3. Strategy and Planning (1995)

Can we look regionally? How can we focus assets by targeting the whole [interagency and international] structure ... and try to develop the underpinnings for a relationship for a region? (1) General George A. Joulwan, USA A fundamental issue in conducting coordination among government agencies is that each agency must first understand its own objectives, concepts for operating, and the resources it has available. To this end, the military sector of government has done a good job developing a framework of strategic planning, programming of resources, and campaign This chapter describes the evolution of U.S. Southern Command's strategy framework from the late 1980s through 1993, a strategy that has been the foundation for coordinating with other agencies of government. The unified commands have a continuing need to coordinate regional strategies to ensure that concepts and resources are integrated within the overlapping domains of numerous agencies. The union of multidisciplinary skills and capabilities are as critical to success for peacetime strategies as for any wartime effort. Yet in peacetime, when the military component of national strategy is not the locus of government policy initiatives, achieving interagency teamwork among the military and civilian bureaucracies can be difficult. If the CINC carries the authority of combatant command in a theater of war, then during peacetime he represents only one of many government agencies operating throughout his area. 2 Getting cooperation from other departments to support regional military strategies remains a difficult task. This is especially critical for Southern Command because this area of responsibility remains near the bottom of U.S. strategic priorities. (3) The first part of attacking these challenges is the CINC's vision of the command's objectives and strategic concepts to explain how military action directly supports current national-level policy and strategies and relates to other agencies. The planning framework established by Southern Command over the past five years is the spring board for participating in the interagency arena. THE STRATEGY FRAMEWORK The basis of unified planning effort is the Joint Strategic Planning System, explained in detail in a Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Memorandum of Policy (MOP 7) and in joint publications. Inherent in MOP 7 is the underlying assumption that coordination throughout the interagency community (especially via the NSC interagency groups) will be made by the Department of Defense and Joint Staffs so that planning under the current national military strategy (and especially the Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan--JSCP) will proceed smoothly. (4) It does not recognize that a CINC may have a need to directly participate in interagency coordination at the national level, or that some planning initiatives can extend beyond the JSCP tasks. (5) This is especially true in Southern Command, where much military effort is expended supporting foreign policy decisions concerning nation assistance. Indeed, the past several Southern Command CINCs spent considerable time in Washington coordinating regional plans with government leaders and their bureaucracies. As one USCINCSOUTH observed, National planning is a hoax--so its up to the regional CINC to do the planning. (6) Another CINCSOUTH said, We're not reactive, we're in a proactive mode. We have a strategy which supports the ambassadors in the region. [The issue is]...who are the players and can they cooperate. (7) The broad scope of theater planning is illustrated by the established arrangement of Southern Command strategy and plans. (8) The Southern Theater Strategy first began to take form in June 1987 through the development of a strategic analysis by General Fred Woerner, then the newly appointed CINC. The analysis, called Missions, Tasks, and Responsibilities, covered some 500 CINC responsibilities, and it became the starting point for U. …