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i 

43–781 2009

[H.A.S.C. No. 110–115] 

PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAMS: 

A CASE FOR INTERAGENCY NATIONAL 

SECURITY REFORM? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

FEBRUARY 14, 2008 


Congress.#13
(II) 

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

VIC SNYDER, Arkansas, Chairman 

JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California 

ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky 

SUZANNE MCKENNA, Professional Staff Member 

THOMAS HAWLEY, Professional Staff Member 

ROGER ZAKHEIM, Professional Staff Member 

SASHA ROGERS, Research Assistant 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2008 

Page 

HEARING: 

Thursday, February 14, 2008, Provincial Reconstruction Teams: A Case for 

Interagency National Security Reform? ............................................................. 1 

APPENDIX: 

Thursday, February 14, 2008 ................................................................................. 19 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2008 

PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAMS: A CASE FOR INTERAGENCY 

NATIONAL SECURITY REFORM? 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Akin, Hon. W. Todd, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking Member, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee ............................................................. 4 

Snyder, Hon. Vic, a Representative from Arkansas, Chairman, Oversight 

and Investigations Subcommittee ....................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Henry, Ryan, Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Policy, Department of 

Defense; Barry Pavel, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Special 

Operations, Low Intensity Conflict and Interdependent Capabilities, Department of Defense; Michael Hess, Assistant Administrator of the Bureau 

for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency for 

International Development beginning on page .................................................. 2 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Akin, Hon. W. Todd .......................................................................................... 25 

Henry, Ryan ...................................................................................................... 32 

Hess, Michael .................................................................................................... 40 

Mull, Ambassador Stephen D., Acting Assistant Secretary of State for 

Political Military Affairs, Department of State .......................................... 26 

Snyder, Hon. Vic ............................................................................................... 23 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

Dr. Snyder ......................................................................................................... 53 

(1) 

PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAMS: A CASE FOR 

INTERAGENCY NATIONAL SECURITY REFORM? 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Thursday, February 14, 2008. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 4:05 p.m., in room 

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Vic Snyder (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. VIC SNYDER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ARKANSAS, CHAIRMAN, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

Dr. SNYDER. We will go ahead and start. Mr. Akin is on his way 

and said it is okay for us to start without him. 

Again, I want to apologize for what occurred. It is just the nature 

of our legislative body that sometimes happens. 

Your written statements, including the statement of Ambassador 

Mull, who we knew had to leave—when we originally were planning to start here at 2:00, we knew he had to leave by 4:00, but 

all of your written statements—I think three of you have written 

statements—will be made of the record. 

When we are concluded, there may be members that will want 

to ask you questions for the record. We may want to do that. 

But mainly we want to continue this discussion on how to do 

things better in these conflicts that we find ourselves in now and 

will find ourselves in in the future, and this subcommittee for the 

last several months has been looking at the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) which has led to a lot of discussions about the 

relationships between the different agencies of government, not 

just the military ones, as you know, but State and the Agency for 

International Development (USAID) and others. 

And the staff here have heard me say several times one of my 

constituents from back home, who is a civilian in Iraq today, sent 

me an e-mail some months ago that was asking about this, and she 

said, ‘‘I sometimes think that the differences in conflicts between 

our agency and other agencies of the U.S. Government are greater 

than the differences between us and the Iraqis,’’ which I think 

brought home some of the challenges that we have. 

I also wanted to indicate that Mr. Tierney from the Government 

Oversight and Reform Committee has had some hearings on these 

issues. He is aware of and his staff are aware of what is going on 

here. Sam Farr on the Appropriations Committee has the bill on 

the Civilian Reserve Corps and has attended hearings. He is interVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:02 Apr 02, 2009 Jkt 043781 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-115\43781.TXT HARM2 PsN: MARY
2 

ested in this and has attended hearings before. Mr. Delahunt and 

I have already talked about doing joint hearings together on this. 

So there is some growing interest in this congressional body 

working across the different committees and subcommittees, and 

you all are part of that today, having both represented the State 

Department and the Department of Defense (DOD). 

And so what we will do is—should we begin with Secretary 

Henry and then—— 

Let us have your opening statement. We will put this five-minute 

clock on you. The red light, if it goes off, means at the end of five 

minutes, if you have other things to say, you keep going, but it is 

just for your indication of when five minutes will have passed. 

So Secretary Henry. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Snyder can be found in the Appendix on page 23.] 

STATEMENTS OF RYAN HENRY, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY UNDER 

SECRETARY FOR POLICY, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; 

BARRY PAVEL, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY 

FOR SPECIAL OPERATIONS, LOW INTENSITY CONFLICT AND 

INTERDEPENDENT CAPABILITIES, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE; MICHAEL HESS, ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR OF THE 

BUREAU FOR DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT AND HUMANITARIAN 

ASSISTANCE, U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 

STATEMENT OF RYAN HENRY 

Secretary HENRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, actually, we generally are pleased to be here. You know, a 

lot of times over at the executive branch, we scratch our heads and 

say, ‘‘Why doesn’t Congress ever hold hearings on things that are 

really important, you know, where we need to work together?’’ and 

this is one area that is quite important to us and the Department 

of Defense, and so we appreciate your interest in this area, and we 

want to do what we can to be supportive. 

I have submitted a written statement for the record, as you mentioned, and ask that it be entered, so I will just make a few opening remarks. 

Current and future adversaries are and will seek to exploit the 

seams in our society and our government, and they are presenting 

fundamentally new challenges to our post-Cold War governmental 

organization and structure, as you pointed out. The key to the future success will be our ability to adapt and respond more rapidly, 

creatively, and coherently than our enemies do. 

Today’s government architecture, both the executive and, perhaps to a lesser extent, the legislative is beginning to reflect the 

growing recognition that the U.S. national security should not rely 

on the use of military power at the expense of a coordinated wholeof-government capability. Responding effectively to emerging 

threats in the international security environment will be a function 

of post-9/11 adaptation across the entire government. 

I would like to highlight three areas in which we are growing 

from lessons learned during our activities in Afghanistan, Iraq, and 

elsewhere in Operation Enduring Freedom to inform our needed 

3 

changes, and the three areas are in the area of capacity, planning, 

and operating. 

First, the key adaptation is the development of a robust civilian 

capacity and capabilities to address emerging security challenges. 

As you may be aware, Secretary Gates has spoken recently about 

the need to increase the government’s investment in nonmilitary 

capability and capacity, and his thinking is echoed by all elements 

of the Defense Department, both military and civilian. DOD supports the State Department’s Civilian Stabilization Initiative and 

H.R. 1084, which will provide trained, equipped, and mission-ready 

civilian experts that we need to partner with, both inside the beltway, at regional headquarters, and as boots on the ground, thereby 

reducing the burden on our soldiers, sailors and airmen. 

The second key adaptation will be the development of a wholeof-government planning capability. DOD is a key player in advancing this effort, including our participation in the development of a 

strategic planning process for combating terrorism, security, stability, and transition reconstruction operations, and in the area of, 

also, homeland security, working with our partners in the executive 

branch. 

Two recent initiatives of Congress and this Administration have 

fostered such an integrating planning effort at the programmatic 

level. Correspondingly, we urge Congress to reauthorize and expand the critical authorities previously that we have been able to 

use in what we refer to as Section 1206, which is the Global Train 

and Equip authorities that we have been given, and Section 1207, 

which is the Security and Stabilization Assistance, and these are 

part of a larger package that we presented last year and will 

present again this year under a Building Global Partnership Act 

from the Administration. 

A third key adaptation is in the development of integrated and 

civilian military operational structures and mechanisms that can 

further support interagency cooperation. The department is engaged through the National Security Presidential Directive-44 

(NSPD-44) implementation and the development of operational 

models for improved civil-military integration in the planning and 

operation during crises. 

But in addition, with the establishment of African Command 

(AFRICOM) and the reorganization of our Southern Command, we 

think that this is heralding a new way forward for interagency operations at the regional and tactical level, and they highlight the 

critical role that civilian agencies play in the activities of our combatant and unified commands in improving our steady-state security cooperation in critical countries and regions. 

Additionally, internally, DOD is adapting our approach to these 

security challenges by moving away from simply contingency planning and moving more to what we refer to as campaign planning 

and looking at the steady-state conditions and peacetime—or what 

we refer to as Phase Zero conditions—and putting our emphasis on 

those and then including the contingencies as branches and sequels 

to that broader planning effort. 

DOD is focusing more effort in military planning on robust, 

steady-state planning to better align our security cooperation and 

shaping activities with national security goals, and the department 

4 

is working further to expand our integration with civilian agencies 

during this entire planning process. Through these improved capacity and integrated planning and operations efforts, our government 

will be better poised to execute the bureaucratic boundary-spanning activities needed to respond effectively to the changing national security environment. 

