and villages would be selected in each Corps’s area and combined teams of US and Vietnamese questioners would have villagers fill out forms (or provide answers 

in interviews for the illiterate) with 60 questions. Somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 villagers were polled each month.

Like the HES, each PAAS public opinion poll, taken monthly, was 

by itself of little value, but it provided important information over 

time as indicators and trends of support or regression. As CORDS 

stated in its forwarding letter to the commander in chief, Pacific 

Command (CINCPAC) and other higher agencies, the PAAS results 

on security perception, political attitudes, and the economic situation 

of the Vietnamese “are to be taken as indicators, not a statement of 

fact.”12 The February 1970 report, for example, was compared with 

the October 1969 report to show an overall increase in perceptions of 

security but a decrease in belief that the economic situation was improving, with increased prices the biggest single problem.13 The survey also showed an interest of more villagers in participating in local 

government, reflecting an increase in their trust in the ability of the 

government to affect their daily lives and some measure of confidence 

that the government was legitimate. Eventually, such public opinion 

polls could provide valuable information on attitudes, trends, and issues that might not otherwise surface.

Another valuable use of the PAAS teams revolved around a test of 

validity for the HES. Since the HES was not meant to be viewed as a 

stand-alone report (though it often was), it was valuable to test the 

data, occasionally using other means to see if the posited security 

level of a province was accurate. In January 1970, for example, the 

HES stated, as part of its questionnaire, that 114 randomly chosen 

hamlets reported that a government hamlet chief stayed overnight in 

the hamlet regularly.14 However, the PAAS, when queried about the 

results of its interviews in those same hamlets, confirmed only 80 of 

the hamlets had their officials staying in the hamlet overnight regularly. Assuming the PAAS was more accurate, such a relatively low 

HES reliability rate of 70 percent threw doubt on one critical indicator of hamlet security. How could a province advisor declare a hamlet 

secure if the hamlet chief was afraid to spend the night? It is probable 

that such statistics, a direct result of continually collecting data to test 
MEASURING SUCCESS │ 63

other data, were a factor in changing the HES and also qualifying the 

conclusions drawn from that system.15 There are times that any collection instrument, no matter how sophisticated, simply cannot assess future possibilities. As with other pacification initiatives, no developmental program or increase in local security forces, or even 

belief in the eventual survival of a government, could withstand massive conventional invasion forces.

Like the HES, the PAAS program was turned over to the South 

Vietnamese government in January 1973 when United States forces 

departed. The Vietnamese continued the sampling program with 

some help from the United States right up until April 1975. It is indicative of some of the limitations of the PAAS that the last published 

PAAS report in March 1975, a mere month before the North’s legions 

crushing defeat of South Vietnam, showed that the South Vietnamese 

people were confident (66 percent of rural and 79 percent of urban 

respondents) that a year from that time the government of South Vietnam would still be in control of the country.16 Public opinion polls 

may reflect attitudes but cannot predict future reality on the ground.

In short, the United States developed a number of means to measure success over the course of the Vietnam War, but no one means 

could be trusted to stand alone as a completely accurate measurement of progress. The HES probably came closest, although that system was not without its share of flaws. And even after it had been 

used aggressively throughout the country for six years under direct 

US control (January 1967 to January 1973), it was still only useful as 

a general indicator of progress. It could not be a true measurement of 

success since it could never truly tap into the degree of commitment 

and loyalty that a South Vietnamese citizen had for his or her government. And that, in the end, was what the Vietnam War was all about.

Considerations for Contemporary Operations

The COIN challenges in Vietnam (sophisticated political infrastructure, extensive conventional force in place, and massive aid from the 

communist world) and the resources available to fight that insurgency 

(some 800,000 South Vietnamese and 8,000 US personnel and vast interagency resources deployed at each level of governance throughout 

the country) were different than contemporary situations in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. However, there is much the United States still can learn 
64 │ STEWART

about attempts to measure progress in Vietnam. In particular, I think 

we can learn from the various methods employed, however flawed, to 

focus on the details of the pacification struggle down at the hamlet 

and village levels. This sophisticated attempt to gather large amounts 

of data, especially using the much maligned but useful HES, was a 

comprehensive effort to collect key data elements, over time, on a 

truly vast array of programs and initiatives. By conducting such an 

effort using generally consistent data points, with incremental improvements to the instrument, to measure a “basket” of facts, managers of the pacification struggle were able to get a general sensing of 

progress or regression on all aspects of hamlet, village, and provincial 

life. Furthermore, it was in the hamlets and villages that the struggle 

for victory took place. By gathering data on all aspects of enemy activity, friendly forces, aid projects, construction activities, governance 

programs, health, education, welfare, and even economic activity, the 

United States and the host-nation government took a regular series of 

snapshots over time, with quite remarkable granularity, of what was 

happening throughout the country.

While the various methods used to measure progress in South 

Vietnam were not all that its critics hoped it would be, they were, 

however flawed and inconsistent, at least detailed and determined attempts to measure what was happening in key areas and to collect 

data along a continuum toward specific and approved goals. That was 

an invaluable guide to leaders who needed to justify and manage programs and determine if their results were consistent with overall 

plans. Are systems and procedures in place to collect detailed accurate data and analyze for lessons? Is information collected and analyzed for the effectiveness of militia training, conflict prevention, and 

stabilization programs and initiatives? As Yogi Berra was reputed to 

have said, “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you 

are going or you might not get there.”17 As an adaptation of this adage, 

if you do not make some kind of effort to keep track of the turnings 

in the road and the key landmarks along the way to “there,” you will 

not even know if you are going in the right direction. This was as true 

in Afghanistan as it was in Vietnam.

Finally, even if a systematic attempt to collect such data in every instance were put in place, any contemporary military, civilian, or mixed 

civilian-military team attempting to assess the success or failure of US 

or host-nation efforts in a region needs to remember a few critical 

things. First, even if it looks as though “hard data” is collected, any 
MEASURING SUCCESS │ 65

analyst should immediately ask who collected the data, how subjective 

the data might be, and what agenda the collector or collectors might 

have. Will overly optimistic data prove their own success? I have 

heard of at least one incident in Afghanistan when a province was 

given a “green” overall rating in order to “give confidence” to the provincial governor rather than being based on any actual fact. Conversely, will overly pessimistic data garner more resources for a team, 

effort, or province? Will initially pessimistic data followed by dramatic-looking progress over a short period of time be seen as an attempt to make a team or their boss look good? If any initial battlefield 

report should not be taken at face value, as most experienced combat 

commanders know, then why should one uncritically believe any 

data with the potential for subjectivity? In short, any provincial reconstruction team (PRT) or regional PRT supervisor needs to consider how subjective any collected data might be. Always be suspicious of data (as Ambassador Colby was in Vietnam in the case of the 

HES) and devise other, parallel means to test the data to see if it holds 

water. It pays to consider how the data could be wrong since often a 

great deal rests on the result.

Notes

1. Jeffrey Pfeffer, Managing with Power: Politics and Influence in Organizations

(Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1992), 254–55.

2. “Hamlet Evaluation System,” CORDS files, file cabinet 77, folder 16, US Army 

Center of Military History (CMH), Fort McNair, DC.

3. Richard A. Hunt, Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and 

Minds (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), 95–96. For an early attempt to analyze 

how to measure success of pacification in Vietnam, see James W. Johnson and 

Charles Anello, Measurement of Pacification Progress in Vietnam (McLean, VA: Research Analysis Corporation, 1968). Though published in 1968, the study used data 

collected in the 1964–1966 time period and applied regression analysis to a set of 

variables for a “proto-HES” type of rating of secured, undergoing securing, undergoing clearing, uncontested (dropped for lack of use), and VC controlled.

4. William Egan Colby and James McCargar, Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of 

Americas Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 

1989), 190–91.

5. John V. Tunney, House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, 

Measuring Hamlet Security in Vietnam, 91st Cong., 1st sess., 1969, report no. 91-25, 1.

6. Ibid., 8.

7. Colby to MACJO1R, HES Analysis, 18 January 1969, Records Group (RG) 

472, Box 12, 1601-10A, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).

8. Ibid.
66 │ STEWART

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Pacification Studies Group, to CINCPAC, JCS, etc., report, Public Attitude 

Analysis System (PAAS), April 1970, RG 472, CORDS Historical Working Group, 

Box 23, NARA.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid.

14. Pacification Studies Group, to Ambassador Colby, Hamlet Officials at Night, 

memo, 10 February 1970, RG 472, CORDS Historical Working Group, Box 23, NARA.

15. CORDS Files in CMH, File Cabinet 71, Drawer 2, PAAS, March 1975.

16. Ibid.

17. “Yogi Berra Quotes,” Baseball Almanac (web site), 2013, http://www.baseball

-almanac.com/quotes/quoberra.shtml.
Chapter 4

An Eyewitness Account of Counterinsurgency 

and Civilian-Military Teams in Vietnam

Rufus Phillips

After the fall of Dien Bien Phu in April 1954, the Geneva Accords 

divided Vietnam at the 17th parallel. I arrived in Saigon as a young 

Army officer on 8 August 1954, three days before the Geneva Accords 

took effect. While the communist Vietminh consolidated their power 

over the North, French forces evacuated to the South. At the same 

time, the South struggled to survive in the face of resettling a million 

refugees fleeing the North, contending with rival religious and gangster sect forces vying for power and attempting to assert control over 

large swaths of southern territory that had been under Vietminh rule 

for over nine years. These territories, along with active combat against 

sect forces in Saigon and the Mekong Delta, posed a significant counterinsurgency (COIN) or pacification challenge as the South emerged 

as an independent republic by the end of 1955. The US Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG), previously limited to advising the 

French, now began giving direct assistance and advice to the Vietnamese army.

I was assigned to work directly for the legendary Col Edward G. 

Lansdale. He had been the principal US advisor during the successful 

campaign against the communist Huks in the Philippines. Under 

Lansdale’s guidance, I began taking Vietnamese officers to the Philippines to show them how the Philippine army, with its “people first” 

approach, had defeated the Huks. Building on the Philippine experience, I was soon involved in revamping the Vietnamese army’s efforts 

to extend security and governance into those former Vietminh territories. In February 1955, I became the first US military advisor to 

accompany Vietnamese army troops in the field on that mission. My 

mission continued until late 1955, when I was assigned as an advisor 

to the Vietnamese government’s civic action program, which sent civilian teams into the villages.

Subsequently, in 1962 during the Kennedy administration, I returned 

to Vietnam serving as assistant director for rural affairs in charge of 

COIN in the US Economic Aid Mission. This office decentralized US 
68 │ PHILLIPS

aid to the provinces and created the first US civilian-military advisory teams at the provincial level. These teams supported Vietnamese 

COIN operations based on the strategic hamlet program, a villagelevel self-defense, self-government, self-development effort to secure 

the rural population and win its support. I became directly involved 

again from 1965 to 1968, returning periodically to Vietnam as a consultant to the US Department of State (DOS) to assist in COIN and 

political advisory efforts.

This chapter reflects my firsthand experience in the creation and 

deployment of American civilian-military advisory teams within the 

framework of US pacification/COIN doctrine and practice in Vietnam 

and offers recommendations for future COIN and stability operations. 

Understanding Civilian-Military Teams within the 

Context of Counterinsurgency: It’s Them, Not Us

To understand the use of civilian-military teams in Vietnam within 

the context of overall COIN doctrine and practice, it should be 

stressed that the role of these early teams was primarily advisory. 

They were not direct actors as civilian-military teams have come to be 

in the Afghanistan provincial reconstruction teams (PRT), for example. The principal focus was supporting Vietnamese COIN efforts, 

not US forces conducting COIN. The distinction is important—the 

US policy position that ultimately prevailed was that the South Vietnamese themselves would have to win the insurgency struggle.

Pacification as both a strategy and a tactic suffered from several 

interrelated and overlapping problems. First, the Americans and 

Vietnamese failed to understand that the conflict was, at its core, a 

political war for the support of the insurgent base—the rural population. Second, Americans, for too long, did not fully understand that 

only the South Vietnamese themselves could defeat the insurgency, 

albeit with US help—not the other way around. Third, there was an 

absence of a coherent, workable, and widely accepted COIN doctrine. Fourth, US agencies, civilian and military, did not coordinate 

or unify in purpose. Instead, they followed separate agendas. Considerable time and effort were required to overcome inertia and strenuous bureaucratic objections in order to execute an interagency melding of joint command with truly combined civilian-military advisory 

teams in the field of operations—a necessity for success. It also took 
AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF COUNTERINSURGECY │ 69

time to arrive at a commonly accepted, population-centric COIN approach. Most important were properly organized and determined 

political and military efforts by the Vietnamese government to carry 

out effective COIN. Finally, the Vietnamese alone would have to sustain the effort once security and stability had been established—the 

issue of sustainability. Ultimately, sustainability became an insurmountable challenge.

Figure 4.1. Editor Jon Gundersen, as a young military advisory team 

member in Vietnam. Photo courtesy of the editor.

The On-Again, Off-Again Approach to 

Counterinsurgency and Civilian-Military Teams

Five distinct periods define the often tortured development of pacification and the use of civilian-military advisory teams in Vietnam. 

The first extended from 1954 to 1961 and involved an initial understanding of the importance of bringing popularly responsive government to the rural areas. These areas had been under direct communist 
70 │ PHILLIPS

(Vietminh) rule or under its indirect influence. Other areas were under the influence of religious sects not friendly to any centralized 

government. However, after initial success in 1955–56, the situation 

on the ground began to deteriorate. When the weaknesses of the 

Vietnamese government were combined with US neglect of the rural 

areas in its military and economic aid programs, a security and political vacuum developed that the Vietcong (VC) eagerly began filling.1

The second period, from 1961 to 1963, began with the decision by 

the newly inaugurated Kennedy administration to help the South 

Vietnamese defeat the rise of the VC through an increased economic 

and military aid program and advisory effort. By mid-1963, this program began to see some success but ultimately self-destructed with the 

overthrow and murder of Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem and 

the assassination of US president John F. Kennedy in November 1963.

Vietnamese political turmoil, poor American leadership and advice, increased VC activity, and the introduction of North Vietnamese units into the South marked the third period, from the beginning 

of 1964 to mid-1965. This turmoil met with an ineffective response by 

the Vietnamese army.

The fourth period, from 1965 to 1968, saw the direct introduction 

of US troops into the war with the initial objective of preventing a 

South Vietnamese collapse, quickly evolving into a US war of attrition against the North Vietnamese units in the South, with the objective of killing enough enemy forces to win. The United States ignored 

the Vietnamese army and paid only lip service to pacification. The US 

position was to win the war itself and then give the country back to 

the Vietnamese. The mind-set was akin to that of World War II and 

the Korean War, not true pacification or COIN.

The fifth and final period began with the change of military command from Gen William Westmoreland to Gen Creighton Abrams in 

mid-1968, which accompanied a shift in military strategy and tactics 

from conventional big-unit warfare to protecting the civilian population. Originally created in 1967, Civil Operations and Revolutionary 

Development Support (CORDS), with its use of civilian-military advisory teams, became an effective US mechanism for supporting 

Vietnamese COIN.2

 Even more important was the establishment of a 

constitutionally based and relatively stable government in Vietnam 

that refocused on COIN.

Subsequently, having lost the insurgency battle in most of South 

Vietnam, the North Vietnamese turned to conventional war by direct 
AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF COUNTERINSURGECY │ 71

invasion across the 17th parallel and from its Cambodian and Laotian sanctuaries. In 1972, the South Vietnamese army with the backing of still existing US advisory, air, and logistical support defeated 

this first incursion, the Easter offensive. However, in 1975, when the 

entire North Vietnamese army invaded and after the withdrawal of 

all direct US support, South Vietnam collapsed.

One may draw lessons relevant to Afghanistan and future conflicts 

from the CORDS experience in Vietnam. These lessons include the 

following. First, the United States must be aware of the importance of 

the critical psychological and political aspects of the struggle. Second, 

policy makers must integrate US advisory efforts with those of the 

host government in a joint approach as much as possible. Third, highquality American civil and military leadership must cooperate in a 

team approach based on a realistic understanding of the host country’s political vulnerabilities and underlying security and governance 

problems. Fourth, the US and host government must jointly share a 

coherent and coordinated COIN doctrine, combined with effective 

civilian-military advisory operations in the field. Fifth, US troops 

need to consider transition to host-country control from the very beginning. Sixth, estimates of progress in stability operations should rely 

more on intangible indicators rather than statistical measurements.

Early Support for Winning the Rural Population Turns 

into Neglect of the Gap between the Central 

Government and Rural Communist Strongholds

In late 1954, Colonel Lansdale was given a broad mandate as chief 

of the National Security Division of the Training Relations and Instruction Mission (TRIM), a joint US-French military advisory mission that had just formed. This broad US mandate was in the shadow 

of a disorganized Vietnamese army with low morale and a habit of 

either ignoring or actively alienating the civilian population. I was 

tasked to develop a special training program to change troop attitudes. Then I was assigned as the first US military advisor to accompany the troops into the field on two Vietnamese army occupations 

of former Vietminh-controlled areas. The operation in central Vietnam was particularly memorable because it occurred without a single 

adverse incident between a soldier and a civilian despite vicious communist propaganda that the South Vietnamese troops would steal 
72 │ PHILLIPS

and rape. I saw villagers voluntarily bring water out of their homes 

for the soldiers to drink. This positive spirit carried over into Vietnamese army operations that overcame sectarian rebellions in Saigon 

and in the Mekong Delta. American civilian agencies, whose attention was elsewhere, were only marginally involved.

After 1955, with a constitutional Vietnamese government established, the United States began treating South Vietnam as a normal, 

well-established country, ignoring the gap that existed between the 

newly formed central government and the rural areas, where the communists had been strong. US agencies each pursued separate conventional objectives. The Diem government requested US support for civic 

action teams to work in the villages. I was there helping the Vietnamese 

present their request when the director of the United States Operations 

Mission (USOM), Leland Barrows, refused to provide advisors or any 

significant financial support. He thought the focus should be on industrial development in the cities where there was a labor surplus.3

 Largely 

ignored by the United States was an effective civilian follow-up to the 

Vietnamese army pacification operations and Vietnamese civilian efforts to establish effective governance in the countryside to bolster 

fragile security.

Moreover, the Pentagon insisted on changing the Vietnamese army’s basic mission from internal security to that of a regular army to 

block an overt North Vietnamese attack across the 17th parallel. To 

take the army’s place, a Civil Guard was created to provide rural security; however, USOM outsourced the new entity’s training and support to a Michigan State University team staffed by US municipal 

police retirees. At the same time, the Diem government took a more 

authoritarian turn and failed to rally widespread political support, 

while instead undertaking suppressive programs against former Vietminh and religious sect supporters, not all of whom were communists. This alienated much of the rural population, particularly in the 

Mekong Delta. While the VC insurgency incubated between 1957 

and 1960, there was little effective response by the Vietnamese government and no effective coordination between the US military and 

civilian agencies to address this nascent problem. Much of that time 

was consumed by open conflict between the MAAG and USOM over 

who should train and advise the Civil Guard.
AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF COUNTERINSURGECY │ 73

Counterinsurgency Becomes the Byword; CivilianMilitary Advisory Teams Are Born

In 1961, facing a rapidly growing VC insurgency against the South 

Vietnamese government, the newly inaugurated Kennedy administration decided to support South Vietnam in defeating the insurgency. It pursued this policy by beefing up military support and assigning military advisors to the Vietnamese armed forces at all levels, 

including the provinces (called military sectors). A new entity, the 

Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), was established 

over the existing MAAG. US Army Special Forces—the advisory effort’s only unconventional component—were assigned initially under 

CIA direction to help create irregular counterguerrilla forces, mainly 

among the mountain people called Montagnards.

While the entire US support effort was labeled COIN, there was a 

gap in understanding regarding what it meant to be successful. To 

Robert McNamara, the secretary of defense, and the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff pacification meant primarily conventional military operations 

to kill VC, not a population-centric approach. In 1962, McNamara 

was preparing his own chart of indicators about whether the United 

States was winning or losing. McNamara asked my old boss, Lansdale, then a general on McNamara’s staff in the Pentagon, for his 

views. Lansdale looked at the chart, which consisted of numerical 

factors such as enemies killed and weapons captured, and said, 

“Something’s missing. . . . You might call it the X factor.” “What’s 

that?” McNamara asked? “The feelings of the Vietnamese people,” 

Lansdale replied. McNamara initially jotted down an X but then 

erased it and asked sarcastically how anyone could get an accurate 

reading on people’s feelings. Lansdale, who understood the war’s unconventional nature and what made the Vietnamese tick, begged him 

not to so codify the war. Lansdale had lost the secretary’s attention.4

Sadly, McNamara’s thinking, that men plus money and materiel 

equaled victory, permeated down to the leadership of MACV in 

shaping the advice given to regular Vietnamese army units. They 

were urged to conduct battalion-sized and larger sweep operations 

(later called “search and destroy” by American forces) with excessive 

use of poorly controlled artillery and air attacks against VC guerrilla 

forces when they could be found and engaged. These tactics were 

based on experiences from World War II and Korea, given that most 
74 │ PHILLIPS

of the US senior officers had served in those wars. The real COIN 

battle was being fought in the provinces for the protection and support of the population. There the MAAG sector advisors concentrated on helping that fight and quickly acquired a different view of 

the war working with the Vietnamese provincial chiefs.

The new Kennedy administration gradually changed its approach. 

In 1962, I was suddenly asked to leave my private-sector job and return to Saigon on a temporary basis to prepare a report on how best 

to involve the civilian aid program in COIN. Like many of my generation, I was infused with the Kennedy ethos of “ask not what your 

country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” My 

report would result in the White House asking me to immediately 

take charge of the program I had recommended.

My report advocated the reorganization of USOM/Saigon to create a special Office of Rural Affairs that would assign representatives 

to each of 44 provinces to work directly with the provincial chiefs and 

their staffs in coordination with the US military-sector advisor. We 

would accept only volunteers.

A special fund was established to support COIN, and Washington 

authorized US ambassador Frederick Nolting to purchase $10 million in local currency (approximately 700 million piasters) from the 

Vietnamese government’s central bank. These funds were held in a 

special counterpart account managed jointly by the US Agency for 

International Development (USAID) mission and the Vietnamese 

ministry of finance and disbursed through Vietnamese channels to 

support specific COIN activities in the provinces.5

To administer expenditures from the special fund, a tripartite committee was created with Diem government agreement in each province, consisting of the Vietnamese provincial chief, the USOM provincial representative, and the MAAG sector advisor. These three made 

funding decisions largely by consensus but with the provincial chief 

having veto authority. This was the first truly joint US civilian-military 

advisory team effort in Vietnam, and its creation was undoubtedly facilitated by the existence of the US special fund for COIN support.

The committee mechanism was well received, as it enhanced the 

provincial chiefs’ capabilities, while shielding them from Saigon’s 

second-guessing. Funds supported hamlet construction, development, and security, including the training of hamlet militias. A surrender program (Chieu Hoi) was added with rural affairs advice and 

assistance. A miscellaneous fund proved indispensable for activities 
AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF COUNTERINSURGECY │ 75

ranging from compensation to the families of hamlet militiamen 

killed in action to transporting self-help building materials from provincial capitals down to the hamlets.

Cooperation was so close at the provincial level that when USOM 

rural affairs was gearing up, MAAG sector advisors were designated 

as USOM provincial representatives until civilians could be assigned. 

Turnover was the main hindrance to sustained cooperation at the 

provincial level. All military advisors were assigned for only one year, 

which could not be extended even if the advisor requested, while 

USOM provincial representatives were assigned for a minimum of 

two years, with many volunteering to extend.

In Saigon, a US Provincial Rehabilitation Committee was created 

to coordinate COIN support. The embassy’s deputy chief of mission 

headed the committee, which was composed of working-level representatives from each US agency, including MAAG. This worked well 

to coordinate support for COIN at the provincial level but lacked the 

ability to coordinate or influence Vietnamese regular army combat 

operations and US air support. The top levels of MACV guided these 

latter operations. In other words, tactical combat decisions made at 

higher levels at MACV too often undermined the priority of population security. Vietnamese army operations that indiscriminately 

killed civilians outraged John Paul Vann, then a US Army advisor in 

the Mekong Delta. He was heard to proclaim rhetorically that if he 

had “his druthers,” he would equip Vietnamese soldiers with only 

long knives, so they could see who they were killing.6

 Nevertheless, 

the strategic hamlet program was making progress until the Buddhist 

crisis began to undermine it, paralyzing the South Vietnamese government in the late summer of 1963.

Effective Vietnamese Government Dissolves: CivilianMilitary Teams Abandoned

After the military coup and the assassination of President Diem on 

1 November 1963, the new military junta opposed, in principle, practically everything the Diem government had done. While they did 

not formally cancel the hamlet program, they left many hamlets undefended. By June 1964, the new Vietnamese government of Gen 

Nguyen Khanh renamed the strategic hamlets New Life Hamlets, 

thus backing the same basic concept but with less than effective support.
76 │ PHILLIPS

On the US side, another step backward occurred in the fall of 1964 

when the new USOM mission director, James Killen, abandoned the 

civilian-military team approach, saying that the tripartite provincial 

committees were “an affront to Vietnamese sovereignty and against 

standard AID procedures.”7

 Harkening back to the philosophy of 

1956–1962, USOM technical assistance focused again on working 

with the Vietnamese ministries in Saigon.8

 This coincided with enormous political turmoil and personnel changes on the Vietnamese 

side. At the same time, the new US ambassador, Gen Maxwell Taylor, 

created a higher-level mission council, composed of the chiefs of the 

various US missions—USOM, US Information Service, MACV, and 

CIA—to coordinate US activities. Despite Taylor’s reputation, based 

largely on his World War II experience and his close connection to 

the Kennedys, he was politically inept at interacting with the Vietnamese. The working-level provincial rehabilitation committee was 

ignored. As a result, firsthand views of the Americans in the field—

filtered as they were up through several levels of command—received 

inadequate attention by the mission council.

Conventional Combat by US Forces

Supersedes Pacification

Beginning in the middle of 1965, US troops were introduced into 

Vietnam in a direct combat role under General Westmoreland as 

head of MACV. At around the same time, Henry Cabot Lodge returned to Saigon as the US ambassador. He wanted to give renewed 

attention to pacification, bringing with him my former boss, retired 

Maj Gen Edward Lansdale, and a small team to coordinate and direct 

the pacification effort out of the embassy. Although back in the private sector, I came out temporarily as a consultant to lend a start-up 

helping hand. It soon became apparent, however, that the main focus 

in Washington and by Westmoreland was on winning the war quickly, 

waging a conventional war of attrition against the VC, and infiltrating 

North Vietnamese forces.9

 Body counts became the way success was 

measured. Politically, the fact that the United States had taken over 

the war only bolstered VC propaganda that the South Vietnamese 

leaders were puppets, undermining their legitimacy as independent 

nationalists in the eyes of the population. General Westmoreland 

gave only lip service to pacification. The Vietnamese army and the 
AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF COUNTERINSURGECY │ 77

various local security forces responsible for pacification received little 

attention. According to Westmoreland’s J-2, Brig Gen Phillip Davidson, 

“Westmoreland’s interest always lay in the big-unit war. Pacification 

bored him.”10

While US military advisors continued their efforts in the regions, 

provinces, and districts, they operated in a MACV backwater environment. Under the new USOM director, Charles Mann, the provincial tripartite committee structure continued to languish. USOM’s 

provincial representatives had no access to funds to support pacification directly or jointly with the Vietnamese provincial chiefs. In response to the need, MACV had begun providing limited defense 

funds directly to its sector advisors, but the old committee structure 

that fostered civilian-military teamwork was gone.

Although Lansdale initially had a broad charter in August 1965, 

Lodge gave him very weak support. Lansdale’s approach involved a 

blend of high-level political advice and direct contacts with Americans and Vietnamese in the field. This cut across traditional US 

agency lines of authority. As the various US agencies continued their 

own separate pacification support operations, Lansdale found it 

practically impossible to coordinate these efforts. Prime Minister 

Nguyen Cao Ky needed useful advice on how best to organize and 

carry out pacification. Lansdale undertook this task with some success but soon ran afoul of Lodge’s objections that only he and the 

head of the embassy political section should be dealing with Ky since 

he was prime minister. In contrast, when Ellsworth Bunker later became US ambassador, he actively encouraged the head of CORDS, 

William Colby, to deal directly with Pres. Nguyen Van Thieu on political as well as technical matters related to pacification. Lansdale 

also proposed a set of pacification guidelines for all agencies to follow, but this raised bureaucratic objections from each agency, including MACV.

A COIN conference was held in January 1966 at Airlie House, near 

Warrenton, Virginia, drawing representatives from all agencies in 

Saigon and Washington. Opening the conference, the DOS’s Vietnam 

coordinator, Amb. Leonard Unger, focused on the need for US coordination and rationalization of all US programs and activities, citing 

“conflicts over resources and manpower” and “no clear priorities.” 

USAID, the DOS, the United States Information Agency, and the CIA 

argued for their own independence. The civilian agencies led by the 

DOS objected to Department of Defense (DOD) being put in overall 
78 │ PHILLIPS

control of pacification, while the DOD refused to put any of its military 

advisor operations under civilian control.11

After Airlie House, the Johnson administration decided to place 

the deputy ambassador in Saigon, William Porter, in charge of the 

civilian side of pacification. Lansdale was pushed aside. While Pres. 

Lyndon Johnson believed Porter should command, Ambassador 

Lodge and Porter himself saw his role as one of coordination. Lodge 

continued expecting Porter to carry out his regular duties as deputy 

ambassador.12 It was typical Washington thinking that appointing a 

high-level diplomat would not only ensure his authority over all US 

civilian operations but would also enhance US influence over the 

Vietnamese. This was not the case. Porter lacked practical COIN experience. At the same time, Porter’s rank afforded little influence over 

the Vietnamese who were looking for practical advice and accepted it 

mainly based on personal trust and confidence. The US civilian agencies continued to answer directly to their Washington headquarters, 

while MACV largely ignored and even undermined pacification in 

pursuit of its strategies of attrition and using maximum force against 

the VC—strategies that caused widespread damage to the civilian population. At the same time, there was no coordinated US political approach at the top to unify the Vietnamese government and its military 

leaders in support of pacification.

In March 1966, President Johnson appointed Robert Komer as his 

special assistant for supervising pacification support out of the White 

House. Komer had a broad mandate to direct, coordinate, and supervise in Washington all US nonmilitary support for pacification in 

Vietnam—the “other war” as it was called. He also had direct access 

to the president and direct communications with Porter in Saigon. 

While Komer was able to improve coordination at the Washington 

level, Ambassador Lodge again gave lip service to supporting Porter’s 

efforts in Saigon, while bending to individual agency views. This left 

Porter with the title of coordinator but in command of nothing. President Johnson’s frustration mounted, but he never confronted Lodge 

directly on the issue. Finally, in December 1966, President Johnson 

authorized a new Office of Civilian Operations (OCO) to coordinate 

all US civilian agency support for pacification, with Porter as its head. 

OCO was given a period of four months to become effective.

As OCO was launched, a separate combined civilian-military single manager approach was developed as an experiment for one province, Long An, just southwest of Saigon. Previous attempts beginning 
AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF COUNTERINSURGECY │ 79

in 1964 to focus pacification efforts in the province had not been successful. In November 1966, Ambassador Lodge assigned the mission 

council coordinator, US Army colonel Sam Wilson, as the leader of 

the entire US advisory effort in Long An. Wilson had considerable 

guerilla and counterguerilla experience, having previously served in 

Merrill’s Marauders during World War II and as my replacement 

heading up USOM rural affairs (renamed provincial operations) 

from 1964 to 1965. A US brigade operating in coordination with Wilson but not under his command, along with a Vietnamese army unit, 

were initially assigned to Long An for clearing operations. However, 

the US unit was soon withdrawn, followed shortly by the Vietnamese 

army unit. Coordinated Vietnamese government follow up with adequate local security forces was lacking. While some progress was 

made, no other potential leader with Wilson’s military and civilian 

capabilities were available to replace him; thus, the project died. 

Komer, however, would use the concept of a single manager in later 

promoting the idea of CORDS.13

OCO was organized with its own separate central staff in Saigon. 

Senior civilian directors were to be appointed in each of the four 

corps areas to coordinate with the senior MACV Corps advisors and 

to supervise all civil operations in each province, where OCO-appointed senior provincial representatives would direct all civilian operations. Only one appointment was made at corps level from within 

existing ranks. By late February 1967, the last of four regional directors had been hired, but only approximately two-thirds of 175 important new positions had been filled.

Even as OCO was being formed, interagency disputes at the mission council level in Saigon reached such an intensity that the participants seemed to concentrate more on fighting each other than on 

supporting the war effort.14 At one point, Richard Holbrooke, then a 

young foreign service officer assigned to Komer’s White House office, 

asked me to contact Lansdale to try to give Porter some support, 

since Porter was under strong criticism from Washington circles.15 As 

the short trial period for OCO ended, failure was clear.16 Even if policy 

makers had given OCO more time to organize, without any influence 

over MACV’s military advisory effort, or an effective advisory connection 

with key leaders of the Vietnamese government, it was doomed to fail.

The National Security Council, Komer, and the DOD finally prevailed on President Johnson to put pacification squarely under 

MACV, regardless of objections from the DOS and USAID, but with 
80 │ PHILLIPS

a civilian director. By May 1967, the president authorized the transfer 

of OCO to the new pacification command called CORDS. Komer 

was soon sent out as a deputy to the US military commander, General 

Westmoreland, to take charge of CORDS. 

With the formation of CORDS, two chains of command existed 

within MACV, each with a deputy to the MACV commanding general. One chain ran directly to all US military units in the country. 

The other commanded all US military advisors at all levels down 

from corps (region) to provinces and districts and all civilian agencies working at these same levels. Within CORDS, at the corps level 

either a senior military officer was in charge with a civilian advisor or 

vice versa, while the regional USOM missions came under their command. At the provincial level, a senior advisor was put in charge 

(most often military with a civilian deputy but sometimes the opposite) with a combined interagency team of personnel working for 

him. While CIA personnel were housed separately and had separate 

offices, they participated in team meetings. Many provincial teams 

had over 20 members from MACV and the various civilian agencies. 

At the district level the teams were smaller, usually 4–5 members 

with a senior district advisor in charge, either military or civilian. 

Funds to support pacification, beyond Vietnamese government– 

supported personnel and operational costs for revolutionary development cadre teams and local and regional defense forces, as well as 

the provincial government staff, came through US channels. Called 

“assistance-in kind,” US advisors dispersed these funds with liberal 

spending limits. This funding was an important ingredient for success, and the degree to which the Vietnamese were involved in funding decisions was up to US initiative. Provincial pacification plans 

were prepared on an annual basis. At best these plans were developed 

primarily by the Vietnamese provincial staff with US assistance, thus 

helping prepare provincial governments eventually to function without US advice.

CORDS was not particularly effective during its first year. It took 

some time to staff up and to iron out the wrinkles, but its main weakness 

was cooperation with the Vietnamese, which was not Komer’s forte. 

It also continued to suffer from General Westmoreland’s disconnect 

with the Vietnamese security forces and ignorance of on-the-ground 

realities. As an example, in August 1966, I wrote a firsthand report for 

Lansdale that he gave directly to Westmoreland. The report indicated 

that a significant area just outside the Saigon city limits was under VC 
AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF COUNTERINSURGECY │ 81

control despite MACV maps showing the area as being secure. Even 

though Westmoreland’s own staff verified my report, nothing happened to correct this situation. The VC used this same area to assemble sizeable forces for their January 1968 Tet assault on Saigon.17

Changes in Vietnamese Governance and US Command 

Revived Pacification

When General Abrams took over MACV in June 1968, after the 

Tet and mini-Tet offensives, the operational emphasis shifted to the 

security of the civilian population as a priority for all forces. While 

the Thieu government suffered from corruption and insufficient popular enthusiasm, it nevertheless had a more stable, constitutional, elected 

status and enhanced legitimacy. This improved status helped mobilize 

an effective pacification effort. A senior Vietnamese official involved 

called it “the best organized and conceived [pacification] operation we 

have had in Vietnam since . . . the Strategic Hamlets Program.”18

 By 1971 almost all of South Vietnam’s countryside had been pacified—a feat that many had previously thought to be impossible. 

While the CORDS advisory and support effort and its civilian-military teams played key roles, it was mainly a Vietnamese achievement. 

The defeat of the VC in a series of attacks that began with Tet in January 1968 assisted the pacification effort as well. Progress came too 

late, however, to sustain US public support. Tet was widely interpreted in the United States as an American defeat, coming as it did on 

the heels of General Westmoreland’s claims beforehand of victory being just around the corner.

The success of CORDS owed much to William Colby’s leadership 

and the support he received from Ambassador Bunker and General 

Abrams. While Komer’s highly forceful approach (he was known as 

“the blow torch” in US circles) was effective in getting CORDS 

started, it alienated the Vietnamese.19 The entire effort picked up 

steam when Colby, who knew how to work with the Vietnamese, replaced Komer. The main weakness of CORDS became the sheer 

number of advisors, who tended to take up too much Vietnamese 

government time and attention.20
82 │ PHILLIPS

Applicable Lessons 

An important lesson from the Vietnam experience is that the political and psychological aspects of an insurgent war are likely to be 

determinative in the long run. The sustained defeat of insurgents will 

rely ultimately on the legitimacy and effectiveness of the government 

the United States is trying to help. An important component of that 

legitimacy is the need for the host country’s leadership to be perceived as independent and responsible in the eyes of its own people. 

This creates a dilemma for US intervention, obliging us to wield influence and provide advice as unobtrusively as possible while at the 

same time inducing host-government reform and responsiveness to 

its citizens. Time, persistence, and persuasiveness are needed as well 

as understanding that the United States cannot substitute its efforts 

for those of the host government. At the same time, wise US support 

can be critical to making local efforts successful. Vietnam is replete 

with good and bad examples of how and how not to do this. 

To be most effective, US civilian-military teams supporting another country’s stability need to assume an advisory role and should 

be integrated with the host government as much as possible. Initially, 

in 1962, Washington adopted this approach. However, that was abandoned, until actively resumed after 1968 with CORDS. In Afghanistan, the United States primarily used PRTs, combining military and 

civilian elements, in direct support of International Security Assistance Force operations. The Afghanistan PRTs were not adequately 

integrated with the Afghan government. When combined with a lateblooming Afghan effort to stand up local government, the transition 

to ultimate Afghan stability was difficult and time consuming. Where 

rural-based insurgency is incipient or already active, early recognition 

of the problem by the host government is critical to efforts to fill the 

security and political vacuum with something positive and lasting.

The use of civilian-military advisory teams, as useful as they are in 

addressing the necessary coordination of US assistance and advice, 

should be fitted into an advisory role to the host government as 

jointly as possible. Ideally, there should be early local leadership buyin to a joint US-host government advisory approach that minimizes 

any appearance of violating national sovereignty. The tripartite committees at the provincial level in Vietnam always operated on the basis that decisions had to be consensus-based and the provincial chief 

had the right of veto. Moreover, the best US advisors were careful to 
AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF COUNTERINSURGECY │ 83

take a back seat in public. Creating a special US assistance fund to 

support host-government COIN efforts could advance and strengthen 

such a joint approach.

In short, CORDS, with the advantage of a single combined US 

chain of command, albeit with a smaller footprint, is a useful model 

for future civilian-military teams. Obviously, circumstances vary 

from country to country. However, there is no reason why, with effort, civilian-military teams cannot work effectively with host governments if all elements are dedicated to working harmoniously with 

each other.

Assuming former Secretary of Defense Gates was right when he 

suggested that the United States may be seeing the last of direct major 

US military interventions in troubled countries, policy makers need 

to consider a smaller and less intrusive civilian-military advisory 

team approach. For example, based somewhat on the earlier 1962 

Vietnam model, this might consist of three advisors operating at the 

provincial level: one from the DOS focused on governance, one from 

USAID focused on development, and one military advisor focused 

on population security with a small special-forces or similar type 

military team in support for training and group security. Under an 

agreement with the host government, stability assistance funds would 

be decentralized through host-government channels down to the 

provincial level, where there would be a joint sign off on expenditures 

by the provincial governor. One member, based on the nature of the 

stability challenge, would be designated to head the US team. Only 

personnel with prior on-the-ground experience with stability operations would be considered for assignment.

It is also clear from the Vietnam pacification experience that the 

quality of US leadership and its understanding of the political nature 

of the war and of Vietnamese perceptions and practice mattered a 

great deal. The same principles would apply to US engagement in 

other countries. One can speculate how things might have gone better had General Abrams been appointed as head of MAVC in 1964 

instead of Westmoreland and had the appointment of an ambassador 

of Bunker’s quality been made then instead of replacing Lodge with 

General Taylor and then bringing Lodge back again in 1965 or had 

the South Vietnamese government established political stability 

sooner. The bottom line is that leadership makes an enormous difference on both sides. Therefore, the United States should be very careful about who it puts in charge of both the military and civilian sides 
84 │ PHILLIPS

of US assistance and the way in which it contributes to stability and 

effectiveness in the host government.21 Realistically, in most troubled regions, host-government leadership often is less than optimal. 

Nevertheless, as the CORDS experience indicates, significant success can be achieved by working within a less than perfect hostcountry environment.

Additionally, combined civilian-military advisory efforts need to 

function not just at lower operational levels from the districts and 

provinces up to higher levels but also at the very top. As occurred in 

Vietnam between General Abrams and Ambassador Bunker, a contemporary example of leadership making a significant difference in 

outcome is the collaboration between Amb. Ryan Crocker and Gen 

David Petraeus in Iraq. If the top rung is working well together, this 

filters down to the working levels. At the same time, a special effort is 

needed to keep the United States and the host government on the same 

page with a strong buy-in to stability operations up and down the line. 

In the author’s opinion, this will invariably be needed no matter where 

US civilian-military teams may operate. While local initiative in rural 

areas is extremely important, the host government as well as the US or 

international advisors must develop significant support from the top 

down for stability operations to succeed in the long run.

Furthermore, there is a tendency to overrely on numerical metrics 

to determine whether stability operations are succeeding. The hamlet 

evaluation system used by CORDS was certainly an improvement over 

previous, cruder statistical measurements. However, assigning a numerical grading to hamlets presumed to be secure left the system open 

to exaggeration. The tendency was to overreport good news, because 

these reports were tied to performance evaluation of the preparer for 

promotion. Intangible factors such as evidence of being able to move 

around freely at night as well as during the day needs to be given greater 

weight. Since COIN success is so dependent on the perceptions and 

attitudes of the civilian population, intangibles that cannot be statistically measured are often the most meaningful measures of progress.

A Final Word

CORDS unified the US pacification effort from top to bottom. The 

civilian-military advisory teams CORDS created were essential to the 

success, albeit temporary, of pacification in Vietnam. So too were two 
AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF COUNTERINSURGECY │ 85

other factors: 1) getting COIN doctrine right and having it guide all 

significant military and civil operations, and 2) having the Vietnamese organized and fully committed to implementing that doctrine on 

the ground. If there was a fault, it was not giving more time and attention to preparing the South Vietnamese to take over. That, of course, 

required a longer period than US domestic politics allowed. The really 

hard work for stability building in Afghanistan, as it will be elsewhere, 

is the transition to full host-government responsibility. This requires 

us to keep in mind Col T. E. Lawrence’s guidance that it is “better 

[your allies] do it tolerably than you do it perfectly. It is their war, and 

you are to help them, not to win it for them.”22 Or as General Abrams 

put it in 1970, “Sooner or later the Vietnamese themselves have got to 

settle this thing. We can only help and we can only help so much.”23

Notes

1. “Vietminh,” or the Vietnamese Independence League, began as a front group 

organized by Ho Chi Minh in 1941. It evolved during the French Indochina War into 

a completely communist-dominated and -controlled organization. “Vietcong,” 

which literally means Vietnamese communist, was a term the South Vietnamese 

government applied to the insurgents, including the National Liberation Front, in 

1960, replacing the term Vietminh.

2. Revolutionary development was a translation of the term used at the time by 

the Vietnamese to describe their own COIN/pacification effort.

3. Rufus Phillips, Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not 

Learned (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2009), 86.

4. Phillips, Why Vietnam Matters, xiii and 1n. Lansdale went on to write a memo 

for McNamara explaining the “x” factor in more detail and suggesting questions that 

could be asked by a small team in the field to help garner “a sharper picture of how 

we’re doing in Vietnam.” McNamara appeared to have had some second thoughts 

and asked Lansdale to talk to Gen Joseph Carroll, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, about his memorandum, but then nothing came of it. See US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, vol. 2, Vietnam 1962 (Washington, DC: DOS, 1961–1963), 506–10.

5. The special COIN fund was a set-aside within the overall US FY 1962 budget 

for economic and military assistance to the Vietnamese government.

6. Phillips, Why Vietnam Matters, 141. 

7. Harvey Neese and John O’Donnell, eds., Prelude to Tragedy: Vietnam 1960–

1965 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001), 117.

8. Ibid., 116–21.

9. An exception was the US Marine Corps’s combined action platoon program in 

the villages. Begun in 1965 by Marine platoons jointly with Vietnamese local security 

forces, it was kept at a small scale due to General Westmoreland’s focus on regular 

big-unit warfare.
86 │ PHILLIPS

10. Lewis Sorley, Westmoreland: The General Who Lost Vietnam (Boston, MA: 

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), 103.

11. Phillips, Why Vietnam Matters, 262.

12. Richard A. Hunt, Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts 

and Minds (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), 71, 75.

13. Hunt, Pacification, 53–55.

14. Al Santoli, To Bear Any Burden (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 

1999), 195–96.

15. Phillips, Why Vietnam Matters, 278.

16. Ibid., 83–85.

17. Ibid., 270–71. The report, entitled “Peace and Prosperity Village, Gia Dinh 

Province,” related a visit by the author to a village area just four km south of Saigon 

that had been overrun by a sizeable VC force. Relief had come not from Saigon itself 

but from Long An City, some 20 km away across the rice paddies and had taken eight 

hours to get there. However, this area was noted as secure on MACV maps. Not believing the report, Westmoreland sent a brigadier general on his staff to visit the 

same village. He completely verified the report’s findings, but nothing was done to 

address this enormous security gap until after it was fully exploited by the VC during 

Tet 1968 as an assembly area to attack Saigon itself.

18. William Egan Colby and James McCargar, Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account 

of America’s Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 

1989), 269.

19. Lewis Sorley, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of 

America’s Last Years in Vietnam (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1999), 62.

20. Phillips, Why Vietnam Matters, 314.

21. Ibid., see pages 312–13 for further elaboration on this theme.

22. T. E. Lawrence, “Twenty-Seven Articles,” Arab Bulletin, 20 August 1917.

23. Sorley, A Better War, 190.
Chapter 5

The Present Past of Vietnam

Implications of Civil Operations and Revolutionary 

Development Support for Today’s “Other Wars”

Sandra A. Scham

Bob, I’m going to put you in charge of the other war.

—Pres. Lyndon Baines Johnson

In his characteristic casual manner, as he greeted guests at a party, 

Pres. Lyndon Johnson introduced Robert Komer to the task that became the most prominent undertaking of his career.1

 This presidential pronouncement took Komer completely by surprise and, at the 

time, must have seemed more of a threat than a promise. Nevertheless, the man who soon thereafter earned the nickname of “the Blowtorch” began to move at full speed toward winning the trust and cooperation of the Vietnamese people as part of the ongoing pacification 

effort. Despite an uncertain beginning, Komer’s Civil Operations and 

Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program was a 

unique effort to pursue stabilization and development goals within 

the framework of an ongoing conflict and managed to achieve a 

modicum of success within the context of what is now largely acknowledged as a major setback for US interests in the region and 

overall US foreign policy.2

 While “hearts and minds” became a derisive slogan for the futility of the entire Vietnamese effort, CORDS 

team members were quietly proving that this fight actually could be 

won—at least on a small scale.3

The realization in recent years that CORDS was an effective program has not come easily. This may be due to the fact that the military 

outcome of the war has overshadowed almost all analyses of the US 

presence in Vietnam. Gen David Petraeus’s prescient statement—

“the legacy of Vietnam is unlikely to soon recede”—in his 1987 doctoral dissertation on the subject has been demonstrated time and 

again by the many articles and analyses on current conflicts that reference the earlier war, usually to strike a warning note.4

 In the same 

work, Petraeus further stated that “historical analogies are particularly 
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compelling during crises, when the tendency to supplement incomplete information with past experiences is especially marked.”5

 Although he was speaking of the insight to be gained from a deeply 

disheartening military experience, this observation could just as easily apply to our first national encounter of such magnitude with a 

planned counterinsurgency (COIN).6

Some military strategists and scholars have summoned the ghost 

of CORDS in assessing the US engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq.7

The appropriate “lessons learned” niche for the CORDS experience 

still has not been found. The most apparent problem with the literature on the relevance of CORDS to today’s “other wars” is that it has 

been examined as a blueprint for specific operations and usually 

found wanting. Different time, different place, different tactics are 

cited as reasons why CORDS could not work in Iraq or Afghanistan.8

Taking a different approach, this paper discusses the potential applicability of CORDS—particularly in the context of provincial reconstruction teams (PRT)—through an analysis of three separate 

streams of evidence. The first stream is the recent literature on 

CORDS and PRTs. The second stream is a group of 208 recorded interviews with CORDS civilian-military participants. The third stream 

is a group of 460 transcribed interviews with PRT civilian-military 

personnel. Focusing primarily on understanding of mission and 

unity of effort, these sources are used to address four specific research 

questions with respect to CORDS and PRTs. First, how well did team 

members understand their mission? Second, was there a common 

understanding between civilians and military members on objectives? Third, how did civilian-military participants overcome their 

differences in order to work together? And fourth, what were the major strengths and weaknesses of each approach?

Here, we attempt to go beyond the recognition that other wars require “other” strategies—which, it goes without saying, are not those 

of conventional conflicts. This study is based on the premise that the 

basic COIN practices that have evolved greatly over the past few decades have still left a gap in regard to how to apply the lessons and 

experience of the past to similar conflicts in the present. Certainly, 

like unhappy families in Leo Tolstoy’s famous quotation, every war is 

difficult “in its own way.”9

 This does not mean, however, that the lessons learned from other conflicts are irrelevant to our current strategy. In fact, our increasingly better educated civilian-military leaders 

are using their knowledge of previous wars, in some cases without 
THE PRESENT PAST OF VIETNAM │ 89

even consciously acknowledging it. What this study offers is a more 

quantitative and evidence-based window on the recent history of US 

COIN experiences.

Background: Survey of the Literature

The Malayan emergency (1948–1960) was not a conflict that involved the United States, but it nevertheless has had a substantial impact on US policies. As a result of that experience, Robert Thompson 

authored an influential work on the subject of COIN, pointing to important lessons that he later put into practice as the head of the British advisory mission to South Vietnam and advisor to the US Vietnam mission. According to Thompson’s doctrine, victory over 

guerrilla groups requires more than just numerical military superiority. The most crucial part of his outline of five “basic principles of 

counterinsurgency” focuses on the necessities of the government 

having a clear political aim, the ability to function in accordance with 

accepted law, possessing an overall plan, giving priority to defeating 

political subversion, and securing its base areas first. Thompson’s extensive experience, albeit in countering a particular type of rural 

Maoist guerrilla group, led him to acclaim these principles as the cornerstone of any successful COIN conflict.10

CORDS was the first US military experiment to apply Thompson’s 

COIN principles, as it provided economic and agricultural development support, educational assistance and training, health care, refugee relief, and assistance with the Chieu Hoi (open arms) program, 

which welcomed and reintegrated former insurgents and opponents 

back to the South Vietnamese fold. The US Agency for International 

Development (USAID) contributed advisors to the police and to local officials. USAID also ran traditional development programs that 

complemented CORDS in fields such as education, health, and nutrition. CORDS coordinated the service delivery for these programs.11

Authors who have written about CORDS, with a few notable exceptions, have generally assessed the program as effective. Few of 

these studies, however, are evidence-based, and most have relied primarily on secondary sources. Among the historical conclusions that 

have been drawn about the impact of CORDS, four are of particular 

note for purposes of this analysis. First, while the overall CORDS effort subdued and virtually eliminated enemy influence among the 
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people through 1972, the program was not sustainable. It was resource intensive and ultimately dependent on US support that was 

badly cut in 1973 and beyond.12 Second, the 1967–70 “new model” 

pacification program, with all of its flaws and weaknesses, contributed materially to at least short-run improvement in the Vietnamese 

government’s ability to cope with rural insurgency.13 Third, programs 

such as CORDS cannot ultimately succeed if the indigenous government is corrupt and lacks political will.14 Finally, institution building 

is time consuming and can exhaust the patience of the US public.15

Recent studies of the Vietnam pacification program in general and 

the CORDS program in particular have inspired a number of researchers to reevaluate CORDS. According to traditional COIN theory, such programs, by their very nature, require in-country government partners. Yet some students of CORDS history have suggested 

that its major flaw was the necessity to partner with the corrupt South 

Vietnamese government. The management tools of US support for 

pacification were effective, while the entrenched corruption of the 

South Vietnamese government undermined comprehensive success.16 According to other commentators, CORDS achieved an unprecedented level of integration of US and South Vietnamese efforts 

toward the pacification of the countryside, largely nullifying the effectiveness of the communist insurgency in the overall conflict.17 Still 

others point to particular strategies that worked, including placing 

the focus on improving the quality of life for the local population in 

order to win their loyalty and on giving communities access to opportunities that the enemy could not or would not provide.18 Researchers who have taken the time to assess the hamlet evaluation 

system (HES), used to measure CORDS progress, have been generally impressed, although they note that, while it allowed CORDS to 

monitor its effectiveness, data collection on the scale required by the 

HES during wartime requires high levels of commitment and the resources of a powerful government to execute.19

Many consider the greatest successes of CORDS to be its advances 

in interagency coordination through development experts convincing 

military planners and decision makers to incorporate development 

projects into their overall security strategy and coordinated intelligence 

gathering that helped root out enemy cadre hidden in plain sight.20

Proceeding from historical hindsight to contemporary political 

and military analysis, the wealth of literature on PRTs suggests that, in 

contrast to CORDS’s organization and planning, today’s joint efforts 
THE PRESENT PAST OF VIETNAM │ 91

have not introduced any element of certainty as to the proper concept, role, and objectives of civilian-military teams.21 Originally designed to deal with leaders and parties in Afghanistan who believed 

that negotiations threatened their power, worldview, and interests, 

the introduction of other objectives in both Iraq and Afghanistan 

transformed PRTs.22 Therefore, a basic understanding of what a PRT 

should be trying to achieve and what it realistically can achieve has 

been in flux from the beginning.23

Some analysts suggest that PRTs should stay away completely from 

governance concerns and conduct only limited reconstruction, focusing on security-sector reform, intelligence, and force protection. 

According to these authors, in areas where a lack of security makes 

development difficult but not impossible, PRTs can make a valuable 

contribution.24 There is no consensus, however, among other analysts 

as to how PRTs should conduct operations or what should be their 

objectives. Many of these analysts also cite the lack of a clearly defined end state for PRT operations that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for team members on the ground to balance rapid results 

appropriately with sustainable development and capacity building.25

Also, these authors note that, without a plan articulating specific 

aims, measuring progress becomes a haphazard endeavor. Sometimes 

the literature provides suggestions for redressing these weaknesses, 

including using the CORDS HES as a model.26

Unclear PRT objectives translate into unclear strategies, and almost all analyses of PRTs cite the pressing need for an overarching 

strategy.27 Some of these analyses have proposed a number of strategic fixes, including civilianizing the PRTs across the board, limiting 

their role to buy time for military efforts and proper development, 

and setting up interagency coordinating bodies to fit PRT efforts into 

broader US foreign policy objectives.28 Throughout the literature, a 

lack of engagement with the host nation (HN) is cited as an impediment 

to PRT efforts, while paradoxically, the confusing nature of the PRT 

structure is seen as an impediment to engagement by HN members.29

Most PRT literature suggests that there were no clear lines of authority to ensure that civilian-military PRT efforts were effectively coordinated. Starting at the policy level and persisting down through the tactical level is a consistent fragmentation that is ameliorated only by 

special circumstances, personalities, and goodwill.30 Within individual 

PRTs, the clash of institutional cultures is frequently noted, and civilian PRT members complain about being treated as outsiders by their 
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military counterparts. Insufficient preparation for these cooperative 

efforts and for predeployment socialization exacerbates the problem 

and undermines full team integration.31 Added to this is the frequently mentioned problem of “stovepiping,” whereby the various 

elements of PRTs failed to communicate and share information internally.32 Many researchers have made the case for improved procedures to ensure continuity between PRT efforts from one rotation to 

the next. Recognizing that there is a steep learning curve for the 

newly deployed, other authors cite training as a major concern. Training is frequently the subject of lengthy discussions where analysts offer detailed suggestions on the specific content of various training 

programs. There is general consensus that joint civilian-military 

training is essential to enable familiarization with different approaches 

and operating procedures and that there is a pressing need to increase 

expert input into the design and execution of PRT training.33

Ethnography of Civilian-Military Communication

For the purposes of deriving lessons learned on the COIN and development front, the availability of interviews and data on the operation of CORDS and PRTs presents a unique opportunity to evaluate 

and compare the achievements and challenges of these programs. 

This is done through the use of content analysis, a research tool used 

to determine the presence of certain words or concepts within texts 

or sets of texts.

Keywords are usually calculated by carrying out a statistical test 

that compares the word frequencies in a text against their expected 

frequencies derived from other similar texts (in this case, interviews). 

Given that all conversations and comments analyzed here focused on 

the same subjects, it was not strictly necessary to select a large number 

of comparison documents to determine that such words as “counterinsurgency” and “pacification” are not in general language use. For the 

keyword analysis used here, it is important to note that words were 

counted if they are in any form of the keyword. Positive, negative, and 

neutral contexts, however, were counted as separate occurrences.34

The selection of the contexts was not as straightforward as the 

above explanation might suggest. Ultimately this was also a fairly 

subjective categorization, but in consideration of the goals of COIN 

programming, guidelines allow for the sorting according to positive, 
THE PRESENT PAST OF VIETNAM │ 93

negative, and neutral context. The latter, of course, offers the greatest 

challenge. While many analysts agree with media scholar John Fiske 

that “our words are never neutral,” there are some instances of specific 

words that cannot accurately be characterized as either positive or 

negative—hence the necessary, though deficient, “neutral” category.35

Critical discourse analysis does not provide a tangible answer to 

problems based on scientific research, but it enables access to the assumptions that define organizational cultures and roles and can reveal the hidden motivations behind a written or spoken text. Neither 

qualitative nor quantitative, discourse analysis constitutes a deconstructive reading and interpretation.  The essential purpose of discourse analysis is not to provide definite answers but to isolate unacknowledged agendas and motivations.36

Framing the Discourse: Civil Operations and 

Revolutionary Development Support Interviews

The Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, which is available online 

from the Library of Congress, contains some 150 interviews with foreign service officers from both the Department of State (DOS) and 

USAID who reference the CORDS program.37 In addition, 36 interviews with military CORDS participants were available from a recent 

study conducted by George Washington University and the Vietnam 

History Archive.38

Counterinsurgency was not a term in frequent use during the 

CORDS period, but pacification, which was often brought up in the 

interviews, has similar implications. This term was used very frequently by civilian and military participants alike—usually in a neutral or positive context. Most CORDS participants made positive or 

neutral statements about their mission and the training they received. 

The statements relating to interagency coordination, however, were 

overwhelmingly positive. There were no categories in which negative 

contexts outnumbered positive, leading to the conclusion that 

CORDS participants were generally satisfied or, at least, not dissatisfied 

with most aspects of their deployment.

CORDS policy statements, mostly from the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) handbook, and statements made separately by 

civilian-military participants reinforced some of the aforementioned 

conclusions but also brought out other more nuanced readings of the 
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CORDS experience.39 Interestingly, a number of themes followed 

through from policy statements to civilian-military interviews. The 

advisory, assistance, and support goals of the CORDS program as 

outlined in the directives were also emphasized by participants who 

agreed with the idea that, in the words of one interviewee, they had 

“spent most of the time advising and training the Vietnamese.”40

Most participants spoke of clearly defined roles and said that they 

were appropriately “inculcated as to what their job was,” as described 

by one interviewee.41 Civilian government CORDS participants differed somewhat from the military in characterizing their activities. 

Statements such as “we were intermediaries between the city and 

those in the US military who had resources” typify the general tenor 

of civilian remarks, while “it was essentially a matter of developing 

unified command and then the right kind of approach and then applying it” was more representative of military statements.42

In terms of unity of effort, policies and interviews were even more 

consistent—in some cases reflecting a mutual understanding between 

civilian-military participants of each other’s roles. It was not uncommon to find civilians speaking of patrols, reports, and commands in a 

way that indicated intimate knowledge of military activities and military interviewees speaking of funding, cooperation, and progress as 

one might expect civilian foreign service professionals to communicate. Again, the policy statements do not necessarily reflect this understanding, which would be unlikely in any event, but consistent references to integration and unification in interviews clearly indicate a 

high level of support on all sides for efforts to achieve a “remarkable 

degree of harmony,” as one interviewee said.43 Another offered further 

explanation of this support: “The theory was that our advisory effort 

should speak with one voice,” he said. “In any case, at the provincial 

level, it was not easy to separate military from civilian aspects of the 

war; it didn’t make sense to have all agencies acting independently.”44

With a unified pacification effort under a single manager, placed 

inside the military structure, interviewees found that such singular 

access to human, financial, and organizational resources was much 

more effective. Also, many noted that the single-manager concept 

eased the need to resolve institutional cultural disputes, leaving them 

free to engage in joint planning. 

Interviewees frequently referenced the CORDS training program, 

and of those who did, the majority thought that its mix of language, 

cultural, and military training was an appropriate one.
THE PRESENT PAST OF VIETNAM │ 95

Civilian-military interviewees, for the most part, indicated that 

they believed that they had done some good in the country and that 

the experience was a positive one. It was “so much more challenging 

than working in an embassy,” as one foreign service officer put it.45

“Americans in their own way had done a pretty good job,” said another.46 Nevertheless, the end state of the program, not surprisingly, 

was the cause for most negative assessments. As one military participant stated, “[We] would have loved it had [we] been able to have 

some serious impact.”47 Other interviewees would agree that, while 

pacification worked for a time, the eventual troop withdrawal and the 

growing perception that the United States lost the war made them 

think of their work as almost irrelevant. Ultimately, despite the clearly 

positive discourse, civilian-military interviewees frequently concluded their statements with their greatest disappointment—the 

slowly dawning recognition that the South Vietnamese government 

would never be able to create government structures capable of winning popular support.

Framing the Discourse: Provincial Reconstruction 

Team Interviews

Between 2005 and 2011, the US Institute of Peace (USIP) conducted a series of interviews with civilian-military PRT members 

who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan.48 National Defense University’s Center for Complex Operations (CCO) began collaborating 

with USIP in 2009. In all, some 129 interviews were conducted with 

Iraq PRT members, and some 103 interviews were conducted with 

Afghanistan PRT members. In addition, the USIP-CCO PRT evaluation 

project has provided a number of interviews, mostly from DOS participants, plus some from USAID and US Department of Agriculture 

personnel. These interviews can be used to compare and investigate 

what progress has been made in alleviating earlier articulated concerns. All of the PRT interviews were scanned for keyword instances.

The most negative references were concerned with training and secondarily about security. Security, however, was the only category in 

which negative comments outnumbered neutral ones. Development 

and mission also were mentioned in a significant number of negative 

contexts usually in a way that indicated that neither was being accomplished. The content of these comments was most likely to refer to the 
96 │ SCHAM

short-term unsustainable nature of certain development activities and 

the fact there was little clarity of mission on the PRTs. Military respondents were more likely to use the term “mission” than civilians and less 

likely to characterize the security situation as negative.

Discourse analysis of PRT interviews together with the policy documents revealed almost no areas of accord. One of the few consistencies, however, is the infrequency with which the term “interagency” 

is mentioned. Although the PRTs squarely were an interagency effort, 

policy documents seem consistently focused on reinforcing its decentralized nature, perhaps reflecting that team members could work 

out the details of coordination. This may have been viewed in Washington as the best way to achieve effective collaboration, but interviewees were more apt to characterize it as disorganized. One PRT 

member explained that “there was a lot of confusion between what 

responsibilities the military had versus the State Department.” Another interviewee lamented that “I feel like I’ve been set up for failure.” “Haphazard,” “ad hoc, hit or miss,” and “it was invented on the 

fly” typify the comments from many PRT members who found the 

interagency process difficult to understand. “We need to take a much 

more systematic approach to front end training, in service training, 

setting up systems, improving standard operating procedures and all 

that kind of thing,” one team leader advised.49 Many interviewees 

noted that confusion and uncertainty resulted in some friction.

The policy documents contain almost no clear references to the 

mission of PRTs and no real indication of the expected end state for 

the PRT effort other than that “the end state of a PRT occurs when 

the host nation’s provisions for security and public safety are sufficient to support traditional means of development, and political stability is sustainable after the withdrawal of international forces.”50

This suggests that the only expected result of PRT deployment is to 

make the region safe enough to deploy more traditional US government interventions, rather than stable enough for host country nationals to conduct their own affairs.51 Characteristically, PRT policy 

language is task oriented rather than goal focused, providing a great 

deal of detail about activities and almost nothing about their purpose. This is reflected in the interviews that refer to lack of focus. 

“Like an elephant being described by blind men,” said one interviewee 

at a loss for words on how to describe his PRT.52

In many respects, interviewees appear to openly disagree with civilianmilitary policy documents in tone and almost as often in content. 
THE PRESENT PAST OF VIETNAM │ 97

Where the policies use terms relating to progress, accomplishments, 

contributions, and performance, interviewees speak about bureaucracies, conflicts, differences, and loose organization. Military policies and interviews both reference coordination, cooperation, integration, and consolidation, but these are notably lacking in civilian 

policies and interviews. As for longer-term development, many interviewees noted that these efforts were largely uncoordinated and that 

they expected a kind of operation. References in the policy statements to reconstruction, security, support, and stability suggest a 

more defined role for PRTs than those they eventually performed. 

Members of Afghanistan PRTs, in particular, expressed concern 

about the nature of their mission, and most were unclear about it 

beyond a general statement that their objective was to strengthen the 

central government and “bring it out to the provinces.”

Policy documents effectively lack any references to training or 

joint operations, although it can be argued that policy does not normally address these details. Interviewees were very vocal about training, however. Representative of most comments is “the training I received was in Washington, like everybody going to Iraq, which was a 

little bit cultural. I had an Iraqi lesson for twenty minutes. I had some 

training in medical emergencies . . . I had some cultural awareness 

training, about how the country developed, the value structure, the 

tribes and so on. But that is about all.”53 Among the more negative 

comments regarding training was that there was “zero, we had none,” 

in the words of one interviewee.54 Another, more diplomatic, interviewee stated that “I would say the training I received was not adequate.”55 None of the interviewees indicated that they thought the 

training was good or excellent. These views are characterized by remarks such as “there was no such thing as PRT training. The PRT office, and I use that term loosely, at the time I was there consisted of one 

FSO (foreign service officer), whom I had known previously. He was 

assigned as the PRT coordinator. That was it.”56 On the positive side, 

many of these interviewees noted that the training situation was quite 

different for them than for current PRT members. The Foreign Service 

Institute has substantially increased PRT training requirements of late, 

but considering the pending drawdown, these improvements will 

probably have little overall effect. In any event, the budget necessary 

to do effective training is unlikely to be allocated to this enterprise in 

the future. Interviewees indicate that the facts on the ground are quite 

different from the PRT as envisioned by policy makers. This strongly 
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suggests that the vision may not have been a realistic one to begin 

with. Civilian-military policy documents on PRTs, in general, describe PRT operations as empowering, implementing, building, and 

directing activities and declare that PRT members will constitute acknowledged experts bringing needed skills to the regions. A statement in the PRT handbook gives the impression of a league of trained 

specialists through which the vast resources and sectoral expertise of 

the US government will be brought to bear upon the problems of the 

people of Iraq and Afghanistan: “The focus of these combined civilianmilitary efforts is to diminish the means and motivations for conflict, 

while developing local institutions so they can take the lead role in 

national governance (provide basic services, foster economic development, and enforce the rule of law). . . . It combines the diplomatic, 

military, and developmental components of the various agencies involved in the stabilization and reconstruction effort.”57 In contrast, the 

sectoral expertise constituted, as one PRT member put it, “a mixed 

bag.”58 Former PRT members frequently stated that while some “experts” were able to function in country, a number of them were illprepared for the environment in which they found themselves: “The 

[agricultural] advisors here, we’re all very, very specialized. There’s 

damned few of them here that know anything about farming wheat 

and maximizing wheat yields and irrigation.”59

Host-Country Relationships: The Key to Success

CORDS civilian-military members indicated that they supported 

the policy of working closely with HN organizations and, more significantly, with the Vietnamese people, and that such close and sustained contact enabled them to assess more accurately the needs of 

the communities. This arrangement created a certain bond between 

CORDS participants and the Vietnamese, as evidenced in a number 

of interviews. HN interactions were described in such terms as “we 

had really gotten into the country.”60 In describing the level of commitment of a colleague, one participant noted that he had “just put 

his whole life into the Vietnamese. The whole village liked him and 

worked with him.”61 Another typical remark stated that “folks assigned to the advisory teams were there to work with Vietnamese 

counterparts and we did.”62
THE PRESENT PAST OF VIETNAM │ 99

Interviews with CORDS participants, who recount in detail their 

direct experiences with villagers and village officials, suggest very frequent contact with locals. Further, virtually all of the interviewees use 

language that accords either coequal or superior status to their Vietnamese counterparts, such as, “their war,”63 “knew the situation on 

the ground better than we did,”64 “we were outsiders,”65 and “they’re 

running it.”66 While it is true that unity of effort and reinforcement of 

common understanding between civilian-military actors were successful elements of the CORDS program, many interviewees suggested that the strength of the CORDS program in country was its 

emphasis on working collaboratively with the Vietnamese and advising rather than directing. As Komer was later to characterize the program, “CORDS success . . . was achieved via programs that have been 

primarily Vietnamese staffed and run from the outset.”67

 In contrast, the PRT handbook appears to discourage a strong 

relationship between PRT members and HN citizens, with policy 

statements such as “the existence of the PRTs is predicated to a large 

extent on the premise that local government lacks capacity at the institutional and individual level. For this reason, it is not likely that the 

host government representative would have the capacity to do more 

than assist the PRT in better understanding the environment.”68

Those who conceptualized the COIN operations in Iraq or Afghanistan might disagree, but judging only by the policy and interview 

statements, it seems that neither the responsibilities nor the capabilities of the HNs are considered to be vital to the success of PRTs. Many 

PRT interviewees, in fact, expressed serious doubts about how they 

were supposed to relate to local communities and to what end.

“If you don’t take any credit whatsoever, you undercut your own 

effectiveness.”69 This statement, made by one frustrated PRT member 

who had attempted to achieve a more symmetrical relationship with 

his HN, exemplifies the double-edged sword that characterizes US 

aid to Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost all PRT interviewees noted the 

difficulty of getting their Iraqi and Afghani “hosts” to take responsibility, even while interviewees made statements indicating a high 

level of exasperation with the project such as “how can you have Rule 

of Law if people can’t read the laws? If they don’t understand what is 

going on around them?”70 Interestingly, military PRT members were 

more likely than civilians to acknowledge the necessity of understanding culture. “It is essential that the PRT understands the Afghan 

culture,” as one Navy lieutenant flatly stated.71 Some individual PRT 
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members took the initiative to obtain this knowledge and, obviously, 

felt some sense of achievement in doing so. “Go to a group of farmers,” 

said one agriculture advisor, “and say ‘Look, I’m here to learn from 

you. You all have been farming 5,000 years and you understand the 

concept of farming better than I do. How do you do it?’”72

The language of PRT members about their indigenous counterparts stands in contrast to that of CORDS participants. It suggests far 

less frequent contact and accord; in many cases, a less than equal status to Iraqi and Afghani counterparts’ education, talent, and ability; 

and an attitude that only the United States could execute programs 

and that local officials were so limited in capacity that “they can’t expect windfalls, they need to plan rationally.”73 Such statements posit a 

traditional teacher-student or benefactor-client relationship. Despite 

what is noted by many as the lack of clear guidance and training on 

HN relationships, PRT members would clearly like to understand 

and work more closely with the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. “An 

American answer for an Iraqi problem is not an answer” is a succinct 

summation of the frustrations.74

Conclusions and Recommendations: Unconventional 

Methods for Unconventional Conflicts

I had, in my own mind, thought of the PRTs as the logical next generation from the CORDS program in Vietnam. And that is how it had 

been described to me. That is how I envisioned it. I knew how important a role they had played in Vietnam and, actually, how successful 

they had been. Afghanistan, of course, is quite different from Vietnam.75

Charles Handy and Roger Harrison have distinguished four types 

of organizational cultures. First, power cultures concentrate power 

among a few, and control radiates from the center like a web—power 

cultures have few rules and little bureaucracy, and swift decisions can 

ensue. Second, role cultures are those in which people have clearly delegated authorities within a highly defined structure and form hierarchical bureaucracies. Third, person cultures exist where all individuals 

believe themselves superior to the organization. Fourth, task cultures 

are those in which teams are formed to solve particular problems and 

power derives from expertise as long as a team requires expertise.76

In effectively seeking to combine representatives of the first three organizational cultures under the rubric of the fourth—the task culture, 
THE PRESENT PAST OF VIETNAM │ 101

COIN civilian-military teams must depend upon training and constant reinforcement of common goals and objectives. PRT team 

members, in contrast to CORDS interviewees, frequently cite the inadequacy of preparation for their tasks and the absence of a commonly understood mission, indicating that the necessary tools for 

forging an effective team have been lacking. Ubiquitous comments 

about personalities and cultural differences in PRT discourse also reflect this fragmentation.

The United States has responded in recent years with a more scattershot approach through the PRTs than that taken in CORDS. Today’s COIN efforts might benefit from a transformation of the operational worldview from an “experts and skills” to an “advice and 

support” model. The infamous stovepiping of PRTs could thus be 

avoided and a more holistic effort mounted.

Today’s civilian-military teams involve actors from sources that 

would not have been tapped for talent in the days of the Vietnam 

War. This is often cited as a strength of these operations but, in fact, 

may be a detriment to establishing commonality among team members. Department of Agriculture extension service employees and 

Department of Justice attorneys are unaccustomed to having contact 

with each other, let alone collaborating. In addition, they will not 

necessarily be acknowledged for their skills in the tribal areas of Afghanistan or the deserts of Iraq no matter how well qualified they are 

considered to be at home. It is more likely that HNs will want to deal 

with those who can speak about their problems in terms they will 

understand rather than with outsiders who have little or no knowledge of their country but immediately attempt to assume the authority of an expert. From the discourse of PRT representatives it can be 

inferred that dividing this substantial pie into small slices to be digested by a multitude of agencies producing “representatives” with 

little or no country knowledge is not the best approach.

This comparison of CORDS and PRTs further indicates that emphasizing relationships with HNs, during training efforts and during 

deployment, is highly instrumental in enabling a positive impact for 

any program. In general, the attitude portrayed by CORDS discourse 

implies a certain level of deference toward the HN that appears to be 

mostly lacking in PRT discourse. This is summed up in the words of 

one CORDS interviewee: “They [the Vietnamese] thought they were 

smarter than we were and they were probably right. They certainly 

knew the situation on the ground better than we ever did. We never 
102 │ SCHAM

seemed to learn and the Vietnamese knew that.”77 Judging from studies of adult learning, which is essentially what COIN operations are 

attempting to achieve, the most important single factor for empowering students is establishing collaboration.78 That a primary factor in 

persuading people to join or identify with insurgencies is, according 

to many studies, anxiety about a lack of control over one’s life should 

suggest that a more collaborative rather than controlling approach 

could achieve better results.79

Many critics of the CORDS analogy for PRTs emphasize that the 

cultures of Iraq and Afghanistan bear little resemblance to that of 

Vietnam. Most CORDS participants would affirm, however, that the 

real subjects of CORDS culture change objectives were, more accurately, the US government’s military and foreign service communities. The recognition that these operations require major adjustments 

in attitudes, extensive training on how to deal with the HN, clear 

guidance on objectives, and a common understanding of mission 

were the major assets of the CORDS program.

Despite the great differences in the amount of time and human 

capital the government was willing to invest in the CORDS effort in 

comparison to the much smaller amount of resources and attention 

devoted to PRTs, there are strengths that can be replicated from the 

Vietnam experience. For one thing, CORDS participants were well 

trained in the art of achieving Vietnamese buy-in and engagement in 

the effort. There was also a great deal of care taken in the preparation 

of CORDS participants for assessing and addressing local needs. Ultimately, however, CORDS would have achieved very little, regardless of 

how much money was spent on the program, without its emphasis on 

converting disparate elements into a functioning whole. The mirror 

image of this on the ground was the overarching goal of the program—

to organize conflicting cultures into a stable government. That this is 

also the overarching goal of today’s other wars suggests that the most 

significant lesson that can be drawn from the CORDS experience is 

that it may be best for PRTs to first consider leading by example.

Notes

1. Frank L. Jones, “Blowtorch: Robert Komer and the Making of Vietnam Pacification Policy,” Parameters 35 (Autumn 2005): 106–8.
THE PRESENT PAST OF VIETNAM │ 103

2. Robert Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional Constraints on U.S.-

GVN Performance in Vietnam (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1972), http://www.rand

.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2005/R967.pdf.

3. Marc Leepson, “The Heart and Mind of USAID’s Vietnam Mission,” Foreign 

Service Journal 77, no. 4 (April 2000): 20–24.

4. David Petraeus, “The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam: A Study 

of Military Influence and the Use of Force in the Post Vietnam Era” (PhD diss., 

Princeton University, 1987), ii.

5. Ibid., i. 

6. The resources—material and human, civilian and military—available to Vietnam pacification have been unmatched in US history, with the military draft and 

civilian policy that every unmarried foreign service officer in the fledgling US 

Agency for International Development (USAID) serve in Vietnam.

7. Roger Coffey, “Revisiting CORDS: The Need for Unity of Effort to Secure Victory in Iraq,” Military Review 86, no. 2 (March–April 2006), 32; Henry Nuzum, 

Shades of CORDS in the Kush: The False Hope of “Unity of Effort” in American Counterinsurgency (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2010), 50; Kenneth David 

Hall, “Have We Learned from Our Mistakes?,” Vietnam 19, no. 3 (October 2006): 40; 

and Patrick V. Howell, “Unraveling CORDS: Lessons Learned from a Joint InterAgency Task Force (JIATF)” (monograph, School of Advanced Military Studies, US 

Army Command and General Staff College, 2009), 37–39.

8. Richard W. Stewart, “CORDS and the Vietnam Experience: An Interagency 

Organization for Counterinsurgency and Pacification” (research paper, National 

War College, Ft. McNair, DC, 2006), 451–55; and John Sauvé, “CORDS: Drawing 

Lessons from the American Comprehensive Approach in the Vietnam War” (paper, 

Canadian Forces College, Toronto, ON, 2008), 22–26.

9. Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky 

(London: Allen Lane/Penguin, 2000), 1.

10. Robert Grainger Ker Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency: The Lessons of Malaya and Vietnam (London: Chatto and Widus, 1966), 24–53.

11. John Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from 

Malaya and Vietnam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 28–33.

12. Thomas A. Chandler, “The Other War: United States’ Efforts at Pacification 

in South Vietnam during the Johnson Administration” (PhD diss., University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, 1994), 107.

13. Jefferson P. Marquis, “The ‘Other War’: An Intellectual History of American 

Nationbuilding in South Vietnam, 1954–1975” (PhD diss., Ohio State University, 

Columbus, OH, 1997), 24–28.

14. Pamela Conn, “Losing Hearts and Minds: U.S. Pacification Efforts in Vietnam 

during the Johnson Years” (PhD diss., University of Houston, Houston, TX, 2001), 

87–90.

15. Petraeus, “American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam,” 485.

16. Lawrence Grinter, “The Pacification of South Vietnam: Dilemmas of Counterinsurgency and Development” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina, Chapel 

Hill, 1972), 690.

17. William P. Schoux, The Vietnam CORDS Experience: A Model of Successful 

Civil-Military Partnership? (Washington, DC: USAID, September 2005), 174–75.
104 │ SCHAM

18. Mandy Honn, Farrah Meisel, Jacleen Mowery, Jennifer Smolin, and Minhye 

Ha, “A Legacy of Vietnam: Lessons from CORDS,” Interagency Journal 2, no. 2 (Summer 2011): 41.

19. See Richard Stewart’s chapter in this volume; Stathis N. Kalyvas and Matthew 

Adam Kocher, “The Dynamics of Violence in Vietnam: An Analysis of the Hamlet 

Evaluation System [HES],” Journal of Peace Research 46, no. 3 (May 2009): 355; and 

Gregory A. Daddis, No Sure Victory: Measuring U.S. Army Effectiveness and Progress 

in the Vietnam War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 267.

20. Stewart, CORDS and the Vietnam Experience, 454.

21. Dale Andrade and James H. Willbanks, “CORDS/Phoenix: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Vietnam for the Future,” Military Review 86, no. 2 (March–April 

2006), 10.

22. Embassy of the United States, Baghdad, Iraq, PRT (Provincial Reconstruction 

Teams) Fact Sheet, press release, 2008, http://web.archive.org/web/20100527142522

/http://iraq.usembassy.gov/root/pdfs/factsheetapril2008.pdf; and Gerry J. Gilmore, 

“Iraq PRTs to Double in Number by Year’s End, Official Says,” American Forces Press 

Service, 9 April 2007, http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=32739.

23. Robert Powell, “War as a Commitment Problem,” International Organization 

60, no. 1 (January 2006), 173–74.

24. Mark Sedra, “The Provincial Reconstruction Team: The Future of Civil-Military 

Relations?” SITREP [Situation report] 65, no. 3 (May–June 2005): 5; and David Kilcullen, 

“Counterinsurgency Redux,” Survival 48, no. 4 (Winter 2006): 111–30.

25. Bruce Hoffman, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq (Santa Monica, 

CA: Rand Corporation, 2004), http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/occasional

_papers/2005/RAND_OP127.pdf; and Michael J. McNerney, “Stabilization and Reconstruction in Afghanistan: Are PRTs a Model or a Muddle?” Parameters 35 (Winter 2005): 14.

26. Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq: March 2008 

Report to Congress in Accordance with the Department of Defense Appropriations Act 

2008; and Ian D. Westerman, “Provincial Reconstruction in Afghanistan: An Examination of the Problems of Integrating the Military, Political and Development Dimensions with Reference to the US Experience in Vietnam” (master’s thesis, University of 

Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, 15 July 2008), 49.

27. Charlotte Watkins, “Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs): An Analysis of 

Their Contribution to Security in Afghanistan” (master’s thesis, Oxford Brookes 

University, Oxford, UK, 30 September 2003), 10.

28. Michael J. Dziedzic and Michael K. Seidl, “Provincial Reconstruction Teams 

and Military Relations with International and Nongovernmental Organizations in 

Afghanistan,” US Institute of Peace Special Report 147 (September 2005), 35; and David Kilcullen, “Countering Global Insurgency: A Strategy for the War on Terrorism,” 

Journal of Strategic Studies 28, no. 4 (2005): 597.

29. Eli Berman, Jacob N. Shapiro, and Joseph H. Felter, “Can Hearts and Minds 

Be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq,” Journal of Political Economy 

119, no. 4 (2011): 770.

30. Conrad Crane and W. Andrew Terrill, Reconstructing Iraq: Insights, Challenges, and Missions for Military Forces in a Post-conflict Scenario (Carlisle Barracks, 

PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2003). 
THE PRESENT PAST OF VIETNAM │ 105

31. Steven Metz and Raymond Millen, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in the 

21st Century: Reconceptualizing Threat and Response (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic 

Studies Institute, 2004), 33.

32. House Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Oversight & Investigations, Agency Stovepipes vs. Strategic Agility: Lessons We Need to Learn from Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq and Afghanistan, 110th Cong., 2nd sess., April 2008.

33. Robert Borders, “Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan: A Model 

for Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development,” Journal of Development and Social 

Transformation 1 (November 2004), 7; Peter Viggo Jakobsen, “PRTs in Afghanistan: 

Successful but Not Sufficient,” Danish Institute for International Studies Report 6 

(2005), 6; Robert M. Perito, “Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq,” US Institute 

of Peace Special Report 185 (March 2007), 4; and David Petraeus, “Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in Iraq,” Military Review 86, no. 1 (January–

February 2006): 3.

34. Klaus Krippendorff, Content Analysis: An Introduction to Its Methodology, 

2nd edition (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004), 205.

35. John Fiske, Media Matters: Everyday Culture and Political Change (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 52.

36. Norman Fairclough, Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language (New York: Longman, 1995), 7–9.

37. US Library of Congress, Frontline Diplomacy: The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, 13 August 2012, 

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/diplomacy.

38. Honn, et al., “Legacy of Vietnam,” 42–47; and The Vietnam Center and Archive 

at Texas Tech University, 2013, http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/resources/collections.

39. Robert E. Lester, ed., Records of the Military Assistance Command Vietnam, 

part 3: Progress Reports on Pacification in South Vietnam, 1965–1973 (Frederick, MD: 

University Publications of America, 1990), 6–7; and Military Assistance Command, 

Vietnam, Handbook for U.S. Forces in Vietnam (San Francisco, CA: Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, 1967), 99–103.

40. US Library of Congress, Frontline Diplomacy, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin

/query/D?mfdip:1:./temp/~ammem_z7bE::.

41. Ibid., http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mfdip:1:./temp/~ammem_cPus::.

42. Ibid., http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mfdip:1:./temp/~ammem_4eNs::.

43. Ibid., http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mfdip:1:./temp/~ammem_iRtN::.

44. Ibid., http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mfdip:1:./temp/~ammem_xN1t::.

45. Ibid., http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mfdip:1:./temp/~ammem_UxhA::.

46. Ibid., http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mfdip:2:./temp/~ammem_1OU2::.

47. Ibid., http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mfdip:1:./temp/~ammem_k37e::.

48. US Institute of Peace, Oral Histories: Iraq Provincial Reconstruction Teams 

(2008–2009), February 2009, http://www.usip.org/publications/oral-histories-iraq

-provincial-reconstruction-teams; Oral Histories: Afghanistan Provincial Reconstruction 

Teams (2004–2005), November 2005, http://www.usip.org/publications/oral-histories

-afghanistan-provincial-re construction-teams.

49. The author recorded these unpublished online survey statements on 11 July 2011.

50. Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL), US Army Combined Arms 

Center, CALL Handbook 07-34: Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) Playbook, 
106 │ SCHAM

September 2007, 6, http://usacac.leavenworth.army.mil/cac2/call/docs/07-34/07-34

.pdf; and US Army Field Manual (FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency (December 2006).

51. US Marine Corps, Small Wars Manual (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1940).

52. The author recorded this unpublished online survey statement on 10 July 2011.

53. The author recorded this unpublished online survey statement on 10 July 2011.

54. The author recorded this unpublished online survey statement on 11 July 2011.

55. US Institute of Peace, Oral Histories: Afghanistan Reconstruction Teams, Interview #37, 15 April 2005, http://www.usip.org/files/file/resources/collections/histories

/afghanistan/37.pdf.

56. Ibid., Interview #41, 15 April 2005, http://www.usip.org/files/file/resources

/collections/histories/afghanistan/41.pdf.

57. Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL), Provincial Reconstruction Team 

Playbook, 32.

58. The author recorded this unpublished online survey statement on 10 July 2011.

59. The author recorded this unpublished online survey statement on 10 July 2011.

60. US Library of Congress, Frontline Diplomacy, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin

/query/D?mfdip:2:./temp/~ammem_1OU2::.

61. Ibid., http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mfdip:1:./temp/~ammem_k37e::.

62. Ibid, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mfdip:1:./temp/~ammem_z7bE::.

63. Ibid., http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mfdip:1:./temp/~ammem_4eNs::.

64. Ibid., http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mfdip:2:./temp/~ammem_1OU2::.

65. Ibid., http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mfdip:1:./temp/~ammem_iRtN::.

66. Ibid., http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?mfdip:1:./temp/~ammem_k37e::.

67. Robert W. Komer, Impact of Pacification on Insurgency in South Vietnam

(Washington, DC: RAND, 1972), 38.

68. Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL), Provincial Reconstruction Team 

Playbook, 26.

69. Team leader, Muthanna PRT (2006–2007), interview by Barbara Nielsen, US 

Institute of Peace, Oral Histories: Iraq Reconstruction Teams, Interview #37, 26 June 

2008, http://www.usip.org/files/file/resources/collections/histories/iraq_prt/37.pdf.

70. Staff member, Office of the Defense Attaché, US Embassy,

Kabul, Afghanistan, interview by Charles Stuart Kennedy, US Institute of Peace, 

Oral Histories: Afghanistan Reconstruction Teams, Interview #35, 15 April 2005, 

http://www.usip.org/files/file/resources/collections/histories/afghanistan/35.pdf.

71. US Institute of Peace, Oral Histories: Iraq Reconstruction Teams, Interview 

#72, 2009, http://www.usip.org/publications/oral-histories-iraq.

72. Ibid., Interview #78, 2009, http://www.usip.org/publications/oral-histories-iraq

-provincial-reconstruction-teams.

73. Ibid.

74. Unpublished interview statement, recorded by the author.

75. US Institute of Peace, Oral Histories: Iraq Reconstruction Teams, Interview #54, 

2009, http://www.usip.org/publications/oral-histories-iraq-provincial-reconstruction

-teams.

76. Roger Harrison, “Understanding Your Organization’s Character,” in The Collected Papers of Roger Harrison (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1995), 149–64; and 
THE PRESENT PAST OF VIETNAM │ 107

Charles Handy, Understanding Organizations, 3rd ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 

1985).

77. US Library of Congress, Frontline Diplomacy, http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin

/query/D?mfdip:1:./temp/~ammem_dtAM::.

78. Pierre Dillenbourg, Collaborative Learning: Cognitive and Computational Approaches (New York: Elsevier Science, Inc., 2009), 27–32; Ingo Kollar, Frank Fischer, 

and Friedrich W. Hesse, “Collaboration Scripts—A Conceptual Analysis,” Educational Psychology Review 18, no. 2 (June 2006),159; and Barbara Leigh Smith and 

Jean T. MacGregor, “What is Collaborative Learning?” in Collaborative Learning: A 

Sourcebook for Higher Education, eds. Anne Goodsell, Michelle Maher, Vincent 

Tinto, Barbara Leigh Smith, and Jean T. MacGregor (University Park, PA: National 

Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment, 1992).

79. Aaron Kay, Danielle Gaucher, Ian McGregor, and Kyle Nash, “Religious Belief 

as Compensatory Control,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 14, no. 1 (2010): 

37–48; and Kyle Nash, Ian McGregor and Margaret Prentice, “Reactive Approach Motivation after Implicit Goal-Conflict: Motivational Mechanics of Fluid Compensation” 

(unpublished manuscript, York University, Toronto, Canada, 2009).

PART 3

The Post–9/11 Wars

Iraq and Afghanistan

Chapter 6

The Origins of the Provincial

Reconstruction Team

Almost Present at the Creation

Joseph J. Collins

In the summer of 2002, as the deputy assistant secretary of defense 

for stability operations, I made a staff visit to Combined Joint Task 

Force-180 (CJTF-180), our war-fighting command in Afghanistan, 

then led by Lt Gen Dan K. McNeill, US Army. There I learned that the 

command was struggling with a problem. As the Afghan interim 

transitional government was trying to get to its feet, the International 

Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had already proved itself an effective peacekeeping force around Kabul and its environs. The reinforced brigade actually policed nearly 250 square miles. The rest of 

the country was inadequately policed and often economically devastated from more than two decades of continuous warfare. There were 

virtually no Afghan security forces and fewer than 10,000 US forces 

in the fight—a very small figure for a country the size of Texas. Warlords and their militias often filled the security gap. Sometimes this 

was a fortunate happenstance, other times not so much so. By the 

summer, however, the European urge to deploy outside Kabul had 

faded, and the US desire to keep ISAF small and separate from the 

low-level war in the countryside remained a constant. CJTF-180 

faced a quandary: how could it expand the ISAF effect, without actually expanding ISAF? The answer was simple: put small civilian-military teams in the countryside to advance security and reconstruction. The underlying inspiration for this might have been initiatives 

in the Malaya campaign or the Civil Operations and Revolutionary 

Development Support program in Vietnam, but the stimulus for the 

invention of the provincial reconstruction teams (PRT) was necessity.

The basic idea came from the team under Col (now Maj Gen) Nick 

Carter, UK army, who was the task force (TF) CJ5. The proposal, 

when I saw it, was just a few PowerPoint slides. Initially designated as 

joint regional teams, the teams would absorb and enlarge the small Civil 

Affairs–Department of State (DOS) coalition, humanitarian liaison 
112 │ COLLINS

cells that were in many areas, often working closely with nearby US 

special operations forces. I took the TF concept for the PRTs back to 

the Pentagon. The Office of the Secretary of Defense policy team 

briefed it to the interagency deputies committee, who heartily approved the concept but was initially unable to provide additional resources for it. The deputies closely monitored the fielding of the PRTs 

for over a year. The concept was also briefed to Afghani president 

Hamid Karzai, then the interim leader of Afghanistan. He opined 

that “joint” did not mean anything in local languages and that “regional” had nothing to do with how Afghanistan was to be governed. 

As one non-eyewitness related, President Karzai said that warlords 

had regions but Afghanistan had provinces. He also said that the emphasis of such teams should not be security but reconstruction and 

that they should work closely with district and provincial governors. 

Thus, the term provincial reconstruction team came into being.

The generic purposes of the PRTs were to further security, promote reconstruction, facilitate cooperation with nongovernmental 

organizations (NGO) and international organizations in the area, 

and help the local authorities in governance and other issues. PRTs 

were also excellent representational and reporting agencies. Some of 

them, such as the British PRT in Mazar-e-Sharif, under Col Dickie 

Davies, were also instrumental in dampening factional fighting. The 

original interagency overseers of the PRT concept were not eager to 

pin down the PRT mission set, but later groups of senior personnel 

were inclined to create more standard templates for PRT activities.1

The original plan was for four PRTs, with the first being at Gardez.2

It went into limited operation in December 2002 and full operation 

by April 2003. The PRTs and associated elements were originally 

commanded by the Coalition Joint Civil-Military Operations Task 

Force but later in 2004 were integrated into the five regional commands, with one officer commanding coalition forces and associated 

PRTs, unifying the military and the stability operations aspects of 

counterinsurgency.

While the PRTs were widely supported, like all new organizations, 

they had their growing pains. Posting DOS, US Agency for International Development (USAID), and US Department of Agriculture 

(USDA) personnel to field organizations commanded by military 

personnel was problematical. The NGOs and IOs were unaccustomed 

to having military units in the “humanitarian space.” Many also objected to combining military and humanitarian activities in such a 
THE ORIGINS OF THE PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAM │ 113

manner as to make them political acts. Many NGOs also wanted to 

maintain personal safety and “neutrality” but were hard pressed to 

explain how one remained neutral between a legally constituted government and outlaw insurgents. The rollout of the PRT concept complicated this, as briefers told NGOs that the PRTs intended to coordinate humanitarian and reconstruction activities, not realizing how 

sensitive NGOs were about their independence and perceived neutrality. The PRTs also were associated with other IO/NGO-related issues. Doing stabilization and reconstruction work in the same area as 

intelligence and military activities will always be problematical.

In the summer of 2003, on a subsequent visit, I visited the Gardez 

PRT.3

 It included a 52-personnel PRT (including four units of fiveperson civil affairs teams that were often deployed far from Gardez), 

and a 77-soldier defense force. Inside the PRT, there was also space 

for “visiting” US or Afghan National Army units. The PRT had USAID and DOS representatives and expected any day the arrival of 

their first USDA representative. The PRT covered five eastern provinces: Paktia, Paktika, Khost, Ghazni, and parts of Logar Province, an 

area the size of South Carolina.4

 The people there were eastern Pashtuns. Polls and reports showed them to be 40 percent progovernment, 

50 percent neutral or pragmatic, and 10 percent antigovernment or 

pro-Taliban. The provinces not only had an active Taliban presence 

but also unruly tribes, warlords, and smugglers. The PRT had $1.24 

million worth of projects that included 39 schools, 17 wells, and eight 

medical clinics. Over time, PRTs were able to use USAID and Commanders’ Emergency Response Program funds directly to supplement humanitarian funds from the Pentagon.

In all, I was able to visit five of the early PRTs including those in 

Bamiyan, run by New Zealanders; Parwan, run by South Koreans; 

and Mazar-e-Sharif, then run by the United Kingdom. This has been 

a successful initiative and is worthy of being kept in our policy tool 

chest after our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have become a 

distant memory.

Notes

1. One of the best, early analyses of the PRT phenomenon is by my colleague, 

Michael J. McNerney, “Stabilization and Reconstruction in Afghanistan: Are PRTs a 

Model or a Muddle?” Parameters 35 (Winter 2005): 32–46. A comprehensive effort 

at evaluating the concept can be found in Robert M. Perito, “The U.S. Experience 
114 │ COLLINS

with Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan: Lessons Identified,” US Institute of Peace Special Report 152 (October 2005), http://www.usip.org/files/resources

/sr152.pdf.

2. There are now more than two dozen PRTs; half are run by coalition-partner 

militaries and half are operated by the United States. In most cases, military forces 

lead, but in some coalition PRTs, diplomats are co-leads. In Iraq, the US Department 

of State took the lead in running both regional and embedded PRTs.

3. The data in this paragraph are from my notes and the briefing slides used by 

the PRT commander, Lt Col Anthony Hunter, US Army. Subsequent US PRT commanders often came from the US Navy or Air Force.

4. At least five PRTs cover this area today.
Chapter 7

Civilian Agencies in a War Zone

Afghanistan and Iraq

Bernard Carreau

The greatest impediment to unity of mission among civilian-military 

teams in a war zone is the difficulty of shaping traditional core capabilities to operational requirements in theater so as to meet mission

goals rather than agency goals. This is an enormous challenge for civilian agencies, whose leadership and staff—including permanent, 

temporary, and contractor personnel—generally have no military 

training and little to no background in security issues. In Afghanistan 

and Iraq, the military had to refocus its attention from major combat 

operations to counterinsurgency (COIN) and stabilization, rebalance 

its lethal and nonlethal activities, and reconsider the second- and 

third-order effects of its kinetic operations—albeit with only mixed 

success. Similarly, civilian agencies had to reexamine their traditional 

missions and develop new capabilities in order to meet the stabilization 

requirements of Afghanistan and Iraq—again with only mixed success.

The Center for Complex Operations (CCO) collected, analyzed, 

and disseminated lessons and best practices from civilian-military 

personnel assigned to provincial reconstruction teams (PRT) and 

other civilian-military teams in Afghanistan and Iraq at the regional 

and district levels.1

 In this chapter, I highlight the main conclusions 

regarding the effectiveness of these teams and offer recommendations 

for improving civilian-military teaming in future operations, particularly those involving nonpermissive environments.

A certain degree of ad hoc innovation is inherent and, in fact, necessary in any COIN or stabilization operation to deal with and manage 

the changing environment on the ground. However, when an operation is overwhelmingly reliant on ad hoc mechanisms to coordinate 

resources of agencies constructed to work independently, on-the-fly 

arrangements can make challenges like command and control and 

unity of effort difficult—if not impossible. In the early days of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, there was no mechanism for unifying 

diverse efforts, and later, even those that were eventually established 
116 │ CARREAU

lacked the strength to overcome systemic institutional cultures and 

ways of doing business. To be fair, as the operations matured, the ad 

hoc mechanisms did improve coordination and guidance. Nevertheless, as one observer has pointed out, “these hard-won alliances, 

driven as they were by white-hot circumstances, have yet to yield the 

kind of systemic institutional reform within the US government that 

would forestall future agency ‘stovepiping’ during stabilization and 

reconstruction operations.”2

Understanding the Operational Environment

At the height of the Afghanistan and Iraq surges, the US government deployed over 1,000 civilian employees (a mixture of permanent staff and temporary government hires) to each country. Yet the 

number of personnel deployed does not tell the whole story. In fact, 

it is a relatively minor part of the qualified success of the civilian 

surge over the last decade. The real challenge faced by the civilian 

workforce was not the ability to deploy in numbers sufficient to meet 

operational requirements. Actually, at times an overly acute focus on 

numbers of personnel deployed distracted the leadership from the far 

more significant issues of understanding the operational environments in Iraq and Afghanistan, defining mission requirements, and 

then adapting traditional agency capabilities to meet those operational requirements.

In the early days of the surges in Afghanistan and Iraq, civilian and 

military PRT members alike referred to the lack of guidance from 

Washington as detrimental to team unity. Some cited the failure of 

the Department of State (DOS) to articulate comprehensive guidance, direction, and evaluation criteria for the program. While the 

military has typically looked to the DOS to take the lead in civilian 

affairs, several interviewees pointed out that the DOS and the Department of Defense (DOD) never agreed on a standard doctrine for 

their joint efforts embodied in the PRTs.3

 Many team members also 

believed that embassy oversight offices—the Office of Provincial Affairs (OPA) in Baghdad and the Interagency Provincial Affairs (IPA) 

Office in Kabul—were too far removed from ground realities in the 

field to be of much use, and teams complained of a lack of guidance 

and planning from these offices. However, from the oversight offices’ 

perspectives, both OPA and IPA had their own issues with which to 
CIVILIAN AGENCIES IN A WAR ZONE │ 117

deal. Both offices did not fit into a traditional embassy structure, and 

personnel often struggled to justify their mission in the embassy hierarchy. Over time these oversight offices did produce guidance, but 

office leadership had no way of enforcing uniformity. Instead the offices acted largely in an administrative capacity, managing such issues 

as personnel, resources, and travel.

Neither the DOS nor any other civilian agency produces doctrine. 

However, the DOS did work with the military to produce the Integrated Civilian-Military Campaign Plan for Support to Afghanistan in 

2009 and then updated it in 2011.4

 In addition, the DOS spearheaded 

an interagency effort to produce the U.S. Government Counterinsurgency Guide in 2009.5

Many PRT leaders found the operational guidance they received 

ambiguous and in some instances contradictory. In the absence of 

clear direction regarding which documents PRT members should 

use, members reported using a variety of written sources. These included various combinations of doctrine, agency-specific documents, 

and country-specific plans. Some of these documents were produced 

two years into the surge. These were not synchronized or integrated 

with each other. Moreover, there was no entity capable of enforcing 

uniformity. Hence the tendency was for most members to default to 

the core missions of their home agencies. Other PRT team members 

stated that they ignored guiding documents altogether and instead 

developed their own plans from scratch once they arrived in theater. 

In other cases, returnees lamented that incoming PRT personnel 

completely disregarded the plans of previous PRT members.

As a further complication, the PRT was not the battlespace owner 

in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Regardless of whether or not the PRT 

leader could get all PRT members to agree on the mission, there were 

other entities outside the PRT with their own concept of mission. The 

commander of the maneuver unit in charge of the PRT’s area of operations sometimes had different priorities than the PRT leader, and 

the maneuver units normally commanded more resources in terms 

of manpower, influence, area access, and program money than the 

PRT leader did. In Afghanistan, some areas also hosted Army National Guard agribusiness development teams (ADT), some with 

support from US Department of Agriculture (USDA) advisors, which 

were outside the chain of command of the PRT.
118 │ CARREAU

Developing a Common Team Identity

There was a lack of a common team identity among members of 

civilian-military teams in Iraq and Afghanistan. Members either did 

not feel they were part of the same team, or more likely, home agency 

prerogatives and missions prevented them from being part of the 

team. This does not mean that there was no sense of camaraderie. On 

the contrary, the overwhelming majority of interviewees reported a 

sense of kinship with fellow team members, and intrateam friction 

and interpersonal conflicts were the exception, not the rule. Yet there 

are institutional and structural factors, including separate agency 

core missions, cultures, authorities, funding streams, and reporting 

and evaluation requirements, that prevented members from being a 

true team working toward the same mission goals. Barriers to team 

identity arose not only between civilians and the military, but also 

among civilian agencies, such as between the DOS and USAID, between 

USAID and USDA, and even among different groups within individual 

agencies—especially between career and temporary employees. 

Lacking a common team identity, individuals retreated to the institutional cultures, perceived core missions, and traditional responsibilities of their home agencies and services. For example, some DOS 

foreign service officers viewed cable writing, a traditional DOS mission, as the main function of PRTs. Several PRT commanders in Afghanistan (many of whom hailed from the Navy and Air Force) observed that the PRT mission was unlike any assignment they had ever 

had in their careers; yet they noted that most of their predeployment 

training was combat-related—the Army’s traditional core mission. 

While recognizing the importance of combat training, they felt unprepared for the main mission of the PRT, which was to promote 

stability and governance. A common complaint from USAID representatives on PRTs, and from other agency representatives working 

with their USAID counterparts on the local teams, was that local USAID 

representatives did not have any influence over the agency’s national 

programs. As with traditional worldwide development missions, most 

USAID programming takes place in capitals—in this case, Kabul and 

Baghdad—in conjunction with Washington headquarters. This sometimes impeded the ability to target programs to local stabilization and 

governance requirements. Some USAID representatives on PRTs 

observed that they had more influence over military spending than 

over USAID program funding.
CIVILIAN AGENCIES IN A WAR ZONE │ 119

To be sure, there were many individuals on the teams who appreciated the distinctions between the traditional missions of their agency 

(and what their experience and training had prepared them for) and 

the requirements in the field. There were permanent and temporary 

personnel from the DOS and other agencies who volunteered for 

multiple tours, learned local languages, studied tribal relations, familiarized themselves with local disputes over such issues as land and 

water rights, and actively participated in promoting local governance 

in a manner that matched local circumstances and promoted overall 

mission goals. There were USDA advisors who were willing to join 

special operations forces in village stability operations in Afghanistan. Some USAID personnel attempted to get headquarters to issue 

task orders to suit local stability requirements.

Yet despite the many tactical successes that took place in the field 

with certain agency personnel bucking traditional agency roles and 

missions, on balance, home agency prerogatives and traditions won 

out. In Afghanistan, the DOS’s focus remained Kabul-centric and 

concentrated on ministry-to-ministry relations, in accordance with 

its normal mission, instead of promoting local governance structures 

more in line with Afghanistan’s history and culture and with the stabilization goals of the operation. Likewise, the DOS’s focus in Iraq 

remained Baghdad-centric. USAID programming was dictated 

largely from the capitals and remained generally inflexible to rapidly 

changing local operational requirements. USDA headquarters as well 

as Embassy Kabul forbade agriculture advisors from joining special 

operations forces in village stability operations for fear of security 

threats to its personnel and due to a perceived lack of congruence 

with the mission of the special operations forces.

Establishing Command and Control

In addition to the fragmented concept of mission and limited operational guidance, the structure of the PRT did not facilitate the fostering of internal loyalties. Although the agencies worked side by 

side, they did not report to one another, and the PRT leader had little 

or no input into the performance evaluations for those outside his or 

her agency or service. Most respondents endorsed the separate chains 

of command within the PRT because they wanted to be evaluated by 
120 │ CARREAU

their own agencies or service. In some instances, agency guidelines 

required evaluations to be controlled by the home agency or service.

These separate chains of command created challenges for team cohesion and unity of effort. For example, in both Iraq and Afghanistan 

there were multiple actors working on agriculture issues. In addition 

to USDA, there were USAID civil affairs personnel attached to the 

PRTs, maneuver units with their own agriculture programs, and the 

Army Corps of Engineers. In Afghanistan, there are US Army National Guard’s ADTs, and in both countries, there were “Borlaug 

teams” working on agriculture issues funded by and reporting to yet 

another separate office.6

 Sometimes different agencies funded the 

same projects. In the worst cases, different agencies’ programs worked 

at cross-purposes. For example, USDA often encouraged agricultural 

production for domestic markets, whereas USAID generally promoted agricultural production for export markets. While not necessarily mutually exclusive, the different orientation sometimes led to 

disagreements over which crops to encourage and what production 

methods and quality control standards to support in the local context.

In another case, a maneuver unit provided money to the local 

branch of the Afghanistan Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and 

Livestock for government-supported veterinarians who provided 

low-cost services or services free of charge. While well-intentioned, 

the program effectively derailed a USAID initiative to support local 

private veterinarians as profit-oriented enterprises. Embassy Kabul 

attempted to address the lack of cohesion and coordination among 

the multiple actors working on agriculture issues by appointing an 

“agriculture czar” in 2011. This czar was a senior official from USDA 

who oversaw an internal agriculture working group made up of all 

the major players with an agriculture portfolio. However, most respondents reported that they saw little difference in the field as far as 

coordination and direction for agriculture programs were concerned. 

Ultimately, the czar had no effective control over the personnel and 

resources of the various players in the field. In fact, USDA is a relatively minor player in terms of personnel and resources it controls 

directly as compared with those controlled by the military, DOD civilians, and USAID.

Some civilian-military teams in Afghanistan used a “board of directors” model to coordinate interagency activities. The composition of the 

board varied among teams but generally consisted of the PRT leader, the 

civil affairs officer, and representatives from the DOS, USAID, and 
CIVILIAN AGENCIES IN A WAR ZONE │ 121

USDA. In many instances, the model proved effective, but the arrangements were ad hoc and could change from one rotation to the next.

In Afghanistan, the embassy and International Security Assistance 

Force (ISAF) command worked out the command and control arrangement depicted below in figure 7.1 to accommodate the huge 

influx of civilian advisors between 2010 and 2011. The intention was 

to match each echelon of military command with a corresponding 

civilian leader of comparable rank/seniority. All military units were 

under the direct chain of command of the commander ISAF 

(COMISAF), and all civilian advisors were under chief of mission 

authority—reporting to the ambassador. Leadership also introduced 

other efforts, such as colocation of military and civilian personnel 

on the same teams, in an effort to encourage coordination and camaraderie. These efforts achieved mixed success, but ultimately the parallel chains of command had no mechanism to force coordination 

and integration.

COMISAF

Regional

Command

Brigade

Task Force

Provincial

Reconstruction

Team

District

Support Team

Ambassador

Commander

Commander

PRT Sta

Agricultural

Development

Team

CAAT

Regional Commander

District Support Team

Regional Senior Civilian

Representative

Civilian Team Lead

Civilian Team Lead

Civilian Team Lead

Task Force Sta

Maneuver

Force

USGS Stabilization Programs

Figure 7.1. Civilian-military team command structure in Afghanistan.

(Based on Embassy of the United States of America–Kabul and International Security Assistance Force, Integrated Civil-Military Campaign 

Plan for Support to Afghanistan [Kabul: DOS and DOD, 2009].)
122 │ CARREAU

Operationalizing “Defense, Diplomacy, and 

Development”

The “3 Ds” (defense, diplomacy, and development) mantra adopted by much of official Washington in recent years belies one of the 

central lessons from the last decade of war. It implies that merely mobilizing and deploying sufficient numbers of personnel from the defense, 

diplomatic, and development communities will satisfy the requirements for complex operations like Iraq and Afghanistan. This is not the 

case. Elements of traditional defense (combat operations), traditional 

diplomacy (state-to-state relations), and traditional development 

(long-term institution building) were imperative to meet the requirements in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, one of the major lessons 

from the last 10 years is the need to develop and sustain nontraditional elements of the defense, diplomatic, and development communities, as well as nontraditional elements of other agencies representing the entire civilian workforce of the US government.

A common misperception among DOD officials and the military, 

and in fact in much of official Washington, is that the civilian workforce has empirical knowledge of most of the nonsecurity-related requirements for overseas contingency operations—notably stabilization, local governance, rule of law, and economic rehabilitation. In 

reality, this vastly overstates civilian agency capabilities. The DOS’s 

diplomats receive virtually no training in these areas and, with a very 

few notable exceptions, have never had to execute any of these missions in their diplomatic careers. Rather they engage in state-to-state 

diplomacy, analysis of local events, and reporting on those events to 

Washington. These are certainly worthy endeavors but a far cry from 

expertise on tribal relations in Iraq, local governance structures in 

Afghanistan, and settling disputes among warring factions over land 

and water rights. The USAID has great expertise in disaster relief, 

humanitarian assistance, and long-term development programming, 

but this is distinct from the ability to restore essential services, establish local security, and create local jobs in order to stabilize conflictridden states. The DOS and the Department of Justice (DOJ) provide 

police training and judicial system capacity building as part of their 

core missions. However, funding and monitoring police training programs from Washington, or even in a host-nation police academy, 

has nothing to do with regulating traffic, arresting and detaining 
CIVILIAN AGENCIES IN A WAR ZONE │ 123

criminals, and generally establishing public order in the crime-ridden 

streets of an anarchic post-regime-change state.

