CIAO DATE: 02/2012
Volume: 2, Issue: 2
March 2011
Human Security in Complex Operations (PDF)
Mary Kaldor
Human security has a multifaceted definition which includes the security of individuals rather than states; security from both violence and economic and environmental threats; and security that is established through law rather than through war. It is a concept that can facilitate both the way one understands complex operations and how one designs the toolkit for addressing these risks and dangers. Although related and overlapping, human security is distinct from counterinsurgency. Defeating insurgents may be a means to achieving the goal of human security. For counterinsurgency efforts, human security enhances the holistic security paradigm. Critics of the concept of human security argue that is either too soft or a cover for neoimperialism, and that human security either captures what is already done in practice or is a utopian, unachievable aspiration.
Enhancing U.S. Support for UN Peacekeeping (PDF)
Nancy Soderberg
U.S. support for the UN Peacekeeping mission is critical to success. Enhanced support in financing and in providing personnel and other assets should be considered by the U.S. Administration. For the last four years, the Center for Complex Operations (CCO) and the National Defense University facilitated U.S. and UN discussions. This informal forum has allowed for candid and frank discussions of how the Department of Defense, Department of State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development together can help address and support the challenges of UN peacekeeping. Recommendations include providing additional resources and personnel, establishing a Deputy-level position at the National Security Council (NSC) to ensure senior level coordinated policy and tasking of U.S. support to UN peacekeeping, and creating a Clearing House to help fill UN gaps by tracking needs and capabilities. The recent operation in Haiti underscored the need for greater transparency in information sharing, striving to keep documents unclassified where feasible, and the use of online accessible social networking for information sharing.
Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts: Putting the Inter into the Interagency (PDF)
Eric Jorgensen
Genuine interagency coordination and collaboration remain merely aspirational. In order to achieve true interagency coordination and collaboration, horizontal and vertical reorganization of the executive branch is needed. Such horizontal reorganization would align departmental and agency expert areas and integrate regional responsibilities. Vertical reorganization would allow the President's principal officers to administer regional interagency directorates. With such reorganizations, U.S. departments and agencies could move beyond merely coordinating individual disparate efforts to integrated effects, with the kinds of results necessary to advance U.S.security interests.
Interagency National Security Teams: Can Social Science Contribute? (PDF)
James Orton
Social science can serve national security practitioners by providing insights on best practices for interagency teams. The interagency team approach is an increasingly frequent recommendation for solving the much lamented problem of inadequate coordination and collaboration for national security. Historical examples indicate interagency teams can indeed be highly effective, but recent research at NDU also suggests that interagency team effectiveness is not widespread, easily replicated, or well understood. Greater use of interagency teams would be more likely and easier to execute if senior national security leaders knew with greater certainty what factors make these teams effective. This article points the way forward for more effective interagency teams by identifying their key performance variables, extracted from a review of the literature on organizational research of teams. Far from being a merely academic exercise, the authors show how insights from organizational research can produce immediate benefits for those interested in better interagency team performance.
The Comprehensive Approach in Afghanistan (PDF)
James Stavridis
Counterinsurgency has always required a holistic or comprehensive approach of one form or another. At the global level, the comprehensive approach articulates the connections of the full spectrum of complexity of operations, from security through rule of law and governance to humanitarianism, and describes the most appropriate roles for soldiers and civilians. At the national level, it is an approach that conceptualizes the interaction among security forces, the rest of government, and civil society. Yet, the realization of the comprehensive approach internationally and in the host country remains problematic. In Afghanistan, the comprehensive approach has matured over the years; more actors are involved, bringing more capabilities to the effort. The comprehensive approach has resulted in improvements in Afghanistan's security, government legitimacy, combating corruption, and strengthening the economy and licit agricultural production.