Congressional engagement in this activity at the national security architecture level is also critical, and that is why we welcome 

so much these hearings and look forward to the opportunity to cooperate with this committee and other parts of Congress in raising 

these issues. We are very certain that we do not have all the answers. We are coming, we think, to a fairly good understanding of 

some of the problem sets, and so we, again, look forward to working with you on coming up with what some of the solutions might 

be. 

And with that, I will turn it over to the others and then look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Secretary Henry can be found in the 

Appendix on page 32.] 

Dr. SNYDER. If you will just hang on, Mr. Pavel, we have been 

joined by Mr. Akin. 

Do you have anything you want to say—— 

STATEMENT OF HON. W. TODD AKIN, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. AKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I could just submit my 

opening statement for the record? 

Dr. SNYDER. Without objection. Without objection. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Akin can be found in the Appendix on page 25.] 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Pavel. 

Secretary PAVEL. I have no opening statement. I will defer my 

time to—— 

Dr. SNYDER. Okay. Mr. Hess. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL HESS 

Mr. HESS. Sure. 

Dr. SNYDER. We are moving right along here, aren’t we? 

Mr. HESS. It is great, sir. 

With your permission, sir, I will submit my statement for the 

record. 

Dr. SNYDER. Without objection. 

Mr. HESS. I will try to cut it back. 

Chairman Snyder, Ranking Member Akin, distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I am pleased to have the opportunity to meet with 

you and to discuss the United States Agency for International Development’s views on the overwhelming challenges in the context 

of future interagency operations. 

I am going to concentrate on three points. One is that the training that is going on right now for the PRTs that are deploying in 

Afghanistan right now and at Fort Bragg—I will talk about that— 

and a little bit about the programming in Afghanistan as an examVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:02 Apr 02, 2009 Jkt 043781 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-115\43781.TXT HARM2 PsN: MARY
5 

ple of how the PRTs work together, then wrap up with some concluding statements on how we are working together as an interagency. 

As an example of our 3-D coordination, our Office of Military Affairs is currently contributing to presentations at a three-week-long 

interagency predeployment training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. 

USAID contributes particularly to these discussions in that we 

have an expert on the Tactical Conflict Assessment Framework, 

which provides an overview of the standardized diagnostic framework for tactically assessing the causes of instability and conflict 

in the area of operations, with emphasis on viewing the environment through culturally sensitive and consistent data collection, 

understanding how to change that environment by identifying and 

targeting the causes of instability and conflict, implementing programs that diminish the causes, and finally measuring the effectiveness of that program. 

USAID trainers also stress the importance of community input 

into the PRT process and priority setting. 

Just as a side note, we have also trained an infantry brigade, the 

52nd Brigade of the British army, before they deployed to Afghanistan. 

In terms of programming, our programs and projects are designed and developed by the PRT team members as their teams 

form and as they arrive on station and include efforts to ensure 

adequate supplies of clean water, functioning utilities, safe recreational facilities, especially for children, and competent administrators to manage cities, town, and regions. The combined efforts 

of these interagency teams serve to build provincial capacity, foster 

economic development, strengthen rule of law, and promote reconciliation. 

The main objective of the PRT program is to help the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in partnership with local communities develop the capacity to identify and address issues of development, 

governance, and security in the outlying provinces. Development, 

governance, and security are three different missions with one common objective: a stable and prosperous Afghanistan. 

PRTs represent the leading edge in interagency operations. PRT 

commanders are trained to listen to what the community leaders 

need. The teams now in training will be the first units to fully benefit from the government of Afghanistan’s Provisional Development 

Planning Process undertaken in 2007. 

Our predecessors have been working with local village leaders 

and provincial leaders to determine priority development projects. 

This will save valuable time and ensure that the teams do not reinvent the wheel. 

We stress the importance that development activities be led by 

Afghans. We understand that Afghanistan will never move forward 

without Afghans taking the lead, and this knowledge serves as the 

foundation of our investment in time to engage the Afghan communities and local officials to foster their ownership and buy in of development projects. 

It is just as important as actually constructing the schools or 

paving the roads. As one Afghan participant put it, ‘‘The overall 

process will build trust and improve the relations between the govVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:02 Apr 02, 2009 Jkt 043781 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-115\43781.TXT HARM2 PsN: MARY
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ernment and the public because, for the first time, we are involved 

in this practice with government officials.’’ 

One of the most successful aspects of the PRT program is the 

interagency cooperation between the military, USAID, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the U.S. Department of State officials colocated in the PRT. 

I will skip my example on that one and conclude by saying that 

I would like to stress that we appreciate and understand that the 

most effective PRTs are those in which the military and civilians 

from across the interagency focus on joint decision-making and 

planning and carry out our respective civilian and military missions. 

We continue to learn and advance our understanding of how 

these teams can be most effective and transfer responsibility of 

their activities to Afghans and Iraqis to guarantee the long-term 

success in our efforts to help local communities find reconciliation, 

modernization, and transition to self-reliance. 

We are improving our interagency training for the next generation of officers going to the PRTs. 

Thank you for this opportunity, and I would be happy to take 

your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hess can be found in the Appendix on page 40.] 

Dr. SNYDER. We are going to let Mrs. Davis begin the questioning for us. I mentioned, I think, perhaps before she arrived that 

there is a lot of interest in several subcommittees of this Congress 

and committees of this Congress in doing something about this. 

There is interest in the memberships, also, and as some of you may 

know, Mrs. Davis and Geoff Davis, our colleague from Kentucky, 

have formed a working group on interagency reform, which is also 

part of this conversation. 

Mrs. Davis for five minutes. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you to all of you for being here. I am sorry this has got 

to be so terribly disjointed and that we do not have the benefit of 

more time with you, and I am going to have to leave for an appointment. 

Mr. Hess, just in talking about the issues that you just raised, 

one of the things that we know about USAID now is that you are 

not as well staffed as you were a number of years ago and that, 

in fact, there are a lot of contracts that you engage in, but that we 

have not really had the bench, we have not had the personnel that 

are trained and there and ready. 

Is what you were discussing? What else do really you need to 

make that effective and to enable this interagency process to move 

forward? Is there a need for more USAID, more trained people that 

can do that so that we do not rely on our military? Why hasn’t that 

worked better? Help fill in the gap for us. 

Mr. HESS. There are a couple of questions, I think, that you have 

in there. What are we doing to improve and improve the bench 

strength? The administrator has submitted—I think you have seen 

it in the 2009 request—to increase the staffing of USAID, and 

there is a request in the 2009 budget, is the first step to increase 

the number of people. She has already taken the action to increase 

7 

the staff above attrition hiring for the first time in, I think, 10 or 

12 years. So she has recognized that effort, and we are moving on 

to hire more people in terms of basic fundamental staffing. 

In terms of the interagency, we have been working very closely 

with the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) at the State Department. We have participated in all 

the sub-Policy Coordinating Committees (PCCs) and working 

groups to work better to try this interagency coordination. I have 

personally witnessed this, having served in Iraq in 1991 and Bosnia and Kosovo. We are committed to that interagency coordination. That was one of the reasons why we created the Office of Military Affairs, to ensure that those things happen. 

We have also worked with DOD very closely on putting senior 

development advisers with all the geographic combatant commands, except for Northern Command (NORTHCOM) so that we 

could further integrate our planning and coordination and work 

better and have more successful projects. 

So all of those things kind of work together. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. What do you all see then included in 

terms of Congress’s role here, and is it a budget connection? You 

know, there is really a disconnect in many ways in terms of what 

we are saying we need and the way we are actually budgeting. 

What role do you think Congress should be playing, or should we 

not engage in more national security, have a different committee 

that would go across jurisdictions? I mean, do you have a sense of 

what might be helpful to really task the different agencies to do 

this differently? 

Secretary HENRY. I will start with that. I think if you would have 

asked us that three or four years ago, yes, we would say reorganize 

and make things easier and make it easier for us to deal with. I 

think we have come to a realization that reorganization is the easy 

part. The hard part is the thought process, the culture, how does 

one deal with that. 

Let me talk about some destructive things that we think are 

really helpful that Congress has done. These hearings, you know, 

are recognizing the problem. We think that with the staffs we have 

a certain degree of resonance, and now with the House on the 

issue, that the solutions are not found in the Defense Department. 

We happen to have extremely helpful committees of jurisdiction. 

