equitably to society, then Bosnia might be described as a success
story. A WoG effort is essential for bringing all of the tools and
instruments of statecraft and government power to bear for U.S.
national interests. The world’s problems are not owned by the
U.S., which has a tendency to look at the world in terms of U.S.
desires, even though the facts indicate otherwise. The U.S. must
understand it does not own the timetable or the solution set,
and therefore may only be able to impact the situation marginally.
Over the last decade the military has contributed to SO by establishing civil society and civil control, restoring and providing
essential services, repairing critical infrastructure, supporting
governance, enabling economic development and providing
humanitarian assistance as required. This has demonstrated the
military’s ability to execute SO across the conflict continuum.
Nonetheless, DoD must temper its expectations of the IA.
Although the military may not be a suitable actor for a particular task, where the IA and Foreign Service Officers possess
the requisite skills-sets to accomplish governance development,
the IA alone does not have the training to empower provincial
governance. Doctrine must illustrate the roles and capabilities
of IA partners, and DoD must organize and engage in joint and
combined exercises recurrently with IA partners to establish
operational roles and protocols. Further, DoD must strive to
engage coalition partners in smaller scale SO, as our NATO
partners are looking to eliminate SO from their normal operational procedures.
Best Practices are excellent tools for amplifying interoperability,
but Iraq and Afghanistan are unique instances from an authority’s perspective, and they will not be relevant in other situations,
such as Europe and South America where the Department of
State will be the lead agency. As those who gained experience
during the formative years of IA cooperation begin to retire,
the U.S. government needs to capture and institutionalize these
concepts into training and education. DoD and the IA must engage all prominent think tanks in the coming year, as they will
be preparing briefing books for the transition period of the next
president-elect. This will be a unique engagement opportunity
to rescope SO.
IA integrated SO is usually well coordinated at the tactical level, adequate at the operational level, and less well at the strategic
level, which is due to bureaucratic silos. Many of the silos have
been broken down, but DoD must ensure that they are not rebuilt. Mission analysis is indispensible, and DoD must be sized
appropriately and willing to take the lead and help enhance the
shortfalls in IA capabilities. When conducting mission analysis,
establishing Rule of Law is paramount to successful and sustain-
4
able stability operations. Without Rule of Law, Public Order
will fail, corruption and organized crime will erode trust in the
government, and security cannot be sustained. DoD and the
IA needs to consider contracting experts in judicial reform and
police advising, as there is no existing contiguous strategy for
transitioning Public Security Management from DoD to host
nation constabulary control.
DoD must professionalize the advising and mentoring skill sets,
as if it were an occupational specialty. Another shortfall in SO
is a lack of budgeting personnel to assist in the development of
oversight and accounting mechanisms, which will facilitate the
reduction of corruption.
DoD needs to refine its SO analysis and planning capabilities
with its IA partners, and focus on differentiating stability tasks
and activities into development streams, while understanding
the cross-cutting effect of each development task on every sector of stability. All stability tasks should be focused on mitigating the drivers of conflict, thus an initial extensive situational
analysis is necessary to define those root grievances in society.
SO lacks priority within DoD largely because it is manpower,
leader and planning intensive, but if DoD really wants to shape
the outcome of a conflict favorably, it will need to recognize
that a long-term engagement is the most effective way to accomplish national objectives. The realistic objectives of SO must be
aligned with the commitment of resources.
The most likely recurring SO challenges will fall into the category of conflict prevention and deterrence. The Gray Zone in an
environment short of war, which undermines stability. The Gray
Zon