Conflict Prevention in East Africa: The Indirect Approach (PDF)
Brian Losey
The role of the Combined Joint Task Force–Horn of Africa (CJTF–HOA) has evolved into one of persistent engagement focused on building host nation capacity in order to promote regional stability and prevent conflict. The indirect approach utilized by CJTF–HOA increases the security capacity of partner militaries through military-to-military and civil-military engagements involving projects that are coordinated via the Whole of Government "3D" process, and reinforced with strategic communications. Eight years of such operations have centered on building trust and confidence among vulnerable populations and the host military and government. Lessons learned reveal that security and stability can be more effectively attained through this 3D Civilian-Military coordinated approach, and that transitional and development projects support these goals best when constructed with quality, the partner nation military or local contractors are involved, and the project is outfitted with essential staffing, equipment and supplies, as coordinated between governments, and sustained by the host or partner nation.
Rethinking the Fundamentals of State-building (PDF)
Roger Myerson
Successful stabilization depends on the new regime developing a political network that distributes power and patronage throughout the nation, whether the power network manifests in democratic form, feudal form, or colonial form. In a decentralized regime, local leaders throughout the nation can compete for a share of power even if they are not affiliated with the faction that controls national power at the center. Thus, a decentralized system can create a broad class of local leaders in all communities who have a positive expected stake in defending the new political system. Yet the leading collaborators of a stabilization operation may endorse a system of narrow political centralization. Paradoxically, for the sake of expediency and convenience, such centralization may initially be welcomed by foreign interveners, although it may itself be destabilizing. Planning for a successful state-building stability mission requires a more expansive perspective and an understanding of the stability impact of the constitutional distribution of power.
Nation-building Interventions and National Security: An Australian Perspective (PDF)
Michael Smith, Rebecca Shrimpton
The international security implications of failed and failing states are profound. To achieve stability requires a commitment from the international community to rebuild the host state and avert future conflict. Thus, successful stability operations require a long-term civil-military commitment, as evidenced by lessons from events following World War II and the Korean War. Smith and Shrimpton highlight key lessons from historical and recent nationbuilding interventions in nonpermissive environments, and urge Australia to give higher priority to preemptive strategies that help prevent conflict, and to holistic approaches that build sustainable stability. The authors argue that Australia's primary efforts should remain focused on its nearer geographic region, capitalizing on the interests, relationships, and benefits that proximity offers. This strategic approach to nationbuilding would enhance international security and reduce the prospects of international conflict in the Pacific region while strengthening Australia's contribution to regional stability.
The Commander as Investor: Changing CERP Practices (PDF)
Rebecca Patterson, Jonathan Robinson
Expeditionary Economics doctrine holds that economic growth is a critical component of long-term stability, each enabling the other: development is impossible without stability and stability is unsustainable without economic growth. Moreover, the most effective path to growth in areas in conflict is to focus on forming firms that can generate rapid revenue growth and employment opportunities. While the Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP) has advanced security and stability, its use as a tool of economic development has been criticized. Still, the U.S. military uses "money as a weapon system" and likely will continue to do so in future engagements. Based on 8 years of quantitative and anecdotal data, there are lessons to be learned on improving CERP. The authors examine the origins of CERP, as well as its successes and shortcomings as a tool for economic stabilization and security. Recommendations include engaging more effectively with local business and government leaders, improving collaboration with other coalition actors, increasing transparency, and placing emphasis on economic outcomes rather than process. Furthermore, while being cognizant of the security function of the program, CERP should support local entrepreneurs.
Airpower in Counterinsurgency and Stability Operations (PDF)
Norton Schwartz
Since the dawn of aviation, airpower has played an important role in counterinsurgency operations. This has been especially true as the security situations in Iraq and Afghanistan have deteriorated. While ground forces learned to reapply old lessons to a new environment, air support was reshaped to provide an asymmetric advantage. The capabilities that were developed have become indispensible for conducting a modern counterinsurgency effort. The proliferation of antiaccess and area denial capabilities along with long-range precision weaponry will result in greater challenges for all military operations, even COIN. Airpower will continue to provide critical support and must integrate lessons from operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ministerial Advisors: Developing Capacity for an Enduring Security Force (PDF)
Frank DiGiovanni, William Caldwell IV, James Schear
The United States has spent billions to train and equip the Afghan security forces. As the transition to civilian-led reconstruction begins, effective and accountable security institutions are urgently needed to maintain operational and tactical gains. The Ministry of Defense Advisors (MoDA) program deploys senior DOD civilian specialists to advise officials in the Afghan government on critical issues including weapons auditing and logistics, legislative affairs, and food services. These are services essential to building enduring security institutions and strong civil-military partnerships. The MoDA program provides intensive predeployment training in cultural and mentoring skills and offers back-fill funds to advisors' home offices, helping ensure that the most qualified senior- and mid-level civilians are recruited for deployment.