They help fund us fairly robustly. We do not see the same mindset 

necessarily on supporting State activities, it does not seem to us, 

and to be able to start to look at national security, as I believe that 

State is in with Justice and some other organizations, and we feel 

very close to State and to the intelligence community and the military, to be able to start to look at them holistically in some sort 

of method. I am not sure it is reorganization of any sort, but it is 

an ability in being the mechanisms to be able to look across that. 

Within DOD, we have started to do things to be able to look at 

virtual budgets. So eventually, you know, in another year or so, if 

you want to do what we are doing in stabilization, we will be able 

to put the equivalent of a major force program together for stabilization or whatever you might want to look at. You know, we 

will be able to have the data mechanisms and accounting to be able 

to start to look at that. To a certain extent, if the Congress could 

8 

start to look at what are we doing across national security, we 

think that would be helpful. 

Another helpful thing we think Congress has done is given us 

legislation in this last Defense Authorization bill to go out and do 

a study and to work with the nonprofits, somebody outside of government, to look at what some of the interagency problems are. 

This is something that our Secretary has got his head into. He 

has actually changed the contract we were putting out to include 

come up with a ‘‘National Security Act of 2009.’’ How would you do 

it? You know, 1947 worked for good for setting up a Cold War 

structure to be able to meet our national security interests. Going 

forward, what would it look like post-9/11? 

And so while we would not expect anybody to necessarily go out 

and adopt what they come up, it will start to generate a conversation. So we think that we are in the stage at the whole-of-government level of starting to do some experimentation. That is why, you 

know, we appreciate the support that we have with AFRICOM. 

Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) is reorganizing itself, bringing 

different components inside of the government to be able to do that, 

too. So this is a time we think really of experimentation. 

I personally am a little concerned that we would overcompensate, 

and looking at the lessons learned of Afghanistan and Iraq, PRTs 

worked very well there, but we do not have Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) engagement. The next place we go, NGOs could 

be a much bigger part of the equation. USAID might play, you 

know, a much more significant role then, and we might be relying 

on them more. 

So we think it is a very broad problem set that we are confronted 

with in the future. We happen to have two examples right now of 

a somewhat non-permissible environment, but we tend to think 

that there is a more military heavy end of how you meet that set 

of problems. 

There are other areas where we are going to want to try to go 

in and make a difference, eliminate ungoverned areas, where it 

might be more at the developmental end and the military is just 

playing a smaller supporting role. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Thank you. 

Secretary PAVEL. I would just reinforce two particular points that 

I just think are critically essential from the Defense Department 

point of view, and one is just funding the needed capacities of the 

relevant civilian agencies, which our Secretary has been quite 

prominent in calling for recently, and then, two, just looking at 

things from across traditional boundaries in an integrated way as 

much as possible and maybe from as diverse a set of perspectives 

as possible would really, I think, help to strengthen the different 

approaches that we are taking and help us develop the capabilities 

that we need. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Do you want to keep going, Mr. 

Chairman? 

Dr. SNYDER. Well, I was going to let you finish whatever you 

want to finish. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Mr. Hess, would you like to say 

something? 

9 

Mr. HESS. No, ma’am. I think we have hit the points, and I think 

where we are going with the combatant commands is a step in the 

right direction. 

And we have been working very closely with our friends in Defense to make sure those are properly staffed, and we had people 

on the AFRICOM initial planning group and the transition group 

to ensure that that integration was happening, and that is how we 

plan on taking it to the next level. 

I think Ryan is right that, you know, Afghanistan PRTs and Iraq 

PRTs are good for today, but they may not be for the next one, and 

we work very hard and closely with the Lessons Learned Center 

out at Fort Leavenworth and with the Marines Lessons Learned 

Center and the Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) Lessons Learned 

Center to make sure that we are capturing those and how we can 

work more closely together. 

Mrs. DAVIS OF CALIFORNIA. Do folks around the table have a diverse perspective, or is that mostly Pentagon? 

Mr. HESS. Well, right now, it is predominantly military and predominantly uniformed military, but more and more we are at the 

table and able to influence it, and the Tactical Complex Assessment Framework (TCAF) model that I talked about, too—we train 

military units before they deploy on that Tactical Complex Assessment Framework. 

That is important because we know we cannot be everywhere on 

the ground, and if we can at least influence the activities of the 

planning process through that model, that is important, and the 

Army is looking at that model in particular and putting it into 

their doctrine. 

So we realize we have to work across the spectrum—doctrine, 

planning, exercises—so that before units deploy, they know how to 

work with civilian agencies better. We are going to keep pushing 

that pretty hard. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Akin. 

Mr. AKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr.—is it Pavel? 

Secretary PAVEL. Yes. 

Mr. AKIN. There seems to be a little bit here making my brain 

on Thursday afternoon struggle a little bit. We are talking about— 

that you are in charge of special operations that are low intensity. 

Somehow those do not seem to go together, but I guess my question 

is: Are you involved to some degree in overseeing some of the various preemptive kinds of things that we might be doing in places 

that most people had not heard of before, but there might be some 

problem and you are taking some action there? 

Secretary PAVEL. Part of the responsibilities of the assistant secretary of defense for special operations low intensity conflict and 

interdependent capabilities now is—— 

Mr. AKIN. You have it down pretty good. 

Secretary PAVEL [continuing]. Providing policy oversight of operational activities, you know, in whatever form, and those include 

the full spectrum of such activities from—— 

Mr. AKIN. More kinetic to less kinetic. 

Secretary PAVEL. Exactly, yes. From the Defense Department 

point of view. 

10 

Mr. AKIN. So I think a whole lot of us have been seeing the fact 

that there needs to be a jointness beyond just the Navy, Air Force, 

and Army that needs to extend more broadly, and that seems to 

be shared my most people on the committee here and a lot of other 

places as well. 

I guess my question is not having that in place right now, how 

do you make decisions as to, ‘‘I think we ought to go do this thing, 

but, over here, we better just stay clear of it,’’ because you have to 

have a cultural context to put those decisions in? And is it your job 

and you have people that work for DOD that can help you that, or 

how does that process work right now? 

Secretary PAVEL. I think this is a call often from the combatant 

commanders in the field who know the local conditions and the 

units under them who understand the different dynamics that are 

at play from those that would call for softer approaches as well as 

those that would call for harder approaches, and so our job is to 

provide the broad policy oversight back here, but not to get into the 

specific details of very specific operations that a combatant commander oversees. 

What we do try to do, however, is at that broad level link up policies and oversight for different agencies’ capabilities that can be 

brought to bear and try to incorporate lessons learned into the policy oversight that we sustain on a pretty routine basis. But we do 

not get into sort of the specifics of combatant commanders’ or tactical operational commanders’ approaches for particular local circumstances. 

Mr. AKIN. So the final decision is combatant commander basically? 

Secretary PAVEL. It depends on the size of the challenge. I mean, 

obviously, if we are talking about a major combat operation that 

would be commencing, that is a national security decision and, obviously, can only be handled by the commander in chief. If you are 

talking about local issues in a contained way, then that becomes 

a much more local or regional—— 

Mr. AKIN. Combatant commander kind of thing? 

Secretary PAVEL. Yes. 

Mr. AKIN. Okay. 

Secretary HENRY. Can I just take a stab at that, Mr. Akin, because—— 

Mr. AKIN. Sure. 

Secretary HENRY. You are asking a very important question, and 

there are obviously places we are engaged in that have a lot of our 

attention, but how do we do things to avoid the next conflict, and 

that is something where we have been putting a lot of intellectual 

energy into. You might think of it as—— 

Mr. AKIN. The reason we ask it is because we as legislators always pass laws that have unintended consequences. I mean, we are 

experts at doing that, and so I am thinking you have to have that 

same problem, that you do something with good intentions, and 

yet, because of a cultural situation or something that you cannot 

foresee, it ricochets in a way you were not expecting. That is what 

I am—— 

Secretary HENRY. Yes, that is almost the law of nature, you 

know. No matter what you do, it is going to have some sort of uninVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:02 Apr 02, 2009 Jkt 043781 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\110-115\43781.TXT HARM2 PsN: MARY
11 

tended consequences. We are never going to hit the nirvana where 

everything is working the way we put things in place and everything worked out. 

There will always be sources of friction. I mean, we saw that 

with the end of the Cold War. You know, we eliminated the threat 

to the existence of this Nation, but we still have our hands full on 

security threats, and we would see the future of that. We do not 

see the need for national security going away in the foreseeable future. 

But to get to your point of how you do this, at the strategic level, 

that is something that is normally done inside the beltway here in 

the interagency process, coordinated by the National Security 

Council, and it is where do we want to put our emphasis, where 

do we need to be looking out in the future. 

