For many military units operating in Afghanistan (and, until recently, Iraq), the experience of working with civilians from the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been an uneven one. While many examples exist of great partnerships with the civilian interagency (to refer to these organizations collectively) in just as many instances, miscommunication, uncoordinated planning, a lack of teamwork, and even animosity have been the norm.
But cooperation is not a one-way street, and military units frequently don’t know how to fully influence their civilian colleagues in counterinsurgency operations and may marginalize or undercut their activities. Too many efforts aimed at implementing a unified civilian–military counterinsurgency strategy at the tactical level are “personality-based” and succeed or fail depending on who ends up in a particular unit or staffing rotation.
The bureaucratic structures and mindsets of the current military and interagency have had trouble adjusting to the demands of a counterinsurgency structured to address problems of a different era. Too many members of our diplomatic corps, development community, and military are still focused on solving the problems of modern nation-states, such as conducting traditional state-to-state diplomatic relations, deterring and defeating conventional military threats, and meeting development needs through partnerships with viable central governments.
The counterinsurgency environment in Afghanistan retains aspects of conventional approaches but requires different skills and methods of coping. It is essential to achieve a unity of effort where unity of command, at least for now, is not possible.
The Forward-Deployed Interagency
Since provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) were introduced in Afghanistan in 2002 and Iraq in 2005, interagency civilians have increasingly worked with the military in security environments that range from the relatively peaceful to the intensely violent. PRTs are charged with extending the reach and authority of the central host government, promoting good governance, facilitating reconstruction and development, and, along with other co-located military units, bolstering indigenous security forces while partnered with U.S. military civil-affairs teams and force-protection elements. PRT structures have varied since their introduction, with some led by the military with civilian advisers while others are civilian-led but principally manned by the military. Some have their own force protection and life support, while others are embedded with existing infantry units and depend on them for mobility and sustainment.
In the early years of PRTs it was common for the number of civilian advisers to range from one to three for an entire province. When the teams expanded into Iraq in 2005, they became concentrated in major cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi. These relatively small civilian numbers have swelled, although not uniformly across all PRTs. In Afghanistan, for example, partly because of the civilian uplift begun in 2009, the number of civilians at many PRTs has increased to the low double digits, but many still have fewer than five civilian advisers. With the introduction of district support teams to Afghanistan in 2009—three-man civilian elements with political, development, and agricultural advisers embedded with military units—the challenge of ensuring civilians and the military can work together is even greater.
One of the key challenges for State Department and USAID officials has been to adapt their traditional work methods, such as focusing on diplomatic relations and long-term development, to the practicalities of local politics and emphasizing stability operations. Many military units have also struggled to shift their approach from focusing on the enemy to emphasizing counterinsurgency strategies, concentrating more on the population and balancing kinetic and non-kinetic methods. Both the U.S. military and interagency civilians have had to partner with local government officials and security forces to help them assume greater responsibility for their country and fight the insurgency.
If a PRT is functioning well, it can bring important capabilities to the fight such as development dollars and expertise; diplomatic skills, including conflict resolution and cultural understanding; technical expertise in the fields of agriculture, construction, and engineering; political skills, by fostering government institutions and mentoring leaders; and management and policing skills, among a host of other capabilities. However, none of this can be accomplished without understanding the civilian operational culture.
Adapting to Change
The U.S. civilian interagency has adjusted well to the challenges of counterinsurgency, stability operations, and state-building, often with substantially fewer resources and, in some cases, far greater bureaucratic inertia than the military. It is useful to understand its typical operating environment and organizational culture. The typical State Department foreign-service officer (FSO) has passed rigorous examinations and undergone intensive language and diplomatic training. FSOs operate in an embassy environment where they must present the U.S. government’s views to the host government, collect and analyze the views of the host government and key figures in the country, facilitate U.S. goals, encourage international business and cultural understanding, and assist U.S. citizens in need. Diplomatic business is typically conducted through démarches to key government officials and departments, regular meetings such as summits, and the management of U.S. government programs. FSOs also meet with civilian groups to share U.S. policy views.
All U.S. activities are circumscribed by the host nation’s sovereignty. Interactions are biased toward the government and national institutions such as political parties, narrowly focused on achieving often short-term U.S. goals, and are limited insofar as they penetrate the popular consciousness. Much of the embassy’s daily business is to make sure the State Department is informed of events in that country and to inform the policy-making process. The State Department’s culture is strategic and policy-focused rather than operational and tactical. It also tends to emphasize analysis, writing, and having a general knowledge of an area.
Up or Out
Without regular promotions, FSOs have to leave the State Department. Known as “up-or-out,” this policy causes problems when it comes to fostering a sense of teamwork. Promotions at State combine personal merit and sharing the policy outlook of a particular administration. But it is difficult to establish individual responsibility in the FSO career field, because an officer is never responsible for the host government’s decisions. An FSO can only influence, not direct.
When political administrations change in Washington, frequently prompting policy changes, officers often find themselves on the wrong side of their government’s policies. Within the promotion system, a self-oriented culture has unfortunately taken root. This tendency is especially pronounced when FSOs are assigned individually to an embassy instead of deploying overseas as a member of a team. In general, the best State Department officers to serve at PRTs are FSOs who enjoy hardship tours; civil servants; those who joined the service after 9/11; Presidential management fellows; FSOs with prior military experience or those who have worked with the military in a sustained manner such as at the Pentagon; and retirees re-entering the service.
The culture of USAID is similar to the State Department’s in many respects, but it concentrates principally on accomplishing tangible results in host countries such as increasing immunizations and paving roads, not providing analysis and policy recommendations. Most of USAID’s work is conducted by contractors and nongovernmental organizations instead of U.S. government employees. Because they focus on long-term development projects, USAID tours are typically much more extensive than State Department rotations and involve taking a longer view of achieving shared objectives. Additionally, because development is done in conjunction with the host government or implementing partners and concentrates on areas outside the capital, USAID often has a greater feel for the views of local citizens and service delivery organizations versus foreign and defense ministries.