Yet agencies made great strides in adapting their traditional missions to operational requirements. Condoleezza Rice, then secretary 

of state, drew a distinction between traditional diplomacy and “transformational” diplomacy. The DOS created an Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, which later transformed 

into the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, with a new 

mission of “expeditionary” diplomacy designed to promote stabilization and prevent conflict.7

 The USDA’s Foreign Agriculture Service’s 

mission is to promote the sale of US agriculture products abroad. Likewise, the mission of the Department of Commerce’s (DOC) Foreign 

Commercial Service is to promote the sale of US industrial products 

abroad. Such endeavors would produce little stabilizing effect in a 

war-torn state, so both the USDA and the DOC recognized early on 

that they needed to expand their roles to improving local agriculture 

production techniques and promoting local private-sector development, respectively. Other agencies made similar adjustments. Whereas 

the Federal Aviation Administration acts as a regulatory agency in the 

United States, its role in Iraq and Afghanistan was to do capacity 

building and advise the host nation how to create a system for regulating aviation that makes sense in the local context.

Perhaps no agency did as much soul searching over reconciling its 

traditional mission with operational requirements as the USAID. 

Early on in both Iraq and Afghanistan, many observers began to 

question the effectiveness of traditional long-term development programming in a conflict zone. Some of this was generated internally, 

but most of the pressure to reconceptualize the development mission 

was generated by external sources, notably the military, some members of Congress, and especially government watchdog agencies, government research institutions, and independent think tanks. The 

agency responded in spades. Rajiv Shah, the USAID administrator, 

issued a directive exhorting his staff to distinguish between development and stabilization. The agency opened a new Office of Military 

Affairs (later renamed the Office of Civil-Military Cooperation), 

staffed with a mix of permanent agency staff, military liaisons, and 

recently retired military officers. It issued new guidelines on programming for COIN, economic development in postconflict zones, 

and countering violent extremism. In Afghanistan, the agency created a new Stabilization Unit, moved contracting officer technical-
124 │ CARREAU

representatives out to the regional platforms to monitor the effects of 

its national programs in the local context, and instituted several innovative monitoring and evaluation techniques in order to measure 

progress in stabilization, such as the district stability framework and 

a new tool called Measuring the Impact of Stabilization Initiatives.

Understanding Stabilization and Counterinsurgency 

Civilian agency personnel fared less well in their appreciation of the 

security-related elements of the mission, the interrelationship between kinetic and nonkinetic aspects of the mission, and the interplay 

among their own initiatives and counterterrorism and COIN requirements. This is understandable given that most civilian agency 

personnel had little to no background in security issues and no military training. With a few exceptions, most civilian agency personnel 

did not even have the opportunity to train with their military counterparts before deployment.

The requirements for stabilization in an unstable security environment can be quite different from those in which the normal development and capacity-building initiatives of civilian agencies engage. As 

an illustration, new joint doctrine establishes a framework for understanding COIN built around three interdependent root causes: opportunity, motive, and means.8

 In this account, grievances alone are 

not enough to cause insurgency but instead are a necessary but insufficient component of “motive” (fig. 7.2). Savvy insurgent leaders 

weave grievances, social identities, and ideologies into a compelling 

narrative that convinces portions of the population that violent rebellion is just, necessary to protect their interests, and likely to succeed.

Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have been widely criticized for 

applying Western assumptions about the structure and role of government without taking local realities into account. Reconstruction 

efforts have also come under fire for often having dubious rationale 

and questionable impact. Grievances matter but not in the way that 

US efforts have typically assumed. As shown in figure 7.2, grievances 

are part of an intricate web of factors that fuel an insurgency. Many 

civilian agency programs in Iraq and Afghanistan were designed to 

address the grievances per se without an appreciation of the larger 

context of how grievances fit into the insurgency narrative. The new 

joint doctrine emphasizes that efforts to improve governance and 
CIVILIAN AGENCIES IN A WAR ZONE │ 125

deliver services must be carefully tailored to the local context and 

narrowly focused on meeting the expectations of the population 

rather than Western preconceptions. Counterinsurgents should keep 

in mind that it will typically be impossible to fully address grievances 

in the middle of active conflict. However, the credibility of commitments to resolve grievances over time will be judged largely on how 

counterinsurgents behave in the near term. Counterinsurgency efforts 

should focus on providing predictable and tolerable conditions for the 

population, leaving long-term development until there is sufficient security. However, civilian personnel did not get this type of training.

Root Causes of Insurgency

Insurgency

Motive

Narrative

Leaders

Opportunity Means

Weak

Government

Ungoverned

Space

Gaps in Security

Criminal

Networks

Money and

Resources

Recruiting

Diaspora

State Sponsors

Leaders need

opportunity to

conduct

subversive

activities.

Individual

Empowerment/

Excitement

Seekers

Core Grievances Identity/Ideology

• Insecurity

• Political Marginalization

• Economic Marginalization

• Repression and Abuse

Access to the

means of

insurgency

depends on the

success of the

narrative.

Insurgent leaders reframe

grievances in terms of

identify/ideology to

construct a narrative.

Figure 7.2. Root causes of insurgency. (Joint Publication (JP) 3-24, 

Counterinsurgency, 22 November 2013.)

Another critical consideration in a large-footprint operation is the 

often uneasy relationship between the host-nation government and 

foreign security forces, whether or not those forces are part of a formal 

occupation under the laws of armed conflict. Many civilian agency 

programs are designed to promote host-nation ownership and legitimacy, but a large US footprint can create perverse incentives and distort the relationship between the host-nation government and its 

people—undermining the very sovereignty and legitimacy the United 

States is trying to support. Contrary to a traditional donor-recipient 
126 │ CARREAU

relationship, in a large-footprint operation there is not necessarily a 

sovereign check on civilian agency programs designed in foreign capitals. That is, there is no truly sovereign host-nation government to 

parse through and reject certain elements of programs designed in 

Western capitals. This can lead to programs and initiatives that may 

be more suitable in a Western context than in the local context.

Building Better Civilian-Military Teams

The ad hoc systems established to integrate civilian and military 

teams in Iraq and Afghanistan were largely incapable of overcoming 

bureaucratic inequities and were not able to meet operational requirements. Despite the many innovations introduced and the progress 

made on the military and civilian sides, integrated teams in the field 

never fully overcame this fundamental flaw. The following proposals, 

intended especially but not exclusively for large-footprint operations, 

would address this and other deficiencies discussed in this chapter.

Overall Mission Clarification

As the planning begins for each new operation, the White House 

should issue a presidential directive, parts of which may need to be 

classified, to clarify the mission of all civilian-military teams, the mission 

of each of the military and civilian actors on the teams, as well as the 

command/coordination relationships among them.

A recurring theme in interviews with civilian-military team members is that personnel from different institutions often have very different visions of the overall goals of the mission. The well-intentioned 

refrain calling for defense, diplomacy, and development has had the 

unintended effect of drawing sharp distinctions among agencies over 

who is responsible for what and who is in charge of what. DOS personnel should be as concerned with security and stabilization as they 

are with diplomacy and governance because these would all be included as part of the mission. Military personnel should be as concerned with governance and rule of law as they are with security for 

the same reason.
CIVILIAN AGENCIES IN A WAR ZONE │ 127

Agency-Specific Mission Clarification

The presidential directive would instruct all relevant agencies to 

develop agency-specific guidelines for implementing the directive. 

The guidelines could be similar to a white paper issued by USAID 

administrator Rajiv Shah in January 2011 regarding differences between stabilization activities and traditional development but would 

need to be more detailed with respect to operational and programming activities. One of the main purposes of the agency guidelines 

would be to describe differences between the agency’s traditional 

core mission and the operational mission at hand. One of CCO’s 

principal findings from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is that, in 

the absence of a genuine team concept and common understanding 

of mission, agencies revert to their traditional core missions. The 

presidential directive would make clear that mission goals will always 

take precedence over agencies’ core mission goals.

Integrated Chain of Command for Civilian-Military Teams

The presidential directive would call for a single chain of command for all civilian-military teams in theater. Although many civilians cringe at the concept of unity of command, the DOS would still 

retain chief of mission authority, and the military would retain command of all military forces. However, where designated teams are established at the regional and district levels, a single leader would be 

established, and all personnel on the team—whether military or civilian and whether from one civilian agency or another—would report 

to that leader. The commanding general and the ambassador could 

negotiate whether a military or civilian lead should be established for 

specific teams, perhaps based on the level of security in a given region 

or district.

Reporting and Evaluating through Team Leader

The team leader would be responsible for evaluating all personnel 

on the team. If the team leader were military, this would mean that 

civilians on the team would report to and be evaluated by a military 

commander. If the team leader were civilian, military personnel on 

the team would report to and be evaluated by the civilian leader. This 

is the only way to guarantee coordination and team cohesion. Civilian 
128 │ CARREAU

and military personnel attached to civilian-military teams must be 

bona fide team members—not liaisons to the team representing their 

own individual agencies or institutions. Team leaders would get input 

from home agencies or institutions, especially in technical areas where 

the team leader has little background. However, team leaders must 

evaluate members based on progress made toward operational mission

goals, not home agency or service goals.

Team Leader Sign-Off on Funding Decisions

The civilian or military team leader of all civilian-military teams 

should have dual or co-sign-off authority over all spending decisions 

that affect that leader’s area of responsibility, regardless of the source 

of the funding. Civilians have voiced many concerns about their lack 

of influence over the way the military uses Commander’s Emergency 

Response Program (CERP) funds. Individual commanders have instituted a board of directors approach to funding decisions, with input from interagency partners, that has proven to be effective. There 

has been less military or interagency input permitted on USAID and 

other civilian agency funding decisions, but a similar board of directors mechanism could be institutionalized to help shape civilian 

agency programs to regional and local needs.

Mission-Specific Rather than Agency-Specific Training

Predeployment training for civilian and military personnel serving on civilian-military teams needs to be refocused toward mission 

goals rather than agency- or institution-specific goals. There are 

many complicated issues associated with military and civilian predeployment training—not the least of which is synching training cycles 

and enabling civilian-military members who will deploy to the same 

team to train together. Regardless of whether some of these issues can 

be resolved, there are several elements of current training programs 

that could be changed to improve civilian-military relations in the 

field. Civilian-military team members train separately for the most 

part, and their current curricula tend to focus on agency core mission

skills and capabilities over mission-specific, team-building skills and capabilities. This is true of both military and civilian training programs.

A distinct feature of the Vietnam-era Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program was that participants 
CIVILIAN AGENCIES IN A WAR ZONE │ 129

trained for much longer periods prior to deployment, usually from 

four to six months. The training included instruction in the language 

and local history of the region to which the team was being deployed. 

The training also included interagency components so that team 

members developed a common sense of identity and understood 

their common objectives. In some cases, agencies provided their personnel with even more in-depth training. USDA, for example, sent 

their employees to the Philippines for up to three months to study 

rice cultivation in a tropical environment.

Conclusions

Much of the recent literature on developing civilian capacity for 

contingency operations assumes there is sufficient expertise at the 

civilian agencies and that the main impediments to mobilizing the 

civilian workforce relate to inadequate budgets, authorities, and 

available personnel. Although budgets, authorities, and personnel are 

important factors, by far the main consideration is the ability of the 

civilian workforce to understand the operational environment and 

develop appropriate capabilities to match operational requirements. 

Developing the civilian workforce for overseas contingency operations is not primarily a capacity issue; it is primarily a capabilities

issue. As a rule, commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as 

chiefs of mission, would have been better off with fewer civilians if 

those deployed civilians had a better understanding of the operational environment and the operational requirements, as opposed to 

larger numbers of deployed civilians who were simply trying to implement their home agencies’ traditional missions without regard to 

operational requirements.

The capabilities required to meet the operational requirements in 

Iraq and Afghanistan relate to stabilization, not traditional defense, 

diplomacy, or development. At least until relatively recently, no 

agency considered stabilization to be part of its core mission. That the 

secretary of defense had to issue a directive (3000.05) instructing all 

DOD components to put stability operations on par with major 

combat operations, that the DOS had to create a new bureau dedicated to stabilization and that the USAID took so many extraordinary steps to draw a distinction between traditional development and 

stabilization serve as indications of the extent to which stabilization 
130 │ CARREAU

as a core mission was not part of the culture and mind-set of any of 

the three agencies, to say nothing of other “domestic” agencies like 

the DOJ, USDA, DOC, Department of Transportation, and Department of the Treasury. 

If select capabilities acquired by the civilian workforce over the last 

10 years can be retained into the future, if new stabilization capabilities can be developed, and if stronger civilian-military teams are developed in accordance with the recommendations in this chapter, the 

DOD will have a robust and reliable partner in the civilian workforce 

as it strives to complete the missions identified by the president and 

the secretary of defense in the 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance:

•  Counterterrorism and irregular warfare

•  Deter and defeat aggression

•  Project power despite anti-access/area denial challenges

•  Counter weapons of mass destruction

•  Operate effectively in cyberspace and space

•  Maintain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent

•  Defend the homeland and provide support to civil authorities

•  Provide a stabilizing presence

•  Conduct stability and counterinsurgency operations

•  Conduct humanitarian, disaster relief, and other operations

At least half of these missions—counterterrorism and irregular 

warfare, deterrence, stabilizing presence, stability and counterinsurgency operations, and disaster relief—will require stabilization capabilities in the civilian workforce. These mission sets were reinforced 

in the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review.

9

 It is in the national interest 

that agencies retain select capabilities and institutional knowledge in 

order to respond to future threats, even if the US response does not 

take the form of a large-footprint operation as in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The issue is not whether the United States is likely to engage in another large-footprint operation like Iraq or Afghanistan in the near 

future. It is how might agencies retain and employ the knowledge and 

capabilities acquired over the last 10 years and develop new capabilities 

in order to respond more effectively in future overseas contingency 
CIVILIAN AGENCIES IN A WAR ZONE │ 131

operations—whatever form the US response may take and engage 

more effectively with allies and partners so as to deter future conflict.

Notes

1. Starting in 2009, CCO conducted hundreds of interviews of personnel from 

multiple US government agencies including the Department of State (DOS), the US 

Agency for International Development (USAID), the Department of Defense 

(DOD), the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Department of Commerce 

(DOC), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Department of the Treasury. In 

collaboration with the military services, CCO developed similar questions for military personnel working on civilian-military teams in Afghanistan and Iraq and sent 

several collection and analysis teams to the field to interview civilian, military, special operations, and intelligence personnel.

2. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Learning from Iraq: A Final 

Report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (Washington, DC: 

SIGIR, March 2013), 37, http://cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/sigir/20131001080029

/http://www.sigir.mil/files/learningfromiraq/Report_-_March_2013.pdf.

3. Center for Army Lessons Learned, Handbook 11-16, Afghanistan: Provincial 

Reconstruction Team (Fort Leavenworth, KS: CALL, February 2011, http://usacac

.army.mil/cac2/call/docs/11-16/11-16.pdf. Although there was no formal DOD-DOS 

doctrine for PRTs, this publication, more commonly referred to as the PRT Handbook, 

was drafted with the assistance of multiple US government agencies, including DOS 

and USAID, and served in lieu of such doctrine.

4. Embassy of the United States of America–Kabul and International Security 

Assistance Force, Integrated Civil-Military Campaign Plan for Support to Afghanistan

(Kabul: DOS and DOD, 2009).

5. Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Department of State, U.S. Government 

Counterinsurgency Guide (Washington, DC: DOS, January 2009), http://www.state

.gov/documents/organization/119629.pdf.

6. Borlaug teams were part of the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations–

Iraq, sponsored by the DOD Business Transformation Agency through a partnership with 

the USDA.

7. S/CRS and the new CSO Bureau were designed to be permanent structures 

aimed at dealing with contingency operations other than Iraq and Afghanistan. Both 

offices had no involvement in Iraq and only limited involvement in Afghanistan.

8. Joint Publication (JP) 3-24, Counterinsurgency, 22 November 2013.

9. Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review 2014 (Washington, DC, 

DOD, March 2014).

Chapter 8

Civilian-Military Capacity-Building Teams

The View from Anbar Province (2006–2009)

James Soriano

During the war in Iraq, as one wag said, Anbar Province comprised one-third of the country’s land mass and one-half of its problems. The place was synonymous with the lawlessness and chaos that 

had seemingly engulfed Iraq. In 2006 military operations in Anbar 

were stalemated. However, even when those dark days looked darkest, early signs of the war tipping in our favor began to appear. Anbar 

was the home of the Awakening movement, the coalition of Sunni 

tribes that, after a long period of hesitation, threw their lot in with the 

United States, declared war on al-Qaeda, and called the enemy the 

enemy. Pulling the tribes off the fence and onto our side was a great 

achievement by the US commanders and service members who 

fought there. Similar moves were later reproduced with great effect 

elsewhere in Iraq. Anbar, like other provinces, was also the site for the 

experimental use of civilian-led reconstruction teams in a war zone. 

I was the leader of one such team. 

These pages contain some personal reflections and comments on 

that experience, composed with an eye to being of value to future 

practitioners. First, practitioners would profit greatly by defining and 

redefining the general context in which the capacity-building teams 

will operate before their deployment. Second, they should phrase and 

continually rephrase the teams’ purpose and goals so that all stakeholders develop a common picture of the facts on the ground. Third, 

if the teams are deployed with US military forces, it is better to assign 

them to specific geographic areas rather than to “embed” them with 

maneuver units, as was the case in Iraq. Fourth, teams should set up 

their own internal procedures for vetting projects and development 

initiatives. Fifth, larger teams should have their own long-term planning and operations capacity, rather than relying on higher echelons 

for those functions. Sixth, metrics must be developed. Seventh, practitioners should be alert as to when those measures point to a kind of 

stasis in the environment, where greater team inputs do not translate 
134 │ SORIANO

into measurable results. Eighth, practitioners should understand that 

in complex operations interagency frictions will be inevitable but 

manageable. The team design phase would be the place to start, especially on defining the lines of control and authority between military 

and civilian agencies. Practitioners would do well to avoid informal, 

“handshake” agreements between agencies that will invariably bedevil operations in the field. Perhaps the most important tool in managing interagency frictions is to ensure that the right people—in both 

military and civilian organizations—are put in the right jobs.

Defining the General Situation

Most observers of the war in Iraq are generally familiar with the 

role played by the provincial reconstruction teams (PRT). Broadly 

speaking their goals supported counterinsurgency (COIN) operations and laid the foundation for future economic development initiatives. Government and private-sector analysts alike have documented the lessons learned.

Certainly the teams had an experimental, ad hoc quality, which 

should not be surprising since they were stood up in the midst of a 

military campaign. Those who served on PRTs learned by doing; they 

wrote the manual as they went along.

PRT activities were decentralized and varied from province to 

province. In one instance, the focus might have been on stabilization 

and supporting COIN operations. In another, the team might have 

moved on to capacity building. In many cases, it was not uncommon 

to find a significant degree of uncertainty about lines of authority. 

“We never knew exactly who had authority over us. Seemed to keep 

changing,” one PRT respondent told congressional investigators in 2008.1

I was a PRT practitioner in Anbar Province, and if asked to identify a key lesson learned, it would be this: decision makers should 

take the time to define the problem before jumping in to solve it. 

Einstein is variously quoted as saying that if he had one hour to save 

the world he would spend the first 55 minutes defining the problem. 

Planners intuitively know this. They know that the quality of their 

solutions depends on the clarity of the ideas that go into them. The 

US experience in Iraq would be a good example of that.

It took the United States several years to come up with an adequate 

definition of the situation in Iraq, but eventually we learned that the 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY CAPACITY-BUILDING TEAMS │ 135

conflict was as much about restoring order and protecting civilians as 

it was about engaging the enemy. The US military eventually understood this. It implemented new tactics and techniques. It perfected 

terrorist network analyses. It worked with Iraqi security forces to roll 

up insurgent leaders and their cells. It engaged local power brokers to 

coax them off the fence and onto our side. Moreover, it learned the 

value of civil affairs and staying power. In other words, the counterinsurgent must stick with the local population through thick and thin.

While the United States conducted a COIN campaign, it also 

launched an ambitious PRT initiative to bring civilian expertise into 

the fight. Many new PRTs were stood up in 2006–07, as joint civilianmilitary field teams.

The situation at that time may be described as follows. Compare 

for a moment a COIN operation to a conventional war in which two 

armies face each other along a broad front. In a conventional battle, 

the commander of one army tries to punch a hole in the defenses of 

the opposing force. If he is successful, he exploits the advantage. He 

pours reinforcements into the gap. The troops fan out behind enemy 

lines, seeking to impose a decisive defeat.

Obviously, fighting an insurgency does not play out in the same 

kind of spatial dimension as a conventional war, but the counterinsurgent can create a kind of opening, more temporal in nature than 

spatial, that can be exploited. He can establish a sufficient basis of 

stability and security in certain areas that prepares the way for reconstruction and capacity-building activities. This is where civilian expertise comes into play. In Iraq the PRTs too exploited the advantage, 

armed not with weapons but with the tools of soft power. They deployed in the gaps created by coalition military forces. They fanned out 

to consolidate gains, denied the enemy advantages with the local populace, and helped set conditions for the longer-term, postconflict period. 

Broadly speaking, that was the general concept behind the PRTs.

While the PRT concept was innovative, it soon became apparent 

that some of the organizational and managerial problems encountered by 

the PRTs should have been addressed during their predeployment phase.

The Situation in Anbar

Anbar Province is Iraq’s large western expanse of desert and irrigated farms, comprising nearly one-third of the country’s landmass 
136 │ SORIANO

(fig. 8.1). In 2006 it was in an al-Qaeda death grip. Insurgents roamed 

Ramadi, the provincial capital, at will. They kidnapped and murdered 

prominent citizens. The mosques were under the control of radicals.

Anbar Province

Anbar Province witnessed grim street ghting in cities

like Fallujah and Ramadi, the provincial capital.

Ramadi

Fallujah

Basra

Baghdad

Mosul

Tikrit

Figure 8.1. Anbar Province, Iraq

During my first office call on Anbar’s governor in September 2006, 

a gun battle raged outside Ramadi’s government center. The governor 

was the only civil servant who kept office hours in those days, protected by a platoon of US marines who had turned the center into a 

walled fortress. The insurgents outside would have killed the governor as quickly as they would have killed any of the young marines 

who guarded him.

The marines had been sent to tame the place in 2004. They were 

the “strongest tribe,” and along with US soldiers, sailors, and airmen, 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY CAPACITY-BUILDING TEAMS │ 137

were locked in grim urban fighting in cities like Ramadi and Fallujah.2

The toll was high: 30 percent of US war fatalities were sustained in 

Anbar Province.

In 2006 the war was not going well in Iraq or at home. US public 

opinion stood divided as to whether the United States should keep 

troops in Iraq or bring them home. This was the time of the Iraq 

Study Group, the 10-person bipartisan panel appointed by Congress 

that was charged with assessing the situation in Iraq and making policy recommendations for the US war effort. The study group found 

that “the situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating.” On military 

strategy, it recommended that the United States shift its focus from 

combat to training Iraqi soldiers and police. Accordingly, US combat 

brigades not necessary for force protection could be withdrawn by 

early 2008. President Bush ultimately ignored that advice. Instead, he 

doubled down and surged.

Nevertheless, by the time the Iraq Study Group submitted its report in December 2006, signs had already appeared indicating that 

the tide of battle had begun to turn in our favor. The process started 

in Ramadi where a group of local tribal sheikhs decided to come off 

the fence and to align with coalition forces in a joint effort against alQaeda. Their motive had more to do with their revulsion at al-Qaeda’s murder campaign and the fear of a radical Islamic challenge to 

their own social positions than with any affinity for the coalition. 

Nonetheless, change had taken place, and US military commanders 

on the scene exploited it. Their patient, day-to-day engagement with 

local leaders shored up a promising initiative and gave it the momentum needed for success. This became known as the “Anbar Awakening,” or more broadly the “Sunni Awakening.” It was basically a local, 

self-defense effort, and was later reproduced in other parts of Iraq.

The Act of “Embedding”

By the spring of 2007, an exploitable opportunity for civilian stabilization efforts presented itself. Schools reopened, police were on the 

streets again, and economic life picked up. At that time, the United 

States stood up three new PRTs in Anbar as part of the civilian surge. 

These organizations were “embedded” with Army brigades and Marine regiments, hence their designation as “ePRTs.” Team members 

lived with their military counterparts on forward operating bases. 
138 │ SORIANO

They worked closely with them in repairing schools and roads, getting basic services up and running, and otherwise helping Anbar’s 

mayors and town councils get back on their feet after the long period 

of al-Qaeda murder and intimidation.

The ePRT mission was exactly the sort of foreign intervention 

needed at the time. Anbar was stabilizing; it was in a transition from 

the clear and hold phases of a COIN operation to the build phase, 

where the expertise of civilian subject-matter experts (SME) came 

into play. However, the mode of organization—embedding a civilianmilitary capacity-building team with a maneuver unit—presented 

enterprise management and command-and-control issues that became evident with the passage of time. 

Embedding was an unorthodox term that meant different things to 

different people. To some practitioners, it meant that the ePRT would 

deploy where its associated military unit deployed and would depart 

the area when the unit departed. That did not happen. As the campaign progressed, leaders instructed Anbar’s ePRTs to remain in 

place and to stay in business after their military units had departed 

the province. This caused further problems. For example, base closures caused one team to relocate twice in a year in search of a new 

home, disrupting its effectiveness. 

Embedding resulted in confused civilian lines of authority. In Anbar, the three ePRTs joined a preexisting organization, PRT Anbar, 

which had been set up two years earlier. The latter team was responsible for engagement at the provincial, or gubernatorial, level of government, as compared to the municipal or district work of the ePRTs. 

The ePRTs each had a separate line of communication to the embassy 

for resources and personnel. The result was that four coequal civilianmilitary teams were active in the same province. Whereas the US 

military deployed in hierarchical organizations with clear lines of 

control, the civilian reconstruction teams were decentralized with 

uncertain control authorities. This organizational structure was far 

from optimal. Finally, embedding civilian aid workers in military 

units contributes to the undesirable perception that US development 

activities are in support of military operations.

The principal lesson learned would be to avoid embedding as an 

organizational structure. Assigning capacity-building teams to a specific geographic area, say to a strategically important city or town, 

would be a preferable approach, especially for long-duration missions. 

That may not always be possible, but it would avoid the ambiguity of 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY CAPACITY-BUILDING TEAMS │ 139

whether the team is assigned to a maneuver unit or is more or less 

geographically fixed.

Of course, the four Anbar reconstruction teams cooperated among 

themselves for the sake of the mission. They found themselves in a 

situation that might be summed up in the words of the 9/11 Commission report, although the latter was written in a different context. 

“Good people can overcome bad structures,” the report said, but 

“they shouldn’t have to.”3

 Getting the structure right is the job of the 

planners in the predeployment phase.

The Idea of Transition

Planning for change, as the saying goes, is a constant. PRT Anbar 

was constantly planning for the transition from one stage of the campaign to another. We dealt with this by standing up a cell for plans, 

operations, and assessments, a needed capacity that was not an organic part of the team’s original design. During the civilian surge, the 

Department of State put the emphasis on recruitment, getting civilian 

SMEs into the field as quickly as possible. Little consideration was 

given to staffing up a team’s administration and planning capacities—

a need that became apparent as the PRT staff grew larger. However, 

during the campaign, the US Marines command in Anbar seconded 

several marines to the PRT to fill this need. The team leadership relied heavily on this cell for any number of tasks, including drawing up 

plans for the future consolidation of the ePRTs, adjusting to the redeployment of US military forces and base closures, and right-sizing the 

team as it moved forward.

Another way of looking at the idea of transition was the “hand off ” 

of capacity-building responsibilities from US military forces to US 

civilian experts and ultimately to local organizations. In this respect, 

Anbar was typical of the situation found in other Iraqi provinces, in 

which, generally speaking, there was a threefold process.

In the early stages of the campaign, US military civil affairs teams 

had the lead. They shored up local government, engaged local officials and power brokers, and let contracts on a wide variety of construction and other projects selected by military commanders to produce quick results on creating jobs, underwriting stability, and 

winning the confidence of local inhabitants.
140 │ SORIANO

As security in a certain area gradually improved, civilian-military 

capacity-building teams were brought into play. In the early part of 

their life cycle, these teams basically had near-term COIN functions, 

but gradually they shifted focus to longer-term capacity-building initiatives. They did this by bringing to the fight needed civilian subject 

matter experts and budgetary resources geared specifically for economic development and capacity building.

Finally, in the latter stages of the campaign, generally coinciding 

with the redeployment of US military forces, nongovernmental organizations (NGO), led and staffed by Iraqis, assumed the lead in capacity-building activities. These NGOs implemented programs designed and developed by the United States Agency for International 

Development (USAID). A USAID professional was assigned to the 

PRT Anbar staff to help administer these programs as they were 

rolled out locally.

The shifting of gears from the US military to US civilians and finally to local NGOs needs to be planned for and managed. In Anbar 

there was some gear grinding between phases two and three. This was 

evident when USAID rolled out a well-received program for local 

governance, which included workshops and training for members of 

Anbar’s provincial council and other officials. Not surprisingly, local 

government officials responded well to an initiative proposed and explained to them by other Iraqis. The “homemade” quality of training 

resonated with them better than engaging US civilians who lived on 

a fortified military base and traveled to local government offices in 

armed convoys.

However, almost overnight the USAID governance program, led by 

an Iraqi NGO, rendered redundant several PRT staff members who 

had been hired months earlier to work on the same issues. The PRT 

Anbar staff had developed its own training plan for local governance. 

The Iraqi NGO had similar plans, and, more importantly, it had a contractual obligation to USAID to achieve certain goals and objectives.

PRT Anbar found itself handing off governance activities to a local 

Iraqi organization. That was a desirable goal. Putting Iraqis in the 

lead had a compelling logic. It was a sign of progress. However, the 

hand-off came about suddenly and created a redundancy problem for 

several PRT Anbar staff members, whose work plans were radically 

curtailed or rendered unnecessary. Compounding this problem was the 

slow-moving procedure at the US embassy in Baghdad for reassigning 

redundant PRT staff members from one PRT to another. By contrast, 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY CAPACITY-BUILDING TEAMS │ 141

obviously, the US military was not so encumbered. It could deploy its 

personnel into and from a particular theater with dispatch. That was less 

true or not true at all for many of the PRTs’ civilian experts.

Several lessons could be learned from this discussion about transitions. Future civilian-military teams should be fitted out with their 

own internal future plans capacity before deployment, especially for 

large teams expecting to go on long-duration missions. Any hand-off 

of reconstruction or capacity-building responsibilities from the US 

military to US civilians to local NGOs should be planned for and 

gamed out in advance of deployment. Teams set up on short notice 

and under ad hoc circumstances should keep in mind that their longterm objective is to work themselves out of a job. They should plan 

for handing off their activities to local NGOs as soon as possible. 

Since USAID will likely be engaged with those NGOs, USAID should 

be intimately involved in the early design stage of setting up a civilianmilitary capacity-building team.

Choosing the Right Project

All PRTs in Iraq were engaged in projects. These typically took the 

form of small-scale grants or micropurchases, designed and implemented by team members themselves and intended to make modest 

improvements in local government or to meet a local need. In fact 

one recruitment attraction for PRT members was the prospect that 

they could design their own projects and thus “make a difference” in 

the war effort. This kind of emotional satisfaction attracted many talented civilians to step forward for service in the field.

Which projects to choose, where to spend limited resources, and 

how to make a meaningful and worthwhile intervention were questions that needed answers before a team leader gave approval to a 

project. On PRT Anbar, we addressed these issues by setting up a 

“concept review board” to vet projects proposed by team members. 

We saw a need for greater conceptual rigor in the design stage of a 

proposed project.

The procedure allowed us to head off a situation in which the 

“project champion” would spend considerable effort in designing an 

initiative of limited utility. Instead, that person arranged to meet with 

the review board in a relatively formal setting just to talk about the 

concept. Design plans, local government buy-in, and pro forma budgets 
142 │ SORIANO

were not necessary. The emphasis was on talking and exchanging 

ideas so that the team leadership could help shape a project in its infancy. The presence of a USAID professional on the review board was 

critical. Overall, the process helped orient new team members who 

came to the field with great enthusiasm but less experience in development assistance. It was also helpful in “desnagging” proposed initiatives originating from within a civilian chain and those being considered in military channels. The objective was to launch good ideas, 

trim wasted effort, and nip bad concepts.

The health of a capacity-building team’s project portfolio depends 

not only on finding and promoting good ideas but also on weeding 

out bad ones before they get too far. Many Iraq PRT veterans would 

have little difficulty recalling a dubious project that staggered on for 

too long. It was common, for example, for a PRT to divest a bad project only after its team champion had rotated out of the theater.

On PRT Anbar our program manager was the concept review 

board chairman. That person arranged the agenda for the weekly 

meetings, identified appropriate funding mechanisms, and kept a log 

of the board’s recommendations and follow-up actions. On several 

occasions, the team leader used this forum to appoint “exit champions”—team members who were specifically given responsibility to 

close out underperforming projects. Like the project champions, the 

exit champions made periodic reports to the board.

By and large, the PRTs in Iraq had a useful set of metrics to gauge 

progress in the field. The embassy’s Office of Provincial Affairs designed the maturity model, a quarterly assessment that measured a 

province’s performance in five areas: rule of law, governance, reconciliation, political development, and economics. Each variable was 

broken down into several subvariables, comprising some two dozen 

measurements in all.

In Anbar, we used a modified Delphi technique to complete the 

maturity model assessment. Each quarter we brought together a 

panel of 8–10 PRT and US military SMEs to discuss the various maturity model metrics. After each round of discussion, the facilitator 

called for a secret ballot in which the SMEs gave each variable a score 

of one to five. The process took approximately four hours. In some 

Delphi techniques, the SMEs showed their votes to the other panel 

members. Then another round of discussion follows, aimed at narrowing differences and producing consensus. We conducted only one 

round of discussion of each variable and calculated the arithmetic 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY CAPACITY-BUILDING TEAMS │ 143

mean from the secret ballots. Since the mean tends to cancel extreme 

scores, the process reduced subjective bias. We used the mean as a 

proxy for the team’s consensus on Anbar’s quarterly progress.

Transition and Metrics

Figure 8.2. The author with Anbar Governor Ma’amoun Sami Rasheed and Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, head of the Anbar Awakening, 

October 2007.

Over time, the scores showed that key measurements were gradually improving, a finding generally supported by individual perceptions of progress in Anbar. However, it was not uncommon for the 

panel to give a lower score on a certain variable from one quarter to 

the next, as more information became available and the team’s knowledge of the environment improved. In other cases, some variables 

appeared stuck in a narrow range over several quarters, suggesting a 

kind of steady-state condition.
144 │ SORIANO

The Idea of Stasis

As originally designed, the maturity model was intended to provide 

decision makers with information about where progress was being 

made, where reconstruction resources could be shifted within the 

theater, and whether the overall PRT mission was being accomplished. In the embassy and among PRT practitioners, “How much is 

enough?” was a question frequently asked about the PRT effort. The 

maturity model would thus give decision makers the empirical basis 

for a “conditions-based” drawdown of the PRT program; the more 

progress that a province made on key indicators, the less justification 

there would be for PRT support. That was the original intent.

However, during our quarterly assessments, the panel of SMEs 

discovered that many variables exhibited a short period of improvement followed by a steady condition in which there was little or no 

change. In some cases a variable’s recent performance would continue more or less unchanged into the near future. If change occurred, 

it was at its own rhythm without noticeably responding to inputs 

from coalition forces or the government of Iraq. The local population’s access to potable water or hours of electricity would be examples of this, as would be the extent of untilled farm land and certain 

other variables. 

We observed that for any given input, there was typically an associated output. However, after a certain point, we also observed that increasing or decreasing the inputs would result in essentially the same 

outcomes. When such a condition is reached, it might be said that the 

civilian-military team has accomplished some of its objectives or even 

its mission as a whole. Its inputs are no longer having a measurable effect on the environment. A kind of stasis has been reached.

In Iraq, however, the decision was made to keep many PRTs up 

and running during the subsequent redeployment of military forces 

from the theater. This was done as a sign of US reassurance to the 

Iraqi people and government. Thus, the lesson learned is that even 

after a capacity-building team begins to observe steady-state outcomes and behaviors in the environment, its job may still not be 

done. There will be occasions when the team’s eventual drawdown 

will change from achieving certain conditions-based results to a timebased decision, geared to larger US diplomatic and strategic interests.
CIVILIAN-MILITARY CAPACITY-BUILDING TEAMS │ 145

Conclusions

The battle for Anbar Province turned around in 2006–07. By the 

time I left in 2009, the markets were busy, local elections had been 

held, and Ramadi’s government center, earlier the site of fierce urban 

fighting, was a busy office complex.

Today the province, like the rest of Iraq, is not out of the woods. 

Terrorists still strike with lethal effect. However, their day has passed. 

Anbaris would not countenance jihadists strutting down Ramadi 

streets as they had during the height of the battle. In Iraq, the United 

States learned a great deal about COIN and the options for capacitybuilding. It experimented with embedding PRTs with military units 

and found that it created managerial issues that could have been 

avoided in the predeployment phase. It found that PRTs spent much 

time adjusting internally to the redeployment of US military forces. 

The need for fitting out civilian-military teams with their own internal planning capacity became apparent. And many practitioners 

found that capacity-building efforts eventually reached a kind of stasis condition, where additional inputs did not result in measurably 

improved outcomes in the target environment.

This chapter started with the observation that planners should 

take the time to define the situation before jumping in to solve the 

problem. That was not possible in Iraq, where the situation required 

standing up capacity-building teams fast. However, planners in future contingencies should allocate adequate time and attention in the 

teams’ concept and design phase. Decision makers must come up 

with a definition of the situation, which would include such elements 

as developing a common picture of the facts on the ground, a shared 

understanding of the roles played by each of the parties and agencies, 

and their expectations of how each would react to developments seen 

and unforeseen.

During this period, planners should phrase and rephrase the problem, ask the right questions about the team’s mission and its organization, challenge assumptions, look at the situation from different 

perspectives, revise, rewrite, and reframe the problem again. There 

should be a consensus on the team’s goals and on desired end states. 

Informal agreements, handshakes, and unorthodox approaches 

should be avoided. They lead to unnecessary problems down the 

road. Ideally, institutional expectations should be codified into formal agreements and understandings or even into doctrine. Larger 
146 │ SORIANO

teams should have their own organic planning capacity to take into 

the field.

A complementary note would be to get the right people into the 

right jobs. In complex operations, many interagency frictions are not 

necessarily institutional in nature but are driven by personalities. 

This can be seen in the often exaggerated insistence upon the differences between US military and civilian cultures. Of course such differences exist. They are prominent, institutional, and based on personal outlook. However, dwelling on them tends to obscure one of 

the most prominent lessons learned coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan, which is the Department of Defense’s spirit of inclusiveness and 

its expectation that other federal agencies play a role in a complex, 

problem-solving matrix.

To paraphrase a top general, “Today when I look around and do 

not see the other agencies, I get nervous.”4

 The “3D” framework—the 

interface of diplomacy, defense, and development—is the manifestation of the importance of such collaboration. Interagency frictions 

are inevitable, but they can be managed at the outset by recruiting 

those who are suited to working in collaborative situations and across 

agency boundaries.

The lessons learned outlined in this chapter are largely based on 

my formative PRT experience in Iraq, a dangerous place where circumstance required that practitioners write the rules as they went 

along. The PRTs were tested over a period of years, in different parts 

of Iraq, in different security and operating environments, and through 

several team-leadership changes. Practitioners came away with their 

own lists of what works and what does not work. Because of this experience, it would be fair to say that civilian-military capacity-building teams have secured a place in the policy maker’s tool kit. The 

question today is not so much whether such teams should exist but 

rather how and to what purpose they should be used.

Notes

1. House, Agency Stovepipes vs Strategic Agility: Lessons We Need to Learn from 

Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq and Afghanistan: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Committee on Armed Services, 110th 

Cong., 2nd sess., April 2008, 73. 

2. Bing West, The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq (New 

York: Random House, 2008).
CIVILIAN-MILITARY CAPACITY-BUILDING TEAMS │ 147

3. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, The 9/11 

Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon 

the United States (New York: Norton, 2004), 399, http://www.9-11commission.gov. 

4. Lt Gen John R. Allen, USMC, deputy commander, US Central Command, at 

Department of State meeting with Foreign Service Officers, September 2010.

Chapter 9

Hope Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

An Afghan Civilian-Military Vision—

One Commander’s Experience

Eric W. Hommel

This chapter is not an academic analysis. The content is based 

purely on my personal experiences and observations—one United 

States Air Force (USAF) officer’s perspective. I believe it demonstrates 

“the truth of experience.” I have conducted reconstruction activities 

in Iraq and Afghanistan and continue to be engaged in stability operations consulting and training. In the capacity of a military legislative 

liaison, I have also escorted numerous congressional delegations to 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Parliamentary Assembly 

meetings and fact-finding missions in past and current war zones.

I completed the first draft of this chapter shortly after my return 

from commanding the Panjshir Provincial Reconstruction Team 

(PRT)—a tour that I would characterize as successful and personally 

satisfying. It was spring of 2010. Every member of my team had returned home safely, and I was confident that the wheels set in motion 

by this PRT were destined to be the benchmark in civilian-military 

stability operations. At Panjshir, we increased the number of competent and outgoing interagency civilians embedded within the PRT. 

Civilian and military personnel possessed the leeway to work directly 

with their Afghan counterparts and the ability to initiate a scalable 

transition strategy to a larger civilian force and a smaller military 

force. As a counterinsurgency (COIN) unit, we empowered an Afghan provincial government for the very first time by beginning to 

transition the governance responsibilities to the rightful owners. We 

also left a civilian-centric team in place to conduct stability operations and continue the governance empowerment process while paving the way for the military to first transition to civilian interagency 

control and soon thereafter to Afghan control. The idea of the military 

furling and casing the Panjshir PRT guidon as a symbol of military 

success as we marched out of this remote mountainous province was 

exhilarating. What has happened since our departure, however, has 
150 │ HOMMEL

left me frustrated and wondering if the international community can 

truly achieve stability through intervention in Afghanistan and in future complex environments. I seek to explain why the prospect of 

such success is questionable and offer suggestions about how the US 

government should approach future stability operations, based on 

lessons born from the truth of experience.

The Civilian “Uplift” Ended

Within a year after our PRT’s departure, reports from the field indicated that decision makers had completely reversed our internal 

transition from a military-dominated PRT to a civilian-dominated 

provincial development support team (PDST). The construct had regressed back to a military-dominated presence with what appeared to 

be a singular focus on transition of security responsibility to the Afghans as a precursor to a US withdrawal. Developing and empowering provincial, district, and local government to sustain the institutions that we helped to develop became an afterthought.

Building a Civilian-Military Relationship 

I met the incoming civilian PRT director, Jim DeHart, on a humid 

overcast day at Arlington National Cemetery in May of 2009. Jim, a 

career foreign service officer, and I were attending the funeral of the 

Panjshir PRT commander, my predecessor, who, along with three 

members of his team, had been killed in a vehicle-borne improvised 

explosive device attack while transiting through Kapisa Province. I 

had met the Panjshir PRT commander only two months earlier, during 

my predeployment site survey. He and I developed a personal relationship that lasted through my team’s predeployment training; I admired his connection and devotion to the people of Panjshir and his 

unwavering conviction of mission success. His funeral was an intensely 

sobering event that marked the beginning of my professional relationship with Jim DeHart, who I would meet again in July of 2009 

when I assumed military command in Afghanistan. I held the honor 

of commanding the Panjshir PRT from July 2009 to March 2010. 

DeHart, the PRT civilian director, is a highly effective diplomat 

who went on to serve as the director of the Office for Afghanistan at 

the Department of State (DOS). But back in 2009 Jim and I were 
HOPE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE │ 151

stuck together as the respective civilian and military leads, sharing 

the same office and hooch—basically connected at all times. Having 

worked reconstruction in Iraq under DOS leadership, I observed the 

clash in corporate culture between the DOS and the Department of 

Defense (DOD). Realizing this, the civilian director and I were determined to work through these differences to find common purpose 

and define common goals.

Defining the Mission

In 2004 the first PRT arrived in Panjshir. Since Panjshir was “secure” by Afghan standards, the PRT skipped the “clear and hold” 

phases of operations and went straight to “build.” Typically, military 

assets are fully engaged during the clear phase of an operation and 

methodically diminish in size and prominence during the hold and 

build phases once security has been established. Ideally, the presence 

of military forces is inversely proportional to civilian presence, particularly as operations move toward the final phase of military operations, “transfer” of authority back to the legitimate government. With 

Panjshir Province firmly situated in the build phase of military operations, we positioned the civilian-military PRT to capitalize on increased government competency and capacity.

The overarching mission of all PRTs is encapsulated in three directives: enhance security, strengthen the reach of the Afghan government (for example, governance), and facilitate reconstruction. Although we understood the overarching mission of the PRT, policy 

makers never formally defined the specific mission of the Panjshir 

PRT. I strongly believed we needed more concrete objectives, and so 

Jim and I worked on mission statements and shared objectives.

Shortly after our task force (brigade-level) changed command in 

early autumn of 2009, I submitted a memorandum to my new commander stating that the mission of this PRT was to deliver transition 

of lead security responsibility (TLSR) to the Afghan provincial government and we were going to accomplish TLSR by March 2010. My 

task force commander told me to “slow down” and wait for NATO’s 

North Atlantic Council (NAC) to define “transition.” After eight years 

of prosecuting this war and witnessing the realities of warfare, I believed 

the United States no longer had time to waste, so we pressed forward 

by focusing our energies on building the institutional capacity of the 
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Afghan government to support a TLSR. Suddenly, relationships with 

and empowerment of all provincial line ministry directors and district leaders were valued over the number of buildings constructed.

TLSR later developed into transition of lead responsibility (TLR) 

with a broader focus on transitioning responsibilities to the Afghan 

provincial government as the individual sectors of government developed. Additionally, PRT Panjshir never received a definition of 

“transition” as defined by NATO’s NAC. As a former military legislative liaison, I had the luxury of sitting in various NATO Parliamentary Assembly meetings prior to assuming command in Afghanistan. 

Armed with the firsthand knowledge of how methodical NATO parliamentarians worked, I believed the NAC would be slow to produce 

a tangible plan for those of us on the implementation/tactical level to 

follow, so we had to press forward.

Location, Location, Location

As the newest of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, Panjshir holds a distinctive place in modern Afghan history as a province that successfully expelled the Soviets and then resisted the Taliban. It is located in 

the northeast (Hindu Kush) section of Afghanistan. Ahmad Shah 

Massoud, the “Lion of Panjshir,” was the most notable military commander from this region. Massoud played a leading role in driving 

the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan in 1989, and Afghans revered 

him as a national hero. With the rise of the Taliban in 1996, Massoud 

returned from Kabul to the mountainous Panjshir region to fight 

against the fanaticism of the Taliban and served as the military commander of the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, 

popularly known as the “Northern Alliance.” Al-Qaeda agents assassinated Massoud on 9 September 2001, two days before the al-Qaeda 

attacks on the United States.

Panjshir’s military history and anti-Taliban mujahedeen mind-set 

permeates this province of approximately 300,000 people. This antiTaliban mind-set has led to what is effectively an informal “neighborhood watch” program. More than 30 years of fighting have created an 

exhausted population now primarily focused on developing its next 

generation through education and career opportunities, while never 

losing focus on its underlying need for security.
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Integrating Military and Civilian Assets

Civilian-military expertise coupled with the resources that the 

military brought to an expeditionary environment was and continues 

to be vital to success in this type of population-centric COIN effort. 

There was never a question of which resource was best. The two components were just different from and complementary to the other.

To effectively function “outside the wire,” we focused on being able 

to first function as a team “inside the wire.” The personnel structure 

of the Panjshir PRT combined individuals from the USAF, US Army, 

US Navy, DOS, US Agency for International Development (USAID), 

US Department of Agriculture (USDA), US Department of Justice 

(DOJ), and US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Based on experience, something as simple as civilian and military counterparts sharing an office enables a dialogue that is vital to establishing and reaching collective goals. Therefore, to overcome corporate cultural 

distinctions, civilian and military personnel worked side by side; 

shared the same office space; and met with Afghan military, civilian 

officials, and civil society. The only visible distinction was that the 

military personnel wore uniforms. Together, we integrated into a 

single unified effort aimed at developing governance, economics, rule 

of law and justice, and social, educational, and physical infrastructure 

provincewide.

The Corporate Challenge

Yet, with a military primarily trained to execute war, the challenge 

in any stabilization, development, and COIN environment is identifying the military member who can make the transition from warrior 

to diplomat when needed. For some troops, this transition is a major 

paradigm shift not easily grasped. In a civilian-military environment, 

troops must understand and accept this multidimensional role. The 

reality is basic: many junior troops do not have the life experience or 

specific nonkinetic training to accept or change over into a civilianmilitary stability operations environment.

Through three months of military predeployment training and 

nine months of real-world application, I assessed the teams’ individual 

“talents” in an effort to determine if, among the troops, their relationship-building skills were equal to their ability to engage the enemy. 
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This method cost the team a small level of attrition, since I was compelled to remove anyone from the team who put the methodology of 

the mission at risk. By the time we were done, there was no misunderstanding the fundamental methodology of mission: it is all about relationships, both with the Afghans and our interagency partners.

For PRT Panjshir, the continuity established by the civilian personnel (the DOS, USAID, USDA, USACE, and DOJ) enabled the system to work, but the military presence and the cooperation of the 

local Afghan government authorities and citizens in providing the 

relatively stable security environment enabled development and governance to occur. As security remained relatively stable in Panjshir, 

we envisioned and worked toward a time when the military and civilian 

personnel resources would become scalable.

Unified Decision Making

After completing the change of command with the outgoing PRT 

that served the region from October 2008 to June 2009, Jim and I 

directed a strategic pause in current operations in order to establish a 

baseline for future operations. We decided that to figure out where we 

needed to go, we must have a complete understanding of where we 

had been. We did not want to commit the fatal flaw of many stability 

operation newcomers: going full speed out of the gate in an effort to 

accomplish great things and possibly making things worse in the process. Because of this direction and subsequent discussion, we established a single, integrated decision-making process, with equal participation by military and civilian personnel. Establishing baselines 

within each sector of government led to shared input, discussion, 

evaluation, and mission directives.

The baseline establishment process also led to a secondary unexpected effect. Jim and I were able to assess the further competency of 

the team based on its understanding of its assigned governmental 

sectors. As a result, we shifted responsibilities as necessary and adjusted the unified decision-making process based on the depth of understanding and competency of the sectors within the civilian-military 

team. With the team’s responsibilities firmly established, the decisionmaking process developed into group meetings where well-defined 

Afghan-partnered plans were encouraged and ultimately put into action, 
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while never losing sight of our overarching strategic objective of TLR 

to the rightful Afghan owners.

“The First Provincial Reconstruction Team

to Make Us Work . . . and That’s Good”

In February 2010, eight months into my tenure as commander of 

PRT Panjshir, Hajji Bahlol, the governor of Panjshir, asked me a question: “What makes you qualified to be a PRT commander . . . what are 

your qualifications?” Up to this point, I considered my personal relationship with this man to be completely honest and transparent. We 

talked about our families and military experiences, spoke frankly of 

politics and religion, hiked together, shared meals and drank tea together, and collaborated in practices to best govern this region. I 

wondered to myself why this former mujahedeen commander was 

asking such a pointed question about my abilities as a PRT commander, especially this far into our relationship. I answered honestly, 

albeit with a tinge of embarrassment. I told Governor Bahlol of my 

education and experience in development and city and regional planning, with additional experience working as a civilian in city government and as a military legislative liaison to Congress; I also told him 

of my time in Iraq working reconstruction as the interim chief of staff 

for the Iraq Project and Contracting Office. Governor Bahlol said, 

“The reason I asked about your qualifications is because you are the 

first PRT to actually make us work . . . and that’s good.”

Let me clarify. This civilian-military PRT was the sixth PRT to operate in Panjshir. I believe that Governor Bahlol was not saying that 

the previous PRTs had failed at their jobs but that we were taking a 

different approach and one that he found more effective for this particular province. The first five PRTs followed their directives and gave 

their best to program the construction of paved roads, functioning 

health clinics, and formal schools. As mentioned earlier, my predecessor dedicated and sacrificed his life to build functioning institutions for this province. They built where there was nothing and laid 

the foundation for this civilian-military PRT to come in and focus on 

“governance” and the culture of transition and tangible change.
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Panjshir Is Different . . . So Was Our Provincial 

Reconstruction Team

“But you were in Panjshir. Panjshir is different than the rest of Afghanistan; no one is shooting at you.” This is the phrase I usually hear 

when I brief on my experience as the commander of the PRT. As an 

example, in September 2010, after a weeklong Afghan transition 

workshop at NATO Joint Forces Command in Brunssum (The Netherlands), it became painfully evident that the lessons learned “on the 

ground” with civilian-military transition and the Afghan empowerment in Panjshir would not be applied to the other 33 Afghan provinces. Instead, people who had never stepped foot in Afghanistan, or, 

if they had, likely never left the confines of the embassy compound in 

Kabul, had to develop transition measures of effectiveness from 

scratch in a Dutch conference room.

As It Turns Out, We Were Shot At

Five days after taking command, my team experienced our first 

command-wired improvised explosive device (IED) along a portion 

of the Panjshir main valley road. We were fortunate. The detonation 

was mistimed and the blast sent shrapnel in between the spacing of 

two of our soft-sided Land Cruisers. Sporadic small arms fire ensued 

from the triggermen as civilian and military members of the team 

donned their body armor and secured the area. Military members 

and Afghan National Police (ANP) tried in vain to pursue the triggermen; with that effort exhausted, the team recovered multiple 

pieces of evidence.

This was the first combat test of the combined civilian-military 

team. We had every right to become a garrisoned force in order to 

preserve life and limb, especially the noncombatant civilians. The 

deaths of the previous team members were fresh in everyone’s mind; 

now, we had been specifically targeted and had been very lucky that 

no one had been injured. My junior engineer officer even approached 

me the day after the event and told me that her parents wanted to 

know “why aren’t we driving around in our up-armored Humvees 

and wearing our body armor?” 

The PRT had an agreement with the local Afghan authorities guaranteeing our security. The PRT director and I both understood the 
HOPE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE │ 157

need to trust our Afghan counterparts. In fact, we viewed this event 

as an opportunity. Taking a leap of faith, albeit in a display of honest 

anger and frustration, Jim DeHart and I made it clear to provincial 

leadership that the vaunted Panjshir security failed us but that we 

would continue to honor our security agreement.

It was time to take a calculated risk in relation to the reward of 

creating trust between allies. Jim and I agreed that we needed to continue the mission to make it clear that we would not succumb to 

those threatening our collective efforts. I held a commander’s call 

with the civilian-military team, explaining our way ahead and placing 

myself in the lead vehicle for the next mission outside the wire. This 

event solidified our resolve to conduct business as usual with added 

force protection measures and a renewed shared sense of purpose.1

Eventually, an additional opportunity arose from this incident, 

when the ANP captured four suspects. We were then faced with the 

choice to prosecute these alleged triggermen through the ISAF justice system or push the Afghan courts to do their job. Understanding 

the shortcomings of the nascent Afghan judicial system, I still elected 

to push the suspects through the Afghan system knowing the suspects may reach a point during prosecution where they would be released from prison. In order to build institutional capacity, the institution must be challenged, learn from failure, and be held accountable.

Something Funny Happened on the Way to

the Forum . . . Our Money Disappeared

In the stability operations/COIN world, money is viewed as a 

weapon system. In fact, the Army handbook Commander’s Guide to 

Money as a Weapon System (MAAWS) states, “Coalition money is 

defeating COIN targets without creating collateral damage, by motivating antigovernment forces to cease lethal and non-lethal operations, by creating and providing jobs along with other forms of financial assistance to the indigenous population, and by restoring and 

creating vital infrastructure.”2

With MAAWS as our guide and Commanders’ Emergency Response Program (CERP) money as our weapon of choice and the primary means of funding projects, we were poised to do “battle.”3

 Then 

something funny happened. In mid-summer 2009, then chairman of 

the House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Defense, 
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Cong. Jack Murtha sent a letter to Robert Gates, secretary of defense, 

stating congressionally approved CERP funds were not being used in 

a manner true to the intent of emergency reconstruction. Chairman 

Murtha directed the DOD to review how CERP funds were being 

used in situations where development agencies, namely USAID, 

should be designing and funding the projects. As a result, my command structure made it clear that any initiative that I could not define 

as an “emergency” would not be funded with CERP dollars.

Up to this point, the five former PRTs were able to address the vast 

majority of “urgent humanitarian need” infrastructure projects that 

also included business development grants and a cash-for-work program. Our baseline assessments indicated that we needed to go beyond infrastructure development and shift focus to institutional capacity-building projects designed to make government systems 

function, become sustainable, and further develop on their own. 

Maintenance and growth of business development grants and cash–

for-work programs were also determined to be essential to capacity 

building. It was time to “teach a man to fish,” but with our CERP dollars restricted, I could not even buy bait.

Promoting Self-Reliance: Seize the Opportunities

and Empower the Rightful Owner

Money seems to have a paradoxical effect: the more you infuse it 

into the government, the more government becomes dependent on 

you, and you assist in breeding an environment easily seeded with 

corruption. “Assistance” in the form of money has a tendency to 

breed bad behavior.

With the vast sums of money removed from the Panjshir equation, 

honest and transparent discussion with provincial, district, local, and 

religious leadership eventually spirited our governance efforts, but 

initial reaction was that good Panjshiri behavior led to the removal of 

reconstruction funds. On several occasions, various Afghans asked 

us, “What if we caused trouble, would we get more money then?” 

Sadly, the answer was probably “yes.”

With the majority of urgent humanitarian need projects addressed, 

our civilian-military team pursued opportunities to empower sectors 

of the provincial government without the use of emergency funds. In 

essence, we were forced into de-emphasizing CERP projects, and in 
HOPE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE │ 159

the process, another opportunity developed. It became evident that 

we could work toward a transition into a larger internal PDST with 

an interagency provincial affairs team—the DOS and USAID—in full 

operational control that would allow for a reduction in the US military presence. It was time to strengthen the reach and capacity of the 

Afghan government and the abilities of our civilian-military team.

Partnership

DOD Instruction 3000.05, Stability Operations, cites stability operations as “a core U.S. military mission that the Department of Defense shall be prepared to conduct with proficiency equivalent to 

combat operations.”4

 The instruction directs the military to “support

stability operations activities led by other US government departments or agencies, foreign governments and security forces, or international governmental organizations . . . [and/or] lead stability operations activities . . . [until] it is feasible to transition lead 

responsibility to other US government agencies, foreign governments 

and security forces, or international governmental organizations.”5

(emphasis added by author) Yes, our intent was to work ourselves out 

of a job. This is not a glib statement. Jim and I made it clear to our 

respective civilian and military commands and to Pres. Barack 

Obama’s national security advisor that our intent was to furl and case 

PRT Panjshir’s guidon following transition of lead responsibility, first 

to a civilian-centric PDST and then to the Afghan provincial government.6

One of our most significant partnerships outside of the interagency 

PRT was with the United Nations Assistance Mission–Afghanistan 

(UNAMA). Together we pooled governance resources and mentored 

and conducted a five-year provincial development plan (PDP) workshop. The four-day workshop provided an environment where local 

provincial officials identified needs and project/program solutions. 

Superb attendance by line ministry directors and district governors 

demonstrated serious commitment, and the detailed and analytic 

quality of discussions and planning pleased UNAMA. Unfortunately, 

some line ministers persisted in believing that the PDP was primarily 

designed to please the PRT through a “wish list” of potential projects—a remnant of a reconstruction-centric PRT. Overall, this event 

represented a strong showing by the provincial government to accept 
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more authority, with the understanding that the PDP is a governance 

tool needing a single, coordinated planning and development process. 

The development of these planning skills became transferrable to other 

aspects of the provincial and district government, with some line ministries expanding their planning skills to write and submit grant requests on their own volition.

Building Government Capacity–Eminent Domain

During the course of reconstruction, a 130 km main valley asphalt 

road was determined to be the most effective means of delivering 

government services to the population. In addition, the newly widened and paved road would allow access to markets, health care, and 

educational opportunities never experienced in the history of the 

Panjshir Valley. While most villagers would agree that the road 

brought unimagined development and progress, many would agree 

that the road has also brought unimagined destruction. During the 

course of paving the existing 130 km long by 3 m wide dirt “jeep” trail 

to become a new 10 m wide asphalt road, the Afghan government 

exercised eminent domain authority without a formal process, seizing 

private property for the public good. As financer of the road construction projects and rule of law advisor, the US government was also culpable in this process and in violation of the Afghan constitution.

Unfortunately, over the course of several years, decision makers 

failed to compensate villagers for their losses. In turn, they were understandably upset with and questioned government authority. With 

mentorship and encouragement from our civilian-military team, the 

provincial government accepted its responsibility, conducted an exhaustive damage assessment survey, and documented the extent of 

damage and the personal information of those claiming damage. 

Working with road contractors (six Afghan companies), within the 

parameters of the road contracts, the provincial government secured 

and distributed compensation for 541 affected families.7

 This undertaking was extraordinarily difficult and served as tangible proof of 

provincial and district government officials working for the people 

and understanding their roles as public officials. Citizens, who once 

believed that their provincial and district government previously had 

ignored its responsibilities, came to view their local government as 

legitimate and responsive.
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An ancillary effect of government surveys came in the form of property documentation. Afghan record keeping has been typically poor, a 

common result of prolonged civil unrest and unrecorded outcomes 

from informal justice mechanisms. The eminent domain process allowed the provincial government to revisit and revise property titles.

On a side note, as soon as the provincial Afghan government began engaging with the public while conducting damage assessment 

surveys, no longer did the PRT experience any IEDs along the main 

valley road. I do not have empirical evidence that government concern for “taken” property ended our IED problem, but it appears 

there may have been some correlation.

Securing Their Own

From an Afghan perspective, security in Panjshir was very good. 

However, make no mistake, this was still Afghanistan. Panjshir, while 

secure, also endured corruption, criminal activity, and political biases, resulting in criminal and even terrorist events occurring on rare 

occasions. The PRT and coalition forces were welcome in the valley, 

and residents were in support of security to continue with development and governance efforts. Separately, there remained complexities involved in prosecuting suspects engaged in illegal activity, as 

there may be second- and third-order effects within the current Afghan legal system. Simply stated, the current Afghan legal system was 

the most difficult sector of government to wrap our arms around. 

Cronyism and reliance on the existing tribal justice system will continue to require trained civilian legal experts to foster an overarching 

acceptance of Afghan constitutional law.

More than 600 ANPs protect Panjshir’s six districts and one municipality. The Afghan National Army (ANA) has a minor presence 

in the province, with a recruiting station and joint manning of the 

operation control center–provincial (OCC-P). The ANP is a young 

force eager to develop. With a US Army police mentoring team and 

two civilian law enforcement professionals as part of the PRT, the 

ANP received much-needed training. Unfortunately, we were training a largely illiterate police force. As a result, many of the officers 

charged to enforce the law were unable to understand the very law 

they were charged to enforce. Eventual partnership with the NATO 

Training Mission–Afghanistan (NTM-A), Panjshir line Ministry of 
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Education, Panjshir chief of ANP, and civilian-military PRT led to 

the implementation of a literacy education program specifically designed for the ANP.

An overall success since its August 2009 opening, the OCC-P is a 

professional security command-and-control center led by honest and 

effective combined ANA and ANP leadership. In January 2010, the 

PRT designed and implemented a major emergency response exercise to validate mission readiness levels of the OCC-P, Anaba District 

ANP, and government sectors to respond to humanitarian crises. In 

addition to meeting training tasks as specified in each phase for the 

exercise, all organizations met or exceeded expectations of coordinating through the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, nongovernmental organizations (NGO), and Afghan National 

Security Forces (ANSF) partners.

Clearly, Afghan self-reliance is built on a foundation of security; 

but now, with the current decline of civilian resources, the formal 

development of the justice sector through rule-of-law training and 

broader ANP literary education will only suffer. Afghan security 

force literacy education must remain a top priority during the security transition process; otherwise, we are simply training the Afghans 

to employ tactics and procedures without the understanding of when 

and how to employ them. The worst-case scenario is that we are just 

training some Afghans to be better thugs. This regressive transition to a 

security-centric mission in a province like Panjshir only serves to belittle the progress achieved throughout the other sectors of government.

Public Health

With maximum capacity reached within Panjshir, no longer did the 

Panjshir PRT need to build health clinics. Since all Panjshiris had physical access to health clinics within a reasonable distance, it was time to 

shift focus to the services provided within the walls of the clinics.

The paramount concern of any mother is the health and survivability of her children. Although Panjshir is a fertile valley, certain 

vital nutrients are lacking in most Panjshiri diets, with infants and 

toddlers most notably affected by malnutrition. Without proper nutrition at this formative juncture in physical and mental development, malnourished children typically grow up to experience worsening health and lower educational development.
HOPE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE │ 163

The civilian-military team in a Shutol District clinic under the direction of the Panjshir line minister of public health initiated a very 

low-cost CERP initiative called the Strong Foods Program (SFP). The 

program provides mothers with a high-calorie, vitamin-fortified, almondbased paste developed to help their children to the normal state of health.

The key element to a successful SFP boils down to basic administration and distribution of the product coupled with individual patient assessment and continued patient documentation designed to 

monitor patient development. Following the successful test of the 

Shutol health clinic’s administration of the SFP, multiple programs 

were subsequently initiated throughout Panjshir. The provincial public health office solely administered these follow-on SFPs; the civilian-military PRT completely stepped out of the process.

Education

Failed states prone to insurgencies and humanitarian crises commonly lack a legitimate government or basic services and employ 

strong-armed tactics to cause fear and exert control of a largely ignorant and defenseless population. Ignorance results from a lack of information and education. It was largely ignorance that allowed the Taliban 

to establish a foothold in Afghanistan under the guise of establishing 

“law and order,” and once that human cancer was allowed to enter the 

country, support to terrorist organizations was allowed to metastasize.

During my tenure, the civilian-military team tried in vain to secure 

USAID and/or CERP funds to build a dormitory and a library/laboratory 

to address the profound need for continuing education programs at the 

existing teachers training college.8

 Since institutional capacity-building 

initiatives were not considered an urgent humanitarian need, this request was systematically denied under CERP guidelines.

Consider the basic need for properly educated teachers. On the 

surface, the majority of Panjshiri children, both male and female, 

separately attend some sort of school. If we determined the effectiveness of a program promoting education solely by counting the number of students attending school, Panjshir would be a success. Yet the 

PRT would conduct informal random quizzes of the school-aged 

population (with pens and pencils given as rewards for correct answers). Our sampling revealed that many full-time fifth- and sixthgrade students could not accomplish a simple addition problem or 
164 │ HOMMEL

identify a single country bordering Afghanistan. The teachers who 

taught were uneducated themselves and ill equipped to teach students.

We cannot continue to judge the success of the Afghan education 

system (and reconstruction efforts) by the number of schools built. It 

is ludicrous to believe that a physical structure has the power to teach 

children, yet the number of schools built is one of our primary metrics used to determine the success of the educational system.

Those engaged in reconstruction efforts fostered a culture of repeating ignorance, failing to build human capacity to sustain the institutions such efforts support—as with teachers and schools. If combating ignorance is viewed as a priority, facilitating continuing 

education for teachers should be as important as the often-heard 

mantra of Afghan girls attending school.

Afghan Budget

Money is leverage. When I returned from Afghanistan in 2010, I 

met with professional staffers from the House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations, where officials asked me, “What can we [the United States] do to make Afghanistan work?” My response was simple: “Stop appropriating 

money for the reconstruction of Afghanistan until the Afghan government can produce a transparent budgeting process.”

Several months earlier, back in Afghanistan, my civilian counterpart, Jim DeHart, and I were faced with a military command structure directing us to work with our Afghan counterparts on what they 

believed to be a formalized Afghan budgeting process. Working with 

our Afghan counterparts was no problem since Jim and I already had 

all members of the civilian-military team working within the many 

sectors of provincial government. The hard part was the reality of a 

formal Afghan budget process. It did not exist. The US Department 

of Treasury documented and acknowledged this fact. After several 

unsuccessful attempts to explain to my military command structure 

the makeshift process in which monies were requested from the provincial line ministries up through their respective central ministries 

largely through personal relationships and with “wish lists,” it became 

clear that we had to go in a different direction. Jim and I could attempt to “bottom-up” this process, but if the central government did 

not have a budgeting process, then our efforts would all be for naught.
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With my military channels unwilling to accept the shortcomings 

of the Afghan budget system, Jim had been quick to draft an official 

DOS cable outlining the realities of an Afghan budget process that 

did not exist and how it needed to be structured in order to exist. 

What resulted from this document was a classic example of circular 

reporting where the cable was accepted as fact and then distributed 

through military channels, eventually making its way back down to 

our interagency PRT as the guide for provincial budgeting direction. 

Because of our collective civilian-military efforts, the Afghan budget 

system was clearly defined, and we were able to lay the foundation of 

a budgeting process with our provincial government counterparts.

Sweat Equity

With restrictions on CERP dollars and USAID unable to tailor local development projects, the civilian-military team had to get creative. Through a series of lively local shuras (consultative councils), 

PRT engineers (both military and civilian) created a “sweat equity” 

school building program designed to empower rural villages to assist 

in the building of their community schools. This initiative saved over 

$300,000, gave the villagers a sense of project ownership and community pride, and enabled the schools to be built in record time.

Community buy-in was pivotal in ensuring success of the sweat 

equity program. When a society becomes conditioned to the donorrecipient mind set, it has a tendency to expect additional and continual support. We found that locals usually met the sweat equity 

concept with a typical response. They would state that the PRT should 

build a school for their village because the PRT built a school for an 

adjacent village. By employing job training (carpentry, masonry, and 

electrical) into the sweat equity program, the civilian-military PRT 

was able to dislodge the cycle of dependency in some specific cases, 

but dependency will remain an unintended consequence of continued assistance.

Interagency civilian-military teams sweating together also achieve 

value. Incorporating civilian team members in military training and 

operations builds the credibility of the civilians among the troops and 

builds the confidence of most civilians working in a combat environment. 

From a team-building perspective, it just makes sense to incorporate 
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civilian team members with the military in all aspects of predeployment and continuing training.

So What?

The greatest threat to our national security will not come from 

emerging ambitious states but from nations unable or unwilling to meet the basic needs and aspirations of their people.

—Army Field Manual (FM) 3-07, Stability Operations

As Army Field Manual 3-07 says, “During the relatively short history of the United States, military forces have fought only 11 wars 

considered conventional. From the American Revolution through 

Operation Iraqi Freedom, these wars represented significant or perceived threats to national security interests, where the political risk to 

the nation was always gravest. These were the wars for which the 

military traditionally prepared; these were the wars that endangered 

America’s very way of life. Of the hundreds of other military operations 

conducted in those intervening years, most are now considered stability operations, interrupted by distinct episodes of major combat.”9

To believe that the United States will not continue to engage in 

stability operations is to ignore historical trends. To continue to plan, 

program, budget, and equip the DOD at current “conventional warfare” rates without acknowledging stability operations realities could 

lead our nation closer to financial ruin. To be proactive, leaders must 

position the military to adapt to a greater unconventional role with a 

primary goal of precluding crisis from becoming conflict. In other 

words, the United States needs to spend moderately on “an ounce of 

prevention”—conflict prevention and stability operations—to avoid 

breaking the bank on “a pound of cure”—maintaining and employing 

a massive standing force.

Although the civilian-military interagency model in Panjshir appeared to work in this one specific context, at this specific time in 

history, it still begs a question. Is it time to integrate fully the cooperative efforts of the departments and agencies of the US government, 

intergovernmental organizations, NGOs, multinational partners, and 

private-sector entities to achieve unity of effort toward a shared goal 

of greater international stability? If the United States acknowledges 

the need to combat and prevent instability leading to violent extremism, 
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a new unified expeditionary construct must be developed and maintained. This unified organization must take a comprehensive approach 

to foster the development of capabilities to shape the operational 

environment in a way that precludes the requirement for full-scale 

military intervention.

With the creation of the Civilian Response Corps and the intended 

establishment of a reserve component for that new entity, the DOS 

has taken steps to build an expeditionary civilian interagency mechanism interfacing with the military to bring stability to conflict and 

postconflict countries and regions. While moving in the right direction, the military must also continue to move in coordinated sequence, in line with the DOD Directive 3000.05, Stability Operations. 

With the DOD developing compatible capabilities to a wide range 

of other government development agencies in order to “establish civil 

security and civil control; restore or provide essential services; repair 

critical infrastructure; and provide humanitarian assistance,” it appears the military is as deeply engaged as are the DOS and USAID.10

Some may even argue that the DOD is so deeply engaged in humanitarian assistance that the military has usurped a vast amount of the 

DOS’s and USAID’s authority.

As a next step in the evolution of such expeditionary forces, the US 

government should design a professional and standing stability operations force—a hybrid of both military and civilian capabilities, a 

formalized PRT structure, with the focus on serving as a force multiplier for both international development community objectives and 

military operations. A professional standing force trained and 

equipped for stability operations work would free up the military to 

concentrate on their traditional roles, without shouldering the burden of developing ad hoc “armed humanitarians” when the need 

arises. Furthermore, a professional standing stability operations force 

could engage local partners to genuinely and comprehensively in the 

stability process.

Instead of a continual pickup game, it is time to formalize the process by engaging a “whole of government” approach and structure a 

professional civilian-military hybrid force free from existing agency 

or department paradigms. It is time to acknowledge that warfare and 

international assistance are politically interconnected, requiring the 

exponential power of shared resources and skill sets similar to what 

the United States employed in Panjshir. It is time to formalize a unity 

of effort process with a focus on common goals. We set a “unity of 
168 │ HOMMEL

effort” table in Panjshir, but it appears most international organizations, NGOs, and US government agencies still want to eat at their 

own place.

A senior Army officer, who had several meetings with Hajji Bahlol, 

governor of Panjshir, in a PRT oversight role prior to my tenure, 

asked me about the governor during a Capitol Hill reception following my tour and return to the States. When I responded that he had 

stated to me that we were the first PRT to make his government work, 

the senior Army officer responded by saying “everyone likes to think 

that they did better than the command before them.” I understand 

this concept. All commanders have found themselves taking care of 

the leftovers from those we succeed (as I am certain my successor had 

to do), and it usually adds up to some level of frustration. However, I 

firmly believe that our case was different because our parameters 

changed so completely that we had to be different. Without reconstruction money, we embraced our differences, and I am unabashedly 

stating that we made the Afghans work! Here is the motivational part: 

the majority of our Afghan partners embraced their responsibility, 

and with this transformation we began to see how we could truly 

reach a level of tangible success in Afghanistan.

Hope Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

To paraphrase Governor Bahlol, what this one civilian-military 

Panjshir PRT left behind was an Afghan government that worked for 

the first time and a civilian-centric PDST positioned to take the reins 

from the military and guide the rest of the transition mission. It was 

March 2010, and what has transpired since has dashed the hope that 

this one province could serve as the model for lessons and best practices for the remaining 33 Afghan provinces.

The hope, coupled with a tangible plan, was to continue to enhance the civilian-military mix in order to achieve transition authority to Afghan provincial control. The long-term vision is to support 

an effective civilian-military mix in stability operation environments 

in order to preclude crisis from becoming conflict and eventually formalize a process integral to a whole-of-government approach.

The civilian-military Panjshir PRT set the conditions for Panjshir 

to be the model civilian-military interagency team. This plan died 

with the actions to move PRT Panjshir interagency personnel from 
HOPE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE │ 169

the province back to Bagram Air Base, while leaving a small cadre of 

military in Panjshir. With a focus on security transition, and knowing 

the reality of how scant are the logistical resources, I see no way a 

diplomat could return to Panjshir on a regular basis to maintain effective working relationships with their Afghan counterparts, although a 

plan was put in place for continued civilian engagement. The civilian 

experts, who needed to continue to mentor the Panjshir provincial 

government, were sequestered behind the walls of Bagram Air Base, 

essentially an American/coalition island in the middle of Afghanistan.

The inroads created by the establishment of a civilian-centric team 

should have allowed coalition forces to focus on the final stage of 

military operations in Panjshir with, first, a transition of responsibilities to a more civilian-centric PDST, followed by transition of responsibility to the legitimate provincial government—“transition” being 

the decisive operation demonstrating progress toward a secure and 

independent Afghanistan. A transitioned functioning government 

would have only enhanced the security construct.

Instead, with only a military contingent left in place, for the first 

time the forward operating base (FOB) came under a coordinated 

Taliban attack in October 2011, wounding a number of Afghan security 

guards and leaving five Taliban attackers dead. This was the first fullscale attack on the Panjshir FOB, and it came only after the civilianmilitary presence regressed into a military-only presence.

The civilian “uplift” in Afghanistan ended, and the United States 

has regressed largely to a military-centric structure with what appears to be a singular focus to transition security responsibility to the 

Afghans (perhaps in an effort to get the US military out of Afghanistan as soon as possible). Developing and empowering provincial, 

district, and local government to sustain the institutions that the 

United States helped to develop has become an afterthought.

Final Thoughts 

The military is a very powerful hammer, but not every problem 

is a nail.

—Gen Hugh Shelton, US Army

It is time to stock our “toolbox” with something more than just a 

hammer. To execute war successfully, in Afghanistan and in future 
170 │ HOMMEL

conflicts, the United States’ resources must be fully engaged in the 

struggle. Much to the dismay of our military-industrial complex, 

military hardware can, at best, only help us through the clear and 

hold phases of military operations. Only competent and dedicated 

people from a wide array of specialties willing to go into harm’s way 

can accomplish the remaining two phases of build and transfer. What 

inhibits our grasp of victory in Afghanistan is not our inability to 

engage and defeat the enemy; we are expert warriors. What truly inhibits victory is our inability to fully leverage the potential of the 

United States’ interagency partners with military might in a stability 

operations construct.

My 25 years of experience in this military business has taught me 

some things. When I first enlisted in the Navy and volunteered for 

service in the submarine force during the Cold War, life was well defined. We knew who our enemy was, and we knew our enemy’s intent. They were the Evil Empire, godless and ruthless. We knew our 

mission on fast-attack submarines was to hunt down bloodthirsty 

communists and kill them before they could unleash their murderous fury against our great nation. It was simple—kill the bad guys and 

break their things. The enemy wore a uniform; the enemy was a nation mobilized against our way of life. 

Afghanistan is different. The Taliban has little for us to break, and 

the vast majority of Afghans are good people just trying to make their 

way through life. The common Afghan has been victimized; in fact, 

Afghans have a history of victimization. A brief study of the region 

reveals that average Afghans have had little to no say over their government or occupiers. In fact, your average Afghan has focused 

purely on survival and the survival of the family for the past 30 years.

I have tremendous respect for Afghans; they are an amazing group 

of people who rely on their wits and “street smarts” to outgame the 

government du jour and the international community. This is the 

game that the average Afghan is forced to play. So many times, ruling 

entities have failed or taken advantage of the average Afghan. In other 

words, Afghans are conditioned to get as much as they can now, before outsiders declare Afghanistan unimportant, disassemble our civilian-military operations, shift focus, and dash the Afghans’ hopes—

yet again.

I wish, at times, I was writing fiction; however, this is real life in the 

context of twenty-first-century warfare, where good people continue 

to suffer. Therefore, if the United States, as a nation, chooses to deploy 
HOPE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANYMORE │ 171

dedicated military and civilian personnel to areas of conflict in a humanitarian context, we ought to formalize this force and arm them 

with clear directives. History has shown that we cannot win a lasting 

peace just by killing the bad guys.

Notes

1. In a nine-month deployment, PRT Panjshir conducted 1,020 mounted, 26 dismounted, and 6 cavalry patrols, logging over 56,000 km of convoys in the process 

and resulting in the completion of more than 4,300 unique mission objectives 

throughout the 3,610 sq km area of responsibility.

2. Commander’s Guide to Money as a Weapons System (MAAWS), Center for 

Army Lessons Learned (Handbook), No. 09-27, April 2009, I.

3. MAAWS later became Afghanistan-specific with an update entitled Money As 

a Weapon System-Afghanistan (MAAWS-A), USFOR-A Pub 1-06; Commander’s 

Emergency Response Program (CERP), Standard Operating Procedure, updated in 

December 2009 and later in February 2011.

4. Department of Defense Instruction 3000.05, Stability Operations, 16 September 2009, 2.

5. Ibid.

6. Gen James Jones visited PRT Panjshir in February 2010. Jim DeHart and I presented General Jones with a “Transition to Afghan Control” co-brief. ISAF communication back to the PRT indicated that General Jones “left Panjshir a changed man.”

7. Key to note: I met with initial and continued resistance to any type of eminent 

domain compensation program from my task force and specifically from the Army 

Corps of Engineers (AED) due to the fact that this type of activity “would set a precedent” that held the potential to affect the AED road building program throughout 

Afghanistan. I argued that payment for “taken” property should set a precedent—“a 

good precedent.” 

8. USAID programs coming to Panjshir were driven by but not designed by USAID 

field officers. Without a funding mechanism for field-designed, province specific 

programs, the USAID field officer operates with a handicap. A USAID field officer is 

simply not empowered to deliver in the way a typical military PRT can. This process 

must develop in order to fulfill the requirements of a PDST.

9. Army Field Manual (FM) 3-07, Stability Operations, 1-1.

10. Department of Defense Instruction 3000.05, Stability Operations, 16 September 2009, 2.

Chapter 10

How Department of Defense Spending Was 

Used to Resuscitate Local Business

A Select History of Civilian-Military Engagement in Iraq

Andrew Shaver

Introduction

Early 2006 was an especially challenging period for the United 

States as Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) entered its third year. The 

numbers of attacks on coalition forces and Iraqi casualties reached 

record levels.1

 The bombing by militants of the al-Askari Mosque, 

one of Shi’a Islam’s most revered shrines, triggered a spate of retaliatory killings between the country’s Sunni and Shiite Muslim communities that analysts feared had ushered in an era of Iraqi civil war.2

Additionally, a major study commissioned by the US Congress found 

that, despite tens of billions of dollars spent by the US government on 

reconstruction projects, results were anything but indicative of success.3

 Pentagon leadership actively sought new means of stabilizing 

the country.

In June of that year, Gordon England, deputy secretary of defense, 

ordered the creation of the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations to facilitate Iraq’s economic revitalization. To encourage new 

thinking on the application of economics-based programs as a means 

of stabilizing the country, he sought to incorporate a private-sector 

perspective largely absent from other US reconstruction and development initiatives. He selected as task force director a former JDS 

Uniphase Corporation chief information officer, who, in turn, appointed former private-sector executives from corporations including 

Nortel Networks and IBM to other senior organizational positions.

The task force initially focused on restarting select state-owned enterprises that had been shuttered following the US invasion but 

quickly expanded its activities. Rather than undertaking large-scale 

reconstruction projects or limiting focus to particular Iraqi provinces, 
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as was typical of US reconstruction efforts at that point, task force 

leadership sought to create conditions that would cultivate privatesector activity in the hope that commercial enterprise would eventually 

minimize the need for governmental efforts to stabilize and develop 

the country’s economy.4

In its role as a business development agent, the task force undertook a variety of measures, which included building the capacity of 

Iraq’s National Investment Commission, brokering the country’s first 

private investments in Iraq’s state-owned enterprises, and providing 

support and materials that aided the emergence of hundreds of agricultural enterprises within the country. A subset of these business 

development initiatives included directing US military spending on 

goods and services toward Iraqi firms, helping to establish a modern 

banking system within the country, and facilitating foreign direct investments by major multinational corporations within targeted sectors of the country’s economy. 

Programs within this more limited set were unique in that they 

leveraged in different ways billions of dollars’ worth of existing military procurement spending that was necessary to sustain military 

operations. Such programs evolved through significant cooperation 

among officials from the task force and defense agencies responsible 

for contracting and business-systems development, US military contracting officers, and various civilian partners, including officials from 

the US Department of the Treasury (Treasury), Iraqi Ministry of Finance, and Iraqi National Investment Commission, Iraqi bank executives, and corporate executives of major multinational corporations.

These programs and the specific forms of civilian-military collaboration that underpinned them are described in the following sections. 

The conditions under which these initiatives emerged were much the 

result of unique cooperative arrangements between defense agencies 

that may be unlikely to rematerialize naturally during possible future 

conflicts given bureaucratic reorganizations that have since taken 

place. Therefore, if the Department of Defense (DOD) is to apply initiatives in future operations similar to those described in this chapter, 

plans should be developed that would allow for the rapid establishment of intradepartmental and interagency collaboration necessary 

to facilitate the appropriate public-private partnerships. Because the 

task force initiatives described were made possible by, and indeed 

were a reaction to, the large spending levels inherent to operations 

within a theater of significant troop deployment, this piece serves 
HOW DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SPENDING WAS USED │ 175

specifically to inform future stabilization operations in which the 

United States has deployed substantial numbers of troops, civilians, 

or contractors.

Iraqi First

For years following the initiation of OIF, the US military relied 

largely upon complex supply lines originating out of the United States 

and countries neighboring Iraq to sustain the war effort. Yearly 

spending on goods and services required to maintain operations in 

theater amounted to billions of dollars. Following the end of major 

hostilities, US Central Command’s (USCENTCOM) primary contracting entity, Joint Contracting Command–Iraq (JCC–I, later Joint 

Theater Support Contracting Command [JTSCC]), entered each year 

into contractual commitments worth billions of dollars with US and 

other non-Iraqi firms.5

As the insurgency in Iraq developed, DOD officials increasingly 

recognized the untapped potential that existed to stimulate hostnation business by contracting directly for goods and services offered 

by Iraqi firms. In 2006, George Casey, former Army chief of staff and 

then commanding general for Iraq, requested that the director of 

JCC–I establish a local contracting program.

For contracting officials of JCC–I, the case for local procurement, 

while distinct, was great. The practice of purchasing locally offered 

savings to contracting officials, for whom cost considerations were 

second only to ensuring the timely provision of goods and services to 

the troops whom they were entrusted to serve. Prices for goods that 

were produced locally or imported from neighboring countries did 

not reflect the cost of transportation as did goods originating from 

the United States. Significantly, not all savings were strictly monetary. 

Materials shipped into and within Iraq by US military forces required 

protection against attack, subjecting US service personnel to the dangers associated with travel within the country.

JCC–I, however, lacked the capabilities necessary to establish the 

local procurement program requested. The command lacked sufficient Iraqi business relationships to undertake local procurement on 

a meaningful scale. Moreover, during the initial years of the conflict, 

US military contracting officials had relied on a vendor database that 

included virtually no Iraqi firms. Iraqi vendors were generally unaware 
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of specific business opportunities with the US military, and those 

Iraqi executives who attempted to engage in business with the US 

military encountered difficulties associated with fulfilling vendor 

registration requirements developed for the US business community 

that often proved insurmountable.

Because of these difficulties, the JCC–I director solicited the assistance of the task force. In his role as the Business Transformation 

Agency (BTA) codirector, the task force director instructed members 

of that agency to design the necessary business systems to support a 

local procurement strategy. Simultaneously, the task force augmented 

its efforts to develop a local purchasing program by deploying 14 

host-nation business advisors to regional contracting commands 

throughout Iraq who were charged with developing relations with 

Iraqi vendors on behalf of the US military. Utilizing contact details 

obtained from Iraqi chambers of commerce and business centers, 

these advisors engaged in a major telephone and e-mail campaign to 

apprise Iraqi business owners of commercial opportunities with the 

military. They also played an important cultural role during this period of outreach, in part by seeking to dissuade their audiences from 

adhering to edicts issued by radical Islamic clerics that banned engagement with members of the coalition.

These initiatives laid the groundwork for the large-scale initiation 

of local purchasing. As regional contracting commands forged relations with members of local business communities, web-based BTA 

systems were introduced to Iraqi vendors, permitting them to view 

and respond to US military solicitations. Meanwhile, the advisors 

held seminars throughout Iraq at which they trained on the process 

and procedures of contracting with the US military. The business systems gathered basic Iraqi vendor information and the cost, schedule, 

and performance of vendor activities, creating a database that US 

contracting officials throughout the country could consult for a variety of goods and services.

In the years that followed, procurements from local businesses increased considerably, and decision makers introduced a similar program relying upon the same business systems in Afghanistan. By the 

end of 2011, the JTSCC had made approximately $10 billion in contractual obligations for various commodities, construction projects, 

and services from more than 6,000 private Iraqi and Afghan businesses.6

 This figure represents more than just the dollar value the 

DOD has contributed to spurring host-nation business activity 
HOW DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SPENDING WAS USED │ 177

within both countries. The local firms successfully executed the vast 

majority of the contracts they were awarded.7

Following completion of his assignment as director of JCC–I, Maj 

Gen Darryl Scott was appointed deputy director of the task force and, 

later, of the BTA. This assignment served to promote continued cooperation among the task force, BTA, and JCC–I on the Iraqi and 

Afghan First programs. It also aided in subsequent efforts to improve 

Iraq’s banking sector and to create conditions conducive to international investment in Iraq. The former JCC–I director applied his expertise of the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations to assist the 

task force and BTA to continue to leverage departmental spending on 

the war effort to encourage Iraqi private-sector development.

Banking

An underdeveloped Iraqi banking sector presented a specific challenge to task force officials who sought to generate business in the 

country. Iraq’s government had nationalized the banking system in 

1964, and the government did not license private banks to operate 

until the early 1990s.8

 Even then, however, strict deposit reporting 

requirements remained in effect, and private banks were not allowed 

to open correspondent accounts until much later. According to the 

task force, a “lack of activity in the banking sector of the last 50 years 

. . . [and frequent government raids] for any accumulated hard currency bank notes” contributed to “low loan to deposit ratios” in Iraqi 

banks.9

 From the organization’s perspective, this was problematic on 

two levels. First, limited borrowing opportunities stifled domestic 

private-sector reconstruction activities. Second, despite these restrictions, it was important for Iraqi firms to deposit their proceeds with 

Iraqi banks in order to make use of electronic funds transfer (EFT) 

capabilities, which the task force and US Treasury leadership saw as 

critical to attracting investments by major multinational corporations and creating a climate wherein small and medium enterprises 

could effectively meet the needs of Iraq’s government.10

The US Treasury had deployed a team of specialists to Iraq to assist 

local bank officials in promoting such capability. These officials 

worked with members of the Central Bank of Iraq to implement a 

Real Time Gross Settlement System and Automated Clearing House 

for Iraqi banks. Yet once these systems were in place, Iraq’s bank and 
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business executives were loath to adopt EFT practices. While the 

Central Bank assessed no fee for domestic interbank transfers, Iraqi 

bank and business executives had few incentives to adopt the new 

technology. These individuals were accustomed to conducting their 

business affairs in cash, and the immediate benefits of adopting EFT 

practices were unclear. Further complicating matters, bank officials 

were often reluctant to cooperate with one another, citing privacy issues and risk of customer flight.11

Task force officials recognized, however, that the US military was 

well positioned to alter the incentive structure facing many Iraqi firms. 

By the time task force officials turned their attention to Iraq’s banking 

sector, business between the US military and Iraqi firms had grown 

considerably. Thousands of Iraqi firms held contracts with the military, but nearly all payments on such contracts were made in cash.12

The military, task force leadership reasoned, could condition future 

business with Iraqi firms on their adoption of payment by EFT.13

From the military’s perspective, Iraqi firms’ limited use of banking 

services was problematic. Iraqi vendors without accounts could be 

paid only in cash for goods and services provided. Payment in cash 

was logistically burdensome for both US military contracting authorities and the Iraqi vendors with whom they did business. Cash payment reduced the efficiency with which contracts could be processed. 

And, for members of the military’s intelligence apparatus, payment in 

cash obscured efforts to track the flow of finances within the country.

Yet despite the shared recognition by civilian-military officials of 

the benefits of banking services, technical barriers existed to prevent 

the implementation of a program by which the US military could pay 

Iraqi firms through EFT. While task force banking specialists were 

qualified to provide Iraqi banks with the technical guidance necessary to establish EFT capability throughout the country and contracting authorities could introduce EFT payment conditions into future 

contracts, incorporating EFT payment to Iraqi vendors into DOD 

business systems required structural modifications. The task force director made use of his position with the BTA to remedy this matter by 

directing that agency to assume responsibility for necessary accountspayable restructuring, an initiative that also attracted the support of 

the Defense Finance and Accounting Service and the Department of 

the Army’s Finance Command.

Once the necessary systems and procedures were in place, instructions were issued to contracting officials mandating that payment to 
HOW DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SPENDING WAS USED │ 179

any firm for contracts valued at more than $50,000 be paid through 

EFT; six months later, the contract value threshold for required EFT 

payment was further reduced to $25,000.14 Within a period of less 

than four months of establishing EFT capabilities for 10 banks in 

Iraq, the US military successfully transitioned from paying approximately 90 percent of its contracts in cash and the remaining 10 percent through EFT to paying 10 percent in cash and the remaining 90 

percent through EFT.15 Task force personnel eventually helped 11 

Iraqi banks establish EFT capabilities within a total of 256 branches 

throughout Iraq. As a point of illustration, in calendar year 2007, 

more than $420 million in US military contracts in Iraq were paid in 

cash.16 By the end of the following year, that number had decreased to 

less than $100 million, while the US military made nearly a half billion dollars in EFT payments to Iraqi firms.17 And the benefit to the 

banking system was ultimately quite positive, particularly in the encouragement of financial intermediation.

Corporate Development

While the task force undertook efforts to funnel business to Iraqi 

firms and develop the country’s banking infrastructure, a separate 

group of task force employees sought to broker investments by major 

multinational corporations in Iraq. Such investments, it was hoped, 

would create employment opportunities for Iraqis and establish a 

critical supply of goods and services to the postwar Iraqi government 

and private sector. Executives of various corporations indicated that 

their respective firms were likely to establish operations in Iraq once 

exposure to political and security risk was deemed sufficiently minimal.18 Yet many executives judged risk estimates too great to warrant 

market entry over immediate time horizons. The task force thus 

sought to change conditions for the firms in a manner that would 

expedite their (re)entry into Iraq.

From a development perspective, task force personnel recognized 

that modifications to the Iraqi First program could be made whereby 

planned spending on various goods and services in support of military operations could be leveraged to encourage development of critical sectors of the Iraqi economy and further stimulate local economic 

activity. Specifically, contracts could be extended to multinational 

firms willing to partner with host-nation businesses to produce a 
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good or service locally for US forces that would otherwise be imported. In this way, spending on procurements could be directed to 

promote the targeted development of economic sectors deemed critical to US economic stabilization and development objectives for Iraq 

while ensuring that coalition requirements in theater remained satisfied. For certain corporate executives, the contractual guarantees 

were sufficient incentive to move their firms forward with establishing Iraq-based operations. And for military contracting officials, 

such investments were advantageous for the cost reductions they offered, as described previously with respect to the Iraqi First initiative. 

Moreover, such initiative promised to satisfy a primary goal of the 

Iraqi First mandate: development of “vocational, trade skills, and 

business management training to the vendors . . . [in order to] build 

valuable skills in the Iraqi workforce that are critical for long-term 

economic growth.”19 To ensure the greatest benefit to the host-nation 

labor force, military contracts issued to foreign corporations that 

would partner with host-nation businesses could be written to include features designed to promote human-capital development.20

Enterprising contracting officers successfully applied this concept 

of utilizing contractual guarantees to encourage the formation of 

joint ventures in Iraq, although on a somewhat limited and ad hoc

basis. Under the advice of task force personnel, US military contracting officials leveraged appropriated funds in the form of sole-source 

contracts to facilitate foreign direct investments by Fortune 500 firms 

within industrial sectors of the domestic economy. Through such efforts, major industrial corporations developed operations in Iraq in 

partnership with Iraqi firms. For example, Cummins, Inc. and Iratrac, Caterpillar’s sole authorized dealer for Iraq, established generator repair services for tens of thousands of worn US and Iraqi-held 

diesel generators.21

Task force members also recognized that the Iraqi First program 

could be expanded through appropriate contractual modification so 

as to facilitate, where appropriate, the transfer of critical, modern infrastructure established in support of US military operations in theater to the Iraqi public/private sector. Such a concept was successfully 

applied in the area of water purification and bottling.

For years following the coalition’s invasion of Iraq, incidents of 

cholera and typhoid afflicted Iraqi communities, where dilapidated 

water and sewage treatment plants had grown dysfunctional or were 

damaged by attack.22 Yet potable bottled water produced by modern 
HOW DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SPENDING WAS USED │ 181

purification and bottling facilities constructed in country and operated by a US firm under contract with the DOD was widely available 

to military personnel throughout the country. Problematically, military contracting regulations prohibited the US firm from selling excess product to the Iraqi government or private sector.

Under the advice of task force officials, military contracting authorities amended the terms of the firm’s contract to permit product 

sales to Iraqi consumers, laying the groundwork for commercial operations and transfer of the firm’s treatment and bottling plants and 

other infrastructure constructed on US military installations to the 

Iraqi private sector and government.23

Conclusion

The efforts of the DOD during OIF included the unique application of military spending to advance business revitalization efforts as 

part of a broader initiative to combat insurgency through a campaign 

of reconstruction and stabilization.24 The link between economic activity and strength of insurgency in Iraq remains a point of contention and matter of continued academic inquiry.25 Nevertheless, these 

initiatives had a direct and significant effect on Iraq’s business environment. For this reason, defense leaders may wish to reemploy some 

variety of these capabilities in future operations either because future 

studies demonstrate their effectiveness against insurgency or because 

US officials seek to generate local business activity for other purposes 

(as in, for instance, a post–disaster relief-setting in which large numbers of US military units have been deployed to assist).

To ensure that defense officials can employ the type of business 

development initiatives described in this piece in future operations, 

such programs should be established through proper planning as an 

enduring feature of emerging US stability operations. Unless these 

programs are supported by the DOD’s extensive human and financial 

resources and business systems and are capable of being deployed 

worldwide, future operations in which such capabilities could be of 

benefit are likely to suffer the same limitations of ad hoc engagement 

and delayed development time that plagued US efforts in Iraq.

The task force director’s concurrent role as codirector of the BTA 

allowed for the development of critical business systems capabilities 

that made various business revitalization initiatives possible. And the 
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task force’s unique relationship with JCC–I, US CENTCOM’s primary 

in-theater contracting entity, created conditions under which contracting officials governed by strict US contracting regulations could effectively drive business revitalization initiatives. Yet such unique circumstances are unlikely to exist during possible reconstruction and 

stabilization efforts in which the DOD may someday be engaged.

The BTA no longer exists as an agency. As part of an initiative to 

reduce DOD costs, Robert Gates, the former secretary of defense, announced in August 2010 the planned closure of the agency. While certain BTA functions, including support for the war fighter, endured, 

they were transferred to other departmental entities, including the Office of the Deputy Chief Management Officer and the Department of 

the Army. Moreover, unlike the first JCC-I director who assumed positions with the task force and BTA upon completion of his assignment with the command, his successors did not establish such relations with either entity. Meanwhile, the task force also experienced 

organizational shuffle. While overseen throughout OIF by the deputy 

secretary and, later, the secretary, the organization was repositioned 

under the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy following the task force director’s resignation from office. More importantly, 

it is uncertain that the task force will continue to operate beyond the 

planned cessation of major military operations in Afghanistan.26

While some of the programs developed to revitalize business in 

Iraq were incorporated into ongoing reconstruction and stabilization 

efforts in Afghanistan, as US forces are withdrawn from Afghanistan 

in accordance with the administration’s plans to end combat operations in the country, these remaining business-development programs will likely be terminated. Unfortunately, no plan currently exists by which such business-revitalization initiatives could be applied 

to future operations. Even if the capabilities that existed within the 

task force, BTA, and JTSCC were to remain resident within the department, those familiar with federal bureaucracies can appreciate 

the difficulties that would effectively obstruct reemploying such during future operations without formal guidance and procedures in 

place for doing so.

If the United States is to apply public-private partnerships of this 

sort effectively in future operations, it must establish them through 

proper planning as an enduring structural feature of emerging US 

stability operations. And unless the DOD’s extensive human and financial resources and business systems support such programs and 
HOW DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SPENDING WAS USED │ 183

those programs are capable of being deployed worldwide, future operations in which such capabilities could be of benefit are likely to 

suffer the same limitations of ad hoc engagement and delayed development time that plagued US efforts in Iraq.

Notes

1. For data on insurgent attacks, see the Multi-National Corps–Iraq SIGACT-III 

dataset used in Eli Berman, Jacob N. Shapiro, and Joseph H. Felter, “Can Hearts and 

Minds Be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq,” Journal of Political 

Economy 119, no. 4 (2011): 766–819. For data on civilian casualties, see Luke N. 

Condra and Jacob N. Shapiro, “Who Takes the Blame? The Strategic Effects of Collateral Damage,” American Journal of Political Science 56, no. 1 (2012): 167–87.

2. Edward Wong, “A Matter of Definition: What Makes a Civil War, and Who 

Declares It So?,” New York Times, 26 November 2006, http://www.nytimes

.com/2006/11/26/world/middleeast/26war.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

3. James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, The Iraq Study Group Report (New 

York: Vintage, 2006).

4. The task force was not the only US government entity to engage in efforts to 

promote private-sector development within Iraq. The Department of Commerce’s 

Iraq Investment and Reconstruction Task Force and Overseas Private Investment 

Corporation, for instance, were actively engaged in this regard. This piece, however, 

deals specifically with a particular set of business revitalization efforts led by the Task 

Force for Business and Stability Operations.

5. Joint Theater Support Contracting Command Contracting Actions, US Central 

Command, “Army Business Center for Acquisition Systems,” 2011, https://secleebiis

.army.mil.

6. Ibid., 5.

7. Ibid.

8. The Louis Berger Group, Inc., Investor Guide of Baghdad, report prepared for 

the US Agency for International Development, 2011, http://export.gov/iraq/static

/Investor%20Guide%20of%20Baghdad_Eng_Final_Latest_eg_iq_041335.pdf.

9. Mary “Kat” Woolford and Hemin Qazi, “Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) and 

the State of Banking in Iraq”(presentation to Multi National Corps–Iraq, Economics 

and Governance section, Task Force for Business and Stability Operations, 21 June 

2009), 8. 

10. Kristopher Haag, deputy director of the Task Force for Business and Stability 

Operations, interview by author, Washington, DC, 19 August 2011.

11. Woolford and Qazi, “Electronic Funds Transfer,” 10.

12. Ibid.

13. The number of Iraqi firms with which the US military was then doing business was growing rapidly. In 2007, for instance, the US military contracted with 

roughly 5,000 Iraqi firms through the Iraqi First initiative.

14. Business Transformation Agency, US Department of Defense, Final Report on 

Defense Business Operations to the Congressional Defense Committees (Washington, 
184 │ SHAVER

DC: DOD, 15 March 2009), 81, http://dcmo.defense.gov/publications/documents

/March_2009_Congressional_Report%20.pdf; and Haag interview.

15. Woolford and Qazi, “Electronic Funds Transfer,” 10.

16. Ibid., 5.

17. Ibid.

18. Gerald Brown, director of corporate development for the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations, interview by author, Washington, DC, 30 August 2011.

19. Gen. Raymond Odierno, commander, Multi-National Force–Iraq to MultiNational Force–Iraq personnel, Headquarters, Multi-National Force–Iraq, memorandum, 28 September 2008, http://info.publicintelligence.net/IraqiFirstProgram.pdf.

20. Woolford and Qazi, “Electronic Funds Transfer,” 19.

21. Ibid.

22. Federal Research Division, US Library of Congress, Country Profile: Iraq

(Washington, DC: LOC, August 2006), http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles/Iraq.pdf.

23. Woolford and Qazi, “Electronic Funds Transfer,” 19.

24. Comparable versions of certain such programs were later also implemented 

in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

25. See Berman et al., “Can Hearts and Minds Be Bought?”; Eli Berman, Michael 

Callen, Joseph H. Felter, and Jacob N. Shapiro, “Do Working Men Rebel? Insurgency 

and Unemployment in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Philippines,” Journal of Conflict 

Resolution 55, no. 4 (2011): 496–528; and Andrew Beath, Fotini Christia, and Ruben 

Enikolopov, “Winning Hearts and Minds through Development: Evidence from a 

Field Experiment in Afghanistan” (working paper, MIT Political Science Department Research Paper No. 2011–14, Cambridge, MA, 13 April 2012), http://papers

.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1809677.

26. Interview with high-ranking DOD official, Princeton, NJ, 9 November 2011 

(unattributed interview).
PART 4

International Perspectives

Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq

Chapter 11

From Afghanistan to Africa

Civilian-Military Teaming in a Whole New World

Christopher Holshek

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have practically monopolized 

US foreign policy and national security attention since 9/11. These 

conflicts provided US military and civilian analysts a virtual cottage 

industry in operational and tactical lessons in response to “asymmetric” 

threats. However, the Iraq and Afghanistan models for civilian-military 

teaming and counterinsurgency (COIN) have limited application 

elsewhere. By contrast, Africa—home to the majority of the world’s 

security and development challenges—provides a wealth of postconflict and conflict prevention situations representative of the paradigm 

toward which American experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan moved. 

A premier example is the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), 

a nearly decade-long multinational peace-operations engagement 

that featured an adept combination of bilateral and multilateral approaches. It is debateable how well US policy makers and practitioners 

alike have understood this learning dynamic, as the operations in Iraq 

and Afghanistan wound down and as “comprehensive engagement” in 

Africa becomes the centerpiece of US security involvements abroad. 

Drawing upon my experiences in US and UN stability and peace operations from the Balkans, Iraq, and Liberia, I examine and compare 

the US-dominated interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan with security 

challenges in African countries such as Liberia and then draw implications for US civilian-military teaming under emerging circumstances.

Two strategic imperatives have primarily driven the need to better 

synchronize civilian-military power and influence: the constraints of 

a transforming security environment and the restraints of diminishing resources in the face of higher costs, risks, and demand for intervention. With respect to constraints, security threats, challenges, and 

opportunities increasingly come from the seams between states 

rather than from states themselves. Conflicts also tend to be intrastate and capitalize on social instability and more local or “human” 

security issues. The adjustment process to this security paradigm of 

the twenty-first century has been slow and not always smooth. As far 
188 │ HOLSHEK

back as the 1990s, military interventions were bedeviled by the nettlesome problem of finding balance in the working relationship between military and civilian actors and the “hard” (or coercive) and 

“soft” (or persuasive) forms of power they respectively represent. Beyond challenges inherent to COIN and the now-familiar difficulties 

in the relationship between civilian-military actors in the field, “winning hearts and minds” and providing humanitarian assistance and 

development aid to address threats have been less than fully effective 

and, at times, even counterproductive. A fundamental problem with 

applied COIN in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, is the tendency 

to view protection of the civilian population as a means to an end 

(defeating insurgents)—in other words, a tactic versus a strategy, 

which risks calling into question the legitimacy of the whole operation.

Then there are restraints of rapidly diminishing fiscal and other 

resources to support enduring large-scale military interventions as 

we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan. These responses to 9/11 alone have 

cost trillions of dollars, leading to huge cuts to the defense budget and 

resulting in some experts identifying the national debt as the greatest 

long-term threat to national security. At a time of resource restraints 

and donor fatigue, it becomes increasingly difficult to justify foreign 

and military aid not seen in direct or “traditional” US interests; this 

will worsen over time.

While some lessons may be transferrable, Iraq or Afghanistan cannot be a “petri dish” for dealing with fragile and failing states elsewhere in the world because the learning process there was the result 

of moving away from an outdated understanding of security per se.1

Despite prolific lessons, “it is very difficult, half way through an incomplete war, to shift direction if for the previous several years you 

have been shooting at people you are now offering to protect. It lacks 

credibility.”2

 The non-Iraq/Afghanistan security environment calls 

for more conflict prevention, peacekeeping and peacebuilding, and 

comprehensive, whole-of-society approaches—well beyond “wholeof-government” and involving civilian-military teaming in more collaborative and multinational settings. Africa presents a profusion of 

such examples with greater currency, among them UNMIL.
FROM AFGHANISTAN TO AFRICA │ 189

From a “National Security” to a

“Human Security” World

At a time of increasing constraints and restraints to US foreign 

intervention as described above, the threats-based, enormously expensive, US-centric national security approach continues to dominate and shape American foreign intervention, especially since 9/11. 

Even the hand over of administrations did not effectively change this: 

“Obama has persistently argued that addressing the poverty and misery of people in remote places is a U.S. national interest. But the case 

he has made is, like Bush’s, limited to the threat of terrorism and does 

not have much to say about, for example, the threat that collapsing 

states pose to more stable neighbors.”3

 For many in Thomas P. M. 

Barnett’s “gap” area covering the underdeveloped world, “the threat 

of terrorism is a low priority relative to their other security concerns.”4

The exceptions, of course, are in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, 

and a handful of other places where extremist Islamic terrorists may 

be found; but then again, they are more a concern to the United States 

than just about anyone else. (Even next door to Afghanistan, a major 

source of US-Pakistani tension is divergent interests in deploying 

Pakistani military forces to combat terrorism—something Pakistanis 

are less enthusiastic about than Americans.) A running joke in Africa 

is that if you want the United States to get involved and spend money 

in your country, just say that al-Qaeda is there—much as many African strongmen would draw the United States in with the specter of 

Soviet or Chinese involvement during the Cold War. “Bad-guy baiting” is also the way to obtain congressional appropriation of security 

assistance or foreign aid funding—a main driver, no doubt, of the 

“militarization” of foreign policy and “securitization” of aid. Unless, 

however, there is a new awareness of what “security” in the twentyfirst century is, budget-conscious Washington may well double down 

on the counterproductive foreign interventions of the previous decade.

National security writ large had not only become more globalized 

by 9/11; it had also become more humanized. In Africa, home to the 

bulk of security, development, and civilian-military engagements for 

decades, “human security” and civil society challenges such as poverty and food security, rule-of-law and justice, governance, economic 

development and job creation, and public health have long defined 

the security problem, calling for approaches going well beyond 
190 │ HOLSHEK

whole-of-government.5 Comprehensive and collaborative approaches 

to conflict prevention and postconflict operations in multilateral, human security situations are every day for “civil society organizations” 

working there and elsewhere. They stress the long-term legitimacy and 

relationship-building characteristics of development. In this more 

predominant paradigm, development, appropriately done, is therefore not a component of security; it is security—and then some.

The people-powered intrastate movements in North Africa, the 

Arab world, and many other places offer bottom-up-generated, “softpower,” civil society instances of change with clear implications for 

the role that outside powers like the United States may or may not be 

able to play. As we have seen, freedom is better promoted through 

SharePoint than at gunpoint, and the relationships between peoples 

are more important than those between governments. Bush may have 

broken the eggs in the Middle East, but Obama has the opportunity 

to help make the omelet.6

Thus, US-centric whole-of-government formulations such as “3D” 

(defense, diplomacy, and development) do not constitute the model 

for which most of the international donor community for security, 

humanitarian, or development assesses and implements its programs 

and projects. “Peacebuilding,” a word still seeking a consensus definition at the Department of State, is the policy pertaining to “comprehensive” and “collaborative” approaches. Meanwhile, across the river 

at the Pentagon, “stability operations,” or “complex operations”—

terms very much posited on a national-security model of security—

have supplanted “peacekeeping” and other “peace support operations,” terms not very widely used by the US military at any rate. The 

world outside Washington speaks a rather different language.

This is the distinction between US and other approaches to security. Unilateral regime takedown and wholesale COIN or counterterrorism operations are not the security norm outside the IraqAfghanistan models. The United States and other international actors 

are learning that peacebuilding is most effective and less costly when 

done as conflict prevention as opposed to “postconflict reconstruction.” In collaborative, human security environments, influence is 

more important than power, engagement more than response, and 

sustainability more than power projection.