For us, the driving factor is where are those ungoverned areas 

where bad things can fester and that we need to go in and eliminate them. And so the whole idea is to build up local capability, 

what we would refer to as effective sovereignty, for them to be able 

to work their problems out, and that is looked at at the National 

Security Council, which brings in the whole interagency. 

Then you shift to the theater. Once it is said we want to do something—and that is what Barry was speaking to—it is how do we 

put those things together in the theater. One of the things we have 

done in the Defense Department is ask the combatant commanders 

to stop just looking at how are you going to go out and fight these 

different fights that are potentials out there—and that is the way 

we have approached it in the past—and instead come in and give 

us a comprehensive plan on what you want to do with in your area 

to get end states that are to the benefit of our Nation and the folks 

that we work with. And in that process, we are bringing in our different partners in the interagency to be able to look at that. 

I would just like to say that we spent the last 50 years—— 

Mr. AKIN. Can I just stop you for a second? I do not want to put 

words in your mouth. Am I starting to hear you say that there was 

a time when we looked at it from a defense planning, that if we 

get in trouble with them, what do we have to do to kick them into 

shape or whatever your words were—— 

Secretary HENRY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. AKIN [continuing]. Whereas now the perspective is more 

what is the long-term sense of vision for who this nation is, how 

they fit in, and how can we be helpful to them and encourage a 

good sense of peace and responsibility and community and all? Is 

that what you are saying? 

Secretary HENRY. We have always looked at that. That is captured in the national security strategy regardless of what administration. They try to put that out. I think what we realize, though, 

is that we have to do it in a whole-of-government coherent way, 

both at the national level, the regional level and then the tactical 

level, which is going to be tailored to individual circumstances. 

So we are putting together mechanisms where we can do a more 

coherent job of looking at that regionally on where we want to go. 

It might be food for thought. In the Department of Defense, we 

had to think 50 years—it took us 5 decades—to understand how we 

operate jointly and to get that down, and I think we have it down. 

12 

We appreciate the help the Congress gives us, but we have religion 

on jointness is the way to go, and it is the name of Barry’s area. 

He works in interdependent capability. If we become interdependent upon each other, we can do a much more effective job 

and everyone does not have to buy the same capability to be able 

to do it themselves. They can depend on others. 

We are coming to the realizations that in the interagency, the 

different departments, we have to be interdependent and operate 

that way and rely on each other’s strength and have a seamless approach. But I would suggest to you if we are going to really meet 

the problem set that is out there, is we have to think about that, 

not just from a, you know, joint service or interagency. 

But we also have to think about our partners, and we are going 

to have to work with the European countries and those countries 

that are capable of exporting security to be able to bring them in. 

We are going to be a leader in how we learn this, but as you are 

thinking big term on how we put this together, to us, there is a 

very large international component. How do we bring the Japans, 

the Australias, the NATOs along? 

Mr. AKIN. You know General Bell in Korea, sort of a shy and retiring sort of fellow? 

Secretary HENRY. That is not the one we know, but—— 

Mr. AKIN. He made that point to us on a missile defense trip that 

we took about the significance of Korea and the jointness and an 

overall perspective of jointness, and so I understand. 

Secretary HENRY. And we have it there, and our effort there is 

focused on the peninsula, but I am talking about—and that is good, 

and we need to have that—something where we can work with 

NATO as we are trying to do right now in Afghanistan, which is 

a Petri dish on how do we make this work, and it has not been 

frictionless, on how do we get our partners out there contributing 

to this, and, to be honest, we think that we are a couple of years 

ahead of them in understanding where one has to make the investments in your military capability. 

But, as you think about the big problem set, I just suggest that 

you do not forget the international component of this because we 

do not want to be the 911 force. The military does not want to be 

it, and I do not think we want the United States to be it either. 

We want to be able to work with others. 

That is a whole push that we are doing in AFRICOM. Everywhere else in the world, we think of our combatant commanders 

as being the leaders. In AFRICOM, we want to support the good 

efforts of others and not necessarily, you know, be the first one 

somebody looks to. 

So I hope that is helpful. 

Mr. AKIN. It is pretty general, but I think I am getting your direction and your drift. Yes. Thank you. 

Mr. HESS. Mr. Akin, if I may add on to what Ryan was saying 

there and amplify it a little bit more, part of the reason we put 

these senior development advisers in the combatant commands is 

because we need to integrate how we operate. We are doing development, for example, on the continent of Africa all the time, and 

DOD units go down there and they build schools, clinics, roads, 

drill wells, and we think that if we better integrate those programs 

13 

that we will have more success. I mean, obviously, the combatant 

commanders have been engaged in their theaters to try and prevent conflict for a long time, and we need to amplify that. 

And another example of that is we have an Office of Conflict 

Management and Mitigation where we work very closely with our 

colleagues in DOD and State to try and look at those ungoverned 

spaces or areas where we might see extremism or instability to 

identify those factors and try and eliminate them or at least develop programs for, for example, disengaged youth, folks like that. 

And so we are working more closely together, and I think 

AFRICOM is a step in the right direction. Certainly, Southern 

Command is as well. We believe in getting out there ahead of the 

game, and that is why we created the Office of Military Assistance, 

so that we have a single point of contact where we can work together on these issues specifically. 

Mr. AKIN. Good. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. SNYDER. Thank you, Mr. Akin. 

I wanted to mention first, too, we have had a lot of interest by 

Chairman Skelton about this, and he is hopeful that sometime relatively soon we will have a full committee hearing—and he is hoping to have both Secretary Gates and Secretary Rice there—just to 

focus on this issue. 

Ambassador Mull had to leave us, but he was kind of brought in 

at the last minute, and we were pleased to have him. He recognized he probably was not the best person in the State Department 

to come in on the topic, but we had some frustration about, you 

know, what level person and what job they are occupying should 

be participating in this kind of hearing. 

But I think it is just part of this whole discussion, which is that, 

you know, at what levels are we going to have these kinds of discussions, which leads me to this question. And I do not want to 

overread, you know, one sentence in each of your statements here, 

Mr. Henry and Mr. Hess. 

On page two of your statement, Secretary Henry, you say, ‘‘To realize this goal may require some bureaucratic restructuring and 

will require larger cultural shifts causing us all to step away from 

our institutional biases and make the system more coherent on a 

national level.’’ 

And then, Mr. Hess, in your opening statement, you say, ‘‘There 

is no denying that civilian and military organizations can be quite 

different, but there are now proven ways to bridge these two cultures.’’ 

And I cannot disagree with, you know, anything either of you say 

in those statements, but they are not synonymous statements. I 

think I would come down more on the side of Mr. Henry’s statement, again, without overreading into one sentence out of a very 

complicated topic. 

But the implication, I think, that I picked up from yours, Mr. 

Hess, is that, yes, we have two different cultures out there. I would 

probably say there is a culture for every organization—USAID has 

one, and State Department has one, and the military has one—but 

that is okay if those cultures continue as long as every so often, 

when something flares up, we have a way to reach across. 

14 

I think the experience that we are having here is that—and what 

has led to a whole lot of people, before we ever started looking at 

this, to conclude that will not work very well—that by the time you 

figure out how to build bridges at a time of a new conflict, you have 

lost a lot of time, and you have lost opportunity, and so that is 

why, I think, maybe Secretary Henry’s is bigger. 

Doesn’t there need to be the cultural change so that you do not 

have to bridge cultures? Recognizing there are different tasks and 

different jobs and being an infantryman is a whole lot different 

than being a USAID, you know, observer of what local contractors 

are doing or something. But there needs to be more of a merger of 

the cultures or more compatibility with cultures so you do not have 

to try to reinvent this bridge every time you come to a new conflict. 

And I do not want to overread one sentence, but I think in a way 

it does get at some of the heart of the problem. 

Any comments you want to make, Mr. Hess? 

Mr. HESS. Sure. I may need to relook at my sentences and how 

I write them, but—— 

Dr. SNYDER. Somebody actually reads them, you know. 

Mr. HESS. Absolutely. That is good. I am glad you did. 

It is interesting. Right after I started on this, we were creating 

the Office of Military Affairs. We created it for that reason, because 

we knew that we had to start bridging this. 

USAID has worked with the military on and off for years. You 

can go back to Vietnam. You can go back to even before that. The 

reason we did that was to formalize that relationship. We recognized this relationship exists, and it is going to continue to exist. 

We can do it on an ad hoc basis, or we can do it on a formal basis, 

and that is why we did the Office of Military Affairs, so we could 

take that to the next level. 

Right after we formed the office, we went over and the current 

administrator Andrew Natsios went over and met with the Deputy 

Secretary of Defense Gordon England, and they talked about the 

cultures. The cultures between AID and the military are a lot closer than you would probably recognize. USAID people are very goal 

oriented, very task oriented. They implement things. They want to 

get the job done, just like the military does. And so I do not think 

the cultures are all that far apart. 