Metrics for the Haiti Stabilization Initiative (PDF)
Robert Grossman-Vermaas, David Becker
The Haiti Stabilization Initiative (HSI) was an innovative interagency program prototype designed to secure and stabilize the highly volatile urban slum of Cité Soleil. Between 2007 and 2010, HSI successfully tested a sophisticated Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) program using a variant of the Department of Defense supported system Measuring Progress in Conflict Environment (MPICE). Through MPICE, HSI and its analysis partner Logos analyzed outcomes and impacts within key sectors. The analysis revealed that one needs a clear "theory of change." However, many stabilization or counterinsurgency programs do not evaluate themselves. They lack a provable hypothesis, and proving causality of change based on program efforts remains a challenge. Furthermore, it is critical to measure the achievement of "outcomes" within and across sectors, not just mechanical "outputs" of programs. It is also necessary to triangulate data and overlap sources. Toward that end, perception-based data (surveys, focus groups, expert elicitations sessions) and objective data (MINUSTAH statistics, crime reports) provided for a rich form of "triangulation" analysis.
Civil-Military Operations in Kenya's Rift Valley: Sociocultural Impacts at the Local Level (PDF)
Jessica Lee, Maureen Farrell
In the aftermath of Kenya's 2008 postelection violence, U.S. Army Reserve Civil Affairs (CA) Teams began a series of school rehabilitation projects in the Rift Valley. The Combined Joint Task Force–Horn of Africa (CJTF–HOA) commissioned social science field research to evaluate the sociocultural impact of these projects. It was found that the local population generally welcomed the U.S. military's support and viewed CA Team members as a trusted presence in the community. School rehabilitation projects were well coordinated with the Kenyan government, NGOs, international organizations, and civic groups. However, interlocutors from the local communities who put their reputations on the line to introduce and support CA Team activities were not provided with all necessary information to adequately explain certain shortfalls in the process. Field interviews also revealed the importance of transparency in communication about objectives and motivations to secure local acceptance of the Kenyan military engagement in civilian-miltary operations. Lastly, strategic communications goals should be developed with a holistic view, since local communities tend not to differentiate between various groups within the U.S. military.
ISAF Lessons Learned: A German Perspective (PDF)
Rainer Glatz
Germany has followed the comprehensive approach for the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) area of operations in Afghanistan, providing counterinsurgency support primarily for security, economic aid, and social development. The author, commander of the Bundeswehr Operations Command in Potsdam, Germany, provides a German perspective of lessons learned from the ISAF mission. To be effective, counterinsurgency requires comprehensive measures and adherence to fundamental guidelines advancing legitimacy and unity of effort, taking into account political factors, establishing rule of law, and isolating insurgents. NATO must strengthen its intelligence capacity, promote unity of effort, and prepare for a long-term commitment.
Zero-Sum Future: American Power in an Age of Anxiety (PDF)
Michael Mazarr
Gideon Rachman has an intriguing notion. The broad assumptions of most analyses of world politics since 1989—that the major and middle powers of the world are agreed on a set of shared interests, that globalization has created a positive-sum context in which all can benefit at the same time, that a sort of modern alliance of like-minded states opposed to major conflict and other annoyances such as terrorism and environmental degradation will work to preserve stability—may be breaking down. The "international political system has . . . entered a period of dangerous instability and profound change," he writes, which will fracture the foundations of the positive-sum, like-minded-powers world.