While bad-guy-centric approaches may not be entirely inappropriate 

to tackling the threat of terrorism in places like the Trans-Sahel, taking 

on al-Shabaab in Somalia, or chasing down the Lord’s Resistance Army 
FROM AFGHANISTAN TO AFRICA │ 191

in Uganda, this is now the rare exception and not the rule. More than 

in Iraq or Afghanistan, security engagements in places like Africa call 

for a much more limited military role within more comprehensive, 

collaborative, civilian-military, and multilateral approaches—and 

with military hard power clearly subordinate to civilian soft power, 

for example national security as ancillary to human security, not vice 

versa as has been seen in Iraq and Afghanistan. The geopolitical and 

cultural complexities of the vast African continent and growing US 

resource restraints simply prohibit the kind of heavy-handed, highintensity US military interventions seen in Iraq and Afghanistan—

drones or no drones. US involvement in Africa is and must be more 

and more low-profile, featuring a small military footprint of special 

operations, civil affairs, foreign area officers, and enablers such as engineers and the National Guard in support of what former secretary 

of state Hillary Clinton calls “civilian power”—comprised of development aid workers and their civil society organization partners and 

overseen by diplomats within country team and regional settings.

Even with a more teamed-based, whole-of-government effort, 

which is no doubt a progression, the context for international security in especially Africa is more multinational and regional. In Africa, 

countries look to the UN first for security assistance, as that organization maintains the largest eight (and perhaps a ninth in Libya) of its 

15 peacekeeping missions there. Secondly, African countries look to 

regional organizations such as the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for security 

assistance as well. These are seen as the mediating or arbitrating entities with respect to conflict resolution and conflict prevention, with 

an array of bilateral and nonstate actors also shaping the outcome—

the United States being one among many. In this more complex multilateral, regional, and bilateral assortment, corresponding policy 

rule-sets and operational models bearing little resemblance to those in 

Iraq and Afghanistan guide security engagements. In Africa, we are already seeing the shape of things to come—a whole new world in which 

the United States no longer dominates but still plays a leadership role.

The World Is No Longer America’s Playground

Fortunately, the way Washington is looking at the world and its 

place in it, at least from a policy standpoint, appears to be adapting. 
192 │ HOLSHEK

Driven increasingly by the constraints of a transformed international 

security environment and burgeoning resource restraints, policy 

makers are learning what many practitioners have already learned 

and know: it is no longer business as usual, for example, in the often 

overlooked role of (strategic) communications:

If the Obama administration continues to embrace its role as a global convener, it should be careful not to repeat the past mistake of appearing to put the 

United States at the center of every global challenge, focusing too much on 

“us” and not enough on “them.” . . . The goal is not simply to be liked. It is to 

be more influential and therefore more effective at lower cost. In a world where 

foreign public opinion has ever greater impact on the success or failure of vital 

American national interests, it should be weighed in making policy decisions

and should shape how the United States pursues its policies and how US leaders talk about American policies. Listening, understanding and engaging 

makes for better policy, helps to avoid unnecessary conflicts, and should ideally allow policymakers to foresee and pre-empt objections to policies that 

sound worse in the field than they do in Washington.7

 (emphasis in original)

Perhaps Americans will learn better in Africa what they had difficulty learning in Iraq and Afghanistan. In places like Africa, “listening is a guiding principle. It’s a principle that’s been lost in the constant chatter of the Western world, where no one seems to have the 

time or even the desire to listen to anyone else. . . . That’s not the case 

in Africa. Here, instead of linear narrative, there is unrestrained and 

exuberant storytelling that skips back and forth in time and blends 

together past and present.”8

In a world which is no longer America’s playground, Americans 

are learning more about collaboration and complexity, especially at 

the international level. Specifically with respect to the United Nations 

(UN), the 2010 National Security Strategy, under the rubric of “Pursuing Comprehensive Engagement,” notes: “In recent years America’s 

frustration with international institutions has led us at times to engage the United Nations system on an ad hoc basis. But in a world of 

transnational challenges, the United States will need to invest in 

strengthening the international system, working from inside international institutions and frameworks to face their imperfections head 

on and to mobilize transnational cooperation.”9

The National Security Strategy additionally affirms former secretary of defense Robert Gates’s earlier anticipation of the need for 

greater military collaborative engagement capabilities, recognizing 

the growing mission to “build partnership capacities” as a strategic 
FROM AFGHANISTAN TO AFRICA │ 193

economy-of-force measure. In the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, 

Gates pointed out in numerous places that 

America’s interests are inextricably linked to the integrity and resilience of the 

international system. . . . America’s power and influence are enhanced by sustaining a vibrant network of defense alliances and new partnerships, building 

cooperative approaches with key states, and maintaining interactions with 

important international institutions such as the United Nations. . . . Moreover, 

military forces must be capable of working effectively with a range of civilian 

and international partners. . . . Strong regional allies and partners are fundamental to meeting 21st century challenges successfully. Helping to build their 

capacity can help prevent conflict from beginning or escalating, reducing the 

possibility that large and enduring deployments of U.S. or allied forces would 

be required.10

No paradigm shift occurs, however, and no lessons are therefore 

learned unless they have been institutionalized, not in policy or doctrine, but where it really counts: in programs and budgets and what 

people actually do or have to work with on the ground. In those measures, there is plenty of evidence that there is still a long way to go, 

even though Americans may have come a long way.

The Softer Side of Security: Doing More with Less

 As a result of national security, political, bureaucratic, and budget 

cycle pressures, US government and military officials are often attempting shorter-term, quick-impact development. The challenge, 

however, for policy makers and practitioners is “to design short-term 

programming that contributes toward long-term goals and to design 

long-term programming that supports short-term objectives.”11 In 

other words, their difficulty lies in thinking globally while acting locally or thinking strategically while acting tactically.

The US Africa Command (USAFRICOM) was created with the 

intention of a more deliberate, rather than ad hoc, civilian-military 

and interagency teaming approach, structured from the top down, 

and with a much heavier civilian content and lead—thus, with more 

soft than hard power at play than in other combatant commands. Accordingly, one way USAFRICOM can do this is to heed the advice of 

civilian partners:

Military planners can avoid negative outcomes by relying on the humanitarian “do no harm” principle. In the context of the CJTF-HOA, and other similar missions, the do no harm principle suggests the following four guidelines. 
194 │ HOLSHEK

First, military projects should complement the work of civilian organizations, 

rather than duplicating or ignoring it. Second, focusing on the long-term sustainability of projects will ensure that any goodwill generated does not quickly 

evaporate. Third, military forces should also target their efforts to areas in 

which they hold a comparative advantage, such as disaster relief, logistics, and 

operating in insecure environments. Fourth and finally, hearts and minds operations should attempt to project an appearance of relative neutrality and 

humanitarian services separate from overt COIN activity. While one cannot 

expect a military operation to adhere to the [nongovernmental organizations’] NGOs’ values of neutrality, impartiality, and independence, the “do no 

harm” philosophy provide a helpful metric for evaluating outcomes from both 

a humanitarian and political standpoint.12

The real problem, however, at USAFRICOM is that, despite its 

large civilian component, it still largely serves military missions (in 

particular, counterterrorism) rather than vice versa—at least on the 

ground. This conflicts with USAFRICOM’s central message. By and 

large, the military staff defines security requirements. This is one of 

the reasons why USAFRICOM has had such great difficulty in gaining credibility and acceptance in Africa. The greatest evidence for this 

is that it is still headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. This is a strategic and not an operational issue.

This has played out particularly in security assistance and “building partnership capacity” activites. The poor civilian-military performance of forces such as the Mali Defense and Security Forces moving 

back into northern Mali suggests they and other African militaries 

have been trained for much of the wrong thing. US involvement in 

Mali and much of Africa, for instance, has zeroed in on terrorism, 

which most locals do not perceive as their existential challenge. US 

security assistance is often resourced overwhelmingly to “train and 

equip” for war fighting rather than institution building and military 

civics. “The US was too narrowly focused on counterterrorism capabilities and missed the bigger picture,” said former Department of 

State (DOS) official Todd Moss, while former USAFRICOM commander Gen Carter Ham recognized failure to pass on “values, ethics 

and military ethos.”13

Moreover, US civilian-military operations training has been correspondingly modeled on US doctrine and practice, which stress defeating threats more than helping to build governance and civil authority. A carryover from Iraq and Afghanistan, it has been slanted 

toward winning hearts and minds in order to find bad guys and kill 

them. The focus on the tactical rather than the strategic prompted 
FROM AFGHANISTAN TO AFRICA │ 195

one Department of Defense (DOD) Trans-Sahel program manager to 

report two years before the coup in Mali that it risked exacerbating 

“unhealthy civil-military balances.”14

Things are changing, albeit slowly. In Joint Force Quarterly, 

USAFRICOM director of strategy, plans, and programs Maj Gen 

Robert Hooper said the “underlying premise of our institutional 

capacity-building efforts is that military forces must be subordinate 

to civil authority and accepted as legitimate members of a civil society based on the rule of law.”15 The Mali Watch Group, cosponsored 

by the Alliance for Peacebuilding and The Bridges Institute, agrees 

but also sees this has not yet trickled down to the troops. Its point 

paper contends that “U.S. executive and operational security-sector 

guidance in Africa must emphasis [sic], at all levels of person-to-person 

interaction, demonstration of the primacy of civil authority as the 

paramount principle in security advisory and assistance at regional, 

national, and community levels.”16

The paper further stresses that “establishing a strong, sustainable 

civilian-military relationship that institutionalizes the primacy of 

civil authority and takes a more strategic, peacebuilding approach to 

security-sector development will be the key component of national 

reconciliation and addressing the main drivers of conflict.”17 Key 

ways to establish popular confidence in the military are in-depth 

training on military subordination to civilian rule, including civilianmilitary specialists, and for military leaders to support civil dialogue 

and reconciliation at community levels.

As mentioned, it is not just because the playing field has changed. 

The United States is entering a new era of relative strategic scarcity, 

where more traditional resources to shape and influence events are 

less at its disposal. Beyond reducing America’s militarily influence, 

this decline in relative financial and commercial power is also translating into an end of unilateral freedom of action. Asymmetric threats 

have already mitigated much of the longstanding US advantage in 

hard power, while peer and near-peer competitors can better bankroll their own agendas. Perhaps most importantly, information and 

social networking technologies and low-tech, low-cost, sociocultural 

and information enterprises, such as those that brought on the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, present inexpensive equalizers to traditional and more costly industrial-era forms of power.

As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated, the customary US bias toward hard power in general, albeit expedient and more 
196 │ HOLSHEK

manageable and measurable, has also generated counterproductive 

costs and risks, often known as “unintended consequences.” Hard 

power is more resource-intensive, zero-sum, reactive, and short-term 

(e.g., tactical). Soft power, more appropriate to collaborative, human 

security settings and largely resident in civil society, is more adaptable, 

economical, renewable, engaging, synergistic, and long-term (e.g., 

strategic). It ultimately generates more peaceful, stable, and profitable 

outcomes, has further-reaching effects, is less costly and risk-laden, and 

introduces more feasible, acceptable, and sustainable strategic options—

as long as they are approached strategically.

Still, the question is not whether to employ hard or soft power, but 

what balance and combination ought to be used. Utilized together 

appropriately, they are comultipliers, which may be the greatest argument as to why the military may still play a role, albeit limited and 

subordinate, in humanitarian assistance and development—as long, 

however, as it does not attempt to cloak its engagements as “humanitarian,” when it is clear this is not the ultimate objective.

Indeed, the more collaborative, comprehensive, and softer approaches in human security environments, borne out in part due to 

forced frugality and replete in Africa and places other than Iraq or 

Afghanistan, may eventually come more naturally to US policy makers and practitioners as they look to transfer their experiences from 

the Middle East and Central Asia. In this regard, there should be much 

to learn from those who have already worked far longer under these 

settings, especially those who have been part of an effective country 

team (or the UN) conducting enduring engagements in fragile states 

and integrating the full range of instruments of power and influence, 

which may in fact serve as a model at the national strategic level.18

Soft power gets more play in places like Africa not just because it is 

more appropriate but also because it is more necessary. International 

resources for creating sustainable peace have been more limited outside Iraq and Afghanistan, which have received more money in security assistance and development aid from the United States and other 

donor nations than the rest of the world together. In 2010 the US 

provided $1.7 billion and $3.3 billion in foreign aid to the Near East 

and South and Central Asia, respectively; it provided $648 million to 

Africa, $448 million to the Western Hemisphere, $631 million to Europe and Eurasia, and $158 million to East Asia and the Pacific.19 This 

does not even include the more than $1 trillion in military-related 

costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, as the United 
FROM AFGHANISTAN TO AFRICA │ 197

States has poured money into Iraq and Afghanistan, China has seized 

opportunities to gain greater influence in Africa and Latin America. 

Chinese foreign assistance and economic projects in Africa, Latin 

America, and Southeast Asia grew from less than $1 billion in 2002 to 

$27.5 billion in 2006 and $25 billion in 2007, with the largest increase 

in Africa.20 In the meantime, direct US [military or police] involvement 

in UN field missions has dwindled while involvement of other “twentyfirst century centers of influence,” among them China, has grown.

Organizations and entities working in Africa have never had the 

luxury of the scale and array of financial resources seen in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. As the US fiscal crisis grows, the more creative and collaborative ways born out of such restraints, such as microfinancing 

and community-basing, are already more commonplace there than 

the American reflex to “throw money at the problem.”

Research suggests that the failure to win Afghan hearts and minds 

is not because too little money has been spent. In fact, money has 

been part of the problem. Spending too much money with too little 

oversight in insecure environments is a recipe for fueling corruption, 

delegitimizing the Afghan government, and undermining the credibility of international actors. Moreover, policy makers also ignore the 

most obvious, effective, and quickest way to reduce corruption: reduce funding, especially in the most insecure areas, to levels more in 

line with what Afghanistan can absorb.21

USAFRICOM is by no means the first combatant command to 

comprehend and implement more collaborative approaches that invoke greater soft power, emphasize civilian efforts as leading, and exercise what the military calls “economy of force.” US involvement, for 

example, in low-level COIN operations in the Philippines, has long 

taken the approach of following the local lead in civil action programs. 

“Filipino doctors, dentists and veterinarians come in to provide free 

care. Of utmost importance . . . is putting a Filipino face on all these 

operations.”22 Perhaps more illustrative of the shifting paradigm is the 

latest US response to Haiti, where the military clearly played a supporting role and the US government sought to work within multilateral frameworks rather than expend the resources to create a parallel 

management structure, for example doing more with less:

Early on, the United States decided not to create a combined Joint task force. 

With the UN already on the ground, a robust multinational force was in place. 

In addition, [United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti] MINUSTAH 

countries contributing additional resources and personnel already had links 
198 │ HOLSHEK

to their local UN representatives. Creating a combined Joint task force would 

have conflicted with those efforts. . . . The purpose of JTF-Haiti was to support 

U.S. efforts in Haiti to mitigate near-term human suffering and accelerate relief efforts to facilitate transition to the Government of Haiti, the UN, and 

USAID. The military possesses significant capabilities that are useful in emergencies, but long-term plans for relief and reconstruction are best left to nonmilitary government agencies.23 (emphasis in original)

Multilateral Civilian-Military Coordination:

The Liberian Way

US policy makers and practitioners can learn to engage most effectively in truly multinational settings where a different security 

paradigm is already the norm. As the United States transitioned from 

a “military mission to a civilian-led effort” (as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee termed it) in Iraq and a similar conversion in Afghanistan, it would have been instructive to examine a similar case 

study in transition from military-intensive, postconflict peacekeeping 

to civilian-led peacebuilding with the aim of preventing a return to 

conflict in a major multinational intervention in Africa led by UNMIL, 

regarded as among the most integrative of UN field missions.

In 2003, following 14 years of one of the most vicious civil wars in 

modern African history, the international community embarked on 

an effort under UN Security Council Resolution 1506 to bring sustainable peace to Liberia and prevent the return of conflict to the 

country and the region at large. In January 2008 UNMIL commenced 

its drawdown of forces phased parallel to Liberia’s implementation of 

its own poverty reduction strategy, all with the help of the UN development assistance framework and other collaborative tools such as 

joint (multiagency and UN–Liberia) working groups and the joint 

county offices. All of these were designed to help build the capacity of 

the Liberian government, particularly at the county level, to deliver 

essential public services, among them security, rule of law and justice, 

governance, and economic and social development. The intent was to 

reach these conditions through a series of benchmarks by the time of 

the next general election in October–November 2011, thus, marking 

the end of drawdown and beginning the final UNMIL phase of withdrawal. This would be characterized by local, civilian-directed peacebuilding focused on self-sustainable development to supplant securityintensive, military-based peacekeeping operations.24
FROM AFGHANISTAN TO AFRICA │ 199

 UN Mission in Liberia Civil-Military Coordination

In recognition of its role in underwriting much of this transition 

process, the UNMIL peacekeeping force’s approach to civil-military 

coordination (CIMIC) began to transform substantially, based on the 

constant concern regarding “the increasing dependence of the Government of Liberia (GOL) on the assets of the Force.”25 The greatest 

risk for security and stability in Liberia during drawdown was that 

the dependency on the international presence in general and the UN 

military in particular would persist as force capability diminished, 

bringing on potentially destabilizing effects that would risk the investment and sacrifices of many to bring lasting peace. This essential 

transition management challenge in Liberia was not unlike the situations seen somewhat later in Iraq and Afghanistan.

CIMIC in Liberia recognized that “cooperation and coordination 

between the military and humanitarian components are critical in 

multidimensional peacekeeping operations.”26 The interface between 

security and development was consistent with the complex and interconnected operations environment and the UN “integrated mission” 

(e.g., civilian-military and multiagency) concept. Moreover, the role 

of the military was as an enabler to the peace process, duplicating the 

civilian-military relationship in democratic societies and marking 

an unambiguous path to the end state of any peace operation—selfsustained peace and civil society. Consistent with this attitude was 

UNMIL CIMIC’s catchphrase to promote its transitional thrust: 

“their game plan is our game plan.” CIMIC activities in Liberia thus 

fell within the same structure as and were directly traceable to the 

poverty reduction strategy, adopting civilian rather than military 

benchmarks for success.

UNMIL CIMIC was firmly nested in the UN integrated mission 

concept and “motivated by the need to maximize coordination and 

coherence between the military and civilian components of the same 

integrated mission, between the military component of a U.N. peacekeeping operation and the rest of the U.N. system, and between the 

military component of the mission and other external and internal 

civilian actors in the same mission area.”27 Furthermore, UNMIL 

CIMIC anticipated the core functions of civil-military coordination 

writ large in the “UN-CIMIC” policy for all UN peacekeeping forces: 

first, to support management of the “interaction between civilian 

and military actors,” and second, to support “creating and enabling 
200 │ HOLSHEK

environment for the implementation of the mission mandate by 

maximizing the comparative advantage of all actors operating in the 

mission area.”28 Accordingly, the UNMIL force has been pressed to 

engage in CIMIC in order to work itself out of its job—although it has 

taken some time for these contingents, each with their own (not necessarily democratic) civilian-military cultures, to understand and 

embrace this operating framework.

UNMIL CIMIC incorporated the same understanding of transition 

as later defined by the US Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations 

Institute, namely that transition management involves both a process 

and a goal and is therefore inherently collaborative and complex:

Transition is the multi-faceted application of tactical, operational, strategic, 

and international level resources (means) over time in a sovereign territory to 

influence institutional and environmental conditions for achieving and sustaining clear societal goals and legitimate statehood (ends), guided by local 

rights to self-determination and international norms. Transition is inherently 

complex, and may include multiple, smaller-scale transitions that occur simultaneously or sequentially. These small-scale activities focus on building 

specific institutional capacities and creating intermediate conditions that contribute to the realization of long-term goals.29

Further, understanding that peace support operations in a human 

security context involve an environment that is largely psychological 

rather than “kinetic,” UNMIL CIMIC emphasized building both capacity

and confidence in numerous ways simply beyond public relations. 

Fully cognizant of the supporting rather than supported relationship 

with civilian interlocutors, the CIMIC intent in Liberia was to use the 

capabilities of the force to “enable and multiply civilian initiatives, 

and conducted in coordination with the UNMIL civil component 

(jointly) and UN agencies as well as NGOs and the GOL (collaboratively).”30 This entailed a transition from a more direct to a more indirect 

use of military assets with respect to stabilizing the civil population—

more clearly in support of civilian agencies and leading less from the 

front and more from behind the UNMIL civil component, UN agencies, and the GOL. The author, as chief CIMIC officer, called this “civilianizing” the stabilization effort.

CIMIC efforts were also aligned with those of local partners and 

their frameworks and benchmarks, in order to promote transition to 

local ownership of civil administration and essential public services 

responsibilities and to help build civil authority and public confidence. 

Its project management instruction thus directed that Liberians would 
FROM AFGHANISTAN TO AFRICA │ 201

be visibly in the lead of capacity-building efforts or events such as 

medical outreaches, even if most of the effort was resourced by the 

UN military. The author called this simultaneous effort “localizing.”

The emphasis of transitional CIMIC, as such, was more on capacity development and an enabling process, rather than on “winning 

hearts and minds. However, confidence was at least as important as 

capacity, if not more so. This is because the linkage between security 

and development is mostly perceptual. Regardless of measurable development progress, if the common perception remained that the 

country’s future is in doubt and that the departure of UNMIL would 

precipitate renewed mass violence—the underlying security concern 

in Liberia—Liberia may indeed destabilize following drawdown and 

withdrawal. In clear support of governance and security-sector reform (SSR), when feasible, UNMIL CIMIC sought to involve local 

police and the military in CIMIC projects in order to build their capacity and, more importantly, promote public confidence in the government by transferring the psychological capital of public trust in 

UNMIL to maintain security to the local security sector. In other 

words, it was up to the Liberians to win hearts and minds. To socialize 

and institutionalize both “civilianizing” and “localizing,” the moniker 

for UNMIL CIMIC thus became: “it’s not about us; it’s about them.”31

The key illustration in the UNMIL CIMIC Directive, a unique playbook written, fielded, and validated by the author that has been sourced 

at the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and shared 

with other field missions, is provided as fig. 11.1. The idea was to bring 

the force from the front to the rear of assistance efforts through a deliberate process of transition management. First, the military shifted the 

use of its assets away from direct assistance to the population and more 

to enabling efforts led by the UN agencies, themselves working in 

tandem with NGOs, while gradually integrating CIMIC efforts with 

those led by these agencies (“civilianizing”). Simultaneously, it looked 

to improve partner efforts to build the capacity of GOL entities to perform civil administration functions (“localizing”).

In this double transition, the aim was to create the proper alignment of assistance efforts in order to facilitate the conditions desired 

by all three stakeholder groups, as depicted in the graphic. The assumption of a more indirect and supporting role made it easier for 

the force to diminish its presence and operations while mitigating or 

reducing potential destabilizing drawdown-related gaps and risks associated with overdependency. The author was able to use this simple 
202 │ HOLSHEK

illustration of what really is the essence of civilian-military operations 

to communicate the role of UNMIL CIMIC to the officers he was training and the civilian partners to whom he was selling the concept.

UNMIL

FORCE NGOs

UNMIL

UN

AGENCIES

CIVIL

SITUATION

Figure 11.1. UNMIL CIMIC civilian-military transition management 

process

This simple illustration helped meet a major challenge in communicating to diverse audiences a civilian-military approach that goes 

beyond the widely held and amateurish belief that CIMIC is some 

kind of military public relations activity. As with most African peace 

support operations, a critical vulnerability was the relatively low understanding of this more appropriate and collaborative idea of CIMIC 

among both military and civilian players, along with a shortage of 

trained military CIMIC officers, even though civilian-military operations are at the core of peace and stability operations.

In addition to the visualization technique, the author used numerous 

catchphrases to form the rule-set for UNMIL CIMIC in the “CIMIC 

101” presentation of the homegrown UNMIL CIMIC course, including:

•  It’s not about us; it’s about them;

•  If you don’t understand the culture, you don’t understand the

problem;

•  Your customer’s success is your success;

•  Focus on unity of purpose (common end state) and shared risks;

•  Knowledge is your economy; information is your currency of

exchange;

•  Ask not where they want to go today—ask where they want to be

tomorrow; and

•  As always, manage expectations—yours and theirs.
FROM AFGHANISTAN TO AFRICA │ 203

These aphorisms are reminiscent of approaches used by development professionals. Not only because of the nexus between security 

and development and the recognition that, in human security environments like Liberia, development is security, it is also because the 

most important aspect of CIMIC, besides simply managing the civilmilitary relationship, is transition management. And, to facilitate 

that you have to adopt the rule sets, ways, measures, and means of 

those to whom you are transitioning both capacity and confidence. 

Their game plan must, therefore, be your game plan.

Learning from Liberia: Greater Emphasis

on Military to Civilian Transition

As mentioned, a critical vulnerability for the drawdown phase has 

been the relatively low understanding of CIMIC at UNMIL and the 

shortage of trained military CIMIC officers. This is a common shortfall among most UN and especially African field missions and peacekeeping forces, even though civilian-military teaming is a core competency of peace and stability operations. To mitigate this, UNMIL 

instituted multisourced education and training to grow overall understanding of CIMIC, build CIMIC capability, and enhance mission 

coordination. Besides CIMIC officers, its CIMIC course included 

UN, GOL, and NGO civilians, UN Police personnel, and members of 

the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) and Liberian National Police.

This not only promoted collaborative civilian-military dialogue 

but also indirectly contributed to SSR. In fact, UNMIL CIMIC also 

significantly contributed to the demobilization and reintegration part 

of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) through 

vocational training activities provided by qualified uniformed personnel in such areas as agriculture, construction and engineering, 

and office skills to a substantial number of former combatants, in tandem with civilian-funded programs.

Measuring effectiveness in UNMIL CIMIC was simple. It was not 

about humanitarian or development outputs as much as it was who 

was doing them and how effectively: the growth and transition of 

capacity and confidence. The more indirect role the military had in 

these efforts, the “greener” things were; the more things became “civilianized” and “localized,” the closer to the end state.
204 │ HOLSHEK

The major weakness of CIMIC as introduced in Liberia, and in the 

UN generally, is that it has not been well understood in time. Gradually 

embraced throughout transition from peacekeeping to peacebuilding, 

it was learned on the go. Although it had an implemented and validated 

CIMIC directive, in-country CIMIC training, and continuous chief 

CIMIC officer engagement and “sales work,” the results, while remarkable, were limited. This diverted a great deal of energy into activities based on improving understanding of CIMIC that could have 

been obviated in advance and thus used to further the transition process. Although the concept of CIMIC validated at UNMIL provided 

the bulk of a new UN-CIMIC policy, providing a civilian-military 

operational framework for UN peacekeeping forces worldwide, it remains to be socialized among troop contributing countries and the 

major UN agencies. While the UN Peacebuilding Support Office, for 

example, acknowledges the linkage between peacekeeping and peacebuilding and advocates greater coordination in the process, it hardly 

recognizes the military’s role in enhancing this transition—e.g., in 

being its multiplier.32 CIMIC as such needs to be better understood 

by both military and civilian players—prior to operations. The author 

is currently helping to address this shortfall by assisting organizations 

such as the Peace Operations Training Institute and UN Department 

of Peacekeeping Operations develop online and exportable predeployment training packages in UN-CIMIC for UN peacekeeping 

troop contributing countries.33

This critical dearth in understanding points to another major 

weakness: the failure to grasp the comprehensiveness and importance of the general transition process itself. As the general election 

and the beginning of the UNMIL withdrawal neared, key transition 

tasks, particularly in the security sector, were only not yet identified 

and agreed upon but also not yet put into place in any serious, concerted way. Security-sector reform in Liberia was still being “coordinated.” This is very late in the game, reflecting a still relatively widespread failure to fully appreciate the importance of building 

confidence and not just capacity in transition management—the psychological aspect of which is the most critical and yet requires greater 

patience and risk management.

Nevertheless, a major lesson for the United States is that its own 

efforts to build civilian-military capacity in Africa should use more 

universal civilian-military models that emphasize peacebuilding as 

much as security, such as the UN-CIMIC framework coming into use 
FROM AFGHANISTAN TO AFRICA │ 205

by UN, African Union, and other forces. This means that US civil affairs and civilian-military security assistance education and training 

programs like the DOS-funded Global Peace Operations Initiative 

(GPOI) and Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance 

(ACOTA) must learn these new frameworks, if they are to teach them to 

their clients.

Another insight the author has gained through his multiple experiences centers upon what one does in the “steady state,” comprising 

the strategic and operational capital to draw upon during crisis response or in the field in general, with corresponding levels of success 

or failure. This is a common, yet still underappreciated, lesson for 

both those who have been to Iraq and Afghanistan, worked in Africa, 

or responded, for example, to the crisis in Haiti. It is mainly because, 

in the twenty-first century security and development engagement environment, relationships, and influence matter more than power. 

This critical strategic and operational capital is, at best, difficult to 

obtain once the operation begins.

Another outstanding feature of the Liberian example is the role of 

bilateral players in a multilateral setting, especially the US country 

team, which has often worked collaboratively with the GOL and UNMIL 

to pursue common goals, especially in security-sector reform, but 

also with international partners to include China in fostering civil 

society and economic development.

As elsewhere, SSR and DDR are keys to the transitional aspect of 

the peacebuilding process in Liberia, mainly in human security but 

also in a nascent Liberian national security context. Given growing 

trafficking in illicit items in the region, including a significant migration of drug trade and related activities from Latin America to West 

Africa, Liberia’s ability to provide a coordinated, integrated whole-ofgovernment response to maintain security within and at its borders is 

an essential US geostrategic interest in this fragile and volatile region. 

With regard to SSR, UN Security Council Resolution 1506 recognizes 

the US defense-sector reform role, and the country team there has 

heeded former Secretary Gates’s admonition that, beyond the traditional national security tendency to focus almost exclusively on operational development of the armed forces, “there has not been 

enough attention paid to building the institutional capacity (such as 

defense ministries) or the human capital (including leadership skills 

and attitudes) needed to sustain security over the long term.”34
206 │ HOLSHEK

In Liberia, the Office of Security Cooperation is synchronizing, 

albeit ad hoc, USAFRICOM’s Operation Onward Liberty program, 

designed to enhance AFL operational capacity, and the DOD’s Defense Institution Reform Initiative (DIRI, similar to the Ministry of 

Defense Advisory program in Afghanistan) to build institutional 

capacity among the defense ministry staff providing civilian oversight. Perhaps most importantly, carefully synching these two programs comultiplies and exemplifies the democratic civilian-military 

relationship often missing in fragile civil societies. If better understood and appreciated, multinational civilian-military teaming efforts could also be beneficial in technical mentoring and advising 

Liberian government staff, capitalizing on UNMIL’s long-term presence and best practices in order to strengthen defense ministry civilian staff and leveraging at least the 28 percent the US funds, as with 

every UN field mission, in UNMIL operating costs.

It is important to note, however, that local understanding of both 

problems and opportunities and the initiative of those on the ground 

largely drives the level of collaboration the civilian-military teams in 

Liberia have exercised. “Stovepiped” or segmented and nonintegrated 

US policies and program and budget authorities and regulations—

and congressional oversight as such—still present more of an obstacle 

to this kind of adaptable, economy-of-effort enterprise management 

approach than they do an enhancement.

In the human security environments of places like Liberia, perhaps the most important lesson being learned—having profound implications to everything including programming and budgeting to 

deployment and stationing policies—is that the work in such settings 

is fundamentally centered around building relationships on a human 

and not just institutional level, evoking sustainability more than 

stamina. Again, the steady state insight comes into play:

Fundamentally, in peace or war we need to trust one another. We learn to trust 

each other through building a strong relationship, personal and professional. 

That is the key to building an effective team that works toward a common 

purpose. In Haiti, this proved to be the case within our own military and with 

our interagency partners, nongovernmental organizations, and foreign partners. When tough issues were encountered, their strong relationships broke 

down the barriers.35

Relationship-building, however, is a marathon and not a sprint.
FROM AFGHANISTAN TO AFRICA │ 207

Civilian-Military Teaming Is Strategic

The civilian-military context has changed. The constraints of a 

transformed international security environment and the restraints of 

growing strategic scarcity and capital shortages for the United States 

and the wider donor community have correspondingly transformed 

the operative paradigm for security engagements across the full range 

from conflict prevent to postconflict operations. This includes associated 

changes in the way we approach civilian-military teaming as a whole. 

Even today, US civilian-military operations doctrine is threats-based 

and command and control oriented. They are largely operational and 

tactical in their focus. It is not only that such legacy approaches to 

security and civil-military teaming are increasingly less effective. We 

can no longer afford them. More appropriate civilian-military teaming approaches, such as applied in Liberia, are comprehensive as well 

as collaborative, clearly place the military in a supporting and not 

supported role, employ an enabling process of building capacity as 

well as confidence, and give greater currency to relationships, networking, and sustainability. In short, civilian-military teaming in the 

twenty-first century must be more applied strategy than mere operations or tactics—thinking globally while acting locally, or thinking 

strategically while acting tactically.

When looking from the more global, human security vantage 

point outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, the relationship-building aspect of comprehensive, civilian-military engagement and teaming 

takes on a new level of meaning and application. As such, context 

takes greater precedence over content, partnership more than predominance, strategy more than operations and tactics, and human 

more than organizational enterprises. The civilian-military challenges and opportunities seen in places like Liberia may help us begin 

to gain greater understanding of how to think globally and act locally 

in the more multilateral, collaborative, and comprehensive settings 

the United States is already finding itself in and will no doubt see 

more of as it goes deeper into the century. Contingent to this more 

global and interconnected context is the all-important replication of 

the civil-military relationship in democratic societies in operational 

approaches in both postconflict transition management, as being 

faced in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in conflict prevention. In human 

security settings, this takes on an unprecedented moral imperative. 

Linking strategy and tactics, security with development, and hard 
208 │ HOLSHEK

and soft power demands more art than science. Again, this is because 

civilian-military teaming is more a strategic obligation than an operational requirement—and the truth is, it always has been.

Beyond the usual discussion of policy and doctrine, the implications for US civilian-military teaming under this new paradigm are 

profound and far-reaching. Moreover, unless reflected in the steady 

state of programs, budgets, authorities, and oversight mechanisms and 

in the mindsets and skill sets of both policy makers and practitioners, 

no paradigm shift really occurs and no lessons are learned. This runs 

not just from Washington to the field, but from the field to Washington:

We have always been able to win ugly by throwing money at a problem, but 

that is no longer the case,” he said. “We have lost our margin for error and we 

are headed for a decade of austerity, when even great programs are being 

killed. The times call for a national security system that is effective, efficient, 

participatory and agile. Unfortunately, we don’t have it—we have the opposite 

of that, a system that is archaic, designed sixty-three years ago, that still clings 

to Cold War concepts. At [Project on National Security Reform] PNSR we 

have a saying, ‘How can we secure our children’s future with our grandparents’ 

government?’ We are not going to win the future with that government.36

Thus, how Americans understand the transformed context for peace 

and security interventions in the larger, more collaborative, and more 

complex world beyond Iraq and Afghanistan should not only have profound and far-reaching implications for US interaction around the 

world. It could also help reshape the US approach to national security 

writ large back at home—not just because the larger world is forcing us 

to but also because we can no longer afford to do it any other way.

Despite its overwhelming national security, hard-power psychology, 

encountering a strategic ecosystem more aptly described in human security terms, the United States still has a great deal to bring to bear, 

beyond its still considerable soft power and influence. More concretely, 

for example, it possesses a unique comparative advantage, as it is demonstrating in Liberia and other lesser-known places, in assisting foreign governments and militaries in improving civilian-military linkages and mechanisms at all levels, due to its program depth in areas like 

civil affairs. One important exercise in implementing such a paradigm 

shift would be to see how to enable a more strategically-driven combination of programs such as the DOD’s DIRI program, as well as GPOI and 

ACOTA, in order to build partnership civilian-military capacity and 

confidence in the civilian-military relationship in democratic societies.

Indeed, focusing more on military civics in general and the civilmilitary relationship in particular as operational instruments, not only 
FROM AFGHANISTAN TO AFRICA │ 209

in terms of security and defense-sector reform and partnership capacity 

development but also in an overall teaming approach under the rubric 

of the country team, can only improve the strategic effectiveness of US 

“comprehensive engagement.” It would lend greatly to the cache of legitimacy of US interventions, even more important in human security 

environments that concentrate on the problems and promises of civil 

society, where Napoleon’s famous dictum that “[in war] the moral is to 

the physical as three is to one” takes on a whole new meaning. This is 

because by “leading through civilian power,” as former Secretary of State 

Clinton has termed it, the United States would then be doing abroad 

what it is doing at home, clearly connecting strategy with operations 

and the whole-of-society with the whole-of-government. It is also because Americans working abroad can draw upon the strengths of their 

own dynamic, multicultural civil society, whose foundation has been 

always moral and whose national ethos of e pluribus unum, is most ideally suited. When Americans demonstrate their time-honored civilmilitary relationship in the field in view of adversaries and partners 

alike, they make this transforming principle difficult to defeat and easy 

to emulate. Furthermore, when they reach out to collaborate with others, they bring the whole world with them, changing themselves with it.

Figure 11.2. The Armed Force of Liberia’s first Bailey bridge launch in 

December 2008. The author is at center-left, with AFL engineers and officers to his rear and left. Contract mentors, international developers, and 

Ministry of Public Works men and women stand in the foreground with 

female AFL members. Photo courtesy of the author.
210 │ HOLSHEK

Figure 11.3. The Liberian project manager of a youth agricultural training 

farm explains the pilot project to the author and staff officers of the resident Bangladesh peacekeeping battalion. Photo courtesy of the author.

Figure 11.4. What’s wrong with this picture? In a photo featured in the 

2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, a US soldier hands a humanitarian 

daily ration (directly) to a Haitian girl.
FROM AFGHANISTAN TO AFRICA │ 211

Figure 11.5. What’s right with this picture? Liberian Ministry of Public 

Works and local personnel receive on-the-job training in culvert restoration from Bangladeshi engineers. Photo courtesy of the author.

Notes

1. The term “petri dish” was used by Anne-Marie Slaughter, former director of 

policy planning at the Department of State, when talking about the Obama administration’s strategy on weak and failing states. See James Traub, “In the Beginning, 

There Was Somalia,” Foreign Policy 180 (July–August 2010): 80–84, http://www

.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/21/in_the_beginning_there_was_somalia.

2. Shannon Beebe and Mary Kaldor, The Ultimate Weapon Is No Weapon (New 

York: Public Affairs, 2010), 9.

3. Traub, “In the Beginning, There Was Somalia.”

4. Mark Bradbury and Michael Kleinman, “Winning Hearts and Minds? Examining the Relationship between Aid and Security in Kenya” (case study, Feinstein 

International Center, Tufts University, April 2010), 212. The reference to Barnett is 

with respect to his description, in Thomas P. M. Barnett, The Pentagon’s New Map: 

War and Peace in the Twenty-first Century (New York: G. P. Putnam, 2004), of the 

non-developed world as the “gap” versus the “core” of the developed world including 

mostly North America, Europe, and East Asia.
212 │ HOLSHEK

5. Mahbub ul-Haq, United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1994 (New York: Oxford University Press for the United Nations Development Programme, 1994).

6. Christopher Holshek, “The 21st Century’s 1989?,” Huffington Post, 14 February 

2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-holshek/the-21st-centurys-1989_b

_822613.html.

7. Kristin M. Lord and Marc Lynch, America’s Extended Hand: Assessing the 

Obama Administration’s Global Engagement Strategy (Washington, DC: Center for a 

New American Security, June 2010), 10–12, 16.

8. Henning Mankell, “The Art of Listening,” New York Times, 10 December 2011, 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/opinion/sunday/in-africa-the-art-of-listening

.html.

9. Barack Obama, National Security Strategy (Washington, DC: White House, 

May 2010), 13.

10. Robert M. Gates, Quadrennial Defense Review Report (Washington DC: Department of Defense, February 2010), iv, xiv, 7, 10.

11. Lisa Schirch, “The Civil Society-Military Relationship in Afghanistan,” 

Peacebrief 56, 24 September 2010, 4.

12. Sarah Kenyon Lischer, “Winning Hearts and Minds in the Horn of Africa,” 

Harvard International Review, March 2007.

13. David Lewis, “EUmission Seeks to rebuild Mali Army after U.S. Faltered,” 

Reuters, 21 May 2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/21/us-mali-eu-army

-idUSBRE94K0F420130521.

14. Based on a presentation shared with the author in April 2010.

15. Charles W. Hooper, “Going Farther by Going Together,” Joint Force Quarterly

67, no. 4 (2012), 11, http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jfq/jfq-67.pdf.

16. Mali Watch Group, “Enhancing the Primacy of Civil Authority in the Security Sector in Mali and Africa,” 22 May 2013, 4, http://www.allianceforpeacebuilding

.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Mali-Watch-Position-Paper-on-Primacy-of

-Civil-Authority-27-Nov-13.pdf.

17. Ibid., 3.

18. For an excellent discussion of the coordinating power of the US country team 

as a national security civilian-military and interagency teaming model, see Christopher J. Lamb and Edward Marks, Chief of Mission Authority as a Model for National 

Security Integration, Strategic Perspectives 2 (Washington, DC: National Defense University, December 2010).

19. See US Department of State, Summary and Highlights, International Affairs 

Function 150, Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Request (Washington, DC, GPO, 2009), http://

www.state.gov/documents/organization/122513.pdf.

20. Thomas Lum, Hannah Fischer, Julissa Gomez-Granger, and Anne Leland, 

China’s Foreign Aid Activities in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 25 February 2009), summary.

21. Andrew Wilder and Stuart Gordon, “Money Can’t Buy America Love,” Foreign 

Policy, 1 December 2009, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/12/01/money_cant

_buy_america_love.
FROM AFGHANISTAN TO AFRICA │ 213

22. Stew Magnuson, “U.S. Special Forces Target Hearts and Minds,” National Defense, February 2008, http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2008/February

/Pages/U2357.S2357.Special2357.aspx.

23. P. K. Keen, Floriano Peixoto Vieira Neto, Charles W. Nolan, Jennifer L. Kimmey, 

and Joseph Althouse, “Relationships Matter: Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief in Haiti,” Military Review 90, no. 3 (May–June 2010): 8.

24. For an excellent discussion and critique of UNMIL’s approach to peacekeeping and peacebuilding, see Wilfred Gray-Johnson, “Assessing the United Nations Approach to Post-Conflict Peacebuilding in Africa: The Mission in Liberia,” Conflict 

Trends 3 (2009): 11–18.

25. United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) Force HQ, Concept of Operations for the Conduct of Operations by the UNMIL Force for the Period 1 Jan 08–31 

Dec 08, version 2, effective 15 June 2009, Monrovia, Liberia, 3.

26. Gary Lloyd, Giele A. J. van Dyk, and Francois de Kock, “The Psychological 

Selection Profile for Civil-Military Coordination Officers in Peace Support Operations: The Results of Field Research in the Sudan,” African Journal of Conflict Resolution 9, no. 3 (2009): 54.

27. Cedric de Coning, “Civil-Military Relations and U.N. Peacekeeping Operations,” World Politics Review, 19 May 2010, http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com

/articles/5553/civil-military-relations-and-u-n-peacekeeping-operations.

28. United Nations, Civil-Military Coordination in UN Integrated Peacekeeping 

Missions (UN-CIMIC), Ref. 2010.2 (New York: Department of Field Support, Department of Peacekeeping Operations, October 2010), 5.

29. Nicholas J. Armstrong and Jacqueline Chura-Beaver, Harnessing Post-Conflict Transitions: A Conceptual Primer (PKSOI paper, US Army War College, Carlisle, 

PA, September 2010), 13.

30. UNMIL Force HQ, CIMIC Force Directive for the Conduct of CIMIC by the 

UNMIL Force for the Drawdown Phase, 6.

31. Sulaiman Momodu, “It’s Not about Us...,” UNMIL Focus 5, no. 1 (September–

November 2008): 30.

32. See United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office, Peacebuilding Review

(New York: UN, October 2010), 9–14, http://www.un.org/en/peacebuilding/pbso

/pdf/pb_review_20101022.pdf.

33. For more on the Peace Operations Training Institute UN-CIMIC course, see 

Cedric de Coning and Christopher Holshek, United Nations Civil-Military Coordination 

(UN-CIMIC) (Williamsburg, VA: Peace Operations Training Institute, October 2012), 

http://cdn.peaceopstraining.org/course_promos/civil_military_coordination/civil

_military_coordination_english.pdf.

34. Robert M. Gates, “Helping Others Defend Themselves: The Future of U.S. 

Security Assistance,” Foreign Affairs 89, no. 3 (May–June 2010): 2–6.

35. Keen, et al., “Relationships Matter,” 10.

36. James R. Locher, III, president and CEO of the Project on National Security 

Reform, quoted in Kathryn Boughton, “National Security Expert Who Spoke in Kent 

Says bin Laden Outcome the Exception; National Security System Flawed,” Litchfield 

Country Times, 2 May 2011, http://www.countytimes.com/articles/2011/05/02/news/doc

4dbf1e831ef1e702049372.txt.

Chapter 12

A Whole Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts, or 

If It Were Only Army Stuff, It Would Be Easy

Mark N. Popov

Canadian soldiers have deployed to a wide range of operations and 

have served with distinction in Cyprus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, East Timor, the Golan Heights, and Ethiopia/Eritrea and 

on a host of smaller missions. Prior to Canada’s commitment to Afghanistan as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), most of its missions were 

peacekeeping, observation, or stability missions, staffed almost completely by military personnel and with almost no significant civilian 

component and no nonmilitary role. Canadian soldiers performed 

patrolling, security, stabilization, or constabulary duties and had little 

measurable interaction with other Canadian governmental agencies 

or host-nation organizations (other than police), belligerent factions, 

or nongovernmental organizations. Canada’s whole-of-government 

approach in Afghanistan was a relatively new development not seen 

in previous theatres. Down as far as the tactical subunit level, this approach sees Canadian soldiers working in mixed teams in the field 

alongside their civilian counterparts from other government departments. Canada’s official Afghan policy, linked to the 2006 Afghan 

Compact, was to use a whole-of-government approach and operate 

along the compact’s three pillars—security, governance, and development. B Squadron, the Royal Canadian Dragoons, a company-sized 

armored reconnaissance squadron, was tasked to secure the population 

of Kandahar Province’s Dand District from September 2009 to May 

2010. It was augmented by attachments and enablers from across Canada’s Task Force Kandahar, including partners from Canadian civilian 

The following is an account of the author’s experience commanding a mixed civilian-military 

team in Kandahar Province from fall 2009 to May 2010. It does not reflect the views, policies, 

or official postures of Canada’s Department of National Defense, Department of Foreign Affairs 

and International Trade (DFAIT), the Canadian Forces, or any other Canadian government 

agency. Any opinions contained herein and not otherwise attributed are those of the author; 

any errors or omissions are his and his alone.
216 │ POPOV

police departments and the Canadian International Development 

Agency (CIDA).

Background

Insurgencies are political power struggles in which armed militants seek to overthrow an existing government. In this type of struggle, the population’s attitudes, perceptions, and support are often the 

center of gravity for both insurgents and government forces. While 

killing is sometimes necessary, recent history has continued to prove 

that in a counterinsurgency (COIN), one “cannot kill or capture 

[one’s] way to victory.” Government forces, locked in “a competition 

with the insurgent” for influence, must convince the population to 

deny insurgents the succor and support, both tacit and overt, that 

they need to live, operate, hide, maneuver, and attack. This task is far 

more difficult than it appears. When planning operations, physical 

areas on the ground no longer solely define key terrain and vital 

ground. Rather, one must take into account attitudes and actions 

taken by residents of an area to render the insurgent ineffective. One 

must take a page from the insurgents’ playbook and influence the 

population by acting on multiple concurrent axes, coordinating both 

military and civilian actions.

Kandahar Situation, Fall 2009

While the need to influence the Afghan population was clear, the 

means to accomplish this task were more difficult to discern. Furthermore, the spectrum of battlespace effects in Afghanistan could 

have often been fragmented, creating tactical-level friction as different elements with different mandates, capabilities, and commanders 

operated in the same piece of terrain and sought to influence the 

same population. Much as fire and maneuver had to be closely synchronized to achieve a concentration of force, maximize economy of 

effort, husband scarce combat power, and prevent fratricide, nonkinetic effects also had to be synchronized similarly. Civilian elements 

that were not under the direct command of military battlespace owners were often focused concurrently on larger-picture national strategic objectives beyond the purview of military commanders and 

smaller scale initiatives that took place at the tactical or grassroots 
A WHOLE GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS │ 217

level. The majority of Kandaharis cared far less about command 

structures and the division of responsibilities among different units 

than they did about effects. To them, ISAF soldiers, no matter the 

unit or nationality, were a homogenous group of foreigners. The concept that within ISAF there were different groups responsible for different things and effects seemed inconceivable. In order to best focus 

on Kandahar’s population and encourage the people to reject the insurgency, it was essential to synchronize reconstruction, development, governance, security operations, raids, Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), development, and stability. 

Enabling Synchronization

In order to better synchronize the disparate and dispersed elements of its deployed units, Canada’s Task Force Kandahar began 

implementing the battlespace commander (BSC) concept in southern Kandahar Province late in 2009, first in Panjwayi District, followed by Dand District. The concept of one commander responsible 

for tactical effects in a single area of operations was part and parcel of 

kinetic operations and a given in military culture. The BSC concept 

extended this unity of command more broadly and sought, at the tactical level, to better synchronize the capabilities inherent in both civilian and military elements. It saw one commander appointed as a 

district’s BSC, responsible for synchronizing and guiding all battlespace effects and activities in a specific district, including nonmilitary 

stabilization, governance, reconstruction, and development efforts.

This approach was not without its frictions, particularly because it 

was, when implemented, outside both the military and civilian comfort zones and something that had never been tried before at the tactical level. Given the tenuous security situation and significant kinetic 

threats in Kandahar in 2009–10, security concerns were primary 

considerations but by no means the only ones. While the military 

BSC appeared to be in charge of traditionally civilian activities, the 

approach was more nuanced; large-picture, long-term goals remained 

the purview of the civilian experts in the provincial reconstruction 

team (PRT), particularly in the realms of reconstruction, development, and governance. The BSC had the final say guiding when and 

where events occurred on the ground, while the goals, means, and 

participants were determined, in Dand District, cooperatively between 
218 │ POPOV

the BSC and his or her civilian partners. For example, while the BSC 

was responsible for ensuring that measures were taken to improve his 

or her district’s economic viability, his or her civilian stabilization officer planned how this was to be accomplished. The same BSC was 

also responsible for all interactions between ISAF elements, Afghan 

government officials, and ANSF in his or her district.

Afghan National Security Forces

Primary Organizations

• Afghan National Army (ANA)

• Afghan National Police (ANP)

– Afghan Uniformed Police (AUP)

– Afghan Border Police (ABP)

– Afghan National Civil Order Police (ANCOP)

– Criminal Investigation Division (CID)

– Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan (CNPA)

– Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF)

• National Directorate of Security

• Afghan National Army Air Corps (ANAAC)

Figure 12.1. Afghan National Security Forces—primary organizations. 

(Adapted from C. J. Radin, “Afghan Security Forces Order of Battle,” 

Long War Journal, 15 April 2010, 3, http://www.longwarjournal.org/oob

/afghanistan/index.php.)

ANSF-led operational coordination centers, at the district and provisional levels, mandated by the Government of the Islamic Republic 

of Afghanistan (GIRoA) Order 3501, coordinated security, governance, reconstruction, and development efforts and acted as a central 

information source. They frequently partnered with ISAF elements, 

worked at the district and provincial levels, and linked civilian and 

military, GIRoA, and ISAF elements together in a common setting. 

Establishing Kandahar Province’s OCC was predicated on the security 

situation, ANSF capacity, and local Afghan government officials’ political will. Before 2009 the conditions for establishment of districtlevel operational coordination centers (OCC-D) were not right. Once 

conditions evolved sufficiently, the BSCs in Panjwayi and Dand established OCC-Ds and partnered Afghan-Canadian synchronization 

and information nodes that supported each BSC, their partnered 
A WHOLE GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS │ 219

ANSF elements, and each appointed district leader (DL). Civilian 

representatives used the OCC-D structure to keep stakeholders informed of civilian-led stability, governance, reconstruction, and development activities. The OCC-Ds brought disparate battlespace 

players together in a cooperative forum where the emphasis was on 

information sharing and coordination of effort and not top-down, 

military-led directives and direction.

Evolution and Organization

B Squadron’s configuration as the Dand District Combat Team 

(DDCT) is depicted in figure 12.2. This configuration represented an 

evolution that brought it an approximate threefold increase in personnel and a great deal more responsibility to its existing structure.

Dand District Combat Team

Dand

Sergeant-Major

Dand

BSC District

Leader

CIDA

STAB O

District Chief

of Police

P-OMLT

CIVPOL

JTAC

Interpreters

Interpreters

Interpreters

Interpreters

ANP ANP ANP ANP

ANP ANP ANP ANP

OCC-D

ANSF

Liaison Cell (TCB)

CMO

CMO

NSE

HEL OPS

STAB CIMIC

Local

Employees

Figure 12.2. The DDCT, December 2009. While the DL, CIDA stabilization officer (CIDA Stab O), and Afghan National Police (ANP) were not 

subordinate to the BSC, they are included with dotted lines reflecting 

their partnered status.
220 │ POPOV

The DDCT’s attachments and enablers coupled with the OCC-D’s 

ability to interact and coordinate with civilian partners, local government officials, and ANSF offered significant capability. The team’s 

CIDA Stab O and the OCC-D worked closely with the DL and his 

staff, linking military and civilian aspects of operations. They also 

worked together to professionalize legitimate local government officials to contribute to ongoing stability, governance, reconstruction, 

and development efforts, synchronizing them with both ANP and 

ISAF security activities. The construction management organization 

(CMO) team focused on larger-scale village-level or multiple-village 

projects such as building irrigation canals. It had excellent contacts 

with local labor organizers and the ability to monitor local attitudes 

and impressions during its interactions with local work teams. The 

civil-military cooperation (CIMIC) team was the combat team’s 

overt, public, and friendly face, manning a reception center oriented 

to mitigate dissatisfaction over maneuver damage, land claims, and 

other issues. It also had the ability to assess village needs and then 

initiate precisely targeted, quick, low-level projects to resolve minor 

grievances and provide limited employment. The police operational 

mentor liaison team (P-OMLT) focused on training, mentoring, and 

developing the individual and collective skills of the district’s ANP 

detachment. It specialized in weapons, scene management, and firstaid training; search techniques; basic investigations; and public interaction as the professional face and primary constabulary apparatus of 

the Afghan government. The P-OMLT, including a very experienced 

Canadian civilian police officer, also acted as the BSC’s primary link 

and liaison with the ANP command structure. P-OMLT facilitated 

partnered planning and operations and ensured a consistent approach 

and style of interaction between the ANP and the combat team. This 

organization ensured that every facet of COIN efforts in the district, 

from kinetic operations to construction projects and from village 

meetings to ANSF activities, was synchronized. Every combat team 

element knew what every other element was doing, which enabled the 

BSC to set priorities, resolve conflicting demands quickly, maintain 

flexibility, and keep pressure on the insurgents through a full spectrum of synchronized military and civilian-led effects.
A WHOLE GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS │ 221

Lessons Captured and Applied

Throughout its tenure, the combat team captured lessons through 

after-action reviews, conducted by Canadian military and civilian 

personnel, often in partnership with ANSF leaders. While some of 

these lessons appeared to be geared only toward military leaders, all 

these lessons were captured in a combined civilian-military team 

context. For the military reader, some would be familiar, while others 

would appear to run against the grain of the typical military, missionfocused, quick-action mind-set. For the civilian reader, they would 

provide an illuminative view to the military mind-set, demonstrating 

some of the flexibility in thinking that military leaders are capable of 

and hopefully disproving some of the stereotypes that both military 

and civilian experts have held about each other. The lessons that follow apply specifically to creating effective civilian-military teams and 

are all critical. The most important, which span both the military and 

civilian aspects of any mission, is articulated first, while those later 

lessons have more applicability for the military leader and less so for 

the civilian partner in any combined civilian-military team.

The Military Force Remains the Fundamental Building Block

The military brings a depth and breadth of skills, command and 

control elements, and the ability to provide security and mobility. In 

some instances, the only way to demonstrate resolve and capability, 

protect the population, and maintain force protection is to kill or capture insurgents. Military combat teams maintain the core skill of defeating enemies. Combat team headquarters are well-established, 

highly trained, and practiced in communicating, synchronizing, and 

tracking friendly, enemy, and other elements in complex battlespaces. 

The COIN combat team must have additional skills and enablers over 

and above those found in the traditional combat team in order to best 

achieve a mix of effects. Normally this mix includes “battle winners” 

and “war winners.”

Battle winners are the traditional combat team grouping of armor, infantry, engineers, artillery, and, in the DDCT’s case, armored reconnaissance forces. The battle winners are capable of destroying the enemy. The 

battle-winning side of the combat team is essential to providing the necessary security, conducting kinetic operations such as clearing villages, 

seizing key terrain, or destroying insurgent elements, and supporting 
222 │ POPOV

nonkinetic operations such as village surveys or humanitarian aid distribution. The battle winners make the team a hard target; they are resistant 

to enemy action and are capable of rapidly applying force, up to and including lethal force, anywhere in the battlespace.

War winners provide softer effects in the battlespace and are focused on achieving longer-term changes by connecting with and influencing the population—actions that will not win single battles but 

are necessary in COIN to winning the war. In the Afghan context, 

war winners were the enablers, both military and civilian, that developed ANSF capabilities, built stability and governance, and supported 

reconstruction and development that further separated insurgents 

from the people through actions and positive effects that the insurgents could not bring. The DDCT’s war winners included its CIDA 

Stab O, CMO team, CIMIC elements, P-OMLT team with attached 

civilian police mentor, and the OCC-D.

Battle winners are necessary but are not sufficient for securing 

long-term COIN victory. Yet the war winners would be unable to act 

without the security, deterrent effect, and capability that the battle 

winners provide them. Thus, the two are mutually supportive and 

provide complementary assets.

Both Military Personnel and Civilians Must Work to Understand 

Each Other and Appreciate Their Distinct, yet Complementary 

Roles in Modern Conflict

There is often a divide in understanding, background, context, and 

perception between military and civilian leaders even during deployed operations. From the military perspective, the stereotypical 

battlespace civilian is overly idealistic, unaware of the realities and 

brutalities of war, and a burden that drains combat power. From this 

perspective, civilians cannot and do not wish to fight; instead, they 

must be protected and are tactically unaware, often seeking to think, 

discuss, confer, and reach consensus rather than act. From the civilian perspective, stereotypical military personnel are one dimensional, 

poorly educated, and nominally illiterate, focused only on achieving 

short-term results. From this perspective, military team members 

lack true depth and comprehension of the complexities of modern 

life and seek to resolve every problem by using weapons and inflicting maximum damage in everything they do. Neither stereotype is 

true. In Afghanistan both military and civilian personnel shared risk, 
A WHOLE GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS │ 223

threat, triumph, and failure. While time was the commodity in shortest supply during operations, each element needed the patience to 

listen to its counterpart, ask questions, and truly comprehend the 

other. Only by investing time and understanding were they able to 

disprove stereotypes and work effectively together.

In order to integrate civilians into their teams, military leaders 

must lead by example and establish an atmosphere of understanding, 

awareness, and tolerance in word, deed, and action. The DDCT included its civilian personnel as full, integral members of the team. 

The CIDA Stab O sat directly next to the combat team commander 

during every orders group and daily coordination session. All understood and emphasized that from an organizational perspective, the 

CIDA Stab O was their combat team commander’s equal and advisor, 

not a subordinate, and treated her as such. Military commanders 

must ensure that, in the eyes of their subordinates, what they say and 

what they do, with regard to their civilian partners, are in concurrence. Including their civilian members in planning sessions, keeping 

them apprised of ongoing and planned operations, and seeking to use 

the multiple talents inherent in both battle winners and war winners 

tangibly demonstrate this integrated approach.

Civilian members of a military-led team must accept, respect, and 

work within the hierarchical nature of a military force. They also 

must focus on working as a member of the team, sharing the team’s 

experiences, and working in concurrence with accepted norms, customs, and traditions. Simple actions such as being punctual, following force protection policies, obeying light and noise discipline in 

forward locations, and working to understand the military rank and 

position structure will go a long way toward ensuring they are accepted as full members across the team.

Personal interaction, more so than digital communication, is absolutely essential in mixed civilian-military teams; sharing the same 

home country and speaking the same language do not guarantee effective communication. The civilian-military divide in background, 

experience, and context offers a potential for misunderstanding over 

and above that inherent in communications between military forces. 

During the implementation of the BSC concept in Dand district, the 

provincial stabilization officer, a civilian from the Kandahar PRT, 

spent several days in Dand district with the DDCT commander and 

his key staff. The information, knowledge, and understanding that he 

shared were absolutely critical to the team’s success. No amount of 
224 │ POPOV

briefing notes, directives, or e-mail could have substituted for this 

personal interaction.

Command Climate: Always Know, Understand, and Use the

Full Team

Success in COIN depends on flexibility and initiative at the lowest 

possible tactical level. It is particularly vital that leaders not only understand COIN but also are able to properly educate their subordinates and inculcate its principles throughout the organization. Soldiers typically will default to what they know and how they are 

trained, which is, primarily, to fight and win in a worst-case-scenario, 

high-intensity close combat. Commanders must ensure that every 

member of the team, both military and civilian, is aware of how his or 

her particular skills, attributes, and abilities—working in conjunction 

with other elements of the team—contribute to success. COIN requires synchronization of kinetic efforts plus development, influence, 

security, and confidence-building activities. Every plan must include 

synchronized battle- and war-winner actions and effects prior to, 

during, and following every operation.

For example, in preparation for a partnered ANP/ISAF cordon 

and search operation, the P-OMLT conducted a 10-day training program to bolster ANP capacity and prepare patrolmen to conduct 

building searches. Had this training not been synchronized with the 

operation, ANP patrolmen would not have been properly prepared to 

conduct their mission. The training was a success, and the ANP successfully executed thorough, professional, and effective searches 

throughout the initial operation and successive iterations in different 

villages. During the cordon and search, CIMIC operators followed 

immediately behind the partnered lead search teams to complete village surveys, gather critical local information from the population, 

carry out information operations messaging, locate key leaders to set 

the conditions for future meetings known as “key leader engagements,” and identify potential quick impact projects to further influence and support the population.

After deliberate operations, follow-up ANP/ISAF partnered patrols comprised of both battle and war winners maintained presence 

in and attention towards villages to gauge changing attitudes, targeted nonkinetic effects, and positively influenced the population. 

This technique was used successfully in several cordon and search 
A WHOLE GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS │ 225

operations. Over the course of several months, it paid dividends in 

every instance. Relations between ISAF/ANSF patrols improved, and 

several villages that had previously been overtly hostile took a neutral 

stance, opening the door for future influence. Without the potential 

for kinetic operations and the overt physical security provided by the 

battle winners, the war winners would have been unable to act, giving 

insurgents a free hand to intimidate the population and win undecided residents to their cause. However, the long-term tangible benefits that the war winners provided made the insurgency unattractive 

and countered insurgent claims that the government cannot care for 

its population.

In order to maintain operational security, local officials were not 

apprised of deliberate security operations in advance. However, immediately after each operation commenced, the CIDA Stab O and 

OCC-D met with the DL and local officials to keep them apprised of 

progress, demonstrating trust and transparency. In every instance, 

the DL appreciated being included and supported ongoing security 

operations. After some operations, when local leaders approached 

the DL to criticize operations, he supported both the local police and 

military forces and emphasized the need for searches to ensure security. Due to her close relationship with government officials, the 

CIDA Stab O was able to assess what local village leaders were telling 

their district-level leadership and gauge grassroots attitudes to ongoing operations. This assessment, particularly in the aftermath of deliberate operations, provided the combat team commander a more 

balanced view and insights into the complexities of local politics that 

military forces alone would not have been able to provide. While the 

battle winners often led in deliberate security operations, kinetic operations were very much a whole-team, full spectrum event that relied on every element of the team, military and civilian, to succeed. 

Military commanders must know and understand how all attachments and enablers operate and what they can achieve, ensuring their 

employment in every operation.

Unity of Command Is Essential

Prior to the initiation of the BSC concept, there were, in some areas, multiple subunits operating in the same villages and interacting 

with the same villagers but pursuing different mandates. Information 

gathering was fragmented, as different elements reported information 
226 │ POPOV

through separate reporting chains, limiting lateral commander awareness. Patrols were unable to address effectively queries from locals 

about needs or grievances addressed in project proposals by other 

Task Force Kandahar units, drawing capability and credibility into 

question in the eyes of local leaders. This gap in understanding created difficulties, often confusing and infuriating village leaders when 

they attempted to ask questions or make complaints. Once the BSC 

concept was implemented, kinetic operations, patrolling, projects, 

messaging, meetings, and ANSF interactions were all tightly synchronized and more effectively targeted. Soldiers and civilians on patrols, attending meetings and interacting with the population, gathered information that the combat team headquarters analyzed and 

acted upon quickly, using the full spectrum of battle- and war-winning efforts. One commander remained responsible and accountable 

for effects on the population across the spectrum from kinetic events 

to efforts that influence the support of the population.

The Whole-of-Government Approach: A Whole Is Greater Than 

the Sum of Its Parts

Whole-of-government partners, such as civilian police officers 

and the CIDA Stab O, offered capabilities that counterbalanced and 

complemented those inherent in the military force. In the Dand District, the CIDA Stab O ensured that the combat team was apprised of 

ongoing civilian-led efforts in the district, ensuring that military patrols and efforts were able to gather information and atmospherics 

and thereby coordinate efforts. One such example is that of a tacticallevel, civilian-led initiative to establish poultry farming in the Dand 

District. Rather than providing chickens, the program selected families for training in egg production, marketing, poultry supply chain 

management, and chicken husbandry to establish viable grassroots 

poultry farming in the district. CIDA funded this particular program, but locally contracted Afghan civilians oversaw it. The CIDA 

Stab O ensured that the BSC was aware of the program and therefore 

able to support it by gathering information on its progress and impact on the population. While the chicken program was not a civilian-military effort, the CIDA Stab O brought awareness and a link 

between civilian programs and military personnel that a purely military team would lack, and this link advanced overall civilian-military 

teaming goals.
A WHOLE GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS │ 227

Without bringing military and civilian efforts together under one 

commander, the chicken project would have been isolated, not synchronized with any other initiatives, and likely able to achieve only 

marginal effect. From the civilian aspect, the DFAIT representatives 

sponsoring it would have only reports from locally hired agents of 

unknown reliability to assess the project’s success or failure. In southern Kandahar’s fragile security situation, DFAIT would never have 

been able to reliably move, see, or assess the project for themselves. 

The military force, fully cognizant of the project’s scope and nuances, 

reliably reported on it, offered suggestions to modify it, and tracked it 

for the civilian components of the team. From the military side, 

knowing about ongoing projects like the chicken project gave leaders 

an informational advantage and point of leverage that could be used 

in negotiations, shown as an example of tangible development, or 

simply offered to deserving families to sway further the population’s 

support towards the government and away from the insurgency.

The civilian members of a mixed civilian-military team offered 

other multiple benefits to efforts in the Dand District. First, nonmilitary thinking and problem resolution styles helped the BSC resolve 

challenges in dealing with Afghan government officials. Second, specific expertise required for reconstruction and development was 

more readily available among civilian members of the team. Third, 

coordinating civilians and military personnel resulted in greater information sharing and ultimately better decision making. Fourth, civilians may have been better able to mentor, shape, teach, and develop the capacity of the ANSF and government bodies, build systems 

of governance and accountability, plan civil infrastructure development, foster economic development, and manage civil administrations—all techniques that were not the forte of most military personnel. Civilian-military teams could also offer a civilian face of 

leadership to represent the BSC at governance and development-oriented fora such as district development assemblies and administrative and education shuras and in mentoring sessions with district and 

other Afghan officials. Fifth, civilian personnel provided a less intimidating option than uniformed personnel in conducting meetings 

and liaising and interacting with locals, which left the BSC room to 

broaden the approach to resolve challenges by introducing uniformed 

personnel into a situation when required. In Dand, the CIDA Stab O 

worked very closely with district government staff to improve governance and accountability. Last, as a result of a longer rotation cycle, 
228 │ POPOV

civilian personnel represented longer-term commitment and organizational stability to locals and district staff. They often offered the 

BSC a vault of institutional memory that could be called upon to outline the history of current relationships and ongoing programs that a 

new BSC may have been unaware of when assuming responsibility 

for an area.

Listen, Do Not Tell

When interacting with Afghans, particularly when attempting to 

institute change, listening often paid better dividends than talking. 

When conducting an influence operation to set the conditions to recruit more police and establish new police stations in the district, the 

BSC met with a series of village leaders, elders, and tribal leaders. 

During each interaction, listening to what they had to say, asking 

their opinion of security activities, and soliciting their opinions on 

police checkpoints and patrols paid dividends. COIN experts say that 

“re-empowering the village councils of elders and restoring their 

community leadership is the only way” to counter religious leaders 

and others who have been “radicalized by the Taliban.” The local 

leaders were, in every instance, flattered to be asked for their advice 

instead of being “told by foreigners what was going to happen.” Listening instead of telling made measureable gains in building trust 

and cooperation between local leaders and ISAF/ANSF elements and 

further served to support and legitimize traditional village governance and leadership. Listening and understanding were also critical 

in building and maintaining a mixed civilian-military team.

Tactical Patience: Follow the “48-Hour Rule”

In conventional warfare, when conducting high-tempo, synchronized kinetic operations, pausing instead of taking quick and decisive 

action could prove fatal. Yet the best course of action was to resist the 

impulse to act quickly and pause to let situations develop when dealing with Afghan village elders, tribal leaders, and government officials. An oft-repeated maxim of the Afghan conflict has been that 

Western military forces had watches but the insurgents had the time. 

A focus on results, on meeting timings, on seeking quick resolution 

to challenges, and on taking forceful, decisive action played into the 

hands of a patient enemy who had time on his side. When the instinct 
A WHOLE GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS │ 229

was to attack, negotiate aggressively, and push a point to culmination, 

both the military and civilian leader had to pause, think, and ask “[is 

our team] doing what the enemy wants us to do?. . . [Is our team] 

playing into his hands?” This consideration applied not only to conflict but also to interaction and negotiation, particularly in Afghanistan, where decisions were often made by group consensus, over long 

periods of time, only after periods of oration, negotiation, and demonstration. The military or civilian leaders who failed to understand 

or account for these considerations, who rushed too soon to commit 

force, funding, projects, or goodwill, ran the danger of jeopardizing 

themselves and their mission.

For example, in an attempt to maneuver the BSC into a hasty reaction and force him into a position of relational weakness, the DL refused to occupy his office at the district center (DC). With great public show, stating that he was displeased with security measures at the 

DC, the DL and staff took up temporary residence in a nearby unoccupied medical office. He quickly passed word to provincial-level officials that the BSC was preventing him from occupying his own DC 

and consulting with his people. The BSC ordered that business proceed as usual. When questioned, the BSC assured his own staff and 

his higher headquarters, who were understandably anxious, that the 

situation would be resolved within 48 hours. Within 24 hours, the 

DL’s staff, ANP representatives, and the local National Directorate of 

Security agent met and—with the assistance of the BSC’s staff—spent 

several hours devising and reviewing an Afghan-led, collaborative 

security plan for the facility that was amenable to all participants, 

including the DL. Within 48 hours, the DL had approved the new 

security plan, returned quietly to his office, and made no mention of 

his previous exodus. The tactical pause had achieved significant effect 

and tangibly demonstrated BSC resolve in the face of DL threats. The 

BSC’s actions allowed the DL to save face by successfully negotiating 

a resolution to his grievances and demonstrated the BSC’s support, 

respect, and consideration for the DL and his wishes. It was a tangible 

and public demonstration of the collective will for ISAF and Afghan 

government officials to cooperate, despite the often-conflicting demands for both security and access to the population that partnered 

facilities create. 

As a second example, in front of a collection of tribal elders, the 

DL remonstrated that “Canadians did nothing for the people” and 

loudly lambasted a military staff officer. Rather than rushing out facts 
230 │ POPOV

and figures to prove him wrong or taking umbrage at the allegations, 

the staff officer politely concluded the meeting and ensured he had no 

further interaction with the DL for the remainder of the day. The next 

day, the DL cordially invited the same officer to sit with him, treated 

him to chai, assured him that he was pleased with the number and 

type of ongoing projects, and apologized profusely for his poor manners. 

Pausing and refusing to rise to provocation demonstrated that military 

staff were not subordinate to the DL and paved the way for a more cooperative working relationship for the remainder of the rotation.

Civilian-Military Teams Come in Various Forms, not Just with 

Donor-Nation Personnel, but Also Host-Nation Police and 

Military Partnering

Partnering may sound like a theoretical construct that is impossible to execute in real life, but it can be invaluable. In the fall of 2009, 

an ANSF element partnered with B Squadron conducted patrols in 

and around a contentious village. Partnered patrolling caused local 

insurgents significant consternation and positively influenced the 

population so well that the insurgent leadership panicked. An information source indicated that a local insurgent commander had harangued his fighters to immediately place improvised explosive devices in the road and on the tracks where the ANSF element had been 

patrolling. Despite protests from insurgents on the receiving end of 

the order, the local commander ordered his fighters to “do something 

immediately.” The partnered nature of the operation overwhelmed 

the insurgents’ command and control, which caused a local insurgent 

commander to panic and needlessly sacrifice his fighters.

Civilian elements of the team enhanced partnering in several ways. 

During the course of interactions with local government officials, 

they communicated and emphasized the effectiveness of both ANSF 

and ISAF in working together. Due to the sometimes fractious nature 

of Afghan government workings, there could have been a divide between Afghan government and security force elements that would 

range from slight mistrust to overt hostility. Indigenous military and 

police working together, presenting unified, consistent messages, 

would have demonstrated trust and cooperation and would have 

helped bridge this divide.
A WHOLE GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS │ 231

Battle Procedure Must Be Applied to Civilian-Military 

Engagements

Kinetic operations are never conducted without proper battle procedure, war gaming, and rehearsals whenever possible and are followed up by after-action reviews. Military commanders and their civilian counterparts needed to plan nonkinetic operations together, 

including jirgas, shuras, or meetings with locals. Civilian-military 

teams had to be inculcated with the understanding that every interaction and activity needed to be a deliberate operation whenever possible.

Afghan tribal leaders, village elders, and local officials, accustomed 

to gaining power and influence through negotiation and building 

consensus through the shura and jirga systems, were practiced in exploiting opportunities to gain concessions, promises, or favors. The 

civilian-military team had to test scenarios, identify lines of discussion, delegate discussion issues, review critical messaging, and explore 

issues that participants may have used to maneuver the discussion.

For example, in February 2010, heavy rains caused extensive flood 

damage, and GIRoA asked ISAF to support its flood relief efforts. The 

morning after the rainstorm, the DL demanded an immediate meeting with the BSC and the district chief of police. The BSC, his civilian 

stabilization officer, and other key staff paused and conducted a quick 

planning session. They assessed that the DL would attempt to castigate ISAF in front of the district staff and a collection of notable village elders for not supporting the population with flood relief or supplies. Based on this assessment, the team role-played through a 

number of different situations that could have occurred during the 

meeting. This role-playing rehearsal enabled the team to determine 

collectively how to address contentious discussion issues and who 

would speak about which issue. They were also able to identify key 

speaking points and exit strategies for avoiding contentious, yet irrelevant, issues that could detract from the core discussion. The team 

also determined that it was absolutely critical to show that the situation was being resolved by Afghans executing an Afghan government 

plan, reaffirming that ISAF was supporting the Afghan solution to 

the problem and demonstrating the government’s legitimacy and 

ability to care for its population. During the subsequent meeting, after the formalities and pleasantries of greeting, the BSC opened the 

discussion with a generous statement of support for ANSF efforts and 

a selection of facts and figures concerning ANSF aid efforts to date. It 
232 │ POPOV

also provided a description of efforts taken by ISAF soldiers in the 

district to support the Afghan government in a second-tier fashion.

The BSC further leveraged the discussion to demonstrate the effectiveness of the newly created OCC-D. The DL acknowledged that 

the partnership offered benefit to the district’s people and pledged 

further cooperation. Had the interaction not been carefully planned 

and rehearsed, the outcome could have been markedly different and 

the elders negatively influenced, which would have harmed future 

ISAF credibility in the district.

Conclusion: Consider “a” War, not Just “This” War

Debate has continued in offices, at mess tables, on hangar floors, 

and in schools throughout Canada’s army on the relative merits of 

orienting training and efforts to focus on preparing for COIN at the 

expense of mechanized, high-intensity unit and formation-level warfighting skills. COIN, particularly as practiced in the limited scope of 

one of many Afghan districts, may not define all future operations, 

but failing to recognize, understand, and apply lessons hard-won 

through experience would be shortsighted. One of Afghanistan’s lessons was the value of mixed civilian-military teams: their effectiveness compounded by the wide mix of skills and perspectives that civilian partners brought to the military commander. While operations 

in other theatres and in future conflicts will present a host of tactical, 

enemy, environmental, and human challenges that differ from those 

found in Afghanistan, these lessons form a framework of principles, 

proven in operations, that future civilian-military teams may well 

find useful in whatever conflict they may face.

Notes

1. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “The Afghanistan Compact” (The London Conference on Afghanistan, London, UK, 31 January–1 February 2006), http://

www.nato.int/isaf/docu/epub/pdf/afghanistan_compact.pdf; and Foreign Affairs and 

International Trade Canada, Government of Canada, “Canada’s Engagement in Afghanistan: Canada’s Approach in Afghanistan,” 24 August 2011, http://www.afghani

stan.gc.ca/canada-afghanistan/approach-approche/index.aspx. Canada seeks to use the 

whole-of-government approach in resolving every challenge, both foreign and domestic, as demonstrated in Prime Minister of Canada, Government of Canada, “PM Visits 

Operation NANOOK 10,” http://pm.gov.ca/eng/media.asp?id=3602; Foreign Affairs 

and International Trade Canada, Government of Canada, “Civilian Deployment,” 23 
A WHOLE GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS │ 233

July 2012, http://www.international.gc.ca/START-GTSR/civilian_deployment-deploie

ment_de_civils.aspx; Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, Government of 

Canada, “Minister Cannon Announces Appointment of New Representative of Canada in Kandahar,” 20 December 2011, http://www.international.gc.ca/media/aff/news

-communiques/2010/250.aspx; and Canada2010, Government of Canada, “Canada’s 

Games: ‘Whole of Government Approach’: The Framework for Federal Coordination,” 16 

December 2010, http://www.canada2010.gc.ca/fin-rep2010/104-eng.cfm.

2. Task Force Kandahar 3-09 was comprised of a provincial reconstruction team, 

a battle group, a national support element, a task force headquarters, and a host of 

smaller elements, many of which operated in the same terrain. While predominantly 

a military organization, it worked in close conjunction with civilian personnel from 

Canadian government ministries and agencies including, but not limited to, Foreign 

Affairs and International Trade, the Canadian International Development Agency, 

the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Corrections Canada.

3. Dan Green, “The Taliban’s Political Program,” Armed Forces Journal, November 2009, http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2009/11/4294842/; and John Kiszely, 

“Learning about Counterinsurgency,” Military Review, March–April 2007, 5, http://

usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20070430

_art005.pdf.

4. As outlined in detail in Kalev Sepp, “Best Practices in Counterinsurgency,” Military 

Review, May–June 2005, 9, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/milreview/sepp.pdf.

5. Gen David H. Petraeus, “COMISAF COIN Guidance 01 August 2010” (Kabul, 

Afghanistan: Headquarters, International Security Assistance Force, 2010), 2. 

6. David Kilcullen, “Twenty-Eight Articles: Fundamentals of Company-Level 

Counterinsurgency,” in Counterinsurgency (New York: Oxford University Press, 

2010), 29; and Program for Cultural and Conflict Studies, Department of National 

Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School, Analyzing the Taliban Code of Conduct: 

Reinventing the Layeha, Understanding Afghan Culture, Occasional Paper series no. 3 

(Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, 6 August 2009), 10. This piece offers the 

text and an analysis of the 2009 Layeha, or Taliban code of conduct. On page 11, 

guideline no. 59 states that “the Mujahedeen must have a good relationship with all 

the tribal community and with the local people, so they are always welcomed and are 

able to get help from the local people.” A note from Mullah Omar written on the back 

page directs fighters to “keep good relationships with your friends and the local people, and do not let the enemy divide/separate you.”

7. C. J. Radin, “Afghan Security Forces Order of Battle,” Long War Journal, 15 

April 2010, http://www.longwarjournal.org/oob/afghanistan/index.php. This work 

contains a comprehensive description of ANSF organization, manning, training, 

budgets, and development, current as of 15 April 2010. In common terms, ANSF 

generally refers to the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police 

(ANP), while smaller police elements such as the Criminal Investigation Division 

(CID), Afghan Border Police (ABP), and Afghan National Civil Order Police (ANCOP) 

also interact with ISAF elements. Not mentioned in the reference is the National Directorate of Security (NDS), an internal security and intelligence gathering body reporting 

to the Ministry of the Interior with wide powers of arrest and detention. NDS methods 

have been called into question as indicated in Gil Shochat, “Tories Alerted to Afghan 

Secret Police Legal ‘Risk,’” Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News, 6 April 2010, 
234 │ POPOV

http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/04/06/afghan-detainee-transfers.html. In the 

Dand District, one CID officer and one NDS detachment were colocated with the 

ANP in the district centre compound.

8. As indicated during a series of briefings from the commanding officer and key 

staff of the Kandahar Operational Coordination Centre–Provincial (OCC-P[K]) to 

Operational Coordination Centre–District (OCC-D) commanders, January 2010. 

At time of writing, the reference was not available from any open source or online 

repositories; this information was taken from the author’s personal notes.

9. Barry Shaw, UK Ministry of Defence, “Building Goodwill in Geresh—Part Two,” 

Insurgency Research Group, http://insurgencyresearchgroup.wordpress.com/2008/07/04

/uk-ct-coin-features-3-july-2008/.

10. Combat teams and battle groups are based on either an armour or an infantry organization but contain elements of both, plus battlefield enablers such as artillery forward observation teams and combat engineers. Doctrinally, Canada’s infantry seeks to close with and destroy the enemy, while armour seeks to defeat the 

enemy through the aggressive use of firepower and battlefield mobility, although 

none can operate effectively in combat without the other—hence, the value of the 

combined arms team. Department of National Defence, Government of Canada, 

B-GL-300-001/FP-001–Land Operations (English) (Fort Frontenac, Kingston, Ontario: Army Publishing Office, 2008), 1-4–1-7, http://info.publicintelligence.net

/CanadaLandOps.pdf. This publication contains further information about Canadian land force organization.

11. During the attack, described in Olivia Ward, “ ‘Model’ District No Safe Haven,” 

Toronto Star (Canada), 1 January 2010, http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2010/01/01

/model_district_no_safe_haven.html; and Colin Perkel, “The Full Story of One of Canada’s Deadliest Days in Afghanistan,” Globe and Mail (Canada), 29 December 2010, 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/the-full-story-of-one-of-canadas

-deadliest-days/article1321639/?page=all. Ms. Bushra Saeed, a Canadian civilian foreign affairs officer, was badly wounded, losing a leg and sustaining other severe injuries, while Canadian civilian journalist Michelle Lang and four Canadian soldiers were 

killed by an improvised explosive device attack that destroyed their armoured vehicle 

in the vicinity of the Dand District Centre, Kandahar Province. On 15 January 2006, a 

suicide bomber attack killed Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry and injured three Canadian soldiers on a Canadian patrol in Kandahar City.

12. Howard Chafe, stabilization manager, Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction 

Team, personal correspondence with the author, 22 January 2011. Chafe identifies 

that this approach, while applied successfully by two successive Dand District BSCs, 

one Canadian and one American, is not always applied consistently by every military 

commander. Matching actions in planning, mind-set, and conduct of operations to 

stated verbal support of civilian partners and COIN thinking is critical to ensuring 

that subordinates at all levels understand and apply the same principles in operations.

13. Eric Talmadge, “Passing the Torch: As US Starts Afghan Surge, Dug-in Canadians 

Plan Exit,” San Francisco Examiner, 6 February 2010, http://www.sfexaminer.com

/world/83714922.html.

14. Department of National Defence, Government of Canada, B-GL-323-004/FP003–Counter-Insurgency Operations (English) (Fort Frontenac, Kingston, Ontario: 

Army Publishing Office, 2008), 6A-3 defines atmospherics as “sense of the community.” 
A WHOLE GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS │ 235

In a practical context, atmospherics are the confluence of thoughts, feelings, attitudes, 

postures, perceptions, and general perspectives that are observed and felt during interaction. Atmospherics can often only be gauged effectively after protracted presence in 

a village, in order to separate first impressions from enduring attitudes and to understand their context. For example, children throwing stones at patrols may not be an 

indicator of hostility to local forces. Instead, it may be an indicator of a weak village 

leader that places less stock in proper respect for visitors than other village leaders. 

When forces become familiar with and accustomed to operating in a particular area, 

they become quite adept at gauging atmospherics and noting changes.

15. Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, “All Counterinsurgency Is Local,” 

The Atlantic, 1 October 2008, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/10

/all-counterinsurgency-is-local/306965/.

16. Many different elders and leaders repeated this complaint frequently during 

a series of security shuras throughout the district.

17. Kilcullen, “Twenty-Eight Articles,” 31, supports this principle through a distillation of lessons learned from other COIN experiences. Operations during Task 

Force 3-09’s deployment validated it.

18. Ward, “ ‘Model’ District No Safe Haven,” states that two suicide bombers attacked the Dand District Centre in March 2009, severely damaging the main building that is the seat of Afghan governance in the Dand District. On 30 December 

2010, an IED destroyed a Canadian vehicle less than 2,000 m from the district centre, 

killing five. Throughout 2009 and 2010, Dand District government and police officials were frequently threatened and targeted by attacks on several occasions.

19. A paper from the Naval Postgraduate School identifies that drinking chai 

(tea) is an important element of Afghan Pashto culture and a mark of honour and 

respect. Program for Culture and Conflict Studies, Department of National Security 

Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School, Operational Pashtunwali–Understanding Afghan 

Culture, Occasional Paper Series no. 1 (Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, 15 

June 2009), 4. 

20. This practice is reinforced at every level of army leadership training and is 

part and parcel of Canada’s current military culture.

21. Often these are collectively known as “key leaders.” Interactions with them 

are known as “key leader engagements.”

22. For reasons of operational security, names have been omitted; however, all 

accounts are factual, experienced personally by the author, and the information provided is taken from author’s notes.

Chapter 13

Peacebuilding

Germany’s Military Mission; The Soft Power Approach

and Civilian-Military Teaming

J. D. Bindenagel

In Afghanistan, and in other conflicts for the foreseeable future, 

the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to respond to 

unconventional and asymmetrical conflicts that will require a comprehensive approach by the military as well as civilian agencies. NATO’s 

success against such threats demands effective, complementary civilianmilitary operations combining hard and soft power.

The reluctance of Germany and other European allies to accept a 

leading combat role as part of their NATO commitment was at the 

root of the clash between American and European leaders on Afghanistan policy and had consequences for NATO’s strategic concept 

and Germany’s national security. Germany’s constitutional approach 

to the use of its Federal Defense Force, the Bundeswehr, emphasized 

the government’s commitment to protect human dignity. In other 

words, the Bundeswehr’s primary mission was not combat.

Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, explained her country’s reasons for deployment in Afghanistan in terms of policy and grand 

strategy objectives and necessary operations: “No development without security and no security without development—this mutual dependence we see everywhere.”1

The German parliamentary mandate, authorizing the participation of German soldiers in NATO’s International Security Assistance 

Force (ISAF), is based on United Nations Security Council (UNSC) 

Resolution 1386, which authorized the use of force against the Taliban. The German government allowed “all necessary means,” including the use of military force, to fulfill the United Nations (UN) mandate, providing and prioritizing for the protection of human rights. 

In principle, the UN mandate included combat against the Taliban 

and al-Qaeda. However, the German parliament interpreted the protection of human rights as a guarantee not to harm any civilians, so 

that, as a practical matter, German soldiers were constrained to use 
238 │ BINDENAGEL

defensive force only if they were attacked and in medical evacuation 

situations. Heavy weapons (self-propelled guns or mortars) left the 

German bases and did not support long-range patrols or reconnaissance missions. German airplanes were prohibited from engaging 

ground targets. The primary German goal was to assist ISAF in preparations to turn governing responsibilities over to the Afghan government.2

In other words, the Bundeswehr, the third-largest NATO troop 

contingent in Afghanistan, functioned almost exclusively in peacebuilding, reconstruction, and stabilization roles. The German public 

was deeply averse to the use of force by the Bundeswehr, and in response, the elected Bundestag (lower house of parliament) limited 

the Bundeswehr rules of engagement in combat roles, except under 

specific, narrowly defined parameters. Each Bundeswehr deployment 

depended on a mission-by-mission parliamentary approval decision, 

which had a political rather than military character. In the case of 

Afghanistan, the mandate explicitly limited the Bundeswehr to nonkinetic, peacebuilding operations and to force protection.

The United States came to expect relatively less combat contribution from Germany and other European allies. Steven Erlanger explained that the United States viewed Europe as a partner that was 

“not a problem for the [United States], but not much help either.”3

 In 

his farewell to NATO on 3 June 2011, Robert Gates, US secretary of 

defense, expressed his concern about the viability of NATO and its 

capacity to carry out combat and civilian-military operations, stating 

that “in the past, I’ve worried openly about NATO turning into a twotiered alliance: Between members who specialize in ‘soft’ humanitarian, development, peacekeeping and negotiation tasks, and those 

conducting the ‘hard’ combat missions. . . . [NATO is] here today. 

And it [the two-tiered system] is unacceptable.”4

 This farewell comment followed his address about NATO’s strategic concept in which 

he expressed concern about what he perceived to be demilitarization 

by European powers, even in the face of serious twenty-first-century 

threats. The collapse of the Dutch government in 2010 and the public 

opposition toward military deployments to Afghanistan in many European countries heightened his concern.5

As NATO incorporates new initiatives for civilian-military collaboration, lessons learned from German military deployments can 

help inform the debate from the tactical and operational level to help 

identify novel approaches to meet and defeat current and future 

threats to US security.
PEACEBUILDING │ 239

Germany’s Rules of Engagement in Afghanistan

and Lessons Learned

There is no doubt that the absence of a comprehensive German 

security strategy led to ambiguity in the political decision-making 

process on troop deployments. German history and domestic political conditions set the caveats for the Bundeswehr in NATO missions 

and raised the question of German willingness to use military force. 

Civilian nation-building was the primary military mission in NATO’s 

comprehensive approach deemed “networked security” (Vernetzte 

Sicherheit) for the Bundeswehr.

Since German reunification in 1990, German parliamentarians 

have voted repeatedly for Bundeswehr deployments in NATO and 

UN missions, slowly urging the German public to allow the 

Bundeswehr to be more involved militarily and even to accept a 

rapid-reaction military combat role in NATO operations. Looking 

forward, if NATO is to count on Germany as an effective ally during 

the next 20 years, German politicians will need to overcome public 

resistance and historical French, British, Polish, and Russian resistance to an expanded German combat role as well.

Deploying the Bundeswehr followed Germany’s political consensusbuilding process that decided the international deployments of the 

Bundeswehr on a case-specific basis, which took constitutional requirements and both historical and current circumstances into account. Peacebuilding through Vernetzte Sicherheit included civilian 

operations, functions which were described by Friedel Eggelmeyer in 

the Federal German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Magazine for Europe und International Affairs, including 

the following:

•  Civilian and military actors must work together in Afghanistan

in coordination with each other. Then (and only then) can they 

make achievements in development to improve living standards.

•  To achieve stability, peace, and security in conflict zones, the cooperation of military and civilian actors is imperative.

•  Through deployment in northern Afghanistan, German military

forces carry a special responsibility for security. At the same time, 

they support development policy, civilian reconstruction, and 

economic, social, and political development.
240 │ BINDENAGEL

•  Germany increased its investments in reconstruction efforts

from €200 million in 2008 to €430 million per year from 2010 

through 2013.6

As evidence of achievements in improving living standards in Afghanistan, the magazine cited several successes, including an increase 

in annual per capita income from $100 to $500, a 10-fold national 

revenue increase, and a reduction in child mortality rate by one-third. 

The German emphasis was on economic development, water and energy supply, elementary and primary education, and governance. Finally, the German Foreign Ministry assisted with other support efforts in the health sector, civil aviation, cultural preservation, and 

higher education. German civilian-military operations were in the 

areas of security assistance with the development of the Afghan army 

and police forces.

Germany’s Security Debate: From Militarism to 

Peacebuilding

It was important to track where Germany traveled in terms of military and security policy since it was reunified on 3 October 1990. 

Reunification restored full sovereignty and with it the duty to provide 

and protect Germany’s freedom and security as well as to promote 

prosperity for all its citizens, East and West. Reunified Germany kept 

its NATO membership and accepted the obligations of common defense of all other members.

There was to be no renationalization of security policy and no return to militarism. Germany remained in NATO and the European 

Union (EU), distancing its current politics from the past. This unconditional recognition of Germany’s ties to the West represented an important watershed in party politics. Meeting these military obligations was a serious turning point in Germany’s domestic politics and 

its security debate.7

 That security debate in reunited Germany has 

encompassed four important themes:

•  aversion to the use of force that comes from West Germany’s

culture of restraint;

•  territorial defense against the Soviet (Russian) and Warsaw Pact

threat; 

•  abhorrence of expeditionary combat missions; and
PEACEBUILDING │ 241

•  protecting, when vitally necessary, the inviolability of human

dignity under Article I of the constitution, the German Basic 

Law.8

In the debate over the use of force, Germany embraced the essence 

of the protection of human dignity, which embodied its raison d’être 

in the constitutional mandate of the Basic Law. The Basic Law set out 

legally binding language of basic rights: “Human dignity shall be inviolable and to respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority. The German people therefore acknowledge inviolable and 

inalienable human rights as the basis of every community, of peace 

and of justice in the world. . . . Basic rights shall bind the legislature; 

the unified Germany kept its NATO membership and accepted the 

obligations of common defense of all other members executive and 

the judiciary as directly applicable law.”9

Two considerations, remaining in NATO and repatriating Russian 

soldiers, dominated German security policy in the first four years following reunification. Obstacles to developing a usable security strategy come from West German traditions of pacifism, moralism, and 

resistance to the use of military force. The ideological motto that 

“never again shall war arise from German soil” (Nie wieder Krieg vom 

Deutschen Boden) was widely shared across the political spectrum 

and reflected the responsibility that weighed heavily on that generation of German leaders. A second set of traditions come from European integration, NATO membership, UN multilateralism, and political commitment to democratization, all of which have strengthened 

the belief in political solutions without the use of force.10

Germany’s relationship to Russia during World War II and the 

Cold War and the stationing of Russian soldiers in East Germany 

complicated the transformation of Germany’s new armed forces in 

NATO. When Germany combined the Bundeswehr with the East 

German armed forces, called the National People’s Army (Nationale 

Volksarmee, or NVA), the Soviet/Russian military was still stationed 

in the eastern part of reunited Germany. In the reunification agreement, Germany agreed to limit the number of soldiers in its combined 

military to 370,000 to emphasize its previous role in territorial defense 

and its determination not to move to aggressive combat missions.11

The Russians could be reassured Germany would not be aggressive 

against Russia, which remains a political theme today.
242 │ BINDENAGEL

Soviet forces remaining in the former East Germany led to delicate 

talks about how to manage the departure of all Soviet/Russian troops 

from the territory of the former German Democratic Republic after 

reunification. In the end, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, 

agreed to a four-year process of repatriation of Soviet forces, a decision foreshadowed by his UN speech in 1988 in which he stated that 

sovereign countries could decide on their own which alliances to 

join.12 Germany won agreement to repatriate all Russian soldiers 

from Germany by August 1994, which ended the Soviet/Russian military 

presence in Germany.

The Germans remember that their country was divided and occupied in their lifetimes as a result of the catastrophe of World War II. 

In reaching the agreement on repatriation, NATO agreed with Gorbachev not to move its forces eastward where Soviet forces were still 

stationed. Consequently, during the repatriation period, NATO refrained from deploying its forces on the territory of the former German Democratic Republic. Throughout the repatriation period, the 

territory was given special status, and only Bundeswehr-Ost, a territorial defense force of the new national army, was stationed there.

After reunification, German generals Klaus Naumann and Jörg 

Schönbohm were tasked with dissolving the East German army. General Schönbohm created the new Bundeswehr-Ost command with 

11,000 NVA officers, and other ranks were integrated into the 

Bundeswehr. In addition, Naumann and Schönbohm carried out the 

Bundeswehr reform, adapting the forces to new post–Cold War political and security requirements, as well as making them operational 

in the event of an international crisis.13 The NATO decision to station 

its forces in the eastern part of Germany would be delayed until the 

last Soviet soldiers departed Germany after reunification day (3 October 1990).14 In September 1994, NATO officially accepted the former East German territory, a former Warsaw Pact member, as its first 

new member.

Over time, the role of the Bundeswehr would be to develop component capabilities and train soldiers for crises. The new combined 

army would plan and train for missions, including 

•  territorial defense for sovereign Germany’s democracy;

•  NATO defense missions and contributionsfor crisis management;

•  early warning and analysis capabilities;
PEACEBUILDING │ 243

•  collective security missions beyond NATO;

•  interoperability and international cooperation; and

•  confidence-building, cooperation, and verification.15

The capability to take on these future missions that were intended 

to be achieved by 2000 would face an early challenge. The breakup of 

Yugoslavia demanded military force in 1991, almost a decade before 

2000. Germany’s culture of military restraint was soon tested when a 

bold act in 1991 led the way for international diplomatic recognition 

of Croatia and Slovenia, essentially turning the civil war into an interstate conflict in which European powers more or less took sides.16

That national push for internationalizing the war in Yugoslavia did 

not end the conflict. Rather, war and ethnic cleansing challenged the 

Germans to act. The limitations on the military role, which had 

grown strong, also dragged the United States into the conflict despite 

its lack of vital interests in the area. When Germany and the EU were 

unable to prevent the escalating military conflict, a bitter experience 

ensued for the United States, Germany, the EU, and the UN. This 

early transatlantic rift over deploying the military, including the authority to use force, continued in disputes over military capabilities 

and in debates about war, peacekeeping, and nation-building.

Military missions in the breakup of Yugoslavia were challenged, as 

noted above, in the Karlsruhe Constitutional Court, which decided 

on 12 July 1994, that German forces could participate in out-of-area 

NATO missions under the constitution. The high court decision 

came down during US Pres. Bill Clinton’s 1994 visit in Berlin.

When the United States learned of the high court decision that German soldiers could be deployed out of Germany but only as part of an 

alliance and with the explicit consent of the Bundestag, German chancellor Helmut Kohl, in his news conference with President Clinton, immediately declared that the decision did not mean that Germans were 

to be sent to the front. Nevertheless, the decision meant exactly that.17

A closer look at that court decision is warranted.

After the 1994 decision, the court set the rules for deployments. Although the court reasoned that the new strategic concept of NATO was 

not an amendment to the treaty and did not require a new parliamentary 

approval, deploying German soldiers was not a straightforward decision. The court relied on Article 24.2 of the Basic Law, which required 

that Germany’s deployments be part of a collective security system, 

and Article 59.2, which stipulated that the Bundestag must approve 
244 │ BINDENAGEL

the mutual collective security system.The Bundeswehr became a parliamentary army with this decision.

The next major political development came when NATO considered accepting new members. NATO enlargement would mean more 

German responsibility for its neighbors; however, that responsibility 

was again territorial defense, not a change in strategy toward expeditionary forces or force projection outside of Germany. President 

Clinton moved in 1996 to enlarge NATO and extend security guarantees to former Warsaw Pact countries. Chancellor Kohl was willing to 

support NATO enlargement in 1997 for Poland, Hungary, and the 

Czech Republic.18 The decision to help protect and defend those three 

countries was a major step in Germany’s acceptance of new security 

responsibilities in NATO.

Following the Dayton Accords in 1995, in which US ambassador 

Richard C. Holbrooke and German Foreign Office political director 

Wolfgang Ischinger played key roles, the German defense and foreign 

ministers led the way for the decision to deploy the Bundeswehr to 

Bosnia.19 The Bundestag subsequently decided on requests for 

Bundeswehr logistics and support troops in Bosnia, approving the 

use of Panavia Tornado electronic combat/reconnaissance aircraft in 

support of combat missions and eventually infantry on the ground. 

By 1997 US Army general William Crouch, the Stabilization Force 

commander, chose a Bundeswehr general to be his chief of staff.20

Naming a German general to the chain of command, with decision 

making authority over combat missions, was a critical political step 

in the developing German security policy, but the German public still 

met it with skepticism.

Protecting the inviolability of human dignity would take center 

stage with the NATO decision to intervene militarily in Kosovo to end 

ethnic cleansing. Madeleine Albright, US secretary of state, and Joschka 

Fischer, German foreign minister, led the debate, and the decision was 

reached, with other European allies, to authorize NATO to bomb in 

Kosovo. That humanitarian/military intervention ended Serbian leader 

Slobodan Milosevic’s genocidal campaign of ethnic cleansing.

Already in October 1998, NATO authorized Operation Eagle Eye, an 

aerial surveillance in which 350 Bundeswehr soldiers were to participate 

and for which the German government sought Bundestag approval.21

On 25 February 1999, the Bundestag debated and approved a German contribution to international troops for Kosovo that would be 

under NATO command. Protecting the inviolability of human dignity 
PEACEBUILDING │ 245

took center stage with the NATO decision to intervene militarily in 

Kosovo to end ethnic cleansing. This vote laid the foundation for 

Bundeswehr participation in Kosovo Force (KFOR). From January to 

March 1999, the conflict intensified, and the UN Security Council 

condemned the Racak massacre—in which Serbian troops killed 

some 45 Albanians. On 18 March 1999, the Kosovar, American, and 

British delegations attending a peace conference just outside of Paris, 

which aimed to avoid war in Kosovo, signed the Rambouillet Accords, calling for the Yugoslavian government to grant Kosovo a wide 

degree of autonomy. The Russian and Serbian delegations staunchly 

rejected the proposed peace agreement. Consequently, to enforce the 

accords and in an all-out effort to end Serbian ethnic cleansing in 

Kosovo, NATO conducted a bombing campaign against Serbian 

forces from 22 March to 11 June 1999. This was the first time since 

World War II that the Luftwaffe, the German air force, participated 

directly in combat missions.

There was no formal declaration of war by NATO; instead, the 

bombing was characterized as a military action to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. The Serbs withdrew, KFOR entered Kosovo on 3 

June 1999, and the conflict ended on 11 June 1999.22 The effort to 

define German security interests advanced in April 1999 when the 

German Foreign Office stated the following objectives for the operations in the Kosovo crisis:

•  bringing violent ethnic conflicts under control as a precondition

for lasting stability throughout Europe;

•  preventing migration caused by poverty, war, and civil war;

•  getting democracy, human rights, and minority rights to take

root as a goal of a foreign policy guided by values;

•  building up market economies with stable growth to reduce the

prosperity gap in Europe;

•  creating economic interests (expandable market outlets and investment sites); and

•  establishing cooperation and credibility for international organizations in which Germany plays an active role (EU, NATO, 

Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe [OSCE], 

and UN).23
246 │ BINDENAGEL

The consequences for the German security debate were important. 

After that aggressive use of force in Kosovo, the German slogan “Nie 

Wieder Auschwitz” (Never Again Auschwitz) took on a new meaning: 

Germany had to use force to prevent genocide.24 The old motto that 

“no war could be allowed to emanate again from German soil” was 

no longer sufficient to protect human dignity, end ethnic cleansing, 

or prevent war. Acting with NATO in the aggressive use of force, Germany was true to its postwar constitutional mandate to protect the 

inviolability of human dignity. This humanitarian military intervention led to the UN Principle of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), 

which allowed international military intervention to prevent genocide, 

ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

The Twenty-First-Century Bundeswehr Goes Global

At the time of writing this chapter, the Bundeswehr’s Afghanistan 

mandate and German security debate had not yet led to a new German security strategy. The sad fact is that after Gerhard Schröder, 

former German chancellor, said no to deployments in Iraq, German 

politicians conflated Iraq with Afghanistan, which confused the 

threat assessment, leaving the public with the view that Afghanistan 

was more of a civilian development project than a war. Understanding the difficulties of civilian reconstruction and development in Afghanistan has also been badly underestimated. Defining a civilian 

role for some countries that have well-functioning institutional systems that could partly be used for rebuilding was critical for defining 

the mission, and Afghanistan had virtually no governing institutions, 

no civil society, no civic organizations, or any grassroots customs. 

That difficult challenge called for long-term commitment, but the 

government was looking for a way to turn over governance responsibility to the Afghans and withdraw its soldiers rather than debate 

complex operations and change the rules of engagement, which 

would have allowed more aggressive combat operations. German 

politicians who sent soldiers to war and then limited them to civilian 

operations did the soldiers no favor.

Another conflict in the German role in Afghanistan arose in September 2009 when Bundeswehr colonel Georg Klein called in a 

NATO airstrike against a group of Taliban who had hijacked two fuel 

trucks in Kunduz, intending to use the trucks as bombs against the 
PEACEBUILDING │ 247

German troops. Klein popped the illusory bubble that Germany was 

not at war. The Kunduz attack changed the debate; Germans in Afghanistan were at war, and war was rejected by a significant majority 

of Germans at home. After the Kunduz attack, which took place in 

the midst of the September 2009 German election campaign, Chancellor Merkel had to intervene in the parliamentary debate with a 

statement to the Bundestag. That statement effectively shut down the 

Afghanistan debate during the election campaign at a time when approximately 60 percent of Germans wanted an immediate withdrawal. The Financial Times reported on 23 February 2010 that 56 

percent of those polled believed the NATO mission would fail and 

nearly 70 percent called for withdrawal.25

The new mandate’s rules of engagement only allowed the 

Bundeswehr to be stationed in the ISAF regions of Kabul and the 

northern provinces (Faryab, Sar-e Pol, Jowzjan, Balkh, Samangan, 

Kunduz, Takhar, and Badakshan).26 Recognizing that the most intense fighting was in the south, the mandate did allow the Bundeswehr 

to deploy in other regions for a limited time for missions that ISAF 

itself could not fulfill. It also allowed the Luftwaffe to fly Tornado 

aircraft in surveillance missions in all ISAF areas. The underlying reasoning that was acceptable to the Bundestag was that the new strategy 

was designed to prepare for withdrawal of German troops. Guido 

Westerwelle, German foreign minister, explained the goal of withdrawal by 2014 as Afghan president Hamid Karzai had proposed. 

Germany’s mission was to enable a responsible handover to the Afghan government, which was critical in allowing the withdrawal of 

German soldiers. Germany’s mission in Afghanistan was designed to 

prevent attacks on Western values from terrorists in Afghanistan, to 

demonstrate solidarity with the international community, and to participate in the UN-mandated mission there as carried out by NATO.27

The German military mission as part of ISAF was also clear: to 

ensure security of Bundeswehr forces, to prevent Afghanistan from 

becoming a safe haven for terrorists, and to fulfill constitutional obligations to fellow human beings. The focus of the debate was whether 

German reliance on civilian operations and US reliance on military 

operations could lead to a joint strategy and integrated operations. 

Even without an articulated national strategy, on 26 February 2010, the 

Bundestag approved a new mandate for continuing the deployment of 

German soldiers to Afghanistan as part of ISAF. Lawmakers voted 

429 to 111 with 46 abstentions to increase the number of soldiers allowed 
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to serve from 4,500 to 5,350.28 The numerical increase, however, came 

with politically necessary operational conditions. To secure sufficient 

votes, German leaders had to emphasize the civilian reconstruction 

efforts and minimize aspects of the mission authorizing combat operations. The new mandate’s rules of engagement allowed the 

Bundeswehr to be stationed only in the ISAF regions of Kabul and 

the northern provinces.

Public support in early 2010 for sending more soldiers to the 

Hindu Kush Mountains in Afghanistan was weak: only 25 percent 

favored the decision, while 69 percent opposed it.29 The collapse of 

the Dutch government in the wake of disagreement about Afghanistan could have caused a political ripple effect and reduced or eliminated support for the mission in other European countries. A consensus between German elite and public opinion did not exist, and 

Germany, above all, had to convince its public that the mission in 

Afghanistan served the vital collective security interests of the country 

and its European partners.

The Future of German Military and Civilian Roles

As Robert Gates intimated, a comprehensive approach toward 

civilian-military teams is needed to ensure that NATO can succeed. 

Such operations will likely play an increasingly important role in 

NATO strategy that combines civilian and military operations to 

fight the wars of the twenty-first century. While Germany has not 

articulated a comprehensive national security strategy, it has, after 20 

years, defined its first principles. Politically, and through the high 

court, Berlin has affirmed its willingness to act militarily in solidarity 

within its alliances, NATO, EU, and UN. It will remain mindful of 

Russian interests in light of agreements on reunification and according to national interests. While responding to Germany’s singularly 

focused approach to complex operations and the nation’s aversion to 

the use of force must be adjusted to overcome resistance from its citizens and its neighbors to its alliance obligations, the Bundeswehr will 

retain its territorial defense mission. Its aversion to the use of force 

supports its priority to provide training, civilian reconstruction, and 

stabilization operations. Germany will use force to protect victims of 

genocide and to prevent crimes against humanity, war crimes, and 
PEACEBUILDING │ 249

ethnic cleansing. It will not support the use of force in preemptive 

attacks, such as the invasion of Iraq.

It will take time for the German Bundestag to fully accept the adage of Frederick the Great: “Diplomacy without arms is like a concert 

without a score.”30 The Germans at reunification kept their full membership in NATO and have deployed the Bundeswehr in out-of-area 

missions to Cambodia, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Congo, and Afghanistan.31 Germany has maintained its strategic vision, if not a fully 

developed national strategy. In other words, Germany’s aversion to 

military force and belief that military force alone cannot solve security issues in the twenty-first century are twin positions that have 

broad public support in Europe; however, that does not mean Germany is demilitarizing. Debates such as those over involvement in 

Afghanistan need to address the political will to use military force as 

a last resort to protect vital interests, as was done in Kosovo.

Volker Rühe, German defense minister from 1992 to 1998, from 

the beginning of his time in office made clear that Germany must 

live up to its growing international role and that the Bundeswehr 

would be deployed if the UN asked for it to do so, as it did in Somalia and Cambodia.32

In Afghanistan, as noted in US Army Field Manual (FM) 3–24, 

Counterinsurgency, the primary objective of counterinsurgency 

(COIN) was to foster effective governance by legitimate government.33

NATO policy should immediately aim to develop local legitimacy 

through a combination of civilian and military teams. When the 

NATO mission finishes, the use of force should be transferred from 

NATO to the Afghan government. Unless it has the consent of the 

governed, Afghanistan is likely to again become a failed state.

A forceful argument could be made that an approach different 

from centralized governance in the region is desperately needed. The 

Afghanistan-Pakistan region was one primarily of ethnic groups that 

wanted to govern themselves separately (as warlords, tribal leaders, 

and princes). These ethnic groups continue to largely reject the exclusive control of the central government in Kabul. Without legitimacy, 

the Kabul government will fall back on coercion against regional 

powers and will likely cooperate with the Taliban to use its own military force to maintain power when NATO departs.

Legitimacy for the Afghan government and NATO’s success in Afghanistan will likely be based on shared power among local leaders 

who can form the basis for sustainable governance in Afghan society. 
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Good governance might be possible if the Karzai government can 

share power with (devolve power to) local leaders. A decision by the 

Afghans to convene a loya jirga (grand council) to decide to share 

power between Kabul and regionally antonymous leaders would be a 

powerful tool for NATO. Such a grand council could examine the 

role of the central government, decide on changes that would devolve 

power to local leaders, and establish a balanced power-sharing relationship with the presidency in Kabul. Unfortunately, at the time of 

this analysis, the constitution does not genuinely command deep 

support and cannot contribute to national stability in that form; thus, 

NATO needs to be able to transfer power to Afghans to ensure their 

own security.