I have visited most of our missions, at least in the troubled areas 

of the world, and the mission directors there understand that they 

need to work with the military. What we have to do is give them 

the framework and the boundaries and where we are going to work 

within that. That is, again, why we created the Office of Military 

Affairs—was to help design that policy framework, and we are 

doing right now. 

Probably within a month, we will have a USAID policy on how 

we will do civ-mil operations so that we can define those boundaries and where we can work because we owe that to our missions 

to provide them a framework because they are going to do it and 

they do it all the time. 

But the other thing that we have to look at is how does the military approach us. For example, in a country, who is there to interface with that mission director? In some cases, it is just a defense 

attache ́ who has other assignments as ordered, and so we may not 

15 

be able to do the interface that we need to do to implement our programs and coordinate those as effectively as we could, and that is 

why we have been looking at other structures with the military on 

how we could better do that because we need people on the ground 

who could help coordinate and implement our programs in the 

field. 

We have a long way to go, but I do not think the cultures are 

all that far apart, having been now in both of them. 

Dr. SNYDER. Let me pick at that a little bit more. We have had 

both hearings and private discussions with people who have participated in PRTs, both military and civilian. One of the things that 

came out as we started looking at these PRTs is—I forget exactly 

who it was—in fact, we heard it from more than one person—that 

while we have PRTs in Iraq and we have PRTs in Afghanistan— 

these were from people now who had worked these things—they 

felt like they were so dramatically different they ought to not even 

have been called the same thing—the missions and how they went 

about doing it, their focus. 

They felt, I guess, to summarize it, the PRTs in Afghanistan 

really early on got focused on building things, projects, kind of 

things. In Iraq, it is more of a capacity building in terms of local 

governance, and yet we call on PRTs as if they are the same thing. 

So I may say maybe one is learning from the other. I might say, 

though, that you created the bridge between the cultures, and the 

bridge ended up to be a different kind of a bridge. 

Now maybe that is overreading that metaphor again, but it does 

bring home that we are thinking we may need to be spending a 

whole lot of time working at this now so that we do not have to 

kind of invent our solution each time out of whole cloth, that there 

is always going to be modifications based on local situations. But 

we really ended up with some fairly dramatically different approaches in those situations. 

Am I off base there? 

Mr. HESS. I think there was a structure created so that there 

could be an interface and an interaction. You are right. The goal 

may end up differently because of the different needs in the situation. In Iraq, where we do focus a lot on capacity building, sort of 

the local governance aspects, then that is going to have the predominance, and that is where we are going to put the weight of our 

effort. 

But the fact of the matter is we created a structure and a mechanism where that interface can take place. That is the important 

thing, and I think whether you call it a PRT—we used to call them 

civil-military operations centers (CMOCs) when I was in the military—whatever you call it—I used to say it does not make any difference what we call it, it is the concept, it is how you think about 

the problem set, how you engage your partners in looking for a solution to that problem set. 

Once we create that, then we succeed, whether we are going to 

call it a CMOC, a PRT, whatever we are going to call it. I think 

the name is irrelevant as long as we can create a structure where 

we can talk and engage and look at where the priorities ought to 

be and where the emphasis ought to be. If it is going to be reconstruction, we will do reconstruction because the infrastructure is 

16 

lacking. If it is going to be building local governance, then we will 

do that. 

Dr. SNYDER. Do you have any comment, Secretary Henry? 

Secretary HENRY. Well, I do not think our statements are incompatible. They are not synonymous. I agree with you. I do not think 

they are incompatible. 

I think I was speaking to a larger institutional approach. I think 

we do on the ground have mechanisms that are working, and I 

guess listening to the discussion, I am just continually reminded 

that—in getting ready for this, I went back and looked at the statements before your subcommittee by somebody that I respect a lot, 

Carlos Pascual, and I think he was right on on the way he described things. 

When we get people in the field and they work together toward 

a common goal, our feeling is, in the field, they can work interagency a lot of times much much better than we can inside the 

beltway. So I am a little surprised to hear the comments from your 

constituent because the feedback we are getting is the teams work 

well together. 

When you start to feed into their institutional stovepipes, that is 

where some of the conflicts come. So what we would really like to 

do is to be able to operate at the theater level, and here at the 

Washington, D.C., level, as well, as they tend to out in the field. 

The point Carlos made is that if the first time you are trying to 

work together is when you are in a crisis situation, there is going 

to be a clash of cultures. 

We think in Iraq and Afghanistan we are in the process of having worked through those. We know a lot. The feedback we are getting is the commanders love the PRTs, even though we put the 

same label on different goals that we are trying to get from the two 

of them. I think we did that a little from the perspective that it 

would be easier for people to know what we are trying to accomplish. 

PRT is a brand for the interagency working together at the 

boots-on-the-ground level locally, and so we kept that brand name. 

But we think we have to have instances where we regularly interface with the developmental side, the diplomatic side, and the defense side, and, again, Carlos laid out some suggestions on where 

institutional investments can be made, again, through the support 

of our committees of jurisdiction, we have been able to do things 

to train our people, to give them different enrichment opportunities, where they can get out and spend a lot of time exercising and 

training. 

We need to be able to do that with our partners on the diplomacy 

and development side, and so we are used to working together, 

and—— 

Dr. SNYDER. And one of the points Secretary Gates has made on 

behalf of USAID and the State Department is your organizations 

do not have the kind of redundancy you need to be able to have 

the luxury of going out and doing that kind of training. We pull 

you all over the place, particularly for the last seven or eight years. 

We are going to shut down here fairly quickly. You all have been 

so patient. 

17 

But you made the comment, Secretary Henry, consistent with 

Secretary Gates about the—and then you talked about it, too, Mr. 

Hess—call for additional resources and personnel for both USAID 

and the State Department and the issue of how much is this a resource issue for this end of the table, the State Department, 

USAID, and how much is a reform issue. I am one of those that 

will be very supportive. You know, if we did nothing more than 

give additional personnel, I just think that we have cut the State 

Department and USAID too much. On the other hand, there are 

people who say you better be paying attention to the stovepipes 

and what is going on up there, you are not going to get the bang 

for the buck that you want. 

Do you have any comments about that, Mr. Hess? 

Mr. HESS. I think it certainly is a resource issue, first of all. We 

are working on the cultural issues and the mission issues. As I 

have indicated, the majority of the people with whom I have 

worked in the agency understand that this is a new era where we 

have to work with our partners in the military if we are going to 

be successful. We have always worked very closely with the State 

Department, so that is not an issue. But it is got to be an interagency if we are going to succeed at this. 

That cultural aspect is being institutionalized, as I mentioned, in 

our policy reform. By putting this into policy and looking at issues 

like promotions for senior Foreign Service officers—I mean, when 

we talk about jointness, what really got Goldwater-Nichols institutionalized was the promotion requirement. Then people had a selfinterest and a vested interest in going at that. 

We are going to do the same thing within the agency on promoting people based on or making it a precept for promotion that 

they would have an interagency assignment. Then you know that 

it is real and it is going to stay and it is going to be a lasting institutional change. And we are moving forward to make those 

changes within the institution so that they can get to the reform 

issue as well. 

So I think it is both issues, and I think we are moving forward 

on both fronts. 

Dr. SNYDER. Gentlemen, I appreciate you being here. I appreciate 

your patience with us this afternoon. 

I think probably almost for sure we will have some questions for 

the record, and if you can respond to those in a timely fashion. 

Every once in a while this happens, that we get interrupted. It generally does not happen as devastatingly as today because there 

really were some disappointed members, as I said, actually from 

other full committees that were interested in attending if we had 

been able to have it at 2:00. 

But thank you for your patience, and we look forward to work 

with you on these issues. 

And we will be adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:55 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SUBMITTED FOR THE 

RECORD 

FEBRUARY 14, 2008 

(53) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY DR. SNYDER 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Henry, a number of commentators have cited an over-reliance 

on DOD in times of crisis when, perhaps, other instruments of national power—diplomacy, economic measures, or effective strategic communications—would have 

been more effective. Do you share this view and if so, what specific changes can be 

made and by whom to the interagency process that would strengthen the ‘‘voice’’ of 

non-DOD agencies and enable non-military solutions or solutions where the military 

is only in the supporting role? 

Secretary HENRY. Secretary Gates has played a leading role in advocating for increased civilian capacity. As he stated in his speech at the Center for Strategic and 

International Studies, the ‘‘military and civilian elements of our national security 

apparatus have responded unevenly and have grown increasingly out of balance.’’ 