Many USAID employees come from the Peace Corps and nongovernmental development organizations. Their background often gives them a greater understanding of how to work with local communities. Frequently, however, their understanding of U.S. goals and interest in supporting them are not as strong as their State Department counterparts’. Because they are often contractors, they are worried about securing the next contract and may be reluctant to dispute practices they may disagree with while in country. But like their State Department peers, however, many in USAID have little experience with the U.S. military, which can adversely affect operations.
Maximizing Civilians
Military leaders should focus on four essential elements when working with the civilian interagency—expectations, integration, duplication, and implementation. The approach should be one of teamwork, regardless of which organization takes the lead on a particular initiative. Civilian advisers should be located in the same tactical operations center as the PRT commander, ensuring a seat to civilian advisers next to the commander at all briefings and planning sessions, making known that a seat will be provided on convoys outside the wire, and always meeting with local officials together. Living arrangements should be comparable, and a tone of respect should dominate interactions between the PRT’s military commander and his civilian advisers so their importance is communicated to the rest of the unit.
The military should create the expectation that the civilian interagency will participate in defensive combat operations, render aid to the wounded, and locate insurgents and improvised explosive devices during convoys. This can be conveyed early on by familiarizing civilians with military procedures, providing weapons training and basic courses in combat medicine, setting the tone for the entire tour. Although some procedures can be relaxed as trust increases, these initial expectations will promote better unity of effort.
Second, the military should fully integrate the civilian interagency into the PRTs’ military structures and procedures, including them in mission planning and implementation and the evaluation and presentation of its activities. Each PRT participant brings skills and perspectives to the strategy. Integration not only takes advantage of these capabilities but also educates members of the military and civilians about each other’s respective operating culture. It also prevents local officials from taking advantage of differences between the two.
Integration is also essential outside the wire so local officials see the civilian as a key partner in the PRT’s operations. The PRT commander and his advisers should solicit each other’s opinions before local officials to demonstrate equal status and defer on issues that fall within the other’s respective areas of responsibility. Civilian advisers should join the PRT’s military leaders when meeting with government officials outside the wire. Physical separation can spark misunderstandings that, under the stress of war, can lead to a dysfunctional team and confuse the local population.
Third, the military should create a duplication of effort with its civilian advisers. Often military leaders have no civilian advisers, too few, or of poor quality to accomplish the mission. And unlike military personnel, who have one leave period per year of deployment, civilians receive five leave breaks per year—two home visits of two weeks each and three regional breaks of one week each. This can have a disastrous effect on the continuity of operations, especially when the civilians are leading certain good governance and development initiatives.
The military must maintain redundancy in its good governance, reconstruction, and development efforts. If a PRT has fostered a sense of teamwork and integrated civilians in its procedures, much of that knowledge will have become “corporate knowledge” when civilians go on leave. It is also useful to assign a member of the military to work with each civilian so he is acquainted with their responsibilities. (For example, when I went on leave during my tour as a State Department political adviser to a PRT, a sergeant who worked closely with me went to the monthly meeting of tribal elders I typically attended.) Some unit members should also receive the same training that civilian deployers receive at Camp Atterbury in Indiana and attend courses at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute in northern Virginia. This will not only sensitize them to the civilian perspective but enable them to carry out civilian responsibilities, if required.
The final element to improving the relationship between the military and interagency at PRTs is to concentrate on unified implementation. In State Department culture, for example, interactions with other governments are highly structured because of the existing bureaucracies created to foster these engagements and the nature of work, which is principally with other functioning governments. Many required skills, such as cultural sensitivity and knowledge of the country’s history, analysis, and writing ability, are also essential at a PRT. However, because sovereignty is still being established in rural Afghanistan, the key task there is building a legitimate and effective government while contending with forces not interested in achieving this objective.
This kind of work requires leadership, personal bravery, and the skills of a political ward boss and social scientist. Civilian efforts should concentrate on tangible results that defeat the political aspects of the insurgency. Likewise, development programs must be nested in a counterinsurgency strategy based on stabilization and development programs. The military must make civilian goals a priority as well, since they will complement their efforts. Force protection should always be provided for civilians when needed. Life and administrative support should also be guaranteed, and civilian priorities should be so regularly incorporated into the PRT’s planning that it isn’t even an issue. If the military can focus on implementing civilian programming and members of the State Department and USAID couch their initiatives in terms of defeating the insurgency and having tangible results, significant progress will be made to achieve their common objectives.
Bridging the Gap
As long as the United States continues to fight insurgencies with peacetime bureaucratic structures and a traditional view of separating civilian and military responsibilities, achieving unity of effort without unity of command will be difficult. These challenges are further complicated because many of the bureaucratic structures and mindsets of the military and the interagency have had trouble adjusting to the particular demands of a counterinsurgency strategy created to address problems of a different era.
Today’s conflicts require fundamentally different skills and methods of analyzing and shaping the local environment to complement more typical approaches. As the leading edge of U.S. civil–military efforts to defeat insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, PRTs have often been best positioned to adapt to the challenge of irregular warfare. But friction between members of the civilian interagency and the military must be overcome if we hope to achieve success. If PRT commanders adopt the reasonable expectations of their civilian counterparts, integrate them fully into PRT operations, plan for redundancy, and adopt a spirit of teamwork when implementing their collective programs, we will have done much to improve our operations overseas. We must confront the challenge of insurgency and terrorism with a whole-of-government approach at the pointy tip of the spear, where the fighting is most intense and the stakes exceedingly high.