COIN doctrine in FM 3-24 addresses unity of effort when integrating civilian and military activities at the operational level. This 

integration for operations in the field also provides a template for 

integrating at the policy level. However, over the past few decades, 

civilian agencies of the US government have lost the capacity to deliver civilian projects. Although efforts such as the creation of the 

Department of State’s Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction 

and Stabilization began the process of internal capacity-building, 

those efforts take years. In the meantime, European and especially 

German civilian capabilities can be integrated into US kinetic and 

nonkinetic operations, as called for in the field manual.

As NATO forged a common transatlantic policy on Afghanistan 

and complex operations, the United States had to continue to look to 

Europe and to Germany in particular. They were the partners the 

United States came to expect to help secure peace in Afghanistan. 

Berlin could have led the policy debate to integrate NATO complex 

reconstruction and stabilization projects, while Washington could 

have taken the lead in shaping the consensus on training and operating joint combat operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Yet 

both also needed to engage fully in combat and noncombat roles in 

all their complexities. As long as US special forces in Kunduz did not 

train jointly with the Bundeswehr forces stationed there, NATO 

missed an opportunity for greater combat-readiness and integration. 

Likewise, civilian-military forces could also be integrated in reconstruction and peacebuilding projects.

Overcoming the German public’s residual aversion to the use of 

force is difficult but necessary, if Germany is to accept full NATO 

engagement. The German public has understood and accepted the 
PEACEBUILDING │ 251

importance of collective actions and the collective security purpose 

of the alliance. German leaders should act more boldly to guide the 

public discussion and persuade the general public of the necessary 

adjustments to the security strategy, which genuinely serve German 

and European interests. The Bundestag, noting the principle of solidarity with the NATO strategy of collective defense and German interest in stability and reconstruction in Afghanistan, should likely 

continue to support the deployment and might also approve rules of 

engagement required for joint military operations. NATO’s goal, after 

all, was to turn over these missions to the Afghans, and that goal was 

to be achieved in 2014. From my own experience in the Third Infantry Division, I believe that unless operations are jointly planned, 

trained for, and executed, they remain separate and thereby weakened and undermined in effectiveness.

Finally, German political leaders need to summon the political 

will to confront the German public with the reality of the need to use 

force to defend German interests, while continuing to provide development assistance. Likewise, the US government needs to confront 

its public with the need to fund civilian agencies to build US capacity 

for civilian projects. One such project might include the establishment of joint US–German brigades to support a common two-track, 

but unified, combat and complex operations operational force. Such 

a capacity would follow policies and operations for joint, dual-hatted, 

civilian-military missions that could lead to a security strategy sustained by both publics.

NATO has placed primary responsibility for nation-building operations in the hands of civilian agencies and left the Bundeswehr 

with primary roles focused on force protection and coordination of 

nongovernmental organization (NGO) and development agency efforts. Germany’s military operation, as part of NATO, was filled with 

caveats on military/combat operations that conflicted with its obligations for greater involvement in COIN operations.

Germany’s constitutional ruling on the need for Bundestag mandates for German forces to be deployed abroad will not change. The 

Bundeswehr could be deployed in complex operations, but they will 

still need a parliamentary mandate to deploy. However, for the German development ministry, police, and other civilian agencies, there 

is no such restriction.34 In Afghanistan, following the turnover of 

combat missions to the Afghan army, peacebuilding missions required 

collaboration among international military and civilian components 
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and local populations. One approach to such civilian-military missions 

could be served by exploring civilian-military concordance theory and 

targeted partnerships, which Rebecca Schiff argues create a temporary 

and synergistic collaboration of civilian and military boundaries. Targeted partnership is a short-term distillation of concordance theory 

that offers the opportunity for policy makers and military leadership to 

achieve nation-building objectives that marshal diverse civilian and 

military perspectives in a protected space of dialogue and encourage 

discourse leading to effective policy and military strategy. Targeted 

partnership does not superimpose a Western-bound civilian-military 

relationship on a host nation’s indigenous cultures and institutions. 

The ultimate goal is to achieve concordance in Afghanistan, where 

agreement between political elites, military, and citizenry can occur 

among the four concordance indicators: 1) officer corps composition, 

2) political decision-making process, 3) recruitment method, and 4) 

military style. Concordance among these four indicators results in 

broad institutional and cultural agreement regarding the purpose 

and role of the Afghan armed forces. Targeted partnership is a distillate form of concordance theory and provides policy architecture and 

mediation within the political decision-making process indicator 

that can be augmented during the state-building process.

One of the lessons of ISAF is that the deployed force did not have 

the civilian reconstruction and stabilization capacity that was needed 

in the Afghanistan conflict.35 Schiff suggested in her targeted partnership theory that nation-building conditions may have met limitations 

that required more fluidity among the concordance partners, especially with respect to a nation’s decision-making process. This process 

referred to the specific channels that determined the needs, allocation, and strategic direction of the military such as budget and materials, military size and structure, and military strategy. While the decision-making process involved the citizens empowering political 

elites who in turn oversaw these military decisions, situations often 

called for the chain of command to be more like a “chain of collaboration.” Organizing the Afghan military and police, NGOs, and other 

civilian agencies therefore primarily required a worldview that was 

not focused on US- and Western-bound, civilian-military separations.36

In Afghanistan, civilian-military separations in policy planning or 

a unique blend of military and society roles determine the composition and role of the armed forces. The overarching objective is to 

achieve concordance among the political elites, the military, and the 
PEACEBUILDING │ 253

local citizenry as well as the political elite and military with respect to 

the mission and role of the armed forces. One practical way to achieve 

concordance was to encourage dialogue and interaction among military and civilian actors who took these opportunities toward achieving specific goals regardless of their traditional roles in society. Schiff 

suggested that targeted partnership brought these players together, as 

often as needed, while embracing indigenous institutional and cultural differences. ISAF military officers and German police officers, 

for example, may have needed to partner on common ground in order to attain and implement objectives that efficiently defined and 

coalesced these important institutions within the context of the Afghan political and cultural landscape. While specific roles may have 

evolved for civilian and military institutions, targeted partnership 

encouraged these roles to be redefined through the deliberate institutionalization of spaces fostering dialogue and reconciliation.

One example of this policy-level partnership idea for civilian-military 

collaboration is the double-hatted German provincial reconstruction 

team (PRT) deploying foreign office officials as the partner for the 

military commander, similar to other PRT teams. The German diplomats were tasked with creating reconstruction and stabilization programs and with coordination of civilian German NGO programs to 

strengthen governance in Afghanistan. Soldiers were not familiar 

with or trained to control and monitor civilian development agency 

or NGO projects. The experts in those projects come from the German civilian agencies such as the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development or the Association for International Cooperation (Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit [GIZ]). As a 

German federal enterprise, GIZ supported the German government 

in achieving its objectives in the field of international cooperation for 

sustainable development.

Military engineers and patrols drew from the Bundeswehr experience in the Balkans (Stabilization Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina 

and KFOR), and coordinated with village leaders to conduct security 

operations and some small-scale development projects. Lacking civilian capacity, the military has had some mission creep and has 

taken on some reconstruction tasks, particularly with local construction companies. The collaboration with local construction made it 

easier to transfer credit for road or bridge construction to the local 

government. NATO should have established the civilian chain of command in this structure. At the time of this analysis, only the military 
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chain of command rose from the PRT to the top German commanders in the ISAF area of operations.37 At each command level down to 

the PRT, the field officers needed to have the authority to report to 

both the civilian and military senior officers without resorting to the 

stovepiping that traditionally occurs.38 Temporary comingling of military and civilian forces with clear lines of authority would allow success in terms of the objectives and necessary operations set out by 

Chancellor Merkel.39

Implications for German Security Policy—Military 

Intervention in Libya

The Afghanistan experience with limited German combat operations has implications for the future of German expeditionary deployments. One case in point is Germany’s struggle to understand 

and to define its global responsibilities and leadership during the 

2009–2011 Euro Crisis and the war in Afghanistan when confronted 

with obligations under the UN principles of the R2P in Libya with its 

NATO allies. The political debate in Germany has taken the country’s 

policy discourse through more turns than a stock car racetrack. 

Tracking Germany’s direction is confusing, not only in its Afghanistan deployments. German decisions in the Libya case raised fundamental questions about whether, how, and when Germany will be 

prepared to act militarily in support of the UN, NATO, or the EU.

In the Libya case, Germany abstained on the UN Security Council 

vote on UNSC Resolution 1973, which served as the legal foundation 

for international armed intervention in the Libyan civil war. The resolution passed. However, Germany’s de facto “no” vote and its subsequent decision to withdraw its naval warships from NATO operations 

in the Mediterranean created doubts about Germany’s willingness to 

use legitimate military force to protect the inviolability of human dignity in concert with its allies. These decisions seem self-interested national concerns rather than being in the broader interests of transatlantic relations. Germany’s actions have raised the question of its role 

in NATO as a partner in security and defense policy.

Protecting Libyans from genocide would have been consistent 

with Germany’s constitutional commitment to protect human dignity and UN principles of R2P. There was no doubt Mu‘ammar Gadhafi’s threat to kill his own countrymen was credible. His bombing of 
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the Berlin La Belle Disco in 1986, which killed a woman and two US 

service members and injured more than 230 people and the downing 

of Pan Am Flight 103 with his approval were acts of terror. The call 

from the UN and the Arab nations to protect Libyans demonstrated 

the broad validity of his threat and urgency to counter it. Germany’s 

insistence on a political solution and claims that in Libya there could 

be “no military solution” negatively contributed to the strain in 

NATO solidarity that stressed the alliance.40 The German decision 

was not understandable or acceptable to its NATO allies and the debate continues over German security policy.

In the future, NATO needs effective stability and reconstruction capabilities to implement its comprehensive approach. In the report Alliance Reborn: An Atlantic Compact for the 21st Century, Daniel Hamilton and his team at the Washington NATO Project note that “although 

many of the necessary capabilities—civilian as well as military—exist 

within the EU, NATO and the Partnership for Peace, they are not 

organized into deployable assets that can provide cohesive, effective 

response.”41 Hamilton and company called for a NATO Stabilization 

and Reconstruction Force (SRF) to work with the EU, NATO, UN, 

and OSCE to form a multinational security support component. The 

SRF would organize, train, and engage the military and police with 

reconstructing government institutions, economies, and infrastructure.42 Once there is sufficient consensus within NATO on the tasks 

defining military stabilization and reconstruction operations, it 

should establish such operations as a core NATO mission on par with 

major combat operations and establish appropriate responsibilities.43

The development of an SRF could improve Bundeswehr effectiveness 

through deeper military integration within the EU and NATO, and 

deeper integration is needed.

The Bundeswehr’s missions—combat, police and leadership training, 

stabilization measures, logistics, and civilian-military cooperation—

were certainly supportive of the ISAF mission. However, two parallel 

tracks were not amenable to joint operations and poorly supported 

each other. German armed forces need to be fully integrated in military operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda as well as in complex reconstruction, stabilization, and government capacity-building 

activities. The Afghanistan mandate certainly highlighted the differences between the US and German approaches to the use of force, 

planning, personnel recruiting, provision of adequate equipment, 

and training for the implementation of complex operations. A reluctance 
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to use military force diminished the continental European contributions to common strategy and joint operations. 

Another avenue to explore would be to have NATO focus on Germany’s nonkinetic role in complex operations and consider embedding civilian-military capabilities in maneuver enhancement brigades 

(MEB) in stabilization operations.44 MEB elements could play an important role in achieving some of these objectives. They could combine the combat role for COIN and a capacity-building unit integrated 

in the command structure to coordinate civilian agencies and capabilities. MEBs might conduct initial triage and minor repairs to critical infrastructure. As soon as possible, the MEB should hand off to an 

engineer brigade such as the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) 

and government agencies.45 Engineer brigades can coordinate for 

specialized engineer elements, facilitate engineer detachments, power 

specialists, and USACE Field Force Engineering assets. They can link 

back to USACE centers and laboratories using “tele-engineering” capabilities. To support complex or extended missions, the MEB would 

require theater assets to augment capabilities. With civil affairs augmentation, the maneuver MEB’s engineers, military police, security, 

and other elements would conduct civil military operations and hand 

off to local agencies.46

Collaboration with NGOs and the host society is an additional 

critical operational element of a targeted partnership strategy to 

achieve civilian-military objectives. For example, the US Army V 

Corps has established these civilian-military objectives that call for 

targeted partnerships:

•  create a secure environment (establish civil order, eliminate arms

caches/paramilitary threats, and train security personnel); 

•  facilitate establishment of local governments (to include leadership, infrastructure, bureaucracy, schools); [and]

•  support economic developments (identify local and regional

economic centers of gravity; restore utilities, healthcare, food 

distribution, and public services; and develop commerce and financial institutions).47

On the force protection and combat side, the experience in Afghanistan could cause European NATO allies to come to grips with the inadequacy of their military capability and insufficiency of their military 

equipment to conduct effective twenty-first-century missions. This is 
PEACEBUILDING │ 257

cautious optimism. In that case, they might begin to take steps to address structural problems.

Germany’s change to an all-volunteer military, its expeditionary 

force, and its reorganization of the command structure away from a 

territorial defense posture to a twenty-first-century force is a change 

that warrants cautious optimism. As one example of the modernization, the Bundeswehr is phasing out the Mercedes-Benz Wolf-class 

armored personnel carrier (APC), which is vulnerable to improvised 

electronic device attacks, as German soldiers discovered when engaged in conflict in Afghanistan. 

The German government has begun to modernize its forces as 

well. They have purchased many new armored vehicles, including the 

newest versions of Mercedes-Benz Enok light armor patrol vehicles; 

Krauss-Maffei Wegmann Dingo 2 mine-resistant, ambush-protected 

vehicles; Multi-A-4FSA heavy transport trucks; and the heavily armored MOWAG Eagle IV APCs. Since the end of May 2011, the 

Bundeswehr has replaced many aging and inadequate Wolf-class 

APCs and Hägglunds Bandvagn (BV) 206 small unit support vehicles 

with the Eagle IV. In addition to the Eagle IV, many Dingo 2 and 

Enok vehicles have also deployed in-theatre. Finally, in addition to 

these improved combat capabilities, the German military closed a 

deal to send more and newer salvage and towing vehicles into Afghanistan, which will help to return damaged vehicles back to service 

more quickly.48

Conclusion

For many contemporary security challenges, including Afghanistan, singular emphasis on either military/combat or on civilian operations alone will fail. A two-track (not two-tiered) approach—combat and civilian-military operations—is imperative. Germany’s 

foreign policy approach has focused on being a peace builder in the 

EU and in NATO. German military and security policy has evolved 

during the 20 years since the country was reunified, including during 

the 12 years in Afghanistan. Germany won broad support among political elites, but not widespread popular support for Bundeswehr 

missions, by unequivocally putting civil operations ahead of warfighting ones, which need not tend toward the two-tiered NATO that 

Secretary Gates warned against. The security posture of Germany has 
258 │ BINDENAGEL

had a positive, if not linear, trajectory over the past two decades, and 

civilian-military contributions support that cautious optimism of 

Bundeswehr deployments.

Germany has built its policy on its reliability and commitment to 

respect for human dignity and the rule of law. This redefinition of 

Germany embedded in Western values came only after the end of a 

devastating world war and the Holocaust. Following World War II, 

West Germany fought the twin demons of Prussian militarism and of 

the “Final Solution” that led to the Holocaust. The rejection of Prussian militarism resulted in a reshaped security policy, deeply rooted 

in an alliance-based, territorial defense role for the Bundeswehr, 

committed to Innere Fuehrung—introspection—totally different 

from earlier German armies, paired with an obligation under the Basic Law for the respect for human dignity and democratic values. Although the Balkan wars of the 1990s challenged united Germany’s 

defensive security policy and necessitated that the German military 

deploy out of NATO’s area (but under the auspices of the NATO alliance) to end ethnic cleansing, Germany has fulfilled the obligation to 

protect innocent lives with forceful military intervention. When the 

wars in Yugoslavia broke the country apart and the Serbs perpetrated 

genocide against the Bosnians and Kosovars, Germany rose up in defense of human life.

When, however, Gadhafi’s threat to annihilate innocent civilians 

like “rats” and to use military forces for murder was not sufficient for 

Germany to act under a legitimate UN R2P resolution, which was 

also supported by the Arab League and other Arabs, it raised the 

question of how great a humanitarian threat is needed to mobilize 

German politicians. Leadership that relies on public opinion polls at 

the expense of principles is destined to fail.

Germany’s decisions in the Libya case were quite baffling; leaders 

seem to have gone totally against their governing philosophy, and the 

decision conflicted with past German support for the multilateral operations of NATO and the UN—institutions that have been pillars of 

German foreign policy. The political decisions taken against the Libyan humanitarian intervention have raised issues of policy reversal 

and possible retrenchment that have undermined and done longterm damage to Germany’s reputation for reliability.49

Recognizing that the primacy of politics is essential to obtain support for NATO, provincialism and isolationism may be tempting 

policy choices, but they would be wrong. Germany’s leadership had 
PEACEBUILDING │ 259

made the country’s role predictable, but after Libya it was no longer 

so.50 As stated at the beginning of this discussion, Germany’s constitutional approach to the use of the Bundeswehr emphasized the government’s commitment to protect human dignity. That emphasis on 

stability and reconstruction operations and the US emphasis on combat 

missions strikes to the heart of the disagreement between the United 

States and its allies, and it threatens to build a two-tiered alliance. In 

any case, it is just such capabilities in policing, rule of law, civil administration, and civil protection that fit well with German constitutional requirements, while it shuns combat military engagements.

Germany will define its comprehensive role to meet the threats of 

the twenty-first century and its engagement with NATO’s comprehensive approach. If peacebuilding is Germany’s military mission, 

how German leaders operationalize their soft power approach and 

civilian-military teaming will determine NATO’s capacity to carry 

out combat and civilian-military operations. This is the opportunity 

for Germany to dispel Secretary Gate’s concern that NATO might 

turn into a two-tiered alliance between members who specialize in 

soft humanitarian, development, peacekeeping, and negotiation tasks 

and those conducting the hard combat missions.

Notes

1. Angela Merkel, “Speech by Angela Merkel, Chancellor of the Federal Republic 

of Germany” (speech, High-Level Plenary Meeting of the UN General Assembly on 

the Millennium Development Goals, New York, 21 September 2010), http://www

.un.org/en/mdg/summit2010/debate/DE_en.pdf.

2. Presse-und Informationsstab BMVg., “Überblick: Befügnisse der Soldaten in 

Afghanistan,” Bundeswehr, 24 August 2010, http://www.bundeswehr.de/portal/a

/bwde/!ut/p/c4/FcxBDoMwDETRE9Xes-MUFHZOGFJLxCAcQOL0uJrd19

PwxDGTS4s03UxW_vKYtUs3pXsGQc0F7QFVdQ8BI3VZaMbZPP9wJGg7pFD

CchYLBB7-p3vEKjza9skSkPda-xcEuaAl/.

3. Steven Erlanger, “Europeans Woo U.S., Promising Relevance,” New York Times, 28 

March 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/world/europe/29europe.html?_r=0.

4. Robert M. Gates, “The Security and Defense Agenda (Future of NATO)” 

(speech, Brussels, Belgium, 10 June 2011), http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech

.aspx?speechid=1581.

5. Robert M. Gates, “Remarks at NATO Strategic Concept Seminar, National Defense University” (speech, National Defense University, Washington, DC, 23 February 

2010), http://www.defense.gov/Speeches/Speech.aspx?SpeechID=1423.

6. Friedel Eggelmeyer, “Vernetzte Sicherheit in Afghanistan,” Magazin für Europa 

und Internationales (Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, 
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Federal Government of Germany), January 2011, http://www.bundesregierung.de

/Content/DE/Namensbeitrag/2011/01/2011-01-26-eggelmeyer-emag.html.

7. Wolfgang-Uwe Friedrich, Wolfgang Ischinger, and Rudolf Scharping, “The Legacy of Kosovo: German Politics and Policies in the Balkans,” German Issues 22 (2000), 

http://www.aicgs.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011 /11/legacy_of_kosovo.pdf.

8. Deutscher Bundestag, “The Basic Law Is Germany’s Constitution as Promulgated by the Parliamentary Council on May 23, 1949, and Amended as of June 2008,” 

https://www.btg-bestellservice.de/pdf/80201000.pdf.

9. Ibid.

10. Sebastian Harnisch and Hanns Maull, Germany as a Civilian Power? The Foreign Policy of the Berlin Republic (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 

2001), 21.

11. Klaus Naumann, Die Bundeswehr in einer Welt im Umbruch (Munich, Germany: Siedler Verlag, 1994), 169.

12. Jack F. Matlock Jr., Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended (New 

York: Random House, 2004), 307.

13. Jörg Schönbohm, Zwei Armeen und ein Vaterland: das Ende der Nationalen 

Volksarmee (Berlin, Germany: Siedler Verlag, 1992), 170.

14. Naumann, Die Bundeswehr in einer Welt, 170.

15. Ibid., 171–72.

16. Reinhard Bettzeuge, Aussenpolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Dokumente von 1949 bis 1994 (Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany: Verlag Wissenschaft und 

Politik, 1995), 853.

17. US President William Clinton and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl (press 

conference, Berlin, Germany, 12 July 1994).

18. Ronald D. Asmus, Opening NATO’s Door: How the Alliance Remade Itself for 

a New Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002).

19. Ulrich Weisser, Strategie als Berufung: Erinnerungen und Gedanken eines Offiziers an der Nahtstelle zur Politik (Bonn, Germany: Bouvier Verlag Bonn, 2011), 188.

20. William Crouch, interview with author, Baden-Baden, Germany, April 1997.

21. Friedrich et al., “The Legacy of Kosovo,” 14.

22. Ibid., 35.

23. Ibid., 36.

24. Author’s evaluation.

25. Quentin Peel, “European Nations United over Dutch Withdrawal,” Financial 

Times, 23 February 2010, 14; and Fred Pleitgen, “NATO’s Third Largest Force in Afghanistan Changing Its Strategy,” Afghanistan Crossroad (blog), CNN.com, 2 February 

2010, http://afghanistan.blogs.cnn.com/2010/02/02/natos-third-largest-force-in-afghanis

tan-changing-its-strategy.

26. German Bundestag [Parliament] publication, Drucksache 17/819, 17. Wahlperiod, Deutscher Bundestag, 25 February 2010.

27. Ibid.

28. “New Mandate for Afghanistan Engagement—Focus on Training and Protection,” Regierung Online, 9 February 2010, http://www.bundesregierung.de/nn_6538

/Content/EN/Artikel/2010/02/2010-02-09-neues-afghanistanmandat__en.html.
PEACEBUILDING │ 261

29. “Regierung in der Kritik—Grüne auf Rekordniveau Guido Westerwelle rutscht 

auf Beliebtheitsskala weiter ab,” Forschungsgruppe Wahlen e.V. Politbarometer, 26 February 2010, 4, http://www.forschungsgruppewahlen.de/Aktuelles/Politbarometer.

30. Leslie H. Gelb, Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 7.

31. Martin Herzog, “‘We Had to Start from Scratch’—Fifty Years Ago, West Germany Established a New Army, the Bundeswehr,” Atlantic Times, November 2005, 

http://www.atlantic-times.com/archive_detail.php?recordID =348; and Stephen Watts, 

“A Certain Kind of Normal: Germany’s Military Operations Abroad,” American Council 

on Germany, http://www.acgusa.org/userfiles/A%20Certain%20Kind%20of%20Normal,

%20by%20Stephen%20 Watts.pdf.

32. Weisser, Strategie als Berufung, 181.

33. US Army Field Manual (FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency, June 2006.

34. Jörg Schönbohm, interview with the author, Berlin, Germany, 30 November 

2011.

35. Rebecca L. Schiff, “Concordance Theory, Targeted Partnership, and Counterinsurgency Strategy,” Armed Forces & Society 38, no. 2 (April 2012), 318–19.

36. Ibid.

37. Matthias Kock, cultural advisor to the PRT commander, e-mail interview 

with the author, Kunduz, 21 October 2011.

38. Kai Henning, German Foreign Office, interview with the author, New York, 

12 December 2011.

39. Merkel, “Speech by Angela Merkel.”

40. James D. Bindenagel, “Deutschlands Dämonen Streitfall Libyen: Die neue 

außenpolitische Unberechenbarkeit der Bundesrepublik schadet dem Westen und 

seinen Werten,” Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich, Germany), 18 May 2011, 2.

41. Daniel Hamilton, Charles Berry, Hans Binnendijk, Stephen Flanagan, Julianne Smith, and James Townsend, Alliance Reborn: An Atlantic Compact for the 

21st Century (Washington, DC: Washington NATO Project, February 2009), 34.

42. Ibid.

43. Richard C. Nelson, “How Should NATO Handle Stabilization Operations 

and Reconstruction Efforts?” (policy paper, Atlantic Council of the United States, 

Washington, DC, September 2006), vii.

44. Stephen A. Wickersham, “Maneuver Enhancement Brigade or Maneuver 

Enhancement-Brigade Combat Teams?” Maneuver Support Magazine 2, no. 2 (Summer 2009): 39–40, http://www.wood.army.mil/engrmag/Maneuver%20Support%20

Magazine/PDFs%20for%20Summer%202009/Wickersham.pdf.

45. Ibid.

46. Nelson, “How Should NATO Handle Stabilization Operations,” vii. Definition: Stability and reconstruction (S&R) is the process to achieve a locally led and 

sustainable peace in a dangerous environment. The military role in this process is 

halting residual violence and ensuring order and security, including those reconstruction efforts required to repair enough damage to enable restoration of the most 

essential services.

47. James D. Shumway, “A Strategic Analysis of the Maneuver Enhancement Brigade” (strategy research project, US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA, 13 

April 2005), 14–15.
262 │ BINDENAGEL

48. Presse-und Informationsstab BMVg., “Neuer Stand: Ausstattung in Afghanistan,” 

Bundeswehr, 27 December 2011, http://www.bundeswehr.de/portal/a/bwde/!ut/p/c4

/DcrBDYAwCEDRWVwA7t7cQr1RRUNa0RSwidPb_NNLPq7YU3rlJJdbqeCMyyZja

pDazsCiRuwfwyVm_WAFMTqAwmqweegJlD2oiAnXTnzyNPxnvbSW/.

49. Bindenagel, “Deutschlands Dämonen Streitfall Libyen,” 2.

50. Ibid.
Chapter 14

The Norwegian Approach to Afghanistan

Civilian-Military Segregation

Karsten Friis

In a way, one could consider Norway a typical example of a small International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) partner in Afghanistan—

with 400 troops at its disposal and responsible for one of the 26 provincial reconstruction teams (PRT). Norway is a signatory to the 

Atlantic Pact and a staunch North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO) member. At the same time, the people and the government of 

Norway—like those in many European countries—share reservations 

about the extraterritorial use of military force. They consider Norway 

to be a “peace-nation,” a small state without strategic global interests. 

Norwegian foreign policy favors the multilateral institutional approach, providing stability and predictability through the United Nations (UN). The government of Norway has to balance military needs 

with civilian demands for humanitarian aid and the support of human 

rights—in particular women’s rights. In Afghanistan, Norwegian civilian aid priorities included the strengthening of Afghan governance 

capacities, rule of law, education, and rural development.

Understanding Norway’s approach to civilian-military relations 

in international operations requires one to look at both the tactical/

operational (theater) and the strategic levels. Challenges identified in 

the field are often rooted in higher-level differences in policy among 

ministries, departments, and agencies. There is a certain tendency to 

overlook this fact in studies of PRTs, civilian-military coordination, 

and other instances of civilian-military interaction. Therefore, this 

chapter begins with an exploration of the Norwegian strategic approach to Afghanistan and then proceeds to the tactical, PRT application. I will demonstrate that there was deep-rooted resistance among 

civilian actors to close collaboration with the military, based on a fear 

of “militarization of aid.” This resulted in strong divisions and stovepiping in the PRT. While Norwegian civilian aid has several positive 

features compared to many other donor countries, I also argue that 

the insistence on separation of all civilian and military efforts is based 
264 │ FRIIS

to a large extent on a flawed conflation of humanitarian and development aid and the reluctance by the government to prioritize among 

security, development, or humanitarian efforts.

Strategic Level

Norwegian Aid and Foreign Policy Traditions

The Norwegian government has a long tradition of utilizing civil 

society in providing aid and support to development overseas—both 

in crisis response and development aid. UN agencies and Norwegian 

nongovernmental organizations (NGO) have often been the implementers of Norwegian humanitarian and development programs. 

This outsourcing has provided the government with flexibility, as it 

could respond quickly to crises by supporting local and international 

NGOs already present in the field. Furthermore, it has sometimes 

shielded the government from criticism as the implementers have 

been “nongovernmental” and therefore not representatives of official 

Norwegian foreign policy. However, this policy has also strengthened 

the NGO community in Norway, and that community has become a 

significant political player. Some commentators describe it as an “aid 

industry,” with too much influence on foreign development policies.1

Per capita, Norway is an “aid superpower,” having more than tripled 

its development budget since 1990, and is one of the few countries 

that meet the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development target of aid, amounting to seven-tenths of one percent of the 

gross national income.2

 Yet, Norway has been reluctant to attach conditions or political demands to these vast aid resources.3

 Furthermore, 

the Norwegian government and public have considered the aid to be 

apolitical, founded on altruistic principles and universal values, even if 

such aid simultaneously promotes politically laden concepts such as 

“the principles of the rule of law, political pluralism and democracy.”4

Consistent with this apolitical policy position, Norway has nurtured 

a self-image as a peace nation—for example, it awards the annual Nobel Peace Prize and strongly supports the UN. It is well-positioned to 

gain trust from all parties in conflicts. Thus, Norway welcomes the 

opportunity to use its good reputation, good offices, and good economy to mediate numerous contentious international disputes from 
THE NORWEGIAN APPROACH TO AFGHANISTAN │ 265

the Middle East to Sri Lanka to Sudan. In other words, Oslo has the 

will and the way. While these mediations have not always been successful, they have enhanced Norway’s international standing and 

self-image.5

Norway’s ISAF participation in Afghanistan came as something 

new and challenging to this altruistic peace identity, since it implied 

taking sides in a conflict and using military means. Norway suddenly 

became a more political actor than had previously been the case, with 

the military helping the Kabul government to expand control over its 

sovereign territory and to help fight against insurgents. Norwegian 

military and civilian actors in the PRTs had to find a new paradigm 

for working alongside each other in the field. These changes proved 

difficult to reconcile with Norway’s identity as a nonpolitical, altruistic, peace-loving nation and complicated the previously harmonious 

or neutral relationship between the Norwegian government and civil 

society actors.

The Norwegian Approach to Afghanistan

According to former Norwegian foreign minister Jonas Gahr 

Støre, Norway’s participation in Afghanistan advanced the goals of 

establishing security and stability, preventing terrorism, and fostering development in a manner appropriate for Afghan society: 

First, the purpose of Norway’s presence in Afghanistan is to promote social 

and economic development in the country and stability in the region. We will 

help to build Afghan capacity to provide security and development, and we 

intend to strengthen the UN’s coordinating role. 

Our aim is to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a base for international 

terrorism. 

Afghanistan must therefore be further stabilised. Social and political nationbuilding and state-building in Afghanistan are not merely goals in their own 

right; they are measures to make the country more stable. . . .

Second, there is no military solution to the conflict in Afghanistan. . . . A political solution must therefore be found. And it must be firmly rooted in Afghan society.

Third, a military presence will be necessary on the way towards a political 

solution. Not just as a means of resolving the conflict, but [also] to provide 

sufficient security to create a space in which political and economic development are possible.6

Based on these stated goals, it appears that the security and civilian 

dimensions were well integrated in Norwegian strategic thinking. 
266 │ FRIIS

The interdependence of civilian, political, and military progress was 

explicit. To facilitate such coordination, the government established a 

cross-ministerial body, called the Afghanistan Forum. Here the state 

secretaries (deputy ministers) of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs 

(MFA), Defence (MOD), and Justice (MOJ, equivalent to a Ministry 

of Interior), as well as the Office of the Prime Minister, politically 

coordinated Norwegian engagement in Afghanistan. They prepared 

the government decisions related to all Afghanistan policy and supplied 

the government with coherent input and advice on priorities. They also 

traveled jointly to Afghanistan. The higher level of the civil service, 

where the chief officials coordinated policy implementation, mirrored 

this political structure. The Norwegian embassy in Kabul was also partly 

linked to this structure.7

 Thus, the purpose was, by and large, to streamline Norway’s policy and to expand ownership of its Afghanistan engagement beyond the MOD and specialized MFA circles.

However, this was an ad hoc arrangement established for engagement in Afghanistan only. It was not backed up by a permanent secretariat or a formalized organization of any kind. Furthermore, in 

contrast to many other similar-sized countries, such as Sweden and 

Finland, there existed no government-level political strategy paper 

for the Norwegian engagement in Afghanistan or stability operations 

as a whole. Only partisan statements by government representatives 

when addressing the parliament or the media indicated the Norwegian strategy, like the previously mentioned quote from former foreign minister Gahr Støre. The Afghanistan Forum appeared to operationalize such sentiments supporting civilian-military coordination. 

Despite this, the interaction became much less apparent in the specialized ministries or branches.

Development Aid

Norwegian support to Afghanistan was significant because it targeted and aimed at sustainability, providing the host authorities some 

leverage to actually run their own country. Norway was a significant 

contributor to Afghanistan development aid in relation to Norway’s 

gross domestic product and spent almost as much on development 

aid as on military operations. The Norwegian government pledged 

approximately $120–130 million dollars annually in humanitarian 

and development aid for the period 2010–2015.8

 In 2009 the bilateral 

aid amounted to $126 million, which was distributed as follows: 37 
THE NORWEGIAN APPROACH TO AFGHANISTAN │ 267

percent to economic development and trade, 30 percent to good governance, 19 percent to health and education, and 14 percent to humanitarian aid.9

A leading principle for Norwegian donor funds was that they were 

dispersed without earmarks or conditions and in close collaboration 

with local authorities and major international actors (like the World 

Bank and United Nations Development Program) and to Norwegian 

and international NGOs. Approximately one-third of the Norwegian support to Afghanistan was channeled through a World Bank-administered 

trust fund: the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund. This and 

other similar funds provided the Afghan government with resources 

to cover budgetary expenses, such as salaries, while the World Bank 

maintained a level of influence and controlled corruption or the misallocation of funds. This model also provided the Afghan authorities 

the opportunity to define their own development priorities and the 

resources to implement projects.

A common challenge for foreign donors in Afghanistan was that 

too often local or international contractors and NGOs distributed the 

funds directly to the field. Additionally, the funds dispersed to the 

local government often were earmarked. It was estimated that about 

two-thirds of all development expenditures in Afghanistan bypassed 

the government. As a result, local Afghan authorities were effectively 

undermined.10 In this context, Norway did relatively well, channeling 

aid through the trust funds.

Furthermore, Norwegian foreign aid strategy did not “buy stability” or “reward instability” in the sense that it was being spent in the 

parts of the country where the insurgency was the strongest. Several 

commentators have pointed out the paradox of the international 

community spending most of its funds on troublesome areas to win 

the peace, while communities are, in a sense, “penalized for being 

peaceful.”11 Norwegian aid largely attempted to counter such trends 

by focusing on the central government. Only approximately 15 percent of the above-mentioned $126 million in civilian funds were allocated to the Faryab district, where the Norwegian PRT was located. 

Some of these funds were later allocated to Faryab, but it was accomplished through national authorities.12

However, the Norwegian development and humanitarian aid approach appeared to have been formed in relative isolation from the 

security and military priorities. There was no reference, for example, 

to the ISAF priorities in the documents of the Norwegian Agency for 
268 │ FRIIS

Development Cooperation (NORAD)—except a statement that Norway promoted regular contact with the armed forces. Nowhere was 

the role of development aid in relation to security discussed and defined, and there were no guidelines or priorities from the government 

in this regard. Norwegian policy appeared to largely ignore the fact 

that security was a key priority in the Afghan National Development 

Strategy (ANDS) and the Afghan Millennium Development Goals 

(MDG).13 Hence, despite the words of the government and the existence of an Afghanistan Forum, coordination between the security 

and development domains was largely nonexistent. As shall be described, this transcended to the tactical level as well.

Tactical Level

Guiding Principles

From the outset, the Norwegian humanitarian and development 

communities and many sections within the MFA were skeptical 

about the very idea of a PRT with respect to the integration of military and civilian roles. For them, separation of civilian and military 

activity was crucial and the primacy of UN principles of humanitarian assistance was deeply rooted. The Norwegian government thus 

referred to UN guidelines and principles for civilian-military interaction.14 A key document in this regard was the 1994 UN Oslo Guidelines, regulating the use of military assets in disaster operations, and 

the subsequent 2003 UN Guidelines on the Use of Military and Civil 

Defense Assets to Support United Nations Humanitarian Activities in 

Complex Emergencies.

15 The UN developed several other guidelines 

for Afghanistan specifically, including the 2008 Guidelines for the Interaction and Coordination of Humanitarian Actors and Military Actors in Afghanistan.

16 The Afghan PRT executive steering committee 

also issued guidelines.17

All these guidelines recommended a clear distinction between humanitarian and military activity. The guidelines issued by the Afghan 

PRT executive steering committee stated that “humanitarian assistance 

is that which is life saving and addresses urgent and life-threatening 

humanitarian needs. It must not be used for the purpose of political 

gain, relationship building, or ‘winning hearts and minds’” (emphasis 

in original).18
THE NORWEGIAN APPROACH TO AFGHANISTAN │ 269

In addition, the PRT Guidelines also stressed that United Nations 

Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) was the lead agency 

when it came to provincial development and that “the PRTs should 

[have] support[ed] UNAMA offices and follow[ed] guidance provided by UNAMA and other concerned donors on this issue.”19 Based 

on such guidelines and the strong support for the UN in the NGOs 

and the MFA, the government sought to keep civilian and military 

efforts strictly separated in its Afghan policy and in the PRT.20

The Norwegian PRT Structure

The mandate of the NATO PRTs in Afghanistan was to promote 

security and good governance and to facilitate development and reconstruction—all in close collaboration with the government of Afghanistan and the Afghan National Security Forces.21

The Norwegian-led PRT consisted of approximately 400 soldiers 

(including 100 from Latvia) and some 10 to 20 civilians. They were 

based in Meymaneh in the Faryab district in northwestern Afghanistan. The civilian group typically had a civilian coordinator, a political 

advisor, development advisors, police advisors, and prison advisors, 

mainly from Norway but also from Iceland and Latvia. The civilians 

and the military were colocated and were placed under certain common military security regulations but operated otherwise separately.

The civilian members of the Norwegian-led PRT were divided into 

at least two groups: the police and prison advisors and the political 

and development advisors. The role of the political and development 

advisors was to oversee the implementation of development programs; liaise with the local authorities, the UN, and others; and help 

to develop new projects and programs funded by the MFA through 

the embassy in Kabul. As in most other PRTs, none of the civilians 

were under the command of the military contingent. They coordinated with the embassy in Kabul and with relevant ministries and 

directorates in Oslo.

Nor was the military under civilian command. The military chain 

of command went through Regional Command North, ISAF HQ, 

and the rest of the NATO structure, in addition to the Norwegian Operational Command and the MOD in Norway.

Therefore, in practice, there were two parallel structures sharing 

the same compound. There was no tactical (Meymaneh/Faryab) or 

operational (Kabul) headquarters or equivalent of the Oslo Afghanistan 
270 │ FRIIS

Forum. The civilians and the military may have coordinated, but it 

was all based on goodwill, not on institutionalized procedures or 

regulations. There was no common higher level of command to refer 

to in case of conflict.22 As a result, the degree of cooperation differed 

significantly from contingent to contingent, and the institutional 

memory was limited. It was only recently that the civilian and military 

structures initiated joint exercises prior to deployment. Different rotation cycles also hampered these exercises.

An additional challenge was the absence of a common plan. A 

“Faryab strategy” was developed in 2009, but it represented more of a 

lowest common denominator between ministries and other relevant 

agencies than a strategy.23 As in the United States and elsewhere, good 

ambitions were plentiful, but they were not organized in a prioritized 

way in terms of time or resources. This all seemed to represent a compromise and not a political agenda, and as a planning tool, it was of 

limited value for the PRT.

Furthermore, the political and development advisors may have 

been considered the extended arm of the embassy, but they had weak 

direct links to Oslo. The civilian coordinator and political advisors 

typically were younger civil servants, not career diplomats with a 

good foothold and network in the embassy or MFA in Oslo. Being 

deployed to the PRT was not career-boosting for diplomats, so recruitment was difficult. The development advisors were also externally recruited personnel without much network in the MFA or 

NORAD. Therefore, they were not in a particularly strong position 

for implementing Norwegian foreign policy or influencing the more 

senior PRT commander—typically a lieutenant colonel in rank. There 

was little doubt that the military was the stronger component, both in 

terms of personnel and operational capacity. The Norwegian armed 

forces have gradually transformed from a peacekeeping-style force to 

a credible counterinsurgency (COIN) force, with better equipment 

and better fighting skills. This may have deepened the divisions with 

the civilians further. As a result, there was no common Norwegian 

political strategy—no common planning, monitoring, or evaluation 

of the efforts made in the various sectors where Norway was engaged 

in Faryab. The civilian and military activities and projects were not 

being knitted together into a comprehensive strategy to maximize the 

political effects and fulfill the mandate.

As previously mentioned, the Norwegian NGOs were particularly 

critical of the PRT concept in its early years. They viewed PRTs as 
THE NORWEGIAN APPROACH TO AFGHANISTAN │ 271

disregarding or blurring the lines between humanitarian and military 

spaces. The civilian actors feared being subsumed to the military operations and being regarded as the extended hand of the military. They 

typically argued that militarization of aid was shortsighted and unsustainable and that military-driven aid projects, aid aimed at winning 

hearts and minds, threw money at a problem rather than addressing 

the underlying cause of the instability.24 Furthermore, many Norwegian NGOs contended that using money as a weapons system was not 

only unsustainable, it may also have unintended adverse effects and 

even create instability. Pumping money into local societies often led to 

corruption, tribal infighting over access to the funds, and increased 

revenues to the insurgency groups.25 Such critiques were widely referred to in the Norwegian debates, further legitimizing and strengthening the policy of separation of military and civilian roles. Given the 

previously mentioned strong role of the NGOs in the Norwegian public discourse, the government was not willing or able to confront them 

and generally complied with their demands for such separation.

However, the military had also criticized the government and 

NGOs for bypassing local authorities when implementing projects in 

Faryab and for ignoring the political and social considerations. It was 

argued that unevenly dispersed aid contributed to strengthening insurgents in the province.26 The government and the NGO community 

have resisted attempts by the military to strengthen coordination. As 

a result, the military faced difficulties in implementing the COIN 

strategy directed from ISAF command. While conducting successful 

“clear” operations, they lacked the “hold” and “build” elements required to succeed. A replacement for the reluctant Norwegian partners was to some extent found in USAID, which began implementing 

projects in the Faryab region thereafter. For the Norwegian PRT, cooperation with USAID proved more fruitful, as that organization appeared more inclined to cooperate toward a common COIN goal. 

The Norwegian NGOs predictably criticized this cooperation.27

Conflation of Humanitarian and Development Aid

There was, however, a fundamental flaw in the position of the Norwegian civilian component, which was primarily the NGO position. 

While humanitarian aid in principle could be regarded as apolitical, 

development aid, it can be argued, was inherently political. There 

could be little doubt that the Norwegian objectives in Afghanistan, 
272 │ FRIIS

like those of the UN and the wider international community, were 

highly political. Development programs aimed at, for example, poverty reduction were political, as they recommended one set of principles over others, whether governance, economic, or legal. It was a 

question of taking sides in an internal violent conflict, supporting 

one set of values (liberal-democratic) and one set of actors (the authorities).28 The model advanced typically was based upon Western 

or UN best practices, supporting liberal-democratic values over those 

of authoritarianism and usually implying redistribution of resources, 

changes in power structures, or strengthening of a group of actors. 

Therefore, the defense of the humanitarian space could not rightly be 

expanded to include development aid or other programs in which 

NGOs were engaged.29 The previously mentioned guidelines of the 

UN and PRT executive steering committee all referred to the relationship between the military and the humanitarian actors, not the 

development actors. But many NGOs and the Norwegian government tended to ignore this fact.

The insurgents tended to object to several elements of the MDG, 

the ANDS, and the Norwegian development aid criteria. They also 

found objectionable many key Norwegian values, like democratization, empowering women, and the rule of law.

By conflating the humanitarian and development programs, the 

NGOs were denying the political role and potential powerful political 

influence such programs wielded, while simultaneously, unnecessarily resisting cooperation with other actors, such as the military. Furthermore, insufficient political analysis and sensitivity may have 

caused development projects to aggravate rather than mitigate tensions. An internal report by NORAD revealed that there was an ethnic imbalance in Faryab, in the sense that the Uzbek communities 

received substantially more aid than the Pashtuns. This caused tensions in the latter group which already had been a recruitment base 

for local insurgents.30

Despite arguments for keeping humanitarian and military operations separate, there are valid reasons why development programs 

should plan and evaluate in a coordinated manner with the military 

to ensure that resources are coherently spent and to maximize political efficiency. In principle, all Norwegian development aid to Afghanistan should have aimed at the same political objectives—those 

defined by the Afghan and Norwegian authorities. If civilian agencies 

were concerned with the militarization of aid, there were even more 
THE NORWEGIAN APPROACH TO AFGHANISTAN │ 273

reasons for them to engage with the military and confirm that political development efforts were done “right.”

All actors seem to agree that to achieve sustainable security, military solutions alone are insufficient. Yet civilians can be reluctant to 

contribute to the security domain or to fill the gaps unaddressed by 

the military. Many NGOs do not consider security to be their priority, and thus design their projects based on other sets of criteria, such 

as advancing health, well-being, and human rights. As long as the 

Norwegian government accepts and supports the separation of development aid and security operations, NGOs are unlikely to change 

their position. Only through donor guidance can development projects be tuned toward achieving long-term political effects that enhance the security situation.

Of course, it may be argued that with only 400 troops in a district 

(Faryab) of approximately one million people, it would not have 

made much difference whether the civilian-military coordination 

was better. There were arguably far too few boots on the ground to be 

able to provide security for all citizens or to play a decisive political 

role. That may very well be the case, but the purpose in this analysis 

is to draw operational lessons for future deployments. Improved coordination will in most cases increase efficiency, reduce expenses, 

and possibly save lives—even if it by itself is not sufficient to win a 

war or build peace.

Conclusion

Norway was not alone in many of the challenges facing the civilian-military relationships described above. All those who were engaged in the Afghan field had to contend with conflicting mandates, 

visions, priorities, and perceptions among civilian and military partners. Despite these pressures, the Norwegian approach to civilianmilitary interaction had certain positive features. The civilian aid was 

significant, almost equal to the military spending, and a large chunk 

of the civilian aid was provided to the local authorities through established multilateral mechanisms such as trust funds. This approach 

promoted local ownership and sustainability, as it countered the tendency to reward instability and allowed for higher levels of development 

aid. As such, these characteristics go beyond the tactical use of aid and 

contribute to a strategic approach. The development aid generally 
274 │ FRIIS

supported the greater international programs in Afghanistan, and 

considerable discretion was afforded to those operators in the field 

rather than policy makers sitting in Oslo.

On the negative side, the Norwegian conflation of humanitarian 

and development aid promoted a perception of the militarization of 

aid and humanitarian space, and thereby stalled a potentially fruitful 

cooperation between development and military actors. Despite former foreign minister Gahr Støre’s emphasis on political-military interdependence, this was hardly followed in practice. Political development aid was not designed in conjunction with security/military 

efforts. This was also the main reason why there was no operational 

level coordination, for example in the embassy in Kabul, between the 

military and civilian development actors. It may also explain why 

Norway did not have an official strategy generally for Afghanistan or 

specifically for Faryab (the existing one was a strategy in name only), 

as it would have forced the government to spell out priorities between 

the security, development, and humanitarian sectors.

Instead the political elite tended to avoid this debate altogether, 

continuing to attempt several things at the same time. The underlying 

assumption must have been that these ends could be achieved independent of each other, or at least that they were not in conflict, so that 

tighter coordination was not needed. This was a questionable assumption that reflected the wider problem facing the international 

community in Afghanistan. As long as key actors had significantly 

different perceptions, objectives, and solutions and were reluctant to 

acknowledge these differences, the prospects for enhanced civilianmilitary cooperation and for sustainable peace remained grim.

What appeared to be the trend among many ISAF countries is to 

lower the expectations for civilian-military cooperation. This is 

partly due to challenges such as those Norway faced, but also a general “Afghanistan-fatigue” among donors as a result of limited progress in both security and development. The military component is 

increasing its efforts to train local security forces and is, to a lesser 

extent, engaged in the whole civilian spectrum of efforts as prescribed 

in the COIN doctrines.

Perhaps the vision of civilian-military cooperation became too 

ambitious in Afghanistan. The military could not and should not become dependent upon developments in the civilian sector to achieve 

military ends. The COIN doctrines had very valuable insights into 

the importance of understanding the political-cultural context and 
THE NORWEGIAN APPROACH TO AFGHANISTAN │ 275

the need for sustainable governance. However, such doctrine may 

have confused war and nation-building. The latter usually requires a 

political settlement to succeed; it is a way to stabilize a fragile peace 

agreement. It is far more challenging—if indeed possible—to build a 

state to win a war, as some of the COIN proponents seem to argue.

What do these lessons from Afghanistan bode for future operations? First, for civilian-military cooperation to work it must be on all 

levels: strategic, operational, and tactical. The military operations 

should be in support of the political objectives, not vice versa. Whatever is done on the tactical level should reinforce and support longterm civilian strategies on the higher levels. If not, there is a risk the 

disconnect will undermine overall stability efforts.

Second, civilian efforts should reward peace—for example, by concentrating on those areas in the theater where there is political stability. The 

example of prosperous development is a strong signal to other regions.

Third, local ownership is key. Only local people, not foreigners, can 

build sustainable peace. Civilian funds should avoid bypassing local 

structures even if it means less efficient aid delivery at the outset.

Fourth, and as a result of the previous points, civilian-military cooperation is most efficient in the stabilization phase of a war, when it 

can reinforce a political settlement. Civilian efforts usually require 

more time to achieve the desired political effects than military efforts 

do. As a result, civilian-military cooperation in offensive operations 

is less likely to succeed.

Civilian-military cooperation remains crucial in today’s military 

operations. Campaign phases are not linear, and the stabilization 

phase, with significant civilian-military cooperation, may suddenly 

slide back to violent conflict with less such cooperation. In the same 

way, different geographical areas of the theatre may also experience 

different levels of stability and hence different degrees of civilianmilitary interaction. This fluidity in today’s conflicts requires all actors 

to know each other well and to be able to support each other when it 

is in their common interest. Improved awareness and knowledge of 

each other are preconditions for this and represent the best way to 

avoid disappointments, frustrations, and false expectations.

Notes

1. Terje Tvedt, “International Development Aid and Its Impact on a Donor 

Country: A Case Study of Norway,” European Journal of Development Research 19, 

no. 4 (December 2007): 614–35.
276 │ FRIIS

2. See Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, “Development 

Aid Rose in 2009 and Most Donors Will Meet 2010 Aid Targets,” 14 April 2010, http://

www.oecd.org/document/11/0,3343,en_2649_34487_44981579_1_1_1_1,00.html.

3. See Tvedt, “International Development Aid and Its Impact.” Scandinavian 

readers may also consult Terje Tvedt, Utviklingshjelp, utenrikspolitikk og makt. Den 

norske modellen (Oslo: Gyldendal Akademisk, 2003).

4. See Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Norway, Felles kamp mot fattigdom: En helhetlig utviklingspolitikk, Stortingsmelding 35, 2003–4 (Oslo: Det 

Kongelige Utenriksdepartement, 2004); and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), Government of Norway, 

Grant Schemes for Humanitarian Assistance and Development Cooperation by Norwegian and International Voluntary Actors: Guidelines (Oslo: NORAD, 2001), http://www

.norad.no/en/Tools+and+publications/Publications/Publication+Page?key=129252.

5. See Øystein Haga Skånland, “‘Norway Is a Peace Nation’: A Discourse Analytic 

Reading of the Norwegian Peace Engagement,” Cooperation and Conflict 45, no. 1 

(March 2010): 34–54; Christopher S. Browning, “Branding Nordicity, Models, Identity and the Decline of Exceptionalism,” Cooperation and Conflict 42, no. 1 (March 

2007): 27–51; and Mark Leonard and Andrew Small, Norwegian Public Diplomacy

(London: Foreign Policy Centre, 2003), http://www.regjeringen.no/upload

/UD/Vedlegg/public.pdf.

6. Jonas Gahr Støre, Norwegian Foreign Minister, “Address to the Storting on the 

Situation in Afghanistan and Norway’s Civilian and Military Engagement in the 

Country” (address, The Storting, Oslo, Norway, 9 February 2010), http://www

.regjeringen.no/en/dep/ud/Whats-new/Speeches-and-articles/speeches_foreign/2010

/afghanistan_address.html.

7. Cedric de Coning, Helge Lurås, Niels Nagelhus Schia, and Ståle Ulriksen, Norway’s Whole-of-Government Approach and Its Engagement with Afghanistan (Oslo: 

Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, 2009), 26–28.

8. Gahr Støre, “Address to the Storting.”

9. NORAD, “Afghanistan,” 28 June 2012, http://www.norad.no/no/om-bistand

/landsider/asia-og-oseania/afghanistan.

10. See Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), “Afghanistan: Gov’t 

Questions Effectiveness of Foreign Aid Billions,” Afghanistan Online, 7 May 2007, 

http://www.afghan-web.com/economy/foreignaid_effect.html.

11. Matt Waldman, Falling Short: Aid Effectiveness in Afghanistan, Agency Coordination Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR) Advocacy Series (Kabul, Afghanistan: ACBAR, 

March 2008), http://www.oxfam.org.nz/sites/default/files/reports/ACBAR%20Aid%20

Effectiveness%20Paper.pdf. See also Andrew Wilder and Stuart Gordon, “Money Can’t 

Buy America Love,” Foreign Policy, 1 December 2009, http://www.foreignpolicy.com

/articles/2009/12/01/money_cant_buy_america_love.

12. It may be argued that the very idea of building a strong centralized state in 

Afghanistan is futile, given the relative traditional strength of the regions and districts, but that is not the topic for this article.

13. The government of Afghanistan has even added a ninth Millennium Goal, 

“Enhance Security,” to the eight global MDGs, recognizing the critical role of peace 

and security in achieving the other MDGs. See United Nations Development Programme in Afghanistan, “Afghanistan MDGs Overview,” 2012, https://web.archive
THE NORWEGIAN APPROACH TO AFGHANISTAN │ 277

.org/web/20120413170000/http://www.undp.org.af/demo/index.php?option=com

_content&view=article&id=62&Itemid=68; and Erin Foster, “Afghanistan: Social 

Well-Being; The Millennium Development Goals,” Civil-Military Fusion Centre 4, no. 

10 (5 October 2010), 3, https://www.cimicweb.org/Documents/CFC%20AFG%20

Social%20Well-being%20Archive/SWB_Monthly_October_6%20October%5B1

%5D.pdf.

14. Arne Strand, “Drawing the Lines: the Norwegian Debate on Civilian-Military 

Relations in Afghanistan,” Noref Policy Brief 8 (June 2010).

15. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Guidelines 

on the Use of Military and Civil Defense Assets to Support United Nations Humanitarian 

Activities in Complex Emergencies (Geneva: United Nations, March 2003), http://www

.coe-dmha.org/Media/Guidance/3MCDAGuidelines.pdf. See also Cedric de Coning, 

“Civil-Military Relations and U.N. Peacekeeping Operations,” World Politics Review, 19 

May 2010, http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/5553/civil-military-relations

-and-u-n-peacekeeping-operations.

16. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Guidelines for the Interaction and Coordination of Humanitarian Actors and Military Actors 

in Afghanistan (Geneva: United Nations, 20 May 2008), https://ochanet.unocha.org/p

/Documents/Guidelines%20Afghanistan%20%20v.%201.0%202008.pdf.

17. Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) Executive Steering Committee, “Charter,” 2 December 2004, revised 3 August 2006 and December 2008, https://www

.cimicweb.org/Documents/PRT%20CONFERENCE%202010/PRT_ESC_Charter

.pdf. See also IRIN, “Afghanistan: How Should Aid Workers, Military Personnel Interact?” 28 October 2009, http://www.irinnews.org/printreport.aspx?reportid=86776.

18. PRT Executive Steering Committee, “PRT Executive Steering Committee Policy 

Note Number 3,” Civil-Military Fusion Centre, 21 March 2010, https://www.cimicweb

.org/Documents/PRT%20CONFERENCE%202010/Policy_Note_3_Humanitarian

_Assistance.pdf. 

19. PRT Executive Steering Committee, “PRT Executive Steering Committee 

Policy Note Number 1,” Civil-Military Fusion Centre, 21 March 2010, https://www

.cimicweb.org/Documents/PRT%20CONFERENCE%202010/Policy_Note_1

_Engagement_in_Provincial_Development.pdf.

20. The “humanitarian space” refers to purely humanitarian projects, which are 

considered nonpolitical and based on international humanitarian law. The guiding 

principle for humanitarian agencies is often referred to as the “humanitarian imperative” and often summarized as independence, impartiality, and neutrality. See 

International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Code of Conduct 

for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and NGOs in Disaster 

Relief (Geneva: International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 

1995).

21. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “NATO and Afghanistan,” 03 December 

2012, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_8189.htm.

22. For more details on the PRT model, see de Coning et al., Norway’s Whole-ofGovernment Approach, 29–33.

23. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Defence, and Ministry of Justice and the 

Police, Government of Norway, A Strategy for Comprehensive Norwegian Civilian and 

Military Efforts in Faryab Province, Afghanistan (Oslo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Min-
278 │ FRIIS

istry of Defence and Ministry of Justice and the Police, May 2009), http://www

.regjeringen.no/upload/FD/Dokumenter/Strategy_Norway-in-Faryab-Afghanistan.pdf.

24. Lars Akerhaug and Lars Inge Staveland, “Norge og USA vurderer bistand 

ulikt,” Aftenposten (Norway), 13 October 2010, http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter

/uriks/--Norge-og-USA-vurderer-bistand-ulikt-5349087.html.

25. Wilder and Gordon, “Money Can’t Buy America Love.”

26. Rune Solberg, “Bistand på ville veier,” Aftenposten (Norway), 6 December 2010, 

http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/kronikker/Bistand-p-ville-veier-6274301.html.

27. Tor Aksel Bolle, “Forsvaret danser tett med USAID i Afghanistan,” Bistandsaktuelt

(Norway), 22 October 2010, http://www.bistandsaktuelt.no/forsiden/forsvaret-danser

-tett-med-usaid-i-afghanistan--206190.

28. Jens Stoltenberg, “Derfor er Norge i Afghanistan,” Aftenposten (Norway), 22 

November 2007.

29. Sylvain Beauchamp, Defining the Humanitarian Space through Public International Law (Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Red Cross, 2008): 16, http://www.redcross.ca

/cmslib/general/obeoc_beauchamp.pdf.

30. Lars Inge Staveland, “U-hjelp kan skape mer konflikt,” Aftenposten, 4 November 2010, http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/uriks/--U-hjelp-kan-skape-mer-konf

likt-5351336.html; and Geert Gompelman, Winning Hearts and Minds? Examining 

the Relationship between Aid and Security in Afghanistan’s Faryab Province (Boston: 

Feinstein International Center, Tufts University, January 2011).
Chapter 15

So You Are Going to Be Working with the 

United Nations

A Few Insights on Integration

David C. Becker

Introduction

There is a growing literature discussing how civilians and the military 

can work more closely and effectively together in “complex environments”—in stabilization or counterinsurgency missions, in disaster 

assistance and humanitarian relief efforts (domestic or international), 

and even in “steady state” situations furthering the government’s efforts to provide security and development assistance effectively in 

foreign countries.

Underlying the analyses, in the United States at least, is an ethnocentric viewpoint that leads to a common misunderstanding. It presumes that the civilians and the military that need integration are 

both from the same country. In fact, civilian-military coordination is 

able to cross boundaries among various donor nations and between 

the donors and the host governments. Other cultural boundaries include the marked differences in values and motivations of civilians 

from the humanitarian relief communities and their self-identified 

differences for military personnel and other civilians working with 

donor and host governments.

Much of the contemporary literature is an outgrowth of the US 

experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. The lessons learned from those 

searing expeditionary challenges will stay with the United States for a 

long time. Both conflicts were major American interventions in 

which the United States spent lives and vast sums of money to achieve 

goals that turned out to be much harder to reach than originally envisioned. Regardless, Washington clearly was making the decisions 

and responsible for achieving positive outcomes.
280 │ BECKER

However, in the future, the United States will not simply be trying to 

better integrate civilians and military to achieve a goal. The challenges 

are going to be more complicated than that. Some of the lessons US 

personnel think they learned in Iraq and Afghanistan may turn out to 

be the wrong lessons.

One major reason for this is that the United States will probably 

not be in the lead in future interventions and will be working with a 

hodgepodge of other nations and their forces.1

 While the North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization (NATO) admittedly was a force provider in Afghanistan and international contributors played significant roles in Iraq 

as well, the United States was clearly in charge in those conflicts. However, NATO’s 2011 Libyan intervention is a better analogy for the future 

than a decade of US efforts in Afghanistan. The United States is less 

likely to engage unilaterally in the future, relying on the work of others 

to achieve US goals.2

 In other words, it is time to learn lessons about 

how to work with the military, police, and civilians of other nations.

For the purposes of this analysis, it is impossible to address the 

entire panoply of combinations of interventions and interlocutors 

that might be possible in the future. However, one particular organization stands out as a future US ally: the United Nations (UN). With 

the probable withdrawal of the US government from essentially unilateral interventions, UN civilian organizations and military forces 

assigned to peacekeeping duties will probably continue to be key 

players in many future disasters, interventions, and stabilization missions. The United States already provides 25 to 27 percent of the budget for the UN Department for Peacekeeping Operations, which indicates that the United States already finds it worthwhile to fund the 

UN rather than intervene directly. In the future, despite the desire to 

spend less on the UN, the United States probably will still find it 

cheaper and more politically acceptable to continue to fund UN interventions than to deploy US forces for some situations. As noted in 

the RAND monograph The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building, “the 

cost for fielding a U.S. or NATO force is about $200,000 per soldier 

per year. The cost of fielding the typical UN peacekeeping force is 

about $45,000 per soldier per year.”3

 The United States may still have 

large forces on the ground where the UN is present, but even more 

likely is that US personnel will have a smaller military unit of trainers 

or US government civilians on the ground, working on parallel, combined, or completely independent projects that may rely on UN support. 

I have spent most of my Foreign Service career in conflict countries 
SO YOU ARE GOING TO BE WORKING WITH THE UNITED NATIONS │ 281

and, over the past two decades, have had the opportunity to collaborate 

with UN military missions in countries like Haiti and Ethiopia and to 

work with UN development agencies in those and other conflict 

zones. Almost by definition, it is not easy to work in a multilateral 

environment, especially in an organization like the UN with so many 

conflicting interests. If one is likely to see more US-UN multilateral 

efforts, it may be useful to provide a few observations for US civilian 

or military personnel who may have to integrate their efforts successfully with a UN mission on the ground.

A word of warning: this is a tactical and personal view on the challenges of successfully working with those troops and civilians assigned to the UN in foreign environments, based mostly on personal 

observations and conversations with UN military and civilian staff in 

different countries rather than a strategic analysis of the problems of 

US-UN cooperation on an international level.4

 Much of this chapter 

may sound like a criticism of the UN and its operations. That is not 

the case. There are many dedicated and imaginative leaders in the UN 

who work hard to improve the world. However, the UN is what it is: 

a large, unwieldy, international organization with many different 

groups and members vying for attention, funds, and personnel. Some 

readers may note the parallels to US government overseas operations.

Evolution of United Nations Missions

UN interventions have changed over time. Twenty years ago, UN 

missions tended to be short, small, and relatively simple. Few if any 

UN missions included more than UN military forces, in for a short 

stay, then planning to leave as soon as local security conditions permitted. UN civilian development agencies often followed, sometimes 

with an increase in bilateral assistance from other countries. Now 

most missions are considerably more far-reaching, often encompassing police monitors, mentors, and trainers—relatively new roles for 

the UN in trying to implement rule of law reforms and increase security and stability. As the United States has learned, rule of law and 

police reform are among the most difficult challenges to implement, 

regardless of who is doing so. However, the definition of a successful 

UN mission now often includes an understanding that simply disarming factions is not success.
282 │ BECKER

From the perspective of the US government, this means that working in a foreign environment requires working successfully with the 

UN and the forces assigned to that organization. Rarely are the UN 

forces leaving as the US government civilian development and security specialists are arriving. Thus, the UN forces overlap with the US 

government stability forces; meanwhile, the United States contributes 

very few personnel to UN peacekeeping operations. Given the United 

States’ superpower status, it would be politically ludicrous for US 

forces to intervene under an ostensibly neutral UN banner except in 

very specialized circumstances. In addition, the United States has a 

long history of rarely putting US forces under foreign command. At 

the most, the United States provides one or two staff members to a 

mission. This lack of involvement means there is very little accumulated US government experience from “inside the beast,” regarding 

working with the UN.

The Mandate

Every UN mission starts with a UN member-approved document 

that outlines the goals and objectives of the UN intervention, and 

particularly, the limits on everything from the use of force to the location 

of units. Why should one care? Because everyone else—for example, 

all other UN member states—will have read the mandate, studied it 

closely, and will argue its parameters and limits. Mandates are a result 

of a highly political negotiation process in New York. UN nations 

carefully parse and select words, sometimes with an aim to obscure 

disagreements between UN members. This leaves the unenviable task 

of reading the mandate “tea leaves” for guidance on proposed actions 

up to the UN mission head in country, the special representative of 

the secretary general (SRSG). Mandates typically come up for renewal every year, and each year there is a new flurry of discussion on 

what modifications are needed to the limits, the timeline, and goals 

(not to mention the budget).

Even if the troops and civilian staff are forward leaning and mission oriented, willing to push the envelope a bit to achieve results, the 

national government will have lawyers looking at every UN action 

from the viewpoint of stopping “mandate creep.” Their job is to defend 

whatever sovereignty their country still has—even when the national 

government is in favor of UN intervention and is asking for more 

troops or staff (and the money that comes with them). A problem with 
SO YOU ARE GOING TO BE WORKING WITH THE UNITED NATIONS │ 283

some mandates is a timeline that is really too short, and the mission 

begins to spend more time on transition, handovers and departure 

planning than on actually achieving goals. At the same time, it often 

takes two or three years of modifications to the mandate to start getting the rules of action sufficiently clarified and established so that a 

mission can really address the root causes and begin to make progress. Thus, the successful outside observer needs to understand the 

legitimate mandate constraints that a UN mission operates under, 

but also needs to recognize that some members of a mission may 

simply hide behind a too restrictive interpretation of the mandate to 

avoid taking responsibility for action. In such cases, referring the interpretation question back to Washington and New York can help to 

shake things up a bit if necessary.

Clash of Cultures

The first and most obvious fact on the ground is that a UN peacekeeping mission is virtually a pickup game. The UN has little to say 

over who comes to the show. Peacekeeping troops do have a training 

program before they deploy, but even such training cannot overcome 

the challenge created by differences in military culture—that the various participants are from different places, speak different languages, 

and have very different baselines of domestic training and doctrine. 

Contributing countries select units for service with the UN based on 

national goals. Sometimes this means that they send their best, and 

that can be quite good—professional and well trained. Often the reason for sending a unit may be to give that unit a chance to benefit 

from training and experience that it cannot afford at home. Sometimes countries participate because the pay and benefits for UN 

troops are better than at home and thus nations can support a larger 

force than they could on their national budget. In addition, a country 

may offer a tour overseas as a reward for political support or good 

service at home. This translates into a whole host of issues for an outsider attempting to coordinate operations with the UN.

One manifestation of these differences is an overemphasis on hierarchy. While civilians may think that all militaries are rank and status 

conscious, many are far more hierarchical than the US military. 

Meeting a military officer at his unit can become a Kabuki dance of 

authorizations from headquarters, waiting for written approvals, and 

prior coordination between civilians and military within the UN, not 
284 │ BECKER

to mention probing questions about what you intend to discuss. One 

may be able to drop into a field unit and talk one’s way into a polite 

meeting, but discussion will not always be fruitful. Partly, this is because 

some countries are more serious about rank and hierarchy. Nevertheless, the UN reinforces that bureaucratic tendency because it has to 

work hard to enforce a common standard of expectations over a 

wildly diverse group of units from different backgrounds.

In the same vein, compared to a Western military, decision making is centralized. Again, this is both a culture issue and a bureaucracy issue. Many of the nonwestern militaries provide far less latitude to their lower-ranking officers to make decisions. Those who are 

more used to working with the US military rapidly run headlong into 

a field situation with a small unit led by a sergeant or lieutenant who 

will not be able to cooperate, may not be interested in cooperating, 

and even if he does want to help, possibly cannot even communicate 

to a superior to get a decision. Again, headquarters consciously or 

subconsciously encourages centralization of command in an attempt 

to ensure that every unit, no matter how different, is on the same 

sheet of music.

What this means is that one needs to start from the center and 

work outwards, reaching out to those in the capital and then gaining 

permissions to talk to the officers in the field. Even if one’s organization is highly decentralized and one works in the field, there may be 

no parallels. Moreover, because of the bureaucracy, this coordination 

will take longer than expected, and it will be less successful than one 

would like.

To complicate things further, individual national military contingents in a given UN mission may be answering to two masters. Before 

obeying orders from the UN force commander or the directions of 

the SRSG, the civilian heading the UN political and aid mission of 

some contingents may face the practical reality of having to confirm 

orders, especially the ones involving the use of force, with the respective national governments. This may manifest itself in contingents 

refusing to conduct operations as ordered, or simply avoiding the 

implementation of orders through delays and other staffing obfuscation. Should these situations arise, the UN force commander is limited 

in his authority to force contingents to comply compared to national 

recourses in military law or command authority over subordinate 

commanders. Such issues would be more typically resolved at the 
SO YOU ARE GOING TO BE WORKING WITH THE UNITED NATIONS │ 285

diplomatic and political level between the contingent’s government 

and the UN.

Command Vis-a-Vis Communication

Another reason coordination will be less successful is that the “chain 

of command” is not the same thing as the “channel of communication.” 

Pity the UN commander who knows that his staff is filled with people 

from three or four countries, usually speaking a foreign language inside the command, and usually speaking yet another language outside the command. Coordination meetings are required, take longer, 

and happen more often, given the need to ensure that all are on board. 

This results in longer decision cycles, and even after making a decision, someone must implement it. HQ issues an order; staff translates 

it into English (usually) and then transmits it to the field and someone retranslates it into the language of the local unit. This takes time 

and energy and often results in confusion, so a natural response is to 

avoid issuing too many orders, instructions, or briefings. The amount 

of information that flows down to the field unit commander is often 

a fraction of what you would expect in even a normal bureaucracy. 

What actually reaches the small unit leader is a fraction of that. 

Worse, the flow of information upwards from the grassroots is often 

more restricted.

Given these limits on the communications channels, achieving action in civilian-military coordination requires an extensive process of 

briefings, arranging appointments in new lower or higher units, more 

verbal briefings, arranging more appointments, and so forth. In other 

words, getting an approval at the top is only a partial step to getting 

action at the bottom. Direct personal follow-up is required, and one’s 

English presentation or briefing paper will be probably unread, unless one is there to hammer it home. If one can provide papers in the 

unit language or have someone on staff who speaks the unit language, 

things change more rapidly. The small touches of personal contact 

often count for a lot for a unit overseas in a strange country, working 

for an international and complicated bureaucracy.

Clash of Cultures II: Civilians and Military

Much literature now discusses the differences of cultures between the 

US military and civilian agencies. The 3Ds mantra of development, 
286 │ BECKER

diplomacy, and defense is virtually a cliché now as the United States 

attempts to merge efforts in a more efficient fashion.

While the United States is still struggling with its “whole of government” approach, the UN is even less integrated. The special nature of 

the UN efforts overseas contributes to this integration problem. 

Outwardly, there are some parallels in the task of a US ambassador 

in a fragile or failing state and a UN SRSG. Both are assigned to a 

country, in charge of UN or US civilian and military organizations, 

to support reforms and stabilization efforts. However, the US ambassador has a certain tradition on his or her side, as the US embassy was 

there usually long before establishment of the UN mission. In essence, norms are clear for the embassy, while the SRSG must quickly 

establish his or her bona fides as a leader. UN development agencies 

often have been present for long periods, but they have not had to 

report to the SRSG. They have independent budgets and development plans, and the agency career staff is often not impressed by the 

arrival of a new high command in the form of the SRSG and his staff. 

In their view, their agency will still be there when the UN mission has 

come and gone. So the first job of a new SRSG is not to deal with the 

host government but instead to get a handle on the activities of the 

UN agencies in country.

Further, the underlying tensions between the “blue” and “black” 

UN in countries where both a peacekeeping mission (United Nations 

Assistance Mission in Afghanistan) and technical UN agencies 

(United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, World 

Health Organization, etc.) are present on the ground adds to the difficulties for outsiders to establish effective liaison with the UN. To 

note, this color coding of UN components is informal; it refers to the 

fact that vehicles of peacekeeping missions (military, police, and political components) use black UN letters, whereas UN technical agencies use vehicles with the blue logo of their organizations. The tension 

between the blue and the black parts of the UN in mission comes 

from a separation of functions, but also from different methods of 

operations. The UN Security Council tasks the “black” peacekeeping 

mission to undertake inherently political functions, which usually 

are not perceived as equally neutral or beneficial by all parties to a 

given conflict. UNAMA in Afghanistan, for example, was mandated 

to both support the national government and International Security 

Assistance Force (ISAF). This created a sometimes uncomfortable divide 

with the “blue” technical agencies, whose mandate was more focused on 
SO YOU ARE GOING TO BE WORKING WITH THE UNITED NATIONS │ 287

providing relief and social services to populations. Further, “blue” 

agencies tend to center their operations in conflict areas on the traditional humanitarian principles of neutrality and impartiality to gain 

acceptance from all parties to manage security of their staff and access to beneficiaries. Through complex internal political dealings, the 

UN has moved in recent years to force the unity of effort and coherence of all UN components in countries, as in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Afghanistan. However, the inherent tension 

between the political and humanitarian activities can lead to agencies 

being seen as distancing themselves, sometimes calling for complete 

physical and operational separation, from the peacekeeping mission. 

At times these dynamics within the UN can seem incomprehensible 

to the outside observer (including to the parties to the conflict), but it 

may help explain why UN agencies sometimes appear to resent that 

liaison by US representatives on humanitarian issues that was first 

initiated with the peacekeeping mission rather than directly with the 

“blue” agency.

This split of cultures can lead to some serious infighting over priorities within and between the different UN agencies. One option is 

to name the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) head 

as the deputy for development within the new UN mission, but that 

still does not make it easy to establish common priorities over civilian 

agencies as diverse as UNICEF and the UN International Drug Control Program (UNDCP). For an outsider, speaking to the UN SRSG 

staff is only part of the answer; there is still a need to reach out and 

pull in individual UN agencies in planned efforts.

At the same time, working with the UN civilians can often be easier for a US outsider, compared to working with the UN military. 

Recruitment for individual UN civilian staff members is completely 

different from UN military forces. A country supplies UN forces for 

its own national reasons. The UN has little to say about quality or 

quantity. On the other hand, the UN recruits career employees competitively. In addition, many times, top mission staff are individually 

headhunted from other missions or programs by the SRSG or his or 

her supporters, moving from one mission and conflict or disaster to 

another. This enables them to be highly experienced. In addition, 

staff are often from Western nations, or have the benefits of Western 

educations, speak several foreign languages (one is always English), 

and often understand others’ bureaucracies as well as their own, due 

to their experience in other locations. The HQ staff are also more tech 
288 │ BECKER

savvy, using e-mail and web sites to do their jobs and aid in coordination, while the military forces may have limitations.

On the negative side, the majority of UN staff, either working for 

the “Black” UN side of the political mission or the “Blue” side with 

the technical UN agencies, are not permanent employees. Many staff 

members on UN contracts have been working for the UN on the basis 

of six-month or annual contract renewals for many years. In addition, 

UN recruitment standards may vary between missions and agencies. 

In the past 10 years, the UN has deployed substantial efforts to bring 

more consistency and transparency to recruitment practices (such as 

the Galaxy recruitment portal), but gaps remain in the profile and 

experience of staff, especially at the field officer level (the UN P-2 and 

P-3). Consequently, individual field staff members may not be as 

knowledgeable about the workings of the UN system or about the key 

cultural elements of UN staffers compared to the larger international 

organizations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross 

or humanitarian nongovernmental organizations (NGO), like Doctors without Borders. These groups place great emphasis on recruitment and cultural education of their staff to the values and internal 

procedures of the organization.

Development versus Security

UN civilian staff coordination with the UN military forces often 

stumbles on the same issues that an outsider faces. Differences in culture, language, and communication styles can slow understanding and 

cooperation. In addition, the question of the priority of security versus 

development activity can often cause the same frictions seen, for example, in a provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in Afghanistan.

The multiplicity of UN organizations can often overwhelm a military 

unit in the field, as everyone from UN High Commissioner on Human 

Rights to the UNIDCP drops in to the unit’s zone, each with its priorities and plans, each expecting support. Often, coordination of the 

field activities of the different UN agencies occurs around the conference table of the military unit in that part of the field, as the different 

UN agencies visiting from the capital discover who else is in the zone 

(NGOS, other donors, other UN). These meetings can be long and 

difficult, but often valuable, especially if relevant NGOs or a donor 

program can attend, or if necessary, host. Often, simply asking the 
SO YOU ARE GOING TO BE WORKING WITH THE UNITED NATIONS │ 289

different organizations to show up makes an enormous difference in 

plans and provides a chance to prove the bona fides of your program.

To the civilian NGO and UN community, the use of “development” as a catchall terminology to identify all civilian efforts outside 

of diplomatic and political efforts (such as its use by NATO in Afghanistan to describe one of the lines of operations) is misleading. 

Civilians tend to self-associate very strongly with either the “development” community, understood as focusing mostly on long-term, 

poverty reduction efforts outside of conflict situations, and the “humanitarian” community, traditionally associated with emergency efforts in conflict situations to reduce suffering and preventable mortality and morbidity caused by the conflict. Civilians may be militant 

about this self-association, because the key values and methods of 

operations of development and humanitarian action are different. 

Broadly speaking, development workers tend to focus more on longterm community involvement to build sustainable advancements in 

the economic and social services conditions of beneficiary populations. Humanitarian action sees itself as a fast response to save lives 

in the immediate term in conflict areas and in situations of natural 

disasters, where the drive to save lives now often overrides the focus 

on building sustainable solutions or involving host communities. 

While these tribal affiliations in the civilian field community may not 

be as clear in practice from individual to individual, it is well worth 

mentioning, especially for military personnel trying to build relations with UN agencies or NGOs.

Although both the development and humanitarian communities 

have evolved since the early 1990s in their perception of military personnel through numerous opportunities to work side by side in the 

field and participate in training events, some individuals may still 

harbor deeply held beliefs against soldiers (the “baby killers vs. treehuggers” model). As with all cross-cultural communications, a little 

investment by military personnel to better understand the key values 

and founding mythologies of both development and humanitarian 

communities can greatly facilitate relationship-building at field level. 

On this point, military personnel should also make themselves aware 

that they need to turn down the volume on their own cultural tendencies that may miff civilians, such as the compulsion to “take 

charge” in the face of seemingly disorganized civilian coordination of 

interagency efforts.
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Rotations

Making all of this harder is the fact that military units rotate on a 

different schedule from the civilian staff of the mission or the staffs of 

the UN agencies. Military units usually rotate on a six-month schedule, swapping in and out with another unit usually of the same nationality. If there are complaints from the US battlefield forces about 

the difficulties of 12-month tours (fighting the same war 10 years in a 

row), the situation is only worse for the UN forces. Time after time, 

in the stabilization efforts in Haiti of which I was a part, the team 

would establish good fluid relations with local military staff, only to 

realize a month or two later that the team would have to start over. 

Headquarters staff stayed much longer, often two years, but relations 

at that level did not guarantee quick action at the local level.

 United Nations Intelligence: Not a 

Contradiction in Terms

UN missions overseas need information just as badly as any other 

organization to be successful. With rapid military unit rotations at 

the grass roots and the language problems in reporting, the amount 

of information collected from military sources is limited, often biased 

by using too few sources, or dated. One shining exception is the UN 

civilian political officers, assigned from the headquarters of the SRSG. 

If they have been in their field location for a year or more, as is often 

true, they may well have a better understanding of local concerns 

than any US embassy staff who can merely visit from the capital. For 

the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti, there was a parallel political 

officer group focused on national/capital issues, which was often 

equally well informed. In Haiti, a successful innovation was the effort 

to pull together and analyze all sources of information via the UN 

Joint Mission Analysis Center (JMAC), which developed its own 

sources in the Haitian criminal community as well as drawing from 

the military units, police observers, and political officers. It reported 

to the SRSG. The JMAC also had regular exchanges of information 

with key embassies, including the United States, Canada, France, and 

Brazil, a contact that was useful to all parties. The JMAC model is 

more and more popular for UN operations. Establishing contacts on the 

intelligence side as well as the operations side is valuable and provides 
SO YOU ARE GOING TO BE WORKING WITH THE UNITED NATIONS │ 291

another avenue for promoting project concepts and recruiting allies. 

However, in the majority of contexts, NGOs do not readily contribute 

information to the UN, especially to the military side of the mission, 

mostly out of fears that the UN or other governments will misuse 

humanitarian information for political and military purposes. To be 

fair, every NGO is ultimately individually responsible for managing 

its own field security and access to beneficiaries, which relies on the 

acceptance of local actors. Agencies will measure their capacity to 

share information according to their own operational position in a 

context, and mostly if sharing improves their capacity to serve their 

target beneficiaries and not compromise the security of their expatriates 

and national employees. Information sharing by the NGOs may be 

better with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, but even then, the quality of the information shared is limited.

Working with the United Nations Police

For those working on stabilization, security, rule of law, and justice 

reform, the UN’s police monitors and trainers are theoretically a key 

asset. The reality is extremely variable. UN missions in the past usually did not cover police work. At best, the mission had some police 

monitors to report to military or civilian leadership on what the local 

police were doing and assist in humanitarian efforts. As did US policy 

makers, over time the UN also recognized that police were key parts 

of any solution. UN mandate tasking changed from monitoring, to 

interim law enforcement (e.g., Bosnia), to training new police, to advisory support, to police leadership, to operational support, to local 

police, and now to full scale police reform and law enforcement capacity building. As this evolution occurred, the numbers of police 

brought along on each mission increased from a few thousand police 

a year 20 years ago to more than 14,000 police worldwide this year. 

Unfortunately, the quality of the police doing these increasingly complex missions has not kept up with the quantity required. If existing 

military units suffer from language difficulties, different doctrines, 

and styles of leadership, it is even worse with individual police officers recruited from a variety of countries, often from Asia, Africa, 

and Latin America. Haiti had UN police officers from 47 different 

countries, for example. However, other smaller missions still had 10 

or 12 different countries represented. This can be perplexing to a 
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national government attempting to reform its civilian security force. 

It also means confusion for an outside observer working in the rule of 

law or police reform field. Different police in the same UN mission 

seem to have wildly different estimates of their role. I have met UN 

Civilian Police (CivPol) officers who clearly state that they are merely 

observers and do nothing but watch and report statistics to HQ 

(when they are visible at all). In the same police station on different 

rotations, I have also met UN CivPol officers who embody the role of 

mentor and advisor to police leadership at whatever level, working 

side by side with their counterparts.

This difference is partly a matter of professionalism and training as 

much as it is a matter of language skills and cultures. It does not help 

that UN police officers rotate almost as frequently as UN military 

units rotate and move from station to region to headquarters on the 

same short tour. For the outsider, apart from checking what the mandate allows and what mission instructions are from the UN SRSG, the 

best advice is to find those who come from a Western or even narrower Anglo-Saxon legal system background, in order to find the 

most common language and interpretations of legal requirements. 

However, fewer and fewer police are from the United States or Western European countries, especially as a percentage of the total numbers. Knowing the Western-educated officers would be merely a 

jumping off point for coordination and introductions to a wider 

range of officers.

The United States’ Role in United Nations Missions

For all one might criticize the UN overseas, the United States does 

little to support it directly with personnel on the military side or even 

on the civilian side. There may be one or two US military officers assigned to the UN in any mission, if that. The Pentagon keeps tours to 

one year or less for the officers assigned, and thus any US contribution suffers from the same short-timer problems as observed with 

UN military units. Predeployment training is often limited, meaning 

that much of the training occurs on the job in that single year. Even 

so, US officers are sought-after commodities, with their skill at integrating multiple streams of intelligence, or their professionalism in 

working within a large bureaucracy, or their knowledge and training 

from past deployments overseas in combat operations. They are also a 
SO YOU ARE GOING TO BE WORKING WITH THE UNITED NATIONS │ 293

key asset to any embassy or US employee, able to provide useful insights 

and introductions, once they have their feet on the ground. One caveat: 

they work for the UN, not for the US government, and must maintain a 

strict silence about sources, methods, and internal discussions.

Final Notes

These have been very narrow-scope observations of who and 

where to plug in. Stepping back, in general the US government in 

country usually works with the UN through the ambassador directly 

with the SRSG. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) works within the donor coordination mechanism, 

often led by UNDP. Sometimes there is a UN CivPol or security 

mechanism as well. However, this may not be enough, as US and UN 

programs increasingly overlap. Taking these comments and observations as a whole, I am advocating for an approach that ties in at lower 

levels, formally and informally. Conceivably the US government and 

UN could hold a formal meeting of multiple embassy elements with 

multiple UN elements on an occasional basis, with the opportunity to 

follow up more regularly via informal channels, e-mail, or distribution of planning documents. In the field, there is potential for something resembling a PRT approach, with donors’ representatives, their 

contractors, and the UN mission housed jointly on a single compound. However, this remains a controversial issue for some UN 

agencies and NGOs.

I have been pointing out some of the understandable and perhaps 

unavoidable limitations of working with the UN. Nevertheless, US 

military and civilians will be sharing the space and missions with the 

UN, most likely in a supporting role. US government observers need 

to learn and understand the cultural differences between UN agencies, the backgrounds and recruitment of individuals and units, and 

the requirement to coordinate both at headquarters and in the field. 

For US personnel, there is no substitute for developing relationships 

with all components of a UN mission and NGO presence on the 

ground. This is true given that there is no such thing as a single point 

of liaison within the UN community that is both completely effective 

and perceived as legitimate by all civilian players. If one oft-stated 

goal for the United States is to develop a “common operating picture” 
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of the “battlespace,” the same requirement extends to the UN and its 

mission.

Notes

1. Leon Panetta, secretary of defense, “Defense Strategic Guidance Briefing from 

the Pentagon,” press conference, 5 January 2012, http://www.defense.gov/transcripts

/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4953.

2. Leon Panetta, secretary of defense, Defense Strategic Guidance, Sustaining 

Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense (Washington, DC: DOD, 5 

January 2012), 6, http://www.defense.gov/news/Defense_Strategic_Guidance.pdf.

3. James Dobbins, Seth G. Jones, Keith Crane, and Beth Cole DeGrasse, The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2007), xxvi.

4. UN mission leadership and senior staff, conversations with author, Ethiopia, 

2001–02; Haiti, 2007–10; Washington, DC, 2011; and UN HQ, January 2013 (unattributed citation).
PART 5

Nongovernmental and Other Perspectives

Sharing the Space

Chapter 16

Civil Society Experiences of, Conflicts with,

and Recommendations for

Civilian-Military Teams

Lisa Schirch

Most discussions about civilian-military teams focus on coordinating government civilians and their civilian contractors with military personnel. Internal coordination within these civilian-military 

teams proved to be such an overwhelming task over the last 10 years 

that little attention has been given to the military’s relationship with 

other kinds of civilians—namely nongovernmental organizations 

(NGO) and the larger group of civil society organizations (CSO) that 

are independent from government. However, in Afghanistan, Iraq, 

the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, and elsewhere, US military personnel 

encounter a wide range of civilians. Military doctrine on stabilization, 

counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, information-support operations, and other areas increasingly instructs military personnel to engage with civilians outside of government. Current US counterinsurgency guidance, for example, identifies the importance of influencing 

local populations to interact effectively with their own government.1

Most government and military personnel recognize that they 

know very little about NGOs and CSOs and candidly admit they hold 

negative attitudes toward NGOs. Among these attitudes are perceptions that NGOs “clog up their battlespace,” “act like naïve treehuggers,” “aid and comfort the enemy,” “constantly call on military forces 

to rescue them,” and “must be unpatriotic since they won’t work with 

us.”2

 With little military guidance or training and even less research 

on military relations with CSOs, these stereotypes and biases tend to 

continue unchallenged. This chapter provides a description of CSOs 

that are working in places long before military forces and their civilian government counterparts arrive in the midst of a complex crisis 

environment. Ultimately, improving civilian-military teams requires 

that civilian government, civilian contractors, and military forces in 

these teams reduce tensions and come to understand and work in 

ways that complement these other civilians outside of government.
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Governments and military forces increasingly look for cooperation with both international NGOs and local CSOs. A comprehensive

approach recognizes the key roles that CSOs play in providing humanitarian assistance and building a stable, peaceful society. A comprehensive approach, according to US military stability operations 

doctrine, integrates cooperative efforts of the departments and agencies of the US government, intergovernmental and nongovernmental 

organizations (NGO), multinational partners, and private-sector entities such as civilian contractors to achieve unity of effort toward a 

shared goal.3

 Yet NGOs and other CSOs widely oppose these moves 

toward civilian-military integration, especially when they are referred to as “force multipliers” for military goals or assumed to work 

like contractors who follow orders and take commands.4

In this chapter, I address this current civil society–military animosity. I focus on civil society’s experiences of, conflicts with, and 

recommendations for its relations with military personnel. Research 

for this chapter took place in Afghanistan and the United States in the 

form of five structured dialogues between civil society and military 

personnel, along with interviews with civilian government personnel. 

I aimed to map tensions, increase understanding, identify common 

ground, and explore possibilities for deconflicting these relationships. I have spent much of the past 10 years participating in military 

conferences, training military forces and government civilians, and 

facilitating dialogue between civil society and military forces with 

these goals in mind.

I begin this chapter by defining civil society, noting the wide diversity of types of “civilians” that military personnel may encounter. I 

then explore different mechanisms for how civil society can relate to 

military personnel in diverse contexts. Using Afghanistan as a case 

study, the chapter describes the tensions and differences between local and international civil society groups carrying out humanitarian, 

development, and peacebuilding programs and the United Nation’s 

(UN) International Security Assistance Force’s (ISAF) stabilization 

efforts. The chapter concludes with recommendations for addressing 

these tensions and restructuring communications. The recommended 

new approach focuses on problem solving, taking into account the 

needs and interests of all relevant stakeholders and improving communication channels between CSOs and governmental civilian-military 

teams such as provincial reconstruction teams (PRT).
CIVIL SOCIETY EXPERIENCES OF, CONFLICTS WITH, AND RECOMMENDATIONS │ 299

Defining Civil Society

Civilians working on behalf of government agencies are different 

from civilians working for civil society organizations. CSOs are 

groups of citizens not in government that organize themselves on behalf of some public interest. NGOs and private voluntary organizations are types of CSOs. This chapter uses the term CSOs to include 

both local NGOs (LNGO) and international NGOs (INGO). 

An active local civil society is an indicator of a functioning and 

democratic state. Civil society works both in partnership with the 

state to complement and supplement its capacity and in opposition to 

the state in order to hold the state to account for its responsibilities 

and transparent governance.5 There is no single representation for 

civil society’s vast diversity. CSOs represent a wide variety of views 

and do not agree on all issues.

Local and international CSOs include religious, educational, media, community-based organizations, business and trade associations, traditional and indigenous structures, sports associations, musicians, artists, and more. CSOs conduct a wide variety of activities 

including economic development, health, agriculture, human rights, 

conflict resolution, participatory governance, security-sector reform, 

as well as disarmament, demobilization, reintegration, and fostering 

moderation and coexistence. 

Humanitarian NGOs hold a unique position among CSOs. Humanitarian agencies trace their history to early efforts of civilians to 

go onto the battlefield to help wounded soldiers on all sides of the 

conflict. Depending on their neutral, impartial, and independent status for access, early humanitarian efforts secured the acceptance of 

their presence from all sides of an armed conflict. As civilians themselves increasingly became caught in the midst of war, humanitarian 

agencies began helping both civilians and wounded soldiers on all 

sides of war. These civilian humanitarian efforts worked to gain support for international humanitarian law (IHL), or the law of armed 

conflict. IHL defines the conduct and responsibilities of belligerent 

nations, neutral nations, and individuals engaged in warfare in relation to each other and to protected persons, usually meaning civilians. 

The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the related Protocol of 1977 

detail the legal basis for protection of NGO humanitarian workers in 

conflicts. The cardinal principles of IHL in the conduct of hostilities 

include the need for distinction of military personnel and targets 
300 │ SCHIRCH

from civilians, proportion of military benefit to harm to civilians, and 

military precaution to prevent harm to civilians.

Following IHL guidance, humanitarian NGOs attempt to follow a 

strict code to ensure armed groups accept their presence and allow 

them freedom of movement to alleviate suffering of people on all 

sides of a conflict. IHL specifies that consent of the parties is necessary for humanitarian action. Humanitarian NGOs depend on the 

acceptance of all those receiving assistance as well as armed groups 

that hold formal and informal responsibilities or control over an affected population. An “acceptance strategy” refers to how NGOs gain 

and maintain consent for and acceptance of humanitarian assistance 

activities from beneficiaries, local authorities, belligerents, and other 

stakeholders.6

 Adhering to humanitarian principles is essential to obtaining consent of all of these stakeholders. As such, humanitarian 

NGOs incorporate the following principles into their work.

Figure 16.1. Humanitarian principles. (Derived from UN General Assembly, United Nations General Assembly Resolutions 46/182 and 58/114.)

CSOs fall along a spectrum, with some making much more effort 

to be neutral, impartial, and independent than others. It is important 

for military forces to recognize that not all NGOs are the same. Humanitarian NGOs are distinct in their pursuit of these principles. 

Multimandate NGOs will make more compromises to achieve general political goals such as promoting democracy, women’s empowerment, or human rights. However, working on these general goals still 

Humanity: Human suffering must be addressed wherever it is found. 

The purpose of humanitarian action is to protect life and health and to 

ensure respect for the human being.

Impartiality: Humanitarian action must be carried out on the basis of 

humanitarian need alone, giving priority to the most urgent cases of 

distress and making no distinctions on the basis of nationality, race, 

religious beliefs, class, or political opinions.

Neutrality: Humanitarian actors must not take sides in hostilities or 

engage in controversies of a political, racial, religious, or ideological 

nature.

Independence: Humanitarian action must be autonomous from the 

political, economic, military, or other objectives that any actor may 

hold with regard to areas where humanitarian action is being implemented.
CIVIL SOCIETY EXPERIENCES OF, CONFLICTS WITH, AND RECOMMENDATIONS │ 301

requires impartiality and independence. By definition, CSOs do not 

take sides with political parties or explicit political goals. CSOs may 

work with governments where shared goals exist. However, most 

CSOs will hold on to their independence and impartiality to ensure 

local acceptance and trust with communities they serve.

Even nonhumanitarian CSOs attempt to be independent and impartial, making decisions and program plans regardless of the identity 

of those suffering, political goals, ideologies, or military missions. It is 

generally accepted among all CSOs—humanitarian NGOs and multimandate organizations that may work at promoting democracy and 

human rights—that an organization’s actual and perceived impartiality and independence are determining factors in guaranteeing the 

CSO’s ability to carry out these programs and ensuring the security of 

CSO staff and the local communities that benefit from their programs. 

When some groups perceive CSOs as being partial to explicit political 

or security goals, when CSOs take sides with political leaders, and 

when they are dependent on funding or security from donors with 

explicit political or security goals, they are less likely to be accepted 

by all stakeholders, may be perceived as a threat by some groups, and 

may be targeted by armed groups.

All CSOs attempt to “do no harm” in their relationships and emphasize local consultation and accountability to local people. CSOs 

negotiate access with official governments, armed groups, informal 

traditional governing bodies such as tribal elders or religious authorities, and others who may control access, including local authorities 

at airports or ports or armed actors at checkpoints. Most NGOs receive special training in negotiating access with these stakeholders.

The chair of the UN’s High-Level Panel on Civil Society and Global 

Governance states, “The legitimacy of civil society organizations derives from what they do and not from whom they represent.”7

 While 

the Westphalian state structure is still a relatively new system of governance, CSOs have been operating since the beginning of time as people 

work together to achieve common goals. In countries like Afghanistan 

and Somalia, tribal leadership structures provide governance in areas 

untouched by formal governments. In Colombia and the Philippines, 

the Catholic Church and other religious leadership provide governance 

functions like helping communities organize themselves to access 

clean water and maintain rule of law and respect for human rights.

Like government and military organizations, CSOs suffer from some 

common challenges including dealing with incapable and corrupt CSOs 
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operating in the midst of legitimate CSOs, maintaining consistent 

funding despite donors’ shifting priorities, evaluating their work, and 

dealing with growing government repression of civil society, which 

restricts CSO activities. Local populations trust some CSOs and distrust 

others. Some CSOs also exacerbate conflict and violence. To address 

these issues, CSO networks in many countries have thorough vetting 

systems that can help distinguish legitimate from illegitimate CSOs. 

In addition, most governments require that NGOs must meet specific 

legal requirements for organizational oversight and accountability.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development 

(OECD) guidelines on security-sector reform (SSR) and disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) call for civilian oversight and participation working with military personnel when shared 

goals exist.8

 Yet operationally, there is little contact in many conflictaffected regions between the local and international CSOs conducting SSR and DDR activities and military or government actors, even 

though many of these CSOs have a long history of working on these 

security-sector reform issues and are eager to share their lessons 

learned and provide advice to the international community.

Comparing Civil Society Organizations to

Military-Led Stabilization Programs 

In many stabilization contexts, international military forces and 

government personnel assume they share goals with NGOs and 

CSOs. However, this is not the case. Both local and international 

CSOs frequently question the legitimacy of stabilization missions, 

national or international, when military forces may act without the 

consent of local populations and when no legally enforceable mechanism exists to hold forces accountable to legitimate local political 

decision-making bodies. In many countries, CSOs cite a long legacy 

of military forces acting against the interest of local citizens to achieve 

access to resources or geopolitical gains. 

The different goals of the military and CSOs lead to different types 

of programs. CSOs focus their programs on relieving suffering, poverty alleviation, good governance, participatory decision-making, and 

human rights. Military-led humanitarian and development stabilization missions often rely on quick impact projects (QIP) or “hearts 

and minds” activities. The United Kingdom’s (UK) Stabilization Unit 
CIVIL SOCIETY EXPERIENCES OF, CONFLICTS WITH, AND RECOMMENDATIONS │ 303

defines QIPs as “small scale, low cost, rapidly implemented projects 

that serve as down payments on promises of political and economic 

progress buying time for, and confidence in, a government.”9 The UN 

policy paper on QIPs describes them similarly as efforts to build confidence in UN missions and peace processes and specifically notes 

they are not intended as forms of humanitarian or long-term development assistance.10 The US military uses stabilization activities for a 

range of effects, including addressing the root causes of instability.11

The chart in table 16.1 summarizes the different goals and principles 

inherent in the different approaches. 

Greater consultation with CSOs before and during military interventions could help achieve greater legitimacy, consent, and collaboration on shared human security goals. Many local CSOs complain 

that the international community more often undermines their interests in good governance by framing state building as solely a government to government task rather than nurturing a healthy relationship 

between the state and society.

There are many examples of positive civil society–military relations 

where groups worked together to achieve shared goals. In Ghana, 

CSOs, government, and security forces coordinate rapid response to 

potential violence via a “National Architecture for Peace.” During the 

2008 elections civil society leaders mediated between political candidates to deescalate impending election-related violence.12 In the Philippines, Filipino military leaders attended training at a local civil society–

led peacebuilding institute on negotiation, mediation, and peace 

processes. Military leaders then asked for a peacebuilding training 

program for thousands of military personnel.13 In Thailand, local 

civil society worked with the military to write the national security policy for the southern border provinces from 1999 to 2003. The 

process of developing this strategy together changed how top military leaders saw their role in supporting a human security agenda.14

In Afghanistan, the Department of State and ISAF had a staff person with the title “NGO liaison.” The ISAF NGO liaison helped build 

momentum around a successful local CSO pilot program to improve 

SSR and police-community relations. And the US Department of 

Homeland Security (DHS) Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties consulted with Arab, Muslim, Sikh, South Asian, and Somali community 

leaders. DHS drew on this group for crisis rapid-response phone consultations and broader community consultations to identify concerns 

and brainstorm solutions and to develop DHS cultural competency.15
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Table 16.1. Comparison of CSO and military goals

General CSO Goals General Military Goals in

Stabilization Programs

Humanitarian Assistance: to save 

lives, alleviate suffering, and uphold dignity

Development Assistance: to alleviate poverty through long-term 

capacity-building programs to 

improve governance in all sectors

Respect for Rights: to ensure 

that local populations are able to 

exercise their human rights

Local Ownership: to support locally identified needs and local 

leadership and participation in 

decisions and actions to achieve 

local solutions

Sustainable: to identify solutions 

that will make a lasting impact

Accountability: to consult and 

be accountable to local people 

through transparent programs

Independence: to make decisions, 

program plans, and have strategies 

free from explicit political goals

Impartiality: to provide resources 

regardless of the identity of those 

suffering

Neutrality: to not take sides in 

armed struggles

Do No Harm: to avoid harming 

others (intentionally or unintentionally)

Address Drivers of Instability: to 

address perceived root causes of violence, for example, developing job 

creation programs such as rebuilding 

factories or large public works projects to address unemployment

Win Loyalty of Local Population for 

Local Government: to gain support of local populations for US and 

coalition efforts to support the local 

government

Win Loyalty of Local Elites/Host 

Nation Support: to supply local elites 

with public goods such as humanitarian aid, schools, or bridges to 

increase and extend the state’s local 

legitimacy and authority

Gain Access/Information: to provide 

an opportunity to gain access to, and 

information about, local populations and potential targets of military 

action

Force Protection: to convince local 

populations of US military goodwill

Undermine Insurgent Recruitment:

to reduce numbers attracted to insurgency

Humanitarian Access: to provide 

humanitarian assistance in insecure 

areas where the UN and NGOs are 

not able, as per Geneva Conventions
CIVIL SOCIETY EXPERIENCES OF, CONFLICTS WITH, AND RECOMMENDATIONS │ 305

Mechanisms for Civil Society–Military Relations

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 

(OCHA) defines a spectrum of military relations with humanitarian 

NGOs at the operational level. This type of CSO-military relationship 

depends on whether missions align.16The first category, “curtail presence,” 

refers to situations such as the height of the Iraq war, when it became 

impossible for CSOs to operate because of a lack of security, and there 

were widely held concerns among CSOs about the legitimacy of a 

military mission with large numbers of civilian casualties without the 

IHL principle of proportionate military benefit given the absence of 

weapons of mass destruction. CSOs generally felt they were forced 

either to take sides by explicitly supporting the coalition forces or to 

withdraw. Neutrality was nearly impossible. 

The second category represents a situation where there is minimal 

contact or communication between representative CSOs and military personnel such as in more recent years in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

As detailed later in this chapter, CSOs did not perceive that they 

shared an understanding of the driving factors of conflict in Afghanistan or that they shared a mission with military personnel in these 

types of contexts. In Afghanistan, NGOs perceived a wide gap between their work to reduce corruption, empower women, and foster 

democracy and the policies of Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s regime. As such, they recognized that they would not have access or 

acceptance in many Afghan communities if their explicit goal was to 

support the Karzai regime or work directly with ISAF. However, most 

communities did accept NGOs that held general goals of supporting 

democracy and women’s rights while being impartial to any specific 

political party and independent of direct ISAF control.

In contexts like Haiti, where there was a shared understanding and 

commitment to a humanitarian mission, there were more efforts that 

looked like coordination and cooperation between CSOs and military personnel. The diagram in table 16.2 illustrates the spectrum of 

levels of communication and coordination between civil society organizations and military forces.
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Table 16.2. Spectrum of civil society–military coordination

Curtail Presence Where it becomes impossible for CSOs to operate 

safely, international CSOs may pull out and local 

CSOs may go into hiding.

Coexist/Communicate Where CSOs, government, and military operate 

in the same space but their missions do not align, 

only basic communication on logistical details 

takes place.

Coordinate Where CSOs, government, and military missions 

partially align, there may be some basic coordination to promote CSO core values in human 

security.

Cooperate Where CSOs, government, and military missions 

partially or fully align, there may be collaboration 

on joint projects, particularly in disaster relief or 

DDR.

Coordination can take a variety of forms. Where there is no coordinating body, groups working in the same area coordinate informally or via “Heineken diplomacy,” as individual people build relationships in informal settings over a beer. Coordination by command

refers to some type of government-led civilian-military operations 

center or international coordinating agency, such as OCHA, that has 

legitimacy through formal authority, the rewards for being coordinated (e.g., funding), or the punishments for not following commands (e.g., denial of access to certain areas or refugee camps).

NGO expectations for civilian-military relations in Iraq and Afghanistan grew out of their experience of coordinating with military 

personnel in places like Kosovo and East Timor. In both of these 

places, UN Security Council resolutions authorized a peacekeeping 

mission distinct from previous combat. Given the mission clarity, humanitarian NGOs and military conducted some planning for the 

provision of humanitarian assistance as well as discussing end-states 

for transitioning out. In both contexts, the military provided security 

for NGOs and international organizations to deliver humanitarian 

assistance. The UN coordinated the effort, allowing NGOs to distance 

themselves from political decisions and ensuring that groups on the 

ground perceived them as neutral and independent.

In other contexts, there has been coordination by consensus where 

CSOs participate voluntarily with a recognized coordination body that 

they helped to establish. This type of coordination builds consensus 
CIVIL SOCIETY EXPERIENCES OF, CONFLICTS WITH, AND RECOMMENDATIONS │ 307

among CSOs, governments, and military to work in ways that complement rather than conflict. In Rwanda, for example, the United Nations 

Rwanda Emergency Office successfully led this type of coordination by 

consensus. Co-leaders from UN and NGO backgrounds were able to 

co-facilitate participatory meetings in a neutral location separate from 

UN military offices.17

In Haiti, OCHA played this role; however, many local Haitian 

NGOs, religious organizations, and other local groups were left out of 

this coordination forum. Unfortunately, this type of coordination 

body was also missing in Afghanistan, where OCHA provided coordination to international humanitarian actors but not for local civil 

society groups or nonhumanitarian groups focused on longer-term 

development or peacebuilding.

In sum, coordination works better when there is a shared understanding and mission between CSOs and military personnel. Coordination mechanisms can be effective when there are clear incentives to 

coordinate and/or when CSOs participate actively in the design and 

facilitation of such coordination mechanisms. However, these existing coordination mechanisms have been applied only to humanitarian CSOs, predominantly large INGOs. To date, they have largely left 

out CSOs focusing on long-term development and peacebuilding 

and usually exclude or limit the participation of local CSO efforts. 

These groups also want and need to communicate with military personnel in conflict-affected regions. Afghanistan offers an example of 

a perfect storm in civil society–military relations. A lack of coordination mechanisms accompanied by tensions over assessment and mission culminated in a sharp increase in tensions.

Civil Society–Military Tensions in Afghanistan

As US forces entered Afghanistan in 2001, international forces led by 

the United States set up a series of improvised coordination mechanisms 

with humanitarian NGOs. US Central Command (USCENTCOM) 

invited INGOs and IOs like the UN for the initial planning phase of 

their intervention. NGOs advised military planners on issues relevant to their work. For example, NGOs cautioned against bombing 

critical infrastructure such as airfields that would be needed to deliver humanitarian assistance. Interviews with INGO and USCENTCOM 
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staff at these initial planning meetings attest to the value of the discussion for all stakeholders.18

Once on the ground in Pakistan and Afghanistan, INGOs, the UN, 

and US military started patching together field-level mechanisms 

such as the Coalition Humanitarian Liaison Cell that, among other 

things, coordinated humanitarian assistance flights into Afghanistan. 

A new NGO network, Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief 

(ACBAR), represented both LNGOs and INGOs. ACBAR members 

wanted UN leadership in all coordination efforts, but they questioned 

the UN’s political goals and saw it as incapable of coordinating even 

among its own agencies.

NGOs expressed frustration over military forces dropping food 

rations, critiquing it as wastefully expensive and ineffective at alleviating suffering compared to other methods of delivering food aid. 

Tensions skyrocketed as military personnel began wearing civilian 

clothing and traveling in unmarked white trucks. NGOs argued they 

had a long reputation of using white vehicles to deliver assistance, 

and the military employing such resources essentially blurred the 

distinction between unarmed, independent NGOs and military personnel. Despite urgent pleas from NGOs, it took the military several 

years to address these issues. The delays contributed to a sense among 

NGOs that the military did not really care about their security or 

delivering humanitarian aid.19

News of these tensions traveled back to the United States, where 

the US Institute of Peace facilitated the development of a set of Guidelines for Relations between US Armed Forces and Non-Governmental 

Humanitarian Organizations (NGHOs) in Hostile or Potentially Hostile Environments with the NGO umbrella network InterAction and 

the Department of Defense.20 ACBAR took the lead in developing 

civilian-military Guidelines for Afghanistan. The commander of ISAF 

and leaders of the NGOs and the UN reportedly all signed onto these 

guidelines. However, according to a civilian-military dialogue on the 

topic, the paperwork with the signed copies of the guidelines went 

missing.21 The UN, tasked to carry out training on the guidelines, did 

not follow through until years later.22
CIVIL SOCIETY EXPERIENCES OF, CONFLICTS WITH, AND RECOMMENDATIONS │ 309

Opposition to Civil Society Organization–Military 

Coordination in Afghanistan

Meanwhile, NGOs and IOs came to reject the idea of an ongoing 

coordination mechanism for reasons detailed below. Instead, the humanitarian community embraced an ad hoc approach. Some NGOs 

turned to the UN to host meetings and asked international military 

forces to send a representative when specific issues required discussion.

1. Location on Military Compounds 

In order to attend civil society–military coordination meetings, 

NGOs had to pass through intensive security screening in Iraq and 

Afghanistan. Walking in and out of a military base is a dangerous act 

for unarmed civilians returning to their homes or offices. Such contact puts a mark on an NGO as a possible military collaborator or spy. 

NGOs were afraid that attending such coordination meetings with 

the aim of communication to deconflict activities would give a perception that NGOs were not independent of the international military forces that were increasingly raising animosity with the local 

population due to night raids, home searches, and drone bombs.23

2. Information Operations 

NGOs provided information to military planners in coordination 

meetings on where their staff was traveling and where their organizations were providing assistance. However, military personnel were 

not able to provide NGOs with timely information about population 

flows, conditions for internally displaced peoples, safe travel concerns, and locations where future combat operations would occur. 

Military forces were slower to provide information to NGOs partly 

because it was not a military priority to find information to help 

NGO planners and partly because such information was slow to be 

declassified. NGOs stopped attending coordination meetings because 

many became convinced that the meetings were being used to extract 

information from NGOs that would be used to identify possible targets or to persuade NGOs to support the military mission. A RAND 

study that interviewed military personnel about their relationships 

with NGOs found that they did gather information from these meetings that helped them better understand the ground truth.24
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3. High Turnover 

INGO staff and military personnel turn over frequently. Military 

rotation schedules are often as little as every six months. The dialogue 

between CSOs and military personnel had to start over every six 

months with new personnel. This meant there was little institutional 

memory or protocol.

4. Too Few Civil Affairs Officers 

International military forces were heavy on logistics and light on 

civil affairs personnel, deeming the latter a low priority or a luxury.25

This meant there were not enough civil affairs personnel to pay attention to the growing challenges of monitoring and assessing military 

civic assistance programs or to coordinate with civilians of all types.