On April 15, he and Secretary Rice testified before the HASC that if State is to be 

the lead agency for our foreign policy, it must be given the authorities and resources 

commensurate with that mission. 

DOD supports a number of initiatives to increase the capabilities of civilian agencies and develop whole-of-government planning processes to apply all USG capabilities in a efficient, effective, and unified manner in the achievement of national 

goals. Such efforts include: 

– NSPD-44 ‘‘Management of Interagency Efforts Concerning Reconstruction 

and Stabilization’’, particularly the President’s FY09 budget request for 

$248.6M for the State Department to build expeditionary capacity at eight civilian agencies through the Civilian Stabilization Initiative (CSI). CSI will 

provide trained, equipped, and mission-ready civilian experts who can partner 

with the U.S. Armed Forces in an integrated fashion, applying multiple elements of national power to meet national security imperatives. 

– National Counterterrorism Center’s efforts to employ diplomatic, financial, intelligence, and law enforcement capabilities in support of the 2006 National 

Strategy for Combating Terrorism. 

– HSPD-8 ‘‘National Preparedness’’ Annex I, directing the establishment of a 

standard, coordinated set of plans by all levels of government to enhance our 

national all-hazards preparedness. 

At the same time, Secretary Gates made clear in his April 15 testimony that today’s threats require a shift in understanding about the tools needed by the U.S. 

military to fulfill its core security responsibilities. Secretary Gates has also emphasized that DOD must enhance its traditional capabilities to provide humanitarian 

relief, establish stability, restore governance, and foster economic development immediately following conflict. While these are military missions, they must be accomplished in close cooperation with State, which has broader regional expertise and 

understanding of U.S. foreign policy objectives. The Global Train and Equip (‘‘Section 1206’’ Authority) offers a model for interagency coordination that makes the 

Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense co-equal decision makers by law. 

We should seek to build on tools like 1206 to create an interagency architecture that 

can address complex challenges. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Henry, how satisfied are you that OSD, DOD and the Services 

really accept the critical role that effective interagency coordination and planning 

must play for success? What steps has DOD taken to implement the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review’s recognition that national security challenges often require 

interagency solutions? Can you outline the work that’s being done as a result of the 

Building Partnership Capacity Roadmap? What has the DOD’s Office of Policy done 

to implement that roadmap? 

Secretary HENRY. Across the board the Department recognizes the critical role 

interagency coordination and planning have in ensuring the USG meets its national 

security objectives. All relevant components of the Department are actively engaged 

in improving interagency processes and DOD’s involvement in them. 

The Department has made considerable progress in many areas of the Building 

Partnership Capacity Roadmap (BPC). The Department has made significant strides 

in supporting the strengthening of interagency planning and operations. DOD has 

54 

also participated in the establishment of the National Security Professional program 

and the development of national planning processes for combating terrorism, homeland security, and reconstruction and stabilization. Additionally, DOD has facilitated increased civilian agency input into DOD’s planning processes. 

Building partner security capacity is a fundamental military mission. In order to 

complete fully the actions called for in the BPC Roadmap to enhance the capabilities 

of, and cooperation with, international partners, DOD seeks Congressional support 

for several legislative initiatives and appropriations enabling the U.S. military to 

build secure partners. Many of these initiatives are novel in proposing to capture 

appropriate interagency roles, including Secretary of State or Chief of Mission concurrence, in law. 

In particular, DOD seeks to make the Global Train and Equip authority permanent, expand the authority to include partner security forces, and increase the limit 

of the authority to $750M. DOD also seeks extension and expansion of the Security 

and Stabilization (Section 1207/1210) authority; expansion of the Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster Assistance, and Civic Aid (OHDACA) program to include stabilization activities; enhancements to DOD fellowship, regional center, and other partner 

education, training, and support programs; and other legislative proposals designed 

to increase our military’s ability to build partner capacity. When matched with the 

proper appropriations, these enhancements to DOD authorities will provide the U.S. 

military with the tools needed to help build more effective security partners while 

reducing the burdens on our forces. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Henry, can you comment on how the Joint Interagency Coordination Groups that the Combatant Commanders are establishing are working? Has 

DOD, as a result of the Building Partnership Capacity Roadmap, issued guidance 

on the role and staffing for Joint Interagency Coordination Groups, the placement, 

role, and staffing of Department of State Political Advisors and the placement of 

OSD advisors at the Combatant Commands? It seems to me the role and placement 

of these advisors is intended to improve operational-level interagency unity of effort. 

Please give us examples of the progress being made. 

Secretary HENRY. Each of the Geographic Combatant Commands (COCOM) has 

established a Joint Interagency Coordination Group (JIACG) to assist with liaison 

and planning at the operational level. The structure of the JIACGs varies based on 

the COCOM’s priorities and the participation of interagency personnel. All COCOMs 

have noted that other Federal Agencies have difficulty providing qualified liaisons 

to JIACGs on a permanent basis. DOD does not want to impose a one-size-fits all 

approach. Rather, we recommended that the COCOMs tailor their JIACGs for regional missions. 

To improve interagency coordination, the COCOMs work through OSD, and in 

some cases directly with, other agencies to coordinate activities. Beyond the establishment of U.S. Africa Command, some other examples are illustrative: 

– U.S. Southern Command has established a J9 staff section that includes the 

JIACG liaisons as well as military staff to coordinate interagency efforts. In 

the context of SOUTHCOM’s operational environment and focus, this approach works well. 

– U.S. Northern Command’s mission and location uses a different approach— 

using direct liaison with Federal agencies as well as a JIACG. 

– U.S. European Command and U.S. Pacific Command both employ JIACGs for 

interagency planning, and participation is tailored to their respective missions. 

It is important to note that DOD is currently funding interagency participation 

in JIACG organizations. It may be more effective for other Federal Agencies to program and fund JIACG personnel, creating a more stable personnel management 

method and expanding the pool of qualified interagency planners and operators. The 

Department supports current Department of State initiatives to expand its capacity, 

including selective placement of Political Advisors with military units. We believe 

these are important steps to improve interagency integration. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Henry, while we have seen that a big part of the problem with 

the interagency process is how various agencies react to particular crises once they 

are underway, another big, and often overlooked, part of the equation is the interagency planning framework. Do you have any thoughts on how that might be more 

constructively structured and developed? Why hasn’t the framework developed 

under NSPD-44 been used? 

Secretary HENRY. A key challenge in any interagency operation is to unify various 

funding streams, Congressional Committee jurisdictions, agency plans, and bureaucratic cultures to have an aggregate effect on the problem—that is done through 

55 

unified strategic- and operational-level planning, which the Executive Branch is 

working to improve. 

As such, DOD supports the development and use of whole-of-government planning 

frameworks to facilitate civilian agency integration into military planning and vice 

versa. In particular, DOD supports the State Coordinator for Reconstruction and 

Stabilization in the development of a U.S. Government Planning Framework for Reconstruction and Stabilization as part of NSPD-44 implementation. That framework 

is: 

– Being tested through experiments and exercises with Combatant Commands 

and across the USG. It will be revised based on those results. 

– Designed to address planning for a major response that requires significant 

and complex humanitarian, security, reconstruction, governance, and economic efforts utilizing civilian and military instruments of power. 

– Intended for use in contingency planning and crisis response planning. 

– Designed according to universally agreed-upon planning steps and accounting 

for an iterative planning process between higher and lower level organizations. 

Recent changes to DOD planning guidance also ensure a more holistic look at 

planning by: 

– Moving the Department away from an exclusive focus on contingency-driven 

planning by tasking COCOMs to develop campaign plans. These campaign 

plans will provide an opportunity for greater coordination and synchronization of USG activities to shape the current security environment in order 

to prevent potential threats to our national security interests from developing. 

– Ensuring that stabilization and reconstruction concerns are highlighted in 

contingency planning. 

– Encouraging interagency cooperation in the development of military plans. 

DOD is working with interagency partners on selected plans already. As 

these efforts progress, DOD will identify best practices and incorporate lessons learned into future guidance. We are grateful to the State Department 

for the input it has provided on selected plans. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Henry, GAO testified before the subcommittee that DOD’s efforts 

to implement DOD Directive 3000.05 have been hampered by a lack of guidance 

from your office on how to identify and prioritize needed stability operations capabilities. Has guidance been given? Has the Under Secretary of Defense developed 

a list of priority capabilities? Has your office given guidance on developing measures 

of effectiveness to be used in evaluating progress in meeting the directive’s goals? 

Secretary HENRY. DOD Directive 3000.05 provides broad policy guidance for various DOD components to adapt processes and develop capabilities accordingly. 

DOD’s approach has been to focus on updating strategic-level guidance documents 

and working through the formal capabilities development process to ensure stability 

operations and irregular warfare considerations are included in the analysis agenda 

that informs our Department-wide capabilities analysis efforts. Thereby, DOD components, including Combatant Commands, are instructed to incorporate stability operations considerations in the planning and conduct of operations. 

The Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability Operations 

Capabilities is working with the Services to identify and prioritize the ‘‘full range’’ 

of capabilities required for irregular warfare and stability operations and their doctrine, organizations, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities implications. 

As an integral part of capability development, for both U.S. and international 

partners, Combatant Commands provide information to the Department on the capabilities needed to conduct their mission through the standardized Integrated Priority List (IPL) process. These requirements are assessed in program development 

across all Combatant Commands using a prioritization process that seeks to balance 

risks. Each Combatant Command has priorities unique to the nature of its region. 

DOD does not expect that each Combatant Command will submit the same requirements or priorities, but instead expects each to provide an assessment of their requirements across the spectrum of capabilities. 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Henry, can you comment on how the President’s FY 2009 budget 

reflects implementation of the policy to make stability operations as important as 

combat operations in terms of doctrine, organization, training, material, leadership 

and education, personnel, and facilities? 

56 

Secretary HENRY. DOD will not be creating separate stability operations budget 

lines, but rather driving a shift in capability development priorities. DOD is working 

through existing capabilities development processes to determine future needs. A 

critical element of that process will be determining those adaptations made in response to Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom and funded 

through supplemental appropriations that need to be institutionalized for this new 

environment. 

The Office of the Secretary of Defense is working with the Services and Combatant Commands to identify and prioritize the ‘‘full range’’ of capabilities required for 

Irregular Warfare and Stability Operations to include their DOTMLPF implications. 

In his recent testimony regarding the FY09 budget, the Secretary of Defense highlighted a theme running throughout the FY09 budget request: ensuring the Department is prepared to address the international landscape characterized by new 

threats and instability. Specific budget requests highlight this change: 

– Increased End Strength: increasing Army size by 7,000 over and Marine 

Corps by 5,000 over FY08 levels enabling the Department to relieve stress 

on the force caused by the Long War and ensuring it is able to excel at conventional warfare and counterinsurgency operations. (Personnel) 

– Global Train and Equip: providing commanders a means to fill longstanding 

gaps in our ability to build the capacity and capabilities of partner nations. 

(Authorities) 

– Security & Stabilization Assistance: allowing the Department to transfer up to $200 million to the State Department to facilitate whole-of-government responses to stability and security missions. (Authorities) 

– AFRICOM: funding to launch the new Africa Command, allowing the Department to have a more integrated approach. (Organization) 

– Foreign Languages: providing for increased language training for all forces to 

improve preparation for irregular warfare, training and advising missions, 

humanitarian efforts, and security and stabilization operations. (Training) 

Dr. SNYDER. Mr. Henry, how is implementation of DOD Directive 3000.05 affected 

by Secretary England’s direction to Assistant Secretary Vickers to rewrite the directive as a directive on irregular warfare? Does the decision to rewrite DOD Directive 

3000.05 mean that the policy establishing stability operations as a core mission 

comparable in priority to combat operations is being changed? 

Secretary HENRY. The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review identified the need to 

rebalance capabilities across the Department to improve joint force proficiency in 

countering irregular challenges. To implement the vision of the QDR, the Department developed implementation roadmaps for building partnership capacity, irregular warfare, and supporting DOD processes. DODD 3000.05, which pre-dates the 

2006 QDR, provided influential foundational concepts for Departmental programs to 

counter irregular challenges. 

Last summer, the Department reported on the progress of DODD 3000.05 initiatives to give stability operations a priority comparable to combat operations. These 

initiatives informed Department-wide concepts for defeating irregular challenges by 

working with and through the indigenous population and legitimate government to 

isolate and defeat irregular adversaries. As DOD worked to enhance relevant capabilities, significant synergies across capabilities became evident. 

The Department is now developing a directive to capitalize on these synergies, establish capstone policy for irregular warfare capabilities, and describe the relationship among key activities, including stability operations. In so doing, the directive 

will integrate the key lessons learned from the QDR Execution Roadmaps, DODD 

3000.05, and best practices from current operations. It will synchronize capability 

development across a wider range of operational environments—permissive, contested, and denied. This approach will help DOD maintain readiness for more contingencies—and provide the nation with more strategic alternatives. 

Recognizing that stability operations are essential to traditional warfare, irregular 

warfare, and a range of activities that are not characterized as warfare per se, the 

Department continues to develop initiatives under the auspices of NSPD-44 and 

other interagency authorities. Our strategic guidance reflects this view, and recognizes that in many cases unified action across multiple government agencies is crucial to enduring success. DOD remains engaged with our interagency and international partners to create synergies among our capabilities and synchronize their 

application in pursuing national security objectives. 

Dr. SNYDER. A number of commentators have cited an over-reliance on DOD in 

times of crisis when, perhaps, other instruments of national power—diplomacy, economic measures, or effective strategic communications—would have been more effecVerDate Nov 24 2008 08:02 Apr 02, 2009 Jkt 043781 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 C:\DOCS\110-115\43781.TXT HARM2 PsN: MARY
57 

tive. Do you share this view and if so, what specific changes can be made and by 

whom to the interagency process that would strengthen the ‘‘voice’’ of non-DOD 

agencies and enable non-military solutions or solutions where the military is only 

in the supporting role? 

Secretary PAVEL. The Department is in agreement regarding the need to increase 

the U.S. Government’s non-military capability and capacity to more effectively and 

efficiently address current national security threats and opportunities. DOD supports a number of initiatives to support increased capabilities of civilian agencies 

and the development of whole-of-government planning processes to apply all USG 

capabilities in a efficient, effective, and unified manner to achieve national goals, 

to include: 

– NSPD-44 ‘‘Management of Interagency Efforts Concerning Reconstruction 

and Stabilization’’, particularly the President’s FY09 budget request for $250M 

for the State Department to build expeditionary capacity at eight civilian agencies through the Civilian Stabilization Initiative (CSI). CSI will provide trained, 

equipped, and mission-ready civilian experts who can partner with the U.S. 

Armed Forces in an integrated fashion, applying all elements of national power 

to meet national security imperatives. 

– National Counterterrorism Center’s efforts to employ diplomatic, financial, intelligence, and law enforcement capabilities in support of the 2006 National 

Strategy for Combating Terrorism. 

– HSPD-8 ‘‘National Preparedness’’ Annex I, directing the establishment of a 

standard, coordinated set of plans by all levels of government to enhance our 

national all-hazards preparedness. 

Appropriate resourcing of civilian agencies commensurate with the extent of the 

requirements and the agility needed to meet today’s threats is essential to achieving 

the ambitious and laudable goals of these above efforts. 

Dr. SNYDER. While we have seen that a big part of the problem with the interagency process is how various agencies react to particular crises once they are underway, another big, and often overlooked, part of the equation is the interagency 

planning framework. Do you have any thoughts on how that might be more constructively structured and developed? Why hasn’t the framework developed under 

NSPD-44 been used? 

Secretary PAVEL. A key challenge in any interagency operation is to unify various 

funding streams, Congressional Committee jurisdictions, agency plans, bureaucratic 

cultures, etc., to have an aggregate effect on the problem—that is done through unified strategic- and operational-level planning, which the Executive Branch is working to improve. 

As such, DOD supports improvement of whole-of-government planning. In particular, DOD supports the State Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization in 

development of a U.S. Government Planning Framework for Reconstruction and 

Stabilization as part of NSPD-44 implementation. That framework is: 

– Being tested through experiments and exercises with Combatant Commands 

and across the USG. It will be revised based on those results. 

– Designed to address planning for a major response that requires significant 

and complex humanitarian, security, reconstruction, governance, and economics 

efforts utilizing civilian and military instruments of power. 

– Used for contingency planning and crisis response planning. 

– Designed according to universally agreed-upon planning steps and accounting 

for an iterative planning process between higher and lower level organizations. 

Recent changes to DOD planning guidance also ensure a more holistic look at 

planning by: 

– Moving the Department away from an exclusive focus on contingency-driven 

planning by tasking COCOMs to develop steady-state campaign plans. These 

steady-state campaign plans will provide an opportunity for greater coordination and synchronization of USG activities to shape the current security environment in order to prevent potential threats to our national security interests 

from maturing in and emanating from weak and fragile states. 

– Ensuring that both stabilization and reconstruction concerns are highlighted 

in contingency planning. 

– Reaching out to the Department of State and other civilian agencies to help 

make more realistic and holistic assumptions about potential field activities, 

and to better identify issues/questions that can be resolved or better prepared 

for with advance discussion in Washington prior to a contingency. 