5. Competition over Civil Society Organization Representation

Large humanitarian INGOs tend to hold the most power and 

sometimes actively exclude others from participating in civilian-military coordination forums. INGOs urgently need information on issues such as population movements and scheduling flights. Smaller 

NGOs that focus on longer-term development and peacebuilding 

and local CSOs have a different set of issues on the table for discussion 

with military personnel. Sorting out the legitimate NGOs from the 

illegitimate is a challenge for those coordinating these forums. However, the exclusion of distinct CSO voices in civil society–military discussions eventually harms any concept of local ownership or transition toward civilian leadership. In Afghanistan, relationships between 

INGOs and LNGOs were strained and scarce.

Military Motivations for Quick Impact Programs in 

Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, international military forces (IMF) used heartsand-minds QIPs to communicate their intentions to be allies and not 

enemies of Afghan civilians and to win local allegiance to the side of 

the IMF. By 2002, the small, Kabul-focused ISAF was conducting 200 

projects to demonstrate its goodwill toward local people.26 Military 

personnel touted success stories of military-led hearts-and-minds 
CIVIL SOCIETY EXPERIENCES OF, CONFLICTS WITH, AND RECOMMENDATIONS │ 311

efforts in places like Deh Rawood, where US forces built schools, 

clinics, and a bridge to reduce local hostility generated after they had 

accidentally bombed a wedding party.27 According to early documents, the PRTs’ mandate was to provide “interim structures” to “assist the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to extend its authority, in 

order to facilitate the development of a stable and secure environment in the identified area of operations, and enable SSR and reconstruction efforts.”28

Military personnel cite specific positive outcomes from their QIPs, 

such as gaining access to communities or facilitating reconciliation 

between tribes. They argue hearts-and-minds efforts help civilians in 

tangible ways. They also assert that their QIPs go through a careful 

and complicated review process. In Afghanistan, for example, the 

IMF used the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) priority list 

of schools that needed rebuilding. Since military personnel were already on the ground, planners argued their QIPs were actually less 

expensive that comparative NGO efforts.

Civil Society Organizations’ Perceptions of Quick 

Impact Programs

Widespread civil society opposition to hearts and minds and 

quick impact projects fuel civil society–military tensions. CSOs oppose the integration of development and security goals and the military’s use of the term “humanitarian” to describe QIPs’ security or 

political purposes in a stabilization mission. They say these programs 

aim to achieve a military purpose and thus should not be confused 

with humanitarian efforts that primarily aim to relieve short-term 

suffering without any political purpose. CSOs charge that militaryled and military-directed QIPs lead to quick collapse and thus ineffective and unsustainable development for a variety of reasons, which 

are outlined below.

CSOs generally do see that poverty plays a key role in driving conflict.29 Yet despite decades of development expertise, even many CSO 

development projects still fail to address causes of poverty and do 

more to fuel local conflict than mitigate it. Development and peacebuilding CSOs have undergone extensive training in a “do no harm” 

methodology to avoid negative impacts of their work.30 CSOs note that 

learning how to deliver humanitarian assistance and do development 
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is not an “add-on” skill that military personnel can pick up in weekend courses. The potential for making major mistakes that undermine the cause of development or stabilization is high. CSOs note 

that untrained military personnel conducting humanitarian assistance and development activities are not aware of the complexity of 

the task or cognizant of that lack of understanding. Moreover, the 

following nine issues are among the most frequently mentioned criticisms of QIPs:

1. Unsustainable and Ineffective

Some donor countries like the United States evaluate QIPs according to the monthly “burn rate.” In other words, they measure development inputs or dollars spent rather than measuring real impacts 

and outcomes.31 As Congress pressed for a development surge to accompany the troop surge in Afghanistan, PRTs had cash to spend. 

However, their research does not support the claim that more money 

equals more stability. To the contrary, countries can only absorb a 

certain amount of development dollars at a time. Excess funds fuel 

corruption and may destabilize communities.32

A tribal leader in Paktia province in Afghanistan explained to Oxfam researchers, “[Our people] really do not need somebody to distribute biscuits to us and do not need construction projects that fall down 

after a year.”33 Half a world away on Capitol Hill, Congressional Armed 

Services Committee members interviewed PRT staff who concluded, 

“the lack of planning led PRTs to pursue short-term ‘feel good’ projects 

(with success measured by money spent or satisfaction of the local governor) without consideration of larger strategic and capacity-building 

implications.”34 Oxfam reports that QIPs focus on “capital-heavy, 

highly-visible ‘hardware’ like school buildings or refurbished markets,” 

but fail to budget for the essential “software” like schoolteachers or 

health care workers that sustainable development requires.35

The US General Accounting Office (GAO) and the congressionally 

appointed special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction 

(SIGAR) and Iraq reconstruction (SIGIR) verify NGO concerns via 

their own research on the military-led civic assistance programs.36

These reports note billions of dollars of US taxpayers’ money have 

been used for reconstruction efforts characterized by considerable 

waste with scant evidence of positive effects. SIGAR’s July 2013 report 

revealed that the $49 billion spent in reconstruction had questionable 
CIVIL SOCIETY EXPERIENCES OF, CONFLICTS WITH, AND RECOMMENDATIONS │ 313

impact. SIGAR’s July 2013 report repeated previous recommendations 

for the US Army to prevent US reconstruction funds from directly 

funding the Taliban and other insurgent groups in Afghanistan, noting 

these recommendations had not yet been implemented and evidence 

suggested counterthreat financing may still be happening through US 

reconstruction funds.37 The SIGIR March 2013 report also raised serious concerns about the widespread corruption and waste in the $60 

billion the United States used for reconstruction in Iraq.38

2. Divert Funding Away from Sustainable Development

Research on military-led QIPs in situations ranging from the 

Rwandan refugee crisis in 1994 to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami 

concludes such projects cost considerably more than civilian alternatives.39 In Kenya, for example, the US military spent five months and 

$250,000 digging two wells that did not work. These wells would have 

only provided water for some 20 nomadic families. The main goal for 

the well digging was gathering information and establishing relationships as part of the regional counterterrorism plan. In comparison, 

wells dug by NGOs cost approximately $10,000 and first require an 

assessment regarding local needs and a plan for ongoing maintenance.40 In the end, instead of a real project, the remaining shells of 

failed QIPs endure as lasting symbols of wasted money that could 

have gone into sustainable projects.

CSOs view QIPs in places like Afghanistan, where they are carried 

out by PRTs and Commanders Emergency Response Program 

(CERP) funds, as diverting international funds away from legitimate 

donor pools that aim to strengthen governance and build in mechanisms to assess, monitor, and evaluate development efforts to maximize their effectiveness and sustainability. At the same time, they set 

up parallel structures to address public needs, thus inadvertently undermining the very host-nation government they ostensibly aim to 

support. CSOs view QIPs as an impediment to strategic, coordinated, 

and sustainable development efforts.41

The CERP budget in Afghanistan was larger than the Afghan government’s combined budget for education, health, and agriculture, 

totaling $1.5 billion in 2010. However, CERP funds could be spent 

only on QIPs and not the needed infrastructure projects. In a wide 

variety of reports, NGOs argued that the international community 

would have done far more to support stability and security if they invested 
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in major repair and construction and infrastructure projects that NGOs 

were not able to do and that were needed for economic growth.42

3. Use Aid Coercively for Information and Cooperation

Throughout history, groups have used humanitarian assistance to 

achieve goals other than the relief of human suffering to gain cooperation. Missionaries in Africa built schools and offered education as 

long as locals converted to Christianity. Development literature 

widely condemns these colonial practices. So NGOs decry reports of 

QIPs that expect communities to provide information about insurgents or support the presence of armed forces in their communities, 

even if locals perceive that the QIP actually endangers them by creating a symbolic target for insurgents.43 At the same time, governments 

put conditions on humanitarian grants offered to CSOs in Afghanistan, which required them to adopt military terminology and strategy into their humanitarian assistance efforts. For example, there was 

a requirement for NGOs to add counterinsurgency indicators to 

measure their impact and directions to operate in areas where NGOs 

could be used to stabilize regions as part of the “clear, hold, build” 

approach to counterinsurgency. Many INGOs refused large sums of 

funding from governments because of these conditions. Some smaller 

LNGOs did take funding with these conditions, but then reported 

that the coercive leveraging of funds for cooperation endangered 

their lives and undermined their relationships with communities, 

making their work more difficult—if not impossible.

4. Counterproductive to Stabilization

CSOs ask critical questions about the concept of stability itself: stabilization for whom and for what purpose? Government and military 

personnel tend to use the concept of stability in different ways. Often, 

the concept of stability refers to bolstering support for specific political regimes that support short-term US security or economic interests rather than stability for longer-term US interests in democracy 

or human rights. In the 2010 revolutions in the Middle East, US political leaders sometimes spoke of “stability,” reflecting their desire to 

maintain support for US-friendly regimes in the region, regardless of 

their authoritarian and repressive characteristics. Other times the 

United States sided with the people’s movements, calling for “change.” 
CIVIL SOCIETY EXPERIENCES OF, CONFLICTS WITH, AND RECOMMENDATIONS │ 315

US civilian doctrine on stabilization, on the other hand, defines the 

term as applying to efforts to help a country move from violent conflict to peace.44 It rightly describes stabilization aimed at achieving a 

safe and secure environment, rule of law, governance that allows people to share, to access, or to compete for power through nonviolent 

political processes and to enjoy the collective benefits and services of 

the state, a sustainable economy, and more generally social well-being, 

where people coexist peacefully.

CSOs tend to see strengthening governance as a long-term effort 

that sometimes means that local CSOs will challenge their government or stand apart from it to hold it accountable. Supporting good 

governance sometimes means critiquing corruption, lack of capacity, 

or lack of political will of a particular government. CSOs often see 

short-term stabilization via QIPs as counterproductive—endangering and undermining long-term development and peacebuilding, 

wasting development funds, and inadvertently fueling both corruption and insurgency.45 CERP funds used to build schools and wells in 

Afghan warlords’ districts fell into the hands of corrupt contractors 

who turned out shoddy work. The funds resulted in increased support 

to regional leaders who opposed the Afghan government, thus undermining the very government the funds were supposed to support.46

Moreover, CSOs question the underlying assumption that QIPtype development activities contribute to stability or security, noting 

research that disproves the link.47 When CSOs reduce poverty by investing in education and creating livelihoods, the economic payoff 

may translate into greater political stability in the longer term. In the 

Horn of Africa, for example, intertribal clashes occur as land and water for pasturing cattle are in short supply. A variety of NGOs help to 

diversify economic livelihoods and support local pastoralist associations that manage resource disputes through mediation in what they 

refer to as “community-led stabilization.” Military QIPs to build 

schools and latrines may gain the military short-term access, but 

NGOs point out that QIPs do not address the key drivers of conflict.48

5. Undermine Civilian Security

When militaries and governments begin to deliver humanitarian 

aid as a means of winning over local populations, it becomes difficult 

if not impossible for local people to tell the differences between humanitarian efforts aimed exclusively at relieving suffering and those 
316 │ SCHIRCH

that are aimed at invoking the support of the population for one side 

of the conflict. In this case, the opposing side sees humanitarian assistance as helping their enemy and thus may directly attack those 

delivering aid or prevent them from reaching people in need. Where 

humanitarian groups have secured the consent of all armed groups to 

conduct their work according to principles of neutrality, impartiality, 

and independence, armed groups do not target those delivering the 

aid and do not block their work. However, in practice, armed groups 

are attacking and killings NGOs in increasing numbers each year. 

The historic principles of humanitarianism are under threat from a 

variety of trends.49

CSOs report QIPs act like a magnet for armed opposition forces; 

when the military uses development as a weapon of war, as explicitly 

detailed in the US Army publication Money as a Weapons System, 

armed opposition groups naturally try to destroy that weapon, regardless of whether it is a school or health clinic.50 Afghanistan is the 

apex of these tensions, though similar stories are also told of militaryled efforts in other parts of Asia and around Africa and Latin America. An elder interviewed in one village noted, “[Our people] are very 

poor and need development projects but [our people] know that 

wherever the international forces go, the Taliban follow them.”51 Military involvement in education and health increases the risks that 

health clinics or schools will be attacked. In 2008 CSOs reported that 

“on average every four days three Afghans are summarily executed 

for their association with the government or international forces.”52

On the other hand, where there is local ownership and leadership for 

schools and health clinics, greater levels of safety for communities 

exist. Armed opposition groups seem to recognize that these development efforts are not weapons of war or legitimate targets, and attacking 

them would serve no purpose other than alienating the community.

Trends monitoring NGO kidnapping and murders in Afghanistan 

show a shocking increase since the early 2000s. Many NGOs assume 

a variety of factors—including blurred lines between integrated military and civilian actors—are making NGOs the “soft targets” or front 

lines of the military forces. NGOs report that they regularly receive 

warnings that any perceived association with military forces will 

make them a target. In many areas, NGO offices and staff have been 

searched for links to the military and threatened with severe consequences if such links are established. Likewise, NGO projects have 

been forced to close due to visits from PRTs or foreign donor agencies 
CIVIL SOCIETY EXPERIENCES OF, CONFLICTS WITH, AND RECOMMENDATIONS │ 317

in heavily armed escorts. In the aftermath of such visits, communities 

have informed NGOs that they can no longer guarantee the safety of 

project staff.53

NGOs note that this dynamic not only endangers NGOs, it makes 

it difficult for NGOs to earn the trust of and to gain access to local 

communities who do not want to begin development projects if it 

will increase threats against their community. Some NGOs report 

they feel more secure in Taliban-controlled areas than in areas with 

PRTs. The Taliban is not necessarily opposed to development.54

Rather, development becomes a target where there is a more open 

battle for legitimacy and authority.

NGOs seek access to, acceptance by, and dialogue with all armed 

groups to carry out their humanitarian and development work so 

that it can avoid being the victim of targeting by armed groups. Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF, or Doctors without Borders) negotiated 

directly with Taliban leadership and had access as long as its workers 

wore vests with the logo for MSF identified on front and back. ACBAR 

would have liked to have the same dialogue with other armed forces—

to be equidistant from IMF and all armed opposition groups so as to 

gain access and acceptance by all sides to carry out development activities regardless of the political geography of the war. However, 

some perceived CSO work in Taliban-controlled areas as legitimizing 

the Taliban, who could have taken credit for these development projects.55 The literature on “do no harm” or conflict-sensitive development seeks to assess the legitimizing impact of development aid on 

local armed groups.56

The Afghan National Security Office (ANSO), a project that informed and advised NGOs on safety conditions, examined the trends 

in NGO security and humanitarian space. Despite NGO concerns, 

ANSO’s 2010 report concluded that “there remains no evidence to 

suggest that AOG [armed opposition groups] deliberately target 

NGOs (except for deminers) or that [ANSO] will not retain space for 

[the] operation.”57 In my many years of training the military, I have 

frequently observed military personnel questioning claims that QIPs 

undermine NGO security, noting many NGOs rely on government 

funding and so their programs may also have been seen as politically 

motivated. Military personnel also charged that NGOs have political 

and social goals, such as women’s empowerment and participatory 

democracy that were similarly ensconced in NGO humanitarian assistance efforts. Unfortunately, there were few opportunities for 
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NGOs to explain to the US military that Afghan communities and 

even armed opposition groups accepted their presence if these NGOs 

were working on behalf of general political goals such as human 

rights or even women’s empowerment and even working in coordination with the Afghan government. Some armed opposition groups 

were explicit in their rejection of only those NGOs who worked directly with ISAF. In other words, the level of independence and impartiality seemed to matter. These were not discrete categories; rather 

NGOs fell along a spectrum of independence and impartiality. Their 

access to communities and the safety of their staff seemed to be dependent on where they were on that spectrum.

6. Undermined by Enemy-Centric Approaches

A number of reports document that enemy-centric tactics such as 

drone bombs, house searches, and night raids significantly undermine the intent for QIPs to win hearts and minds.58 CSOs assert that 

from their perspective IMFs were losing hearts and minds faster than 

they could win them. CSOs support a human security paradigm that 

looks toward the protection of civilians.59 In Afghanistan, the extent 

of civilian deaths due to “targeting errors” during enemy-centric efforts to kill armed opposition groups increased CSO-military tensions. Referring to how hearts and minds impacted civilian casualties, a US government observer noted, “One strike negated 100 

projects.”60 Similarly, a RAND study concluded that “the United States 

might have been better advised to address the public security needs 

of the country at an earlier stage and to have included the establishment 

of a secure environment in the mission of the US and coalition forces.”61

7. Lack Local Ownership

CSOs charge that QIPs’ short-term time frame means there is a lack 

of proper needs assessment, monitoring, community engagement, and 

buy-in.62 A range of PRT lessons learned and research reports on both 

Iraq and Afghanistan note the lack of engagement with local government and civil society, and even with the national forces and police.63 In 

a 2009 joint statement, a group of NGOs working in Afghanistan stated, 

“Given the particular cultural and social mores of Afghanistan, and 

mistrust of foreign forces, Western military-led institutions are unable 
CIVIL SOCIETY EXPERIENCES OF, CONFLICTS WITH, AND RECOMMENDATIONS │ 319

to achieve a sufficient level of local engagement and ownership necessary for effective long-term development.”64 

8. Assume a Naïve Public

The Feinstein Research Institute examines public perceptions of 

military-led stabilization and reconstruction efforts. They reported 

that people in East Africa, as in other countries, saw through QIPs 

and wondered, “Do they think we’re stupid?”65 Local people question 

the intentions and transparency of motivations for QIPs. They assume the military is not providing development assistance just for the 

sake of helping them. They want to know the real reasons why the 

military is building schools or hospitals. Military references to “population control and pacification” as well as the metaphor of “human 

terrain” raise suspicions, misunderstandings, or confusion of military 

objectives among civil society.66

Research asserts that Afghans perceived QIPs as military programs, not development programs, even when civilian PRT members 

conducted them. Moreover, Afghans did not seem to make a distinction between civilian and military foreigners working within the 

PRT. A civilian USAID worker traveling in an armed convoy, wearing 

body armor, and living in a PRT compound was a signal to local people that the USAID and military staff at the PRT were the same. Local 

people saw QIP funds as easier to access quickly, and they didn’t require local people to invest in the project themselves or to help carry 

out the project, which runs contrary to key principles of sustainable 

development practices. However, locals also correlated ease of access 

to the proliferation of new local contractors who were perceived to be 

corrupt and producing low quality work.67

Afghan public support for international military forces was linked 

to progress on security or justice issues, not development. QIPs may 

have won short-term access or consent to enter a community but may 

not have translated into long-term support for military goals. Afghan 

civilians wanted PRTs to protect civilians’ honor and dignity not only 

from attacks by insurgents but also from abuses by corrupt government officials, local criminals, warlords, and international forces. Afghan citizens wanted ISAF to focus on security and justice; they cared 

less about whether the PRT provided a health center or school.68 Similarly, the UK-funded research Drivers of Radicalisation found that 

perceived government failures to perform and the behavior of foreign 
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forces had a greater influence on radicalization of individuals joining 

insurgent groups in Afghanistan than the oft-cited hypotheses that 

unemployment or religious fanaticism is chiefly responsible.69 Respondents highlighted the perceived failure of the state to provide 

security and justice, people’s experiences of predatory and oppressive 

security-sector institutions (including the police), and the behavior 

of IMF in terms of night raids, house searches, and civilian deaths 

(and not necessarily the sheer presence of foreigners) as key drivers 

of radicalization. Furthermore, the research found that PRT heartsand-minds projects seemed to have little impact on people upset 

about the perceived humiliation or deaths caused by international 

forces.

9. Disempowering Local People

Local CSOs around the world often complain that military personnel and foreign governments do not take the time to consult with 

local civil society on local social, political, and economic factors driving conflict. They note that the “we know best” attitude ignores democratic principles and the will and capacity of local CSOs to provide 

cultural advice. For example, Afghan civil society groups asserted 

that international policy makers did not engage them or the Afghan 

government when drafting the 2004 development document Securing 

Afghanistan’s Future. As evidence of the international community’s 

exclusive and exclusionary approach, the report was published in 

English and not translated into Dari and Pashto, the two major languages of Afghanistan. Afghan CSOs critiqued this imbalance of input, suggesting that while internationals were needed as partners in 

Afghanistan’s development, they should not have developed plans for 

Afghanistan without broad consultation with diverse Afghan stakeholders. Military personnel meanwhile may have wished to consult 

CSOs, but had no way of identifying whom they should consult or 

how to have communication with Afghans. Underfunded and understaffed USAID offices were often not aware of LNGO capacity.

In response to wide criticism and a felt need to understand local 

cultures in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military created human terrain teams (HTT) that embedded anthropologists and other social 

scientists with military troops, with the goal of helping them understand relevant cultural history, engage locals more respectfully, build 

greater support for local government and police, and support tribal 
CIVIL SOCIETY EXPERIENCES OF, CONFLICTS WITH, AND RECOMMENDATIONS │ 321

traditions in conflict resolution. However, the American Anthropologists 

Association warned that HTTs gathered intelligence related to enemy 

identification rather than cultural understanding and violated the 

professional association’s code of ethics in a number of ways. Some 

anthropologists went on to specifically denounce the terminology of 

“human terrain” as sending a message that human beings could be 

treated as geographical “objects” to be manipulated and controlled 

rather than “subjects” who could be further empowered to shape 

their environment according to their own priorities.70

Military “take charge” decision-making processes aim for quick, 

hierarchical outcomes rather than concepts like local empowerment 

and consultation. “[Government] efforts tend to focus on the substance 

of state building rather than on techniques for facilitating locally owned 

and managed processes. Instead of training personnel to reform institutions and make new policy for conflict countries, efforts should be 

focused on training interveners to be catalysts for change.”71

While there is much talk of empowerment and building local capacity, in practice international organizations like the UN and INGOs 

relate to local CSO leadership in much the same way as the military. 

That is, they either do not reach out at all to these leaders and implement programs without their guidance and advice, or they work 

around these existing leaders and go straight into their business.

Recommendations

Improving civil society–military relations requires a problemsolving approach that addresses the needs and interests of all stakeholders. The research for this chapter, a series of dialogues between 

CSOs and military personnel in the United States and Afghanistan, 

identified a range of recommendations for improving the CSOmilitary relationship.72 These included a set of recommendations for 

further research, training, and operational mechanisms for coordination. These recommendations required joint effort between CSOs 

and military personnel and also involve Congress, contractors, and 

IOs like the UN. 
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Research

Improving civil society–military relations requires far more research, training, and coordination on a variety of topics. Military and 

civil society participants identified a range of potential steps to improve the relationship, which I have detailed here.

1. Deconflicting Roles and Time Horizons

Part of the CSO critique regarding QIPs is the way short-term programs undermine rather than complement long-term development 

efforts. Military leaders argue that security imperatives require QIPs 

that yield results within a six-month period and not a 10-year time 

frame. Research should find examples and lessons learned on how to 

design short-term programming that contributes toward long-term 

goals and how to design long-term programming that better supports legitimate short-term objectives that do not conflict with CSO 

missions.

2. Focus on Security and Participatory Governance More Than 

Quick Impact Programs 

CSO research suggests that PRTs would make more of a contribution if they would focus on security, monitoring corruption, and fostering good governance rather than development. CSOs recommend 

thinking through desired end states and appropriate roles. In places like 

Afghanistan, there seemed to have been little planning for transition from 

military personnel toward local civilian actors. Research should recommend strategies for a more balanced two-pronged approach to “participatory” governance that includes supporting a citizen-oriented government and an active civil society that holds government to account.73

3. Monitoring Hearts-and-Minds Quick Impact Programs 

Local communities and civil society desire better ways of providing feedback and more transparency and accountability for military 

QIPs. CSOs recommended that there be a central repository of lessons learned to which they could contribute. To enable better CSO 

monitoring and safety in communicating with military personnel, 

better monitoring systems should be put in place. This could include
CIVIL SOCIETY EXPERIENCES OF, CONFLICTS WITH, AND RECOMMENDATIONS │ 323

putting phone numbers for call-in feedback from communities on 

the outside of PRT buildings and on radio so that people have a channel for communicating without having to visit a PRT, which may endanger their security. A CSO called Integrity Watch Afghanistan 

helps communities build their capacity to provide such feedback.74

This system of community consultation could also be used so that 

communities would help PRTs choose contractors for PRT projects 

and monitor corruption or counterthreat financing.

4. Integration versus Distinction

The comprehensive approach assumes development must be integrated with security efforts.75 From a CSO point of view, the basic 

assumptions underlying field-level civilian-military teams are unproven. Even before 2001, there was recognition that military and 

civilians had different missions, separate objectives, different time 

frames, and competing priorities. Recognizing these fundamental 

contradictions and tensions between approaches, the UN’s 1999 Strategic Framework tried to deconflict humanitarian and military approaches by directing that humanitarian and development efforts 

should take place “only where it can reasonably be determined that 

no direct political or military advantage will accrue to the warring 

parties in Afghanistan.”76 The UK Department for International Development (UK DFID) concluded in its 2007 report on Afghanistan’s 

Helmand Province that different programs such as counterinsurgency and development were “not necessarily mutually reinforcing.”77

CSOs conclude that a comprehensive approach that respects the independent and distinct roles of civil society is most likely to enable 

their long-term contributions to human security. 

Planners should consult widely to assess the ramifications of integrating civilian tasks or civilians themselves with military personnel.78 CSO-military communication and coordination may be more 

important at the strategic level by focusing on joint conflict assessment and joint discussion of mission, and then allowing for greater 

differentiation at the operational level. Research should examine the 

real benefits of the integration model to security, the costs of this 

model to humanitarian space, and the alternatives to the existing civil 

military “integration” model.
324 │ SCHIRCH

5. The Relationship between Military Development Efforts and 

Nongovernmental Organizations’ Insecurity

NGO security and the issue of humanitarian space is a major source 

of tension. Military personnel question the relationship between 

hearts-and-minds QIPs and NGO security, pointing to the increased 

attacks by insurgents against all kinds of civilians. More research is 

needed to document the relationship between military-led QIPs and 

NGO security.

Training

Improving civil society–military relations requires increased training 

for both civil society and military forces.

1. Do-No-Harm Training for Military

Despite decades of development expertise, even many CSO development projects still fail to address causes of poverty and do more to 

fuel local conflict than mitigate it. Development is complex and can 

easily produce unintended negative second- and third-order effects 

of legitimizing unpopular leaders, fueling corruption, or further 

causing division and violence. CSOs have undergone extensive training in a “do no harm” methodology to avoid negative impacts of their 

work.79 The UK and Australian military receive training from their 

respective aid agencies to understand the potential for harm in providing civic assistance. All security forces carrying out orders to do 

civic assistance or development-like work should first be trained in 

the do-no-harm methodology to recognize the potential negative impacts of building a school or a health center or handing out backpacks to kids.

2. Training on Civil Society Organization–Military Relations

Neither military services nor CSOs receive sufficient training on 

how to approach and conceive of the other. Military personnel often 

lump all NGOs and CSOs together or misunderstand the concept of 

civil society. Some military personnel perceive CSOs as naïve, unpatriotic, illegitimate, or corrupt. On the other hand, CSOs often lump 

all armed actors together as “belligerent forces” or may not distinguish 
CIVIL SOCIETY EXPERIENCES OF, CONFLICTS WITH, AND RECOMMENDATIONS │ 325

between the local national security police and military personnel and 

international forces—a lack of distinction that offends some military 

personnel who see important differences. Yet people who join the 

military or CSOs share some similar values. They see themselves as 

making personal sacrifices to serve the public or a larger principle 

that puts their own self-interest and security at risk when they put 

themselves on the front lines.

Ordinary civilians, CSO staff, and military personnel all lack understanding of key issues in civilian-military relations. Knowledge of 

existing humanitarian NGO guidelines and international humanitarian law is lacking. Citizens in countries with a heavy international 

military presence need more news media coverage and public education about civilian-military relations. Military personnel need training in the concept of civil society, its role in stabilization, and how to 

work toward empowerment and local ownership rather than pacification. CSOs and military need training and skills for managing their 

interactions. New curricula and training opportunities could assist 

CSOs and military to advance their understanding of key civilianmilitary issues.

Operational Mechanisms

At the field level, improving civil society–military relations requires building better communication and coordination mechanisms 

to allow a safe and secure forum for both civil society and military 

forces to address challenges of sharing operational space. Four types 

of forums may be helpful.

1. Monitoring Civilian-Military Guidelines

In Washington, DC, the US Institute of Peace hosts a civil military 

working group that developed the “Guidelines for Relations between 

US Armed Forces and Humanitarian NGOs.” This provides a discussion forum. However, a joint CSO-military monitoring effort should 

hold operational capacity to document incidents where there are accusations that guidelines are not followed. Currently, there is no research arm that can monitor and investigate such accusations. Research could inform how to develop mechanisms for remediating 

harm or changing behaviors to avoid future violations.80
326 │ SCHIRCH

2. Mechanisms for Multistakeholder Consultations

Any “comprehensive approach” or “unity of effort” requires unity 

of understanding and unity of mission. The comprehensive approach 

cannot have a unity of effort including CSOs until there is a shared 

understanding of the causes driving conflict and violence and a 

shared mission that includes broader human security.

CSOs see communication, not structural integration, as necessary 

for a comprehensive approach. Many CSOs resist terms that name 

them as “force multipliers” or requests for them to “coordinate” with 

or “implement” a mission and strategy perceived as different from 

their own. However, many CSOs do recognize the benefits of policy 

dialogue and “communication” with government and military personnel. Yet few consultation structures exist to engage with those 

CSOs willing to provide policy advice, share conflict assessments, or 

discuss overlapping human security goals.

The future of civil society–military relations will depend on 

whether there are skilled facilitators and coordination mechanisms 

hosted outside of military structures to provide a safe and secure 

place to bring local and international CSOs together with key policy 

makers, the international community, and the national government. 

In consultation with CSOs, government and military personnel 

should design mechanisms to consult with CSOs who want to share 

conflict assessments and advice on policy options, address field-level 

issues, or discuss overlapping human security goals.

81

3. Mechanisms for Funding Civil Society Organizations 

NGOs seek more mechanisms to provide consultation, advice, and 

feedback on current funding mechanisms to the donor community 

than do government and military leaders. In consultation with CSOs, 

government and military personnel should explore alternative funding 

mechanisms such as channeling development dollars through embassy development offices, national governments, or international 

donor pools to ensure that all civic assistance efforts are coordinated 

into one strategic plan.
CIVIL SOCIETY EXPERIENCES OF, CONFLICTS WITH, AND RECOMMENDATIONS │ 327

4. Development of Shared Standards

The plethora of international and local actors working on development, governance, and security creates a sense of impunity and chaos 

on the ground when problems arise. There is an information gap. The 

public has no idea how much money is being spent, where the money 

is coming from, and who is accountable for funding. CSOs, governments, and military personnel doing development all share similar 

challenges of fostering local ownership, accountability, and monitoring what is working and what is not. CSOs oppose military-led QIPs. 

However, they argue that if QIPs must exist, the programs should, at 

the very minimum, follow a set of shared standards for accountability, 

evaluation, monitoring, and transparency on cost and sustainability.

Conclusion

This chapter aimed to map tensions, increase understanding, identify common ground, and explore possibilities for deconflicting relationships between military forces and civil society organizations such 

as NGOs. Research for the chapter documented both military perceptions of NGOs and the challenges and perceptions identified by 

CSOs in sharing operational environments with military forces. My 

recommendations for addressing these tensions and restructuring 

communications outline specific measures for improving research so 

that both military and civil society better understand the nature of 

the challenges they share. Recommendations for expanding training 

and coordination aim to provide military leaders and civil society 

organizations with an agenda for action. The recommended new approach in this chapter focuses on problem solving, taking into account the needs and interests of all relevant stakeholders and improving communication channels between CSOs and governmental 

civilian-military teams. There may always be challenges in relationships between military forces and civil society organizations; however, the challenges documented here are not without solution. In 

this chapter, I provide concrete ideas, informed by military, government, and NGO research efforts, for how to improve relationships 

between military and civil society and ultimately improve human security and stabilization goals.
328 │ SCHIRCH

Notes

1. Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, US Department of State, U.S. Government 

Counterinsurgency Guide (Washington, DC: United States Government Interagency 

Counterinsurgency Initiative, January 2009), 14–18.

2. I provide training to US forces and the US Foreign Service Institute on best 

practices for military relations with NGOs and civil society. I collected these quotes 

at multiple training seminars since 2002.

3. See US Army Field Manual 3-07, Stability Operations, 6 October 2008.

4. American Council for Voluntary International Action, “The U.S. Military’s 

Expanding Role in Foreign Assistance,” InterAction, policy brief, 17 January 2011, 

http://www.interaction.org/sites/default/files/Sec16_2011_FABB_Policy%20Brief

_CivMil.pdf.

5. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Supporting Statebuilding in Situations of Fragility and Conflict, DAC Guidelines and Reference Series (Paris, France: OECD Publications, January 2011), http://www.oecd

.org/dac/incaf/46382637.pdf.

6. Larissa Fast, Michael O’Neill, and Elizabeth Rowley, “Collaborative Learning 

Approach to NGO Security,” white paper (Washington, DC: Save the Children, January 2011), 4.

7. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, “High-Level Panel on UN-Civil Society: Civil 

Society and Global Governance” (contextual paper, New York, June 2004).

8. OECD, Security Sector Reform and Governance, DAC Guidelines and Reference Series (Paris, France: OECD Publications, 2005), 22–24.

9. Stabilisation Unit, Government of the United Kingdom, Quick Impact Projects—QIPS (London, UK: Stabilisation Unit, 2008), 19, http://www.stabilisationunit

.gov.uk/attachments/article/520/QIPs%20handbook[1].pdf; and United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Policy Directive on Quick Impact Projects 

(QIPs) (New York: United Nations, 12 February 2007).

10. Department for International Development (DFID), Government of the 

United Kingdom, Quick Impact Projects: A Handbook for the Military (London: 

DFID, 2006).

11. Ben Connoble, Leveraging Development Aid to Address Root Causes in Counterinsurgency (Washington, DC: RAND, February 2013), 3, http://www.rand.org

/content/dam/rand/pubs/working_papers/WR900/WR983/RAND_WR983.pdf.

12. Albert Kan-Dapaah, “A National Architecture for Peace in Ghana” (concept 

paper, Accra: Ministry of the Interior, Government of Ghana, 2008), https://web

.archive.org/web/20131015095905/http://www.mint.gov.gh/dmdocuments/A

_PEACE_ARCHITECTURE_FOR_GHANA_.pdf.

13. Bobby Timonera, Soldiers for Peace: A Collection of Peacebuilding Stories in 

Mindanao (Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines: Balay Mindanaw Foundation, Inc., 

2010), 2–14, http://www.timonera.com/misc/soldiers4peace-preview.pdf.

14. Chris Baker, Parichart Siwaraksa, Kulapa Vajanasara, Kritaya Archvanitkul, 

Sukran Rojanapaiwong, Sajin Prachason, and Subhak Siwaraksa, Thailand Development Report 2009: Human Security: Today and Tomorrow (Bangkok: UN Development Programme, 2010), ix–x, http://www.undp.org/content/dam/thailand/docs

/NHDR2010.pdf.
CIVIL SOCIETY EXPERIENCES OF, CONFLICTS WITH, AND RECOMMENDATIONS │ 329

15. Department of State, Report of the United States on the First Meeting of Experts to Promote Implementation of United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution 

16/18 (Washington, DC: Department of State, December 2011), 19–24, http://www

.humanrights.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/1618FirstMeetingReport.pdf.

16. Edwina Thompson, Principled Pragmatism: NGO Engagement with Armed 

Actors (Monrovia, CA: WorldVision International, 2008), 28.

17. Antonio Donini and Norah Niland, Rwanda, Lessons Learned: A Report on 

the Coordination of Humanitarian Activities (Geneva: United Nations Department of 

Humanitarian Affairs, November 1994), 12–14.

18. Olga Oliker, Richard Kauzlarich, James Dobbins, Kurt W. Basseuner, Donald 

L. Sampler, John G. McGinn, Michael J. Dziedzic, Adam Grissom, Bruce Pirnie, 

Nora Bensahel, and A. Istar Guven, Aid during Conflict: Interaction between Military 

and Civilian Assistance Providers in Afghanistan, September 2001–June 2002 (Washington, DC: RAND Corporation, 2004), 42.

19. Ibid, 92–95. See also Ashley Jackson and Simone Haysom, “The Search for 

Common Ground: Civil–Military Relations in Afghanistan, 2002–13” (working paper, Overseas Development Institute, Humanitarian Policy Group, London, UK, 

April 2013), 15, http://www.odi.org.uk/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications

-opinion-files/8355.pdf.

20. US Institute of Peace, “Guidelines for Relations between U.S. Armed Forces 

and Non-Governmental Humanitarian Organizations in Hostile or Potentially Hostile Environments,” pamphlet (Washington, DC, 2008).

21. Lisa Schirch, “The Civil–Military Relationship in Afghanistan,” USIP Peace 

Brief 56 (Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace, 2010), 2–3.

22. Jackson and Haysom, “The Search for Common Ground,” 14–15.

23. Sippi Azarbaijani-Moghaddam, Mirwais Wardak, Idrees Zaman, and Annabel 

Taylor, Afghan Hearts, Afghan Minds: Exploring Afghan Perceptions of Civil-Military 

Relations (London, UK: British & Irish Agencies Afghanistan Group, 2008): 6–7.

24. Oliker et al., Aid during Conflict, 87.

25. Ibid., 95.

26. Ibid., 71.

27. Ibid., 73.

28. ISAF, PRT Handbook (Kabul, Afghanistan: ISAF, July 2006). 

29. Riona Nicholls and Marit Glad, Fight Poverty to End Insecurity: Afghan Perceptions of Insecurity (Kabul, Afghanistan: Human Rights Research and Advocacy 

Consortium, March 2009).

30. Mary B. Anderson, Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace—or War

(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999).

31. Andrew S. Natsios, “Time Lag and Sequencing Dilemmas of Postconflict Reconstruction,” PRISM 1, no. 1 (December 2009): 63–76.

32. Wilton Park Conference, “Winning ‘Hearts and Minds’ in Afghanistan: Assessing the Effectiveness of Development Aid in COIN Operations” (working paper 

1022, Wilton Park Conference, West Sussex, UK, 11–14 March 2010).

33. Ibid., 18.

34. House, Committee on Armed Services’ Sub-Committee on Oversight and 

Investigations, Agency Stovepipes vs Strategic Agility (Washington, DC: GPO, April 

2008), 72.
330 │ SCHIRCH

35. Oxfam, “Whose Aid Is It Anyway?” 22.

36. Government Accountability Office (GAO),US Congress, Humanitarian and 

Development Assistance: Project Evaluations and Better Information Sharing Needed 

to Manage the Military’s Efforts (Washington, DC: GAO, 8 February 2012). This report highlights that DOD engagement in these activities can be counterproductive.

37. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), Quarterly Report to the United States Congress (Washington, DC: SIGAR, 30 July 2013), 

iv–v, http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2013-07-30qr.pdf.

38. SIGAR, Final Report to the United States Congress (Washington, DC: SIGAR, 

30 March 2013), ix–xii.

39. Hassan Ahmad, Jean-Yves Haine, Josefina Löfgren, Tim Randall, and Sharon 

Wiharta, The Effectiveness of Foreign Military Assets in Natural Disaster Response

(Stockholm, Sweden: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2008); and 

John Cosgrave, Synthesis Report: Joint Evaluation of the International Response to the 

Indian Ocean Tsunami (London, UK: Tsunami Evaluation Coalition, January 2007), 

43–46.

40. Reuben E. Brigety II, Humanity as a Weapon of War: Sustainable Security and the 

Role of the U.S. Military (Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, June 2008).

41. Matt Waldman, “Caught in the Conflict: Civilians and the International Security Strategy in Afghanistan” (briefing paper, NATO Heads of State and Government Summit, 3–4 April 2009), 14.

42. Oliker, et al., Aid during Conflict, 90.

43. Azarbaijani-Moghaddam et al, Afghan Hearts, Afghan Minds, 24–26.

44. Beth Cole, Emily Hsu, Elena Brineman, Christina Caan, Megan Chabalowski, William Flavin, Vivienne O’Connor, and Courtney Rusin, Guiding Principles 

for Stabilization and Reconstruction (Washington, DC: USIP, 2009), http://www.usip

.org/files/resources/guiding_principles_full.pdf.

45. See Paul Fishtein, Winning Hearts and Minds? Examining the Relationship 

between Aid and Security in Afghanistan’s Balkh Province (Medford, MA: Feinstein 

International Center, Tufts University, November 2010); and Andrew Wilder, “Losing Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan,” Viewpoints, December 2009, 143–46, http://

www.scribd.com/doc/23570326/Afghanistan-1979-2009-In-the-Grip-of-Conflict.

46. Oliker et al., Aid during Conflict, 79.

47. See, for example, case studies and a summary report on humanitarian and 

military activities at Feinstein International Center, “Humanitarianism and Politics,” 

n.d., http://sites.tufts.edu/feinstein/research/humanitarianism-and-politics; and Roland White and Sarah Lister, Service Delivery and Governance at the Sub-National 

Level in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: World Bank, 18 July 2007).

48. Oxfam, “Whose Aid Is It Anyway?,” 24.

49. See Larissa Fast, Aid in Danger: The Perils and Promise of Humanitarianism

(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014).

50. US Army, FM 09-27, Commander’s Guide to Money as a Weapons System: 

Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Center for Army Lesson’s 

Learned, September 2009), 1–3, http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/call/docs/09-27/09-27.pdf.

51. Ibid., 18.

52. Waldman, “Caught in the Conflict,” 6.
CIVIL SOCIETY EXPERIENCES OF, CONFLICTS WITH, AND RECOMMENDATIONS │ 331

53. Stephen Cornish and Marit Glad, Civil-Military Relations: No Room for Humanitarianism in the Comprehensive Approaches (Flekkefjord, Norway: The Norwegian Atlantic Committee, 2008).

54. Ashley Jackson and Antonio Giustozzi, “Talking to the Other Side: Humanitarian Engagement with the Taliban in Afghanistan” (working paper, Overseas Development Institute, Human Policy Group, London, UK, December 2012), 5–7, 

http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/6993-aid-conflict-humanitarian-engagement-policy

-taliban-afghanistan.

55. April Rabkin, “Cozying Up to the Taliban,” Foreign Policy, 17 August 2010, 

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/08/17/cozying_up_to_the_taliban.

56. Mary Anderson, Do No Harm.

57. Nic Lee “Summary & Assessment,” ANSO Quarterly Data Report Q.4 2010, 

(1–15 December 2010), http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/nccdaf6.pdf.

58. Open Society Foundations, The Cost of Kill/Capture: Impact of the Night Raid 

Surge on Afghan Civilians (Kabul, Afghanistan: Open Society Foundations and The 

Liaison Office, 19 September 2011).

59. Shannon D. Beebe and Mary Kaldor, The Ultimate Weapon Is No Weapon: Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace (New York: Public Affairs, 2010).

60. Oliker, Aid during Conflict, 64.

61. Ibid., 102.

62. Mark Sedra, “Civil-Military Relations in Afghanistan: The Provincial Reconstruction Team Debate,” Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies Datalink 126 (March 2005), 2.

63. Christopher Luehrs, “Provincial Reconstruction Teams: A Literature Review,” 

PRISM 1, no. 1 (December 2009): 95–102.

64. “Caught in the Conflict,” 5.

65. Mark Bradbury, “Do They Think We’re Stupid? Local Perceptions of ‘Hearts 

and Minds’ Activities in Kenya,” Humanitarian Space (blog), July 2010, http://www

.odihpn.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&layout=item&id=3127.

66. Participants shared these statements in a civil society–military dialogue in 

Kabul, Afghanistan, on 20 October 2011. This author organized and facilitated the 

dialogue as part of her research on this topic.

67. Azarbaijani-Moghaddam et al., Afghan Hearts, Afghan Minds.

68. Ibid.

69. Sarah Ladbury, Testing Hypotheses of Drivers of Radicalisation in Afghanistan: 

Why Do Men Join the Taliban and Hizb-I Islami? How Much Do Local Communities 

Support Them? (Kabul, Afghanistan: Cooperation for Peace and Unity, August 2009).

70. See American Anthropological Association’s Executive Board Statement on 

the Human Terrain System Project, 31 October 2007, http://www.aaanet.org/pdf

/EB_Resolution_110807.pdf; Anthropologists’ Statement on the Human Terrain 

System Program (American Anthropological Association, January 26, 2010); and 

David Price, “Human Terrain Systems Dissenter Resigns, Tells Inside Story of Training’s Heart of Darkness,” CounterPunch, 15 February 2010, http://www.counterpunch

.org/2010/02/15/human-terrain-systems-dissenter-resigns-tells-inside-story-of

-training-s-heart-of-darkness/.

71. A. Heather Coyne, ed., Empowering Local Peacebuilders: Strategies for Effective Engagement of Local Actors in Peace Operations (Washington, DC: US Institute 

of Peace, March 2012).
332 │ SCHIRCH

72. Lisa Schirch, “Civil Society–Military Roadmap on Human Security” (policy 

brief, 3D Security Initiative, Washington, DC, May 2011).

73. Marc Gramberger, Citizens as Partners: OECD Handbook on Information, 

Consultation and Public Participation in Policy-Making (Paris, France: OECD, 2001).

74. Yama Toribi, Assessing the NSP: The Role of Accountability in Reconstruction

(Kabul, Afghanistan: Integrity Watch Afghanistan, 2007), http://www.iwaweb.org

/_docs/reports/cbm/afghan_nsp.pdf.

75. Karene Melloul, Accidental Partners?: Listening to the Australian Defence and 

Police Experience of the Security-Development Nexus in Conflict-Affected and Fragile 

States (Canberra, Australia: AusAID and the World Bank’s Fragile and Conflict-Affected 

Countries Group, October 2010), http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2010/10

/16278070/accidental-partners-listening-australian-defence-police-experience

-security-development-nexus-conflict-affected-fragile-states.

76. World Food Programme, Strategic Framework for Afghanistan Endorsed by 

UN Agencies (New York: United Nations, 4 January 1999), http://reliefweb.int

/report/afghanistan/strategic-framework-afghanistan-endorsed-un-agencies.

77. Jon Bennett, Jane Alexander, Douglas Saltmarshe, Rachel Phillipson, and Peter 

Marsden, Afghanistan Country Programme Evaluation, evaluation report EV696 

(London, UK: Department for International Development, May 2009), xiii.

78. Oliker, et al., Aid during Conflict, 100.

79. Anderson, Do No Harm.

80. See US Institute of Peace, “Guidelines for Relations between U.S. Armed Forces.” 

81. Joanne Caddy and Christian Vergez, Open Government: Fostering Dialogue 

with Civil Society (Paris, France: OECD, 2004).
Chapter 17

Achieving Coordinated Results in Stabilization, 

Reconstruction, and Postwar Peacebuilding

Lessons from the US Civilian-Military Experience in 

Afghanistan

Andrea Strimling Yodsampa

Eventually, we had to move from a process to a results 

orientation, but initially we had to develop some process 

with a mutual coming-together.

—Maj Gen Jeffrey Schloesser

Interview with the author

Policy makers and practitioners increasingly recognize that civilianmilitary coordination is necessary for stabilization, reconstruction, 

and postwar peacebuilding. As retired Army general Robert E. 

Durbin relates of his command in Afghanistan, “When I arrived in 

Afghanistan, I was focused on command and control, ownership, directing activities. I quickly found that I owned very little, controlled 

very little, could direct very little. . . . The new C2 [Command and 

Control] was about cooperation and collaboration, not command 

and control, influence not direction. We had to create forums, bring 

key stakeholders to convene, so we could collaborate.”1

The US government, its multinational partners, and intergovernmental organizations have poured resources into efforts to enhance 

coordination, creating myriad coordination mechanisms, processes, 

and tools. Coordinated results, however, have proved largely elusive, 

and fragmentation of efforts remains the norm. The costs of the continued lack of coordination in postwar environments are measured 

not only in dollars wasted but also in lives lost.

This chapter is based on Andrea Strimling Yodsampa, “No One in Charge: A New Theory of 

Coordination and an Analysis of US Civil-Military Coordination in Afghanistan 2001–2009” 

(doctoral dissertation, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 2011), http://

search.proquest.com/docview/883387160/133609F24257BEC49DD/1?accountid=11243.
334 │ STRIMLING yodsampa

Coordination is, of course, extraordinary challenging. Postwar 

contexts are complex and rapidly changing. There are hundreds, if 

not thousands, of civilian and military, governmental, nongovernmental, expatriate, and local actors. They have different interests, priorities, timelines, resources, cultures, and operating principles. Perhaps the most significant challenge is that no one is fully in charge. 

While the United Nations (UN), other intergovernmental organizations, and key donor nations often assume leadership roles, they cannot direct the actions of sovereign nations, independent nongovernmental organizations (NGO), and other autonomous actors. As US 

ambassador Christopher Dell states, “Civilian-military integration is 

all about the process. It’s the process that gets you to a result. . . . Everyone has to surrender some sovereignty and autonomy of planning 

and come to the table and together come up with a common plan.”2

Given these challenges, how can coordination be enhanced, strengthening international stabilization, reconstruction, and peacebuilding efforts? This chapter identifies key institutional systems and processes 

necessary for effective coordination. To do so, it draws on a multiyear 

research project on interagency, civilian-military, and multinational coordination, including an in-depth case study of US civilian-military coordination in Afghanistan from fall 2001 to spring 2009. While the 

United States was only one among many actors in Afghanistan, US 

civilian-military coordination is necessary for broader multinational 

coordination. Moreover, the analysis of US civilian-military coordination offers insights of relevance to other sets of actors and activities.

The reasons for coordination failures are well-documented and 

understood. The factors that explain successful coordination have received far less attention. Therefore, this project focused on illuminating and explaining concrete examples of successful coordination. It 

focused on coordination among the US Department of Defense 

(DOD), the US Department of State (DOS), and the US Agency for 

International Development (USAID), analyzing institutional systems 

and processes at three levels of decision making (strategic, operational, and tactical) and across four distinct time periods, delineated 

by the US ambassador to Afghanistan.

The research involved in-depth, semistructured interviews with 

118 senior and mid-level officials who worked in or on Afghanistan 

between fall 2001 and spring 2009, supplemented by additional interviews with analysts and scholars. The interviews were used to identify 

concrete examples of successful coordination and determine the key 
ACHIEVING COORDINATED RESULTS │ 335

factors that made them possible. The content of the interviews was 

confidential, in that interviewees were assured that no information or 

quotations would be attributed to them without their permission.3

US civilian interviewees included all four ambassadors to Afghanistan during the period studied, the majority of deputy chiefs of mission 

and USAID mission directors, political advisors (POLAD), development advisors (DEVAD), USAID field program officers (FPO), and 

other civilian experts who served on the ground. Military interviewees 

included both commanders of US Central Command (USCENTCOM), 

commanders of Combined Forces Command–Afghanistan (CFC–A) 

and Combined Security Transition Command–Afghanistan (CSTC–A), 

brigade commanders, provincial reconstruction team (PRT) commanders, and other officers. In addition, interviews were conducted with senior policy makers and other experts at the DOD, the DOS, USAID, and 

the National Security Council (NSC) and with several North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization (NATO), UN, European Union (EU), and NGO 

officials with firsthand knowledge of US interagency coordination. 

Close-to-verbatim notes were taken during the interviews. The interview data then were coded and analyzed using qualitative analysis 

software.4

 Four sets of criteria were used to determine which interview data rose to the level of evidence: frequency and consistency; 

supporting detail, evidence, and/or internal logic; indication of learning; and dissenting opinions.5

 Interview data were supplemented by 

primary and secondary documentation. 

The Afghanistan Case Study

Afghanistan, in the decade following the 2001 military invasion, 

served as an incubator and testing ground for numerous coordination mechanisms, processes, and tools, both on the ground and at 

headquarters around the world. Many of these efforts were innovative and effective. Nevertheless, the reality on the ground consistently 

fell short of what the United States and broader international community deemed necessary in terms of coordinated action.

Indeed, by 2010, virtually every analysis, policy document, and 

speech about international efforts in Afghanistan called for enhanced 

coordination. Two US congressional hearings in 2010 were aptly entitled “An Urgent Need: Coordinating Reconstruction and Stabilization 

in Contingency Operations.”6

 Pres. Barack Obama, in remarks about 
336 │ STRIMLING yodsampa

the US strategy in Afghanistan, “pledged to better coordinate our 

military and civilian efforts.”7

 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and 

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates repeatedly affirmed their commitment to enhanced coordination among defense, diplomacy, and development (3-D coordination). General David Petraeus, US Army, 

then commander of USCENTCOM, in his March 2010 testimony to 

the Armed Services Committee emphasized, “Instability in Afghanistan 

and Pakistan poses the most urgent problem set in the CENTCOM 

Area of Responsibility and requires complementary and integrated 

civilian-military, whole-of-government approaches.”8

US multinational partners, including the government of Afghanistan, likewise called for enhanced coordination among the broad array 

of expatriate and local, governmental and nongovernmental actors engaged in Afghanistan.9

 NGOs, while appropriately wary of any perceived or actual loss of autonomy, increasingly raised concerns about 

negative interactions among activities on the ground. They argued for 

not only whole-of-government but also whole-of-community approaches, recognizing the critical role of civil society in peacebuilding.10

By 2010, calls for enhanced coordination had reached crescendo 

levels. The urgency with which policy makers focused on the issue 

reflected awareness that coordination failures, both among US agencies and with the broader array of governmental and nongovernmental actors engaged in Afghanistan, had wasted precious resources and 

undercut international stabilization and reconstruction efforts.

Evidence of coordination failures was ubiquitous. Schools had 

been built, furnished, even equipped with libraries—only to sit idle 

for lack of trained teachers. Free veterinary clinics had been offered 

to local communities, but in the process efforts to build local veterinary capacity had been undercut. Short-term counterterrorism objectives had been achieved, but in the process countless civilians had 

been killed or injured, deeply alienating the people whose support 

was essential to achieve US counterinsurgency goals.11

Coordination failures, however, were not the entire story. Amidst 

what often appeared as a sea of coordination failures, there also were 

significant successes. Intensive multinational, civilian-military, and 

governmental-nongovernmental coordination made the 2004 Afghan 

presidential elections possible. Early failures in road construction gave 

way to increasingly effective coordination, in which military and civilians leveraged complementary resources and capabilities to build an 

extensive roads network. Counterterrorist “clearing” operations were 
ACHIEVING COORDINATED RESULTS │ 337

increasingly followed by the relief and development necessary to 

“hold” and “build” those areas. Ongoing civilian-military coordination, both among expatriates and with the local Afghan leadership, 

made possible counternarcotics achievements in Nangahar Province. 

Civilians and military at key PRTs were able to leverage their complementary resources and expertise to realize shared goals.

What were the key factors that distinguished coordination successes from failures, and how can leaders enhance coordination moving forward? Before I summarize the case study findings, it is necessary to define “successful coordination.”

What Are Coordinated Results?

Scholars and policy makers often use the term coordination to refer interchangeably to process and results. This causes confusion and 

undermines analytic rigor. Therefore, this project distinguishes explicitly between coordination systems, processes, and mechanisms 

on the one hand and the results they are intended to deliver on the 

other. The project introduces a new term, coordinated results. It then 

identifies four types of coordinated results, drawing on prior research 

and theory as well as empirical experience. 

The four types of coordinated results are avoidance of negative interactive effects, efficiency, complementarity, and synergy.12 The first 

two types are defined in the negative. Practitioners often refer to 

them as “deconfliction.” The third and fourth types of coordinated 

results reflect positive, more ambitious, goals.

Avoidance of Negative Interactive Effects

At a minimum, coordinated results are achieved when past or potential negative interactions between activities are avoided or mitigated. Thus, if the US military changes the way in which it provides 

veterinary assistance to local communities to avoid undermining 

parallel USAID capacity-building efforts, negative interactive effects 

are avoided.

Efficiency

The next step up from avoidance of negative interactive effects is 

efficiency. Efficiency is achieved when wasteful duplication is avoided, 

enabling actors to redirect limited resources where they are needed. 
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For example, two agencies may discover they have plans to build a 

school in one community, while a neighboring community goes 

without any schools. If one agency subsequently decides to build its 

school in the neighboring community, efficiency is achieved. In some 

cases, of course, duplication of efforts may be deliberate and beneficial. The focus here is on eliminating inadvertent wasteful duplication.

Complementarity

Complementarity is achieved when agencies’ different resources, 

expertise, and capacities are brought together to achieve a shared output. If one agency constructs a school building and another agency 

trains and equips teachers, complementarity is achieved. 

Synergy

Synergy is achieved when multiple outputs, often in more than one 

sector, add up to more than the sum of their parts. Thus, if road construction interacts synergistically with counterterrorism operations 

and economic development, synergy is achieved. In the interviews, 

these were sometimes referred to as “game changers.”

As is evident in the above discussion, coordinated results are defined in terms of the interactions among activities, not the impacts of 

those activities. Nevertheless, coordinated results are necessary for 

effective peacebuilding. Synergy, in particular, is necessary for sustained, positive impacts. 

The four types of coordinated results, representing increasing degrees of coordination, are summarized in table 17.1.13.

Table 17.1. Types of coordinated results

COORDINATED RESULTS (dv)

TYPE DEFINITION

Avoidance of 

Negative Interactive Effects

Negative interactive effects avoided or corrected

Efficiency Wasteful duplication avoided or eliminated

Complementarity Complementary inputs (e.g., resources, expertise, activities) make possible achievement of shared output

Synergy Outputs interact synergistically to achieve shared 

strategic goals
ACHIEVING COORDINATED RESULTS │ 339

Framing the Problem: No One in Charge

Many argue that the only way to achieve coordinated results is by 

establishing a strong, overarching coordination authority, what the 

military refers to as “unity of command.”14 Establishing a unified 

chain of command over US agencies in Afghanistan and other reconstruction and stabilization efforts could have been an important part 

of the solution. Indeed, many argue that the Civil Operations and 

Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) system employed by 

the United States in Vietnam offers a powerful model. However, unity 

of command is not an option when dealing with the broader array of 

sovereign nations, independent NGOs, and other autonomous agencies engaged in stabilization and reconstruction efforts. These actors 

simply will not accept an overarching coordinator with the authority 

to direct from above. As the maxim goes, everyone wants coordination, but no one wants to be coordinated.

In short, no one is, at least fully, in charge. This is the current reality, and it is likely to be a defining feature of complex contingencies in 

the foreseeable future. Calls for a unified chain of command over US 

agencies in Afghanistan, however valid, should not have crowded out 

attention to identifying concrete steps agencies could have taken to 

achieve coordinated results when no one was in charge.

Why Focus on Institutional Systems and Processes?

How are coordinated results achieved when no one is in charge? 

Many practitioners argue that the answer lies largely in personalities. 

They explain, for example, that if the commander of a PRT is committed to civilian-military coordination, has strong leadership skills, 

respects his or her civilian colleagues, and is able to forge productive 

working relationships with them, coordinated results will naturally 

emerge. If, on the other hand, people in leadership positions do not 

have the requisite attitudes, skills, and relationships, coordination 

failures ensue.

There is no question that attitudes, skills, and relationships affect 

coordination. They feature in virtually every story of coordination, 

successes as well as failures, and their importance is well-documented 

in prior research. It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that 

coordination depends on the “luck of the draw” in terms of which 
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people happen to be in which positions at which times. Commitment 

to coordination is heavily influenced by professional incentives and 

accountability systems. Attitudes and relationships evolve over time, 

as people have an opportunity to engage in joint planning processes 

and learn from one another. Skills are developed through predeployment training as well as structured guidance in the field.

Thus, beneath the individual and idiosyncratic factors that affect 

coordination, there are deeper institutional factors. The key to enhancing coordinated results is to identify and institutionalize systems 

and processes. The systems and processes necessary for coordinated 

results are highlighted below, illustrated with examples from the Afghanistan case study.

Agreement on Goals and Strategy: 

The Most Important Factor

The analysis of US civilian-military coordination in Afghanistan 

showed that agreement on at least some high-level goals and strategy 

was the most significant and direct factor affecting coordinated results. When there was agreement, coordinated results were possible. 

When agreement was lacking, coordination failures ensued. Thus, 

the consensus on the importance of the 2004 Afghanistan presidential elections and the strategy for implementing them was a major 

factor contributing to coordinated results. Ongoing disagreement 

about a national counternarcotics strategy, by contrast, led to coordination failures.

Agreement is necessary at all levels of decision making, from the 

policy to the tactical levels, and agreement at one level affects agreement at other levels. Agreement on the part of the senior civilian and 

military leadership on the ground is particularly significant, as it has 

the potential to influence perceptions both up and down the respective chains of command.

It is important to emphasize that agreement on high-level goals is 

possible, even in the context of different interests and priorities. Thus, 

while the military and civilians increasingly agreed on the need for 

road construction, the military emphasized security effects, and USAID 

focused on longer-term contributions to economic and political development. However, their interests converged over time. For example, increasingly the military appreciates the importance of longer-
ACHIEVING COORDINATED RESULTS │ 341

term capacity building and economic development, and USAID 

increasingly recognizes the need for projects that generate shorterterm stability. This convergence of interests suggests a virtuous cycle 

of agreement on high-level goals enhancing coordination, which in 

turn fosters learning, contributing to deeper levels of agreement.15

What Systems and Processes Are Necessary?

Coordinated results depend on a combination of interorganizational and intraorganizational factors. At the interorganizational 

level, convening or colocation, joint analysis and planning, and information sharing are necessary to bring key stakeholders together and 

forge agreement.

Once there is agreement on overarching goals and strategies, intraorganizational factors—including empowerment, incentive and 

accountability systems, and information sharing within organizational hierarchies—become paramount. It is not surprising that information sharing ranks as a top factor both among and within organizations. Information sharing is the foundation upon which joint 

planning and coordinated action depend.

These key interorganizational and intraorganizational factors are 

identified in table 17.2 and discussed below.

Table 17.2. Interorganizational and intraorganizational factors

Interorganizational Intraorganizational

Convening (and Colocation) Empowerment

Joint Analysis and Planning Incentives and Accountability

Information Sharing Information Sharing

1. Joint Analysis and Planning

One of the most significant lessons that emerged from the analysis 

of US interagency coordination in Afghanistan was the importance of 

integrated, multilevel joint analysis and planning at all levels of decision making. Agreement on goals and strategy does not emerge on its 

own. Organizations differ in their priorities, timelines, operating principles, underlying assumptions, and theories of change. Structured 
342 │ STRIMLING yodsampa

joint processes are necessary to identify shared goals and develop a 

joint strategy to achieve them, including a division of labor.

 Joint analysis and planning processes range from ad hoc, relatively informal processes to highly structured, formal planning processes. Where agencies fall along this spectrum depends on many 

factors, including their interests and concerns about the coordination 

process itself.

Joint planning must include rigorous joint analysis. Agencies must 

take the time to share and understand their respective goals, priorities, 

interests, and assumptions. They must identify and build on common 

ground, while surfacing and finding ways to deal with the very real differences that often remain. Indeed, acknowledging and probing differences is an essential part of the joint planning process. Without it, organizations run the risk of forging “false coherence,” undermining 

mutual learning and prospects for long-term coordination.16

The experience with the Integrated Civilian-Military Action Group 

(ICMAG) in Afghanistan illustrates the importance of joint processes 

at all levels of decision making. Until 2007, joint planning at the tactical level was sporadic and ad hoc. PRTs varied in the degree of joint 

analysis and planning between the military and civilians. Where PRTlevel planning was conducted, it was not nested within planning at 

higher levels of decision making. Therefore, tactical coordinated results 

often failed to add up to broader strategic successes.

In 2007, US civilian and military personnel initiated a process of 

integrated planning. The military leaders on the ground were concerned about ongoing coordination problems in Regional Command 

(RC) East.17 With the support of their counterparts from the embassy, 

they requested assistance from the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) at the DOS.

Two S/CRS representatives led planning processes at each of the 

US-led PRTs. The S/CRS team facilitated the process, the PRT leadership provided input, and the S/CRS team then drafted the plan and 

gave it to the PRT for feedback and correction. The team was invited 

back in 2008, with the goal of developing an integrated plan for all of 

RC East. They began the planning process at RC East, went to each 

brigade combat team, and then went to the PRTs in an iterative rollup and roll-down process. The result was an integrated plan for RC 

East, completed in July 2008.18 As military and civilians increasingly 

saw the value of the process, they extended it to other areas. 
ACHIEVING COORDINATED RESULTS │ 343

In November 2008, the ICMAG was stood up at the embassy, institutionalizing the integrated planning process. By spring 2009, it had 

become a full-time group of people, working together on a daily basis. It included the two S/CRS staff members facilitating the process, 

military planners from Bagram and USFOR–A, representatives of 

CSTC–A, and USAID technical experts.19

The ICMAG process was broadly credited with facilitating agreement on goals and strategy in a number of important issue areas. 

Many plans, however, were not fully implemented, demonstrating 

that joint analysis and planning, while necessary, are not sufficient for 

coordinated results. Other factors identified below are necessary for 

joint plans to be implemented.

2. Information Sharing

Coordinated implementation requires information sharing. The 

failure to share information among agencies fueled many coordination failures in Afghanistan. Inadequate information led to wasteful 

duplication, gaps, and negative interactions among activities.

One of the most striking illustrations of the early failures to share 

information involved so-called “clear-hold-build” operations. Early 

in the case study, the military conducted counterterrorism clearing 

operations without advance dialogue with USAID. As a result, USAID 

was unable to follow quickly enough with the relief and development 

necessary to hold and build those areas. The same pattern repeated 

itself in other arenas, with inadequate information sharing a major 

cause of coordination failures.

As both the military and civilians became aware of the problem, they 

worked together to expand information flows. One of the challenges 

they faced was that the military organized information geographically, 

while USAID organized information by development sectors, such as 

infrastructure, education, and health. They needed systems that would 

bridge the gaps in how they organized and shared information.

Toward the latter part of the case study, USAID officials in Kabul 

developed the “Playbook,” a detailed list of what USAID was doing in 

each province.20 The Playbook was a laudable achievement, organizing 

information about USAID activities geographically and thus making it 

more accessible to the military. However, the Playbook was not directly 

tied into a joint planning framework, and the military did not fully appreciate the lead time USAID needed to deliver aid. Together, these 
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factors undermined the military’s ability to interpret and leverage the 

information in the Playbook. A USAID official explained:

The Playbook was a big product. A lot of effort went into it. Not sure if it accomplished much. . . . The military had a hard time understanding what development work was about, so they may not have really comprehended what 

was in there. The military is used to being able to turn on the funding spigot 

at will. . . . We don’t have that same flexibility. . . . We gave them the Playbook, 

but it was not an accurate interpretation of how easily or quickly those programs could be turned on or off or modified to support military operations.21

This, along with related findings from the case study, shows that information sharing must be nested within joint analysis and planning 

processes to be of maximum value.

Information sharing is equally important within agencies. A USAID 

example illustrates this point. USAID FPOs at the PRTs often had 

insufficient information about the national programs controlled by 

USAID officers in Kabul. This not only undermined coordination 

within USAID, but it also had direct, negative impacts on civilianmilitary coordination in the PRTs, since the PRTs were unable to leverage or complement USAID’s national efforts. As USAID became 

increasingly aware of this problem, they took steps to enhance information flows between headquarters in Kabul and the field, strengthening coordination.

3. Convening and Colocation

Coordination depends on regular, face-to-face communication. 

While information technology has a role to play in coordination, 

connectivity is limited in complex contingencies. Moreover, rigorous 

joint analysis and planning, including probing of different interests, 

concerns, and underlying assumptions, require at least some face-toface interaction. This can be achieved by convening organizational 

stakeholders on a regular basis or by colocating them in the same 

working or living spaces.

Colocation of civilians and military in Afghanistan was one of the 

most significant factors contributing to coordinated results. Colocation was a central design feature of the PRTs, enabling civilians and 

military to engage in daily information sharing and joint problem 

solving, if not formal joint planning. It also facilitated mutual learning and the development of strong working relationships. Colocation 

of POLADs and DEVADs at the various levels of the military struc-
ACHIEVING COORDINATED RESULTS │ 345

ture on the ground likewise facilitated information sharing, joint 

analysis and planning, and mutual learning.

Colocation, of course, was not the only factor that affected coordination, and not all colocated units achieved the same degree of coordination. Nevertheless, colocation was an important factor contributing to the coordinated results that were achieved. A senior military 

officer emphasized the importance of “proximity . . . working next to 

people . . . physically having access to their vision, their understanding of the area, sharing each other’s understanding of the area. If you 

operated together, moved together, saw the problem set together, you 

could develop coordinated solutions.”22

Colocation at higher levels of decision making is equally valuable.23 From 2003 to 2005, US Army lieutenant general David Barno 

worked and lived at the US embassy with Ambassador Zalmay 

Khalilzad. Lieutenant General Barno also detailed several military 

planners to the embassy, who worked on a daily basis with their civilian counterparts. The colocation at the embassy facilitated information sharing, joint decision making, and development of strong 

working relationship. It also had important symbolic effects, affecting 

perceptions of civilian-military coordination up and down the respective chains of command. As a senior military officer explained, 

“Colocation . . . was a physical manifestation of integrated machinery. 

. . . Colocation isn’t essential, but it bloody well helps.”24

When military and civilians are not colocated, or when, as in Afghanistan, larger numbers of agency representatives were required 

than could be colocated, convening is necessary. Convening is most 

effective when done regularly and over time. One of the processes 

broadly cited for enhancing coordination in Afghanistan was the 

monthly convening of civilians and military at Bagram Airfield. 

Shortly after US Army lieutenant general (then major general) David 

Rodriguez assumed command of RC East, he and several members of 

his command met with senior civilian leaders from the embassy and 

agreed to work together to strengthen coordination. From this first 

step emerged monthly, full-day meetings, usually convened at Bagram.

The Bagram process was “tri-led” by the deputy chief of mission, 

the USAID mission director, and the deputy commanding general 

(Support) of Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF)–82RC East. Participants included representatives of USAID’s technical offices, the DOS, 

other civilian agencies, and the military. The meetings typically began 

in plenary, providing opportunities for updates and information 
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sharing. Participants then broke out into technical working groups 

(e.g., infrastructure, education, water, and energy) for joint analysis 

and problem solving and, to some extent, planning. Senior civilian 

and military leaders met separately. At the end of the day, the full 

group reconvened in plenary.

The meetings initially focused on sharing information and “deconflicting” activities, a term often used to refer to avoiding negative interactions among activities, eliminating duplication, and filling gaps. 

As the process evolved, participants became more ambitious, setting 

their sights on higher levels of coordination. Among the most significant early outcomes was agreement that the Afghan National Development Strategy would guide military, in addition to civilian, efforts. This 

experience not only demonstrates the significance of information sharing and joint analysis in building agreement on goals and strategy but 

also highlights the importance of US interagency coordination in contributing to the broader multinational coordination.

The Bagram process contributed to concrete coordinated results. 

There were many examples in which military and civilians avoided 

and mitigated negative interactions between their activities. In one 

case, participants discovered that USAID was building a road through 

an airstrip that was being paved with Commanders’ Emergency Response Program (CERP) funding. They quickly made the changes 

necessary to correct the problem. In another case, USAID and the 

military “deconflicted” their road-building standards to reduce the 

susceptibility of newly constructed roads to improvised explosive devices. Beyond specific projects and sectors, the Bagram process led to 

synergistic coordinated results. For example, the military used CERP 

funds for quick-impact projects in RC East, while USAID focused on 

longer-term development. The Bagram process also enabled the US 

military to support, in coordination with USAID, Afghan-led planning at the provincial level.

4. Empowerment

Joint analysis, coordinated planning, and information sharing are 

necessary, but not sufficient, for coordinated results. Military and civilians on the ground must be empowered to implement agreed strategies 

and make use of the information available to achieve coordinated results. Empowerment is especially important at the tactical level, where 

decisions affect the achievement of higher-level strategic goals.
ACHIEVING COORDINATED RESULTS │ 347

In Afghanistan, the limited empowerment of USAID FPOs at the 

PRTs consistently undermined coordination. USAID programs were 

controlled from Kabul, and FPOs had to seek approval for projects and 

funds. Many FPOs were private service contractors with limited experience navigating the USAID bureaucracy. This undermined their ability to respond quickly to emerging opportunities and challenges.

The problem was exacerbated by the relatively high level of empowerment of their military counterparts, who were able to allocate 

significant financial resources through CERP. The disparity in empowerment between the military and civilians undermined their 

ability to respond quickly and collectively to emerging opportunities 

and challenges at the tactical level. As time progressed, USAID took 

steps to enhance the empowerment of FPOs. Nevertheless, the disparity in empowerment continued, undermining coordination.

Empowerment is not only a function of formal decision-making 

authority. Experience, skill, and relationships also affect individuals’ 

ability to make decisions and garner resources and thus their de facto

empowerment. At PRTs with relatively senior, experienced FPOs 

who could navigate effectively within their bureaucracy, the institutional barriers to decision making were less of an issue, and coordinated results were achieved more consistently.

5. Incentives and Accountability

Empowerment is essential, but it must be combined with incentive 

and accountability systems that promote coordination. When such 

systems are in place, individuals use their decision-making authority 

and access to resources to advance agreed goals. When such systems 

are not in place, information sharing and joint decision making become highly dependent on individual attitudes, motivations, and relationships, and thus coordinated results are achieved inconsistently. 

This was evident at many PRTs, where perverse incentives to spend 

money quickly and lack of accountability for downstream results undermined coordinated results.

When professional incentives and accountability systems are 

strengthened, coordinated results increase. The military planners 

Lieutenant General Barno detailed to the embassy from 2003 to 2005 

reported not only up their military chain of command but also to the 

USAID mission director, who wrote their evaluations. This strengthened their incentives to coordinate and made clear that they would be 
348 │ STRIMLING yodsampa

held accountable for doing so. Likewise, Amb. Christopher Dell, who 

served as deputy chief of mission from 2007 to 2009, changed the 

position requirements for civilians at the embassy to promote active 

participation in the ICMAG planning process discussed above. These 

and related changes in incentive and accountability systems enhanced 

coordinated results.

Facilitative and Directive Leadership

Effective leadership is essential for coordinated results. However, 

leadership is often understood as only the exercise of formal authority. The systems and processes identified above require strong facilitative leadership, in addition to directive leadership. Facilitative leadership refers here to the exercise of leadership without authority.25

In a context such as Afghanistan, in which no one is fully in charge 

of all the actors involved, facilitative leadership is necessary to convene agency representatives and enable information sharing and joint 

analysis and planning. The success of the Bagram process, for example, depended on the strong facilitative leadership of Rodriguez; his 

deputy, US Army major general (then brigadier general) Rodney Anderson; and their civilian counterparts at the embassy.

Military and civilians at lower levels in their respective chains of 

command also exercised facilitative leadership. USAID technical experts facilitated working groups at the Bagram meetings. Likewise, a 

small team of facilitators from S/CRS at the DOS led the ICMAG 

planning process. While there was initially resistance to facilitation 

by an agency with perceived “organizational equities” at stake, the 

facilitators’ substantive and process (facilitation) expertise contributed to their acceptance and effectiveness.

Facilitative leadership, while necessary, is not sufficient for coordinated results. Directive leadership within organizational hierarchies 

is often essential. This is not inconsistent with the no-one-in-charge 

premise of this chapter, which assumes that no one is fully in charge 

of all the agencies involved but acknowledges the role hierarchy plays 

within organizations.

Directive leadership played a key role in coordination in Afghanistan. In 2005, for example, US Army major general Jason Kamiya, 

commander of CJTF-76, temporarily reduced the PRT commanders’ 

authority to allocate CERP funds. The objective was to make clear his 
ACHIEVING COORDINATED RESULTS │ 349

expectation that they would coordinate with their civilian colleagues 

in making decisions. Once Major General Kamiya was confident that 

the requirement to coordinate was understood, he reinstated the authority to allocate CERP funds. Civilian leaders also exercised directive leadership. In 2007 Ambassador Dell, then deputy chief of mission, directed civilians under his chain of authority to participate 

actively in the ICMAG process. This was necessary to overcome initial resistance to participate.

Thus, directive leadership operates in concert with incentive and 

accountability systems to promote information sharing and joint 

analysis and planning. Once joint processes are under way and participants recognize their value, the need for directive leadership often 

recedes. This finding is consistent with organizational theory, which 

emphasizes the importance of facilitative leadership not only among 

but also within organizations.

Individual and Organizational Learning

One of the most compelling and promising findings from the analysis 

of US civilian-military coordination in Afghanistan was the learning 

that emerged from and fed back into coordination systems and processes. 

For purposes of this research, learning was defined as increased knowledge and understanding of organizational goals, priorities, assumptions, values, strengths, and limitations; the broader systems within 

which one is operating; interactions among activities; the impacts of 

coordinated results and coordination failures; and the factors that affect coordination. Learning also may include enhanced skills, in particular the convening, facilitation, and consensus-building skills necessary to participate in and lead joint analysis and planning processes.

Joint analysis and planning played a critical role in fostering learning. Through these processes, participants developed a greater appreciation of common ground and differences; became increasingly attuned to the effects of their decisions on the broader systems they 

were seeking to influence; and developed working relationships, networks, and skills that fed back into broader coordination efforts. This 

was particularly true of processes in which participants worked together to surface and understand differences in interests, values, and 

assumptions. Skillful facilitation contributed to these efforts. The role 

learning plays in joint analysis and planning brings to mind Dwight 
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D. Eisenhower’s famous quote: “In preparing for battle, I have always 

found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”26

Colocation also fostered mutually supportive learning. By living 

and working together on a daily basis, civilians and military learned 

about and from one another and developed strong working relationships. One FPO explained that colocation made it possible for the 

PRT to respond quickly and collectively to a crisis in the province: “I 

was living on the PRT. I knew the guys. Day in, day out, we were living together, so there was no need to do relationship building when 

the crisis hit.”27

The enhanced understanding and strengthened relationships at 

the individual level carried over to their organizations. The military’s 

understanding of development principles and respect for USAID expertise increased. USAID developed greater appreciation of the need 

to address short-term security imperatives while also working toward 

longer-term development goals. This transformed the relationship 

between USAID and the military. A USAID officer, reflecting on the 

value of joint analysis and planning, explained that “the military guys 

learned a lot about USAID. . . . We learned about their corporate culture. Resistance to working with the military melted away. . . . We saw 

mutual value. Team building emerged. It made the broader USAIDmilitary relationship smoother.”28

The learning highlighted above fed back into the system, strengthening the institutional systems and processes necessary for coordinated results. Increased mutual understanding, including the ability 

to bridge differences of organizational culture and lexicon, led to 

more effective joint processes. As the military and civilians identified 

complementary resources, expertise, and capacities, they leveraged 

them in support of shared goals. They also took steps to strengthen 

incentive and accountability systems.

Nevertheless, the impressive degree of learning and innovation on 

the ground did not translate into the sustained institutional changes 

necessary for consistent, long-term coordinated results. The constant 

turnover of personnel and inadequate systems to ensure that incoming rotations would learn from and build upon what had come before 

led to frequent “reinventions of the wheel.” Moreover, the institutional changes civilian and military leaders were able to make on the 

ground were at the margins of vast bureaucratic systems. Sustained 

organizational change required decisions of senior policy makers in 
ACHIEVING COORDINATED RESULTS │ 351

Washington who were far removed from the reality on the ground 

and faced their own institutional and political constraints.

Putting It All Together: A Model of Coordination

The discussion above raises the question of whether all of the institutional systems and processes are necessary for coordinated results, 

or whether there is a subset of critical factors. The case study identified three key factors, without which coordinated results are not possible: civilians and military on the ground must agree on one or more 

concrete goals; they must be empowered to make decisions and allocate resources in support of those goals; and they must have information about one another’s current and planned activities, resources, 

and needs.

When only these minimal conditions are met, however, coordinated 

results are achieved inconsistently. In the absence of rigorous joint 

analysis and planning, agreement on goals depends largely on issue 

area, since agreement in some issue areas is easier than in others. Without incentive and accountability systems conducive to information 

sharing and joint decision making, coordinated results depend on the 

willingness of individuals to put shared goals above immediate agency 

imperatives. If planning on the ground is not linked to planning at 

headquarters, tactical-level coordinated results will not add up to 

synergistic results at the strategic level.

Thus, to achieve consistent, strategic-level (synergistic) coordinated results, (1) all of the systems and processes identified above 

must be in place and institutionalized, and (2) planning and decision 

making must be integrated across all levels of decision making.

This brings us to related questions. If all of the systems and processes discussed above are necessary for coordinated results, are they 

sufficient? Can they overcome systemic barriers to coordination, including resource and power disparities?

The analysis of US civilian-military coordination in Afghanistan 

showed that the continued underresourcing of the civilian side of US 

efforts in Afghanistan, both in absolute terms and relative to the military, undermined coordination at every level of decision making. 

The financial resources imbalance was profound. Of the $32.9 billion 

the US invested in reconstruction in Afghanistan between 2001 and 

2009, $18.5 billion went to the DOD, $4.6 billion to the DOS, and 
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$9.2 billion to USAID, with the remainder divided among other 

agencies.29 These figures do not include the massive investment in 

war fighting during this period.30

The imbalance in human resources was equally striking. As of November 2009, there were approximately 67,000 US military personnel 

in Afghanistan as compared with several hundred civilians.31 While 

efforts were under way to create a “civilian surge,” the target number 

for 2010 was 1,000 civilians—still a small fraction of the military personnel.32 In this context, the perception voiced by a USAID officer 

that the military saw civilians as “arrows in the military’s quiver” was 

not surprising.33

The inadequate civilian resources undermined coordination in 

many ways. Civilians had more difficulty than their military counterparts absorbing the opportunity costs associated with coordination, 

as well as supporting military initiatives that required the investment 

of substantial civilian resources. The effects of power disparities on 

coordination processes were even more significant. The most visible 

manifestation of this effect was at the PRTs, where military vastly outnumbered and often outranked civilians. This affected civilians’ ability to gain a seat at the table and thus to influence interagency decision making. PRTs with relatively senior civilian representation often 

were able to overcome these hurdles. At most PRTs, however, the 

military dominated decision making.

The resource and power disparities on the ground directly reflected those in Washington. Despite increasingly urgent calls, including from Secretary of Defense Gates, to invest in the civilian side 

of US foreign policy, the DOD continued to garner the lion’s share of 

resources. The congressional budgeting process thus played a critical 

role in civilian-military coordination, undermining it at every level.

Does this mean that the institutional systems and processes discussed above were meaningless? No. They made significant contributions to coordination. In the context of profound resource and power 

disparities, however, there were limits to what even the best systems 

and processes could achieve.

The institutional systems and processes that are the focus of the 

analysis in the context of the other factors that affect coordinated results, including leadership, learning, and resources and power, are 

depicted below in figure 17.1. The curved arrows with “L” next to 

them indicate feedback loops between learning and other variables.
ACHIEVING COORDINATED RESULTS │ 353

L

L

L

L

Agreement

Inter-Organizational:

Convening (Co-location)

Information sharing

Joint Analysis

and Planning

Implementation Coordination

Results

Intra-Organizational:

Empowerment

Incentives and

Accountability

Information Sharing

(Joint)

Education

and Training

Leadership

Resources, Budget, Power

Figure 17.1. Model of coordination

Recommendations for Policy and Practice 

The above analysis and the broader research project upon which it is 

based suggest the following recommendations for policy and practice.

1. Focus on Results

Coordination processes are important, but they must generate 

concrete results to merit the financial and human resources invested. 

Civilians and military must be incentivized to engage in coordination 

processes and held accountable for the downstream, interactive results of their activities.

2. Colocate and Convene

At least some face-to-face interaction is necessary for the information sharing and joint analysis and planning upon which coordinated 

results depend. While information technology has a role to play, it 

should supplement, not supplant, in-person communication. Colo-
354 │ STRIMLING yodsampa

cate civilians and military at multiple levels of decision making. When 

colocation is not possible, invest in regular, structured convening.

3. Agree on Processes, Frameworks, and Tools for Integrated 

Planning

Joint civilian-military planning is necessary for coordinated results, and plans must be integrated across levels. This is easier said 

than done. Civilians and military differ not only in their planning 

frameworks and tools but also in their understanding of what planning entails. Build agreement on processes, frameworks, and tools for 

joint civilian-military planning.

4. Ensure Rigorous Joint Analysis at All Levels of Decision 

Making

In addition to identifying and leveraging common ground, joint 

planning must surface and address differences in interests, concerns, 

priorities, assumptions, and values. This requires skillful facilitation. 

Invest in facilitators who have technical expertise as well as process 

skills in convening, facilitation, and consensus building.

5. Institutionalize Systems and Processes

To achieve sustained, high-level coordinated results, agencies must 

institutionalize the necessary systems and processes. Some systems 

and processes may be established on a standing basis within or among 

organizations. Others may be incorporated into doctrine or standard 

operating procedures. This will reduce dependence on the decisions 

of individual leaders and the tendency for incoming rotations to “reinvent the wheel.”

6. Design Systems and Processes to Foster Learning

Learning is at the heart of coordination, and individual learning 

must be translated into sustained organizational change. Design systems and processes not only to enhance short-term coordination but 

also to promote ongoing learning. Invest in joint predeployment 

training and systems to maximize continuity across rotations.
ACHIEVING COORDINATED RESULTS │ 355

7. Invest in Civilian Capacity

 Power disparities undermine coordination. The resource disparity 

between US civilians and military is an urgent problem. For US efforts in complex contingencies to benefit from the complementary 

expertise and capacities of military and civilian actors, civilian agencies’ financial and human resources must be increased.

8. Support Multinational and Government–Civil Society 

Coordination

US interagency coordination is necessary but not sufficient for effective stabilization, reconstruction, and postwar peacebuilding. The 

United States must coordinate more effectively with its multinational 

partners, the UN, regional organizations, and NGOs. Coordination 

with the governments and civil societies of the countries in which the 

United States is working is particularly important. For US efforts to 

yield sustainable, positive results, they must align with and support 

the goals, priorities, and activities of local actors.

9. Identify, Illuminate, and Analyze Successful Coordination

Coordination failures are well-documented and understood. Successful coordination has received insufficient attention and analysis. 

While this study has attempted to illuminate and explain coordinated 

results, further research is necessary to test the findings in contexts 

other than Afghanistan and determine their relevance to coordination among the broader set of actors whose activities bear on the 

achievement of stabilization, reconstruction, and postwar peacebuilding goals.

Policy makers in the United States and beyond increasingly recognize the urgent need for enhanced coordination. This has created a 

window of opportunity to invest in the institutional changes necessary for sustained coordinated results. By expanding information 

flows, investing in joint civilian-military analysis and planning at all 

levels of decision making, empowering people at the lowest possible 

levels, and holding them accountable for the downstream interactive 

effects of their activities, civilians and military will enhance coordination, strengthening international stabilization, reconstruction, and 

postwar peacebuilding efforts.
356 │ STRIMLING yodsampa

Notes

1. Lt Gen Robert E. Durbin, US Army, retired, phone interview with author, 27 

July 2009.

2. Amb. Christopher Dell, interview with the author, Washington, DC, 25 June 2009.

3. The interviews were conducted between 2009 and 2011. Interviewees spoke in 

their individual, not official, capacities, and most authorized publication of their 

names. No information or quotations are attributed to individual interviewees without their permission.

4. To ensure the validity of the analysis, interview data were triangulated across categories of interviewees and supplemented by primary and secondary documentation.

5. Information and explanations that were most frequently and consistently cited 

across interview categories and that provided supporting detail, documentation, 

and/or internal logic were treated as the strongest evidence. The written analysis also 

included data if they provided significant detail, supporting evidence, and/or internal logic to support or contradict arguments; indicated learning; or indicated a dissenting opinion, the inclusion of which was necessary for accurate portrayal of a 

range of perspectives on controversial issues.

6. Senate, An Urgent Need: Coordinating Reconstruction and Stabilization in Contingency Operations: Hearings before the Commission on Wartime Contracting, 111th 

Cong., 2nd sess., 2010.

7. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on the 

Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan” (address, US Military Academy, West 

Point, NY, 1 December 2009), http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks

-president-address-nation-way-forward-afghanistan-and-pakistan.

8. Senate Armed Services Committee, The Posture of U.S. Central Command, statement prepared by Gen David H. Petraeus, 111th Cong., 2nd sess., 16 March 2010.

9. Hamid Karzai, quoted in Rob Gifford, “Taliban Growth Worries U.S., Security 

Experts,” National Public Radio, 8 February 2009, http://www.npr.org/templates

/story/story.php?storyId=100397718.

10. For an analysis of the key role civil society plays in peacebuilding, see Lisa 

Schirch’s chapter in this volume.

11. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the 

senior diplomats and military commanders on the ground expressed grave concern 

about the continuing high numbers of civilian casualties and the associated deleterious 

impacts in terms of US counterinsurgency goals.

12. For a more complete discussion of the four types of coordinated results, see 

Andrea Strimling Yodsampa, “No One in Charge: A New Theory of Coordination 

and an Analysis of US Civil-Military Coordination in Afghanistan 2001–2009” (PhD 

diss., Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 2011).

13. See John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided 

Societies (Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace, 1997); or Antonia Handler Chayes 

and Abram Chayes, Planning for Intervention: International Cooperation in Conflict 

Management (Boston, MA: Kluwer Law International, 1999).

14. US Army Field Manual (FM) 3.0, Operations, 27 February 2008, A-3, distinguished unity of command and unity of effort as follows: “Unity of command means 

that a single commander directs and coordinates the actions of all forces toward a 
ACHIEVING COORDINATED RESULTS │ 357

common objective. . . . In the absence of command authority, commanders cooperate, negotiate, and build consensus to achieve unity of effort.” ADP 3.0, Unified Land 

Operations, has since superseded FM 3.0, Operations.

15. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a virtuous cycle is “a condition in which a favorable circumstance or result gives rise to another that subsequently supports the first.” For a systems-theory analysis of vicious and virtuous cycles, see Peter M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning 

Organization (New York: Doubleday/Currency, 1990).

16. Lara Olson and Hrach Gregorian, “Beyond Information Sharing & False Coherence: Interagency Coordination in International Peace Missions” (policy brief, 

The Peacebuilding, Development and Security Program, Centre for Military and 

Strategic Studies, University of Calgary, 2007).

17. In her earlier-cited dissertation, Andrea Strimling Yodsampa cites a DOS official (interview 16) who described the lack of coordination in RC East in early 2007: 

“RC East had a problem with civilian-military integration. No one was talking to 

each other. Everyone was running down their own thing.”

18. Strimling Yodsampa, “No One in Charge,” confidential interview 103.

19. Ibid., confidential interview 92. An executive working group, chaired by the 

deputy chief of mission, sat above the ICMAG and served as a type of deputies committee, identifying questions that arose in the planning process for resolution.

20. Ibid., confidential interview 57.

21. Ibid., confidential interview 71.

22. Ibid., confidential interview 104.

23. While the study focused on coordination on the ground, it also showed the 

value of colocation at headquarters in the United States. For example, the colocation 

of the Afghanistan Interagency Operations Group, although only partially realized, 

contributed to information sharing and joint analysis at that level.

24. Strimling Yodsampa, “No One in Charge,” confidential interview 91.

25. For an innovative analysis of leadership without authority, see Cleveland 

Harlan, Nobody in Charge: Essays on the Future of Leadership, The Warren Bennis 

Signature Series, 1st ed. (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2002).

26. Dwight D. Eisenhower, quoted in Susan Ratcliffe, ed., Oxford Concise Dictionary of Quotations, 6th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 135.

27. Michelle Parker, Programming Development Funds to Support a Counterinsurgency: A Case Study of Nangarhar, Afghanistan in 2006 (Washington, DC: Center 

for Technology and National Security Policy, 2008).

28. Strimling Yodsampa, “No One in Charge,” confidential interview 102.

29. Maj Gen Arnold Fields, USMC, retired, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), Quarterly Report to the United States Congress

(Arlington, VA: SIGAR, 30 April 2009), 35.

30. Of the $223.2 billion the United States spent in Afghanistan, only $32.9 billion was dedicated to reconstruction. Anthony H. Cordesman, Resourcing the Afghan War: An Overview (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International 

Studies, 2009).

31. US Government Accountability Office (GAO), Afghanistan’s Security Environment (Washington, DC: GAO, 2009). There were approximately 360 civilian personnel in Afghanistan in January 2009. The aim was to increase the number to 1,000 
358 │ STRIMLING yodsampa

by 2010. Dan Green, “The Other Surge: An Increase in U.S. Civilians in Afghanistan 

Has Mixed Results,” Armed Forces Journal, October 2010, http://www.armedforcesjournal

.com/2010/10/4771231/.

32. Green, “The Other Surge.”

33. Strimling Yodsampa, “No One in Charge,” confidential interview 24.
Chapter 18

Civilian-Military Engagement in Afghanistan

How Market-Based Approaches Enable and

Enhance Counterinsurgencies

Joanna Buckley and Ryan Gawn

Introduction 

Counterinsurgency (COIN) efforts have required adaptation to a 

nontraditional model that converges civilian and military operations 

and recognizes the civilian component as the key enabler. The complex civilian-military approach recognizes sustainable development, 

in the broad sense of the term, as the prize of stability and conflict 

prevention operations. Military operations and funding should complement civilian efforts to stimulate the local economy.1

In this chapter we argue that civilian-military teams in Afghanistan should have been better equipped and enabled to positively impact the local economy in support of the International Security 

Assistance Force’s (ISAF) central mission.2 Reorientation of ISAF priorities through an Afghan First procurement policy was a core step 

toward repositioning both military and civilian teams as core actors 

in COIN delivery. Ultimately, this market-based approach was 

characterised by local engagement and capacity building with the 

local private sector and could have extended the political settlement 

to the wider population.3

In understanding the local marketplace and procuring local goods/

services to the highest possible degree (in a conflict-sensitive manner, 

recognizing the risks of aid militarization), jobs can be created, 

economies can be stimulated, taxes can be revenue generated, and 

hope and aspirations for progress can be realized. This chapter 

presents a range of recommendations on how this can be best 

achieved, such as increased prioritization of local procurement, better 

understanding of the dynamics of the private sector at a local level, collective buy-in, best practices, and improved expenditure tracking.
360 │ BUCKLEY & GAWN

The Afghan Private Sector

The Afghan marketplace was underdeveloped, and the limited local manufacturing sector was largely unable to meet both domestic 

demand and demand from the international community present in 

Afghanistan. Approximately 85 percent of the products, services, and 

human resources used by international agencies in support of incountry operations and program implementation were imported, 

providing few jobs for Afghan workers.4 The conflict in Afghanistan 

did not fundamentally alter the economic structure of the country. 

The manufacturing sector was historically limited, and agriculture 

was the main source of income for the majority of the population. 

Both foreign military and civilian spending could have had significant positive impact on the development of the local economy. This 

chapter is focused on how foreign military funds can be harnessed in 

support of civilian-military efforts that aim to build a stable and sustainable local economy. In not only choosing relevant sector-specific 

development projects in support of the mission but also spending 

locally and transparently, international military forces can be significant contributors to local marketplace development.

While underdeveloped, the private sector in Afghanistan began to 

thrive from 2001, despite security and economic challenges. Exports 

increased more than fivefold between 2003 and 2009, small- and 

medium-enterprise production expanded and cell growth grew exponentially.5

 Between 2005 and 2008, industrial- and service-sector 

gross domestic product (GDP) doubled, and Afghan business revenue grew on average 220 percent.6

 Some of the key areas of military 

operation that were supported by the local business sector included 

construction services, office supplies/services, life support, logistics/

transportation, furniture, and telecommunications and information 

technology services. For example, there were several thousand Afghan construction firms operating in all corners of Afghanistan; 

some abided by international standards, due to years of experience 

gained working with and for international forces. These companies 

were contracted for military base improvements, community development projects, and subcontracting on large-scale development 

projects. Internationally certified PVC piping was manufactured locally. Life support services such as laundry and housekeeping services, container supply and manufacture (e.g., connexes for offices, 

living quarters, showers, and such), and textile services (e.g., uniform 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN │ 361

and boot manufacture and repair) were locally sourced from competent Afghan companies.

The Importance of Job Creation

Job creation has been described as “critical to undermine extremists’ appeal in the short-term and for sustainable economic growth in 

the long-term.”7

 The assumption of this argument is “that insurgency 

is a full-time job, that it is a low-skill occupation, and that the key 

limit on violence is the number of fighters insurgent organizations 

can recruit.”8

 This has been subject to limited empirical testing. However, where livelihood opportunities were developed and enhanced, 

increased opportunities for overall economic development flourished. This was seen as a keystone to postconflict programs both in 

the development sector, led by international nongovernmental organizations (INGO), and the military, which were focused on reorienting North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and ISAF resources 

toward the Afghan private sector.9

Economic Development and Its Role in Advancing 

Counterinsurgency Goals

The development of a robust private-sector community—vital to 

investment, growth, and employment opportunities for ordinary Afghans—and the creation of links to the international community 

through business transactions stabilized the Afghan economy and 

society, thereby advancing COIN goals. For many years, civilian 

agencies established economic development programs to advance 

growth of the private sector.

Evidence has shown that the private sector is the main driver of 

economic growth and that both economic growth and diversification 

of the economy away from reliance on a few sectors controlled by a 

few dominant players decrease the likelihood of countries returning 

to conflict.10 In addition, economic diversification results in missions 

with a larger local impact due to the increased ability of international 

agencies to procure locally.11

Developing the private sector also created opportunities to give 

the Afghan population a stake in peace—the “peace dividend.” This 

was a key objective for the military and the Afghan population since 
362 │ BUCKLEY & GAWN

“in the absence of peace and security, there [was] no incentive for 

people to invest in the legal economy. Restoration of peace and security [made] the legal economy viable again.”12 As Achim Wennmann 

warns, “omission of economic provisions can have negative consequences for peacebuilding, including the empowerment of spoilers, 

the persistence of seemingly unbridgeable differences, and the absence of overall peace dividends.”13

With a big purse and demand for goods and services—including 

road building, solar energy, fuel, mineral water, and mobile phone 

cards—the military is a buyer whose spending power can be harnessed 

to create a significant impact on the local economy. Injecting money 

into the local economy has the ability to provide employment and build 

skills across the private sector, with both direct and indirect benefits 

such as local engagement, capacity building, and the generation of important tax revenue. At the same time, such spending can also embolden spoilers and fuel corruption if not spent in an inclusive, conflict-sensitive manner, driven by informed marketplace knowledge and 

supported by robust monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.

The Military’s Current Involvement 

Country-specific data shows that the United Kingdom spent £7.28 

million in local contracts between April 2009 and January 2010, employing over 2,300 Afghans. This represents $2.94 million for the Afghan economy per annum. From 2005 to 2009, the US government 

procured more than $4 billion in local goods and services, employing 

more than 20,000 Afghans.

14 An additional increase in local spending 

of 10 percent was estimated to generate an additional 5 percent in 

Afghan GDP.15

In 2009 and 2010, the US government, US Forces Afghanistan 

(USFOR–A), and ISAF contracting officers adopted Afghan First 

policies. The institutionalization of the Afghan First local procurement policy encouraged increased prioritization of local procurement in support of the military mission, collective buy-in, and improved tracking of spending. While the main priority of procurement 

policy remained to enable missions to be both adequately supplied 

and effective, secondary benefits were recognized for both Afghanistan 

and ISAF-contributing nations: “Procuring goods and services from 

Afghan companies promote[d] sustainable economic development. . . . 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN │ 363

Afghan firms knew the market and [could] often provide quality 

goods and services at competitive prices. With a shorter supply chain, 

local procurement [was] often the best way for the buyer to maximize 

value and the timely delivery of needed goods and services.”16 This 

policy ensured that local procurement was insulated from the effects 

of personnel turnover and that there was greater incentive, participation, and consensus from contracting personnel.

The US Agency for International Development claimed the Afghan First local procurement policy led to the contract of work worth 

$1.12 billion to 4,227 Afghan firms, which employed 85,650 Afghans.17 At the end of the two-year trial period, it was vital that further reviews of policy impacts were conducted in order to enable appropriate adjustments.

Additional monies available included the Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP) fund, which enabled US military 

commanders in Afghanistan to respond to urgent, small-scale, humanitarian relief and reconstruction needs by providing projects and 

services that immediately assisted the local population. These projects and services were to be sustained by the local population or government to a value of less than $500,000.The commander of US Central Command (USCENTCOM) must approve projects exceeding $1 

million, and the deputy secretary of defense must approve those over 

$5 million.18 The Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013, appropriated $200 million for CERP for FY 2013, 

increasing total cumulative funding to nearly $3.64 billion.19

Leaders could have increased local spending through a continued 

emphasis on prioritization of awards to local companies as well as 

improved contracting and bidding procedures.

Risks and Effectiveness of Aid Militarization

The US military has labeled aid as a nonlethal weapons system, as 

described in the Commander’s Guide to Money as a Weapons System

(2009). It is a critical tool for gaining the trust and “buy-in” of the local population and “one of the primary weapons used by warfighters 

to achieve successful mission results in counterinsurgency and humanitarian operations,” allowing the military to “win the hearts and 

minds . . . to facilitate defeat [of] the insurgents.” 20 This approach has 

led to widespread concerns around the militarization of aid, as aid 
364 │ BUCKLEY & GAWN

was channeled through military forces or civilian-military teams.21

Many leading INGOs believed such militarization would lead to a 

lack of sustainability and local ownership, increased operational risk 

to INGOs and humanitarian space, and a weakening of the role of 

Afghan institutions.22 Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, supported this view, accusing the provincial reconstruction teams of undermining efforts to develop the state’s institutions.23 In addition, 

some questioned the positioning of the military as an actor in the 

development sphere.24 Andrew Wilder, the research director at the 

Feinstein International Center at Tufts University, supported this critique, claiming that such aid could have been destabilizing, especially 

by fueling corruption and asserting that it made “little sense to waste 

billions of dollars on the dubious assumption that money [could] buy 

Afghan hearts and minds.”25 For some, spending should have been 

conflict sensitive, taking a contextual view, seeking to ensure that 

action did not exacerbate political or societal divisions, and giving 

actors a vested interest in maintaining conflict levels. “Conflictsensitivity require[d] development agencies, companies and others 

to: Understand the context in which they operate[d] especially [in] 

latent and open conflict dynamics; understand the actual and 

potential mutual impacts between [that] context and their own 

actions; act on [that] understanding in order to identify future risks, 

avoid negative impacts, and maximize positive impacts.”26

In addition to the risks of aid militarization, there were doubts 

concerning the effectiveness of military development interventions. 

The report by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction emphasized that USFOR–A required improved 

oversight and assessments and stated that in order to address concerns 

about CERP sustainability new provisions required improved reporting on how proposed reconstruction projects were to be sustained. As 

the report stated, “USFOR–A lack[ed] a coordinated, results-oriented 

approach to determine whether CERP projects achieved their goals, 

[we]re being used as intended, and [we]re being sustained.”27

Afghan First Procurement Policy: A Case Study 

In countries where conflict has destroyed or stalled the economy, 

recovery is badly needed to create a sustained settlement. Developing and 

enhancing livelihood opportunities supports economic development, 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN │ 365

which reduces poverty and is associated with lower levels of conflict. 

However, the transformative impact of the influx of development, humanitarian, and military spending is diluted when this money is spent 

elsewhere. Researchers have estimated that only 37 percent of official development assistance spent in Afghanistan in 2006 reached the Afghan 

economy, inhibiting inclusive economic growth, income generation, tax 

generation, and stabilization.28

The Afghan First policy provided a groundbreaking framework that 

enabled the military to engage with the local market while repositioning 

both military and civilian teams as core actors in COIN delivery and supporting the military’s revised operational framework. That framework, 

over the past 15 years, has altered to increase responsibilities and requirements to improve stability, foster economic growth, and engage and support reconstruction activities.29

The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (Public 

Law 110-181, Section 886, January 2008) first codified the Afghan 

First policy.30 In 2009–10, the US government institutionalized the 

policy across its agencies, and implementation was under way with 

the recognition that contracting Afghan contractors and purchasing 

Afghan goods was a key element of COIN.31 In April 2010 NATO joined 

with US efforts, launching the NATO Afghan First policy, which aimed to 

increase NATO-ISAF support to the Afghan local economy.

Since the inception of Afghan First policy there has been continued documentation of the operationalization of Afghan First policy. 

The US Army’s Center for Army Lessons Learned published the 2009 

Commander’s Guide to Money as a Weapons System, incorporating 

Afghan First policy and COIN contracting guidance into USCENTCOM 

contracting command acquisition instructions. Additionally, Gen 

David Petraeus released a memo that emphasized the strategic gains 

and risks inherent in local contracting; the necessity to develop local 

partnerships, build capacity, and consult and involve local leaders; 

and the need for oversight and enforcement mechanisms.32

One of the most notable cases of the Afghan First policy was the $365 

million, five-year set-aside contract to produce clothing and equipment 

for the Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army.33 Proposal 

training support for over 60 Afghan businesses led to the selection of 

three companies employing hundreds of Afghan women.34 This enabled 

local textile manufacturing capacity to be built up, increasing the probability of future local procurement for police and military clothing. 

Building Markets, an INGO supporting local procurement, states it 
366 │ BUCKLEY & GAWN

provided services (such as an online directory of verified businesses 

in order to facilitate connections between international and domestic 

firms) which resulted in contracts valued at over $1 billion, which in 

turn created or sustained 65,000 full-time jobs.

The Afghan First local procurement policy did not receive the critique that CERP had.35 However, from military and business 

perspectives, diverse challenges created obstacles to engagement with 

the private sector. These included, but were not limited to, limited 

access and information sharing between international buyers and local vendors, an underdeveloped marketplace, poor infrastructure 

and utilities, and the high cost and low reliability of imports related to 

low levels of domestic manufacturing. Contracting teams, donors, 

and INGO staff were frequently unable to give this author a clear 

overview on what was obtainable in the local marketplace, a 

breakdown of local spending, and a review of how local spending had 

adjusted since the organization in question had become operational. 

Businesses in Afghanistan also identified challenges specifically 

related to international contracts, including perceptions of disinterest 

in local procurement; an inability to access information on new 

business opportunities, procurement systems, and tenders; and a lack 

of confidence and/or knowledge in accessing international contracts.36

Prioritization of local procurement through Afghan First began 

eight years after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, preventing the movement from being fully recognized. It is a valuable component of COIN, but its effectiveness can be increased through commitment in the first phase of intervention. This mission objective 

needs to be supported though expanded civilian effort capabilities. 

These should complement military expertise in reconstruction and 

stabilization with local marketplace knowledge, relationship building 

with the local business community, and the use of regular assessments to link actions to impact and reduce corruption. Expertise in 

these fields will result in a military able to facilitate growth while trying to stabilize the regions in which it is engaged.37

The next sections detail measures that can be used to counter the 

challenges mentioned in this section and manners in how to develop 

programs focused on sustainable development, economic stimulus, 

and active relationship building.
CIVILIAN-MILITARY ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN │ 367

What Can Be Done?

One of the main themes of current COIN literature is the recognition of sustainable development as the prize.38 Donor country military 

operations should aim to complement civilian efforts in stimulating 

the economy and use local goods and services to the highest possible 

degree and in a conflict-sensitive manner.

This is a pragmatic solution that, to succeed, requires strong and 

transparent tracking of local purchasing, identifying new areas of local opportunity, and a thinking out and resourcing of civilian effort 

capabilities supporting mission objectives in collaboration with the 

local business community. Some of the key ways in which civilianmilitary teams can foster active relationships with local populations 

and private-sector development are detailed below.

1. The Means 

Implementing a market-based approach grounded in enterprise 

and private-sector development.39 This enables the growth of industries that are demand-driven, reducing the risk that ensuring a scaledown of military operations could create a vacuum that prejudices 

security. Sustainable sectors that were valuable to the longer-term 

recovery of Afghanistan included transport networks, telecommunications, electricity (including fuel and renewable), and light manufacturing. By supporting businesses capable of diversifying once the 

military effort was reduced or removed, civilian-military teams 

would have increased the likelihood that industries were sustainable.

2. Civilian Expertise

It is important to improve predeployment preparations for civilian 

and military personnel responsible for contracting and procurement 

and increase access and quality of information about the local marketplace and its capabilities. Civilian-military teams should be used 

to improve awareness of the types of businesses that exist and are 

capable of meeting contractual requirements in country and to create 

expertise and capacity that is critical to developing a stable, viable 

market that will exist beyond the international community’s presence. Rotations that include ample handover time are crucial in ensuring that good relationships, local market-specific knowledge, and 
368 │ BUCKLEY & GAWN

a developed understanding of local nuances are successfully managed. 

This could involve linking civilian personnel with country-specific, 

private-sector expertise or organizations that could provide local 

marketplace information.

3. Best Practice

One must disseminate lessons learned when using an economic 

approach in early recovery environments and consult with the public 

and private sectors to understand what needs to be done to unleash, 

enable, and stimulate economic activity.

4. Monitoring

The sheer volume of money available to be spent locally inherently 

means that there must be robust monitoring and evaluation to ensure 

that engagement with local businesses brings long-term and accountable 

business practices that meet program objectives. Reporting and evaluation mechanisms should be aligned through joint civilian-military 

teams in order to build coherence and adequate feedback loops and 

forge long-term stability and development of civilian-military expertise. A good example of coordinated civilian-military planning and 

effort was demonstrated in Regional Command–South through the 

creation of the Partner’s Coordination Board, aimed at creating regional understanding, with voluntary participation by each province’s senior civilians and mandatory attendance by task force commanders, and the civilian-military cell that supported planning, 

identified problems, and served as the sole interlocutor within ISAF 

that accessed both donor and diplomatic networks.40 It was this kind 

of coordinated civilian-military effort that was required to gather Afghan First procurement data and establish baseline measurements on 

which success would be built.

Conclusion

The traditional role of the military is changing, as the focus on 

COIN and the reorientation of ISAF funding towards engagement 

with the Afghan private sector demonstrated. The military’s spending 

power positioned it as a key buyer in Afghanistan. Through the inception of Afghan First local procurement policy, the military coordinated 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN │ 369

with civilian donor efforts and took an innovative step in engaging 

with the local marketplace. In order to ensure this new approach was 

not only innovative but also effective, the expertise of the civilian and 

military personnel needed to become increasingly converged in order to realize both COIN and sustainable development opportunities 

for the Afghan population in a manner that was most beneficial to 

the mission mandate and the local private sector. In order to achieve 

this, military efforts focused on economic development need to show 

measurable and transparent results of progress in order to avoid the 

pitfalls that plagued CERP.

Military intervention in areas of instability presented key opportunities to impact local economic development when substantial resources were committed to recovery and reconstruction efforts. 

When these funds were spent locally, they generated economic activity, including employment and income- and capacity-building opportunities, which played a critical role in restoring and sustaining 

peace and stability. Because of this, and in spite of concerns about the 

militarization of aid, the military could not be ignored as a key actor 

with both the funds and policy mandate to promote sustainable economic development in support of Afghanistan’s transition to stability. 

The inception of socioeconomic procurement policy reoriented ISAF 

priorities towards the market and recognized that the objectives of 

peace and stabilization alongside private-sector development were 

not mutually exclusive goals. With a foundation of success based on 

understanding and engagement with the local private-sector, future 

civilian-military teams are highly likely to have the skills, experience, 

and potential to play a key role in delivering this approach, which can 

lead to wider societal and security benefits, contributing towards 

peace, stability, and sustainable development.

Notes

1. Joshua W. Welle, “Civil-Military Integration in Afghanistan: Creating Unity of 

Command,” Joint Force Quarterly 56, no. 1 (2010): 54–59, http://www.ndu.edu/press

/lib/images/jfq-56/6.pdf.

2. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “About ISAF,” Afghanistan: International 

Security Assistance Force (web site), n.d., http://www.isaf.nato.int/mission.html. 

ISAF’s mission is to “reduce the capability and will of the insurgency . . . and facilitate 

improvements in governance and socio-economic development in order to provide 

a secure environment for sustainable stability that is observable to the population.”
370 │ BUCKLEY & GAWN

3. UK Department for International Development (DFID), “Building the State 

and Securing the Peace” (emerging policy paper, DFID, London, UK, 2009), 25,

http://www.gsdrc.org/docs/open/CON64.pdf.

4. Yama Torabi and Lorenzo Delsgues, Afghanistan: Bringing Accountability Back 

In: From Subjects of Aid to Citizens of the State (Kabul, Afghanistan: Integrity Watch 

Afghanistan, 2008), 16, http://www.iwaweb.org/reports/PDF/BringingAccountability

Backin.pdf.

5. John Dowdy and Andrew Erdmann, “Private Sector Development in Afghanistan: The Doubly Missing Middle,” in American Interests in South Asia: Building a 

Grand Strategy in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, edited by Nicholas Burns and 

Jonathon Price (Washington, DC: Aspen Institute, 2011), 113.

6. Suhail Kassim and Niti Bhutani, The Afghanistan Investment Climate in 2008: 

Growth Despite Poor Governance, Weak Factor Markets, and Lack of Innovation

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2008), 7, http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files

/resources/68DFA9DB7EC2ABC549257676001F32D8-Full_Report.pdf.

7. Department of State, Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy

(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, January 2010), 4, http://www.state

.gov/documents/organization/135728.pdf.

8. Eli Berman, Joseph H. Felter, and Jacob N. Shapiro, “Constructive COIN: How 

Development Can Fight Radicals,” Foreign Affairs, 1 June 2010, 2, http://www.foreign

affairs.com/articles/66432/eli-berman-joseph-h-felter-and-jacob-n-shapiro/constr

uctive-coin?.

9. David Dod and James T. Smith, eds., A Guide to Economic Growth in PostConflict Countries (Washington, DC: USAID, January 2009), 5, http://pdf.usaid.gov

/pdf_docs/PNADO408.pdf; and NATO, “NATO Afghan First Policy” (press release, 

NATO, Brussels, Belgium, 23 April 2010), http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-BF6A3963

-402643FF/natolive/official_texts_62851.htm?mode=pressrelease.

10. See Dod and Smith, A Guide to Economic Growth, 32; Lindsay Alexander, 

Canan Gündüz, and D. B. Subedi, What Role for Business in “Post-Conflict” Economic 

Recovery?: Perspectives from Nepal (London, UK: International Alert, March 2009), 

6, http://www.international-alert.org/sites/default/files/publications/LEO_Nepal.pdf; and 

Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be 

Done about It (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007).

11. Michael Carnahan, William Durch, and Scott Gilmore, Economic Impact of 

Peacekeeping (New York: Department of Peacekeeping Operations, United Nations, 

March 2006), 33, http://buildingmarkets.org/sites/default/files/economic_impact_of

_un_peacekeeping_march_2006.pdf.

12. Ibid.

13. Achim Wennmann, Money Matters: Economic Dimensions of Peace Mediation (occasional paper, Programme for Strategic and International Security Studies, 

Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland, 2007), 12–13, 

http://graduateinstitute.ch/webdav/site/ccdp/shared/6305/PSIS-Occasional-Paper

-4-Money-Matters.pdf.

14. NATO, “NATO Afghan First Policy.”

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid.
CIVILIAN-MILITARY ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN │ 371

17. Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), 

Quarterly Report to the United States Congress (Arlington, VA: SIGAR, January 2011), 89, 

http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/Jan2011/Lowres/Jan2011.pdf.

18. Michael B. Singleton and Timothy Merrit, US Army Handbook 10-10, Agribusiness Development Teams (ADT) in Afghanistan: Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (Fort Leavenworth, KS: US Army Center for Army Lessons Learned, November 2009), http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/call/docs/10-10/10-10.pdf.

19. Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), 

Quarterly Report to the United States Congress (Arlington, VA: SIGAR, April 2013), 72, 

http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2013-04-30qr.pdf.

20. Kristine Bell, ed., US Army Handbook 9-27, Commander’s Guide to Money as 

a Weapons System: Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (Fort Leavenworth, KS: US 

Army Center for Army Lessons Learned, April 2009), 1, http://usacac.army.mil/cac2

/call/docs/09-27/09-27.pdf.

21. Ashley Jackson, Quick Impact, Quick Collapse: The Dangers of Militarized Aid 

in Afghanistan (Oxford, UK: Oxfam International, January 2010), http://www.oxfam

.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/quick-impact-quick-collapse-jan-2010.pdf; and Andrew Wilder and Stuart Gordon, “Money Can’t Buy America Love,” Foreign Policy, 1 

December 2009, http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/12/01/money-cant-buy-america-love/.

22. Jackson, Quick Impact, Quick Collapse.

23. “Hamid Karzai Says Afghanistan Aid Teams Must Go,” British Broadcast Corporation, 8 February 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12400045.

24. Jackson, Quick Impact, Quick Collapse.

25. Wilder and Gordon, “Money Can’t Buy America Love.”

26. Alexander, Gündüz, and Subedi, What Role for Business, 12.

27. SIGAR, Quarterly Report to the United States Congress, 109.

28. Richard A. Bontjer, Jennifer P. Holt, and Susan Angle, Spending the Development Dollar Twice: The Local Economic Impact of Procurement in Afghanistan (New 

York: Peace Dividend Trust, 2009), http://buildingmarkets.org/sites/default/files

/pdm_reports/pdt_spending_dev_twice_report_0709.pdf.

29. Gregory Johnson, Vijaya Ramachandran, and Julie Walz, “CERP in Afghanistan: Refining Military Capabilities in Development Activities,” PRISM 3, no. 2 (March 

2012): 81–98, http://www.ndu.edu/press/lib/pdf/prism3-2/prism81-98_johnson-all.pdf.

30. Darren W. Rhyne, “Afghan First: Building a Stable Economy through Strategic Acquisition,” Defense AT&L Magazine, May–June 2011, http://www.dtic.mil

/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA543600.

31. SIGAR, Contracting with the Enemy: DOD Has Limited Assurance that Contractors with Links to Enemy Groups Are Identified and Their Contracts Terminated, 

SIGAR Audit 13-6 (Arlington, VA: SIGAR, April 2013), 3, http://www.sigar.mil/pdf

/audits/2013-04-10audit-13-6.pdf.

32. Gen David Petraeus, commander ISAF and USFOR–A, to commanders, contracting personnel, military personnel, and civilians of NATO ISAF and USFOR–A, 

“COMISAF’s Counterinsurgency [COIN) Contracting Guidance,” memorandum, 8 September 2010, http://www.isaf.nato.int/images/stories/File/100908-NUI-COMISAF%20

COIN%20GUIDANCE.pdf.
372 │ BUCKLEY & GAWN

33. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, “U.S. Military Experiments with Empowering Afghan Businesswomen,” New York Times, 29 January 2010, http://www.nytimes

.com/2010/01/30/world/asia/30iht-afwomen.html.

34. Darren W. Rhyne, “Acquisition Program Management Challenges in Afghanistan: Part 2: Afghan Vendor Base,” Defense AT&L Magazine, January–February 

2012, 13–16, http://www.dau.mil/pubscats/ATL%20Docs/Jan_Feb_2012/Rhyne.pdf.

35. For further critique, peruse Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq 

and Afghanistan, Transforming Wartime Contracting: Controlling Costs, Reducing 

Risks (Arlington, VA: Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, 

August 2011), http://cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/cwc/20110929213820/http://www

.wartimecontracting.gov/docs/CWC_FinalReport-lowres.pdf.

36. Afghan business owners and international agencies, interviewed by the authors, 2009–2011.

37. Carl J. Schramm, “Expeditionary Economics: Spurring Growth after Conflicts and Disasters,” Foreign Affairs 89, no.3 (May/June 2010): 89–99.

38. Welle, “Civil-Military Integration in Afghanistan,” 54–59.

39. Private-sector development refers to the harnessing of the market and support of private enterprise in order to assist poverty alleviation and growth and deliver results for the poor.

40. Welle, “Civil-Military Integration in Afghanistan,” 54–59.
PART 6 

Training, Resourcing, Roles, and Missions

Chapter 19

Training the Civilian-Military Team

in the Twenty-First Century

Omer C. Tooley

The Atterbury-Muscatatuck Experience

More than a dozen years of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan have 

taught us that in an environment where neither peace nor war prevails and the desired end state is a civilian-led peace, the civilianmilitary team approach offers the optimum solution capability. Of 

course, complex problem sets, especially in an increasingly urbanized 

world, defy simple fixes. Nevertheless, the ability to rapidly assemble 

capabilities from across agencies, governments, and the private sector 

and to weld them into integrated, effective teams that must be deployed and sustained over long periods of time has been and will 

continue to be an essential requirement of the community of nations. 

Cooperative training will be the vehicle by which this is achieved.

The Atterbury-Muscatatuck team has been deeply involved in the 

effort to promote, enable, and execute cooperative training directed 

toward preparing civilian-military teams for employment in foreign 

and domestic operational environments. Initiating mobilization 

training support for uniformed personnel in February 2003, the team 

became involved in the preparation of civilian capabilities in fall 

2009, when it became the host for the first of four programs involving 

civilians—three of which were civilian-centric. The fourth, provincial 

reconstruction teams (PRT), was primarily composed of uniformed 

personnel drawn from all services.

The training of the PRTs followed a traditional military model and 

is not the subject of this article. The remaining three—the Department of State (DOS) Civ-Mil Training program, the Department of 

Defense (DOD) Civilian Expeditionary Workforce program, and the 

DOD Ministry of Defense Advisors program—were conducted under the cooperative training model that is the subject of this article. 

Cooperation in these three cases was among the National Guard, 

who brought to the effort the military capabilities required (forces, 
376 │ TOOLEY

facilities, and military trainers), the DOS and/or the DOD, which 

provided the civilian capabilities (personnel, training aids, and civilian trainers), and most recently First US Army, which expanded its 

involvement beyond its long-time role in preparing PRTs—including 

providing military trainers for the three civilian-centric programs.

My role in this effort was that of senior mission commander for 

the National Guard capabilities and cointegrator with my civilian 

counterparts from the DOS and the DOD. Together with my DOS, 

DOD, and First US Army counterparts, we made every effort to place 

equal emphasis on civilian and military training in all aspects of 

preparation for deployment. What follows are lessons learned derived from my personal observations serving in this context for the 

past four years.

The first of these lessons is that the civilian component must become more adept at operating in a security-compromised environment with less externally provided personal security. This applies for 

both military-provided security, whose presence can detract from the 

civilian personnel’s effectiveness, and for contractor-provided security, with its associated high costs and potential for negative perceptions. In other words, civilians, from the operator on the ground to 

the supervisor working from perhaps a more secure setting, must 

acquire the training and experience that reduces their need for external 

physical security. Basic survival skills at the operator level, coupled 

with risk analysis and mitigation skills at higher levels, will go a long 

way toward increasing nonkinetic capabilities in hostile environments.

To this end the Atterbury-Muscatatuck Center for Complex Operations (AMCCO) team created a full-immersion experience in 

which civilian team members are placed into a training environment 

where they sleep, eat, train, and socialize with their military counterparts, sharing in the hardships and simulated dangers of their future 

common operating environment. Managed by team member McKellar, Inc., a private contractor with extensive experience in interagency, 

nonkinetic capabilities, training has been conducted employing a 

format in which the civilian capability was the supported element 

and the military the supporting element—a role reversal of most contemporary civilian-military training. Civilian lead in the training experience is critical to developing the skills and experiences required 

for the civilian component to assume the guiding and directing roles 

in this ambiguous environment.
TRAINING THE CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAM │ 377

Along with training as the lead agent, civilians have to learn to read 

the human dimension of the operating environment. This environment is the main source of threats and opportunities. A contemporary 

example of forward thinking in this area is advanced situational 

awareness training (ASAT). Provided to AMCCO trainees by Orbis 

Operations, LLC, another AMCCO team member, ASAT provides the 

civilian-military team member the basic ability to accurately interpret 

the human and physical terrain of the operational environment. It inculcates the ability to “feel” that is so necessary to effectively anticipate 

what is happening or will soon happen on the ground.

The second lesson is that in circumstances where it is appropriate 

to employ the civilian-military team, the military team’s behavior 

should more appropriately approximate a constabulary—committed 

to the minimum use of force—rather than a traditional military force. 

Civilian-military teams are employed to promote the host community’s 

ability to regain control of the instruments and systems of government. Modeling the Western ethos of civilian control of the military 

should guide US actions in supporting that goal. Thus, in the twentyfirst century, the military component of the civilian-military team 

must assume a lower profile in the common effort, focusing strictly 

on establishing a “good enough” secure environment for local capabilities to become established.

Police-like training will become the norm. Minimum use of force, 

careful escalation of force, and use of nonlethal weapons become the 

core of training. The predisposition to demur to civilian leadership in 

the public spotlight at all levels—consciously downplaying the military 

role—will be a critical skill set for the military in the future. This will 

be perhaps the most challenging aspect of military component training, 

because it will require behaviors that are in direct opposition to traditional military culture and ingrained responses.

The third lesson is that, when it comes to core capabilities, no 

agency has the knowledge, skills, abilities, or experience to determine, direct, or evaluate the training of other contributing agencies. 

Each agency must be responsible for its personnel. While necessity 

and resources have driven military-centric training enterprises, particularly in the area of resource intensive, “field-based,” full-immersion 

training, this has not necessarily been the most effective approach. 

Military-centric training has often been a major inhibitor to effective 

civilian-military team training. Simply put, organizational cultures, 

languages, and ethos are extraordinarily difficult to reconcile and 
378 │ TOOLEY

defy any single agency’s ability to master or to confer upon itself the 

authority to direct common actions.

What I and the team have seen emerge to mitigate this problem are 

four changes in the collective training model that the military has 

used over the past 30 years. First, the training event itself is designed 

by a “team of equals,” composed of experts representing all agencies 

involved in the training. This ensures that the training objectives of 

each agency are accounted for and that control measures are emplaced to ensure that all training objectives are given a reasonable 

opportunity for attainment. Second, participating agencies must contribute to the creation of an observer/controller cadre composed of 

subject matter experts. Third, while after-action reviews remain the 

heart of the training experience, these are increasingly scripted, managed, and conducted in accordance with the language, culture, and 

traditions of the responsible agency. Approaching the design and execution of the full-immersion training experience as a “team of 

equals” executed on a “level playing field” has been and will continue 

to be critical to success. The fourth lesson is that to build an effective 

civilian-military team, money must be taken off the table. My observation has been that the “team of equals” rapidly falls apart when 

value and voice are weighted by monetary contribution. This seems 

to be particularly true when it comes to cooperative training, where 

the AMCCO team has observed a law of nature that whoever puts the 

most money into a training event assumes the right to dictate how 

the training will unfold. This promotes an environment in which the 

less endowed participants feel as if they are being considered as nothing more than training aids for the alpha donor, which inevitably 

leads to their walking away from the effort.

It is hard political reality that certain agencies and activities receive 

more resources than others and that allocation is not necessarily 

based upon a balanced and reasoned analysis of value and contribution. For more than seven decades, the bulk of resources have been 

directed toward enhancing military kinetic capabilities. If there is any 

truth in the mantra that “whole-of-government,” “whole-of-society,” 

or “whole-of-whatever” is in fact the optimum solution set to the 

complexities the United States will confront in the twenty-first century, one of two approaches must be taken: either nonkinetic capabilities must be resourced at a level that brings them more on a par 

with their kinetic counterparts or the kinetics must underwrite the 

nonkinetics without expecting a concurrent right to dictate their actions.
TRAINING THE CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAM │ 379

This is particularly true in the area of training. Resourcing and 

investment trends over the past century have provided the military 

with the infrastructure, organizations, and systems required to support high-fidelity, full-immersion, live collective training. Nothing 

on the civilian side comes close to matching this capability. In the 

current and anticipated future economic environment, there is little 

hope for the civilian component to be able to independently develop 

sufficient capabilities in this area. Civilian agencies will most likely be 

incapable of “just paying their share” when it comes to combined 

training experiences. Therefore, rules, regulations, and—the biggest 

challenge of all—bureaucracy will have to allow and encourage the 

leveraging of military capabilities by nonmilitary entities in support 

of building effective civilian-military teams. Such allowance has to be 

combined with restraint on the part of the military to assume the 

right to direct the common actions.

Conclusion

These are the lessons that I have derived over the course of the last 

four years working with those agencies and activities that collectively 

comprise the civilian-military team. My strong belief is that the 

twenty-first-century world will demand that the United States will 

need the ability to rapidly assemble, prepare, deploy, and support capabilities from across agencies, governments, allies, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector. In other words, the United 

States will need well-trained civilian-military teams that can hit the 

ground running. To do so the United States must recognize that size 

does not determine value, resources do not measure contribution, 

and money does not dictate position. In the final analysis, achieving 

the state of a “team of equals” coming together on a “level playing 

field” for the purpose of collectively preparing for the harsh realities 

of the twenty-first-century operating environment will be the foundation of meaningful civilian-military team training.

Chapter 20

Civilian-Military Teaming

The When, Where, and How

Mike McCoy

Operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Haiti kindled renewed interest 

in civilian-military teaming, sparking the hope that perhaps the United 

States will apply the lessons learned to develop a doctrine for teaming. 

Such doctrine should provide the basis for how the US government 

will respond to any contingency with its complete set of assets from the 

largest cabinet department to the smallest independent agency.

Civilian-military teaming has been going on for decades and exists 

at all levels: strategic, country/operational, and field/tactical. Generally, teaming first occurs when the military has been called to assist in 

complex operations, for example, counterinsurgency, irregular warfare, and transition to postconflict reconstruction, where there is a 

high possibility of slipping back to conflict. However, the United 

States also does civilian-military teaming as a matter of course during 

normal day-to-day business at the national or regional strategic levels. 

These normal teaming procedures work fairly well when a contingency occurs. However, several organizations are looking to improve 

the process during a contingency, especially at the regional strategic 

level, where there is a major physical separation between the military 

combatant command and the Washington-based regional offices of 

the civilian agencies.

Teaming at the country/operational level has a few guidelines, 

which the various civilian and military regional offices and commands have developed to allow for successful interaction during 

noncontingencies and a select few contingency events. However, 

these differ from region to region and sometimes, for good reasons, 

from country to country in the same region. This creates confusion 

when a contingency develops where guidelines do not exist and the 

fallback to existing guidelines is incomplete or inadequate for the 

particular contingency. As the regional strategic-level civilian-military 

teaming is being reviewed for better effectiveness, hopefully it will 

address some of these shortfalls.
382 │ MCCOY

At the field/tactical level the United States lacks a concise set of 

doctrine, policy, or direction that allows the government to be effective. Several agencies are writing on the subject, but these analyses 

often are conducted in isolation and too often are intended to promote the primacy of the home agency’s mission or objective.

In general, when the US government scrutinizes civilian-military 

teams, it tends to focus on two main elements: who is in charge and 

who is paying for the mission, providing the human and financial resources. However, delving more deeply, it is necessary to examine the 

“when, where, and how” of training and deploying these teams. The 

“where” tends to be easier to answer, and the “when” is more complex 

in that it is dependent on the nature of the situation—humanitarian 

assistance, disaster relief, or internal conflict. Finally, the “how” is often the most challenging and the most dependent on the answers to 

the first two variables. My primary focus in this chapter is the field/

tactical civilian-military team, with an objective approach to when, 

where, and how the civilian-military team will be deployed. I examine those contingencies most commonly faced: humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

Disaster Relief and Humanitarian Assistance

Within these two areas various US government agencies have 

identified certain guidelines for domestic and foreign events. However, the latter is often complicated by divergent norms for operations 

standards that can run into conflict between agencies. This potential 

for complication was highlighted during operations in Haiti due to 

the scope of the contingency response.

Within the domestic response, all departments and agencies have 

agreed to follow the National Response Framework. This arrangement has established teaming enterprises and provides for a unity of 

effort through a singular command structure at all levels. By decree, 

the Federal Emergency Management Agency is the lead agency 

whenever the local and state authorities can no longer handle the 

contingency on their own and have requested assistance from the US 

government. If it is determined that the contingency is criminal in 

nature or an act of terrorism, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will 

take the lead after the initial response and assessment. Regardless of 

who is in the lead, the framework allows for the integration of the 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING │ 383

various local, state, and national management systems and complements their individual efforts. At the field/tactical level the emergency operation plan delineates who will be the incident commander. 

All agencies, through the proper networks, provide support to this 

individual. This framework has proven effective overall. However, as 

the response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita demonstrated, federal 

government agencies must be reminded that they are in a supporting 

role and that direction within the field/tactical level must come from 

the local incident commander with approval and validation through 

the agencies’ frameworks. This provides for the best use of funds and 

resources and assures accountability of these resources to the public.

For foreign disaster relief, the US ambassador is generally in the 

lead, while assistance is directed through the deployed personnel of 

the US Agency for International Development’s Office of Foreign 

Disaster Assistance (OFDA). OFDA has developed broad guidelines, 

and participating agencies have agreed to follow these guidelines, albeit with caveats.

The combatant command will establish a joint task force to encourage unity of effort and harmonize the various laws governing use 

of monies and personnel. Until the joint task force and the country 

team establish their interlocutors, the various military and civilian 

field/tactical teams operating within the same area can be at odds, 

and they often duplicate efforts. This problem is primarily caused by 

the nature of the planning models, if any, used by the various agencies. 

As all actions must be done quickly, contingency planning occurs 

and often things are missed. Frequently, there are no instructions on 

how to interact with other US agencies. Though this appears minor, it 

often has a long-range effect. As was discussed during the 2008 John 

F. Kennedy School of Government/Strategic Studies Institute colloquium “Civil-Military Relations in a Post-9/11 World,” there is a long 

history of this distrust, and events have made it harder to maintain 

the bonds of trust and partnership.1

Because of immediate needs of the local people, a strong leadership personality from either team, plus the general will of both of 

these teams, often overcomes initial shortcomings. The individual 

field/tactical elements end up working together with little written direction until the operational management addresses the problem.

OFDA’s current guidelines could become the foundation for a National Response Framework for foreign disaster relief, defining roles 

and responsibilities to include funding streams, and would allow for 
384 │ MCCOY

responders to understand how and where they fit within the response. 

Such a framework could have a separate annex to address regional, 

combatant command, or country-specific peculiarities. This could be 

accomplished through agreements among agencies, as long as such arrangements comply with congressional funding oversight requirements.

Humanitarian assistance appears to have fewer conflicts between 

the civilian and military agencies. Normally, military involvement 

rests within the transportation and supply support of the assistance. 

Thus, the teaming between the military response team and the country team happens quickly, as the military sees itself as a support 

mechanism not an action mechanism. This relationship is delineated 

in the tasking order. This, however, does become complicated if conflict is involved, as will be examined later in this chapter.

Leadership

The question of “who is in charge” may become an issue. Unity of 

effort entails the idea that no operation can truly succeed unless there 

is multilevel commitment and support—from the citizens and government of supporting countries, the supported citizenry, the government of the supported country, and the myriad of other organizations including intergovernmental, nongovernmental (NGO), private 

volunteers, or businesses. It is unity of leadership that focuses a country’s entities on a task. Unity of leadership takes precedence over 

unity of effort.

At the core of any teaming at the field level is leadership. Yet the 

existing congressional oversight structure makes this difficult to 

achieve. The various titles that regulate the different agencies preclude the use of domestic agency money on foreign operations and 

do not allow for one agency to supervise personnel of another agency. 

The effect is often duplicative or conflicting programs. Looking historically at Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support 

(CORDS) in Vietnam and the provincial reconstruction team (PRT) 

program in the later stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom, central leadership at the team level has evolved to a more focused approach with 

less conflict between agencies. The exception to this is in relation to 

how funds are distributed. Various laws govern money distribution, 

and quite often individual departments or agencies at the operational 

or country level control distribution. Here the conflict is not at the 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING │ 385

team level but between the team and the operational levels. In Operation Enduring Freedom a “unity of effort” approach is used where 

there is no central leadership. Personalities have been the key to success or failure. The force of personalities fills the gap, yet the constant 

personnel rotation environment dooms the team to failure in the 

long run. In all three cases described above, national programs have 

affected the field teams’ operations either by duplicating effort or, in 

some cases, running contrary to what the field team has found effective. When a team is given an area, it must have control of all programs to ensure that the orderly intertwining of projects and actions 

provides for a single thrust of US efforts. This is not to say that the 

field usurps the country team, but the field team must be the manager 

at the field level. Therefore, civilian-military teaming at the field level 

should foster a leadership hierarchy for focused operations.

Conflict Response

When a conflict develops, observers can describe warring nations 

as progressing through various stages. Different authors name and 

designate these stages differently, but for the purpose of this chapter, 

I will categorize them as indicated in table 20.1. In the case of the 

United States, its government complements these stages with different forms of diplomatic and military phases as the nation progresses 

through these stages. These phases have different names also. As with 

most terminology, the diplomatic and military nomenclatures do not 

match. In table 20.1 I attempt to provide a guide to distinguish between these terms and how they may line up with the conflict stage.

As the United States navigates these stages/phases, it is important 

for the president to avoid disputes between all, working closely with 

Congress, the military, our allies, and other interested parties ensuring the actions to be taken are clearly understood and clarifying why 

those decisions were made.

Yet there are no distinct lines between each stage/phase, and various phases can exist in different parts in one country. The discussion 

below is an attempt to provide some clarity between these stages/

phases and how the diplomatic and military phases interact.
386 │ MCCOY

Table 20.1. Conflict stages align with diplomacy and military phases

Conflict Stage Diplomacy Phase Military Phase

Durable Peace

Peacetime Diplomacy 0 – Shape Latent Conflict

Conflict Emergence Conflict Prevention 1 – Deter

Conflict Escalation Crisis Management 2 – Seize the Initiative

Hurting/Stalemate Conflict Management/

Mitigation 3 – Dominate

De-escalation/

Negotiation Conflict Termination

Postconflict Peacebuilding Conflict Resolution

4 – Stabilize

5 – Enable Civil Authority

Durable Peace Peacetime Diplomacy 0 – Shape

Durable Peace/Latent Conflict

During these stages of conflict, foreign assistance aims at enhancing the local government’s capacity, solidifying relationships, and influencing behavior. Quite often, foreign assistance programming is 

done along departmental or agency lines, and rarely is there a need 

for a civilian-military team at the field level. However, at both the 

strategic and country/operational level, these teams exist to ensure 

unity of effort. In addition, if the country sinks back toward conflict, 

then military effort alone may be insufficient. Diplomatic and development elements are mutually supportive with military efforts in 

conflict prevention.

This team should be at the request of the host nation and be small 

in nature. Its prime mission should be to advise the host country’s 

government entities in the area, both civilian and military. Finally, 

this team should be civilian led from an agency that would best benefit the local population.

Conflict Emergence/Conflict Escalation

When a country or region slips back into conflict or when conflict 

escalates, insurgency becomes the norm and will likely increase its 

reach throughout the host country. Like the earlier stages, the prime 

focus in attempting de-escalation will be through independent de-
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING │ 387

partmental or agency teams. However, as the level of instability increases there may be an increased demand that security for US citizens be provided by US forces. The mood of the American people and 

the desires of the host country will dictate US military involvement, 

with some regional or international buy in. If the US military has an 

increased presence, civilian-military teams need to be in the field 

where there is a preponderance of US forces. During this period of 

crisis and unstable peace, US government agency in-fighting would 

only aggravate the problems. Thus, civilian-military team unity is of 

critical importance.

The conflict prevention team should be made of personnel from 

departments and agencies that have an effect on the region. In addition to providing assistance to host-nation security forces and security to US diplomatic and development efforts, the military should 

provide team support in planning, intelligence, logistics, medicine, 

and communications. At the same time, civil affairs personnel should 

be prepared to augment the team when there are insufficient numbers of personnel or needed experts from other departments or agencies. Ensuring security in an area will have a significant impact on 

whether the team is in a supporting or a supported role. This, to some 

degree, may affect whether there is a military or civilian lead for the 

team. It is still highly desirable that the team be civilian led in these 

stages, as efforts should still be more diplomatic than military. However, if the military is not chosen as lead, it is extremely important 

that the deputy team lead be a military officer. The military presence 

in the top leadership chain increases the effectiveness of the interplay 

between the team and the maneuver unit.

Hurting/Stalemate

This stage has two possible scenarios of distinct application of civilian-military teams. The first deals with the United States assisting 

the host nation militarily in combat operations. The second involves 

the United States deciding to effect a regime change.

The first scenario of this stage is a result of insurgency turning to 

full war. With heavy combat, the need for a more agile team with a 

combat background becomes paramount. This might include the 

use of military personnel trained to work within the nonsecurity 

force sectors or civilians to operate in a lethal environment. The lead 

in this case could be civilian; however, due to the combat nature of 
388 │ MCCOY

this environment, it may be better suited for a military lead. With 

light combat, the team has less need for a team lead with combat experience. The lead for this team should be civilian. Regardless of which 

case is involved, efforts for the team should focus on reconstruction 

efforts and those projects or engagements that will enhance stabilization in the area. The use of the coalition humanitarian liaison cells or 

“Chiclets” in Afghanistan provides an excellent example of an effective 

combat team for reconstruction and initial stabilization efforts.

The second scenario requires a great deal of planning and coordination among the several departments and agencies. There has to be 

a concerted effort by all involved to ensure security is maintained, 

human needs are met, and a temporary government is in place until 

a legitimate authority comes into power. As the teaming is somewhat 

complex, further discussion follows later in this chapter.

De-escalation/Negotiation

The use of civilian-military teams at this stage is an extension of 

the previous stage with civilian personnel having an increased presence. The focus of the team at this stage should be on reconstruction 

and engagement efforts that will enhance stabilizations and lead to 

developmental action. The efforts typically include repair of infrastructure and those things that will encourage a return to normal day-to-day 

activities. An assessment of the needs of a given area should determine 

the team composition. Therefore, the initial team and its efforts should 

be generic with assessment and planning personnel; however, a plan 

should be in place to bring the necessary personnel in place quickly. 

Due to high demand–low volume expertise, this may require use of 

other methods such as “circuit riders” to provide the necessary expertise.2

 If it is not already operating under such parameters, the team lead 

should be a civilian with the military component composed as discussed in the conflict emergence/conflict escalation section.

Postconflict Peacebuilding

In this final stage of conflict before returning to a durable peace, 

efforts by the civilian-military team will move from those associated 

with the previous stage to those related to how the United States operates in a nonconflict environment. As the level of insurgency diminishes and the host nation’s ability to control things increases, the 
CIVILIAN-MILITARY TEAMING │ 389

need for the military element also diminishes, with the logistics and 

communication pieces normally the last to disappear. The lead on the 

team should be civilian, as development becomes more the focus of 

the team. Each department and agency has his or her developmental 

elements, which the team will be required to locally manage initially.

The team is looking in this period to enable the host-nation authorities. It is also transitioning its efforts to the local authorities or to 

the country development team. The PRT model used in Iraq in the 

last few years of that conflict provides the best example of an effective 

civilian-military team operating within this stage.

Regime Change

When the United States elects to effect regime change, this is normally done at the hurting/stalemate stage. Yet there is a high probability that anarchy will fill the void where there is no government. 

Security must be provided to ensure that the local population has its 

basic needs met and to mitigate the changes of popular unrest and 

insurgency. Meeting basic human needs will require a national-level 

governance team and qualified civilian-military teams that act as the 

provincial, district, and local government levels and deliver goods 

and services. This model will continue until such time as a legitimate 

government is formed at its respective levels. Depending on the conflict stage the area is in at that time, it will then follow the related 

models discussed above.

Typically, with a substitution function as described above, either 

the United States does it alone or a multilateral or regional organization manages the operation. The latter is preferred, as it provides for 

worldwide legitimacy to the operations. This legitimacy, be it a mandate from the UN Security Council, request by belligerent parties, or 

brokered requests by third parties who asked for help, ensures that 

the operations are within international norms on the use of military 

forces and regard for humanitarian principles. It is important that 

there be broad support among nations that a change in regime is warranted. Without such support, the new regime may be considered illegitimate and not recognized by the international community, affecting its economic and political ability to completely recover from 

the conflict and encouraging the root cause(s) of the conflict to continue to fester, leading the country through yet another conflict.
390 │ MCCOY

Conclusion

The when, where, and how of civilian-military teaming is dependent on many variables. The chief among these are the will and objectives of the United States as expressed by the president and through 

other elected officials, the needs of the host country, and the environment in which the team must operate. US government departments 

and agencies must establish the necessary paradigms that will allow 

the civilian-military team to exist and operate. Efforts are ongoing to 

achieve these objectives. I believe that looking at the post–World War 

II model, CORDS in Vietnam, the Chiclets in Afghanistan, and the 

later version of the PRT model in Iraq will provide the way ahead for 

developing the field civilian-military teams and the support hierarchy. Yet civilian-military teams are losing popularity. If the United 

States forgets these lessons, we are doomed to painfully relearn them. 

As the philosopher George Santayana opined, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”3

Notes

1. Leonard Wong, “Civil-Military Relations in a Post-9/11 World” (colloquium 

brief, Strategic Studies Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA, 14–15 May 2008).

2. A “circuit rider” is someone who travels throughout a given territory to provide services normally unavailable because of a scarcity of individuals to perform 

those services.

3. George Santayana, The Life of Reason (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 

1920), 284.
Chapter 21

Learning to Negotiate Shared Space

US Civilian-Military Roles in Unsecured Environments

Marcia Byrom Hartwell

Following the US military invasion and subsequent “transformative 

occupation” of Iraq, there were expectations by military forces that 

the US civilian interagency organizations—including the US Department of State (DOS), the US Agency for International Development 

(USAID), the US Department of the Treasury (TREAS), the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the US Department of Commerce (DOC), 

and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)—would provide 

“deployable experts” who would oversee the stabilization and reconstruction tasks necessary to guarantee political success. In this scenario, the military would do the fighting, and its nonmilitary partners 

would take the lead for “winning the peace.” Both the military and 

civilian sectors nurtured these expectations, based mostly on an untested theory of how things ought to work, and the US military had 

included such expectations in its training throughout the 1990s.1

 Unfortunately, these assumptions failed to take into account the significant disparities between military and civilian capacity, capability, and 

budgets and the organizational cultural differences that would need 

to be addressed. While US civilian-military collaborations quickly assembled for Iraq and Afghanistan provide a context for basic understanding, it is essential for decision makers to rethink and redevelop a 

more nuanced strategy with synchronized goals and leadership to successfully address volatile situations in the future.

This chapter draws upon the author’s experiences as an embedded 

US Army civilian advisor in Iraq and previous research and fieldwork 

examining early postconflict transitions. It focuses on organizational 

challenges, different ways that military forces and civilians perceive 

personal risk, and how US military and civilian actors can determine 

their roles and negotiate shared space in unsecure environments.
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Managing Expectations

In 2003 US military and government personnel in Iraq found 

themselves launching an operation where military force, though often 

necessary, would “rarely be sufficient” to establish security, stability, 

and functionality.2

 Unable to reform the Iraqi government on its own, 

a formidable task under the best of circumstances and initially not 

part of the job description, the US military sought partnerships with 

US civilian agencies and international organizations that could provide 

the expertise, aid, and resources necessary to ensure that the fragile 

country would become stable and high functioning. The result was 

that Iraq became an unexpected testing ground for US military and 

civilian actors learning how to support each other’s organizational 

strengths and mitigate differences.

Following the 2003 invasion, there were huge gaps between US 

military and civilian organizational capacity. In 2004 there were approximately 138,000 US troops in Iraq, with four more Army brigade 

combat teams—with up to 4,000 soldiers each—added in the 2007 

surge. This stood in contrast to the initial grand total of 2,000 USAID 

officers deployed worldwide and 6,000 DOS foreign service officers 

(FSO), whose primary function was to serve as diplomats in 270 embassies, consulates, and international posts. Other US agencies were 

in a similar situation.3

 By 2009 there were thousands of civilians surrounded by approximately 150,000 troops in postsurge Iraq. At the 

end of FY 2010, USAID employees had increased to 8,610, including 

foreign service and civil service officers, with 6,199 deployed overseas. The DOS had more than 13,000 FSOs and drew upon a civil 

service corps of over 10,000 employees to provide continuity and expertise.4

 Despite hiring thousands of private contractors and temporarily reassigning and appointing government employees, significant 

gaps remained.

This discrepancy continued as civilian and military teams outlined 

the final transition from military to civilian leadership in preparation 

for the 2011 military withdrawal. Capability gaps between civilian 

organizations and military forces rose from differences in employee 

training, focus, and organizational goals. Many of the civilian agencies 

simply did not do the same kinds of activities as the military, and any 

programs falling into this category would have to be dropped when 

forces withdrew. The difference in budget allocations—the Department of Defense (DOD) budget (FY 2012 request for $670.9 billion) 
LEARNING TO NEGOTIATE SHARED SPACE │ 393

had always dwarfed the DOS (FY 2012 total approved for the DOS/

USAID budget was $47 billion, 1 percent more than FY 2010 levels) 

and other interagency partners—further limited the scope of transfer.5

Underlying these issues were very different organizational cultures 

and views that contributed to occasional misunderstandings and mutual frustration. The military, a clearly defined hierarchal system, excels in logistics and tasking and in performing a defined set of goals 

with anticipated concrete outcomes. It is a fighting force standing ready 

to launch into action at any moment while using constantly changing 

acronyms that even its members do not always understand.

FSOs in the DOS have been trained as diplomats to observe and 

report. While actively engaged with top leadership in their host country, when possible they prefer to consider a range of outcomes for 

longer periods of time before reacting. USAID, within the DOS organizational umbrella, has a different history of initiating and implementing projects focused on economic growth, agriculture, trade, 

global health, democracy, conflict prevention, and humanitarian assistance. They understood the fundamentals of sustainable development projects but lacked control over development projects initiated 

by the US military in Iraq. Depending on their mission and background, other interagency civilian organizations—US Departments 

of Labor, the TREAS, the DOJ, Homeland Security, the USDA, Energy, the DOC, the Department of Transportation, and the Central 

Intelligence Agency—had their own internal dynamics that usually 

fell somewhere between the DOS and USAID and US military forces.

The Joint Campaign Plan, outlining the transition from military to 

civilian leadership, was written in 2009 following a year of strenuous 

negotiations. An incoming rotation of personnel (US Forces–Iraq 

and US Embassy–Baghdad), many with cross-organization experience, began to discuss capacity, capability, and budget issues. The result was a smooth, flexible operation that reconfigured military to 

civilian transition, which was further reduced by unexpected congressional cuts in the DOS budget. Even so, the DOS assumption of 

leadership in Iraq at the end of 2011 was its biggest overseas operation since World War II.6
394 │ HARTWELL

Managing Threats

Moving civilian-military teams within war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan has highlighted different views toward acceptable levels of 

personal risk between US military forces and civilians without prior 

military background. Adapting and reacting to threats are essential to 

survival; however, these reactions can affect engagement between civilian-military teams and local populations. In many instances, this 

can be attributed to organizational and individual views that I will 

discuss in the following subsections.

Different Tolerances for Risk Taking

Military forces are trained to engage in direct combat and react 

with deadly force if they find themselves in dangerous situations. 

They are organized and equipped for logistics and travel in dangerous 

areas. As a result, military forces will often decide to undertake movements on the ground if they gauge threats to personal safety as potentially high but manageable. Civilians experienced in maneuvering 

inside dangerous areas will have a developed sense of danger but use 

different criteria to evaluate risks. In general, unarmed civilians in 

war zones and unstable areas understand the inherent dangers to personal security, but many will take the view that intentionally putting 

oneself in harm’s way is inviting unnecessary trouble.

Collective versus Individual Perceptions of Threats

Members of the military forces have a collective view toward personal threats and are trained to depend and fall back on the cohesiveness of their unit and team to protect each other under fire. On 

the other hand, civilians who do not have military backgrounds—

especially members of diplomatic, humanitarian, and aid development organizations—do not carry weapons and are trained to mitigate threats by enacting individual strategies and actions that minimize 

personal risk.

Professional Hazard and Circumstantial Threat

Members of the armed forces understand that death, though undesired, is a potential consequence of choosing a profession that utilizes 
LEARNING TO NEGOTIATE SHARED SPACE │ 395

lethal weapons. (In the absence of a compulsory draft, joining the US 

military is a professional choice.) There is great ritual involved in the 

language of serving, and each military member knows that he or she 

will receive public acknowledgment of his or her ultimate sacrifice 

and community support for his or her loved ones. While dealing with 

the possibility of death has become part of their professional training, 

excessive violence that threatens US civilian professionals is directly 

related to their current circumstances, similar to that experienced by 

other unarmed civilian researchers and practitioners. However, unlike their military counterparts civilians are not guaranteed communalized public ritual or extended support.

It is worth mentioning that, unknown to many American civilians 

and military forces, there are groups of unarmed civilian practitioners 

and researchers that have long worked on developing aid projects and 

conducting fieldwork without military escorts in dangerous areas. 

These mostly international groups have developed extraordinary 

coping mechanisms and sensitive barometers for reading violence 

that reasonably assure their personal safety.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 

is one of many international humanitarian aid groups that are increasingly operating in volatile environments while seeking to protect refugees and internally displaced persons forced from their 

homes by extreme violence and emergencies. They have well-honed 

personal protection strategies in place that caution workers to be 

aware and alert of their surroundings. UNHCR’s Handbook for Emergencies (2007) emphasizes observing the behavior of local populations that know more about potential threats to security than aid 

workers. There are admonitions to avoid traveling alone or after dark 

if it can be avoided, and there are other warnings: do not carry large 

amounts of money, tell someone your destination when leaving and 

when you expect to return, keep vehicle doors locked and windows 

rolled up when travelling, and park vehicles for a fast exit. Workers 

are to refrain from taking photos of or around military personnel or 

installations and to have cash, documents, and an emergency bag 

packed and ready to go at all times. Above all they are advised to be 

polite and courteous to local officials, police, and military, as rude 

behavior could have negative consequences for them and other members of their staff.7

International and US academics from a range of disciplines have utilized ethical codes and personal protection strategies when collecting 
396 │ HARTWELL

ethnographic interviews in potentially dangerous environments. A 

1995 landmark book, Fieldwork under Fire: Contemporary Studies of 

Violence and Survival, documented anthropologists’ personal stories 

and strategies for conducting fieldwork in areas affected by political 

violence.8

 US anthropologist J. Christopher Kovats-Bernat, who has 

worked for years among violent gangs in Haiti, lists strategies for 

understanding and adapting to threats that include listening to local 

advice on what is happening and where, organizing a safety support 

system that consists of calling in and/or showing up at an appointed 

time and place, developing specific strategies for very dangerous areas (no visible notebooks, recorders, or note taking of any kind, including speaking on mobile phones), and most importantly knowing 

how to recognize when you should terminate research and evacuate 

for personal safety.9

Franker discussion, understanding, and negotiation among US 

military forces and civilian organizations working together in dangerous environments are needed on this issue. Much has changed as 

terrorist organizations increasingly have targeted international humanitarian organizations and researchers in recent years; however, 

many civilians still have ambivalent feelings about whether working 

with military forces increases their personal security or puts them 

and the populations they serve at greater risk. While keeping their 

distance from political and military actors may be desirable for most, 

their efforts to project independence and neutrality while cultivating 

relationships with local actors and communities are not always viable 

security strategies. When civilian personnel face threats from criminal organizations or nonstate actors who see little advantage in allowing humanitarian agencies or academic researchers to operate freely, 

these personnel become targets along with the populations they are 

trying to protect.10

Learning to Negotiate Shared Space

Looking into the future, US forces and civilians will face a different 

set of emerging global threats that include organized crime, trafficking, 

domestic unrest due to global economic shocks, and terrorism.11

Conflict prevention, human security, and justice will become increasingly 

important focuses in developing projects and implementing strategies and alliances. Social media and communication technologies 
LEARNING TO NEGOTIATE SHARED SPACE │ 397

such as satellite and cell phones will continue to accelerate the pace of 

change, narrowing the window of opportunity for the United States 

to support positive transformative processes. This will be accompanied by increased caution and pushback against US civilian and military intervention by countries that, having observed events in Iraq 

and Afghanistan, will want more control on the pace, range, and visibility of US involvement in their country.

In 2009 the US Institute of Peace (USIP) and the US Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) coauthored a 

groundbreaking “how-to” manual for civilians, Guiding Principles for 

Stabilizations and Reconstruction, as a companion publication to the 

2008 Army Field Manual 3-0, Operations. (Both have since been replaced and/or revised.) It provided the necessary “comprehensive 

strategic guidance” for civilians engaging with military organizations 

to make decisions, plan, and develop education, training, and implementation “on the ground.”12 In their 2010 coauthored book, The Ultimate Weapon Is No Weapon, US Army lieutenant colonel Shannon 

Beebe and Prof. Mary Kaldor (London School of Economics) advocate use of traditional military “hard force” in a nontraditional way to 

escort children to school in “zones of insecurity” and to assist the 

local military, police, and parents to protect their children. They focus on issues of human security and underlying conditions leading to 

conflict that include “weak rule of law, unemployment, criminality, 

surplus weapons, loss of livelihoods, and extremist ideologies,” which 

are often worse after the conflict than before.13

Military humanitarian interventions have been hotly debated for 

years in the international development world. In 1994 Alex de Waal 

and Raklya Omaar maintained that military humanitarian intervention had its own logic, which was difficult to reconcile with the demands of peacemaking and reconstruction, as it was never “clean or 

quick” and could not solve humanitarian crises—it could only alter 

them.14 As these debates have evolved, a restructuring of military and 

civilian roles has been anticipated and put into practice by members 

of the international community.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) closely 

monitored interactions with US forces and the private security sector 

in Iraq through operational mandates described in their 2004 Guidelines for Humanitarian Organizations on Interacting with Military and 

Security Actors in Iraq (updated August 2008 as Guidelines for UN 

and Other Humanitarian Organizations on Interacting with Military, 
398 │ HARTWELL

Non-State Armed Actors and Other Security Actors in Iraq). Civilianmilitary interactions were defined as “interaction between civil, military 

and other security actors, which [are] necessary to protect and promote humanitarian principles, avoid competition, minimise inconsistency, and pursue common goals as appropriate, . . . [which] will be 

further guided by a commitment to ‘do no harm.’” It stated that UNAMI humanitarian efforts in Iraq were “best served through a clear 

division of labour,” where humanitarian actors provided “adequate 

assistance and protection,” and military actors concentrated on “security related tasks under established mandates.” Their “agreed interaction” was to not compromise the independence, neutrality, and impartiality of UNAMI operations or the security and safety of staff or 

Iraqi civilians and to make every effort at policy and operational levels 

to ensure that any potential civilian-military coordination would neither contribute to furthering the conflict “nor harm or endanger civilians, including the beneficiaries of humanitarian assistance.”15

Despite organizational differences and occasional clashes in leadership style and personality, many in the international community 

viewed US civilian-military collaborations to be working relatively 

well in 2009 in Iraq. While there were differences in strategy, both 

military and humanitarian agencies often intersected in execution of 

their agendas. Drawing from observations in Iraq, areas where military forces may have a significantly positive role are discussed in the 

following subsections.

Security-Sector Reform

Based on shared experience and mutual understanding, military 

forces were effective in implementing security-sector reforms with 

both state and nonstate armed groups in Iraq. They trained national 

security forces, and former insurgents who wanted to renounce their 

outlier status preferred turning themselves in to US forces and occasionally the Iraqi army. This rapport between armed groups could be 

used to the advantage of civilian organizations who assist host countries in developing capability and capacity for civilian oversight of 

security forces and who provide political, economic, social, and legal 

assistance in support of disarming, demobilizing, and reintegrating 

former insurgents into local communities.
LEARNING TO NEGOTIATE SHARED SPACE │ 399

Providing Secure Travel and Work Environments for 

Humanitarian Actors

Providing secure military transport and physical protection for international humanitarian actors was ongoing in Iraq. All branches of 

US forces provided embedded advisors to UNAMI. In a June 2009 

report to the United Nations Security Council, the military advisors 

provided by member states were cited as “essential” for supporting 

UNAMI’s expansion of activities across Iraq and for liaising with 

Iraqi and multinational forces. It stated that input provided by military advisors in conducting joint capability assessments, determining 

future available operational support, and coordinating mechanisms 

with Iraqi forces had significantly aided the UNAMI security section 

in shaping the future concept of operations in anticipation of final 

transition to civilian control.16

Developing and Implementing Security Strategies for the 

Elections

In early 2008 the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) 

of Iraq requested that Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki reactivate 

the High Committee on Election Security for governorate council 

elections originally slated for January 2009. A national security plan 

was developed and endorsed by the prime minister, Iraqi security 

forces, Multi-National Force–Iraq (MNF–I), IHEC, and UNAMI. Security was planned in three layers: an inner ring consisting of Iraqi 

police, a middle ring monitored by the Iraqi army and other members of the Ministry of Defense, and the outside perimeter secured by 

MNF–I (later replaced by US Forces–Iraq [USF–I]). In the elections 

for the Iraqi parliament’s Council of Representatives, UNAMI took 

the lead in advising, supporting, and assisting the government of Iraq 

as mandated by the 2007 law stating that IHEC must seek the UN’s 

assistance to prepare and conduct elections. UNAMI worked in partnership with other UN organizations to assist Iraqis in implementing 

elections while USF–I, as mandated, provided security and logistics 

during an increasingly dangerous period leading up to elections that 

were delayed until 7 March 2010.17 Areas where civilians tend to excel 

are discussed in the following subsections.
400 │ HARTWELL

Initiating and Implementing Sustainable Development Projects

Due to inexperience and misunderstanding of the intricacies of 

implementing sustainable international development projects, US 

military forces have been vulnerable to manipulation by the intended 

recipients in host countries. Funded by the Commander’s Emergency 

Response Program, inexperienced local commanders in Iraq were 

pushed to address “urgent” small-scale humanitarian relief, reconstruction projects, and services to local populations by using aid as a 

“nonlethal weapon.” Urgent, in this case, was defined as “any chronic 

or acute inadequacy of an essential good or service that in the judgment of the local commander calls for immediate action.”18 Having 

made similar errors in the past, USAID and international humanitarian organizations have long reviewed lessons learned and developed 

best practices to implement projects in conflict-afflicted and fragile 

countries. Humanitarian aid and development practitioners identified a gap between emergency relief and long-term sustainable development projects in the 1990s that emphasized better coordination of 

efforts while demanding a longer view of development, incorporating 

institution building and conflict transformation into their strategy 

and operations. As humanitarian and development organizations increasingly found themselves involved in areas of armed conflict, 

many chose to work on civilian peacebuilding activities and to build 

civilian capacity to oversee security-sector reform during postconflict transitions. According to a Danish Institute of International 

Studies report, “the UN Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Agenda from 

2001 also provided a rationale for interaction between armed forces 

and humanitarian organizations.”19 USIP and the US Army PKSOI 

maintained that security forces needed better understanding of the 

underlying principles for sustainable development, while the development community must learn to apply “conflict-sensitive approaches to S&R [stabilization and reconstruction] environments.”20

Community Peacebuilding

USIP began to assist Iraqis in developing community-driven efforts 

by training conflict mediators and peace builders in the flash-point areas throughout Iraq in 2004. One of USIP’s accomplishments was facilitating a 2007 peace agreement (requested by USAID with strong 

military support) between tribal leaders and the Iraqi government in 
LEARNING TO NEGOTIATE SHARED SPACE │ 401

an area known as the “Triangle of Death” in the city of Mahmoudiya, 

south of Baghdad. Assuming a role as “an honest broker,” USIP hosted 

a series of meetings in Amman, Jordan, where it helped convince local Iraqi sheiks who had fled there to return home. The Iraqis subsequently reached a peace deal and, with the assistance of the United 

States and Iraq, drove out insurgents who had overrun the area.21

USIP peacebuilding activities in Iraq were most effective when initiated and led by local civilian-based organizations and individuals in 

minority and vulnerable communities where populations experienced extreme human rights abuses and were targeted by all sides.

Provincial Reconstruction Teams

Ranging in quality and accomplishment, Iraq provincial reconstruction teams (PRT) were interagency teams that, along with USIP, 

provided the rare but long-desired US “civilian face” to Iraqis. These 

civilian-military teams, established by the DOS in 2005, attempted to 

promote stability in Iraq “by bolstering moderates, promoting reconciliation, fostering economic development and building provincial 

capacity.”22 The goal for all teams was to promote stability and development” while focusing on five main areas: governance, national 

unity, rule of law, and economic and political development at the provincial level. They were staffed from various agencies including the 

US Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and Agriculture; USAID; 

US Army Corps of Engineers; contracted subject-matter experts; and 

local personnel. At their peak they provided a primary regional connection between the United States, coalition partners, and provincial 

and local governments in all Iraqi provinces. Seven PRTs were embedded with military brigades following the civilian-military surge in 

2007 and phased out by 2010. As the military to civilian transition 

progressed, PRTs were disbanded in late 2011, turning their projects 

over to the government of Iraq.

Looking Ahead

As future challenges loom, the civilian and military experiences in 

Iraq and Afghanistan have the feel of distant history. In an ongoing 

era of budget cuts and weakening political will, more large-scale 

combat operations will be unlikely and the old American habit of 
402 │ HARTWELL

throwing money at a problem rather than attempting to develop 

strategies that address underlying issues is over.

Aided by information and communication technologies, unfettered international communication is now taking place on both 

macro and micro levels. US military forces and civilian organizations, 

learning to do more with less in an era where geopolitical threats 

show little sign of waning, are beginning to engage creatively with 

their international counterparts as they attempt to develop effective, 

flexible strategic and tactical responses to fast moving specific threats. 

International civilian humanitarian and development organizations 

are beginning to acknowledge that these types of conversations are 

essential to safely administer their services while protecting their volunteers and employees in increasingly unpredictable and unsecure 

environments.

While operational lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan are important, it is the shared experience in developing civilian-military 

relationships that will be increasingly valuable in meeting future 

challenges. Accepting differences, focusing on common goals, developing creative problem-solving skills, and inviting wider input into

decision-making processes will facilitate effective responses in politically driven, technology-fueled environments. Complex crises and 

emergencies will require more sophisticated analysis, evaluation, and 

operational techniques. While there are underlying commonalities, 

accepting at the onset that there is no “right” answer for every situation will require that civilian-military relationships and operational 

frameworks be renegotiated on an ongoing basis to produce better 

outcomes for all. 

In a world filled with iPhones, iPads, and laptops and where democratic movements are launched through social media, it may be time 

to turn toward innovative, simpler ways to build human bridges. Internet and communication technologies offer populations directly 

affected by crises an opportunity to communicate imminent or potential danger in real time. These technologies provide a platform for 

relaying messages, give a voice to “anonymous” and deliberately silenced populations, and allow individuals who might otherwise 

never talk a chance to exchange their views. One Iraqi summed up 

this back to basics approach: “It’s time for the United States and the 

Islamic world to get to know each other better as individuals. Why 

does one need big money just to talk with another? Why couldn’t a 

school in the United States just Skype a classroom in Iraq?”
LEARNING TO NEGOTIATE SHARED SPACE │ 403

Notes

1. Janine Davidson, Lifting the Fog of Peace: How Americans Learned to Fight 

Modern War (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010), 159–90.

2. Jack Tredderick, “Manpower Management,” in Defence Management: An Introduction, ed. Hari Bucur-Marcu, Philipp Fluri, and Todor Tagarev (Geneva, Switzerland: Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, 2009), 130.

3. Davidson, Lifting the Fog of Peace, 167.

4. DOS and USAID, Joint Summary of Performance and Financial Information: 

Fiscal Year 2010 (Washington, DC: DOS, 2009), 5, http://www.state.gov/documents

/organization/157293.pdf.

5. Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller), National Defense 

Budget Estimates for FY 2012 (Washington, DC: DOD, March 2011), 1, http://comptroller

.defense.gov/defbudget/fy2012/FY12_Green_Book.pdf; and Bureau of Resource Management, “Fact Sheet: FY 2012 State and USAID—Core Budget,” United States Department of State, 14 February 2011, http://www.state.gov/s/d/rm/rls/fs/2011/156553.htm.

6. Mary Beth Sheridan and Dan Zak, “State Department Readies Iraq Operation, 

Its Biggest since the Marshall Plan,” Washington Post, 8 October 2011, http://www

.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/state-department-readies-iraq

-operation-its-biggest-since-marshall-plan/2011/10/05/gIQAzRruTL_story.html.

7. UNHCR, Handbook for Emergencies, 3rd ed. (Geneva, Switzerland: UNHCR, 

February 2007), 526–27, http://www.the-ecentre.net/resources/e_library/doc/Third

Edition.pdf.

8. Carolyn Nordstrom and Antonius C. G. M. Robben, Fieldwork under Fire: 

Contemporary Studies of Violence and Survival (Berkeley: University of California 

Press, 1995).

9. J. Christopher Kovats-Bernat, “Negotiating Dangerous Fields: Pragmatic 

Strategies for Fieldwork amid Violence and Terror,” American Anthropologist 104, 

no. 1 (March 2002): 208–22, http://www.jstor.org/stable/683771.

10. Abby Stoddard, Adele Harmer, and Victoria DiDomenico, “Providing Aid in 

Insecure Environments: 2009 Update, Trends in Violence against Aid Workers and 

the Operational Response,” Humanitarian Policy Group Policy Brief 34 (Overseas 

Development Institute, London, UK, April 2009), http://www.odi.org.uk/resources

/download/3250.pdf.

11. Sarah Cliffe, Nigel Roberts, Erik Alda, David Andersson, Kenneth Anye, 

Holly Benner, Natalia Cieslik, Ivan Crouzel, Markus Kostner, Daniel Maree, Nicholas 

Marwell, Gary Milante, Stephen Ndegwa, Kyle Peters, Nadia Selim, Pia Simonsen, 

Nicholas van Praag, Suranjan Weeraratne, and Nikolas Win Myint, World Development Report 2011: Conflict, Security, and Development (Washington, DC: World 

Bank, 2011), http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTWDRS/Resources/WDR2011

_Full_Text.pdf.

12. Beth Cole, Emily Hsu, Elena Brineman, Christina Caan, Megan Chabalowski, William Flavin, Vivienne O’Connor, and Courtney Rusin, Guiding Principles 

for Stabilization and Reconstruction (Washington, DC: USIP, 2009), 1–3, http://www

.usip.org/files/resources/guiding_principles_full.pdf; and US Army Field Manual 

(FM) 3-0, Operations, 27 February 2008, 6-4, http://downloads.army.mil/fm3-0

/FM3-0.pdf.
404 │ HARTWELL

13. Shannon D. Beebe and Mary Kaldor, The Ultimate Weapon Is No Weapon: 

Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace (New York: Public Affairs, 

2010), 7.

14. Alex de Waal and Raklya Omaar, “Can Military Intervention Be ‘Humanitarian’?” 

Middle East Report 24, no. 187 (March–April 1994): 3–8.

15. David Shearer, “Guidelines for UN and Other Humanitarian Organizations 

on Interacting with Military, Non-State Armed Actors and Other Security Actors in 

Iraq” (guidelines, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Geneva, 

Switzerland, July 2008), 2, 5.

16. UN Security Council, Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to Paragraph 

6 of Resolution 1830 (2008), 30 July 2009, S/2009/284, 14, http://www.refworld.org

/docid/4a793bd52.html.

17. The Independent High Electoral Commission of Iraq, International Electoral 

Assistance Team, “Fact Sheet: Security Arrangements for January 31, 2009 Elections,” n.d., http://unami.unmissions.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=Ajc3bfWYfDA%

3D&tabid=4309&language=en-US.

18. US Army Center for Lessons Learned, Handbook 09-27: Commander’s Guide 

to Money as a Weapons System: Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures, April 2009, 13, 

http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/call/docs/09-27/09-27.pdf.

19. Finn Stepputat and Jørgen Staun, Synthesis Report: Civil-Military Relations in International Operations: A Danish Perspective DIIS Report 2009 (Copenhagen, Denmark: 

Danish Institute of International Studies, April 2009), 16, http://www.diis.dk

/graphics/Publications/Reports2009/DIIS_Report_2009_16_Synthesis_Report

_web.pdf.

20. Beth Cole et al, Guiding Principles for Stabilization and Reconstruction, 5.

21. Gordon Lubold, “Putting Theory into Action in Baghdad,” In the Field (blog), 

USIP (web site), 18 May 2011, http://www.usip.org/in-the-field/putting-theory

-action-in-baghdad.

22. US Embassy–Baghdad, “Fact Sheet: Provincial Reconstruction Teams,” 1 August 

2007, http://2001-2009.state.gov/p/nea/rls/91433.htm.
PART 7 

Preparing for the Future

Chapter 22

Developing Intelligence Capabilities for 

Counterinsurgency and Stabilization

Learning from the US Experience with Sociocultural 

Analysis in Iraq and Afghanistan

Nathan White

Introduction

At their core, counterinsurgency (COIN) operations are armed 

contests for influence over people. To be successful, a counterinsurgent 

force must utilize lethal and nonlethal tools to address root causes of 

an insurgency, thereby influencing the behavior of people with the 

potential to prevent or contribute to stability (referred to in joint doctrine as relevant actors).1

 Thus, when engaged in operations of this 

nature, it is necessary for a counterinsurgent force to identify and 

better understand the actors who are relevant to the conflict.2

 Only 

then can the planning, execution, and assessment of both lethal and 

nonlethal actions be tailored in an operationally relevant manner.

COIN scholars and practitioners have long recognized that relevant 

sections of the indigenous population are among the most important 

This chapter draws on the author’s ongoing primary research, observations from 

working in Iraq and Afghanistan, the author’s own interviews with civilian and military personnel, and interview transcripts and survey data from hundreds of individuals 

currently serving or who served previously in Iraq or Afghanistan. The author also 

reviewed the growing body of literature covering many of the topics discussed. The 

author would like to thank researchers Robert Holliday and Sara Thannhauser of the 

Center for Complex Operations at National Defense University for the extensive time, 

effort, and input that they provided. Dr. Montgomery McFate and Alec Metz, formerly 

of the US Army Human Terrain System, also provided fantastic comments on earlier 

drafts. The author is greatly appreciative of the many other people from the academic, 

practitioner, and policy-making communities who shared their experiences and expertise and offered invaluable feedback in an effort to improve this final product.
408 │ WHITE

actors to understand and influence in a COIN operation. The indigenous population is important because it has the potential to offer 

recruits, sanctuary, political support, and other benefits to an insurgency. It also has the potential to help a COIN operation through 

denying such benefits to insurgents, providing intelligence, and offering political support and additional forms of assistance to the counterinsurgent force.

Despite this recognition by so many, the question of how best to 

develop an operationally relevant understanding of the indigenous 

population for COIN was never resolved for US personnel serving in 

Iraq and Afghanistan. In a 2012 study conducted on behalf of the US 

Joint Staff, the Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis describes how 

an inability to properly understand this aspect of the environment 

impeded mission success over the past decade of war. The study 

states, “In operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, a failure to 

recognize, acknowledge, and accurately define the operational environment led to a mismatch between forces, capabilities, missions, 

and goals.”3

 It depicts the operational environment as encompassing 

not only the threat but also the “physical, informational, social, cultural, religious, and economic elements of the environment,” highlighting that “each of these elements was important to understanding 

the root causes of conflicts, developing an appropriate approach, and 

anticipating second-order effects.”4

 The study goes on to specify that 

one of the four primary reasons for the failure to properly understand 

the operational environment was the limited understanding of indigenous populations. It argues that “a nuanced understanding of the 

environment was often hindered by a focus on traditional adversaries 

and a neglect of information concerning the host-nation population.”5

In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States had limited understanding of the population and society at the outset of operations, 

which challenged the ability of personnel to accomplish the mission. 

With instability in the wake of initial military operations and the rise 

of various insurgent elements, the requirements for analysis of the 

indigenous population grew as interagency teams worked to better 

understand their areas of responsibility and target effects outside of a 

conventional military context. Demand increased further as more 

military and civilian personnel sought to inform strategies under the 

population-centric COIN paradigm. That shift was exemplified by 

Gen David Petraeus, US Army, retired, who declared that “the human terrain is the decisive terrain.”6
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 409

To meet new requirements, civilian agencies, military organizations, 

and government contractors rushed to devise solutions for enhanced 

sociocultural analysis of the Iraqi and Afghan populations. Their efforts led to the development of many formal and informal approaches 

to collecting, organizing, analyzing, managing, and sharing sociocultural data. Increased attention was paid to the engagement of key 

leaders and influential people in order to enable greater situational 

awareness and partnership in deployed areas. While back in the 

United States, various methodologies and social science innovations 

for assessing societies were developed with the purpose of facilitating 

better visibility of sociocultural dynamics.

Despite these efforts, comprehensive understanding of the requirements for sociocultural analysis at all levels of command was 

never achieved.7

 A common description of what operationally relevant sociocultural understanding of the population and society entailed and how best to get the right analysis into the hands of those 

who needed it most remained elusive. In many circles, enhanced sociocultural analysis capabilities implied improving a database or information technology (IT) system. In others, sociocultural analysis 

may have meant PowerPoint briefings to commanders and their staffs 

in theaters of war. In budgeting circles, understanding the population 

and society often took the form of requests for language training or 

episodic culture classes. In each instance, service providers, decision 

makers, and tactical implementers fit old models to new vocabulary 

in the hopes of acquiring resources.8

The result was that the defense and intelligence communities never 

coalesced to enable development of sociocultural analysis capabilities 

in an efficient and relevant manner across the force. As each operation matured, limited societal situational awareness and poor understanding of the local population continued. Several attempts were 

made at improving collection, analysis, and information management capabilities in support of sociocultural understanding. Nevertheless, most tended to fall short and were limited to isolated or only 

partially coordinated efforts, with little synchronization. A proliferation of operating systems, databases, and IT solutions complicated 

management and understanding of information already collected. 

Additionally, little progress was made toward mitigating the loss of 

continuity, corporate memory, and relationships of influence, as units 

and individual personnel deployed and redeployed in and out of theater.
410 │ WHITE

In this chapter, I seek to answer the question of why the United 

States had such difficulty meeting sociocultural analysis requirements 

for Iraq and Afghanistan. I argue that the failure to meet sociocultural 

analysis requirements was a result of institutional barriers within the 

US government. Initially, I point out that the United States went into 

Iraq and Afghanistan with an intelligence posture that was a relic of 

the Cold War and past intelligence priorities. The US military and 

interagency communities were thus not equipped to meet new sociocultural analysis requirements at the outset of the conflicts. Then, I 

explain that when the approaches being pushed by some leaders for 

Iraq, and later for Afghanistan, began to shift toward populationcentric COIN, the absence of an agreed upon concept of mission, 

strategy, and desired end state among civilian and military organizations in both countries complicated the generation of operationally 

relevant intelligence requirements. Subsequently, I show that even as 

sociocultural analysis improved, many impediments to intelligence 

fusion continued to hinder development of a more comprehensive 

picture. Thereafter, I describe the limited attention devoted to determining how sociocultural analysis could best be integrated into the 

planning, execution, and assessment of operations. This meant that 

even when helpful sociocultural analysis was available, it did not always lead to improved understanding among operators and decision 

makers. Next, I discuss legacy human resources (HR) processes and 

training programs and their inability to adapt to meet an increased 

need for expertise relevant to sociocultural analysis. Thereafter, I identify lessons related to sociocultural analysis for consideration by those 

charged with the design and conduct of future operations.

US National Security Priorities and Intelligence

for Iraq and Afghanistan

Due to US national security and foreign policy priorities during 

the pre–9/11 era and the early years of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, intelligence organizations did not prioritize sociocultural analysis 

of foreign populations. As a result, the US intelligence community (IC) 

was not prepared to support the sociocultural analysis requirements of 

the COIN operations that eventually unfolded.
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 411

Pre–9/11 Intelligence Priorities

In a 1998 article, Gen Anthony Zinni, US Marine Corps, retired, 

observes the lack of pre–9/11 preparedness to meet requirements for 

sociocultural analysis. Zinni argues that US decision makers need 

cultural intelligence; they need to know what makes faction leaders 

and people tick, and who makes the decisions. Moreover, Zinni states 

that analysts need to know what makes the society in which the US 

military is operating “so remarkably different in their values, in the 

way they think, compared to my values and the way I think in my 

Western, white-man mentality. . . . What you need to know isn’t what 

our intel apparatus is geared to collect for you, and to analyze, and to 

present to you.”9

 The United States backed various insurgencies and 

participated in numerous COIN and stabilization efforts during and 

after the Cold War. However, these conflicts did not necessarily shape 

priorities of force development for the defense and intelligence communities. Therefore, the defense and intelligence architectures of the 

US government were not geared to meet operationally relevant requirements for the population-centric COIN approaches eventually 

pushed by some US leaders.

The focus of intelligence collection during this time period was 

largely shaped by missions such as supporting highly kinetic major 

combat operations like those in Operation Desert Storm, security 

and force protection, counterproliferation, counterterrorism against 

al-Qaeda and other terrorist threats, high-level state politics, and 

revolution-in-military-affairs concepts. All of these missions tended 

to pay short shrift to sociocultural analysis capability development, 

which was understandable given this set of priorities. Interestingly, 

Robert Komer, former CIA officer turned RAND researcher, captured a similar lack of preparedness for sociocultural analysis within 

the IC over 30 years earlier in his 1972 study of Vietnam titled Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional Constraints on U.S.-GVN Performance in Vietnam.

10 Komer observes, “The massive U.S. and 

[South Vietnamese] intelligence empires focused mostly on that with 

which they were most familiar, the size and location of enemy mainforce units, to the neglect of such other vital targets as the opponent’s 

politico-military control structure.”11
412 │ WHITE

Early Post–9/11 Iraq and Afghanistan

The intelligence footing from the pre–9/11 era still seemed somewhat appropriate in the early days of the Iraq and Afghanistan operations. Although the US-led coalitions partnered to some degree with 

Afghans and Iraqis, understanding the population and society at the 

local level was not an initial priority. After all, population-centric 

COIN was not the initial mission in either country. The primary mission was regime change in Iraq and Afghanistan and defeating alQaeda in Afghanistan. As CIA officer Cofer Black stated in a 2012 

interview with 60 Minutes, “my mission was not to ensure that little 

girls go to school in Afghanistan. My mission was not to establish, 

you know, a legal system in Afghanistan. Was not my mission. My 

mission was to destroy al-Qaeda. And to do that, we had to overthrow the Taliban.”12 National-level intelligence priorities that did not 

stress sociocultural analysis—such as high-level politics, counterterrorism, force protection, and support to initial major combat operations—ruled the day. Even as insurgencies and other destabilizing 

factors emerged in each country and various commanders began applying COIN and stabilization principles in some pockets, the wholesale approach did not immediately change to COIN. Therefore, the 

need to understand and influence the population and society was still 

not seen as a priority.

As the importance of adapting to population-centric approaches 

became more widely accepted in some circles, those tasked with filling the sociocultural analysis gap found that the government support 

structures for such work simply did not exist. William J. Olson, professor at the Near East and South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at 

the National Defense University, illustrates the extent of the challenge 

during this time period, stating that “our institutional arrangements—

governments or private industry, our mental frameworks, our technical capabilities, vast and considerable though they are, are all geared 

to a different ratio than the threat we now face. It is like trying to 

work on a car using metric standards with non-metric tools. Nothing 

fits.”13 Although Olson is speaking more broadly of the United States’ 

limited preparedness for postmodern warfare, his statement is highly 

relevant to sociocultural analysis in Iraq and Afghanistan. There was 

no deputy assistant secretary of defense or official department that 

handled development of sociocultural analysis capabilities. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) did not have a designated office or 
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 413

staff positions focused on sociocultural collection and analysis. A debate over whether sociocultural analysis should even be considered a 

role for intelligence organizations at all complicated decision making 

over who should oversee development of these capabilities. Furthermore, intelligence personnel felt that they were already doing this 

type of work sufficiently, despite the gaps reported by so many of 

those customers seeking to enhance their sociocultural understanding.14 In this less than fertile environment for change, different parts 

of government were forced to throw together solutions on the fly, as 

best they could, often in ad hoc and piecemeal ways, with whatever 

resources they could cobble together.15

When operations shifted more deliberately toward COIN (2007 in 

Iraq and 2009 in Afghanistan), the IC found it was unprepared to 

meet requirements for sociocultural analysis that would inform the 

understanding, anticipation, and influence of relevant actor behavior 

within the indigenous population. However, the IC had improved its 

ability to analyze top-tier political players. The degree to which intelligence could assist with finding, analyzing, and taking direct action 

against adversary targets advanced far beyond the capabilities of 

years past. Furthermore, improved intelligence support to security 

and force protection, especially in the area of counter–improvised explosive device, can be credited with saving countless lives. This progress was highly valuable to force development, as all military operations will eventually require some degree of high-level political 

negotiations, sound security precautions, and ability to deliver lethal 

effects against adversary targets. Yet improvements in these areas 

alone have their limitations when it comes to success in COIN. Dr. 

David Kilcullen implies as much in his 2010 article when he observes 

that “while military intelligence agencies tend to focus on threat intelligence, civilian agencies tend to focus on elite-level political intelligence—whereas what most affects the mission may often be grassroots political intelligence, an oft-neglected focus of analysis. This 

can tend to skew intelligence collection and assessment.”16 Without a 

change in priorities that emphasized improvements in analysis of the 

indigenous population, the other intelligence advances would have 

limited impact on the success of missions where the behavior of relevant actors within the population was such an important factor.
414 │ WHITE

Fixing Intel or Fixing the Force?

In October 2010 the highest ranking intelligence official in Afghanistan at the time, ISAF director of J2 (Intelligence), Maj Gen Michael T. 

Flynn, US Army (now lieutenant general and director of the DIA), coauthored a paper titled “Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan.”17 The authors argue that the IC failed 

to adjust for sociocultural analysis requirements in Afghanistan. They 

explain that

eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community is 

only marginally relevant to the overall strategy. Having focused the overwhelming majority of its collection efforts and analytical brainpower on insurgent groups, the vast intelligence apparatus is unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which U.S. and allied forces operate 

and the people they seek to persuade. Ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced, incurious about the correlations between various development projects and the levels of cooperation among villagers, and disengaged from 

people in the best position to find answers—whether aid workers or Afghan 

soldiers—U.S. intelligence officers and analysts can do little but shrug in response to high level decision-makers seeking the knowledge, analysis, and 

information they need to wage a successful counterinsurgency.18

This point of view is certainly consistent with the observations of 

many who worked in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet one could easily 

make an argument that in order to fix intelligence, the United States 

must first fix the force that serves as the intelligence customer base.

Interagency Force Structure and Requirements Generation

Different interpretations of the mission, strategy, and desired end 

state by civilian and military customers of intelligence operating in 

Iraq and Afghanistan confused the development of requirements for 

sociocultural analysis. Because most US government agencies did not 

prioritize population-centric impact, the majority of intelligence customers were not interested in learning about sociocultural aspects of 

the operational environment. In this situation, it would have been 

difficult for any intelligence organization to justify a shift toward sociocultural analysis as a top-tier priority. After all, intelligence is 

highly driven by requirements from consumers of intelligence. Intelligence producers in the IC certainly conduct a fair amount of initiative-driven intelligence work, but if the majority of operators, key 
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 415

decision makers, and other intelligence customers are not interested 

in population-centric questions, the likelihood that sociocultural 

analysis will be a priority for the IC is low. Thus, any critique of the 

IC’s contributions in Iraq and Afghanistan must take into account the 

role of intelligence customers.

Interagency force structures challenged the development of shared 

concepts of operational objectives, methods, roles, and responsibilities, 

which in turn hampered the development of clear intelligence requirements. In many circles in Washington, it was believed that traditional defense, diplomatic, and reconstruction expertise was all 

that was needed to carry out COIN along three primary lines of operation: security, governance, and development. However, varied 

points of view on what specifically was required to be successful 

within each line of operation marked the point of departure from a 

shared theory of change for how the interagency force would actually 

achieve success.

As a result of this ambiguity, agency representatives brought their 

own agency cultures, requirements, sense of agency mission, training 

objectives, and personal perspectives. Those perspectives did not 

necessarily align with the COIN mission and/or the perceived mission of the interagency team to which they were assigned. Prior to the 

Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, experts in security, governance, and 

development had not been asked to systematically combine their expertise in a coherent COIN or stabilization mission on such a grand 

scale since the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development 

Support program in Vietnam. Furthermore, the absence of a unified 

chain of command capable of focusing all civilian and military entities in a synchronized effort toward an agreed upon series of objectives exacerbated the problem (see fig. 22.1). Intelligence support to 

interagency operations became difficult in such an environment, 

since an agreed upon set of requirements did not typically exist on 

interagency teams.

In 2009 many used this model to depict unity of effort among US 

civilian and military personnel in Afghanistan. In practice it actually 

depicts two entirely separate chains of command for civilians and the 

military. These separate chains of command were only unified when 

personalities and agency missions—often accidentally—were such 

that personnel could be unified toward complementary objectives.
416 │ WHITE

COMISAF

Regional Commander

Commander

Commander

Task Force Sta

PRT Sta

Agricultural

Development

Team

District Support Team

Commander

ETT/

PMT

Maneuver

Force Security CivilAairs

Ambassador

Regional Senior Civilian

Representative

Civilian Team Lead

Civilian Team Lead

Civilian Team Lead

CAAT

USG Stabilization Programs

Regional

Command

Brigade

Task Force

Provincial

Reconstruction

Team

District

Support

Team

Figure 22.1. US civilian-military chains of command in Afghanistan

In addition, even civilian agencies like the US Department of State 

(DOS), US Agency for International Development (USAID), and US 

Department of Agriculture (USDA) did not always agree—nor did 

offices and individuals in the same agency. Despite efforts like the 

creation of the Interagency Provincial Affairs office and the formation of senior civilian representatives at each regional platform, personnel from different agencies often still did not operate as a synchronized team—sometimes working at cross-purposes. Also not shown 

here are the US special operations elements and intelligence agencies 

that had separate chains of command that did not fall under the battlespace owners. These groups often had different objectives of their 

own that did not necessarily fall within the strategy being pursued by 

other organizations in theater. Additionally, the various defense, development, and diplomacy organizations of coalition countries are 

not depicted here. These groups oftentimes did not coordinate with 

other organizations in theater and were commonly found to be accountable only to the leadership in their home country capitals.

Crisis of Terminology

The absence of a shared lexicon of terms among organizations created a crisis of terminology of sorts, which added to the confusion. 

Depending on who was asked, the answer given as to what mission 

was being pursued in Iraq and Afghanistan could be foreign internal 
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 417

defense, stability operations, COIN, nation building, or even peacekeeping or peace support operations. Complicating the situation 

more, people defined terms in different ways, often in not very population-centric ways. The lack of clarity on terminology was problematic for understanding requirements within the IC. The findings of a 

February 2011 study conducted by the Defense Science Board Task 

Force on Defense Intelligence are illustrative of this, pointing out that 

“different definitions of terms and associated interpretations of their 

meaning allow the DOD [Department of Defense] components, including the intelligence components of the military departments and 

combatant commands and the combat support agencies that are part 

of the IC, to choose the one(s) they prefer. This, in turn, produces a 

lack of clarity and causes confusion about what is meant. . . . This 

failure has a deleterious effect on the DOD and IC’s understanding of 

the intelligence requirements for effective support of US, multinational, and coalition COIN operations.”19

Doctrine and other written guidance are partly to blame, as many 

returning from the field reported a multitude of conflicting guidance 

documents that define the mission and associated terms differently.20

In a November 2011 interview, a senior DOS official who served in 

Afghanistan argued that COIN could never have worked in a place as 

complex as Afghanistan and that the concept of COIN was effectively 

dead.21 Although the jury is still out on the merit of this assertion, one 

cannot help but wonder which version of COIN the official meant.

Agency Core Missions and Sociocultural Considerations

Making matters more difficult, the conflicting views of the mission, as interpreted by US agencies, tended to have little to do with 

sociocultural considerations. For sociocultural analysis requirements 

to be generated in a meaningful way, US agencies would have needed 

an appetite to analyze the operational environment and construct an 

approach designed to achieve a sustainable stabilizing COIN impact 

that was appropriate for the local context and relevant to the nature 

of the conflict. Yet most agencies failed to approach the operations in 

this way.22 Instead, US personnel tended to push forward with their 

own agency core missions, regardless of the situation on the ground. 

USAID and the DOS focused their efforts on the top-down nationallevel democracy and development agendas because it is how they 

typically operate in their traditional diplomatic and development 
418 │ WHITE

missions around the world. This state of affairs was of course not a 

first-time occurrence for the US interagency community operating in 

conflict zones. It fact, it closely mirrors the findings of Komer, who 

highlights similar US institutional constraints to adaptation for 

population-centric COIN in Vietnam.23

The result of agencies sticking to their core missions was that even 

once it was clear that insurgencies were present in both Iraq and Afghanistan, most US government organizations approached the COIN 

efforts with the intention of making things the way they thought they 

should be, based on preconceived notions of state building rooted in 

Western concepts of security, governance, and development. The 

thought was that if these core agency missions were pursued according to Western standards and normal agency practice, stability would 

eventually be achieved, regardless of the near-term impact of their 

actions at the local level.24

Kilcullen captures this phenomenon as it relates to both intelligence and nonintelligence entities in his article. He writes, “Intelligence services of intervening forces in counterinsurgency operations 

tend to exhibit several pathologies . . . [including] the tendency to 

judge success based on progress in creating top-down, state based 

institutions, while reposing less value and significance in bottom-up 

societal indicators.”25 He points out that this challenge is more than 

just an IC issue: “This pathology may not be confined to intelligence 

services. Rather, it seems to reflect wider Eurocentric attitudes to the 

process of state formation. Recent research suggests that the international community, including the vast international aid and development bureaucracy and the ‘peace industry’ associated with international organizations such as the United Nations and the International 

Monetary Fund, tends to have a strong preference for top-down state 

formation (‘nation building’) based on the creation of national-level, 

‘modern,’ Western-style institutions of the central state.”26 He continues by connecting this tendency directly to the COIN forces he has 

studied: “Intervening forces in counterinsurgency environments 

seem to absorb this broader tendency, with analysts tending to give 

greater weight to events at the national level, or to elite-level political 

maneuvering, than to events at the grassroots, civil society level.”27

In executing agency core missions, the United States tended to focus its efforts on three primary areas:
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 419

•  support to force protection and defeating the military capabilities of the adversary;

•  support to a traditional US diplomatic approach that emphasized

engagement of high-level political elites, while promoting a Westernized cookie-cutter version of democratic principles; and

•  support to a development approach that focused on developing

institutions and infrastructure that correspond to Westernized 

views of what a country needs in order to be successful.

These lines of operation were frequently pursued with limited effort to adjust and adapt for local realties and preexisting indigenous 

structures.28 Therefore, for most US government agencies, impact at 

the local level was merely an afterthought during the design and conduct of many activities. The influence of these efforts on the behavior 

of relevant actors among the population was not usually seen as a 

priority, and therefore, sociocultural analysis was often seen as irrelevant to the perceived mission.

Demonstrating that each organization was pushing forward on the 

three primary lines of effort was a top priority. On the security side, 

military and civilian defense leaders needed to show that their areas 

were going from less secure to more secure by military standards (often discussed as moving from red to green). Numbers of documented 

significant activities needed to be reduced. Higher numbers of insurgents needed to be killed or captured. The amount of improvised explosive device (IED) incidents needed to drop. Although all of these 

statistics could certainly be indicative of improved security, they did 

not necessarily address progress in the population-centric operation 

that was purportedly being pursued. Did these numbers improve in a 

given area because the force was succeeding, or was the cause simply 

the result of fewer coalition or insurgent forces being present in the 

area during that particular time period? Were more members of the 

population brought over to the side of the insurgency as a result of a 

given lethal or nonlethal action by the coalition? What was the impact of the collateral damage from a night raid or a targeted strike on 

the allegiances and ultimately the behavior of the population in a 

given village? The traditional approach to security executed by most 

US military forces in theater was not always interested in or able to 

account for such questions.29

When it came to governance, the DOS needed to show that a 

strong democratic government was being created in the capital cities. 
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Linkages needed to be shown down to the subnational level through 

entities such as shuras and provincial- and district-level councils, 

which were often stood up with little regard for preexisting indigenous entities.30 Subnational government posts needed to be checked 

off as filled, regardless of the people chosen to fill them. Fotini Christia and Ruben Enikolopov explain in their research that it was not 

necessarily a pursuit of democratic principles that was a problem. Instead, the issue was the way the principles were pursued, with so little 

adaptation for the local context.31 One DOS official in Iraq shared 

that he even saw efforts to engage preexisting governance structures 

among the indigenous population (e.g., tribal governance) as contrary to the mission, arguing that by engaging informal leaders, the 

United States was delegitimizing the formal government institutions 

that it was attempting to implement.32

When it came to development, in order to be seen as successful by 

their own agency standards, USAID personnel needed to show they 

were building things, executing programming, spending money, and 

managing budgets—regardless of impact on the population. A senior 

USAID official in Afghanistan explained this mind-set in 2011, stating that “in the past, development people in the field had a lot of 

leeway to do whatever it was they wanted. All they had to do was get 

somebody to take them out to a village, pick a few things that they 

could focus on over the course of their deployment, and hang their 

ornament on the Afghan Christmas tree.”33 USAID personnel operating at the subnational level were forbidden to give any direction to 

the USAID implementing partners that had been contracted by the 

agency’s offices in Kabul and Baghdad. This policy directly prevented 

adapting programming for local nuances. Similar to USAID, military 

development and reconstruction efforts were also mainly about 

building things, demonstrating action, and spending money (often 

referred to as burn rate)—regardless of the impact on stability and 

the behavior of the indigenous population.34

Eventually, attempts were made to prioritize more populationcentric impact. Coordinating efforts such as stability working groups 

in Afghanistan, which included Afghan nationals, and embedding 

provincial reconstruction teams (PRT) within military units across 

Iraq were meant to help with this. Nevertheless, even when these coordinating efforts were attempted, most personnel on the ground 

would find that their ability to contribute to population-centric endeavors was impeded by the inflexibility of their organizations and 
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 421

agencies, which remained structured along the three primary lines of 

effort described above. Budgeting, incentive structures, training, education, standard operating procedures, and force structure simply 

did not change enough in most instances to accommodate the new 

population-centric approaches.35

In such an environment, an intelligence support system that focused on enhanced sociocultural analysis and developing a better understanding of population-centric issues could be rendered irrelevant. If an intelligence customer maintained a heavily kinetic, 

adversary-centric interpretation of the mission, without embracing a 

more comprehensive political strategy that addressed all root causes 

of insurgency, organizations conducting meaningful sociocultural 

analysis would not have been seen as having met the customer’s requirements. The fact that different members of interagency teams 

had such varied concepts of what the coalitions were trying to accomplish and how to achieve success made it difficult to develop relevant sociocultural analysis support. In such an environment, immediate, mainly threat-centric information requirements tend to take 

priority—to the detriment of the information needed to inform governance, development, and a more broadly focused grassroots political approach. This is not surprising, since in the absence of a clear 

mission and strategy, the study of issues like land right disputes, tribal 

dynamics, and local economics can seem peripheral to an analyst 

amid the rocket attacks, suicide bombings, IED strikes, and contact 

with insurgents that claimed the lives of so many US personnel.

Barriers to Intelligence Fusion

Even when useful sociocultural analysis became more readily 

available in Iraq and Afghanistan, barriers to fusion prevented the 

exploitation of this analysis for maximum benefit. Intelligence fusion 

is important because it leads to the development of a more comprehensive picture of the operational environment. When fusion of all 

pertinent intelligence and information is not achieved, operators and 

decision makers are forced to make less informed decisions.
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Intelligence Fusion in Counterinsurgency

In US joint doctrine for intelligence, intelligence fusion is described as “a deliberate and consistent process of collecting and examining information from all available sources and intelligence disciplines to derive as complete an assessment as possible of detected 

activity. It draws on the complementary strengths of all intelligence 

disciplines, and relies on an all-source approach to intelligence collection and analysis.”36 For COIN the term fusion must place special 

emphasis on the combination of intelligence from all sources on relevant actors within the operational environment. Intelligence on the 

most common relevant actors has often been referred to in three 

color categories: white for the indigenous population; green for the 

host-nation government, including host-nation security forces; and 

red for more traditional forms of adversary-centric intelligence and 

intelligence used to support force protection and kinetic operations.

In COIN one must view the adversary as one aspect of a complex 

operational environment. Because of the highly political and population-centric nature of these types of conflicts, an adversary’s approach 

usually reaches beyond violence and into the social fabric of society. 

Only through a more comprehensive understanding of the operational environment that incorporates red, white, and green intelligence can a COIN force design an approach that is relevant to such a 

conflict. This is not to say that red intelligence is not important or that 

insurgent forces and other spoilers need not be captured or killed in 

such an operation. In fact, kinetic actions by a COIN force can be 

brutally violent and at times require the projection of massive force 

and intensive kinetic contact with the adversary. However, in COIN 

even highly kinetic activity must be part of a larger strategy to ensure 

a desired political impact that addresses root causes of the insurgency 

being countered.

In such operations, incorporation of sociocultural analysis during 

fusion is often crucial. In his book Insurgency and Terrorism, Bard 

O’Neill, professor at the US National War College, illustrates the importance of this through his discussion of what he calls “the human 

environment.” O’Neill explains that “although students of insurgency 

have devoted substantial attention to the physical attributes of the 

environment, the human dimension is even more important. Indeed 

it is here that one uncovers the causes, or so-called roots, of insurgencies. Of primary interest are demography, socio-economic conditions, 
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 423

political culture and the political system.”37 Nonmilitary capabilities of 

individual actors and insurgent groups and how they interact with the 

population and society must also be understood alongside their military capabilities. Only through this more comprehensive picture that 

fusion provides can intelligence better inform operations.

“Every Soldier [and Civilian] Is a Sensor”

The IC possesses tremendous human and technological assets capable of collecting massive amounts of detailed information on a 

range of topics. However, in many cases, the people with the most 

knowledge of the population and society at the local level are nonintelligence personnel. US Army Field Manual (FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency, emphasizes that “COIN occurs in a joint, interagency, and 

multinational environment at all echelons. Commanders and staffs 

must coordinate intelligence collection and analysis with foreign militaries, foreign and US intelligence services, and other organizations.”38 Still, integration of potentially useful sociocultural information from all relevant members of the force did not always occur.

USAID, the DOS, the USDA, and other nonintelligence personnel 

working at the subnational level gained insights into white, green, 

and red topics that would not have been possible from traditional 

intelligence collection methods alone.39 In several instances, DOS 

employees and other nonintelligence personnel spent time mentoring provincial and district governors and other government officials. 

Some of these civilians worked among the local population, interacted with local officials on a regular basis, and in some cases, learned 

the language.40 These interactions often resulted in a rich understanding of local society within a given community that, if combined with 

intelligence from traditional intelligence entities, could have led to 

more complete understanding. Similarly, military civil affairs personnel in both countries at times developed deep knowledge of the population through their work with locals on various projects and their 

civil-military area assessments. Other entities like human terrain 

teams, counterinsurgency advisory and assistance teams, Afghanistan/Pakistan Hands program personnel, female engagement teams, 

British advisors from the defense cultural specialists unit, tactical 

psychological operations teams, special forces, foreign area officers, 

and the general purpose forces that made regular patrols through a 

given area all had valuable intelligence insights. Nevertheless, barriers 
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to fusion existed that prevented all relevant sociocultural information 

from being considered by those who would benefit from it.

Challenges to Fusion in Iraq and Afghanistan

Despite its importance, many issues stifled intelligence fusion in 

Iraq and Afghanistan. For instance, both operations illustrated the 

difficulty that the United States has with incorporating intelligence 

and information from interagency partners outside of the IC. In general, the lack of standard processes for sharing information was the 

most common interagency challenge to fusion—an issue that also applied to fusion of intelligence from coalition partner forces. Another 

interagency challenge, however, was the lack of trust in the interagency community. In some cases, the DOS and USAID personnel 

were unwilling to share information with the intelligence and military elements in their area of operation. This was mainly rooted in 

fears held by some DOS and USAID personnel that military and intelligence entities would take their information and use it to support 

kinetic operations in a manner deemed inappropriate by the civilian 

agencies. In particular, some USAID personnel believed that defense 

and intelligence agencies would not be sensitive to protecting identities of local sources of information and local implementing partners. 

In turn, some defense and intelligence personnel mistrusted the DOS 

and USAID, sometimes viewing these entities as antiwar and careless 

with classified information.41

Attempts to draw a distinction between information and intelligence based on ethical considerations established for social science 

also prevented fusion. This issue was most prominent following the 

creation of the US Army Human Terrain System (HTS), which embedded social scientists with military units to help improve understanding of sociocultural dynamics in Iraq and Afghanistan.42 The 

use of social science methodologies by HTS concerned some social 

scientists due to a perceived risk that HTS products could be used to 

inform lethal targeting, a clear violation of “do no harm” research 

ethics. There was also a concerted effort by program management to 

keep HTS from being absorbed by the IC, since this could prevent 

HTS from being completely accessible to the units they supported.43

Therefore, in the program’s formative years, many HTS personnel 

tried to paint their contributions as completely separate from intelli-
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 425

gence, often preventing the fusion of important sociocultural analysis 

with other intelligence.

Assessment practices across the interagency further impacted fusion. In their journal article entitled “Stability Operations: From Policy to Practice,” development experts James Derleth and Jason Alexander explain that the District Stability Framework (DSF) “identifies 

sources of instability, designs programs to mitigate them, and measures the effectiveness of the programming in stabilizing an area.”44

Built into DSF are methods for developing improved situational 

awareness and understanding of the operating environment to inform this process. However, sociocultural analysis meant to inform 

DSF in Afghanistan was not always combined with more traditional 

adversary-centric intelligence. Also, because all civilian and military 

entities in a given area did not always champion DSF as the primary 

assessment and planning framework, different partners operating in 

the same area utilized multiple approaches in parallel to or instead of 

DSF (e.g., Interagency Conflict Assessment Framework, Regional 

South Stabilization Approach, District Stability Assessment Tool, and 

in many cases, no organized approach at all). With limited formal 

mechanisms for pulling this information together, fusion often did 

not always occur.

Systems and methods were usually absent for comparing different 

perspectives, reconciling differences, and developing a shared baseline situational awareness from which to plan.45 As a result, different 

perspectives about local dynamics and drivers of stability and instability took root among different interagency partners. This challenged 

unity of effort among all entities conducting lethal and nonlethal activities, thus preventing the execution of a coherent political strategy 

moving forward.

Classification and access issues also stymied fusion. Multiple operating systems and several sets of rules and regulations for managing 

and sharing intelligence plagued the interagency and international 

nature of the coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Legal regulations for 

one agency or country did not apply for another, and at times, navigating the complexities of the bureaucracy was an insurmountable 

task. Classification and access issues were particularly difficult when 

attempting to fuse coalition intelligence with that of the indigenous 

security forces, especially when those security forces were thought to 

have been infiltrated by insurgents.
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Even when dedicated fusion centers were stood up, the approach 

to fusion of white and green intelligence did not necessarily occur. 

The centers were challenged by the overly adversary-centric predisposition of intelligence organizations in support of military operations, which did not prioritize the population-centric nature of the 

mission. The governance- and development-related sociocultural 

analyses generated by Stability Operations Information Center 

(SOIC) teams were often excluded or ignored in Afghanistan fusion 

centers, for instance.46 In Iraq, even when disparate intelligence entities were consolidated into fusion centers, tactical success killing and 

capturing insurgents usually took priority over informing the broader 

COIN mission, especially in the earlier years. Gen Stanley McChrystal 

illustrated the limitations of such an approach and the progression 

that took place, recognizing that sociocultural analysis and addressing 

the root causes of insurgency would be critical:

In Iraq, when we first started, the question was, “Where is the enemy?” That 

was the intelligence question. As we got smarter, we started to ask, “Who is the 

enemy?” And we thought we were pretty clever. And then we realized that 

wasn’t the right question, and we asked, “What’s the enemy doing or trying to 

do?” And it wasn’t until we got further along that we said, “Why are they the 

enemy?” Not until you walk yourself along that intellectual path do you realize that’s what you have to understand, particularly in a counterinsurgency 

where the number of insurgents is completely independent of simple math. In 

World War II, the German army could produce x number of military-aged 

males. In an insurgency, the number of insurgents isn’t determined by the 

population, but by how many people want to be insurgents. And so figuring 

out why they want to be insurgents is crucial. And that’s something we had 

never practiced.47

The more recent conceptualization of intelligence into separate 

categories has also been detrimental to intelligence fusion. Ben Connable, a senior international policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, explains, “Treating complex environments, such as Iraq or Afghanistan, as a system that can be broken into simply labeled 

component parts leads analysts to make unhelpful and logically unsound assumptions regarding human identity. These assumptions, in 

turn, undermine analytic effectiveness. Instead of fusing available 

information in a way that accurately reflects the inherently complex 

‘shades-of-gray’ ground truth, military analysts—influenced by systems analysis and conventional military doctrine—often channel 

their thinking and efforts into three artificially color-coded categories: 

red, white, and green.”48 The failure to properly fuse information that 
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 427

was categorized according to system or color posed devastating risks 

for the accuracy of analysis. So too did the act of categorization itself. 

For instance, a district government official might have various ties to 

insurgent elements, a series of forthright relationships with different 

villages in the district, and formalized relationships with provincial 

and national government officials—all while being paid under the 

table for assistance to the drug trade. Analysis of only the white and 

green aspects of this scenario or only the political and economic systems of the environment, in isolation of adversary systems, would 

risk missing the complete picture. This in turn would then lead to 

only partially informed decision making. In many instances, both 

Iraqi and Afghan leaders chose to play both sides for maximum benefit, acting as insurgents one day and as seemingly competent coalition partners the next. Many cases also occurred where individuals 

appeared to be cooperating with the enemy by choice, but in reality, 

this cooperation was due to destabilizing security or economic issues, 

as opposed to being driven by individual loyalties.49 Categorization 

and poor fusion in cases like this made identifying the true nature of 

actors among the indigenous population extremely difficult.

From Sociocultural Analysis to

Increased Understanding

British doctrine explains that enhanced understanding is “the ability to place knowledge in its wider context to provide us with options 

for decision-making. In the national context, understanding underpins the decision-making process that informs the application of national power. It also enables us to understand the implications of our 

decisions for our adversaries, allies or bystanders.”50 Understanding is 

a critical component when identifying realistic ends, ways, and means 

for operations. For sociocultural analysis to be useful, it needs to enhance understanding by operators and decision makers during planning, execution, and assessment of operations. However, best practices for dissemination and knowledge management of sociocultural 

analysis were slow to emerge. Thus, improvements in sociocultural 

analysis did not necessarily lead to more developed understanding.
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Making Sociocultural Intelligence Analysis

Useful to Consumers

New intelligence requirements eventually generated increases in 

sociocultural intelligence, which poured in at all levels of command. 

Different customers had different requirements. A battalion commander in the Zhari District of Kandahar Province, for instance, had 

different requirements than the Regional Command–South commander or the International Security Assistance Force commander. 

Similarly, DOS officials working at district support teams (DST), 

PRTs, regional platforms, and embassy levels all needed different intelligence to do their jobs, with some overlap.

It was not well understood how best to ensure that the increased 

sociocultural analysis would lead to the right types of products for 

the right people or how to guarantee it would be properly integrated 

into decision making for operations. In their article “Integrating Intelligence and Information,” brothers Lt Gen Michael Flynn and Brig 

Gen Charles Flynn explain that part of the problem is that

integration has a different meaning for the intelligence community than it has 

for the operational community. The intelligence community sees integration 

with two components (collection and analysis), while the operational community seeks an outcome, an action, a result from the enormous amount of 

collection and analysis it performs.

The intelligence community must align its thinking with those who have to 

decide or execute the findings from collection and analysis. Think of it as a 

three-legged stool. The intelligence community has responsibility for two of 

these legs, when in fact, the third is the most important and least understood 

inside the broader intelligence community.”51

With efforts to improve sociocultural analysis, measures of performance often took primacy (e.g., reporting of information on the population stored within a database or information system), with less 

attention paid to measures of effectiveness (e.g., disseminating the 

right information to the right people, in an easily accessible and digestible format and in a manner that would ensure incorporation into 

the correct phases of a decision-making process for improved planning and execution of operations). Rebecca Zimmerman captures 

this state of affairs in Afghanistan in her article “Know Thine Enemy.”

She claims that “the greatest portion of information needed to sufficiently understand Afghan population dynamics is known but acted 
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 429

on in ways that are not effective. . . . Granular information is transferred from the warrior on the ground to higher echelons. . . . But to 

date, this process has simply involved reporting events and information in ever-greater numbers. . . . [As a result], military staffs are buried to their necks in information without ever being able to cultivate 

the understanding possessed by those on the front lines.”52

Although higher echelons of command often need to understand 

broader contextual issues and societal dynamics, they do not necessarily need to know every single detail about the population in a 

given operational area. Decades of COIN research have highlighted 

the necessity for what has been referred to as “mission command,” 

which calls for more decentralized command structure—with responsibility for specifics of operations delegated more to field level. It 

is certainly a commander’s job to provide left and right limits in providing guidance, based on a general understanding of key contextual 

issues, but the level of detail required at the higher levels of command 

is usually far less than that at lower levels—where soldiers and civilians are charged with tailoring operations to suit the local context. A 

former SOIC analyst in Afghanistan says that what the higher levels 

of command need are “the bigger, overarching assessments which 

give them puzzle pieces that they can then fit together with other 

similar assessments coming from units/groups in other geographic 

areas.”53 In a related statement, Zimmerman goes on to explain how 

information overload to a command staff can have negative implications: “This creates a twofold problem: It is assumed, on the one hand, 

that the increasing information must be mastered in order to act and, 

on the other, that processing all of this information equals understanding the population. While lip service is paid to the primacy of 

the commander on the ground, a false sense of understanding at 

higher echelons often enables micromanagement.”54

Knowledge Management and Information Technology

Early on in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations, reports often 

cited limitations in knowledge management and information technology (KMIT) resources as an impediment to intelligence storage 

and sharing. However, eventually the more pressing challenge became the overabundance of costly and disparate systems, which made 

leveraging this intelligence difficult. As the battlefields in Iraq and 

Afghanistan matured, some preexisting and many new IT solutions 
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were introduced to assist with the collation, analysis, storage, management, and dissemination of information—with the goal of improving accessibility to consumers. Different civilian and military 

entities had diverse pots of money, distinct chains of command, and 

different perceived immediate needs, leading to an uncoordinated 

and ad hoc proliferation of many KMIT tools. Data uploaded on one 

system was often not shared with and/or legally transferable to others. 

Each system brought its own set of operating instructions and regulations. The DOS, USAID, the DOD, the USDA, various intelligence 

agencies, and the corresponding agencies of our international allies 

all had unique reporting and information management requirements, 

inside and outside of theater.

Instead of making this situation a planning factor prior to deployment, units and teams continued to arrive in theater without a plan 

for navigating the complex KMIT environment. As a result, massive 

duplications of effort and financial waste took place. An epidemic of 

stovepiping and access challenges unfolded. In Afghanistan for instance, PRT and DST reporting on governance, development, and 

political situations at the subnational level was carried out differently 

in each province. Information was housed on different portals and 

websites—each requiring different procedures for access. In fact, key 

intelligence offices working Afghanistan and Pakistan issues, including the DIA AF/Pak Task Force in the Pentagon, did not gain regular 

access to the reporting of these teams until early 2011, almost a decade 

after the first PRT was fielded in Afghanistan.55

Systems for updating the analysis that had been conducted in the 

past were also lacking. Outdated and incorrect intelligence was occasionally used to inform operations. For instance, operators at times 

sought partnerships with tribal leaders previously identified as key 

leaders—only to find these individuals had since been killed, had 

moved away, or had shifted allegiances. In many instances, hard-won 

important intelligence was simply lost. It was this situation that led 

many, in years past, to utter a version of the common criticism that 

Iraq and Afghanistan are “where databases go to die.”

Overreliance on Technology and the Human Element

An overreliance on technology hindered the utilization of sociocultural analysis for maximum benefit. A 2005 field test of a computer program called Cultural Preparation of the Environment (CPE) 
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 431

is indicative of this problem. CPE was developed to “provide commanders on the ground with a tool that [would] allow them to understand 

operationally relevant aspects of local culture; the ethno-religious, tribal 

and other divisions within Iraqi society; and the interests and leaders 

of these groups.”56 After field testing CPE in Iraq, Steve Fondacaro, 

the retired Army colonel in charge of evaluating the program’s performance, drew the following three conclusions:

First, brigade staffs were already overloaded with gadgets that they had no 

time to learn, manage, or employ. Thus, the CPE in its current form was likely 

to become an expensive footrest. Second, military personnel did not have sufficient baseline knowledge to enable them to validate the information and 

derive the conclusions needed to develop courses of action within the staff 

decision cycle. Third, military units needed embedded social scientists on 

their staffs who could do research, derive lessons learned from the unit’s experience, and apply them to the development of effective nonlethal courses of 

action that would make sense to the population.57

In reality, social scientists and formal social science methodology 

are less necessary to understand population dynamics than has been 

argued by some. Social science is, after all, just one tool of many at the 

disposal of the interagency force that can be useful to understanding 

the population and society in a given area. Yet Colonel Fondacaro, 

who currently serves as a senior operations trainer (G3) at the consulting firm Knowledge Point, makes a sound observation that personnel in the field often lacked the capacity to spend time working 

with multiple computer databases and extracting information for use 

in the decision-making process, which prevented the force from 

achieving maximum benefit from all available intelligence.

Units did experiment with the integration of sociocultural analysts 

into planning processes. Many commanders in the field saw this as 

useful, as the analysts were directly able to inject their expertise into 

the planning process on a regular basis. Those with a strong understanding of operationally relevant sociocultural issues were useful 

participants in civil affairs, information operations, and other working 

groups, helping to ensure operations and messaging were suitable for 

the local context and advising on potential second- and third-order 

effects. Unfortunately, this type of integration did not take place for 

the most part in any meaningful way across Iraq and Afghanistan 

until later on in each conflict. Even when this did occur, it did not 

always play out in any deliberate or organized fashion.
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The lack of focus on the human elements of knowledge handover 

across deployments also prevented sociocultural analysis from being 

exploited for maximum understanding. As different units and individuals deployed in and out of theater on different time schedules, 

limited attention was given to the transferring of pertinent sociocultural knowledge during military right-seat-ride exercises and turnover of civilian positions. The handover of electronic databases and 

disks with sociocultural data was not enough to mitigate the loss of 

continuity, corporate memory, and relationships of influence with 

the indigenous population as units and individual personnel deployed and redeployed in and out of theater. This issue was particularly destructive to the relationship between the US government and 

relevant actors within the indigenous population, who were bewildered by repeated questions about sociocultural aspects of their 

neighborhoods each time a new US individual or team arrived. Frustrated by the disorganized mass of thousands of electronic documents he received upon arriving in theater, a medical officer who had 

worked with the indigenous population on health issues in Kandahar 

shared his frustration. He argued that the main obstacles to continuity of effort were the lack of a formalized process and the fact that 

continuity tended to be thought about at the end of a deployment as 

opposed to being made a priority from the start.58

Recruiting and Training

The increased emphasis on sociocultural analysis required additional personnel with different expertise than those previously sought 

for intelligence support to operations. Preexisting frameworks for recruitment and legacy training and education programs were not suitable for placing the right people with the right knowledge, skills, and 

abilities (KSA) for sociocultural analysis in appropriate positions. In 

fact, the “right people” was an ambiguous concept in itself, since personnel qualifications for sociocultural analysis were never specifically 

identified for either conflict.

Recruiting

A 2011 Director of National Intelligence–sponsored study highlights the importance of recruiting to adaptation of the IC for twenty-
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 433

first-century requirements. The study states that “recruitment and 

selection is [sic] especially important because the quality of the HR 

pool assembled in this first step facilitates or constrains an organization’s subsequent ability to build and develop its workforce. A failure 

to maximize the talent pool at this step cannot be rectified by subsequent efforts.”59 Despite this recognition, requirements for sociocultural analysis in Iraq and Afghanistan were passed to HR departments 

that had been prepared for an entirely different mission. The defense 

and intelligence communities were bursting at the seams with highly 

qualified intelligence operators and analysts experienced in working 

with adversary-centric intelligence. Regardless, the standing up of 

new entities like HTS and the SOICs, as well as the adjustment of 

preexisting organizations for new requirements, implied a need to 

recruit personnel with different backgrounds and expertise. One senior intelligence officer says that “80 percent of useful operational 

data for counterinsurgency does not come from legacy intelligence 

disciplines. . . . Good intelligence on counterinsurgency exists outside 

the traditional intelligence organizations. Anthropological, socio‐

cultural, historical, human geographical, educational, public health, 

and many other types of social and behavioral science data and information are needed to develop a deep understanding of populations.”60

Government agencies had limited personnel with relevant language skills and expertise in studying foreign societies. In many cases, 

contractors were brought in to fill the new personnel requirements, 

often with individuals who were ill-suited for these new positions. 

Commonly, the primary recruiting method for contractors and government agencies for specialty positions was to post job announcements on websites. Although candidates with experience in defense 

or intelligence would know to search certain websites to find job 

postings, many people with advanced KSAs relevant to the new requirements were not necessarily tied into the defense communities, 

and therefore, they never knew the jobs existed. Computer systems 

and inexperienced government HR personnel often prematurely 

weeded out qualified candidates who did know the jobs existed and 

applied, simply because these systems and personnel did not detect 

enough of job-specific buzz words in the candidates’ resumes. Various agencies sent recruiters out to job fairs and universities for general recruitment efforts, but recruiting specifically for this specialized 

work was not the norm.
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Contractors bore some of the responsibility for providing inadequate personnel, but government agencies that drafted the contract 

requirements and position descriptions were equally at fault. Understanding of populations and societies for COIN had not been much 

more than an afterthought in most cases until the shift to COIN approaches in Iraq and Afghanistan, and many government officials 

responsible for the contracts did not know what was needed to fill 

these new roles most effectively. Therefore, many of the position descriptions and hiring qualifications lacked specifics that would facilitate hiring the best candidates for the job.

Quality control measures regarding hiring were also limited. Forcing functions were commonly absent for contractors and government HR offices to distinguish between an advanced degree from a 

top-tier university and a degree from a bottom-rung university. Requirements for interviews and reference checks were not always enforced, to the extent they were not written into contracts at all, so 

employees were often hired with very little screening. This led to hiring of people with disqualifying physical ailments, uncooperative 

temperaments, clear personality disorders, dubious qualifications, or 

track records of poor performance in the workplace who might have 

otherwise been passed over. As long as contractors and government 

HR systems could check the boxes and say that they met the minimum standards, they were clear of any potential backlash from hiring 

substandard performers.

Training

In the past, the typical training and education of many intelligence 

and nonintelligence personnel had little relevance to understanding 

foreign populations. Few intelligence personnel had actually spent 

time supporting COIN or stabilization missions, and only a limited 

number had worked in, lived in, or studied countries like Iraq and 

Afghanistan. Many analytical methodologies for adversary-centric 

intelligence that were employed by intelligence professionals and 

taught in the intelligence schoolhouses were not suitable for new requirements, and new approaches had to be developed. Military intelligence schools and other intelligence training programs were slow to 

adapt and to incorporate lessons from the field. This meant that many 

of the intelligence personnel tasked with sociocultural requirements 

had not been trained to do more in the sociocultural realm than fill 
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 435

out spreadsheets that categorized some pertinent data in the proper 

boxes using doctrinal frameworks such as political, military, economic, social, infrastructure, and information (PMESII) and areas, 

structures, capabilities, organizations, people, and events (ASCOPE).

As training and education programs worked to adjust, such efforts 

were complicated by ambiguity over what KSAs needed to be satisfied prior to recruitment, which ones needed to be developed in 

training and education programs, and what expertise could only be 

developed once working on the job. Confusion over how much training and education should focus on culture, history, language, COIN 

theory, and so forth was never resolved. Flexibility was not built into 

contracts for training, which meant that even when necessary KSAs 

became clear, or when additional needs were identified as a result of 

shifting dynamics in theater, the old contracts could not be adapted 

fast enough to meet new requirements.61

Considerations for the Design and Conduct

of Future Operations

The following considerations are worthy of attention from those 

charged with the design and conduct of future COIN and stabilization operations. This list is by no means comprehensive. Also, this list 

should be read with the recognition that every conflict scenario is 

different. The US interagency footprint will tend to vary widely in 

size, role, and construct depending on the circumstances, and therefore, incorporation of these considerations must be tailored, as appropriate, for each individual conflict.