58 

Dr. SNYDER. In May of 2007, President Bush named Lt. General Douglas Lute as 

assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan. In that position, Lt. General Lute was charged with coordinating the efforts of the Executive Branch to support our commanders and senior diplomats on 

the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. Could you comment on the effectiveness of that 

position to date, and why you believe it was necessary to create this position? What 

is wrong with the interagency structure that required ‘‘ad hoc’’ corrections? Have 

those conditions changed? Are there more ‘‘war czars’’ in our future? 

Secretary PAVEL. Based on the size and complexity of the crisis or issue, it is 

sometimes necessary to have a high-level individual dedicated to overseeing the task 

at hand. Such an action does not necessarily indicate a flaw in the system, but rather can be an appropriate response to ensure critical USG goals are met. 

Dr. SNYDER. The Defense Science Board made recommendations to the Secretary 

that DOD’s policy to put stability operations on equal footing with combat operations would involve a massive transformation that required sustained senior executive level involvement, management, and focus and suggested that the transformation needs an ‘‘agent of change’’ at a sufficiently senior level. The DSB specifically conducted that a Deputy Assistant Secretary level official was of insufficient 

rank to lead the transformation. Who is DOD’s agent of change for stability operations and what was the rationale for that decision? 

Secretary PAVEL. The Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict and Interdependent Capabilities as established 

through the reorganization of Policy last year is an integrated, single policy advocate for needed priority capabilities for the future force. This office is best placed 

to develop a strategically balanced mix for Irregular Warfare, Stability Operations, 

and future state adversaries. 

In addition, Directive 3000.05 led to the creation of two DOD offices to advocate 

for enhanced capability in stability operations, in Policy and on the Joint Staff, J– 

5: 

– Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability Operations; 

and 

– Joint Chiefs of Staff Stability Operations Division. 

The fundamental logic behind the Policy re-organization, however, is that capabilities can be applied across a wide range of conditions. The efforts of these offices 

can be applied to the range of IW-related mission sets. For example, the DASD for 

Stability Operations Capabilities is leading a Department-wide review of the capabilities required to ‘‘Train, Advise, Assist’’ (TAA) foreign security forces. Such capabilities have obvious applications across the spectrum of operations. 

Dr. SNYDER. Can you comment on how the President’s FY 2009 budget reflects 

implementation of the policy to make stability operations as important as combat 

operations in terms of doctrine, organization, training, material, leadership and education, personnel and facilities? 

Secretary PAVEL. DOD will not be creating separate stability operations budget 

lines, but rather driving a shift in capability development priorities. DOD is working 

through existing capabilities development processes to determine future needs. A 

critical element of that process will be determining those adaptations made in response to OEF/OIF and funded through supplemental appropriations that need to 

be institutionalized for this new environment. 

The Office of the Secretary of Defense is working with the Services and Combatant Commands to identify and prioritize the ‘‘full range’’ of capabilities required for 

Irregular Warfare and Stability Operations to include their DOTMLPF implications. 

In his recent testimony regarding the FY09 budget, the Secretary of Defense highlighted a theme running throughout the FY09 budget request: ensuring the Department is prepared to address the international landscape characterized by new 

threats and instability. Specific budget requests highlight this change: 

– Increased End Strength: increasing Army size by 7,000 over and Marine 

Corps by 5,000 over FY08 levels enabling the Department to relieve stress on 

the force caused by the Long War and ensuring it is able to excel at conventional warfare and counterinsurgency operations. (Personnel) 

– Global Train and Equip: providing commanders a means to fill longstanding 

gaps in our ability to build the capacity and capabilities of partner nations. (Authorities) 

– Security & Stabilization Assistance: allowing the Department to transfer up 

to $200 million to the State Department to facilitate whole-of-government responses to stability and security missions. (Authorities) 

59 

– AFRICOM: funding to launch the new Africa Command, allowing the Department to have a more integrated approach. (Organization) 

– Foreign Languages: providing for increased language training for all forces to 

improve preparation for irregular warfare, training and advising missions, humanitarian efforts, and security and stabilization operations. (Training) 

Dr. SNYDER. DOD witnesses testified that measuring the progress or impact of the 

Provincial Reconstruction Teams is very difficult. What thought are you giving to 

how the PRTs’ work should be assessed? Without metrics, how do we know that the 

PRTs’ work is supporting our strategy or how to adjust their efforts as conditions 

change? What thought is being given to how future reconstruction and stabilization 

operations should be measured? 

Secretary PAVEL. It is important to evaluate success by outcomes—progress toward strategic objectives. In contested environments, progress is not linear. Conditions change, and our operations must adapt to the new conditions. 

Drawing on the work done in metrics for Iraq and Afghanistan, The Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI), in conjunction with S/CRS, 

USAID, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the U.S. Institute for Peace, are working to establish a system of more detailed metrics and transition points for conflict 

transformation that will assist in campaign design for counterinsurgency and stability operations. 

Currently in Iraq and Afghanistan, PRT metrics vary by each of the provinces in 

the regions—depending upon the needs and existing capacity of the region. The ultimate measure will be the withdrawal of the PRT because of the existence of sufficient freedom of commerce, effective government rule over territory, and freedom of 

the population to participate in that governance and commerce. Most general categories of metrics focus on the ability of the local government to take action, to include: ability to request, receive, and expend funds from the central government and 

other sources; ability to run educational and health systems. Many of our metrics 

are subjective—direct proportional relationships between the reduction of violence 

and reconstruction efforts; number of unsolicited tips; etc. 

Effective evaluation (metrics) is part of a more holistic process executed through 

a continuous planning process, to include: (1) carrying out joint assessments; (2) establishing clear objectives; (3) applying resources in a coordinate manner; and (4) 

developing milestones and transition points for achieving that objective. DOD is 

working with interagency partners to refine that planning process. 

Note: Specifics on Iraq/Afghanistan metrics should be directed to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East and the Deputy Assistant Secretary 

of Defense for Central Asia, respectively. 

Dr. SNYDER. A number of commentators have cited an over-reliance on DOD in 

times of crisis when, perhaps, other instruments of national power—diplomacy, economic measures, or effective strategic communications—would have been more effective. Do you share this view and if so, what specific changes can be made and by 

whom to the interagency process that would strengthen the ‘‘voice’’ of non-DOD 

agencies and enable non-military solutions or solutions where the military is only 

in the supporting role? 

Mr. HESS. We believe that this observation has merit, and that a whole-of-government preventative engagement with the developing world is always better than a 

military crisis response. A crisis for which a military response is needed is the sign 

of a failure to address the underlying causes of conflict. The choice should not be 

seen in terms of choosing between one agency and another in addressing crises. The 

choice should rather be made in favor of addressing the root causes of conflict over 

a sustained period rather than responding to a crisis after it has occurred. 

Dr. SNYDER. While we have seen that a big part of the problem with the interagency process is how various agencies react to particular crises once they are underway, another big, and often overlooked, part of the equation is the interagency 

planning framework. Do you have any thoughts on how that might be more constructively structured and developed? Why hasn’t the framework developed under 

NSPD-44 been used? 

Mr. HESS. The framework has not been used to date in part because the negotiations about how it will be made operational are still ongoing, and in part because 

no suitable crisis response requiring its use has occurred. USAID continues to be 

actively involved with S/CRS in working out these details, through the PCC process 

and numerous working groups. There remain many unanswered questions about 

how the framework will be made operational if it is stood up, and how activities 

on the ground will be funded, implemented, evaluated, and integrated with existing 

U.S. government development programs. 

60 

Dr. SNYDER. In May of 2007, President Bush named Lt. General Douglas Lute as 

assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan. In that position, Lt. General Lute was charged with coordinating the efforts of the Executive Branch to support our commanders and senior diplomats on 

the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. Could you comment on the effectiveness of that 

position to date, and why you believe it was necessary to create this position? What 

is wrong with the interagency structure that required ‘‘ad hoc’’ corrections? Have 

those conditions changed? Are there more ‘‘war czars’’ in our future? 

Mr. HESS. We have no information about how the decision was made to appoint 

Lt. General Lute to coordinate these efforts, nor about whether similar arrangements will need to be made in the future. 

Dr. SNYDER. GAO reported that the State Department’s internal guidance puts S/ 

CRS’s roles and responsibilities in ‘‘conflict with State’s regional bureaus and Chiefs 

of Mission.’’ Can you comment on GAO’s conclusion and tell us what is being done 

to address that issue? 

Mr. HESS. This is an internal Department of State matter on which it would not 

be helpful for USAID to comment. 

Æ