Respond to Current and Perceived Future Priorities

It must not be assumed that preexisting intelligence support architectures are flexible enough for all operations. Intelligence support 

must be planned and adjusted for current and perceived future intelligence priorities. Great care should be taken to ensure that intelligence 

capabilities developed to address past intelligence priorities are suitable 

for the operational approach being pursued and that capability gaps are 

filled where appropriate. A little more work on the front end figuring 

out what will be required moving forward, what will be needed systemwide to meet those requirements, and how to incorporate flexibility 
436 │ WHITE

into the system to account for an ever-changing operational environment can pay large dividends in developing the right force structure.

Demand Clear Shared Understanding of Mission, Strategy, and 

End State

Clarity of mission, strategy, and desired end state for an operation 

enhances the ability to meet intelligence requirements in support of 

operations. It also helps defense and intelligence organizations better 

understand what sociocultural analysis is operationally relevant. Future operations must ensure that the mission, strategy, and desired 

end state are clear and that intelligence support architectures are established to support these clearly defined concepts.

Management Is Just as Important as Leadership

Many of the problems with sociocultural analysis could have been 

avoided if strong management of the conflicts had been employed. 

There is often a focus in high-level positions of government on the 

need for strong leadership. However, good managers are needed with 

the skills to identify the desired end state and then backward plan 

based on a theory of change rooted in sound intermediate objectives 

and logical approaches to staffing and resourcing. Of specific importance, managers and leaders must ensure that incentives, training, 

standard operating procedures, and force structure are adapted appropriately for the mission. Only then can a force truly adapt to new 

requirements for operationally relevant sociocultural analysis.62

Develop a System for Fusion That Works

Future operations should be planned with a system in place for the 

fusion of information on the adversary, the host-nation government 

(including its security forces), and the indigenous population present 

in the area of operations into an evolving holistic framework. Great 

care should be taken not to degrade important ongoing red intelligence activities. The system for fusion must also incorporate relevant 

contributions from all intelligence and nonintelligence entities and 

disciplines. Fusion helps lead to better-informed planning, execution, 

and assessment of operations. Furthermore, fusion helps facilitate 

unity of effort through helping develop shared situational awareness 

among interagency teams from which to plan.
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 437

Ensure Continuity of Effort

As units, teams, and individuals deploy and redeploy in and out of 

theater, continuity of effort and maintenance of corporate memory 

regarding sociocultural analysis already conducted must be prioritized. The common description of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts 

as a series of “one-year wars” is a relatively accurate explanation of 

what took place. However, it is an oversimplification in that what 

transpired was actually more chaotic. Different civilian and military 

personnel deployed for different periods of time and not all at once 

over a single year. This issue is an inevitable friction point in war, but 

strategies must be developed to mitigate the challenges to sociocultural analysis created by staff turnover, which are much more detrimental in COIN than in conventional military operations.

Intelligence for COIN and Stabilization Is an Interagency 

Responsibility

Intelligence support to COIN must be seen as an interagency task 

that is more than just the responsibility of intelligence personnel. It 

must incorporate relevant intelligence and information from international allies and coalition partners to the extent such data exist. It also 

must incorporate relevant contributions from host-nation government officials and security forces, as these personnel tend to understand their areas much better than a third-party force.

Make Sociocultural Analysis Beneficial to Consumers

Producers and consumers of intelligence must develop a better 

understanding of the types of intelligence that are required at the 

various levels of civilian and military command and how to disseminate and integrate intelligence at all levels for maximum benefit during the planning and execution of operations. It is not enough to simply improve intelligence support to operations under the blanket 

requirement of enhancing sociocultural analysis. Intelligence support architectures must be structured in a way that ensures the right 

people get the right information in a suitable format within an appropriate timeframe.
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Incorporate Analysts into Planning, Execution, and Assessment

In order to improve integration of sociocultural analysis into planning, execution, and assessment of operations, it is critical to include 

analysts with sociocultural expertise in these processes. Having personnel with an understanding of the population and society involved 

in both kinetic and nonkinetic processes helps ensure that operationally relevant population-centric considerations are better accounted 

for in all activities of the counterinsurgent force.

Understand the Limits of Technology

Designers of future intelligence architectures for COIN must be 

wary of overreliance on technology solutions. The various units and 

interagency teams that benefit from sociocultural analysis lack the 

time and, in many situations, the access to make efficient use of too 

many data repositories and systems. Information in databases also 

grows outdated and is not always updated. There is also a limit to how 

much understanding can be gained from accessing databases.

Plan for and Tackle the Challenge of Multiple Databases and IT 

Solutions

As planning for future operations occurs, the number of databases 

and information management systems should be limited to the very 

minimum number required. Arranging accessibility of the databases 

for all cleared interagency partners is also important. Although leaders should limit the number of databases, one single database or system will never meet all requirements. Leaders should also follow the 

advice of a senior intelligence official serving in Afghanistan who 

stated that “the number of databases and operating systems could 

certainly be reduced, but multiple databases and systems must become a planning factor rather than something that catches people off 

guard when they arrive [in theater].”63

KMIT Acquisition Requires Strong, Thoughtful Management

The guiding principle for KMIT acquisition in future conflicts 

must be a system of systems approach, rooted in strong leadership 

and management. Leaders must educate themselves on the nature of 

the true requirements of the force, as well as the preexisting KMIT 
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 439

systems, before making decisions on acquisition of new products. 

Only then can the duplication of effort, illogical approaches, and 

waste that occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan be avoided for KMIT. 

For any KMIT solution to be effective, the proper utilization of KMIT 

tools must be incorporated into training, personnel performance requirements, and rating systems as a forcing function toward personnel compliance with established norms.

Recruiting and Human Resources Must Be Updated

HR departments must be forced to quickly adapt when a campaign 

requires personnel with KSAs that do not exist in the IC. At a minimum, future attempts to staff positions for sociocultural analysis require a careful assessment of what KSAs are needed for each job. 

Contracts must be written with forcing functions that ensure contractors and government HR departments will provide acceptable 

personnel in each position. Hanging job announcements on websites 

and general agency recruiting at job fairs are not effective ways to 

recruit the right people for specialized sociocultural analysis positions. 

A system is also needed for moving new hires that are critical to operations ahead of noncritical personnel for security clearance and 

other predeployment processing.

Adapt Training for the Conflict at Hand, While Maintaining 

Flexibility

Great care needs to be taken to ensure training and education develops the KSAs needed for support to operations. Legacy training 

programs do not necessarily meet new requirements, and contracts 

for trainers must be written in a manner that promotes adaptation of 

training to the realities of a dynamic campaign. It needs to be made 

clear from the start what attributes a candidate must have prior to 

joining the organization, what skills a candidate should gain in training, 

and what expertise a candidate can only gain once on the ground in 

theater. Only then can a training program be crafted appropriately.

Conclusion

This chapter has sought to move beyond the now generally accepted premise that operations in Iraq and Afghanistan required 
440 │ WHITE

greater emphasis on understanding the indigenous population. It has 

focused on analyzing systemic barriers and capturing key issues to 

ensure future planning builds on past experience instead of starting 

from scratch. It is unclear whether improvements on any of the issues 

mentioned above would have changed outcomes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both operations were highly complex endeavors that would 

have challenged even the most prepared COIN force. At the very 

least, however, the development of true solutions to the sociocultural 

analysis gap across the force would have meant that the United States 

was prepared to support the population-centric COIN and stabilization strategy many leaders claimed to be pursuing.

Many efforts were eventually made throughout the course of both 

operations that resulted in progress on the issues highlighted above. 

This was especially true of efforts by fusion centers in the later stages 

of both operations, which in many instances worked to better combine red, white, green, and blue information in a manner that sometimes resulted in more informed decision making. Future operations 

may benefit specifically by the yet to be captured lessons from the 

fusion center in Afghanistan’s Regional Command–East. The “Regional Information Fusion Center” reportedly improved fusion there 

by incorporating traditional red-layer analysts, signals analysts, human intelligence personnel, and imagery analysts with governance 

and development analysts. Also included were corruption analysts, 

negative and positive influencer analysts, atmospherics reporters, 

and HTS personnel. One fusion center analyst shared that “this approach has worked a lot towards providing a holistic view of all the 

layers of RC-East.”64

Despite some improvements, in most cases solutions were the 

product of what many call “building an airplane in flight.” Some attempted solutions were helpful, and some others were unnecessary 

and even counterproductive. Most stopped short of institutional fixes 

representative of standardized best practices. Connable expressed his 

concern about this issue in a 2009 article covering DOD efforts to 

develop what he labeled “inorganic” solutions to the sociocultural 

analysis problem. He writes that there are two approaches to filing the 

sociocultural analysis gap. The first is what he calls “comprehensive 

change.” In this approach, the military would “take all the criticism of 

military cultural training and intelligence analysis to heart, applying 

recent doctrine to long-term knowledge and cultural terrain analysis 

programs. Forcing the services to view the cultural terrain as a co-
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 441

equal element of military terrain—without abandoning core warfighting capabilities—would ensure the kind of all-inclusive focus on 

culture that the Army and Marine Corps applied to maneuver warfare theory in the 1990s.”65 The other approach would be to create “an 

immediate solution in the form of nonorganic personnel, new equipment, and the direct application of external academic support.”66

Writing specifically about the HTS, Connable states that it “essentially adds a quick-fix layer of social science expertise and contracted 

reach back capability to combatant staffs. This ‘build a new empire’ 

proposal is based on the assumption that staffs are generally incapable of solving complex cultural problems on their own.”67 The latter 

approach appears to be the method of choice for many efforts to improve population-centric capabilities, as exemplified by the creation 

of the many ad hoc teams and programs meant to either better understand sociocultural factors or improve population-centric impact: 

HTTs, PRTs, DSTs, AF/PAK Hands, cultural support teams, and female engagement teams.

Despite the ad hoc inorganic approaches of the past, there is evidence that some producers and consumers of intelligence are in the 

process of developing more normalized institutional capabilities. Recently, sociocultural analysis has been given increased attention 

within the US armed forces as part of the discussion on the “human 

domain” in warfare. In their white paper for the US military’s Strategic Land Power Task Force, Gen Raymond Odierno, US Army; Gen 

James Amos, USMC; and Adm William McRaven, US Navy, explain 

that “given the fundamental premise that people are the center of all 

national engagements, it is equally self-evident that war, or more 

broadly, conflict, is also an inherently human endeavor.”68 They argue 

that the human domain is present in every conflict, and it is currently 

being discussed as a sixth domain of warfare. In their work for the 

task force, Frank Hoffman and Thomas X. Hammes have defined the 

human domain as “the aggregate of the moral, cognitive, social, and 

physical aspects of human populations in conflict. It includes the interrelationships of socio-economic, cognitive, and physical aspects of 

human activity in the operational environment.”69 The DOD has also 

championed many other sociocultural analysis developments across 

the IC through the work of the Defense Intelligence Sociocultural 

Capabilities Council. Furthermore, US Central Command developed 

its own intelligence cell for sociocultural analysis, and US Special 

Operations Command has developed a human engagement strategy 
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and is working on integrating human domain concepts into its force 

development efforts. Human geography has emerged as a doctrinal 

concept in the geospatial intelligence field. Additionally, as director 

of DIA, General Flynn coauthored another article that reveals his appetite to reform defense intelligence for improved institutional sociocultural analysis. The authors write,

Hard lessons learned during counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, counterterrorist operations across continents, and the Arab Spring 

all contributed to a growing recognition within the IC of the importance of 

understanding the “human terrain” of operating environments. DOD, its Service branches and combatant commands, and the broader IC responded to 

the demand for sociocultural analysis (SCA) by creating organizations such as 

the Defense Intelligence Socio-Cultural Capabilities Council, Human Terrain 

System, and US Central Command’s Human Terrain Analysis Branch, among 

others. For large bureaucracies, DOD and the IC reacted agilely to the requirement, but the robust SCA capabilities generated across the government 

over the last decade were largely operationally and tactically organized, resourced, and focused. What remains is for the IC to formulate a strategic understanding of SCA and establish a paradigm for incorporating it into the intelligence process.70

For the IC and broader interagency community to make sense of 

the past and prepare for the future, more than a leader is required. A 

true manager is needed to develop an approach that supports future 

sociocultural analysis requirements for COIN and other operations. 

As one intelligence official remarked in 2011, “My contention is that 

in order to support whole of government operations across the interagency and with allies, we need a football coach. There are too many 

people in pockets around the defense IC, defense planning community, 

COCOM [combatant command] staffs, the CIA, USAID, State INR 

[Bureau of Intelligence and Research], HIU [Humanitarian Information Unit] that are doing amazing work and probably most of you are 

pulling your hair out going, who’s actually synchronizing us?”71

If acted upon, many of the lessons and observations from Iraq and 

Afghanistan require broad sweeping reforms that are likely outside 

the ability of most agencies to handle on their own. Management of 

this process requires the ability to reach across several US intelligence 

and nonintelligence agencies to coordinate improvements in the IC 

and the intelligence customer base. It also requires the ability for innovation while navigating the realities of preexisting bureaucracy.

Hard decisions will have to be made about what to cut and what to 

retain, taking great care not to degrade other intelligence capabilities 
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 443

that remain necessary but that do not relate to COIN or sociocultural 

analysis. Legacy intelligence methodologies and social science disciplines will need to be reviewed to determine best practices for operationally relevant sociocultural analysis. These are daunting tasks in 

the face of decades-old status quos. Rice bowls will be threatened, 

and floodgates will be opened for others to take advantage. Through 

tailoring careful analysis of past successes and failures to future national security challenges, the US government can and must develop 

the systems and practices necessary for operationally relevant sociocultural analysis for COIN and other operations. If the United States 

has learned anything in recent conflicts, it is that the need for this 

more comprehensive, mission-relevant understanding of the operational environment can no longer be ignored.

Notes

1. Joint Publication (JP) 3-24, Counterinsurgency, 22 November 2013, now conceptualizes action against the root causes of insurgency as simultaneously addressing 

the opportunity, motive, and means of an insurgency, using both lethal and nonlethal tools of state power.

2. This chapter embraces the explanation of relevant actors published in the 2013 

revised version of JP 3-24, which explains on page IV-2 that in counterinsurgency

the most important component of the OE [operational environment] are the relevant 

actors. These include the population, the COIN force, the HN government, and the insurgents. Other relevant actors may include supporting state actors and non-state actors 

(e.g., transnational terrorist or criminal organizations) and/or the NGO community. By 

first understanding who the relevant actors are and learning as much as possible about 

them, the JFC develops an approach that may influence the actors’ decision-making and 

behavior (active or passive) in a way that is consistent with the desired end state of the 

operation. In a COIN environment, individuals may fit into more than one category of 

actor (e.g., a tribal leader may also work as a district governor, while also working behind the scenes to provide financial and material support to the insurgency).

3. Joint and Coalition Operational Analysis (JCOA), Decade of War, vol. 1, Enduring Lessons from the Past Decade of War, Joint Staff J7 publication (Suffolk, VA: 

JCOA, June 2012), 3.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Senate, Nomination of General David H. Petraeus, USA, for Reappointment to 

the Grade of General, and to be Commander, International Security Assistance Force, 

and Commander, United States Forces Afghanistan, Confirmation Hearing before the 

Committee on Armed Services, 111th Cong., 2nd sess., 29 June 2010, http://armed

-services.senate.gov/Transcripts/2010/06%20June/10-57%20-%206-29-10.pdf.

7. The relevance of sociocultural analysis has been poorly explained in the past. 

However, see Christopher J. Lamb, James Douglas Orton, Michael C. Davies, and 
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Theodore T. Pikulsky, “The Way Ahead for Human Terrain Teams,” Joint Force Quarterly 70, no. 3 (2013), 26, in which the research team notes that 

to explain HTT performance, it is first necessary to explain why commanders typically 

rated HTTs more highly than the people who managed or studied them did, and second, 

to identify the optimum role HTTs could play in an integrated cultural intelligence architecture. It is clear that the large majority of commanders thought their HTTs were 

useful. However, it is not immediately apparent why commanders valued HTTs (or not).

To determine levels of commander expectations for HTT performance, we categorized 

commander praise and criticisms of HTTs according to three levels of cultural knowledge previously postulated by some subject matter experts. The levels roughly equate to 

the social science objectives of accurate description, explanation, and prediction:

First level: Cultural awareness. Basic familiarity with language and religion and an understanding and observance of local norms and boundaries. This roughly equates to 

good description of human terrain. It was often observed by commanders that such 

description is needed at the tactical level, down to battalion and company levels if not 

below.

Second level: Cultural understanding. The “why” of behavior embodied in perceptions, 

mind sets, attitudes, and customs. This roughly equates to explanation of human behaviors. Perhaps because brigade commanders were the focus of interviews, it is not surprising that this level of understanding, which presumably is important at all levels, was 

emphasized at the brigade level.

Third level: Cultural intelligence. The implications of these behaviors and their drivers. 

This roughly equates to anticipation of popular behavior. The ability to anticipate reactions can shape theater-level decisionmaking.

8. Until September 2013, a clear definition of what sociocultural analysis was and 

the purpose that it served was not available in any widely circulated US government 

document. This in itself served as a hindrance to the development of enhanced sociocultural analysis capabilities.

9. Anthony C. Zinni, “Non-Traditional Military Missions: Their Nature, and the 

Need for Cultural Awareness and Flexible Thinking,” in Capital “W” War: A Case for 

Strategic Principles of War, ed. Joseph L. Strange (Quantico, VA: US Marine Corps 

War College, 1998), 267.

10. Robert W. Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional Constraints on 

U.S.-GVN Performance in Vietnam (Washington, DC: RAND, 1972).

11. Ibid., viii.

12. Cofer Black (former CIA official), interview by Lara Logan, 60 Minutes, 14 

May 2012, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hank-crumpton-life-as-a-spy/2/.

13. William J. Olson, “War without a Center of Gravity: Reflections on Terrorism 

and Post-Modern War,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 18, no. 4 (December 2007), 578.

14. This observation is rooted in various discussions among the author and DIA and 

CIA personnel (currently serving and retired) between 2011 and 2013. (unattributed)

15. This paragraph was informed by anonymous discussions with a SOIC team 

leader from Afghanistan and written comments from the former HTS senior social 

scientist, Montgomery McFate.
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 445

16. David Kilcullen, “Intelligence,” in Understanding Counterinsurgency: Doctrine, Operations and Challenges, ed. Thomas Rid and Thomas Keany (New York: 

Routledge, 2010), 148.

17. Michael T. Flynn, Matt Pottinger, and Paul D. Batchelor, Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Center for 

New American Security, January 2010), 7, http://www.cnas.org/files/documents

/publications/AfghanIntel_Flynn_Jan2010_code507_voices.pdf.

18. Ibid.

19. Defense Science Board Task Force on Defense Intelligence, Counterinsurgency 

(COIN) Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Operations (Washington, 

DC: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, 

February 2011), 22–23, http://www.carlisle.army.mil/dime/documents/Defense%20

Science%20Board%20-%20Coin%202011-05-COIN%5B1%5D.pdf.

20. CCO Iraq and Afghanistan interview database. The database consists of over 200 

interviews with military and civilian US personnel who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

21. Interview with senior DOS official, by the author, Washington, DC, November 

2011. (unattributed interview)

22. JCOA, Decade of War, 4–5.

23. Robert W. Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing.

24. This observation is based on the author’s own observations while serving in 

Iraq and the author’s analysis of many comments shared during interview transcripts 

in the CCO Iraq and Afghanistan interview database.

25. Kilcullen, “Intelligence,” 148. 

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid.

28. The assertions in this section are certainly generalizations. It should not be 

forgotten that many individuals, groups, and units did attempt to pursue efforts that 

were more tailored to the local context and appropriate for the nature of the conflict. 

Rajiv Chandrasekaran wrote an article about one such individual, Dr. Carter Malkasian, 

who worked multiple years with the Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, learning to 

speak local languages and facilitating population-centric impacts of value. Interestingly though, Malkasian was not a career state official at the time. In fact, senior 

career state officials, who were interviewed by this author, viewed his efforts as a violation of the rules for DOS officials serving in the field. The contributions of the 

USAID Office of Civil Military Coordination, the USAID Office of Transition Initiatives, and the USAID stabilization unit in Kabul are all examples of USAID attempts 

to adapt to more population-centric and stabilization-focused approaches. However, 

the resources and manpower devoted to each were minimal, compared to those of 

the main USAID development mission. Those organizations were also often seen as 

the red-headed stepchildren by the main offices of the organization, which had little 

motivation for straying from their traditional national development model. Contrary to most general purpose forces, the US special forces were particularly adaptable for local nuance and the population-centric nature of the conflict, especially 

once the Village Stability Operations/Afghan Local Police program developed more 

formally following several other smaller-scale attempts to develop local defense 

forces. At the end of the day, it is hard to judge the success or failure of any of these 

organizations and individuals, since the main contributing offices of civilian and 
446 │ WHITE

military organizations (military general purpose forces, main DOS, and main USAID) 

did not adapt in any comprehensive manner.

29. This observation is based on the author’s own observations while serving in 

Iraq and the author’s analysis of many comments shared during interview transcripts 

in the CCO Iraq and Afghanistan interview database.

30. Fotini Christia and Ruben Enikolopov, “Too Much of a Good Thing,” Foreign 

Policy, 18 December 2013, https://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/12/18/too

_much_of_a_good_thing.

31. Ibid.

32. CCO Iraq and Afghanistan interview database. 33. Interview with a senior 

USAID official, by the author, Kabul, Afghanistan, 2011. (unattributed interview)

34. This observation is based on the author’s own observations while serving in 

Iraq and the author’s analysis of many comments shared during interview transcripts 

in the CCO Iraq and Afghanistan interview database.

35. Categorizing precursors for adaptation in this manner was informed by the 

unpublished 2013 PhD dissertation of Iraq veteran Joshua S. Jones of American University titled “Protecting the Mission: The Case of the Army.”

36. Joint Publication (JP) 2-0, Joint Intelligence, 22 October 2013, II-12.

37. Bard E. O’Neill, Insurgency & Terrorism: Inside Modern Revolutionary (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1990), 78.

38. Army Field Manual (FM) 3-24, Counterinsurgency, 15 December 2006, 3-1.

39. Although the DOS has its own limited intelligence capabilities through INR, 

the DOS in this paper refers to non-INR personnel. The DOS personnel referred to 

in this paper are mainly those serving at the embassies and those serving in the field, 

working at the subnational level in Iraq and Afghanistan.

40. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “In Afghanistan’s Garmser District, Praise for a U.S. 

Official’s Tireless Work,” Washington Post, 13 August 2011, http://www.washingtonpost

.com/world/national-security/in-afghanistans-garmser-district-praise-for-a-us

-officials-tireless-work/2011/07/29/gIQA2Cc0DJ_story.html.

41. This observation is based on the author’s personal experiences in Iraq and on 

discussions between the author and civilian and military personnel in Afghanistan 

during an April 2011 research trip.

42. The US Army defines HTS as “an Army-led, OSD [Office of the Secretary of 

Defense] supported initiative to provide sociocultural teams to commanders and 

staffs at the Army Brigade Combat Team (BCT)/USMC Regimental Combat Team 

(RCT), Army Division/Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), & Corps/Theater levels, in 

order to improve the understanding of the local population and apply this understanding to the Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP).” See Human Terrain System 

Knowledge Center, US Army, “Human Terrain System,” no date, https://htsknowledge

center.army.mil/Home/default.aspx. The Army further defines the HTS mission task: 

“Recruit, train, deploy, and support an embedded, operationally focused sociocultural 

capability; conduct operationally relevant, sociocultural research and analysis; develop and maintain a sociocultural knowledge base to support operational decision 

making, enhance operational effectiveness, and preserve and share sociocultural institutional knowledge.” See Col Sharon R. Hamilton, “HTS Director’s Message,” Military 

Intelligence Professional Bulletin, October–December 2011, i, http://humanterrainsys

tem.army.mil/MIPB_Oct-Dec11.pdf.
DEVELOPING INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITIES │ 447

43. Informed by a comment by former HTS senior social scientist, Montgomery 

McFate, who witnessed and engaged in many US government discussions about the 

HTS relationship with the IC.

44. James W. Derleth and Jason S. Alexander, “Stability Operations: From Policy to 

Practice,” PRISM 2, no. 3 (June 2011), 128. See the chapter by Jason S. Alexander, James 

W. Derleth, and Sloan Mann in this publication for a more thorough description of DSF.

45. A major improvement in Afghanistan came in the form of stability working 

groups, in which interagency partners would meet regularly, eventually also with Afghan 

partners, to share information and develop collaborative approaches toward stabilization.

46. Feedback from SOIC analyst in 2012 on earlier drafts of this paper.

47. Stanley McChrystal, “Generation Kill,” Foreign Affairs, March–April 2013, http://

www.foreignaffairs.com/discussions/interviews/generation-kill?page=5&cid=oth-cfr

-callout-ma13-02192013.

48. Ben Connable, Military Intelligence Fusion for Complex Operations: A New Paradigm (Washington, DC: RAND, 2012), 1, http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand

/pubs/occasional_papers/2012/RAND_OP377.pdf.

49. This concept was informed by a presentation at the 7th Annual Lessons 

Learned Conference, hosted at National Defense University, 30 November–2 December 2011. Panelists presented under Chatham House Rule for nonattribution.

50. UK Ministry of Defence (MOD), Joint Doctrine Publication 04, Understanding (Shrivenham, UK: The Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre, MOD, December 2010), iii, https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.gov.uk/government

/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/33701/JDP04Webfinal

.pdf&sa=U&ei=LF8fU_CMEcrA0gHhnIGACg&ved=0CCQQFjAB&sig2=wodqD8

kp6Wz-_IL1HnGrcQ&usg=AFQjCNFiF34_IsVYQI8HL-k_NE14kCwLCA.

51. Michael T. Flynn and Charles A. Flynn, “Integrating Intelligence and Information,” Military Review 92, no. 1 (January–February 2012), 5, http://usacac.army.mil

/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20120229_art005.pdf.

52. S. Rebecca Zimmerman, “Know Thine Enemy,” SAISPHERE, 3 January 2011, 

http://web.archive.org/web/20120427211950/http://media.sais-jhu.edu/saisphere

/article/know-thine-enemy.

53. SOIC analyst, recently returned from serving in Afghanistan, discussion 

with author, February 2012. (unattributed)

54. Zimmerman, “Know Thine Enemy.”

55. Author interviews with task force and PRT members in Washington, DC, 

and Kandahar respectively, 2011. (unattributed interviews)

56. Joint IED Task Force, “Cultural Preparation of the Environment Pilot Information Sheet,” 19 July 2005.

57. Montgomery McFate and Steve Fondacaro, “Reflections on the Human Terrain System during the First 4 Years,” PRISM 2, no. 4 (September 2011), 66, http://

cco.dodlive.mil/files/2014/02/Prism_63-82_McFate-Fondacaro.pdf.

58. Interview with a medical officer, by the author, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, 2011. (unattributed interview)

59. National Research Council, Intelligence Analysis for Tomorrow: Advances 

from the Behavioral and Social Sciences (Washington, DC: The National Academies 

Press, 2011), 50, http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=13040&page=50.
448 │ WHITE

60. Defense Science Board Task Force on Defense Intelligence, Counterinsurgency 

(COIN) Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) Operations, vii.

61. The author made these observations while working in Iraq, serving in the Human Terrain System training directorate, and again during lessons learned research on 

training for Afghanistan at the Department of State Foreign Service Institute.

62. Informed by the unpublished 2013 PhD dissertation of Iraq veteran Joshua S. 

Jones of American University titled “Protecting the Mission: The Case of the Army.”

63. Intelligence fusion center leadership, interview by the author, Afghanistan, 

April 2011. (unattributed interview)

64. HTS social scientist, interview by the author, 2011. (unattributed interview)

65. Ben Connable, “All Our Eggs in a Broken Basket: How the Human Terrain 

System Is Undermining Sustainable Cultural Competence,” Military Review 89, no. 2 

(March–April 2009), 57.

66. Ibid.

67. Ibid.

68. Raymond Odierno, James Amos, and William McRaven, “Strategic Land 

Power: Winning the Clash of Wills” (white paper, Strategic Land Power Task Force, 

US Department of Defense, Washington, DC, 2013), http://www.tradoc.army.mil

/FrontPageContent/Docs/Strategic%20Landpower%20White%20Paper.pdf.

69. Frank Hoffman and Michael C. Davies, “Joint Force 2020 and Human Dynamics: Time for a New Conceptual Framework?” Small Wars Journal, 10 June 2013, 

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/joint-force-2020-and-the-human-domain

-time-for-a-new-conceptual-framework.

70. Michael T. Flynn, James Sisco, and David C. Ellis, “Left of Bang: The Value of 

Sociocultural Analysis in Today’s Environment,” PRISM 3, no.4 (September 2012), 13.

71. Statement made by a presenter at a March 2011 event at National Defense University entitled “Interagency Human Terrain Projects and Programs.” All presentations and 

discussions were unclassified but held under Chatham House Rule for nonattribution.
Chapter 23

The Provincial Reconstruction Team 

Experience in Iraq

A Case Study for Improving Integration in Stabilization 

and Reconstruction Operations

Stuart W. Bowen, Jr.

Improvisation characterized many aspects of the civilian-military 

rebuilding experience in Iraq. For want of established management 

architecture to execute stabilization and reconstruction operations 

(SRO), the United States established a series of temporary offices to 

satisfy the exigent demands of the ever-evolving Iraq mission. This 

array of offices, amounting to an “acronymic adhocracy,” became 

necessary because the US government then lacked an existing capacity to plan and manage contingency reconstruction operations. It still 

lacks it today.

The first ad hoc office was the short-lived Office of Reconstruction 

and Humanitarian Assistance, followed quickly by its successor, the 

Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which existed for 13 months 

and created many new temporary offices like the Program Management Office (PMO). The Project and Contracting Office (PCO) succeeded the PMO. A Department of Defense (DOD)–run entity, the 

PCO sought, with limited success, to work with the Department of 

State’s (DOS) Iraq Reconstruction Management Office. The latter was 

succeeded by the Iraq Transition Assistance Office, which, in turn, 

was succeeded by the Iraq Strategic Partnership Office. This mash-up 

of ad hoc offices and their frequently short-shrifted projects unsurprisingly failed to produce the consistently effective outcomes necessary 

for strategic success. Notwithstanding this adhocracy, all was not lost.

One of the most notable—if not the most notable—innovations during the Iraq SRO was the development and implementation of the provincial reconstruction team (PRT) program. The challenges encountered and painfully overcome by this novel enterprise during its six-year 

lifespan constitute a microcosm of the broader Iraq reconstruction experience. The lessons drawn from the PRT program emphasize the need 

to develop an integrated civilian-military system for SRO management.
450 │ BOWEN

From its inception in 2005, the PRT program struggled to gain 

traction because of staffing shortfalls, funding limitations, and doctrinal disputes. My office, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), documented these challenges in five audits of 

the PRTs. During the course of these reviews, SIGIR auditors visited 

numerous PRT locations, repeatedly finding that the extemporaneous nature of the overall effort exacerbated weaknesses inherent in a 

reconstruction operation carried out under fire.1

With the September 2011 closure of the last four—Basra, Erbil, 

Ninewa (Mosul), and Tameem (Kirkuk) PRTs—the full extent of the 

program’s lasting effects on Iraqi governance capacities remained to 

be judged. However, one outcome was clear: the PRTs contributed to 

the growth of provincial governance capacities, despite limitations 

imposed by various management adhocracies.

The Provincial Reconstruction Team 

Program Comes to Iraq

In the face of a growing insurgency that enveloped Iraq in 2004 

and 2005, the reconstruction program stalled. The Baghdad-centric 

nature of the effort made it difficult to plan and implement projects 

across the provinces. Innovation was needed. It came in late 2005 

when US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, in conjunction with 

Gen George Casey, US Army, commander of Multi-National Force–

Iraq (MNF–I), established the PRT program.2

The lingering legacy of Ba’athist socialism, with its focus on centralized planning and control, made it essential that this new initiative spread well beyond the limits of Baghdad’s fortress-like “Green 

Zone.” Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s statist economy had a byzantine 

administrative structure. Baghdad-based bureaucrats drove budgeting 

and service delivery through ministries that funded and controlled 

government operations across the country.

The CPA sought to supplant this anachronistic power structure, 

devolving governance to the local level and empowering provincial 

and city officials to manage service provision. However, the CPA had 

neither the time nor the resources to move this ambitious vision beyond its initial stages. Security problems overwhelmed the initiative, 

as they did with regard to virtually everything else in Iraq during 

2003 and 2004. Subsequent to the June 2004 transfer of sovereignty to 
THE PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAM EXPERIENCE IN IRAQ │ 451

the Interim Iraqi Authority and Amb. John Negroponte’s subsequent 

funding shifts bolstering security programs, Ambassador Khalilzad 

reenergized the decentralization initiative, opening the first three 

PRTs in the fall of 2005.

Baghdad Cable 4045, issued jointly by the US Embassy–Baghdad 

and MNF–I in October 2005, formally established the program.3

Ambassador Khalilzad modeled the initiative on a similar effort he 

shaped in Afghanistan, where he had served as ambassador from 

2003 to 2005. Pursuant to Khalilzad’s vision, the PRTs would provide 

integrated multidisciplinary civilian-military teams composed of US 

and coalition personnel to work with provincial and local Iraqi officials 

on improving their core competencies in governance and economic 

development.4 Reflecting the diverse nature of the effort, the PRTs 

comprised personnel from the DOS and the DOD, the US Agency for 

International Development (USAID), the Department of Justice (DOJ), 

the Department of Agriculture, the US Army Corps of Engineers, coalition partners, and a wide variety of contractors.5

 Unlike in Afghanistan, the majority of PRT personnel in Iraq were civilians.

Start-Up Struggles

Given the deteriorating security situation in 2006, the PRTs’ initial 

operations proved extraordinarily challenging. A SIGIR audit found 

that, of the nine PRTs and four satellite offices reviewed, four were 

generally capable, four were somewhat capable, three were less than 

capable, and two were deemed unable to carry out the mission.6

The most difficult challenge in standing up the program was finding 

enough qualified persons willing to operate in the dangerous environments dominating Iraq in 2006. To compensate for the paucity of 

personnel, MNF–I provided staffing from its civil-affairs components. 

This infusion enabled the PRTs to function better, notwithstanding that 

too many of these personnel did not possess the skills necessary for the 

positions to which they had been assigned—an unfortunate and oftrepeated theme in the Iraq rebuilding story.7

The PRT program’s growing pains, perhaps an ineluctable consequence of a novel war-zone initiative, were exacerbated by the DOS 

and the DOD’s inability to form a synchronous working relationship 

at program inception. For example, when the US embassy and MNF–I 

jointly resolved to establish the program, they agreed that the embassy 
452 │ BOWEN

would support PRTs at DOS sites and MNF–I would support the 

PRTs at military sites. However, in April 2006 the Multi-National 

Corps–Iraq Staff Judge Advocate ruled that the DOS was responsible 

for the entire PRT mission and that DOD operations and maintenance funds could not be used to support any PRT. This decision 

stopped the program in its tracks. 

The consequent delay in signing a crucial DOD/DOS memorandum 

of agreement on sharing operational requirements and responsibilities 

impeded PRT progress in Iraq.8

 This bureaucratic quandary, finally 

rectified in mid-2006, cost the program six months of progress at a 

crucial point during the Iraq rebuilding effort.

The 2006 SIGIR visits to the PRTs at Ninewa (Mosul), Tameem 

(Kirkuk), Salah Al-Din, and Diyala Provinces catalogued serious 

support problems, a consequence of this DOD/DOS imbroglio.9

 The 

shortfalls included inadequate office space, limited information technology support, and a severe lack of basic supplies. For example, the 

Salah Al-Din PRT had few computers, no copiers, and only three 

phones to accomplish its mission. The PRT’s members commonly 

used their own computers at the office.10

The first PRTs lacked sufficient funding for operational activities, 

functioning without the dedicated budgets necessary to support basic 

operations. PRT members often used personal funds to host luncheons for Iraqi officials. According to PRT team leaders interviewed 

by SIGIR, an inordinate amount of time went to solving support 

problems, as opposed to substantively engaging in the mission. One 

team leader estimated spending 40 percent of her time in 2006 working on logistical support problems.11

Another issue that faced the early program was the shortage of staff 

that spoke Arabic and understood Iraqi culture and history. Although 

bilingual bicultural advisors (BBA) were critical to the program, less 

than 5 percent of all PRT team members in September 2007, or 29 of 

610 positions, were BBAs. While the mission tried to identify and vet 

Iraqi BBAs, meeting staffing needs was an enormous challenge.12

The Provincial Reconstruction Teams’ 

Role in the Surge

On 10 January 2007, Pres. George W. Bush announced the “surge” 

of five additional combat brigades into Iraq. Concomitant with this 
THE PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAM EXPERIENCE IN IRAQ │ 453

troop increase came an expansion of the number of PRTs, supplementing the existing 10 with another 15, most embedding directly 

into MNF–I brigade combat teams. These “embedded provincial reconstruction teams” (ePRT), one-third of which were in and around 

Baghdad, operated in unstable neighborhoods, working with Iraqi 

district and municipal leaders to pacify zones of conflict.13

The Creation of the Office of Provincial Affairs

On 8 May 2007, Amb. Ryan Crocker, the US chief of mission, established the Office of Provincial Affairs (OPA) to oversee the expansion 

of the PRT program.14 Under the leadership of an ambassador-level 

coordinator, OPA was charged with synchronizing the governance, reconstruction, security, and economic development activities of the 

PRTs. Creating OPA’s management structure proved difficult, and the 

new office encountered significant challenges in integrating several 

hundred new personnel and standing up more than a dozen new PRTs.

There were a significant number of obstacles:

•  A significant number of civilian and military staff members finished their employment contracts or tours of duty before their 

replacements arrived.15

•  Several senior OPA positions—including the director and chief

of staff—were filled on temporary-duty orders until permanent 

replacements could be identified. 

•  Many junior OPA positions, including program assessment and

provincial desk officers, remained vacant for long periods.

•  The OPA coordinator, a retired ambassador, spent less than

three weeks in Baghdad before returning to Washington for several weeks to fulfill predeployment training requirements.16

•  Staffing assignments were frequently changed and guidance on

job descriptions and individual performance expectations was 

poor.17

Over time, OPA improved field support on policy and programmatic 

initiatives. However, according to former senior OPA staff and PRT 

members, the focus on implementing the surge and the standing up of 

the new ePRTs came at the expense of fully supporting the existing 

PRTs.18 OPA had an enormously challenging first year, with continuous 
454 │ BOWEN

demands piling up as the management team sought to steady the organization’s structure in the face of growing violence. As with the security 

situation in Iraq, OPA’s operational capacity improved post surge.

Measuring Performance: A Continuing Challenge

The PRTs were rushed into the field not only with inadequate resources and personnel but also with ill-defined missions and weak 

systems for measuring effectiveness. In an October 2006 audit report, 

SIGIR recommended that the secretaries of state and defense take 

action to better define the PRTs’ objectives and performance measures and to develop milestones for achieving the objectives.19

A follow-up July 2007 SIGIR audit noted the following challenges still 

confronting OPA’s management oversight and reporting on the program:

According to current and former officials responsible for managing the assessment program for OPA, there is no linkage between the monthly reports 

generated by the PRTs and what the PRTs are expected to accomplish in their 

work plans, such as assisting the provincial governments in planning, developing, and implementing a provincial development strategy and executing 

their budgets. The current performance-monitoring system was not designed 

to provide information on what was being accomplished by the PRTs. Furthermore, PRT officials told us that OPA has not provided them any feedback 

on their monthly assessment reports or guidance on whether to modify or 

adjust their work plans. According to PRT officials and managers, a successful 

performance monitoring system must allow for assessing PRTs individually, 

not collectively, because each function in unique economic and political environments.20

Responding to SIGIR’s findings, OPA developed a performanceassessment system called the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) assessment process. The CMM required each PRT to submit a quarterly 

assessment of its province’s capacity based on five lines of activity: 

governance, political development, economic development, political 

reconciliation, and rule of law.

According to OPA’s Planning and Assessment User Guide, the 

CMM was to serve as the basis for preparing work plans to address 

activities needing attention. However, a January 2009 SIGIR audit of 

the performance-measurement process found that only about one 

quarter of PRTs had updated their work plans based on CMM assessments.21 Moreover, assessments of provincial capacity were derived largely 

from the subjective impressions of PRT personnel and Iraqi-supplied 
THE PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAM EXPERIENCE IN IRAQ │ 455

data, rendering their utility questionable. As a rule, self-oversight 

rarely works well.

Anbar PRT: An Example of Effective

Civilian-Military Integration

After traveling to Ramadi in April 2011 to meet with PRT personnel and local Iraqi officials, SIGIR found that the Anbar PRT had the 

best coordination between civilian and military components of any 

visited by SIGIR over the past four years. This is attributable in part to 

the fact that some team members had spent three to five years at the 

same location. There were also several US military and civilian personnel embedded with provincial government officials at their offices. According to PRT officials, all Commander’s Emergency Response Program (CERP) projects and nearly all Quick Response 

Fund projects had received about 50 percent of their financing from 

Iraqi sources. In addition, these projects had Iraqi support from the 

start because they obtained input from local communities, nongovernmental organizations, or provincial government officials.22

Weak Unity of Effort

SIGIR’s findings on PRTs resonated in a report by Blake Stone, a 

Naval War College professor who spent 18 months with the Baghdad 

PRT between 2008 and 2010.23 His observations stem from events 

witnessed firsthand several years after the program’s inception.

Stone noted that neither the embassy nor OPA ever issued “guidance 

to the field that was of any benefit” to the PRTs.24 Moreover, he recollected that PRT projects were often undertaken without coordinating 

with the local government of Iraq representatives.25 Finally, there appeared to be little linkage between the strategic and tactical levels of 

reconstruction operations, resulting in wasteful disconnects between 

“projects and other reconstruction efforts executed at the local level 

and the achievement of [the United States] strategic end state.”26

Criticizing the DOS and the DOD for chronically failing to coordinate reconstruction efforts, Stone observed that PRT attempts to 

develop local capacity were repeatedly undercut by US commanders, 

“who evaluated relative ‘success’ by the amount of CERP money obligated.”27 In Stone’s estimation, there was an “almost complete lack of 
456 │ BOWEN

unity [of] effort” between the civilian PRTs and local military commanders, hampering both the civilian-led reconstruction effort and 

the military‘s kinetic operations. 28

The United Kingdom’s PRT effort in Basra encountered similar 

challenges. In a lessons-learned report on the activities of the Basra 

PRT, the British government concluded that the failure to integrate 

the efforts of its various ministries involved in stabilization and reconstruction operations caused “substantial administrative difficulty” 

and that the program “failed to achieve its potential.”29 Several key 

findings from this report buttress the argument for an integrated approach to planning and executing SROs:

•  When conducting SROs, integrated planning is as important as

integrated execution.

•  Integration is not divisible, nor can it be imposed. The civilianmilitary relationship cannot be fashioned in an ad hoc manner.

•  Where integrated bodies such as the PRT are raised in the future, they should be recruited by a single authority. Ideally such 

groups would train together and deploy as a formed body, with 

that single authority financially and administratively responsible 

for the operating requirements of the group.

•  A whole-of-government approach requires procedural and

structural change at all levels of government if it is to be successfully undertaken.30

Reforming Civilian-Military Efforts

in Contingency Operations

The PRT experience in Iraq strongly supports the widely evident 

need to reform the US government’s approach to SROs. Previous reform initiatives indicate that the US government will review and revise SRO management systems when needed. However, the previous 

attempts—such as the DOS Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS)—have had limited success; indeed, the interagency community as a whole has yet to settle on an 

enduring workable solution.

The DOS December 2010 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development 

Review proposed creating a new Bureau of Crisis and Stabilization 
THE PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAM EXPERIENCE IN IRAQ │ 457

Operations (CSO), subsuming S/CRS. It is still not clear, however, to 

what extent CSO can exercise greater authority in planning for SROs. 

Notwithstanding CSO’s impressive advent, there still is no single US 

government agency that devotes its mission to planning, executing, 

and overseeing SROs. For the DOS, the DOD, and USAID, SROs are an 

additional duty of those large agencies’ much more expansive missions.

To resolve the diffusion of responsibilities, SIGIR proposed the 

creation of the US Office for Contingency Operations (USOCO). 

USOCO would unify, streamline, and integrate the varied SRO mission 

elements now scattered across the government, including the DOS 

CSO-S/CRS paradigm, the DOD stabilization and reconstruction 

programs, the DOJ international police-training office, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Technical Assistance, and USAID’s 

Office of Transition Initiatives. This reform would consolidate or coordinate existing SRO elements, eliminating the layering that currently exists. The efficiencies achieved by reducing redundancies and 

integrating resources would produce a more unified and cost-effective 

approach to contingency operations, while increasing the likelihood 

of mission success.

Cognizant of the need for better civilian-military integration, several North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies formed SRO management offices, including the UK (the Stabilization Unit or SU) and 

Canada (Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force or START). 

Along with similar SRO agencies from Denmark and the Netherlands, the SU and START deployed personnel to Afghanistan, where 

they contributed subject matter experts to several PRTs.

Operating under chief of mission authority and in close coordination with the combatant commander, USOCO would serve as the locus for planning, funding, staffing, and managing SROs, replacing 

the fragmented process that now exists, and USOCO would also 

solve the so-called “lead agency” dilemma. In the words of one former senior National Security Council official, “lead agency really 

means sole agency, as no one will follow the lead agency if its direction substantially affects their organizational equities.”31 The creation 

of an office explicitly responsible for managing SROs will answer the 

question of which agency is in charge.

USOCO would capture the best practices from the Iraq and Afghanistan SROs, improve upon them, and institutionally preserve them for 

future use. The wisdom of a well-ordered local capacity development 

program—which OPA and the PRTs, at their best, represented—should 
458 │ BOWEN

be practiced and prepared so that when such a capacity is needed next 

in an SRO, it need not be pulled together on an ad hoc basis. A wise 

man once said, “Proper planning prevents poor performance.” True, 

but with reference to SROs, this directive needs a structure for its 

promise to be realized. That structure could be USOCO, but the US 

Congress must act for the idea to become a reality. 

Notes

1. These reports are accessible at http://www.sigir.mil.

2. Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), SIGIR-06-034, Status of the Provincial Reconstruction Team Program in Iraq (Baghdad: 

SIGIR, 29 October 2006), http://www.sigir.mil/files/audits/06-034.pdf.

3. National Security Presidential Directives 36 and 44 provided the policy and 

organizational framework for US civilian-military organizations to implement reconstruction and stabilization programs.

4. SIGIR, SIGIR-09-020, Provincial Reconstruction Teams: Developing a CostTracking Process Will Enhance Decision-Making (Baghdad: SIGIR, 28 April 2009), 

http://www.sigir.mil/files/audits/09-020.pdf.

5. SIGIR, SIGIR-06-034, Status of the Provincial Reconstruction Team Program in Iraq.

6. Ibid.

7. SIGIR, SIGIR-07-014, Status of the Provincial Reconstruction Team Expansion 

in Iraq (Baghdad: SIGIR, 25 July 2007), http://www.sigir.mil/files/audits/07-014.pdf. 

8. SIGIR, SIGIR-06-034, Status of the Provincial Reconstruction Team Program in Iraq.

9. In June 2006, with the closing of Forward Operating Base Courage, the 

Ninewa PRT was relocated to Forward Operating Base Marez. Kirkuk PRT members 

were divided between the regional embassy office in downtown Kirkuk and Forward 

Operating Base Warrior on the city’s outskirts.

10. SIGIR, SIGIR-06-034, Status of the Provincial Reconstruction Team Program 

in Iraq.

11. Ibid.

12. House, Testimony of Ginger Cruz Deputy Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction before House Committee on Armed Services, 110th Cong., 1st sess., 5 September 2007, http://www.sigir.mil/files/testimony/SIGIR_Testimony_07-014T.pdf.

13. SIGIR, SIGIR-07-014, Status of the Provincial Reconstruction Team Expansion in Iraq.

14. The Iraq Reconstruction Management Office was established as a temporary 

organization under National Security Presidential Directive 36 and was responsible 

for providing operational guidance and direction to the PRTs. US Code Title 5, § 

3161, states that temporary organizations have a life span not to exceed three years. 

It was established on 11 May 2004 and was dissolved on 8 May 2007.

15. SIGIR, SIGIR-07-014, Status of the Provincial Reconstruction Team Expansion 

in Iraq.

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid.
THE PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAM EXPERIENCE IN IRAQ │ 459

18. Ibid.

19. SIGIR, SIGIR, 06-034, Status of the Provincial Reconstruction Team Program 

in Iraq.

20. SIGIR, SIGIR-07-014, Status of the Provincial Reconstruction Team Expansion in Iraq.

21. SIGIR, SIGIR-09-013, Provincial Reconstruction Teams’ Performance Measurement Process Has Improved (Baghdad: SIGIR, 28 January 2009), http://www.sigir

.mil/files/audits/09-013.pdf.

22. SIGIR interviews with Anbar PRT personnel and Government of Iraq officials, April 2011. (unattributed interviews)

23. Blake Stone, “Blind Ambition: Lessons Learned and Not Learned in an Embedded PRT,” PRISM 1, no. 4 (September 2010), 152, http://www.ndu.edu/press/lib

/images/prism1-4/Prism_147-158_Stone.pdf.

24. Ibid., 151.

25. Ibid., 152.

26. Ibid. 

27. Ibid., 157.

28. Ibid., 154.

29. Post Conflict Reconstruction Unit (UK), The Establishment and Operation of 

the Basra Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), April 2006–January 2007: Lessons 

Identified (London, UK: Post Conflict Reconstruction Unit, 26 March 2007), 10, 13, 

http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/47317/lessons-identified-basraprt-06-07.pdf.

30. Ibid., 1–2.

31. Hans Binnendijk and Patrick M. Cronin, eds., Civilian Surge: Key to Complex 

Operations (Washington, DC: National Defense University, December 2008), 29, 

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA492662.

Chapter 24

Fostering Effective Civilian-Military 

Integration

The Need for a Standardized, Field-Based

Stabilization Methodology

Jason S. Alexander, James W. Derleth, and Sloan Mann

Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.

—Narcotics Anonymous

The attacks of 11 September 2001 fundamentally altered America’s 

perspective on national security. Examining the causes of the attacks 

and the responses required to diminish the likelihood of future attacks, the Bush administration undertook a comprehensive national 

security review. Two significant findings emerged. First, contemporary threats facing the United States cannot be sufficiently mitigated 

by military force alone. And second, it is necessary to stabilize failing 

or failed states to diminish the grievances terrorists and other spoilers 

use to mobilize support for their causes. The Obama administration’s 

May 2010 National Security Strategy (NSS) reinforced these findings, 

stating that “[the United States] must address the underlying political 

and economic deficits that foster instability, enable radicalization and 

extremism, and ultimately undermine the ability of governments to 

manage threats within their borders and to be our [US] partners in 

addressing common challenges.”1

 However, almost a decade after first 

identifying threats emanating from unstable countries, the United 

States still lacks the ability to effectively counter these challenges.

The NSS further stated that the United States must take steps that 

include “more effectively ensuring the alignment of resources with 

[US] national security strategy, adapting the education and training 

of national security professionals to equip them to meet modern 

challenges, reviewing authorities and mechanisms to implement and 

coordinate assistance programs, and other policies and programs 

that strengthen coordination.”2
462 │ ALEXANDER, DERLETH, & MANN

Searching for solutions that would bring together the knowledge 

and skills required to mitigate sources of instability at the tactical 

level, an old idea was resurrected: integrated civilian-military teams. 

The provincial reconstruction teams (PRT) in Afghanistan and Iraq 

are the contemporary iteration of this concept. This chapter examines 

the history of civilian-military teams from Vietnam to Afghanistan. 

It identifies recurring challenges that limit their effectiveness: an inability to overcome bureaucratic obstacles, irrelevant metrics, and the 

lack of a common, standardized tactical-level stabilization assessment and planning methodology. It proposes the adoption of the Interagency District Stability Framework to address these challenges.

Background: Civilian-Military Teams in Vietnam

Integrating civilian and military capabilities in support of foreign 

policy goals is not a new phenomenon. Civilian-military teams have 

been deployed numerous times this century. Perhaps the most noted 

example is the Civilian Operations and Rural Development Support 

(CORDS) program in Vietnam.

CORDS was the first effort to integrate the numerous activities 

conducted by the military, US Agency for International Development 

(USAID), Department of State (DOS), and other US government 

agencies into one program. Under CORDS, US government civilians 

worked with US and South Vietnamese military personnel to establish 

programs designed to win popular support, mitigate North Vietnamese 

political influence, enhance South Vietnamese government legitimacy, and diminish popular support for the insurgency.3

Robert Komer developed and initially led CORDS. Pres. Lyndon 

B. Johnson personally selected Komer because of his strong personality (his nickname was “Blowtorch Bob”) and his ability to overcome 

administrative obstacles. Identifying the bureaucracy as a major impediment to an integrated civilian-military effort, Komer attempted 

to merge various government entities into a unified organizational 

structure with a common mission. His rationale centered on the notion 

that “[it was] realistically concluded no one of these [individual 

agency] plans—relatively inefficient and wasteful in the chaotic, corrupted Vietnamese wartime context—could be decisive. But together 

they could hope to have a major cumulative effect.”4

 CORDS personnel 

were to supervise the formulation and execution of both civilian and 

military plans, policies, and programs.5

 The breadth of CORDS’s mandate 
FOSTERING EFFECTIVE CIVILIAN-MILITARY INTEGRATION │ 463

and President Johnson’s personal support gave Komer considerable influence. Not only did Komer’s authority stretch “over seven civilian 

agencies, he also had considerable say in the mobilization of military 

resources to support the President’s pacification commitment.”6

The CORDS program was pioneering on many levels. CORDS district advisors had few security restrictions and were able to move 

freely among the population. They also had extensive language training and served tours that often lasted a year or more. These factors 

allowed them to gain a detailed understanding of the local operating 

environment. District advisors also had direct access to resources, 

allowing them to quickly take advantage of opportunities.

Nevertheless, CORDS faced numerous challenges that limited its 

effectiveness. While it attempted to mitigate bureaucratic obstacles, it 

was still not immune from attempts to undermine it: 

Even after Ambassador Komer was in position as Deputy Military Assistance 

Command, Vietnam for CORDS—and a more dynamic and forceful Washington-savvy power-broker would be hard to find—the struggle continued. 

Komer had to fight any number of attempts to chip away at the CORDS structure, limit its scope, or keep additional pacification-related programs from 

falling under his sway. Komer’s challenges in the field were compounded by 

continual challenges with gaining backing and financing from Washington. 

Perhaps the most unfortunate result of these bureaucratic difficulties was the 

time it took for the critical nature of the situation to become evident before 

the various agency interests could be forged together into one structure.7

Although CORDS made some progress in fostering a unified civilianmilitary effort, a May 1970 report by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense noted its limits, claiming that “what is required in 

addition to improved management, a more rational use of forces, better 

integration and coordination of both efforts and resources, is a more 

balanced political-military structure. Emphasis must be shifted to the 

political arena at the village level.”8

 In short, CORDS was unable to 

overcome interagency challenges in Vietnam.

While CORDS was a population-centric strategy focused on enhancing local governance, economic capacity, and security to stabilize an 

area, the military remained focused on traditional enemy-centric warfare. This often undermined CORDS’s approach. These different strategies revealed deep conceptual differences within the US government.

As an illustration, in 1969 the US Marine Corps (USMC) launched 

Operation Russell Beach/Bold Mariner, described as a “clearing” operation that directly supported the US pacification strategy.9

 While 
464 │ ALEXANDER, DERLETH, & MANN

the USMC considered the operation a “‘successful invasion of an enemy 

sanctuary’ and the province advisor called it a symbol of the successful 

expansion of government control, these ‘gains’ proved ephemeral. Allied 

forces had entered a communist stronghold but failed to eliminate it. Vietcong forces in the area continued to levy taxes and abduct local officials. 

Over eleven thousand people had been uprooted and their homes 

destroyed.”10 Louis Wiesner, a former CORDS official, noted the effect of these types of operations: “When relocated people are then left 

without adequate assistance by the GVN [Government of Vietnam], 

their enmity is further increased. . . . The GVN is bringing groups of 

the enemy into its midst and hardening their hostility by the callous 

treatment it accords them. This is a good recipe for losing the war.”11

This example illustrates the challenge of competing strategies and 

priorities, a recurring problem that faced civilian-military teams conducting stability operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As one civilianmilitary veteran noted, it is very difficult to persuade field combat commanders to support nonlethal civil operations with people, resources, 

and operational influence when field commanders considered themselves on “war footing.” This situation persists despite directives from 

strategic-level commanders to support civilian-military teams.12 While 

it is understandable for bureaucracies to default to core missions and 

competencies, an important lesson from Vietnam is that even with a 

unified command structure, without a common strategy based on local 

conditions, civilian-military teams will be ineffective.

Another substantial CORDS shortcoming was its assessment metrics. Komer realized showing “progress” was crucial for continued 

political support.13 To demonstrate progress, the Hamlet Evaluation 

System (HES) was created.14 Its goal was to quantify the effectiveness 

of programs in pacifying an area. Critics claimed it was too complicated and subjective, since it was filled in by district advisors, who 

had a stake in reporting positive results.15 This failing was the result 

of the HES being designed as a tool for strategic-level policy makers, 

not field personnel.

Although focused on security, HES included some “development” 

indicators covering issues such as economic growth or public works. 

Noteworthy, the hamlet evaluation worksheet (HEW) questionnaire 

did not include local perceptions or questions about local sources of 

instability (SOI). 16 If SOIs were not directly related to an HES question, 

they were not officially recorded and reported. The lack of local perception data undermined the basic premise of stabilization programming, 
FOSTERING EFFECTIVE CIVILIAN-MILITARY INTEGRATION │ 465

for example, identifying and mitigating the local sources of instability 

as seen through the eyes of the local population.

Realizing this shortcoming, leaders developed the Pacification Attitude Assessment System (PAAS). As with the HES, the new system’s 

primary purpose was to inform strategic-level policy makers on 

overall pacification progress, not assist district advisors develop locally tailored stabilization programs. Although the HES and PAAS 

helped practitioners understand their operating environment, it was 

ultimately up to each individual district advisor to determine how 

best to stabilize his or her area. While CORDS developed innovative 

systems of civilian-military integration and data collection, it failed 

to develop metrics to assist tactical and strategic decision makers 

choose informed policy decisions.

Another limitation of HES was tremendous pressure to meet reporting deadlines, leading to inaccurate assessments. One CORDS 

veteran noted:

The intent of these [HES] reports was good, but like so many good bureaucratic intentions, the idea was weakest at the point of practical application. I 

saw DSAs give the reports they should have filled out themselves to their less 

informed and less experienced subordinates. Sometimes the instructions 

would be to just fill in the blanks with anything that seemed reasonable. Meeting the deadline for submission of the report was the important thing, not 

accuracy. Often reports on hamlets were filled in when the hamlet had never 

been seen by the DSA or any of his team members. Instead of a firsthand look, 

the overworked DSA might take the word or opinion of a local Vietnamese 

official about the situation in some remote hamlet. While the Vietnamese colleague might in fact know of the situation in that hamlet, his motives in giving 

an opinion might have been viewed with some skepticism.17

Perhaps the most important factor that limited the effectiveness of 

CORDS was the lack of a comprehensive stabilization methodology. 

While CORDS collected a lot of data, it never developed an analytical 

methodology practitioners could use to gather local input, combine it 

with other sources of information to identify local sources of instability, design programs to mitigate them, and measure their effectiveness. 

This led district advisors to implement a variety of programs, many of 

which had no link to local sources of instability. While some practitioners flourished in this environment, the overall effort suffered. An 

effective stabilization methodology may well have led to different 

outcomes in Vietnam, particularly if implemented in the early years 

of US involvement.
466 │ ALEXANDER, DERLETH, & MANN

Following Vietnam, the CORDS program was quickly forgotten as 

the US military returned to its “primary” mission—fighting conventional wars—and cash-strapped civilian agencies returned to their core 

bureaucratic missions. Consequently, lessons learned from civilianmilitary experiences in Vietnam were ignored or forgotten.

Contemporary Civilian-Military Teams

To foster a whole-of-government approach in support of US foreign policy goals, civilian-military teams were resurrected in Afghanistan and Iraq. Known as provincial reconstruction teams (PRT), 

their mission was to “stabilize an area through an integrated civilianmilitary focus . . . [which] combines the diplomatic, military, and developmental components of the various agencies involved in the stabilization and reconstruction effort.”18

Before creating the PRTs, planners examined various historical 

civilian-military models (Vietnam, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Northern 

Iraq, Somalia, etc.) to “develop the initial concept and stand up of the 

PRTs in Afghanistan.”19 Attempting to incorporate lessons learned 

from previous iterations of civilian-military teams, the PRT designers 

believed they created a structure that built on earlier successes and 

mitigated historical challenges.

At first glance, PRTs and the CORDS program seem remarkably 

similar. However a closer examination reveals several substantial differences. Most noteworthy are their scope and administrative structure. CORDS had a much broader scope, including programs taken 

from other agencies and consolidated under it.With few exceptions, 

“all American programs outside of Saigon, excluding American and 

South Vietnamese regular military forces and clandestine Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operations, came under the operational control of CORDS.”20 In contrast, PRTs have a much more limited scope. 

PRT personnel serve more as facilitators for their parent agencies’ 

programs rather than integrating their efforts to identify and target 

local sources of instability.

Administratively, PRTs were never organized as independent, integrated entities. The teams were placed under the purview of the 

Office of Provincial Affairs and Interagency Provincial Affairs Office 

in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively, but individual team members 

were still directly subordinate to their respective agencies. Because of 
FOSTERING EFFECTIVE CIVILIAN-MILITARY INTEGRATION │ 467

limited resources and a lack of bureaucratic support, at first they were 

not very effective in linking and syncing civilian-military stabilization efforts. This can be noted in the multiple lines of authority PRTs 

must respond/report to in Afghanistan (fig. 24.1).

JFC: Joint Force Command

NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NCA: National Command Authority

NTM–A: NATO Training Mission–Afghanistan

PRT ESC: PRT Executive Steering Committee

RC: Regional Command

RP: Regional Platform

SCA: Bureau of South and Central Asia

TF: Task Force

UNAMA: United Nations Assistance

 Mission in Afghanistan

USFOR–A: US Forces–Afghanistan

NATO

ACO

JFC

Brunssum

ISAF

IJC

RC

TF

GIRoA UNAMA

CENTCOM

NCA

PRT ESC USFOR-A

NTM-A CSTA-A

Services

XXCENT

Sr Svc Rep

in Theater

SCA

COM

IPA

CJTF-XX RP

TF

Dept/

Agency

Bureau

Mission

Chief

US Provincial Reconstruction Team

Operational/Tactical

Authority

Coordination Lines

Administrative Control

Legend:

ACO: Allied Command Operations

USCENTCOM: US Central Command

CJTF: Combined Joint Task Force

CSTA–A: Combined Security Transition

 Command–Afghanistan

COM: Chief of Mission

DOS: Department of State

GIRoA: Government of the Islamic

 Republic of Afghanistan

IJC: ISAF Joint Command

IPA: Inter-agency Provincial Aairs

ISAF: International Security Assistance Force

JFC: Joint Force Command

NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NCA: National Command Authority

NTM–A: NATO Training Mission–Afghanistan

PRT ESC: PRT Executive Steering Committee

RC: Regional Command

RP: Regional Platform

SCA: Bureau of South and Central Asia

TF: Task Force

UNAMA: United Nations Assistance

 Mission in Afghanistan

USFOR–A: US Forces–Afghanistan

NATO

ACO

JFC

Brunssum

ISAF

IJC

RC

TF

GIRoA UNAMA

CENTCOM

NCA

PRT ESC USFOR-A

NTM-A CSTA-A

Services

XXCENT

Sr Svc Rep

in Theater

DOS

SCA

COM

IPA

CJTF-XX RP

TF

Dept/

Agency

Bureau

Mission

Chief

US Provincial Reconstruction Team

Operational/Tactical

Authority

Coordination Lines

Administrative Control

Figure 24.1. PRT lines of authority. (Adapted from Center for Army Lessons 

Learned, Handbook 11-16, Afghanistan Provincial Reconstruction Team, 

February 2011, 32.)

In contrast, CORDS was a distinct agency with its own chain of 

command and was directly integrated into the US government command structure in Vietnam. Although the CIA and USAID maintained 

their autonomy distinct from CORDS, many of their personnel and 

programs were folded into CORDS once it was established. This fostered more effective civilian-military integration and strengthened 

their bureaucratic position (fig. 24.2).
468 │ ALEXANDER, DERLETH, & MANN

Chart 3–Structure of U.S. Mission, Showing Position of Cords: May 67

U.S. Ambassador

AC of S

J 1

AC of S

J 2

AC of S

J 3

AC of S

CORDS AC of S

J 4

AC of S

J 5

AC of S

J 6

AC of S

MA

CIA USAID

COMUSMACV

DEPUTY

COMUSMACV

DEPUTY

CORDS

DEPUTY

AIR OPERATIONS

CHIEF OF STAFF DIRECTOR OF MACEVAL

Figure 24.2. Structure of US mission, showing position of CORDS: 

May 1967. (Reprinted from Thomas W. Scoville, Reorganizing for Pacification Support [Washington, DC: Center for of Military History, US 

Army, 1982], 58–59.)

Recurring Challenges 

There are three key recurring challenges that continue to limit the 

effectiveness of civilian-military teams. They can be broadly divided 

into three areas: bureaucratic obstacles, ineffective metrics, and the 

lack of a standardized stabilization methodology.

Bureaucratic Obstacles

The major bureaucratic constraints limiting the effectiveness of 

civilian-military teams: standard operating procedures (SOP), personnel evaluation, and training deficiencies. Bureaucratic SOPs force 

civilian-military teams to operate in a manner that limits their effectiveness. For example, USAID’s mandate is humanitarian assistance 

and development. Even though stability planning and programming 

is different from long-term development, in Afghanistan and Iraq 

USAID continued to implement its traditional large-scale, nationally 
FOSTERING EFFECTIVE CIVILIAN-MILITARY INTEGRATION │ 469

focused, long-term multisector development programs. While USAID 

has some stability programs, in Afghanistan they comprised less than 

10 percent of total USAID funding.21 CORDS also suffered from agency 

SOPs as its personnel brought their agency training and outlook with 

them when they became district advisors. The personnel evaluation 

system for civilian-military team members magnified this challenge. 

PRT members reported to—and were evaluated by—their parent 

agency. This had two significant ramifications. First, even if a member of a civilian-military team wanted to do something outside of his 

or her agency’s normal SOPs to stabilize their area of operations, they 

would be reluctant to do so knowing it could affect their performance 

assessment. This could be seen in the area of security. While CORDS 

members frequently travelled without security details to build rapport with the population and to avoid creating an imposing security 

footprint wherever they went, in most locations PRT members would 

be sacked if they attempted travel without security. Second, civilian 

and military members of the PRTs were usually evaluated on what 

they did during their deployment. This often equated to the number 

of dollars spent or the number of projects initiated. These numbers 

tell us very little about whether an area was more stable. However, 

since this data was used in personnel evaluations, it created the perverse incentive to spend as much money as possible, whether or not 

the projects fostered stability, to improve performance reviews. 

Spending large sums in unstable environments could have numerous 

destructive side effects—corruption of local officials and leaders, decreasing the legitimacy of local government, and so forth—all of which 

could foster instability. Regardless, team members received positive 

evaluations because they had “bullet points” for their evaluations. The 

CORDS evaluation system negated the first problem as CORDS personnel were evaluated by other CORDS personnel. Nevertheless, the 

system was still based on output rather than effect. This gave personnel 

an incentive to implement programs, regardless of their effect.

Another recurring obstacle was the lack of training. Because of 

political pressure to quickly deploy, civilian PRT members received 

approximately one month of training, far too little to be effectively 

trained in stability operations and in understanding the complex environments where they were working. While CORDS employees received 

much more predeployment training, as it was considered crucial to mission success, specific stability operation training was not included.22
470 │ ALEXANDER, DERLETH, & MANN

Metrics

Another major challenge to effectively implementing stability operations was irrelevant measures of success. Civilian-military teams 

too often made the assumption that the number of activities completed or dollars spent measured their success in stabilizing an area. 

For example, in Afghanistan and Iraq there was a perception that job 

creation programs had a transformative effect on the environment—

the thought being that gainfully employed men are less likely to join 

or sympathize with insurgents. Thus, the creation of jobs was viewed 

as success. However the number of jobs created tells us nothing about 

the behavior of young men who hold them. A more useful measure of 

stability would have been a reduction in the number of young men 

joining militias, insurgent groups, antigovernment forces, and so 

forth. Although it was much easier to track and report the number of 

new jobs, it had little to do with stability.23

Reporting requirements exacerbated this problem. Civilian-military teams were required to report on their activities, usually in the 

form of a laundry list of ongoing and completed activities. In seniorlevel briefings, the number of projects completed, the number of 

trained security forces, or the amount of money spent dominated discussions. The pressure to demonstrate results had the unintended 

consequence of influencing program design, implementation, and 

evaluation. A former PRT member elaborated on this challenge, stating “every time a new commander comes in he’s got to have his fitness 

report and he’s going to do a lot of things to drive the numbers. He 

can’t just say, ‘I made this governor a better governor.’ He’s got to say, 

‘I built this many schools, I built this many miles of roads.’ ”24 As the 

inability of hundreds of thousands of projects—costing billions of 

dollars—to stabilize Afghanistan and Iraq clearly show, output was 

not the same as effect.

The lack of effective metrics also made it difficult to determine 

whether or not civilian-military teams were effective, and if not, what 

changes were required. Describing the metrics reported by PRTs, one 

analyst noted, “There is a need for both an agreed set of objectives for 

PRTs and an agreed set of metrics for measuring their performance. 

Absent a means of determining whether PRTs are effective, it is difficult to determine whether alternative mechanisms might better 

achieve [one’s] purposes. Lack of a means of evaluating PRTs has not 

prevented their proliferation in Iraq and Afghanistan and discussion 
FOSTERING EFFECTIVE CIVILIAN-MILITARY INTEGRATION │ 471

of establishing them in future operations. Before this occurs, it is time 

for some objective scrutiny of measures of effectiveness.”25

Although the CORDS HES was designed to measure overall effect, 

it too focused on outputs. Because it was designed to inform strategic 

decision makers in Saigon and Washington, it did not provide the information needed by district advisors to design effective, sustainable, 

stabilization programs. In addition, both CORDS and PRT metrics 

exclude local perceptions. As an illustration, the system used to measure PRT effectiveness in Iraq—the Maturity Model—focused on measuring increases in civil capacity from the US government’s perspective, not whether the local population perceived the area as being more 

or less stable.26 Going forward, until standardized interagency stabilitybased metrics that incorporate local perceptions are mandated, the effectiveness of civilian-military teams will be difficult to discern.

Lack of a Standardized Stabilization Methodology

Perhaps most importantly, the effectiveness of civilian-military 

teams was limited by the lack of a standardized, tactical-level stabilization assessment and planning methodology. This situation allowed 

members of civilian-military teams to define stability either through 

their organizational mandate or their own experience, which may or 

may not have been relevant to the mission and environment. Although integrated civilian-military plans were drawn up in both Iraq 

(Maturity Model) and Afghanistan (Integrated Civilian-Military 

Campaign Plan), neither included a standardized analytical framework 

to identify sources of instability or indicators that would indicate 

whether an area is becoming more stable.27

This situation points to the need for a common standardized planning and assessment methodology which would identify local sources 

of instability, prioritize the employment of scarce time and resources 

to target them, and most importantly, measure whether programs 

were stabilizing the area. Additionally, it would allow practitioners and 

policy makers to measure stabilization progress over time and provide 

the information required to adjust planning and programming as 

required. This approach would place the focus of metrics at the appropriate level—the local practitioner.

While PRTs had some successes,overall they did not foster effective 

civilian-military integration or stabilize the areas where they operated.28
472 │ ALEXANDER, DERLETH, & MANN

Bureaucratic obstacles, irrelevant metrics, and the lack of standardized tactical stability planning and assessment framework continue 

to limit the effectiveness of America’s civilian-military teams.

District Stability Framework

Recognizing the need for a standardized, comprehensive methodology to foster effective civilian-military integration, USAID’s Office of 

Military Affairs, in collaboration with the Department of Defense 

(DOD), developed the District Stability Framework (DSF) (fig. 24.3). 

Combining USAID’s Tactical Conflict Assessment and Planning Framework (TCAPF) and military planning tools such as areas, structures, 

capabilities, organizations, people, and events (ASCOPE) and political, 

military, economic, social, infrastructure, and information (PMESII), 

the DSF provided a framework to help civilian and military personnel 

understand complex operating environments. It gathered populationcentric information, identified local sources of instability, developed 

programs to mitigate them, and measured whether stability was increasing.29

By providing a common platform for collaboration and joint planning, the DSF reduced the tendency for interagency stove-piping or 

focusing on individual agency mandates. In complex and unstable 

environments, each government agency brings something unique to 

the table. To stabilize an area, each agency should collaboratively participate in problem solving regardless of whether the solution fits 

within its operational mandate. The DSF facilitated this process by 

focusing users on identifying the underlying sources of instability. 

With a common view of the sources of instability, it was easier to 

foster an interagency approach to mitigate them.

The DSF used four “lenses”—operational, cultural, popular perceptions, and the dynamics of stability and instability—to gain populationcentric situational awareness. This information drives the analysis

phase, which identifies local sources of instability. Once identified, 

the design phase develops activities to diminish the sources of instability. 

In the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) phase, the DSF assessed the 

effect of activities in stabilizing an area, not simply the number of 

dollars spent or number of projects completed. This allowed practitioners to determine whether activities should be continued, ended, 

or increased.
FOSTERING EFFECTIVE CIVILIAN-MILITARY INTEGRATION │ 473

M and E

Situational

Awareness

Analysis

Design

The District Stability Framework: Four Phases

Figure 24.3. The District Stability Framework in four phases

The DSF methodology had three significant benefits. First, it focused on identifying and prioritizing local sources of instability. It distinguished between individual and community needs—things required 

to improve human development—and the underlying issues fostering instability. Sources of instability may or may not be the same as 

community needs. Until the fundamental issues responsible for violence and a breakdown in the normal functioning of society are addressed, responding to needs is tantamount to placing a Band-Aid on 

a gushing wound. 

The DSF also gave field personnel a standardized framework to 

monitor and assess activities. While developing indicators for monitoring and evaluating activities is not new, the DSF methodology created 

measures of success that were based on the overall stability goal, for 

example, mitigating sources of instability, not the accomplishment of 

individual activities. For example, if traditional conflict-resolution 

mechanisms were not functioning and it was determined spoilers were 

filling the role, the DSF would create measures of success based on the 

objective of fostering the restoration of traditional conflict-resolution 

mechanisms. Examples could include increased number of disputes 

resolved by traditional conflict-resolution mechanisms, decreased 

number of disputes resolved by spoilers, and so forth.
474 │ ALEXANDER, DERLETH, & MANN

Third, the DSF included standardized qualitative and quantitative 

indicators to assess overall stability trends. These indicators helped 

practitioners determine whether overall stability in an area was increasing or decreasing. Establishing baselines for these indicators was 

critical to tracking trends such as local violence, nongovernmental 

organization (NGO) presence, economic activity, support for the 

government, and so forth. These features were unique to the DSF and 

provided civilian-military teams with a comprehensive framework 

with which to conduct stability missions.

Fostering Effective Civilian-Military Integration

Mandating the use of the DSF would have significantly improved 

the effectiveness of civilian-military teams. Gaining a holistic understanding of the causes of instability in an area requires both civilian 

and military skill sets. For example, integrating intelligence and civil 

information not only identifies local spoilers, but also resiliencies—

the processes, relationships, and institutions that enable a society to 

function and regulate itself peacefully. Once resiliencies are identified, they can be strengthened to negate destabilizing forces.

The effectiveness of the framework can be seen in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. In summer 2009, Marine Corps Battalion 1/5 moved 

into Nawa District. The USMC, trained in DSF and supported by a 

small team of US government civilians, took a population-centric approach, working closely with Afghanistan government officials and 

community leaders to stabilize the area. Leaders tasked every patrol 

with building relationships with locals, listening to their concerns, 

and taking visible action to address those concerns. In addition to 

living with and partnering with the Afghan National Police, the 

USMC initiated a comprehensive vetting and training program to 

ameliorate police corruption, a chief source of local residents’ anger 

and a source of instability. In a matter of months the security situation improved to the extent that the marines no longer wore their 

personal protective equipment in the crowded bazaar area. Government officials and civilians from aid agencies were able to move freely 

and work collaboratively with the community. With more trust in the 

police, the community began to provide information about local insurgents. The combination of working and living with the population 
FOSTERING EFFECTIVE CIVILIAN-MILITARY INTEGRATION │ 475

and identifying and addressing local sources of instability measurably stabilized the area.

Overcoming Challenges with the District

Stability Framework

To be effective, civilian-military teams must be able to identify 

local sources of instability and prioritize and synchronize efforts 

across agencies. However, bureaucratic stovepipes—separate and 

distinct agency objectives and timelines—make integration difficult. Because the DSF is an interagency framework focused on stability, 

it helped mitigate bureaucratic stovepipes by fostering effective civilianmilitary collaboration.

DSF’s emphasis on a whole-of-government approach facilitated 

this collaboration. During the analysis phase of DSF, a stability working group (SWG) was created. It brought together interagency actors 

(the DOD, USAID, the DOS, and the US Department of Agriculture) 

who worked in the area to identify SOIs and create a plan to mitigate 

them. Each actor brought a unique view of the environment and the 

different resources required to mitigate the sources of instability.

When possible, representatives from the host nation and local 

stakeholders such as civil society organizations, community groups, 

NGOs, or interested citizens should be included in SWGs. Thus, the 

SWG becomes a coordination mechanism and forum for communication and collaboration. It helps synchronize US government programs with local government and stakeholders working in the area. 

In addition to gaining local perspectives regarding the sources of instability, inclusion of relevant local actors facilitates the development 

and/or strengthening of community and governmental capability 

and capacity, fostering long-term stability.

The DSF also mitigated the challenge of irrelevant metrics. Since it 

focused on fostering stability, it measured the effectiveness of activities designed to mitigate local SOIs. It did this by differentiating between measuring outputs and measuring effects.

The DSF also helped focus programming on targeting local sources 

of instability. This goal was facilitated by not initiating activities until 

a source of instability, and the desired end state, had been identified 

through the DSF framework. USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives 

utilized this approach in its Afghan Stabilization Initiative program. 
476 │ ALEXANDER, DERLETH, & MANN

Initial success led Regional Command–East in Afghanistan to mandate use of the DSF as the common interagency planning and program management framework for identifying and mitigating local 

sources of instability.

Civilian-Military Integration across the

Intervention Spectrum

Because it was focused on identifying and diminishing local 

sources of instability, the DSF could be used by civilian-military 

teams for a wide variety of missions, from humanitarian assistance to 

conflict prevention. 

DSF and Humanitarian Assistance 

As an illustration, while the goals of humanitarian assistance—

saving lives, alleviating suffering, and minimizing the economic costs 

of conflict, disasters, and displacement—are clear, identifying and 

prioritizing activities to accomplish these objectives are not. Too often incorrect programming assumptions are made. For example, after the onset of an emergency, well-meaning international donors 

and NGOs often provide warehouses full of clothes and supplies 

when soap and jerry cans are the critical items required to stave off 

disease. Shipping large quantities of the wrong supplies does more 

harm than good, clogging airports and ports and delaying the provision of emergency supplies desperately needed to save lives. Using 

the DSF to identify and prioritize humanitarian assistance would increase efficiency and effectiveness. 

Another common problem with humanitarian assistance is the 

centralization of aid in easily accessible locations near large cities or 

major displacement camps. Affected people outside of population 

centers often receive only limited assistance. This encourages migration to areas where assistance is being delivered. The devastating 

2010 earthquake that struck Haiti illustrates this point. Humanitarian aid was largely concentrated in Port-au-Prince, leaving rural areas in dire need.30 This concentration of aid not only contributed to 

overcrowding in the capital, but it also overwhelmed the ability of the 

international community and host nation to respond, increasing instability. DSF can help mitigate these problems by targeting aid to 

areas most in need of assistance.
FOSTERING EFFECTIVE CIVILIAN-MILITARY INTEGRATION │ 477

Because the DSF includes a simple survey tool to systematically 

gather local perceptions and incorporates them into an analytical 

framework, it could increase responders’ understanding of where assistance will be most effective.31 This would mitigate the likelihood of 

increased instability. Since perception data often varies depending on 

who conducts the surveys and the survey methodology, it is important that surveyors are effectively and uniformly trained. If not, the 

incorporation of local perceptions can actually foster instability as 

needs are emphasized at the expense of diminishing the sources of 

instability which limit humanitarian assistance.

DSF and Conflict Prevention

The DSF can also be employed as a conflict prevention tool. Traditional development programs attempt to address classic development 

challenges such as poverty, education, health care, infrastructure, 

governance, and so forth, using standard metrics specific to that sector. However, if these programs do not take into account their effect 

on stability, they will be unsuccessful. For example, a microfinance 

program in an unstable environment that does not address sources of 

instability through its activities could further destabilize the area by 

encouraging corruption and/or placing program participants in danger.

Although development programs have different objectives and metrics than stability-focused programs, using the DSF to identify civil 

vulnerabilities and potential sources of instability would help foster 

sustainable development.32 For example, militant groups operating in 

northern Mali gain support because of popular disillusionment with 

the government.33 The resulting instability limits the ability of development practitioners to work in the area. Understanding of the underlying causes of popular discontent combined with knowledge of the 

means and motivations of the militants could foster focused activities 

which both decrease instability and foster long-term development.

Obstacles to District Stability Framework 

Implementation

Although USAID led the DSF development effort, DSF training is 

far more prevalent at military training centers than within USAID 

and the DOS. Bureaucratic culture is one of the primary reasons why 

the military has taken the lead in using the DSF. In contrast to their 
478 │ ALEXANDER, DERLETH, & MANN

civilian counterparts, the DOD is generally more mission focused 

and wants simple, effective tactical tools. Conversely, civilian officials 

take a longer-term view and are more often guided by higher-level 

mandates. As an illustration, with the exceptions of Afghanistan and 

Iraq—and in contrast to their military counterparts—USAID and the 

DOS officers do not usually work directly with communities in unstable areas. USAID typically implements programs through NGOs 

and for-profit development firms that are evaluated on the amount of 

deliverables they provided and/or how much money they spent 

(“burn rates”), not the effectiveness of their program in stabilizing an 

area. Consequently, USAID officers are often little more than managers tasked with tracking contract implementation. USAID does not 

have the trained officers necessary to directly implement and study 

the effects of their programs. This forces them to rely on contractors, 

who have their own agendas.

Bureaucratic culture also limits the use of DSF. Even though the 

DOD issued training guidance stating that “stability operations are a 

core U.S. military mission and the Department of Defense shall be 

prepared to conduct with proficiency equivalent to combat operations” 

and “integrated civilian and military efforts are essential to the conduct of successful stability operations,” implementation of this training 

directive varies significantly by unit.34 Many commanders continue 

to believe proficiency in core combat skills is far more important than 

training for nonlethal missions, even though the end state for most 

military operations is a “stable” environment. As a result, military 

units fell back on what they knew best, taking the fight to the enemy. 

This ignores the centrality of the local population in making military 

gains permanent.

Civilian entities face a similar challenge. Without leadership forcing 

the design and implementation of focused stability programs in unstable environments, program managers will continue to implement 

top-down needs-based sectoral development programs. In summary, 

without effective, integrated civilian-military stability training for 

both civilian and military personnel and high-level leadership support, 

successful civilian-military operations will continue to be the result of 

luck rather than the application of a comprehensive, uniform, wholeof-government approach.
FOSTERING EFFECTIVE CIVILIAN-MILITARY INTEGRATION │ 479

Conclusion

Regretfully, the challenge of integrating US government capabilities 

and capacities into effective civilian-military teams would be just as 

familiar to a district advisor working in Vietnam in 1967 as it was to 

a field program officer serving on a PRT in Iraq or Afghanistan.35 In 

these conflicts, recurring challenges—bureaucratic obstacles, measuring output instead of effect, and the lack of a common, standard 

assessment and planning methodology—continued to limit the effectiveness of civilian-military teams. The ability of failed or failing 

states to threaten US national security has led to a growing realization 

that the US government must alter its approach to conflicts. A crucial 

component will be the fielding of effective civilian-military teams to 

help stabilize the situation. Although there has been some progress, 

the DOD, the DOS, and USAID have started to recognize stability 

programming is different from their traditional mission sets; the 

challenge has been to turn doctrine and guidance into practice.36

While not a panacea, mandating the use of the Interagency DSF will 

help overcome some of the challenges faced by civilian-military 

teams. By identifying local sources of instability, it will assist field 

personnel to push back against ineffectual, top-down bureaucratic 

programming. Its emphasis on measuring effect rather than output 

provides decision makers with more accurate ground truth information. Without a mandated, standardized, tactical, field-based stabilization methodology, the ineffectiveness of civilian-military teams 

will continue to limit the US government’s ability to stabilize the areas that threaten its security.

Notes

1. White House, National Security Strategy (Washington, DC: White House, May 

2010), 26, http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/national_security

_strategy.pdf.

2. Ibid., 14.

3. Marc Leepson, “The Heart and Mind of USAID’s Vietnam Mission,” Foreign 

Service Journal 77, no. 4 (April 2000), http://web.archive.org/web/20040719090759

/http://www.fsjournal.org/apr00/leepson.cfm.

4. Robert Komer, “Clear, Hold and Rebuild,” Army 20, no. 5 (May 1970), 19.

5. James Embrey, “Unity of Effort in Counterinsurgency: Historical Perspectives 

on the CORDS Program in Vietnam, 1965–1970” (PowerPoint presentation, Peace 
480 │ ALEXANDER, DERLETH, & MANN

Keeping and Stability Operations Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA, 17 September 

2008), 12.

6. Frank L. Jones, “Blowtorch: Robert Komer and the Making of Vietnam Pacification Policy,” Parameters 35 (Autumn 2005), 106.

7. Richard W. Stewart, CORDS and the Vietnam Experience: An Interagency Organization for Counterinsurgency and Pacification (Washington, DC: National War 

College, 2006), 120–21.

8. Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Study: Improving South Vietnam’s 

Internal Security Scene (Washington, DC: DOD, 5 May 1970), 22, http://www.virtual

.vietnam.ttu.edu/cgi-bin/starfetch.exe?zjMwXxbPtgO2S5IJQhKXIeK0@uQNqd

KWf7pZz25lDfVl3QIIMAIHpDePpIz2bzQvC.nIAFayBcCxX5cjArKJdm

@.W6hEMZwknrB9zZ.Szkk/2121516002a.pdf.

9. The Accelerated Pacification Campaign (APC) began in November 1968 as a 

way to expand government control over and secure contested hamlets. The various 

pacification programs that CORDS supported could not take root in areas where the 

communists intimidated, taxed, or recruited. After a modicum of security was established, the Americans believed “the process of development could begin—electing 

local officials, stimulating rural economic growth, and opening roads.” See Richard 

A. Hunt, Pacification: The American Struggle for Vietnam’s Hearts and Minds (New 

York: Westview Press, 1995), 172. Note: APC is comparable to the modern counterinsurgency theory of “clear, hold, and build” employed in contemporary counterinsurgency environments such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

10. Ibid., 230–31.

11. Ibid.

12. Michael Stout, to the author, telephone communication, 24 August 2011.

13. “Komer, a former CIA analyst, was a shrewd and energetic bureaucrat whose 

sensitive antennae were attuned to Johnson’s desires. Once, after producing an implausible buoyant ‘progress’ report on Vietnam for the White House, he was discussing its contents with a group of correspondents. ‘Come on, Bob,’ said one of the 

journalists, ‘you know damned well that the situation isn’t that good.’ Komer, undaunted, replied in his nasal twang: ‘Listen, the president didn’t ask for a ‘situation’ 

report, he asked for a ‘progress’ report. And that’s what I’ve given him—not a report 

on the situation, but a report on the progress we’ve made.’ ” Quoted in Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), 515.

14. The HES used a hamlet evaluation worksheet (HEW) to create an assessment 

for each hamlet. “The 18-question HEW and the 10-question Hamlet Problem document required the DSA [CORDS District Advisor] to select from pre-determined 

multiple choice ratings in order to arrive at an overall ‘score’ for a hamlet. . . . DSAs 

had to assign a rating from ‘A’ (best) to ‘E’ (worst) for each of the 18 indicators. . . . 

The HEW tracked 18 broad indicators of pacification progress, nine measuring security and nine measuring development.” See David Gayvert, “Teaching New Dogs Old 

Tricks: Can the Hamlet Evaluation System Inform the Search for Metrics in Afghanistan?” Small Wars Journal Blog, 8 September 2010, 3–5, http://smallwarsjournal

.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/531-gayvert.pdf. These indicators are similar to contemporary “lines of effort” (LOE). These ratings were then converted into a numerical scale (A = 5, E = 1; VC-controlled hamlets received “0” ratings).
FOSTERING EFFECTIVE CIVILIAN-MILITARY INTEGRATION │ 481

15. Most criticism was related to the inability of quantitative indicators to capture complex social phenomena. See Stathis N. Kalyvas and Matthew Adam Kocher, 

“The Dynamics of Violence in Vietnam: An Analysis of the Hamlet Evaluation System (HES),” Journal of Peace Research 46, no. 3 (2009): 335–55.

16. The first step in stabilizing an area is to identify the local sources of instability. Sources of instability are things that (1) directly undermine support for the government, (2) increase support for spoilers, or (3) otherwise disrupt the normal functioning of society. Examples include land disputes, government corruption, political 

discrimination, etc. 

17. David Donovan, Once a Warrior King: Memories of an Officer in Vietnam

(New York: Ballantine Books, 1985), 157–58.

18. Center for Army Lessons Learned, Handbook 11-03, Iraq Provincial Reconstruction Team: Observations, Insights, and Lessons, November 2010, 5; and Center 

for Army Lessons Learned, Handbook 11-16, Afghanistan Provincial Reconstruction 

Team: Observations, Insights, and Lessons, February 2011, 6.

19. Michael Stout to the author, e-mail, 22 February 2011. Michael Stout, Michael McNerney, and David Des Roches developed the PRT concept. The first PRT 

deployed to Gardez, Afghanistan, in January 2003. Michael McNerney was the primary PRT advocate in Washington, meeting with numerous US government entities 

to foster interagency support. 

20. Thomas W. Scoville, Reorganizing for Pacification Support (Washington, DC: 

Center of Military History, US Army, 1982), 67.

21. USAID, “Afghanistan: Budget and Obligations,” 12 June 2013, http://afghanistan

.usaid.gov/en/about/budget.

22. Although training timelines varied depending on the position to which an 

officer was assigned, in most cases they had a minimum of six months of predeployment 

training and up to an additional six months for Vietnamese language training. Many 

CORDS veterans believed extensive language training was crucial for their mission. See 

Asia Training Center, Debrief of a CORDS Management Consultant (Administration), 

Saigon, Vietnam 1967–1968 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii and USAID, 1968).

23. Research in Afghanistan on the stabilization effects of hundreds of projects 

shows “little evidence that aid projects are ‘winning hearts and minds,’ reducing conflict and violence, or having other significant counterinsurgency benefits. In fact, our 

research shows just the opposite. Instead of winning hearts and minds, Afghan perceptions of aid and aid actors are overwhelmingly negative. And instead of contributing to stability, in many cases aid is contributing to conflict and instability. For 

example, we heard many reports of the Taliban being paid by donor-funded contractors to provide security (or not to create insecurity), especially for their road-building 

projects. In an ethnically and tribally divided society like Afghanistan, aid can also 

easily generate jealousy and ill will by inadvertently helping to consolidate the power 

of some tribes or factions at the expense of others—often pushing rival groups into 

the arms of the Taliban.” Andrew Wilder, “A ‘Weapons System’ Based on Wishful 

Thinking,” Boston Globe, 16 September 2009, http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe

/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/09/16/a_weapons_system_based_on_wishful

_thinking/.

24. Center for Army Lessons Learned, Handbook 11-03, 117.
482 │ ALEXANDER, DERLETH, & MANN

25. House, The U.S. Experience with Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq and 

Afghanistan: Testimony of Robert Perito, U.S. Institute of Peace Senior Program Officer 

in the Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations, before the House Armed 

Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, 110th Cong., 2nd sess., October 

2007, http://www.usip.org/publications/us-experience-provincial-reconstruction-teams-i

raq-and-afghanistan.

26. The Office of Provincial Affairs (OPA) in Baghdad initially ordered PRTs to 

report “accomplishments” and “milestones” in the five focus areas: governance, political development, reconciliation, economics, and rule of law. Realizing the irrelevance of these indicators, in 2009 OPA issued new guidance. It noted, “The PRT 

mission in each province must be shaped not by a single analytical tool but by the 

JCP [Civ-Mil Joint Common Plan], existing security situation, Iraqi willingness to 

cooperate, PRT resources, and other events on the ground in each province.” Center 

for Army Lessons Learned, Handbook 11-03, 87. Although a step forward, the guidance still neglected local perceptions and lacked standardized stability indicators. 

Consequently, different PRTs used different criteria to measure stability.

27. In 2009, a civilian-military team at the US embassy in Kabul wrote an “Integrated Civilian-Military Support Plan for Afghanistan.” The work includes 11 “transformative effects,” which, if attained, suggest Afghanistan will be stable. To measure 

progress along the way, each transformative effect has a series of measurable “main 

efforts” (95 in total) at the community, provincial, and national levels. If there are 95 

main efforts, in reality there is no main effort. In addition to taking a significant 

amount of staff time and field resources to simply gather the requisite data, more 

importantly, most of the main efforts are output indicators (measures of performance) and do not measure whether an area is more stable. There are two main 

reasons for this situation. First, many people do not understand the difference between impact (measure of effect) and output measures. Second, sources of instability 

are local. None of the higher-level civilian-military stability operations plans that 

were examined attempted to identify local sources of instability before developing 

lines of effort (LOE) or stability measures of effectiveness. Consequently, the LOEs 

determine the sources of instability rather than the sources of instability determining 

the LOEs. This is a recurring problem as plans and indicators are often created either 

by people who do not understand stability operations or by policy makers, leaders, 

or practitioners who conflate their values and experiences with what locals consider 

important. See US Embassy–Kabul and US Forces–Afghanistan, United States Government Integrated Civilian-Military Campaign Plan for Support to Afghanistan (Kabul: US Embassy–Kabul, 10 August 2009), http://www.comw.org/qdr/fulltext/0908e

ikenberryandmcchrystal.pdf.

28. They include building support for the US-led coalition and respect for the 

Afghan government, election support, school construction, disarmament, and mediating factional conflicts. See Michael McNerney, “Stabilization and Reconstruction in Afghanistan: Are PRTs a Model or Muddle?” Parameters 35, no. 4 (Winter 2005–06): 32.

29. ASCOPE is a collection framework tool used by the US military to help identify key aspects of the civil environment. PMESII is a collection framework used by 

the US military to help identify key aspects of the operating environment.
FOSTERING EFFECTIVE CIVILIAN-MILITARY INTEGRATION │ 483

30. USAID Office of Inspector General, “Audit of USAID’s Haiti Recovery Initiative 

Activities Managed by Office of Transition Initiatives,” 26 September 2012, http://

oig.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/audit-reports/1-521-12-009-p.pdf.

31. Since perception data can vary depending on who conducts the surveys and 

the survey methodology, it is important that surveyors are properly trained. If not, 

the incorporation of local perceptions could actually foster instability. DSF training 

includes a “gathering local perceptions” module to diminish this concern.

32. Research shows instability is the biggest obstacle to sustainable development. 

See Paul Collier, V. L. Elliott, Havard Hegre, Anke Hoeffler, Marta Reynal-Querol, 

and Nicholas Sambanis, Breaking the Conflict Trap Civil War and Development Policy

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003).

33. Heidi Vogt, “West Africa’s Disenfranchised Groups a Potential Recruiting 

Target for Terrorists,” Associated Press, 13 June 2007. 

34. Department of Defense Instruction Number 3000.05, Stability Operations, 16 

September 2009, 2.

35. One author noted, “Many of the lessons learned in Vietnam were relearned 

in Iraq.” Robert J. Ruch, “Lessons on a Shelf ” (strategy research project, US Army 

War College, Carlisle Barracks, PA, 23 March 2009), 1. For a historical comparison 

of the Afghanistan PRTs and the Vietnam-era CORDS program, see Henry Nuzum, 

Shades of CORDS in the Kush: The False Hope of “Unity of Effort” in American Counterinsurgency, Letort Paper (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, April 

2010).

36. See US Army Field Manual (FM) 3-07, Stability Operations, October 2008; and

USAID, Administrator’s Stabilization Guidance, 29 January 2011, http://pdf.usaid.gov

/pdf_docs/PDACQ822.pdf.

Chapter 25

A Civilian Center of Excellence as a Mechanism 

for Civilian-Military Coordination

James Kunder

When a civilian-military team functions well on the ground in a 

complex environment, this is due in large part to the tactical relationships occurring at the field level: the selection of well-qualified civilian 

and military team members; clear rules of engagement for the team 

and within the team; adequate resources, financial and technical, to 

address local problems; and good relations with other reconstruction 

and stabilization organizations, local and international, operating in 

the team’s area of responsibility. The study and analysis of these tactical 

relationships and dynamics are important.

Well-functioning civilian-military teams are also the result of a series of activities occurring at the strategic and operational levels, many 

of which should be in place long before the civilians and military team 

members link up. That is to say, sound tactical performance of civilianmilitary teams is the result of a unified and comprehensive system that 

puts the right civilians and military personnel together with the right 

mission and with the correct, tested, and shared toolkit.

It is at this level—creating a systemic interface between civilian 

and military operations—that a civilian center of excellence (CCOE) 

could contribute to enhanced civilian-military coordination in field 

operations. The Secretary of State’s Office for the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization’s (S/CRS) Civilian Response Corps 

(CRC) mandate, its whole-of-government approach to complex operations, and its dedication to systematic planning linking civilian 

and military responses were intentionally designed to substantially 

enhance civilian-military coordination and thereby foster effective 

stability and peacebuilding operations.

Despite the best intentions of many dedicated professionals in the 

US government, civilian-military coordination in complex operations will succeed only if the practice is embedded in a single overarching US government system and if the US government builds a 

standing capacity. This chapter describes one possible institutional 

framework to enhance coordination, a CCOE for crisis prevention 
486 │ KUNDER

and response built within the US Department of State and better utilizing the mechanisms and tools developed by the former S/CRS—

the CRC, the Interagency Management System (IMS), and the Interagency Conflict Assessment Framework (ICAF). Through these three 

mechanisms and tools, the USG maintained a standing cadre of active 

and standby civilian personnel dedicated to complex operations, developed a planning capability, established systems for interagency 

collaboration and coordination, captured lessons and integrated 

these lessons into training, and formulated the civilian equivalent to 

military doctrine.

Historical Mission and Function of S/CRS 

The impetus to create S/CRS was an intense debate within the 

Bush administration over how, in the wake of the Afghanistan and 

Iraq interventions, the US government’s civilian response to fragile 

states and conflict prevention policy be improved. The debate culminated in the issuance of the National Security Policy Directive 44 

(NSPD-44), which outlines the basic architecture of the secretary of 

state’s duties, delegated to the S/CRS.1

 This directive is the core assessment of why an entity like S/CRS was needed and remains relevant:

To achieve maximum effect, a focal point is needed (i) to coordinate and 

strengthen efforts of the United States Government to prepare, plan for, and 

conduct reconstruction and stabilization assistance and related activities in a 

range of situations that require the response capabilities of multiple United 

States Government entities and (ii) to harmonize such efforts with U.S. military 

plans and operations. The relevant situations include complex emergencies 

and transitions, failing states, failed states, and environments across the spectrum of conflict, particularly those involving transitions from peacekeeping 

and other military interventions. The response to these crises will include 

among others, activities relating to internal security, governance and participation, social and economic well-being, and justice and reconciliation.2

 (emphasis added)

S/CRS defined its mission as follows: “To lead, coordinate and institutionalize US government civilian capacity to prevent or prepare 

for post-conflict situations, and to help stabilize and reconstruct societies in transition from conflict or civil strife, so they can reach a 

sustainable path toward peace, democracy and a market economy.”3

For example, the S/CRS team deployed to Panama undertook a conflict prevention mission. When the US and Panamanian governments 
A CIVILIAN CENTER OF EXCELLENCE │ 487

received indications that Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia 

(FARC) rebels were beginning to drift into Panama’s semiautonomous Darien region, S/CRS dispatched a team to facilitate a conflict 

assessment to identify stability factors and drivers of conflict. As S/

CRS’s documentation describes, this assessment led to the establishment of a Darien stabilization office within the host nation presidential secretariat to address issues of stability.4

In 2008 Congress responded to a request from the Bush administration to add a cadre of civilian reconstruction and stabilization experts 

from across US government civilian agencies. S/CRS and interagency 

partners established the CRC, which was comprised of experts from 

the Departments of State, Transportation, Energy, Health and Human 

Services, Justice, Agriculture, Homeland Security, and Commerce as 

well as USAID.

Drivers of Civilian-Military Cooperation

Throughout the period of its existence, an important role for S/CRS 

was to enhance US government civilian-military coordination in reconstruction and stabilization environments. NSPD-44 itself notes 

that the secretary of state, while coordinating the US government civilian response to crises, shall “coordinate such efforts with the Secretary of Defense to ensure harmonization with any planned or ongoing US military operations across the spectrum of conflict.”5

 NSPD-44 

also describes the secretary of state’s responsibility to “coordinate 

United States government responses for reconstruction and stabilization with the Secretary of Defense to ensure harmonization with any 

planned or ongoing US military operations, including peacekeeping 

missions, at the planning and implementation phases; [and] develop 

guiding precepts and implementation procedures for reconstruction 

and stabilization which, where appropriate, may be integrated with 

military contingency plans and doctrine.”6

 Moreover, the 2008 congressional authorization establishing the CRC specifically referenced 

the NSPD-44 mandate for Department of State (DOS)–Department 

of Defense (DOD) coordination, noting that “the Secretary [of State] 

and the Coordinator [of the CRC] are also charged with coordinating 

with the [DOD] on reconstruction and stabilization responses, and 

integrating planning and implementing procedures.”7
488 │ KUNDER

The former S/CRS’s website contained abundant references to the 

office’s role in civilian-military coordination. For example, the organization claimed a key role in facilitating “improved coordination 

and integration among US government and partner nation civilian 

and military communities to support effective reconstruction and 

stabilization operations.”8

 DOD Directive 3000.05, Military Support 

for Stability, Security, Transition and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations, was listed as an important “framework” on the S/CRS website, 

and US Army Field Manual 3-07, Stability Operations, was cited as an 

S/CRS “tool.” During their mandatory initial training, CRC members—active and standby—received information on US military 

structures, culture, and operations. This potential to provide systematic interface between civilian and military operations resided in 

three aspects of S/CRS’s approach: first, in S/CRS’s maintenance of a 

cadre of personnel dedicated to managing complex operations; second, in S/CRS’s organizational doctrine for responding to crises; and, 

third, in its approach to planning.9

S/CRS offered the potential of institutionalized improvement in 

civilian-military coordination in complex operations, as would the 

creation of a standing CCOE based on the S/CRS architecture and 

Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development (QDDR) policy guidance. In large measure, S/CRS’s potential was in its creation as an 

entity focused specifically on US government-wide coordination issues, and specifically in pre- and postconflict environments, with a permanent staff to provide continuity. Furthermore, S/CRS consistently welcomed civilian-military liaison, and numerous S/CRS officers worked to 

advance civilian-military coordination and collaboration in its operations 

and through military exercises and experiments.

Previous attempts by the US government to increase civilian effectiveness during complex operations, most notably the Clinton administration’s 1997 Presidential Decision Directive (PDD)-56, Managing 

Complex Contingency Operations, foundered on the staffing issue. 

PDD-56 recognized the importance of establishing interagency coordination within the US government, mandating the creation of “executive committees” within the NSC to manage complex crises, and mandated the writing of “political-military implementation plans,” when 

crises arose.10

Thus, the policy discussions leading to the issuance of NSPD-44 

addressed this need for a standing US government civilian surge 

capacity—a crisis management process agreed upon by the US gov-
A CIVILIAN CENTER OF EXCELLENCE │ 489

ernment civilian agencies in a whole-of-government approach.11 It 

was dramatically clear that operational gaps included the following: 

(1) there was no equivalent of the military joint staff or the staffs of 

regional combatant commanders, whose primary function it was to 

plan for these complex operations; (2) no serious force generation or 

surge capacity existed within key civilian organizations; (3) very few 

civilian federal employees possessed the applied skill sets in greatest 

demand in stabilization and reconstruction operations; and (4) there 

was no equivalent of the military joint task force doctrine to serve as 

a template for organizing civilian deployments to the site of operations. These gaps were all too apparent in US government responses 

in complex settings in which I personally participated, including especially the run-up to the Afghanistan and Iraq deployments, where 

civilian agencies scrambled ineffectively to support military forces 

once the latter had taken the ground. For the first several months after 

the US government reopened the US embassy and USAID mission in 

Kabul in January 2002, a woefully inadequate handful of civilian employees attempted to engage with the fledgling government of Afghanistan and jump-start the stabilization and reconstruction processes in a 

nation-state almost completely destroyed after decades of conflict.

In short, the first important contribution to civilian-military coordination that S/CRS brought to the table was a standing entity to coordinate and collaborate with military counterparts, with dedicated 

staff at headquarters, and within the CRC. For the first time, the US 

government civilian component had a sizeable cadre of employees—

approaching 300 between its core staff and CRC Active members 

combined—trained and ready to link up with military colleagues in 

the field. Each of these recruited individuals received at least a modicum of complex operations–specific training, as well as predeployment training in security aspects of insecure environments. Whether 

or not it was utilized to its fullest capacity, the CRC Active’s presence 

offered previously unimagined opportunities for improved US government civilian-military teams.12

CRC personnel brought to bear a wide range of needed skill sets: 

•  conflict assessment/planning/operations/management, including assessment planning, base set-up, operations management, 

and strategic communications;
490 │ KUNDER

•  rule of law, including advisors for criminal law, legal defense,

transitional justice, legal administration, access to justice, police 

and corrections; 

•  transitional security, overlapping with rule of law, and including

security-sector reform and civilian-military coordination in 

these lines of effort;

•  governance, including civil administration, democracy and

good governance, and civil society/media development;

•  essential services, including public health, public infrastructure,

education, and labor assessment;

•  economic recovery, including agriculture, rural development,

commerce, taxes, monetary policy, and business/financial services; and

•  diplomatic and bordersecurity, including support to US embassies

in assessing and planning for security/force protection requirements in support of broader contingency and field operations.13

Were S/CRS and its successor, the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO), ultimately to have 2,000 trained CRC 

members with these essential skill sets, this would have institutionalized the interface between US government civilian and military personnel in the field during complex operations. The CRC teams had 

the potential to dramatically improve the performance of civilianmilitary teams in both preventive and conflict environments.14 Moreover, S/CRS’s cadre of trained, full-time civilian conflict experts 

opened up new avenues of longitudinal interface with military colleagues. This standing cadre had the capability of (1) training, planning, and exercising with military units prior to deployment; (2) 

linking up rapidly during crises; and (3) participating in after-action reviews, lessons-learned exercises, and the capture of best 

practices. Too often in the past, even when civilian-military teams 

have worked well together in the field, the deployment process allowed little predeployment coordinated training or preparation, 

and after the tour of duty was completed, civilian and military colleagues disappeared back to their previous postings without systematic harvesting of civilian-military successes and failures. A major improvement brought about by the S/CRS and CRC personnel 

system was the opportunity for better team interface before, during, 
A CIVILIAN CENTER OF EXCELLENCE │ 491

and after deployments; the capturing of lessons learned; and applying lessons to future complex operations.

S/CRS’s second contribution to civilian-military interfacing was in 

the development of the IMS. Designed by S/CRS in conjunction with 

US military planners, the IMS was approved first by an interagency 

deputies committee and then by the NSC’s Interagency Planning 

Committee for Reconstruction and Stabilization in 2007, establishing 

for the first time a clear, doctrine type of deployment framework for 

civilian US government personnel operating in reconstruction and 

stabilization environments. The IMS provided, at several levels, for 

enhanced civilian-military coordination in complex operations. 

However, as described in more detail below, the IMS system became 

the focus of resistance at the DOS to a “heavy” S/CRS that was never 

implemented during an actual crisis.

The IMS provided policy makers in Washington, chiefs of mission 

(COMs), and military commanders with flexible tools to achieve the 

following: (1) integrated planning processes for unified US government strategic and implementation plans, including funding requests; (2) joint interagency field deployments; and (3) a joint civilian 

operations capability including shared communications and information management.15 Inspired by the US government’s National Interagency Incident Management System for domestic crises, the IMS 

specified who would report where, under what circumstances, as part 

of what command and control system, and for what mission, during 

complex contingency operations. Prior to the introduction of the 

IMS, US government civilian teams linking up with US military colleagues in an ad hoc manner, characterized by idiosyncratic arrangements, relearned each time a new complex crisis arose.

The S/CRS IMS framework consisted of interagency teams operating at the regional combatant command level and embassy/field level 

(including subteams at the provincial or district level). The Washington 

team was designated the Country Reconstruction and Stabilization 

Group (CRSG); a team deployed to the RCC headquarters was designated an integration planning cell (IPC); and the team deployed to the 

American embassy was designated the advance civilian team. If provincial- or district-level teams were required, these were designated as 

field advance civilian teams—comparable to the well-known provincial reconstruction teams (PRT) in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Of particular importance to better civilian-military coordination, 

the IPC envisaged in the IMS was to be comprised of trained S/CRS 
492 │ KUNDER

and/or CRC personnel detailed to the headquarters of the RCC, specifically to ensure that civilian and military planning processes are 

aligned and that gaps or duplications would be identified early in the 

process. Although the IPC reported to the CRSG in Washington, its 

embedding within relevant staff sections at the RCC—likely the J3 or 

J5—was intended to increase significantly the likelihood that civilian 

and military plans would be harmonized and that coordinated missions 

would be provided for individuals deployed to field-based civilianmilitary teams.

The US military responded favorably to the establishment of the 

IMS, sending a large number of military personnel for training in the 

IMS at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) or National Defense University, where S/CRS sponsored courses of instruction and utilized 

IMS structures in military exercises and games.16 US Joint Forces 

Command published a Handbook for Military Participation in the Interagency Management System for Reconstruction and Stabilization, 

which was “intended to be used as a guide to help explain the roles 

and responsibilities of military participation within the IMS to better 

integrate all elements of national capacity in response to an overseas 

contingency or in support of military engagement, security cooperation, and deterrence activities.”17 Its primary purpose was “to better 

prepare military planners and implementers for interaction, coordination, and communication with IMS participants through the identification of key interagency relationships and standardization of basic processes.”18

In addition to its standing cadre of crisis responders and development of the IMS construct, S/CRS contributed to enhanced performance of civilian-military teams in a third way. It created a civilianintegrated planning and execution process—a formal planning 

system for the management of complex crises far exceeding in detail 

any prior civilian process—and trained the CRC in its use. Since a 

major impediment to civilian-military coordination in the field is the 

disconnect between the military’s deliberate planning process and 

relatively less formal civilian approaches, S/CRS’s emphasis on formal 

planning held promise for enhancing civilian-military coordination 

at all levels.

The foundation for the S/CRS planning function was described in 

NSPD-44, which mandated S/CRS to “lead interagency planning to 

prevent or mitigate conflict, and develop detailed contingency plans 

for integrated US government reconstruction and stabilization efforts 
A CIVILIAN CENTER OF EXCELLENCE │ 493

for those states and regions and for widely applicable scenarios, 

which are integrated with military contingency plans, where appropriate.”19

The major elements of S/CRS planning consisted of a four-stage 

process that military planners, despite some obvious differences in 

terminology, will immediately recognize: 

•  An “Initial Guidance and Parameter Setting” stage, during

which the scope of the reconstruction and stabilization task was 

defined; the central problem framed; and parameters for the operation established. This stage culminated in a formal “Guidance 

and Parameters Decision Memo.”

•  A “Situation Analysis” stage, during which the conflict environment was mapped (utilizing analytical tools S/CRS promulgated 

specifically for this purpose, such as the “Interagency Conflict 

Assessment Framework,” or “ICAF”); information gaps were located; so-called “critical dynamics”—the essential problem sets 

facing the society in conflict—were identified; US interests were 

calibrated; and planning assumptions were made explicit. This 

second stage also produced a formal output, the “Situation Analysis Memo.”

•  A “Strategy Development and Implementation Planning” stage,

during which the overall US government goal was defined; the 

“transformational hypothesis”—in practical terms, the definition of what success would look like in the conflict zone—was 

developed; subelements of the transformational hypothesis, including objectives, subobjectives, and tasks were delineated; an 

organizational approach (which agencies or units, in which configuration, will be deployed) was designed; and a metrics plan 

completed to gauge success or failure. This stage produced several products, including a “Strategic Plan,” “Operational Plan,” 

and “Resource Plan,” with “Task and Synch Matrices.”

•  An “Execution” stage, during which “Implementation Actions”

were distilled, leading to “Implementation Decisions,” “Course 

Correction Decisions,” and “Decisions to Revise the Plan.”20
494 │ KUNDER

Challenges to Success

S/CRS, despite its accomplishments, faced numerous obstacles to 

success. First, congressional members backing the president’s directive were slow in reaching consensus. From 2005, when the LugarBiden bill was introduced that would have authorized S/CRS and the 

CRC, to 2009, when the bill became law in the National Defense Authorization Act, appropriations were ad hoc, through wartime supplementals and DOD funds transfers. Once authorized and funded, 

recruitment and hiring for the CRC proceeded too slowly to satisfy 

Congress, and deployments were not sufficiently robust.

Additionally, a wariness existed within the DOS itself to embrace 

the crisis coordination mission, which some saw as a challenge both 

to traditional diplomacy and to the embassy-centric management 

ethos of the DOS. This skepticism manifested itself in the relatively 

limited deployment footprint of S/CRS in relation its potential capacity. Of the 20 deployments it undertook, only three—Afghanistan, 

the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and South Sudan—consisted 

of teams larger than 10 individuals in the field at a given time. In fact, 

most of the deployments were characterized by small assessment 

missions that resulted in studies or analyses, often intended to shape 

future operations and resource allocations. Second, successive secretaries of state deferred to the regional bureaus rather than delegate a 

prominent leadership role to the S/CRS when international conflicts 

arose or threatened. More often, the S/CRS exerted a secondary, supportive role. Furthermore, the IMS was never fully implemented, despite the obvious need for a civilian organizational template during 

high-intensity operations. Interestingly, the 2010 QDDR called for an 

International Organizational Response Framework—an organizational template detailing agency lines of responsibility, as the IMS 

was de facto decommissioned—for use in crisis situations.21

Another obstacle S/CRS faced was the limited support it received 

from a wary USAID. My former colleagues at USAID tended to view 

S/CRS not as a useful enhancement to the work of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), the Office of Transition Initiatives 

(OTI), the Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation, and similar USAID conflict management entities. They saw S/CRS as an institutional interloper duplicating and undercutting USAID’s achievements. Institutional tussles between the DOS and USAID on the 
A CIVILIAN CENTER OF EXCELLENCE │ 495

respective role of each in the reconstruction and stabilization arena 

only magnified USAID’s resistance to a strong, vibrant S/CRS.

Perhaps most crippling to S/CRS was Congress’s unwillingness to 

provide adequate funding for S/CRS to perform its mandate. Even 

after S/CRS was authorized, Congress was unsupportive of establishing an ongoing crisis response fund. Thus, S/CRS managed no independent funding that would have enabled it to respond to crises and 

prevent conflict. S/CRS’s operational plan was compelled to continue 

to rely on voluntary funds transfers from the DOD.22 S/CRS’s inability to bring to the engagement a consistent pool of funding resources 

stood in sharp contrast to the capabilities of other civilian crisis response entities, like USAID’s OFDA or OTI, each of which manage 

large appropriations accounts. In response to repeated requests for 

such independent funding for S/CRS, Congress, as part of the FY 

2010 Omnibus Appropriations Act, created a new Complex Crises 

Fund (at the $50 million level). However, this was established within 

USAID, rather than the DOS.

Seemingly on the positive side, S/CRS was subsumed into a bureau, per policy guidance of the QDDR of Secretary of State Hillary 

Clinton. The 2010 QDDR reiterated the foreign policy priority of 

conflict prevention and response within fragile states. With the aim 

of further improving DOS crisis and conflict management capabilities, the QDDR proposed the establishment of a new undersecretary 

of state position for civilian security, democracy, and human rights 

(J), to replace the undersecretary for global affairs (G). This new undersecretary would manage, in addition to several existing bureaus, a 

newly created CSO, subsuming S/CRS.

Recommendations

For civilian-military teams to succeed in a complex environment, 

they must operate in a US government system that promotes coordination and collaboration. Given the evolution of S/CRS and the policy established under the QDDR, the coordination function originally envisaged for S/CRS could more effectively be accomplished in 

an organizational unit embedded in, and drawing authority directly 

from, the Office of the Secretary of State, rather than through an independent bureau. The need continues for a DOS entity to play a 

leadership role in synergizing civilian-military coordination, including 
496 │ KUNDER

conflict prevention and postconflict stabilization. The way forward 

requires taking what S/CRS built and completing the architecture envisaged in NSPD-44 and outlined in the QDDR, establishing a centralized office that can coordinate the interagency. The following 

steps are required: 

•  The secretary of state must institutionalize the function of “senior advisor on conflict and instability,” as described in the 

QDDR of 2010. The IMS must be resurrected and formally promulgated to enable civilian and military partners within and 

outside the US government, to train to a standard deployment 

template, and to enhance civilian-military interface.

•  TheCRCshould be reconstituted and training for allCRC members,

including standby members, must be reestablished and increased—

especially with regard to understanding military operations and 

field operations—in order to enhance civilian-military synergy 

during deployments. Given budgetary constraints, the CRC standby 

should be the emphasis, and the partner home agencies should be 

reimbursed for services only when these experts deploy or are engaged in pertinent training and exercises.

•  The CSO assistant secretary must design and implement a more

rigorous, sustained training and exercise/gaming regimen for 

the restored CRC members, including increased participation in 

military games and exercises, in order to enhance readiness and 

retention in the CRC.

•  Congress must provide at least a minimal crisis response fund to

the DOS for rapid interventions during crises.

•  The DOS must systematically harvest lessons learned by participants on civilian-military teams, model such reviews on the 

military-style after action reviews, and provide wider distribution of these findings to future team members.

In summary, forging high-performing civilian-military teams for 

complex operations requires sustained US government investment at 

multiple levels and the establishment of a standing CCOE designed 

for this purpose.
A CIVILIAN CENTER OF EXCELLENCE │ 497

Notes

1. White House, National Security Presidential Directive 44 (NSPD-44), 7 December 2005, https://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-44.pdf.

2. Ibid., 2.

3. DOS, “Bureaus/Offices Reporting Directly to the Secretary: Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization: About Us,” no date, http://web.archive

.org/web/20111024180813/http://www.state.gov/s/crs/about/index.htm.

4. DOS, “Bureaus/Offices Reporting Directly to the Secretary: Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization: Where We Work,” no date, http://

web.archive.org/web/20111024180957/http://www.state.gov/s/crs/where/index

.htm.

5. White House, NSPD-44, 2.

6. Ibid, 3.

7. The Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2009, Section 

1602 (3).

8. DOS, “Bureaus/Offices Reporting Directly to the Secretary: Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization: What We Do,” no date, http://web

.archive.org/web/20111024180957/http://www.state.gov/s/crs/what/index.htm.

9. It should be noted that S/CRS was “not the only game in town” in terms of 

enhancing systematic civilian-military interface at the Washington and regional levels. Significant enhancements were made in civilian-military coordination during 

complex operations through greater use of USAID liaison officers at regional combatant commands (RCC) to backstop the traditional role of the combatant commander’s political advisor. Many RCCs had joint interagency support groups or 

similar structures to increase interactions with US government civilian agencies present in their respective areas of operation. US Africa Command created an organizational structure that integrated civilian US government employees into its command 

structure at a high level.

10. White House, Presidential Decision Directive (PDD)/NSC-56, Managing 

Complex Contingency Operations, May 1997.

11. The author was the USAID representative to the series of NSC meetings on 

NSPD-44 and personally participated in these discussions.

12. It should be noted that a number of civilian US government entities have 

regularly deployed highly skilled individuals into complex operations but for very 

specific functions and without an overall coordination responsibility for civilian operations. These entities include the DOS Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration; the Justice Department’s International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program and the Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development Assistance 

and Training; and the USAID OFDA and OTI.

13. The source for these data is the S/CRS-sponsored training course RS 500, 

Foundations of Conflict Prevention and Response, taught at the DOS FSI. The author was a contract instructor in that course, which was required for all new CRC 

members, whether active or standby.

14. The standing cadre of S/CRS employees and CRC members, in addition to 

providing a pool for deployment to complex crises, also permitted the systematic 

harvesting of lessons learned and best practices from prior deployments to integrate 
498 │ KUNDER

into future doctrine and training. S/CRS maintained an Office of Knowledge Management and Informational Technology.

15. DOS, “Bureaus/Offices Reporting Directly to the Secretary: Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization: About S/CRS: Frequently Asked 

Questions,” 15 July 2008, http://web.archive.org/web/20091130074628/http://www

.state.gov/s/crs/66427.htm.

16. In May 2011 the author participated in a USMC Command and Staff College 

exercise—designated “Nine Innings”—that included an S/CRS CRSG cell and exercised a Panama-based scenario.

17. US Joint Forces Command, Handbook for Military Participation in the Interagency Management System for Reconstruction and Stabilization, Unified Action Handbook Series, Book One (Norfolk, VA: US Joint Forces Command, 17 February 2010).

18. Ibid., 3.

19. NSPD-44, https://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-44.pdf.

20. Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute, RS 500 course, Foundations 

of Conflict Prevention and Response, module 12, slides 11–14.

21. Ibid., 140–210.

22. The secretary of state designated S/CRS to take the lead role within the DOS 

on coordinating, along with the DOD and USAID, distribution of the “Section 1207” 

DOD funds. As described by S/CRS, 

In 2006, Congress passed section 1207 of the FY 2006 National Defense Authorization 

Act, which authorized the transfer of up to $100 million in 2006 and 2007 from the 

Secretary of Defense to the Secretary of State for programs that support security, reconstruction or stabilization. The 1207 authority is intended to improve US capacity and 

interagency coordination for immediate reconstruction, security or stabilization assistance to maintain peace and security in countries that are unstable. Section 1207 had a 

strong civilian-military coordination and cooperation component, which meant that it 

focused on reconstruction and stabilization via civilian coordination with the security 

sector and civil society.

Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, US Department 

of State, “1207 Funding,” 14 July 2008, http://2001-2009.state.gov/s/crs/107030.htm.
Chapter 26

What Is the Way Ahead for Rigorous

Research on Civilian-Military Teams

in Complex Contingencies?

Christopher J. Lamb and James Douglas Orton

The previous chapters in this volume are a treasure trove of insights 

on civilian-military relations in general and civilian-military cooperation in complex contingency operations in particular. The chapters cover challenges like different national experiences in civilianmilitary relations, civilian-military planning at the operational or 

theater level, and the tactical experiences of civilian-military teams, 

both historically and in current North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

operations in Afghanistan—mostly concerning provincial reconstruction teams. The observations and recommendations proffered 

are based on firsthand experiences in most cases, making them all the 

more valuable. One unifying theme throughout the diverse chapters 

and personal experiences is the need to collaborate across organizational boundaries. Virtually every author acknowledges the importance of this key requirement for success in complex contingencies, 

and most offer positive recommendations on how to achieve it. Unfortunately, the richness of the insights and perspectives and the lack 

of common definitions and presumptive explanatory variables make 

it difficult to compare and substantiate individual recommendations. 

Looking to the future, the challenge will be to distill a common set of 

best practices from such wide-ranging individual perspectives. The 

purpose of this chapter is to recommend a way forward for doing that 

by providing a framework for future research that will permit best 

practices for cross-organizational collaboration in complex contingencies to be identified and substantiated.

The need for cross-organizational collaboration is well acknowledged. The private sector has worked the issue for decades, and more 

recently national security experts have been making the case for better 

cross-organizational collaboration. In national contexts, the topic is generally referred to as interagency cooperation or whole-of-government 

solutions. Since the subject matter of this book includes cooperation 

with other nations and nongovernmental organizations (NGO), we 
500 │ LAMB & ORTON

will not use the term “interagency,” which implies cross-organizational cooperation among one nation’s executive departments. Instead, we will refer to the small groups of functional experts who 

must collaborate to solve civilian-military problems in complex contingencies as “cross-functional teams”—the term most often applied 

in the private sector.1

 The term is helpfully descriptive. The members 

of such small groups represent different functional bodies of expertise, and they must interact as a team in order to be productive. 

Broadly construed, the bodies of expertise represented are civil or 

military in origin. For the purposes of complex contingencies, they 

are typically described as diplomatic, defense, and development related. The bodies of functional expertise could be broken down with 

even greater specificity, but the goal remains the same: to combine 

different bodies of functional expertise to arrive at a better solution to 

a complex problem.

Many blue-ribbon panels and commissions of one type or another 

have recommended cross-functional teams as a potential solution to 

modern security problems and particularly for irregular warfare 

threats.2

 At National Defense University in Washington, DC, a small 

team of researchers has been researching small cross-organizational 

teams assigned to solve complex national security problems to determine the factors that best explain success or failure in such endeavors. To date their historical descriptive accounts indicate interagency 

teams can indeed perform with great effectiveness, but the analysis 

also suggests that interagency team effectiveness is not widespread, 

easily replicated, or well understood.3

 Further research is needed to 

better understand how effective cross-functional teams in complex 

contingencies can be built and maintained with a high assurance of 

success. As we have described elsewhere, this requires attention to 

theory and social science best methods.4

 In particular, those researching civilian-military teams in complex contingencies need a typology 

of such teams and a presumptive list of key explanatory variables to 

guide case study research so that the body of knowledge is comparable and can produce substantiated generalizations on which variables 

best explain team effectiveness.

To obtain a cross-functional team typology and a presumptive list 

of key explanatory variables, we reviewed the literature on team effectiveness—particularly 12 comprehensive literature reviews published between 1982 and 2008.5

 We found that the literature on teams 

has many of the same advantages and disadvantages of the diverse 
WHAT IS THE ROAD AHEAD FOR RIGOROUS RESEARCH│ 501

chapters in this book: it is extensive and full of important insights, 

but its collective value is limited by ambiguous definitions, lack of 

common categories, and failure to identify which explanatory variables best explain performance. The literature has not yet produced a 

consensus on the distinguishing characteristics of groups, teams, and 

cross-functional teams, and it has not yet converged on a well-structured list of variables that explain small group and team performance. 

Therefore, those studying civilian-military teams in complex contingencies need to impose some definitional rigor, methodological clarity, and plausible categorization in order to make progress toward 

cumulative knowledge. In the rest of this chapter, we recommend a 

way to do just that.

Groups, Teams, and Cross-Functional Teams

The first problem is that many researchers do not consistently distinguish between types of small collaborative groups, thus confusing 

and undermining the relevance of their findings. Many researchers 

do not distinguish teams from groups and, in fact, often use the terms 

interchangeably.6

 However, absent some agreed-upon defining characteristics for what distinguishes a team from other organizational 

groups, teams and their effectiveness cannot be studied systematically. Performance expectations and explanations for one type of 

group might not apply to another. The solution we propose is to distinguish between groups, teams, and cross-functional teams and to 

do so by the level of task interdependence.

The level of task interdependence is a well-accepted concept 

among organization theorists, developed by James D. Thompson in 

the 1950s and 1960s. Thompson, in his classic 1953 case study on US 

B-50 bombers, identified three different types of task interdependence: pooled, sequential, and reciprocal.7

 We believe these three levels can be used to distinguish teams from groups and cross-functional 

teams from teams more generally.

Pooled interdependence is the minimal level of task interdependence group members might experience.8

 Members of the group 

benefit from the efficiencies derived from sharing leadership, tools, 

office space, and/or identities, all of which are manifestations of 

pooled interdependence. Many groups never exceed this level of task 

interdependence but can nonetheless prove effective—as long as they 
502 │ LAMB & ORTON

are not expected to perform at a higher level of task interdependence. 

For example, at US combatant commands, a joint interagency coordination group that only shares information and offers advice is best 

categorized as a group, because its level of task interdependence is 

low. It can perform information sharing quite well but should not be 

expected to actually solve more complex problems.

Sequential interdependence is a moderate level of task interdependence that requires some division of labor or specialization among 

group members and standard operating procedures, calendars, schedules, and at least some degree of team leadership to coordinate the activity.9

 Assigned tasks that demand sequential interdependence require 

group members to coordinate their activities and thus satisfy the minimum qualification for designation as a team. Some civilian-military 

planning teams rise to this level of task interdependence as they coordinate a plan that originates in one source but passes through other 

members who coordinate the product with their parent organizations 

until all parties approve a generally agreed-upon plan.

The performance expectations for many provincial reconstruction 

teams (PRT) described in previous chapters imply the need for the 

third and highest level of task interdependence: reciprocal interdependence. A cross-functional team’s task environment typically requires reciprocal interdependence. According to Thompson, activities that require rapid coordination of diverse functional expertise 

require “mutual adjustment” among the functional specialties on an 

ongoing basis. All teams may experience some level of mutual adjustment between specialties, but effective cross-functional teams do so 

routinely and rapidly. For example, PRT members need to work out 

the relative value and timing of infrastructure investment projects, 

which, according to Mike McCoy’s chapter, “Civilian-Military Teaming: The When, Where, and How,” remains contentious and difficult. 

PRTs have to reconcile these competing perspectives on an ongoing 

basis, just as any cross-functional team composed of members with 

different functional specialties must do.

Cross-functional teams are such a prominent feature in the private 

sector that they have been called a “quiet revolution,” and they are 

thoroughly researched.10 Researchers have paid far less attention to 

cross-functional teams that are assigned national or international security missions, which is one reason this book is such a helpful addition to the literature. PRTs and other civilian-military teams are, by 

definition, “cross-functional”—insofar as their members represent 
WHAT IS THE ROAD AHEAD FOR RIGOROUS RESEARCH│ 503

major functional specialties (military, diplomacy, homeland security, 

economics, law enforcement, intelligence, etc.). Since civilian-military 

teams are the equivalent of cross-functional teams, and we want to 

know more about what best explains their performance, we examined the literature for insights on the most important explanatory 

performance variables.

Some previous research indicates it is important to distinguish 

among different types of cross-functional teams.11 Two criteria for 

differentiating between types of teams are managerial scope (strategic, operational, or tactical) and temporal duration (standing or temporary). The resulting classification scheme in table 26.1 yields six 

types of teams and some corresponding examples of the types from 

the national security realm and the labels often used in the literature 

to distinguish them. The first criterion—managerial scope—simply 

calls attention to the fact that major differences in levels of managerial scope correspond with large qualitative differences in the type of 

work performed. We can postulate that the relative import of performance variables may change depending on the scope of the team’s 

mission or tasks.

Table 26.1. Six types of cross-functional teams

Scope Standing Temporary

Strategic

(top mgmt)

Executive Teams

(e.g., Senior Interagency 

Strategy Team at National 

Counterterrorism Center)

Project Teams

(e.g., Task Force for Military 

Stabilization in the Balkans)

Operational

(middle mgmt)

Parallel Teams

(Joint Interagency Task Force–

South)

Command Teams

(Office of the Coordinator for 

Reconstruction and Stabilization’s “integration planning cell”)

Tactical

(first-line mgmt)

Production Teams

(embassy country teams)

Action Teams

(PRTs, high-value targeting 

teams, human terrain teams)

Similarly, we assume that the duration of the team and its mission 

could change the relative importance of performance variables. In 

particular, we would postulate that the differences between crossfunctional teams of long duration and those thrown together ad hoc 
504 │ LAMB & ORTON

will manifest major differences in terms of team culture, decision 

making, and other performance variables—if for no other reason 

than the fact that the loyalty of the individual to the team might vary 

according to the expected duration of its affiliation with the team. 

Presumably, it might be harder to integrate a person from a different 

functional specialty into a team, if that individual knows he or she 

will soon return to his or her functional organization where he or she 

would be rewarded for how well he or she protected the equities of his 

or her parent organization. Conversely, if a functional specialist joins 

a team permanently, his or her ability to contribute functional expertise would deteriorate over time, thus eroding his or her usefulness to 

the team. In any case, the team dynamics on the relative reliance on 

authority versus culture or other integrating factors could be quite 

different on ad hoc versus long-term cross-functional teams.

Ten Core Variables

It is important to differentiate between types of teams so that we 

don’t erroneously assume that best practices for one type of team will 

be the same as for another. To determine whether this is the case or 

not, we must start with a common set of variables and examine them 

across multiple types of teams. From our literature review, we identified 10 tentative key variables that seem to best explain team effectiveness in general. We emphasize the word tentative, because we acknowledge these variables are extracted from a rich literature base 

and are not well substantiated by a cohesive body of research that is 

team-type specific. We organize the variables in three sets: one at the 

organizational level, one at the team level, and one at the subteam 

level. Team purpose, team empowerment, and team context have all 

been shown to be necessary organizational conditions for team effectiveness and often depend upon organizational factors beyond the 

immediate control of the team. Team structure, team decision making, team culture, and team learning are all variables directly controlled by the team. Team composition, team rewards, and team leadership are all variables at the individual level of analysis that are 

strongly related to team effectiveness.

Each of the variables has been the topic of many hundreds of studies and dozens of literature reviews and meta-analyses. By examining 

this body of research, we identified subsidiary team characteristics 
WHAT IS THE ROAD AHEAD FOR RIGOROUS RESEARCH│ 505

that researchers have shown affect team effectiveness and that usefully illustrate the range of variation within each of the variables. The 

net result is a range of performance characteristics for what we postulate are the most important 10 explanatory variables for performance. Drawing upon cross-functional team research literature and 

using illustrative examples from earlier chapters in this book or from 

research under way in the Institute for National Strategic Studies at 

the National Defense University, we explain these variables in table 

26.2. The authors and other researchers in the institute are using 

these variables and their performance characteristics to better understand the performance of interagency teams in the US national security system. A book with a set of in-depth case studies is being readied for publication. The purpose here is simply to illustrate the value 

of the variables to guide future research on civilian-military teams in 

complex contingencies.

Table 26.2. Ten core variables (and subvariables) affecting civilianmilitary team effectiveness

Organizational-level variables

Purpose Team founding Strategic consensus Strategic concept

Empowerment Structural Resources Psychological

Support Organizational 

relationships

Supportive organizational context

Team-based

organizations

Team-level variables

Structure Design Mental models Team boundary 

spanning 

Decision

making Heterogeneity Conflict Implementation

Culture Climate Cohesion Trust

Learning Exploitation Experimentation Exploration

Individual-level variables

Composition Diversity Competencies Personality

Rewards Attractive

motivations Active incentives Affective impetus

Leadership Traditional Coaching Shared
506 │ LAMB & ORTON

Purpose, Empowerment, and Support

Team purpose is the broad, long-term mandate given to the team 

by its management, alignment of short-term objectives with its strategic vision, and agreement on common approaches within the team. 

In chapter 4 of this volume, Rufus Phillips’ firsthand account of difficulties faced by civilian-military teams in Vietnam in the 1950s and 

1960s usefully illustrates the importance of team purpose as a characteristic of effective cross-functional security teams. First, he notes 

that a clear sense of purpose was generally missing: “US agencies, civilian and military, did not coordinate or unify in purpose. Instead, 

they followed separate agendas.”12 He then observes that the great 

value of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program was that it “unified the US pacification effort 

from top to bottom.”13 Absent this unified purpose, it was impossible 

for the many departments and agencies of the US government that 

were pursuing pacification objectives to make much progress.

There is a widespread belief in management literature that managers 

should not dictate team objectives with too much specificity, because 

it might prevent the team from identifying the real problems and best 

ways to solve them. However, the literature on teams suggests they 

may require at least initial broad direction as to their purpose.14 One of 

the reasons that the Joint Interagency Task Force–South (JIATF–

South) has been so effective is that it has a focused strategic consensus on its purpose (interdict drugs) and over time has been able to 

translate that narrow purpose into a well-shared operational concept 

for team performance of how things are done at JIATF–South.15 In 

contrast, many civilian-military teams are sharply divided in their 

assessment of mission purpose. As Lisa Schirch notes, for example, in 

her chapter, “Civil Society Experiences of, Conflicts with, and Recommendations for Civilian-Military Teams,” there is a basic tension between development specialists and military leaders over the value of 

“quick impact programs” designed to influence local populations rather 

than contribute to longer-term development goals. Many of Schirch’s 

recommendations are designed to remove this impediment to civilianmilitary cooperation by reconciling short- and long-term goals.

Team empowerment is the capacity to accomplish the team’s purpose.16 Three types of team empowerment have been linked to team effectiveness: resource empowerment, structural empowerment (for example, authority, power, and control), and psychological empowerment 
WHAT IS THE ROAD AHEAD FOR RIGOROUS RESEARCH│ 507

(confidence, efficacy, and potency). McCoy, in “Civilian-Military 

Teaming: The When, Where, and How,” notes that most PRTs are not 

sufficiently empowered. Rather, resources are retained by the parent 

agencies: “The various titles that regulate the different agencies preclude the use of domestic agency money on foreign operations and 

do not allow for one agency to supervise personnel of another agency. 

The effect is often duplicative or conflicting programs.”17

Concerning directive authority, and to quote Andrea Strimling 

Yodsampa in chapter 17 of this volume, many observers “argue that 

the only way to achieve coordinated results is by establishing a strong, 

overarching coordination authority, what the military refers to as 

‘unity of command.’”18 In the case of a single nation where executive 

authority is concentrated in the hands of a chief executive, delegation 

of such authority is still uncommon—but at least a possibility.19 As 

Strimling Yodsampa goes on to point out, however, “Unity of command is not an option when dealing with the broader array of sovereign nations, independent NGOs, and other autonomous agencies 

engaged in stabilization and reconstruction efforts. These actors simply will not accept an overarching coordinator with the authority to 

direct from above. As the maxim goes, everyone wants coordination, 

but no one wants to be coordinated.”20

The good news, though, is that some research on cross-functional 

teams demonstrates that it is possible to forge an effective team without explicit, formal, or preexisting directive authority. This is true, for 

example, both in the high-value targeting teams pioneered by US 

special operations forces and at JIATF–South.21 However, the evidence suggests that the absence of such authority makes the teams 

fragile and slow to develop.

The lack of tangible resource empowerment described by McCoy 

and the lack of structural empowerment described by Strimling 

Yodsampa can separately and in combination lead to a lack of the 

psychological empowerment necessary for a team to be effective. 

Corporations routinely allocate resources from corporate headquarters into cross-functional teams that are seen as strategic investments 

for the organization. In contrast, cross-functional teams in the national security system are not typically given the resources necessary 

to accomplish their tasks. Even when such groups agree on objectives, they commonly cannot agree on which departments and agencies will provide the resources necessary to achieve those objectives. 

There are exceptions, such as Plan Colombia, which was successful in 
508 │ LAMB & ORTON

large part because it received needed resources. Sandy Berger, Pres. 

Bill Clinton’s national security advisor, created the Plan Colombia 

team in the summer of 1999 to reverse Colombia’s slide into a cocaine-driven illicit drug economy. Amb. Thomas Pickering, who led 

the interagency team, later explained that one of the reasons behind 

the success of Plan Colombia was the fact that the US Congress allocated $1.6 billion to the effort.22 Pickering believed that this significant infusion of resources eliminated much of the friction that normally bogs down interagency teams.

Team support is the set of relations that connect a team to other 

levels of the organization. It can matter a great deal whether teams 

benefit from the cooperation of the rest of the organization, receive 

ambivalent noninterference, or operate against opposition from the 

rest of the organization. Numerous team researchers have found that 

organizational support is a primary determinant of the effectiveness 

of the team.23 Contrary to the common prejudice that hardworking 

and well-intentioned lower-ranking officials will work out interagency differences if left alone, most successful interagency teams 

benefit from substantial senior leadership support. Anecdotally, it 

seems extremely difficult if not impossible for an interagency team to 

be successful without some broader level of support from the national security system and its leaders.

Unfortunately, US cross-functional security teams often work in organizational contexts that make it difficult for them to accomplish their 

missions. The Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive 

(NCIX) experience is a common one. Created in 2001 to bring together 

diverse counterintelligence capabilities across the US national security 

system, the NCIX found it difficult to get operating quickly:

For the administrative support system, anything that is different is a problem 

at least initially, because it does not fit into the known set of rules and procedures. This effect is multiplied when the objective is to wire together disparate 

security regimes governing computer systems, personnel practices, and physical space. . . . One of the enduring problems we encountered was in recruiting 

capable personnel to work in the new [counterintelligence] office. All national 

“centers” have an inherent personnel problem: you want and need the best 

and brightest, but there are never enough of those to go around. . . . Even if a 

given individual is personally disposed to take an assignment with the national office, getting their line management’s okay is far from easy.24

Some organizations are purposefully managed to provide quick 

and effective support for cross-functional teams, and the teams thrive 
WHAT IS THE ROAD AHEAD FOR RIGOROUS RESEARCH│ 509

in such fertile ground. The US national security system, however, is 

not engineered to provide such team-based organizational support 

and does so only on an exceptional basis. Thus, it is much more difficult for teams to quickly start up and prove effective.25

Structure, Decision Making, Culture, and Learning

Team structure refers to the mechanics of teams: their design, collocation, and outreach or “boundary spanning” dynamics.26 In general, research shows that effective team structures are small, collocated, and embedded within powerful networks. Team design

encompasses decisions about the tasks performed by the team, nature of subunits within the team, specific number of team members 

needed, and tenure of the team. Cross-functional teams vary significantly by type and design. A standing national-level team near the 

top of the organization may require a different design than a temporary action committee at the bottom of the organization. Size is another team design variable that is subject to the type of team task 

being performed. Here we can perhaps extrapolate from the Harvard 

Business School’s classic guide to managing meetings to recognize 

the practical size limit on productive group efforts with its 8–18–

1,800 rule.27 If the purpose of a cross-functional team is mere “coordination” or simple communication of information across multiple 

organizations, the group can be quite large (for example, up to 1,800 

people or as many as an auditorium or listserv will hold). If the purpose is nonbinding “cooperation,” such as brainstorming or perhaps 

the accomplishment of a common and relatively simple objective, the 

team should be much smaller (18 people in a conference room or on 

a conference call). If, though, the purpose is “collaboration,” or creative decision making that integrates different viewpoints to solve 

complex problems, the cross-functional team must be small (eight 

people around a table or on a videoconference) because a “large 

number of people—by virtue of their size—have trouble interacting 

constructively as a group, much less agreeing on actionable specifics.”28

Cross-functional teams at all levels—the National Security Council committees, JIATFs, or field operations such as PRTs—are under 

pressure to let more organizations send representatives to participate 

in the decision process. Research on cross-functional teams suggests, 

however, that teams cannot be effective if they are too large. In this 
510 │ LAMB & ORTON

regard the sizes of the Norwegian/Latvian PRTs described in Friis’s 

chapter in this volume on the Norwegian approach to Afghanistan 

are so large that they would require a small management team in order to be effective—at least according to organizational literature we 

have surveyed.29 In addition to underscoring the need for intelligent 

team designs, team structure research also suggests that the core 

team must network well both internally and externally to be successful. In high-performing cross-functional teams, it is common to find 

that members have a detailed understanding of the role that other 

members play, sometimes referred to as “transactive memory systems.” Practically speaking, the team members know “who knows 

what,” “who can do what,” and “who has access to people outside the 

team who can solve specific problems.” Shared transactive memory 

has been shown to increase resilience through a process known as 

“deference to expertise,” in which problems migrate to the people 

most likely to have the ability to solve them, rather than centralizing 

at the top of the organization.30 This phenomenon has been observed, 

for example, in cardiosurgical teams and wildland firefighting teams. 

Effective teams also compensate for their small size by networking 

externally with other bodies with access to needed expertise.31 For 

example, brigade commanders in Afghanistan sometimes encourage 

their human terrain teams to collaborate with PRTs so that they can 

better perform their mission of providing commanders with sociocultural knowledge.32

Team decision-making processes are employed to make sense of 

and solve a variety of complex problems faced by the team. Understanding the factors that distinguish effective team decision-making 

processes from less effective ones is a high priority in organizations 

because marginal improvements in decision quality can result in 

benefits, and marginal degradations in decision quality can result in 

catastrophes.33 Given the diverse functional perspectives they embody, cross-functional teams are by their very nature prone to experience conflict within the team’s decision-making process. Conflict is 

not necessarily bad, but it must be managed productively. Schirch 

provides an example of how easily civilian-military cooperation can 

be derailed by unresolved conflicts within decision-making processes. She states that “NGOs expressed frustration over military 

forces dropping food rations. . . . Tensions skyrocketed as military personnel began wearing civilian clothing and traveling in unmarked 

white trucks. NGOs argued they had a long reputation of using white 
WHAT IS THE ROAD AHEAD FOR RIGOROUS RESEARCH│ 511

vehicles to deliver assistance, and the military employing such resources essentially blurred the distinction between unarmed, independent NGOs and military personnel. Despite urgent pleas from 

NGOs, it took the military several years to address these issues. The 

delays contributed to a sense among NGOs that the military did not 

really care about their security or delivering humanitarian aid.”34

Apparently it was not possible for the military authorities in this 

case to see things from the NGO perspective. National security events 

have been studied from the vantage point of team decision-making 

processes for over 50 years, and one consistent finding is that multiple points of view are beneficial in order to avoid “groupthink.”35 Subsequent research shows that groups with high levels of cohesiveness 

may suffer from the inability or unwillingness of individuals to contest emergent team decisions.36 Sometimes teams that have been together for a while lose their effectiveness because the team members 

converge on a common viewpoint and lose their capacity to engage in 

constructive team conflict. Researchers now recognize two different 

types of team conflict: emotional conflict (“a condition in which 

group members have interpersonal clashes characterized by anger, 

frustration, and other negative feelings”) and task conflict (“a condition in which group members disagree about task issues, including 

goals, key decision areas, procedures, and the appropriate choice for 

action”).37 Research shows that emotional conflict leads to poor decisions, while task conflict can lead to better decisions.38 The objective 

in team decision making is to ensure a productive clash of divergent 

views while forging agreement on the best way forward—something 

much more easily said than done.

Team culture is the combination of norms, values, and beliefs 

shared by team members. Effective cross-functional teams require 

team cultures that are cohesive, foster a climate of shared values, and 

are based on high degrees of trust.39 There is a great deal of literature 

on how different organizational cultures stymie cross-organizational 

collaboration, including many of the preceding chapters in this book. 

The creation of effective team cultures is a major challenge for any 

cross-functional team, but this is especially true for those with particularly diverse representation. In this respect, ambassadors face a 

growing challenge when trying to weld their country teams into a 

cohesive whole. As Amb. Robert B. Oakley and researcher Michael 

Casey Jr. state, “Not only must ambassadors coordinate major government activities such as diplomacy, commercial relations, use of 
512 │ LAMB & ORTON

force, and intelligence activities, but they also must provide interagency coordination for numerous sub-specialties within a given area. 

With over 30 government agencies now dispatching employees overseas, non–State Department personnel often outnumber diplomats.”40

With so many diverse organizational cultures represented on the 

country team, the ambassador has a major problem establishing cohesion. Creating a cohesive culture is further complicated when 

country team members distrust the ambassador. As one major study 

of country team performance concluded, other members of the country team do not typically see the ambassadors as an overarching national representative; instead, they see the ambassador as a representative of the Department of State who pursues Department of State 

interests. Thus, “agencies encourage their personnel on the country 

team to pursue their own objectives and lines of operation, without 

adequate consultation or coordination.”41

Marcia Byrom Hartwell’s chapter in this book does a good job of 

charting the “very different organizational cultures and views that 

contributed to occasional misunderstandings and mutual frustration” in Afghanistan.42 Research on cross-functional teams shows 

that teams with a high level of trust are more innovative, learn more 

quickly, have higher degrees of cooperation, and experience less 

damaging conflict.43 The creation of a team culture with a high degree 

of trust is not easy, as Hartwell points out. Team members come from 

different parts of the national security system, each of which has a 

powerful culture of its own. As Hartwell argues, effective cross-functional security teams need to create their own team cultures—stronger than the distant organizational cultures of the organizations from 

which the team members originate.

Team learning is an ongoing process of action, reflection, and 

change, through which teams acquire, share, combine, and apply 

knowledge.44 Effective teams not only make good decisions but also 

rapidly acquire new knowledge and embed that knowledge into the 

team’s structure, processes, and culture.45 In rapidly changing global 

environments, teams that learn accurately and quickly have a significant competitive advantage over teams that learn poorly and slowly.46

As some of the previous chapters suggest, sometimes the first learning 

experience for a new member of a cross-functional team is to appreciate the value of different perspectives. With this in mind, many of the 

authors recommend cross-functional training and team-building exercises as a first step toward improving civilian-military cooperation.
WHAT IS THE ROAD AHEAD FOR RIGOROUS RESEARCH│ 513

Decision makers can design cross-functional security teams to efficiently replicate old knowledge, to artfully experiment with old and 

new knowledge, or to plunge headfirst into new knowledge domains. 

Historically, “exploitative learning,” a belief in replicating past successes, has dominated the US national security system. Presumably 

future interagency national security teams will want to focus more on 

learning capacity. Effective experimental learning teams place a high 

value on after-action reviews, lessons-learned exercises, and agile retrospectives in order to learn how to improve their strategy, organization, and processes.47 Effective exploratory learning teams survey their 

environments through sense making, scouting, and mental “mapmaking activities.” Facing the unknown can be disconcerting and may 

incline a team to ignore the unfamiliar, but good exploratory practices 

make the unfamiliar comprehensible and facilitate action.48

Composition, Rewards, and Leadership

Team composition refers to the characteristics of individuals chosen for the team, the presence of subcultures or factions within the 

team, and the amount of diversity in attitudes, demographic characteristics, and functional boundaries. Composition is a core theme 

throughout this book. R. Scott Moore makes the point that the military 

can do and has done most civilian-military tasks itself in conflict environments, recruiting or training the requisite functional expertise.49

However, the rest of the authors contributing to this book acknowledge that teams composed of diverse civilian and military personnel 

are necessary and more likely to solve complex problems than teams 

composed of personnel from one organizational background. For example, after noting the advantages of civilian (soft power) over military 

(hard power) skill sets, Christopher Holshek concludes that “the 

question is not whether to employ hard or soft power, but what balance and combination ought to be used. Utilized together appropriately, they are comultipliers, which may be the greatest argument as to 

why the military may still play a role, albeit limited and subordinate, 

in humanitarian assistance and development—as long, however, as it 

does not attempt to cloak its engagements as “humanitarian,” when it 

is clear this is not the ultimate objective.”50

In cross-functional team literature, a number of member characteristics are believed to affect performance, including demographic, 
514 │ LAMB & ORTON

attitudinal, and functional diversity.51 Leaders can choose team members to accentuate homogeneity or heterogeneity and to create subunits, factions, or subcultures. Still, all team members may benefit 

from some common baseline team skills, which the large literature 

on team training addresses.52 Similarly, studies of “team personality” 

consider selection, socialization, and strategy processes to ensure 

that each member has the necessary personality characteristics, goal 

orientations, or other individual-level attributes to contribute.53

It would be easier to manage cross-functional team composition if 

the parent organizations that supply the membership kept track of 

which personnel participated on such teams. Unfortunately, time 

spent away from the parent organization typically is considered time 

lost for productive career management. Recent National Defense 

University research on interagency teams used in Iraq found that the 

Department of Defense makes no effort to track which personnel 

participated in and led interagency teams well. The human capital 

files of people who already have had significant experiences on interagency teams are not “tagged” so that their interagency experience is 

evident. Thus, these experienced cross-organizational veterans cannot be located easily to obtain insights, rewarded for complex and 

successful assignments, or identified for future cross-functional or 

interagency assignments.54

Team rewards are systems of attractive motivations, material reinforcements, and emotional benefits that direct team members toward 

the accomplishment of the mission.55 Effective reward systems not 

only encourage individual members in their discrete responsibilities 

as team members but also provide significant rewards for team accomplishments measured against the team’s criteria for success.56

Conversely, inconsistency between a team’s purpose and its reward 

system can undermine the effectiveness of the team. Although not 

the subject of either of the excellent chapters in this book addressing 

the CORDS program, the point often made about that organization 

was that it rationalized incentives (or rewards) for personnel in the 

unique interagency program by “placing nearly all civilian and military interagency assets involved in the pacification struggle under 

one civilian manager.”57 Consequently members of CORDS could cooperate with one another on a common mission without being subject to undue influence from their parent agencies.

Cross-functional teams can benefit from three types of team rewards. Rewards can be used to attract high-performing professionals, 
WHAT IS THE ROAD AHEAD FOR RIGOROUS RESEARCH│ 515

convincing them to jump out of their safe career paths within an organization and serve in what may be a more demanding and less 

highly valued position on a cross-functional team. Material (financial 

and other) rewards can be used within the team to create incentives 

for members to achieve individual and collective team objectives. Finally, members of effective teams frequently report being motivated 

by the exhilaration that comes from participating on a successful 

cross-functional team solving complex problems.58 Research on interagency teams at the Institute for National Strategic Studies supports the contention in the literature that the third type, what some 

may call “psychological rewards,” is by far the most effective. Members of high-value targeting teams in Iraq described the strong positive emotions that intelligence analysts experience when they see 

their work immediately translated into action. Multiple interviewees 

with experience at JIATF–South reported that working there was the 

high point of their careers. Similar sentiments were expressed by every member of the interagency team that managed the US government’s military stabilization program in Bosnia as part of the Dayton 

peace accords. Under the right circumstances, participation in interagency teams can create extraordinarily positive team emotions.

Team leadership is broadly defined as the collection of strategic actions that are taken to accomplish team objectives, ensure efficiency, 

and avoid catastrophes. Although it flies in the face of popular opinion that assumes good leadership is the key to success in virtually 

everything, over 50 years of organizational research shows that a 

good leader in a dysfunctional system is likely to fail, while a bad 

leader in a well-organized system is likely to succeed.59 Good team 

leaders are successful not because they are forceful, decisive, charismatic, or inspirational, but because they build good teams that then 

create the desired outcomes.60 Good cross-functional teams require 

leaders who can secure critical resources for the team, exercise authority without suffocating the creativity of the team, and manage the 

team’s effective performance.

Leadership within the US national security system is usually defined in near-Napoleonic terms of individuals, hierarchies, and 

chains of command.61 However, Donald Phillips and James Loy’s description of leadership in the US Coast Guard stands in stark contrast 

to this “great man” approach. In this paradigm, “every person is a 

leader” in contrast to “most studies of leadership [that] involve a single 

person—one leader who has made a difference in an organization.”62
516 │ LAMB & ORTON

As one study notes, “leading well in a distributed leadership model 

requires different skills, such as encouragement and listening. In the 

shared leadership model, the [leader] must ensure that team members, as well as their parent agencies, always know their contribution 

is valued and that they are empowered to take action.”63 These are not 

skills normally associated with assertive traditional top-down leadership style, yet more experience with complex contingencies may increasingly incline national security organizations to see the benefits 

of a distributed leadership model. Maj Mark Popov emphasizes the 

importance of shared leadership on a successful Canadian civilianmilitary team in Afghanistan: “The DDCT [Dand District Combat 

Team] included its civilian personnel as full, integral members of the 

team. The CIDA [Canadian International Development Agency] Stab 

O [stabilization officer] sat directly next to the combat team commander during every orders group and daily coordination session. 

All understood and emphasized that from an organizational perspective, the CIDA Stab O was their combat team commander’s equal and 

advisor, not a subordinate, and treated her as such.”64

Some research suggests that new teams, particularly those established on an ad hoc basis, may benefit from a more traditional leadership style initially. However, as the team establishes itself over time 

and develops a collaborative culture, traditional leaders can actually 

become a liability.65

Conclusion

The increasingly complex security environment demands crossfunctional solutions—and thus, cross-functional security teams. 

Anyone interested in successfully managing complex contingencies 

must understand how to make cross-functional teams perform better 

and do so at all levels. Rigorous research can help in this regard. The 

place to start is with accurate descriptions of cross-functional team 

experiences. Many of the chapters in this book are particularly valuable for their insightful descriptions of cross-functional teams based 

on close personal evaluations and insider accounts. However, most 

authors emphasize one or a few variables that made the greatest impression in their personal experience, and they rarely compare them 

for explanatory efficacy.66 Readers are left with a wealth of insights on 

important factors affecting unity of effort but no means to compare 
WHAT IS THE ROAD AHEAD FOR RIGOROUS RESEARCH│ 517

and contrast the findings in similar situations. Thus substantiating the 

findings by testing them across a range of experiences is not possible.

Nevertheless, from such a solid base of empirical information, we 

can move to explanation, treating the individual insights as hypotheses that must be tested and substantiated. We need to categorize 

teams so that lessons from one type of team are not misapplied to 

teams that must operate in substantially different circumstances. In 

addition, any given explanatory variable must be weighed against alternative explanations. Therefore, agreeing on a broad set of organizational variables that have proven efficacious in previous research 

on cross-functional teams is a good place to begin.

In this regard, the 10 variables offered in this chapter are just a 

start. We do not presume the proposed set of variables is definitive. 

Over time, we may find that some of the variables are prerequisites 

for high performance on civilian-military teams and that others 

merely help cement gains or improve performance on the margins. 

Additional research also may indicate the need to revise the range of 

subvariables within each broad explanatory variable (see table 26.2).67

For the time being, however, we think the broad theoretical framework proposed here befits the sprawling nature of small group and 

team literature, providing structure for further research without imposing too narrow a set of lenses for examining performance.

Notes

1. Glenn M. Parker, Cross-Functional Teams: Working with Allies, Enemies, and 

Other Strangers, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003).

2. See, for example, the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR) report, 

Forging a New Shield (Washington, DC: PNSR, 2008); Christopher J. Lamb, “Three 

Pillars of Reform,” in Global Strategic Assessment 2009: America’s Security Role in a 

Changing World, ed. Patrick M. Cronin (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2009); and Stephen J. Hadley and William J. Perry, The QDR in Perspective: 

Meeting America’s National Security Needs in the 21st Century, Final Report of the 

Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel (Washington, DC: US Institute of 

Peace, 2010).

3. See Christopher J. Lamb and Evan Munsing, Secret Weapon: High-Value Target 

Teams as an Organizational Innovation, Strategic Perspectives series, no. 4 (Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, March 

2011); and Evan Munsing and Christopher J. Lamb, Joint Interagency Task ForceSouth: The Best Known, Least Understood Interagency Success, Strategic Perspectives 

series, no. 5 (Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, June 2011).
518 │ LAMB & ORTON

4. This chapter is based on previous research by the authors: James Douglas Orton with Christopher J. Lamb, “Interagency National Security Teams: Can Social Science Contribute?” PRISM 2, no. 2 (March 2011): 47–64.

5. The 12 reviews were Joseph E. McGrath and David A. Kravitz, “Group Research,” Annual Review of Psychology 33 (1982): 195–230; Marilyn Gist, Edwin A. 

Locke, and M. Susan Taylor, “Organizational Behavior: Group Structure, Process, 

and Effectiveness,” Journal of Management 13, no. 2 (1987): 237–57; Kenneth L. 

Bettenhausen, “Five Years of Groups Research: What We Have Learned and What 

Needs to Be Addressed,” Journal of Management 17, no. 2 (1991): 345–81; David E. 

Hyatt and Thomas M. Ruddy, “An Examination of the Relationship between Work 

Group Characteristics and Performance: Once More into the Breech,” Personnel Psychology 50, no. 3 (September 1997): 553–85; Eric Sundstrom, Kenneth P. de Meuse, 

and David Futrell, “Work Teams: Applications and Effectiveness,” American Psychologist 45, no. 2 (February 1990): 120–33; Susan G. Cohen and Diane E. Bailey, “What 

Makes Teams Work: Group Effectiveness Research from the Shop Floor to the Executive Suite,” Journal of Management 23, no. 3 (June 1997): 239–90; Dennis J. 

Devine, “A Review and Integration of Classification Systems Relevant to Teams in 

Organizations,” Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice 6, no. 4 (December 

2002): 291–310; Eric Sundstrom, ed., Supporting Work Team Effectiveness: Best Management Practices for Fostering High Performance (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999), 

3–23; Daniel R. Denison, Stuart L. Hart, and Joel A. Kahn, “From Chimneys to 

Cross-Functional Teams: Developing and Validating a Diagnostic Model,” Academy 

of Management Journal 39, no. 4 (August 1996): 1,005–23; Steve W. J. Kozlowski and 

Daniel Ilgen, “Enhancing the Effectiveness of Work Groups and Teams,” Psychological Science in the Public Interest 7, no. 3 (December 2006): 77–124; Deborah G. Ancona and Henrik Bresman, X-Teams: How to Build Teams That Lead, Innovate, and 

Succeed (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2007); and John Mathieu, M. Travis 

Maynard, Tammy Rapp, and Lucy Gilson, “Team Effectiveness 1997–2007: A Review 

of Recent Advancements and a Glimpse into the Future,” Journal of Management 34, 

no. 3 (June 2008): 410–76.

6. Deborah Gladstein Ancona, “Outward Bound: Strategies for Team Survival in 

an Organization,” Academy of Management Journal, no. 33 (1990), 334–65; and Cohen and Bailey, “What Makes Teams Work,” 241.

7. James D. Thompson, Organizations in Action: Social Science Bases of Administrative Theory (1967; repr., New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003), 61–62.

8. Ibid., 54.

9. Ibid.

10. See Parker, Cross-Functional Teams, 4, for the definition of cross-functional 

teams and 8–9 for differentiating factors.

11. Sundstrom, de Meuse, and Futrell in 1990; Cohen and Bailey in 1997; Sundstrom in 1999; and Devine in 2002.

12. Rufus Phillips, “An Eyewitness Account of Counterinsurgency and Military 

Teams in Vietnam,” 68.

13. Ibid., 84.

14. Franz W. Kellermanns, Jorge Walter, Christoph Lechner, and Steven W. 

Floyd, “The Lack of Consensus about Strategic Consensus: Advancing Theory and 

Research,” Journal of Management 31, no. 5 (October 2005): 719–37.
WHAT IS THE ROAD AHEAD FOR RIGOROUS RESEARCH│ 519

15. Munsing and Lamb, Joint Interagency Task Force-South, 34ff.

16. Bradley L. Kirkman and Benson Rosen, “Beyond Self-Management: Antecedents and Consequences of Team Empowerment,” Academy of Management Journal 42, no. 1 (February 1999): 58–74.

17. Mike McCoy, “Civilian-Military Teaming: The When, Where, and How,” 384. 

18. Andrea Strimling Yodsampa, “Achieving Coordinated Results in Stabilization, Reconstruction, and Postwar Peacebuilding: Lessons from the US CivilianMilitary Experience in Afghanistan,” 339. 

19. Christopher J. Lamb and Edward Marks, Chief of Mission Authority as a 

Model for National Security Integration, Center for Strategic Research Strategic Perspectives 2 (Washington, DC: NDU Press, December 2010).

20. Andrea Strimling Yodsampa, “Achieving Coordinated Results in Stabilization, 

Reconstruction, and Post-War Peacebuilding,” 339.

21. See Lamb and Munsing, Secret Weapon; and Munsing and Lamb, Joint Interagency Task Force-South.

22. Thomas R. Pickering, “Anatomy of Plan Colombia,” American Interest, 1 November 2009, http://www.the-american-interest.com/articles/2009/11/01/anatomy

-of-plan-colombia/.

23. Michael A. Campion, Gina J. Medsker, and A. Catherine Higgs, “Relations 

between Work Group Characteristics and Effectiveness: Implications for Designing 

Effective Work Groups,” Personnel Psychology 46, no. 4 (December 1993): 823–50; 

and Michael A. Campion, Ellen M. Papper, and Gina J. Medsker, “Relations between 

Work Team Characteristics and Effectiveness: A Replication and Extension,” Personnel 

Psychology 49, no. 2 (June1996): 429–52.

24. Michelle Van Cleave, “The NCIX and the National Counterintelligence Mission: What Has Worked, What Has Not, and Why,” in Project on National Security Reform: Case Studies, vol. 1, ed. Richard Weitz (Washington, DC: PNSR, 2008), 59–130.

25. Susan Albers Mohrman, Susan G. Cohen, and Allan M. Mohrman, Jr., Designing Team-Based Organizations: New Forms for Knowledge Work (San Francisco: 

Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1995).

26. Suzanne Tamara Bell, “Setting the Stage for Effective Teams: A Meta-Analysis 

of Team Design Variables and Team Effectiveness” (PhD dissertation, Texas A&M 

University, College Station, TX, August 2004); Luis L. Martins, Lucy L. Gilson, and 

M. Travis Maynard, “Virtual Teams: What Do We Know and Where Do We Go from 

Here?” Journal of Management 30, no. 6 (December 2004): 805–35; and Prasad 

Balkundi and David A. Harrison, “Ties, Leaders, and Time in Teams: Strong Inference about Network Structure’s Effects on Team Viability and Performance,” Academy of Management Journal 49, no. 1 (2006): 49–68.

27. Running Meetings: Expert Solutions to Everyday Challenges (Boston: Harvard 

Business School, 2006).

28. Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith, The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the 

High-Performance Organization (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1993), 45–47.

29. Karsten Friis, “The Norwegian Approach to Afghanistan: Civilian-Military 

Segregation,” 269. 

30. Karl E. Weick and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe, Managing the Unexpected: Assuring 

High Performance in an Era of Complexity (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001), 16–17.

31. Ancona and Bresman, X-Teams.
520 │ LAMB & ORTON

32. Interviews from a forthcoming study of human terrain teams, Organizational Performance Team, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University.

33. Christopher P. Neck and Charles C. Manz, “From Groupthink to Teamthink: 

Toward the Creation of Constructive Thought Patterns in Self-Managing Work Teams,” 

Human Relations 47, no. 8 (August 1994): 929–52; and Charles C. Manz and Christopher P. Neck, “Teamthink: Beyond the Groupthink Syndrome in Self-Managing Work 

Teams,” Journal of Managerial Psychology 10, no. 1 (1995): 7–15.

34. Lisa Schirch, “Civil Society Experiences of, Conflicts with, and Recommendations for Civilian-Military Teams” 308.

35. Alexander L. George, “The Case for Multiple Advocacy in Making Foreign 

Policy,” The American Political Science Review 66, no. 3 (1972): 751–85; and Irving L. 

Janis, Victims of Groupthink, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghlin Mifflin, 1982).

36. Brian Mullen, Tara Anthony, Eduardo Salas, and James E. Driskell, “Group 

Cohesiveness and Quality of Decision Making: An Integration of Tests of the Groupthink Hypothesis,” Small Group Research 25, no. 2 (May 1994): 189–204; see also 

Jennifer M. George, “Personality, Affect, and Behavior in Groups,” Journal of Applied 

Psychology 75, no. 2 (April 1990): 107–16.

37. Lisa Hope Pelled, Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, and Katherine R. Xin, “Exploring 

the Black Box: An Analysis of Work Group Diversity, Conflict, and Performance,” 

Administrative Science Quarterly 44, no. 1 (March 1999): 1–28.

38. J. Keith Murnighan and Donald E. Conlon, “The Dynamics of Intense Work 

Groups: A Study of British String Quartets,” Administrative Science Quarterly 36, no. 

2 (June 1991): 165–86.

39. This finding has been supported in four meta-analyses: Charles R. Evans and 

Kenneth L. Dion, “Group Cohesion and Performance: A Meta-Analysis,” Small 

Group Research 43, no. 6 (December 2012), 690–701; Brian Mullen and Carolyn 

Cooper, “The Relation between Group Cohesiveness and Performance: An Integration,” Psychological Bulletin 115, no. 2 (March 1994): 210–27; Stanley M. Gully, Dennis J. Devine, and David J. Whitney, “A Meta-Analysis of Cohesion and Performance: 

Effects of Levels of Analysis and Task Interdependence,” Small Group Research 26, 

no. 4 (November 1995): 497–520; Daniel J. Beal, Robin R. Cohen, Michael J. Burke, 

and Christy L. McLendon, “Cohesion and Performance in Groups: A Meta-Analytic 

Clarification of Construct Relations,” Journal of Applied Psychology 88, no. 6 (December 2003), 989–1004; and Mathieu, et al., “Team Effectiveness 1997–2007,” 427.

40. Robert B. Oakley and Michael Casey, Jr., “The Country Team, Restructuring 

America’s First Line of Engagement,” Strategic Forum, September 2007, 5.

41. Ibid.

42. Marcia Byrom Hartwell, “Learning to Negotiate Shared Space: US CivilianMilitary Roles in Unsecure Environments,” 393.

43. Martin Hoegl and Hans Georg Gemuenden, “Teamwork Quality and the Success of Innovative Projects: A Theoretical Concept and Empirical Evidence,” Organization Science 12, no. 4 (July–August 2001): 435–49; Amy Edmondson, “Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams,” Administrative Science Quarterly

44, no. 2 (June 1999): 350–83; Claus W. Langfred, “Too Much of a Good Thing? Negative Effects of High Trust and Individual Autonomy in Self-Managing Teams,” Academy of Management Journal 47, no. 3 (June 2004): 385–99; and Tony L. Simons and 

Randall S. Peterson, “Task Conflict and Relationship Conflict in Top Management 
WHAT IS THE ROAD AHEAD FOR RIGOROUS RESEARCH│ 521

Teams: The Pivotal Role of Intragroup Trust,” Journal of Applied Psychology 85, no. 1 

(February 2000): 102–11.

44. Linda Argote, Deborah Gruenfeld, and Charles Naquin, “Group Learning in 

Organizations,” in Groups at Work: Advances in Theory and Research, ed. Marlene E. 

Turner (New York: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1999).

45. Linda Argote and Fernando Olivera, “Organizational Learning and New 

Product Development: CORE Processes,” in Shared Cognition in Organizations: The 

Management of Knowledge, ed. Leigh L. Thompson, John M. Levine, and David M. 

Messick (New York: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1999), 297–325.

46. Mary Zellmer-Bruhn and Cristina Gibson, “Multinational Organization Context: Implications for Team Learning and Performance,” Academy of Management 

Journal 49, no. 3 (June 2006): 501–18.

47. Esther Derby and Diana Larsen, Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams 

Great (Raleigh, NC: Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2006).

48. Ancona and Bresman, X-Teams, 127.

49. R. Scott Moore, “Non-Traditional Missions: Civil Tasks, Military Missions, 

and Complex Operations,” 22.

50. Christopher Holshek, “From Afghanistan to Africa: Civilian-Military Teaming in Whole New World,” 196.

51. Frances J. Milliken and Luis L. Martins, “Searching for Common Threads: 

Understanding the Multiple Effects of Diversity in Organizational Groups,” Academy 

of Management Review 21, no. 2 (April 1996): 402–33; Katherine Y. Williams and 

Charles A. O’Reilly, “Demography and Diversity in Organizations: A Review of 40 

Years of Research,” Research in Organizational Behavior 20 (1998): 77–140; and Susan E. Jackson, Aparna Joshi, and Niclas L. Erhardt, “Recent Research on Team and 

Organizational Diversity: SWOT Analysis and Implications,” Journal of Management

29, no. 6 (December 2003): 801–30.

52. Janis A. Cannon-Bowers and Eduardo Salas, “Team Performance and Training in Complex Environments: Recent Findings from Applied Research,” Current 

Directions in Psychological Science 7, no. 3 (June 1998): 83–87.

53. Terry Halfhill, Eric Sundstrom, Jessica Lahner, Wilma Calderone, and Tjai M. 

Nielsen, “Group Personality Composition and Group Effectiveness—An Integrative Review of Empirical Research,” Small Group Research 36, no. 1 (February 2005): 83–105.

54. Organizational Performance and Interagency Collaboration Presidential 

Analysis Group, “Proposal to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” National 

Defense University, April 2010.

55. Luis R. Gomez-Mejia and David B. Balkin, “Effectiveness of Individual and 

Aggregate Compensation Strategies,” Industrial Relations 28, no. 3 (September 1989): 

431–45; and Luis R. Gomez-Mejia and David B. Balkin, Compensation, Organizational Strategy, and Firm Performance (Cincinnati: South-Western Publishing, 1992).

56. Sundstrom, De Meuse, and Futrell, “Work Teams,” 120–33.

57. Richard W. Stewart, CORDS and the Vietnam Experience (Ft. McNair, DC: 

National War College, 2006).

58. Sigal G. Barsade, “The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion and Its Influence 

on Group Behavior,” Administrative Science Quarterly 47, no. 4 (December 2002): 

644–75; and Geoffrey Bellman and Kathleen Ryan, Extraordinary Groups: How Ordinary Teams Achieve Amazing Results (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2009).
522 │ LAMB & ORTON

59. Phillip Selznick, Leadership and Administration: A Sociological Interpretation

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).

60. C. Shawn Burke, Kevin C. Stagl, Cameron Klein, Gerald F. Goodwin, Eduardo 

Salas, and Stanley M. Halpin, “What Type of Leadership Behaviors Are Functional in 

Teams?: A Meta-Analysis,” Leadership Quarterly 17, no. 3 (June 2006): 288–307.

61. David M. Abshire, A Call to Greatness: Challenging Our Next President (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008), 14–16.

62. Donald Phillips and James M. Loy, Character in Action: The U.S. Coast Guard 

on Leadership (Washington, DC: US Naval Institute Press, 2003).

63. Munsing and Lamb, Joint Interagency Task Force-South, 68.

64. Mark N. Popov, “A Whole Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts, or If It Was Only 

Army Stuff It Would Be Easy,” 223. 

65. Munsing and Lamb, Joint Interagency Task Force-South, 68.

66. Andrea Strimling Yodsampa’s chapter, “Achieving Unit of Effort without 

Unity of Command,” is an exception. Strimling Yodsampa reviews eight variables 

self-consciously, many of which overlap to some degree with the 10 we have proposed in this chapter. We believe her prescriptions for better unity of effort are more compelling since she examined the issue through a wider range of organizational variables.

67. To facilitate such research, the authors can provide interested parties with a 

more detailed explanation for the range of subvariables they selected from the literature. 

Douglas Orton with Christopher Lamb, “Key Performance Variables for Effective Interagency Teams,” unpublished paper, 68 pages. To request a copy, send an e-mail to 

James.Orton@ndu.edu or lambc@ndu.edu.
Abbreviations

ABP Afghan Border Police

ACBAR Agency Coordination Body for Afghan Relief

ACOTA Africa Contingency Operations Training and

Assistance

ADT agribusiness development team

AFL Armed Forces of Liberia

AMCCO Atterbury-Muscatatuck Center for Complex

Operations

ANA Afghan National Army

ANCOP Afghan National Civil Order Police

ANDS Afghan National Development Strategy

ANP Afghan National Police

ANSF Afghan National Security Forces

ANSO Afghan National Security Office

APC Accelerated Pacification Campaign

APC armored personnel carrier

ARCENT United States Army Central Command

ASAT advanced situational awareness training

ASCOPE areas, structures, capabilities, organizations,

people, and events

ASD–SO/LIC Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special

Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict

AU African Union

BBA bilingual bicultural advisor

BCT brigade combat team 

BSC battlespace commander

BTA Business Transformation Agency

CA civil affairs

CALL Center for Army Lessons Learned

CCATF Combined Civil Affairs Task Force

CCO Center for Complex Operations

CCOE Civilian Center of Excellence

CERP Commander’s Emergency Response Program

CFC–A Combined Forces Command–Afghanistan

CIA Central Intelligence Agency

CID Criminal Investigation Division

CIDA Canadian International Development Agency
524 │ ABBREVIATIONS

CIDA Stab O Canadian International Development Agency

stabilization officer

CIMIC civil-military cooperation

CINCPAC commander in chief, Pacific Command

CivPol Civilian Police (United Nations)

CJTF combined joint task force

CJTF-180 Combined Joint Task Force 180

CMM Capability Maturity Model

CMO construction management organization

CMOC civil-military operations center

CMOTF Civil Military Operations Task Force

COIN counterinsurgency

COMISAF commander, International Security

Assistance Force

CORDS Civil Operations and Revolutionary

Development Support

CPA Coalition Provisional Authority

CPE Cultural Preparation of the Environment

CRC Civilian Response Corps

CRSG Country Reconstruction and Stabilization

Group

CSO civil society organization

CSTC-A Combined Security Transition Command– 

Afghanistan

DC district center

DDCT Dand District Combat Team

DDR disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration

DEVAD development advisor

DFAIT Department of Foreign Affairs and International

Trade

DHS Department of Homeland Security (United

States)

DIA Defense Intelligence Agency

DIRI Defense Institution Reform Initiative

DJS director of the Joint Staff

DL district leader

DOC Department of Commerce (United States)

DOD Department of Defense (United States)

DOJ Department of Justice (United States)

DOS Department of State (United States)
ABBREVIATIONS │ 525

DPKO Department of Peacekeeping Operations

DSF District Stability Framework

DST district support team

ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States

EFT electronic funds transfer

ePRT embedded provincial reconstruction team

EU European Union

EXCOM executive committee

Fad’H Force Armee d’Haiti

FARC Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces of

Colombia

FM field manual (United States Army)

FPO field program officer

FSI Foreign Service Institute

FSO foreign service officer

GAO General Accountability Office (United States)

GDP gross domestic product

GIRoA Government of the Islamic Republic of 

Afghanistan

GIZ Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit

GOL Government of Liberia

GPOI Global Peace Operations Initiative

HES hamlet evaluation system

HEW hamlet evaluation worksheet

HN host nation

HR human resources

HTS Human Terrain System

HTT human terrain team

IC intelligence community

ICAF Interagency Conflict Assessment Framework

ICMAG Integrated Civilian-Military Action Group

IED improvised explosive device

IHEC Independent High Electoral Commission

IHL international humanitarian law

IMF international military force

IMS Interagency Management System

INGO international nongovernmental organization

IPA Interagency Provincial Affairs Office

IPC integration planning cell

IRIN Integrated Regional Information Networks
526 │ ABBREVIATIONS

IRMO Iraq Reconstruction Management Office

ISAF International Security Assistance Force

ISR intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance

IT information technology

JCAC Joint Civil Affairs Committee

JCC-I Joint Contracting Command–Iraq

JIATF Joint Inter-Agency Task Force

JMAC Joint Mission Analysis Center (United Nations)

JP joint publication

JTSCC Joint Theater Support Contracting Command

KERP Kuwait Emergency and Recovery Program

KFOR Kosovo Force

KMIT knowledge management and information

technology

KSA knowledge, skills, and abilities

KTF Kuwait Task Force

LNGO local nongovernmental organization

LOE line of effort

M&E monitoring and evaluation

MAAG military assistance advisory group (United

States)

MAAWS Commander’s Guide to Money as a Weapons

System

MACV Military Assistance Command, Vietnam

MDG Millennium Development Goals

MDMP military decision-making process

MEB maneuver enhancement brigade

MEF Marine expeditionary force

MFA Ministry of Foreign Affairs

MNF-I Multi-National Force–Iraq

MOD Ministry of Defence

MOJ Ministry of Justice

MSF Médicins Sans Frontières or Doctors without

Borders

MSG Military Support Group

NAC North Atlantic Council

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NCIX Office of the National Counterintelligence

Executive
ABBREVIATIONS │ 527

NDAA National Defense Authorization Act

NDS National Directorate of Security

NDU National Defense University

NGHO nongovernmental humanitarian organization

NGO nongovernmental organization

NORAD Norwegian Agency for Development

Cooperation

NSC National Security Council

NSPD national security policy directive

NSS National Security Strategy

NTM-A North Atlantic Treaty Organization Training

Mission–Afghanistan

NVA Nationale Volksarmee

OCC-D district-level operational coordination center

OCC-P operation control center–provincial

OCHA Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian

Affairs (United Nations)

OCO Office of Civilian Operations

OFDA Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance

(United States Agency for International

Development)

OIF Operation Iraqi Freedom

OPA Office of Provincial Affairs

OSCE Organization for Security and Co-operation in

Europe

OSD Office of the Secretary of Defense

OTI Office of Transition Initiatives (United States

Agency for International Development)

PAAS Public Attitude Analysis System

PCO Project and Contracting Office

PDD presidential decision directive

PDP provincial development plan

PDST provincial development support team

PMESII political, military, economic, social, infrastructure, and information

PMO Program Management Office

POLAD political advisor

P-OMLT police operational mentor liaison team

PRT provincial reconstruction team
528 │ ABBREVIATIONS

QDDR Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development 

Review

QIP quick impact project

R2P Responsibility to Protect (United Nations

principle)

RC regional command

RCC regional combatant command

RCT regimental combat team (United States

Marine Corps)

S&R stability and reconstruction

S/CRS Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction

and Stabilization

SCA sociocultural analysis

SFP Strong Foods Program

SIGAR Special Inspector General for Afghanistan

Reconstruction

SIGIR Special Inspector General for Iraq

Reconstruction

SME subject-matter expert

SOI source of instability

SOIC Stability Operations Information Center

SOP standard operating procedure

SRF Stabilization and Reconstruction Force (North

Atlantic Treaty Organization)

SRO stabilization and reconstruction operation

SRSG Special Representative of the Secretary General

SSR security-sector reform

SSTR stability, security, transition, and reconstruction

SWG stability working group

TCAPF Tactical Conflict Assessment and Planning

Framework

TF task force

3Ds defense, diplomacy, and development

TLR transition of lead responsibility

TLSR transition of lead security responsibility

TRIM Training Relations and Instruction Mission

UK DFID United Kingdom Department for

International Development

UN United Nations
ABBREVIATIONS │ 529

UNAMA United Nations Assistance Mission in

Afghanistan

UNAMI United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq

UN-CIMIC United Nations Civil-Military Coordination

UNDCP United Nations International Drug Control

Program

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for

Refugees

UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund

UNMIL United Nations Mission in Liberia

UNSC United Nations Security Council

USACE United States Army Corps of Engineers

USACOM United States Atlantic Command

USAF United States Air Force

USAFRICOM United States Africa Command

USAID United States Agency for International

Development

USCENTCOM United States Central Command

USDA United States Department of Agriculture

USF-I United States Forces–Iraq

USFOR-A United States Forces–Afghanistan

USIP United States Institute of Peace

USMC United States Marine Corps

USN United States Navy

USOCO United States Office for Contingency

Operations

USSOCOM United States Special Operations Command

USSOUTHCOM United States Southern Command

VC Vietcong

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10th Infantry Division, 38

352nd Civil Affairs Command, 34, 36

9/11 Commission, 139

Abrams, Creighton, 16, 70, 81, 83-85

Afghan First, 177, 265, 359, 362, 363, 

365, 366, 368

Afghan National Army, 113, 161, 162, 

365

Afghan National Development Strategy, 268, 272, 346

Afghan National Police, 156, 157, 161, 

162, 219, 220, 224, 229, 365, 474

Afghan National Security Forces, 162, 

217-222, 225-228, 230, 231, 269

Afghan National Security Office, 317

Afghanistan, 3, 4, 20-22, 63-65, 68, 71, 

82, 85, 88, 91, 95, 97-102, 109, 111-

113, 115-124, 126, 127, 129, 130, 

146, 149, 150, 152, 156, 159, 161-

164, 168-170, 176, 182, 185, 187-

189, 191, 192, 194-199, 205-208, 

215, 216, 218, 222, 229, 232, 237-

240, 246-257, 263, 265-269, 271, 

272, 274, 275, 279, 280, 286-289, 

297, 298, 301, 303, 305-314, 316, 

318, 320-323, 333-336, 339-345, 

347-349, 351, 352, 355, 359, 360, 

362-369, 375, 381, 388, 390, 391, 

394, 397, 401, 402, 407, 408, 410, 

412-418, 420, 421, 423-426, 428-

431, 433, 434, 437-440, 442, 443, 

451, 457, 462, 464, 466-471, 474, 

476, 478, 479, 486, 489, 491, 494, 

499, 510, 512, 516

Afghanistan Forum, 266, 268, 269

Afghanistan/Pakistan Hands, 423, 441

Africa, 11, 14, 25, 187-198, 204, 205, 

291, 297, 314-316, 319

Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance, 205, 208

African Union, 191, 205

Agency Coordination Body for Afghan 

Relief, 308, 317

agriculture, 43, 45, 47, 89, 95, 98, 100, 

101, 112, 117, 119, 120, 123, 153, 

174, 203, 210, 299, 313, 360, 391, 

393, 401, 416, 451, 475, 487, 490

aid, 4, 14, 30, 40, 58, 63, 64, 67, 68, 70, 

74, 76, 99, 138, 188, 189, 191, 196, 

222, 231, 263, 264, 266-268, 271-

275, 284, 288, 297, 304, 308, 314-

317, 324, 343, 359, 363, 364, 369, 

392, 394, 395, 400, 414, 418, 475-

477, 511

al-Qaeda, 133, 136-138, 152, 189, 237, 

250, 255, 411, 412

al-Shabaab, 190

Anbar, 133-143, 145, 455

areas, structures, capabilities, organizations, people, and events, 435, 472

Armed Forces of Liberia, 203, 206, 209

Atterbury-Muscatatuck Center for 

Complex Operations, 375-378

Badakshan (province), 247

Baghdad, 116, 118, 140, 393, 401, 420, 

450, 451, 453, 455

Bagram, 169, 343, 345, 346, 348

Bahlol, Hajji, 155, 168

Balkans, 25, 187, 253, 258, 503

Balkh (province), 247

banking, 174, 177-179

Barno, David, 345, 347

Barrows, Leland, 72

Basra, 450, 456

battlespace commander, 217-220, 223, 

225-229, 231, 232

Black, Cofer, 286, 288, 412

Blind Logic (Operation), 26

Blue Spoon (Operation), 26

Board of Economic Warfare, 11

Bold Mariner (Operation), 463

Bosnia, 19, 22, 215, 244, 249, 253, 291, 

466, 515

brigade combat team, 342

Bundeswehr, 13, 237-239, 241, 242, 

244-251, 253, 255, 257-259

Bunker, Ellsworth, 77, 81, 83, 84

Index
574 │ index

Burns, Rex, 26, 27

Bush, George H. W., 30-31

Bush, George W., 452, 461, 486, 487

Business Transformation Agency, 176-

178, 181, 182

buy-in, 47, 82, 84, 102, 141, 165, 318, 

359, 362, 363

Canada, 215-217, 220, 221, 232, 290, 

457, 516

Canadian International Development 

Agency, 216, 219, 220, 222, 223, 

225-227, 516

capacity building, 91, 122-124, 133-

135, 138-142, 144-146, 158, 160, 

163, 174, 194, 195, 200, 201, 207, 

250, 255, 256, 291, 304, 312, 321, 

337, 341, 359, 362, 369, 401

Carns, Michael P. C., 32, 34

Casey, George, 175, 450, 511

Center for Army Lessons Learned, 25, 

31, 48, 73, 127, 136, 157, 191, 208, 

255, 256, 297, 302, 365, 440, 467, 

509, 515

Center for Complex Operations, 95, 

115, 127, 376, 407

Central Intelligence Agency, 58, 73, 76, 

77, 80, 393, 411, 412, 442, 466, 467

Chieu Hoi, 74, 89

China, 189, 197, 205

civil affairs, 15, 26-34, 36-40, 44-51, 

111, 113, 120, 135, 139, 191, 205, 

208, 256, 310, 387, 423, 431

Civil Operations and Revolutionary 

Development Support, 15-17, 21, 

22, 58, 59, 62, 70, 71, 79-84, 87-94, 

98-102, 111, 128, 339, 384, 390, 

415, 462-469, 471, 506, 514

civil rights, 36, 303

civil society organization, 191, 297, 

301-304, 306, 307, 309, 310, 311, 

317, 321-325, 457, 490, 495, 496

civilian police, 220, 222, 226, 292, 293

Civilian Response Corps, 167, 485-490, 

492, 494, 496

civilian-military planning, 25, 42, 44, 

354, 368, 499, 502

civilian-military teams, 1, 67-70, 73, 

75, 81-84, 91, 101, 111, 115, 118, 

120, 126-128, 130, 133, 135, 138, 

140, 141, 145, 146, 165, 206, 221, 

223, 227, 230-232, 248, 297, 298, 

323, 327, 359, 364, 367-369, 375, 

377, 379, 382, 387-390, 394, 401, 

451, 462, 464, 466, 468, 470-472, 

474-476, 479, 485, 489, 490, 492, 

495, 496, 499-503, 505, 506, 517

civil-military cooperation, 29, 46,123, 

199-204, 220, 222, 224, 333

civil-military operations center, 40, 51

Clark, Richard, 38, 41

Clark, Wesley, 40, 41

Clinton, Bill, 243, 244, 488, 508

Clinton, Hillary, 191, 209, 336, 495 

Cold War, 14, 15, 17, 26, 29, 170, 189, 

208, 241, 242, 410, 411

colocation, 121, 341, 344, 345, 350, 354

Combined Civil Affairs Task Force, 36, 

50

combined joint task force, 197, 198, 

345

Commander’s Emergency Response 

Program, 128, 157, 158, 163, 165, 

313, 315, 346-349, 363, 364, 369, 

400, 455

Commander’s Guide to Money as a 

Weapons System, 157, 363, 365

complex contingency, 339, 344, 355, 

488, 491, 499-501, 505, 516

Congo, 249, 287, 494

Congress, 6, 19, 21, 60, 93, 123, 134, 

137, 149, 155, 173, 189, 206, 312, 

321, 335, 352, 384, 385, 393, 458, 

487, 494-496, 508

Connable, Ben, 426

construction management organization, 220, 222

continuity of effort, 432, 437

contracting, 123, 155, 174-176, 178, 

180-182, 362, 363, 365-367, 449

coordination, 4, 9, 11, 16, 18, 25, 26, 

31, 35-37, 39-41, 44-46, 51, 68, 72, 

74-79, 82, 90, 93, 96, 97, 113, 115, 

116, 120, 121, 126, 127, 198-200, 
index │ 575

203, 204, 218-220, 223, 226, 239, 

251, 253, 256, 263, 266, 268, 271, 

273, 274, 279, 283-285, 288, 289, 

291-293, 297, 303, 305-310, 318, 

321-323, 325-327, 333-349, 351-

355, 368, 388, 398, 400, 416, 423, 

443, 455, 457, 461, 463, 475, 485-

492, 494-496, 502, 506, 507, 509, 

511, 512, 516

core mission, 41, 117, 118, 122, 127-

130, 255, 417, 418, 464, 466

Corps of Engineers (US Army), 36, 

153, 154, 256, 401, 451

corruption, 59, 81, 90, 158, 161, 197, 

267, 271, 301, 305, 312, 313, 315, 

319, 322-324, 362, 364, 366, 440, 

469, 474, 477

counterinsurgency, 20, 57, 58, 63, 67-

71, 73-75, 77, 78, 83-85, 88-90, 92, 

93, 99, 101, 102, 112, 115, 117, 123-

125, 130, 134, 135, 138, 140, 145, 

149, 153, 157, 187, 188, 190, 194, 

197, 216, 220-222, 224, 228, 232, 

249-251, 256, 249, 270, 271, 274, 

275, 279, 297, 314, 323, 336, 359, 

361, 363, 365-369, 381, 407, 408, 

410-413, 414, 415, 417, 418, 422, 

423, 426, 429, 433-435, 437, 438, 

440, 442, 443

Croatia, 215, 243

Crocker, Ryan, 84, 453

cross-functional, 500-517

Crouch, William, 27, 244

Cuba, 5-7

culture, 4, 8, 10, 20, 27, 32, 50, 94, 97, 

99, 100-102, 119, 130, 151, 153, 

155, 164, 176, 191, 202, 217, 240, 

243, 252, 253, 279, 283, 284, 288, 

289, 303, 318, 320, 321, 350, 377, 

378, 391, 408, 409, 411, 423, 430, 

431, 433, 435, 441, 452, 472, 478, 

488, 504, 505, 509, 511, 512, 516

Dand (district), 215, 217-219, 223, 226, 

227, 516

Dand District Combat Team, 219-223, 

516

Defense Intelligence Agency, 412, 414, 

430, 442

DeHart, Jim, 150, 157, 164

Dell, Christopher, 334, 348

Department of Agriculture, 95, 101, 

112, 113, 117-121, 129, 130, 153, 

154, 391, 393, 416, 423, 430, 451, 

475

Department of Commerce, 123, 130, 

391, 393

Department of Defense, 16, 17, 20, 29, 

31-34, 37, 42, 44, 77-79, 116, 120-

122, 129, 130, 146, 151, 158, 159, 

166, 167, 173-176, 178, 181, 182, 

195, 206, 208, 215, 308, 334, 335, 

351, 352, 375, 376, 392, 417, 430, 

441, 442, 449, 451, 452, 455, 457, 

472, 475, 478, 479, 487, 488, 494, 

495, 514

Department of Foreign Affairs and 

International Trade, 215, 227

Department of Homeland Security, 

303

Department of Justice, 26, 40, 101, 122, 

130, 153, 154, 391, 393, 451, 457

Department of Peacekeeping Operations, 201, 204

Department of State, 3, 5, 6, 9-11, 18, 

20, 26-28, 30-34, 37, 38, 41, 42, 44, 

48, 49, 68, 77, 79, 83, 93, 95, 111-

113, 116-123, 126, 127, 129, 139, 

150, 151, 153, 154, 159, 165, 167, 

190, 194, 250, 303, 334, 335, 342, 

345, 348, 351, 375, 376, 391-393, 

401, 416, 417, 419, 420, 423, 424, 

428, 430, 449, 451, 452, 455-457, 

462, 475, 478, 479, 486, 487, 491, 

494-496, 512

Department of the Treasury, 11, 47, 

130, 164, 174, 177, 391, 457

Department of Transportation, 130, 

393

Department of War, 11

Desert Shield (Operation), 32, 42, 50

Desert Storm (Operation), 25, 30, 37, 

42, 48, 50, 411

Deutch, John, 38
576 │ index

development, 3, 4, 10-13, 15, 19, 26, 46, 

48, 58, 59, 62, 69, 70, 72, 74, 80, 83, 

87, 89-93, 95-98, 111, 112, 117, 118, 

122-129, 133, 134, 138, 140, 142, 

146, 150, 153-155, 158-163, 165, 

167, 173, 174, 177, 179-181, 183, 

187-191, 193, 195, 196, 198, 199, 

201, 203, 205, 207, 209, 215-220, 

222, 224, 227, 237-240, 244, 246, 

251, 253, 255, 259, 263-275, 279, 

281, 282, 285-289, 293, 298, 299, 

302-304, 307, 308, 310-317, 319, 

320, 322-324, 326, 327, 334-341, 

343-346, 350, 359-369, 383, 384, 

386, 387, 389, 391, 393, 394, 397, 

400-402, 409-421, 425, 430, 431, 

440, 442, 449, 451, 453, 454, 456, 

457, 462, 464, 468, 469, 473, 475, 

477, 478, 488, 490-493, 500, 506, 

513, 516

Diem, Ngo Dinh, 70, 72, 74, 75

Dien Bien Phu, 67

diplomacy, defense, and development, 

122, 126, 146, 190, 285, 336, 416

disarmament, demobilization, and 

reintegration, 203, 205, 299, 302, 

306

disaster response, 35, 40, 45, 122, 130, 

181, 194, 268, 279, 287, 306, 382, 

383, 494

district leader, 219, 220, 225, 229-232

district-level operational coordination 

center, 218-220, 222, 225, 232

District Stability Framework, 124, 425, 

462, 472-479

district support team, 428, 430

Diyala (province), 452

do no harm, 193, 194, 301, 304, 311, 

317, 324, 398, 424

Dobbins, James, 38, 41

Doctors without Borders (Médicins 

Sans Frontières), 288, 317

Dominican Republic, 7, 8, 14

donor, 188, 190, 196, 207, 263, 267, 

273, 279, 288, 293, 312, 313, 316, 

326, 334, 367-369, 378

Eagle Eye (Operation), 244

East Timor, 215, 306

effectiveness, 17, 37, 40, 59, 64, 82, 84, 

90, 99, 115, 123, 138, 156, 163, 181, 

203, 209, 230, 232, 251, 255, 313, 

348, 363, 364, 366, 376, 381, 387, 

425, 426, 428, 454, 462-465, 468, 

471, 472, 474-476, 478, 479, 488, 

500, 501, 504-506, 508, 511, 514

Eisenhower, Dwight, 11, 349

electronic funds transfer, 177-179

Elliott, Randall, 32, 34, 35

embedded provincial reconstruction 

team, 138, 453

eminent domain, 160, 161

employment, 34, 179, 220, 225, 361, 

362, 369, 375, 453, 471

empowerment, 149, 152, 156, 158, 165, 

300, 305, 317, 318, 321, 325, 341, 

346, 347, 362, 504-507

Endara, Guillermo, 28, 45

Enduring Freedom (Operation), 385

ethnic cleansing, 243-246, 249, 258

Europe, 6, 10, 12-14, 111, 196, 237-241, 

243-245, 248-251, 256, 263, 292, 

335

European Union, 240, 243, 245, 248, 

254, 255, 257, 335

executive committee, 38-40, 44, 46, 49, 

51, 268, 272

Faryab (province), 247, 267, 269-274

field advance civilian team, 9, 10, 19, 

33, 36, 44, 45, 47, 48, 50, 60-62, 65, 

76, 87, 88, 96, 99, 101, 115, 116, 

120, 122, 141, 157, 164, 165, 170, 

196, 197, 203, 246, 263, 268, 272, 

279, 283, 286, 290, 378, 418, 421, 

422, 428, 430, 432, 455, 465, 494, 

501, 503, 504, 508

field manual, 166, 249, 250, 397, 423, 

488

field program officer, 335, 350 479

Flynn, Michael T., 414, 428, 442

Fondacaro, Steve, 431

force protection, 91, 137, 157, 221, 223, 

238, 251, 256, 304, 411-413, 419, 

422, 490

Foreign Service Institute, 97, 492
index │ 577

foreign service officer, 79, 95, 97, 150, 

392

forward operating base, 169

France, 5, 8, 9, 67, 239, 290

Frix, Robert, 36, 49, 50

funding, 4, 16-19, 21, 74, 80, 94, 118, 

122, 128, 142, 157, 158, 189, 197, 

229, 301, 302, 306, 313, 314, 317, 

326, 327, 344, 346, 359, 363, 368, 

383, 384, 450-452, 457, 469, 491, 

495

Gadhafi, Mu ̔ammar, 254, 258

Gardez (province), 112, 113

Gates, Robert, 33, 83, 158, 182, 192, 

193, 205, 238, 248, 257, 336, 352

General Accountability Office, 312

Germany, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 194, 237-251, 

253-259, 426

Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, 253

Gnehm, Edward “Skip”, 32, 36, 45

Government of Liberia, 199-201, 203, 

205

Government of the Islamic Republic of 

Afghanistan, 162, 218, 231

gross domestic product, 266, 360, 362

Haiti, 7-9, 19, 22, 25, 26, 37-41, 43, 44, 

46, 48-50, 197, 198, 205, 206, 210, 

281, 290, 291, 305, 307, 381, 382, 

396, 466, 476

hamlet, 16, 58-62, 64, 68, 74, 75, 84, 90, 

464, 465

hamlet evaluation system, 58-65, 84, 

90, 91, 464, 465, 471

hand off, 41, 139-141, 256

hearts and minds, 58, 87, 188, 194, 197, 

201, 268, 271, 302, 310, 311, 318, 

320, 322, 324, 363, 364

Hindu Kush, 152, 248

host nation, 48, 64, 71, 82, 84, 91, 96, 

98, 122, 123, 125, 126, 175, 176, 

179, 180, 215, 230, 252, 304, 313, 

386-390, 393, 408, 422, 436, 437, 

475, 477, 487

human resources, 352, 353, 355, 360, 

410, 433, 434, 439

human security, 187, 189-191, 196, 

200, 203, 205-209, 303, 306, 318, 

323, 326, 327, 396, 397

Human Terrain System, 320, 407, 424, 

433, 440, 441

humanitarian, 5, 12, 15, 19, 42, 111-

113, 122, 130, 158, 162, 163, 167, 

171, 188, 190, 193, 194, 196, 199, 

203, 210, 222, 238, 244-246, 258, 

259, 263, 264, 266-268, 271, 272, 

274, 279, 287-289, 291, 298-312, 

314-317, 323-325, 363-365, 382, 

384, 388, 389, 393-400, 402, 442, 

449, 468, 476, 477, 511, 513

Hussein, Saddam, 25, 30, 450

improvised explosive device, 150, 156, 

413, 419, 421

information sharing, 219, 227, 291, 

341, 343-349, 351, 353, 366, 424, 

502

information technology, 3-10, 12, 13, 

15-20, 22, 25-29, 31-51, 57-65, 68, 

71, 73-81, 83-85, 88-102, 111-113, 

116, 117, 120, 122, 123, 125, 129, 

130, 133-146, 149, 152, 154, 156-

159, 161-170, 177, 179, 182, 187-

196, 198, 200-209, 215-217, 219, 

220, 224-227, 229-231, 238, 240, 

241, 244, 247-249, 253, 255, 258, 

259, 264-275, 279-287, 289-292, 

300, 301, 305, 306, 308, 309, 311, 

315-317, 323, 324, 334, 337, 339-

345, 347, 350-353, 361, 363-368, 

375, 377-379, 381-385, 387-391, 

393, 395, 397-399, 401, 402, 407-

410, 412-415, 417-422, 424, 426-

431, 435-443, 449, 450, 456-458, 

461-467, 469-473, 475-477, 479, 

485, 489, 492, 494, 495, 499, 501-

504, 506-511, 513-515

Integrated Civilian-Military Action 

Group, 342, 343, 348, 349

Integrated Civilian-Military Campaign 

Plan, 117, 471

integration, 17, 20, 21, 26, 90, 92, 94, 

97, 121, 241, 250, 255, 268, 279, 

286, 298, 311, 323, 326, 334, 382, 
578 │ index

423, 428, 431, 438, 449, 455-457, 

461, 463, 465, 467, 472, 474-476, 

488, 491, 503

integration planning cell, 491, 503

intelligence, 58, 90, 91, 113, 178, 290, 

292, 321, 387, 393, 407-418, 421-

426, 428-438, 440-443, 466, 474, 

503, 512, 515

intelligence community, 410, 411, 413-

415, 417, 418, 423, 424, 428, 432, 

439, 442, 443

Interagency Conflict Assessment 

Framework, 425, 486, 493

Interagency Management System, 486, 

491, 492, 494, 496

Interagency Planning Committee for 

Reconstruction and Stabilization, 

491

Interagency Provincial Affairs Office, 

416, 466

International Criminal Investigative 

Program, 40

international humanitarian law, 299, 

300, 305, 325

International Monetary Fund, 310, 

311, 317, 320, 418

international nongovernmental organization, 299, 307, 310, 361, 365, 

366

International Security Assistance 

Force, 82, 111, 121, 157, 215, 217, 

218, 220, 224, 225, 228-232, 237, 

238, 247, 248, 252-255, 263, 265, 

267, 269, 271, 274, 286, 298, 303, 

305, 308, 310, 318, 319, 359, 361, 

362, 368, 369, 414, 428

Iraq, 3, 4, 20-22, 25, 30, 31, 35, 37, 63, 

84, 88, 91, 95, 97-102, 109, 113, 

115-120, 122-124, 126, 127, 129, 

130, 133-137, 139-142, 144-146, 

149, 151, 155, 166, 173-183, 185, 

187-189, 191, 192, 194-199, 205, 

207, 208, 246, 249, 279, 280, 297, 

305, 306, 309, 312, 313, 318, 320, 

375, 381, 384, 389-394, 397-402, 

407, 408-410, 412-416, 418, 420, 

421, 424-427, 429-431, 433, 434, 

437, 439, 440, 442, 443, 449-457, 

462, 464, 466, 468, 470, 471, 478, 

479, 486, 489, 491, 514, 515

Iraqi First, 175, 179, 180

Iraqi Freedom (Operation), 166, 173, 

175, 181, 182, 384

Japan, 11-13, 30

jirga, 231, 250 

Johnson, Lyndon, 16, 78, 79, 87, 462, 

463

Joint Mission Analysis Center (United 

Nations), 290

Joint Theater Support Contracting 

Command, 175, 176, 182

Jordan, 401

Jowzjan (province), 247

Just Cause (Operation), 26, 28, 29, 44, 

49, 50

Kabul, 111, 116, 118-121, 152, 156, 

247-250, 265, 266, 269, 274, 343, 

344, 347, 420, 489

Kandahar, 215-218, 223, 226, 227, 428, 

432

Kennedy, John F., 67, 70, 73, 74, 383

Khalilzad, Zalmay, 345, 450, 451

Kilcullen, David, 413

kinetic, 115, 124, 200, 217, 220, 221, 

224-226, 228, 231, 250, 378, 411, 

421, 422, 424, 438, 456

Kirkuk, 450, 452

Klein, Georg, 246, 247

knowledge management and information technology, 429, 430, 439

knowledge, skills, and abilities, 432

Kohl, Helmut, 243, 244

Komer, Robert, 16, 58, 78, 87, 411, 462

Korea, 12, 70, 73

Kosovo, 19, 215, 244-246, 249, 306, 466

Kosovo Force, 245, 246, 253

Kunduz (province), 246, 247, 250

Kuwait, 17, 18, 25, 26, 30-37, 45, 47, 49

Kuwaiti, 25, 30, 32, 33, 35-37, 44, 

45, 49, 50

Kuwait Emergency and Recovery Program, 32, 33, 35

Kuwait Task Force, 34-37, 44, 45, 47-50

Ky, Nguyen Cao, 77
index │ 579

Lansdale, Edward G., 67, 71, 73, 76-80

Latin America, 14, 27, 30, 197, 205, 

291, 316

Panama, 17, 18, 25-31, 34, 37, 42, 

45, 47, 49, 50, 486, 487

Latvia, 269, 510

Lebanon, 14

lessons learned, 88, 92, 134, 146, 156, 

208, 238, 239, 279, 302, 318, 322, 

365, 368, 376, 381, 400, 402, 431, 

442, 466, 467, 491, 496

Liberia, 187, 198-201, 203-209

Libya, 191, 254, 255, 258, 259

local, 4, 6-10, 12, 14, 15, 18, 19, 21, 40, 

44, 46, 59, 62, 63, 74, 77, 79, 80, 82, 

84, 89, 90, 98-100, 102, 112, 118-

120, 122-126, 128, 129, 135, 137, 

139-141, 144, 145, 150, 154, 156, 

158-160, 165, 167, 169, 173, 175-

177, 179, 181, 187, 197, 198, 200, 

201, 206, 211, 218, 220, 224-226, 

228-231, 249, 250, 252, 253, 256, 

264, 267, 269, 271-275, 281, 285, 

290, 291, 297-304, 306, 307, 309-

313, 315-322, 324-327, 334, 336, 

337, 355, 359-369, 377, 382, 383, 

386, 389, 394-398, 400, 401, 409, 

412, 414, 417-421, 423-425, 429, 

431, 450, 451, 455-457, 463-466, 

469, 471-479, 485, 506

local government, 12, 14, 59, 62, 82, 99, 

139-141, 150, 154, 160, 169, 218, 

220, 230, 253, 267, 304, 318-320, 

386, 389, 455, 469, 475

local nongovernmental organization, 

299, 320

Locher, James, 31-34

Lodge, Henry Cabot, 76-79, 83

Logar (province), 113

Luftwaffe, 245, 247

MacArthur, Douglas, 12, 13

Malaya, 111

Mali, 194, 195, 477

Mali Watch Group, 195

Marshall, George C., 13, 14

maturity model, 142, 144, 454, 471

Mazar-e-Sharif, 112, 113

McNamara, Robert, 57, 73

Meade, David, 39, 40

Measuring the Impact of Stabilization 

Initiatives, 124

Mekong Delta, 67, 72, 75

Merkel, Angela, 237, 247, 254

Mexico, 5, 7, 8

Meymaneh (district), 269

Middle East, 30, 190, 195, 196, 265, 

314

military assistance advisory group, 67, 

72-75

Military Assistance Command Vietnam, 58, 61, 73, 75-81, 93, 463

Military Governance Corps, 11, 12

monitoring and evaluation, 124, 327, 

362, 368, 472

Mooney, Howard, 49

Mosul, 450, 452

mujahedeen, 152, 155

Multi-National Force–Iraq, 399, 450

nation building, 29, 39, 41, 43, 57, 239, 

243, 251, 252, 265, 275, 280, 417, 

418

National Defense Authorization Act, 

365, 494

National Defense University, 95, 407, 

412, 492, 500, 505, 514

national security, 17, 25, 27, 33, 34, 

41-43, 71, 79, 159, 162, 166, 187-

189, 191-193, 205, 208, 217, 218, 

237, 248, 269, 303, 317, 325, 335, 

398, 399, 410, 443, 457, 461, 479, 

486, 499, 500, 503, 505, 507-509, 

511-513, 515, 516

National Security Council, 33, 34, 38, 

44, 49, 79, 335, 457, 488, 491, 509

National Security Strategy, 192, 248, 

461

Nationale Volksarmee, 241

nation building, 29, 39, 41, 43, 57, 239, 

243, 251, 252, 265, 275, 280, 417, 

418

Naumann, Klaus, 242

navy, 5, 12, 99, 118, 153, 170, 254, 441, 

455

Nawa (district), 474
580 │ index

Negroponte, John, 451

Netherlands, 156, 238, 248, 457

neutrality, 113, 194, 287, 300, 304, 305, 

316, 396, 398

neutral, 20, 92, 93, 95, 113, 225, 

265, 282, 286, 299, 300, 306, 307

Ninewa (province), 450, 452

nongovernmental organization, 4, 40, 

70, 112, 140, 162, 203, 251, 253, 

264, 271, 288, 289, 291, 293, 297-

299, 303, 306-309, 311, 312, 316, 

317, 324, 325, 327, 334, 335, 384, 

474, 499, 511

nonkinetic, 124, 153, 216, 222, 224, 

231, 238, 250, 256, 376, 378, 438

Noriega, Manuel, 25, 26, 42

North Africa, 11, 190, 195

North Atlantic Council, 151, 152

North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 

19, 149, 151, 152, 156, 161, 215, 

237-251, 253-259, 263, 269, 280, 

289, 335, 361, 365, 457, 499

Northern Alliance, 152

Norway, 263-274, 510

Norwegian Agency for Development, 

267, 268, 270, 272

Obama, Barack, 159, 189, 190, 192, 

335, 461

Odierno, Raymond, 441

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 291, 305-307

Office of Civilian Operations, 78-80

Office of Civil-Military Cooperation, 

123

Office of Disaster Assistance, 40

Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, 

35, 383, 494, 495

Office of Provincial Affairs, 116, 142, 

453-455, 457, 466

Office of Rural Affairs, 74

Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, 4, 20, 

123, 250, 342, 343, 456, 457, 485-

496, 503

Office of the Secretary of Defense, 31-

33, 40, 112

Office of Transition Initiatives, 457, 

476, 494, 495

operation control center–provincial, 

161, 162

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, 245, 255

Owens, William A., 38, 40

ownership, 125, 165, 200, 266, 273, 

275, 304, 310, 316, 318, 319, 325, 

327, 333, 364

pacification, 15-17, 57-64, 67-70, 72, 

73, 76-81, 83, 84, 87, 90, 92-95, 319, 

325, 463, 465, 468, 506, 514

Pakistan, 189, 308, 336, 423, 430

Paktia (province), 113, 312

Paktika (province), 113

Panama, 17, 18, 25-31, 34, 37, 42, 45, 

47, 49, 50, 486, 487

Panjshir (province), 149-163, 166-169

Panjwayi (district), 217, 218

peacebuilding, 188, 190, 195, 198, 204, 

205, 237-240, 250, 251, 259, 298, 

303, 307, 310, 311, 315, 333, 334, 

336, 338, 355, 362, 386, 388, 400, 

401, 485

peacekeeping, 19, 111, 188, 190, 191, 

198-201, 203, 204, 210, 215, 238, 

243, 259, 280, 282, 283, 286, 287, 

306, 397, 417, 486, 487

Peacekeeping and Stability Operations 

Institute, 200, 397, 400

Petraeus, David, 84, 87, 336, 365, 408

Philippines, 5-8, 12, 22, 67, 129, 197, 

301, 303

Philippine Insurrection, 9

Plan Colombia, 507, 508

Poland, 239, 244

police, 6, 12, 13, 15, 27, 29, 37, 39, 40, 

45, 46, 72, 89, 122, 137, 156, 161, 

197, 201, 203, 215, 216, 219, 220, 

222, 225, 226, 228, 230, 231, 240, 

251-253, 255, 256, 269, 280, 281, 

286, 290-292, 318, 320, 325, 365, 

395, 397, 399, 474, 475, 490

police operational mentor liaison team, 

220, 222, 224
index │ 581

political, military, economic, social, 

infrastructure, and information, 

435, 472

population-centric, 69, 73, 153, 408, 

410-412, 414, 415, 417-422, 426, 

438, 440, 441, 463, 472, 474

Porter, William, 78

Powell, Colin, 18, 33, 39

predeployment, 47, 92, 118, 128, 135, 

139, 145, 150, 153, 166, 204, 292, 

340, 354, 367, 439, 453, 470, 489, 

490

private sector, 74, 76, 123, 134, 166, 

173, 179-181, 298, 359-362, 366-

369, 375, 379, 397, 499, 500, 502

Project and Contracting Office, 155, 

449

Promote Liberty (Operation), 26, 30, 

45, 47, 49

Provide Comfort (Operation), 37

provincial development plan, 159, 160

provincial development support team, 

150, 159, 168, 169

provincial reconstruction team, 21, 22, 

65, 68, 88, 91, 92, 95-101, 111-113, 

115-120, 134, 135, 138-142, 144, 

146, 149-156, 159, 161-163, 165, 

167, 168, 217, 223, 253, 254, 263, 

267-272, 288, 293, 298, 312, 318-

320, 323, 335, 339, 342, 348, 350, 

375, 384, 389, 390, 401, 420, 430, 

449-456, 462, 466, 467, 469-471, 

479, 491, 502

Provincial Rehabilitation Committee, 

75, 76

Public Attitude Analysis System, 61-63, 

465

public health, 162, 163, 189, 433, 490

Quadrennial Defense Review, 130, 193, 

210

quick impact projects, 224, 302, 311

quick impact project, 302, 314, 319

Racak massacre, 245

Ramadi, 136, 137, 145, 455

Rambouillet Accords, 245

reconstruction, 4, 6, 9, 11-14, 18-21, 

27, 29, 30, 32, 35-37, 43, 65, 68, 88, 

91, 95, 97, 98, 111-113, 115, 116, 

123, 124, 133-135, 138, 139, 141, 

144, 149, 151, 155, 156, 158, 160, 

164, 168, 173, 174, 177, 181, 182, 

190, 198, 217-220, 222, 227, 238-

240, 246, 248, 250-253, 255, 259, 

263, 267, 269, 288, 298, 311-313, 

319, 333-336, 339, 342, 351, 355, 

363-366, 369, 375, 381, 384, 388, 

391, 397, 400, 401, 415, 420, 449, 

450, 452, 453, 455-457, 462, 466, 

467, 485-489, 491-493, 495, 499, 

502, 503, 507

Red Cross, 288

regime change, 42, 44, 387, 389, 412

regional combatant command, 269, 

342, 368, 384, 428, 440, 476, 491, 

492

Responsibility to Protect, 246, 254, 

258, 400

Rice, Condoleezza, 123, 129, 443

Rodriguez, David, 345

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 11

Root, Elihu, 6, 90, 124, 125, 237, 245, 

283, 303, 304, 389, 407, 408, 421, 

422, 425, 426

Rowan, Henry, 31

Rühe, Volker, 249

Russell Beach (Operation), 463

Russia, 5, 239-242, 245, 248

Soviet, 14, 152, 189, 240-242

Salah Al-Din (province), 452

Samangan (province), 247

Sar-e Pol (province), 247

Saudi Arabia, 30, 35, 48

Schönbohm, Jörg, 242

Schröder, Gerhard, 246

Schwarzkopf, Norman, 32, 36, 45, 49, 

50

Scott, Darryl, 177, 513

Scott, Winfield, 3, 5

security sector, 91, 195, 201, 204, 205, 

299, 302, 320, 397, 398, 400, 490

security sector reform, 91, 201, 203-

205, 299, 302, 303, 311, 398, 400, 

490

self-rule, 6, 8, 10 
582 │ index

Serbs, 244, 245, 258

Shah, Rajiv, 123, 127, 152

Sheehan, John J., 38, 40, 41, 46

Shi’a, 173

Shura, 231

Shutol (district), 163

Slocombe, Walt, 40, 41

Slovenia, 243

sociocultural analysis, 407, 409-415, 

417, 419, 421, 422, 425-428, 430, 

432, 433, 436-443

sociocultural, 195, 407, 409-415, 417, 

419, 421-428, 430-434, 436-443, 

510

Somalia, 19, 25, 189, 190, 249, 301, 

303, 466

source of instability, 464, 474, 476

South Vietnam, 63, 64, 70-73, 81, 89

Soviet Union, 14, 152, 189, 240-242

Spain, 5, 6

Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, 312, 313, 364

Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, 312, 313, 450-452, 

454, 455, 457

Special Representative of the Secretary 

General, 282, 284, 286, 287, 290, 

292, 293

spending, 80, 118, 128, 173-175, 177, 

179-181, 197, 267, 273, 360, 362-

366, 368, 420, 452, 469

stability, 3-5, 7, 10, 12, 18-20, 22, 28, 

41, 58, 68, 69, 71, 82-85, 96, 97, 111, 

112, 118, 119, 124, 129, 130, 135, 

139, 149, 150, 153, 154, 157, 159, 

166-168, 170, 173, 181, 182, 187, 

190, 199, 200, 202, 203, 215, 217, 

219, 220, 222, 228, 239, 245, 250, 

251, 255, 259, 263, 265-267, 275, 

281, 282, 298, 312-315, 341, 359, 

365, 368, 369, 392, 397, 401, 407, 

417, 418, 420, 425, 426, 462, 464, 

468-475, 477-479, 485, 487, 488

stability and reconstruction, 251, 255, 

259, 449, 456-458

Stability Operations Information Center, 426, 429

stability working group, 475

stability, security, transition, and reconstruction, 488

Stabilization Force, 244, 253

stovepiping, 92, 101, 116, 254, 263, 430

Sunni, 133, 137, 173

sustainability, 69, 90, 91, 96, 158, 190, 

194, 195, 196, 198, 206, 207, 249, 

253, 266, 273-275, 289, 304, 312, 

313, 315, 319, 327, 355, 359-362, 

364, 366, 367, 369, 393, 400, 417, 

471, 477, 486

synchronization, 16 

Tactical Conflict Assessment and Planning Framework, 472

Takhar (province), 247

Talbot, Strobe, 38, 41

Taliban, 113, 152, 163, 169, 170, 228, 

237, 246, 249, 250, 255, 313, 316, 

317, 412

Tameem (province), 450, 452

task force, 27-29, 33-36, 45, 49, 50, 111, 

112, 151, 173, 174, 176-182, 197, 

198, 215, 217, 226, 345, 368, 383, 

417, 430, 441, 457, 489, 503, 506

Task Force Freedom, 36, 50

Task Force Kandahar, 215, 217, 226

Taylor, Maxwell, 76, 83

team composition, 388, 504, 513, 514

team culture, 504, 511, 512

team learning, 504, 509, 512

team-building, 128, 165, 512

teaming, 25, 115, 187, 188, 193, 203, 

206-209, 226, 237, 259, 381, 382, 

384, 385, 388, 390, 502, 507

terrorism, 135, 161, 163, 189, 190, 194, 

265, 382, 396, 411, 422

Tet offensive, 61, 81

Thailand, 14, 303

Thieu, Nguyen Van, 77, 81

training, 15, 34, 41, 45, 59, 60, 64, 71, 

72, 74, 83, 89, 92-97, 100-102, 115, 

118, 119, 122, 124, 125, 128, 129, 

137, 140, 149, 150, 153, 161-163, 

165, 166, 180, 194, 195, 202-205, 

210, 211, 220, 224, 226, 232, 248, 

250, 255, 283, 289, 291, 292, 297, 
index │ 583

298, 301, 303, 308, 311, 317, 321, 

322, 324, 325, 327, 340, 354, 365, 

373, 375-379, 382, 391, 392, 395, 

397, 400, 409, 410, 415, 421, 432, 

434-436, 439-441, 453, 461, 463, 

468-470, 474, 478, 479, 486, 488-

490, 492, 496, 512-514

transition of lead responsibility, 152, 

155, 159

transition of lead security responsibility, 151, 152

unemployment, 304, 320, 397

Unger, Leonard, 77

United Nations, 18, 19, 38, 40, 41, 43, 

44, 46, 159, 187, 191-193, 196-201, 

203-206, 237, 239, 241-243, 245, 

246, 248, 249, 254, 255, 258, 263-

265, 267-269, 272, 279-294, 298, 

300, 301, 303-309, 311, 321, 323, 

334, 335, 355, 389, 395, 397, 399, 

400, 418

United Nations Assistance Mission in 

Afghanistan, 159, 269, 286

United Nations Assistance Mission in 

Iraq, 397-399

United Nations Assistance Mission–

Afghanistan, 159

United Nations Children’s Fund, 287, 

311

United Nations Civil-Military Coordination, 199, 204

United Nations Development Program, 

267, 287, 293

United Nations High Commissioner 

for Refugees, 395

United Nations International Drug 

Control Program, 287

United Nations Mission in Liberia, 

187, 188, 198-206

United Nations Security Council, 237, 

254, 399

United States Africa Command, 193-

195, 197, 206

United States Agency for International 

Development, 4, 15, 17-21, 26, 35, 

38-41, 43, 45, 46, 48, 74, 77, 79, 83, 

89, 93, 95, 112, 113, 118-120, 122, 

123, 127-129, 140-142, 153, 154, 

158, 159, 163, 165, 167, 198, 271, 

293, 319, 320, 334, 335, 337, 340, 

341, 343-348, 350, 352, 391-393, 

400, 401, 416, 417, 420, 423, 424, 

430, 442, 451, 457, 462, 467-469, 

472, 475, 476, 478, 479, 487, 489, 

494, 495

United States Central Command, 31-

36, 45, 175, 307, 335, 336, 363, 365

United States Institute of Peace, 95, 

397, 400, 401

United States–Kuwait Civil Affairs 

Group, 33

United States Special Operations Command, 32, 34

United States Southern Command, 27, 

45

Uphold Democracy (Operation), 25, 

37, 39, 41, 43

US Economic Aid Mission, 67

Vernetzte Sicherheit, 239

Vietcong, 59, 70, 72, 73, 76, 78, 80, 81, 

464

Vietminh, 67, 70, 72

Vietnam, 14-17, 19, 21, 22, 55, 57, 58, 

60, 63-65, 67-74, 76-78, 81-84, 87, 

89, 90, 93, 100-102, 111, 339, 384, 

390, 411, 415, 418, 462-467, 479, 

506

Warsaw Pact, 240, 242, 244

Weinberger, Casper, 17, 18

Westmoreland, William, 15, 16, 70, 76, 

77, 80, 81, 83

whole of government, 43, 51, 167, 168, 

188, 190, 191, 205, 209, 215, 226, 

286, 336, 378, 442, 456, 466, 475, 

479, 485, 489, 499

Wilson, Sam, 79

Wilson, Woodrow, 7, 10

Woerner, Frederick F. Jr., 27, 29

World War I, 8

World War II, 10, 11, 13, 70, 73, 76, 79, 

241, 242, 245, 258, 390, 393, 426

XVIII Airborne Corps, 38

Yemen, 189
584 │ index

Yugoslavia, 19, 22, 215, 243-246, 249, 

253, 258, 291, 306, 466, 515

Zhari (district), 428

Zinni, Anthony, 411