The recent release of the Army's latest Field Manual, FM 3-07 Stability Operations, has generated as much controversy as it has praise. On one side of the debate are those who see it as a great step forward in helping the military make sense of the complex, violent, and population-focused environments in which it increasingly finds itself. To the extent that our future conflicts are likely to look more like our current ones as Secretary Gates has asserted, it is high time we stopped muddling through and got serious about learning how to do this stuff. On the other end of the spectrum, however, are those who see the new doctrine as another dangerous step on the slippery slope toward U.S. imperialism. The better we become at nation building the critics claim, the more likely we are to try to do more of it. Moreover, teaching soldiers how to do stability operations not only erodes their war-fighting skills (i.e. their "real" mission), but it lets the civilian agencies who are supposed to do it off the hook in building their own capabilities and capacities. There are merits to both arguments, but on balance FM 3-07 should be seen as a great accomplishment.
Why FM 3-07?
It is perfectly understandable to hope that the military will conduct fewer stability operations in the future, but hoping does not make it so. The military still needs to prepare itself for the missions it will most likely be called on to perform. Given the thousands of troops over the last 200 years who have repeatedly been called to conduct these messy stability operations with little to no doctrine, education, or training, it seems high time someone put some rigorous effort into understanding how to conduct them better.
The concern over the U.S. as an imperialist power may be valid, but let's not get carried away. Doctrine is not grand strategy. For those who worry that this new doctrine will make it more likely that we will try to invade and occupy more countries, consider that it might just have the opposite effect. If there is one thing this manual makes very clear, it is that stability operations are not rocket science -- they are actually more complex and uncertain. Having a better understanding of the complexity and cost of these missions can only enhance the policy and strategy-making processes.
Fact vs. Fiction
The real value of FM 3-07 is that it gets a dialogue going and sets a few things straight:
First, FM 3-07 rightly notes that, contrary to popular belief, the Army has been conducting these types of missions for 200 years. The opening chapter is an excellent overview of this rich history. Military troops have been tasked with stabilizing, building, and re-building societies since the first units were sent West to keep peace between the settlers and the Indians and to build -- literally -- the nation. Recall that West Point was established as an engineering school for a reason. President Thomas Jefferson insisted that if we were to have a standing military (which he originally opposed) it should be as useful in times of peace as it is in times of war. One might make a similar case today and ask if the American taxpayer should expect more for $500 billion than an institution organized, trained, and equipped to fight conventional battles and nothing else.
Second, the manual recognizes that the nature of conflict is more complex than the pure science of defeating enemy militaries. If we truly wish leave a lasting peace in the places in which we intervene or fight, we do not have a choice between preparing for pure scientific battles and preparing for stability operations. At a minimum, if we do not stabilize a place after we bring down an enemy, then we set a trajectory for more chaos not peace. In so many other cases where the military is called to intervene in on-going conflicts or insurgencies, where the need to provide human security is the decisive line of operation, we need a military with a "full spectrum" mindset to understand the myriad interconnected tasks required to get the job done. FM 3-07 is a first step in this education.
Third, the manual suggests that despite aspirations to the contrary, the desired capability and capacity in civilian agencies not only does not currently exist, but it is not likely to be built in the near future. More importantly, even if and when USAID, State and all the other agencies were to enhance their expeditionary capacity 10 fold, these civilians would still not be capable -- nor should they be -- of doing their thing while bullets are still flying. That is the definition of a combatant, not a civilian. This means that the military will, at a minimum, be required to set a trajectory for accomplishing the long term strategic objectives with or without civilian experts on the ground. Once the environment is safe enough for civilians to engage, the military needs to know how to support their work. This means having a fundamental understanding of the nature of the conflict environment, the intersecting lines of operation (e.g. governance, security, economic development, etc), and the appropriate coordination of efforts among myriad military and civilian actors. This is what FM 3-07 is designed to accomplish.
Finally, it is important to understand that although this is a military manual, paid for and sponsored by the U.S. Army, it is in every other way, shape, and form, a true interagency, whole-of-government product. The process of writing this manual was almost as important as the product itself -- and this process was unique. Through a series of conferences, roundtables, and workshops with thought leaders and representatives from various agencies throughout the government, in the NGO community, and among allies, FM 3-07's author, LTC Steve Leonard, was able to glean the latest thought, theory, lessons, and controversies from the widest possible group of experts. Detailed debates over language, connotations, social science theory, and recent lessons learned from the field took place over a 10-month period, with some of these non-military participants contributing actual text to the finished product. In the end, FM 3-07 was written for and by the civilian-military community of practice, which spans well beyond just the U.S. Army. LTG Caldwell, the manual's chief sponsor at Fort Leavenworth, recognized the importance of generating this vibrant interagency dialogue and has thus set the bar for future whole of government efforts in doctrine and strategy. Indeed, the next QDR might follow a similar model.
In sum, FM 3-07 is a great accomplishment. It is about time we thought seriously about these missions -- not only how to do them, but why we do them. That the publication has generated great debate means that it is functioning just as it should.
About Janine Davidson:
Assistant Professor, George Mason University
http://www.gmu.edu/departments/spp/faculty/davidson/index.html
Non-Resident Fellow, Brookings Institution:
Comments
Thanks Troufin. Orr's bibliography is a great segue into more literature review on PCR.
Currently, I'm trying to envelope a community building process out the information provided in FM 3-07. I'm spending considerable time diving into the details so I can conceptualize how it is applied in the field. It has great information, but the difficulty lies in with how field commanders use this doctrine.
Given that FMs provide the 'how-to' for operations, am I mistaken in thinking that I may turn to FM 3-07 to find an analytical approach to reconstruction efforts in order to monitor and administer appropriate actions?
Bryan
I suggest you look up Robert Orr you will find a framework for PCR. This framweork has been around a while and was used in/influneced by the Balkans. The framework is very similiar to the 3-07. Stability ops and Post-conflict reconstruction are nearly identical. The pieces on disarmament and reconciliation are more prominent in a PCR scenario. The main difference between PCR and Stab Ops is that generally to begin PCR you have a Peace Treaty or some other official/legal end to conflict while Stab Ops occur as stated before-during-after conflict.
-Troufion
The Stability Operations manual, FM 3-07, was developed in close collaboration with the interagency as well as the NGO/PVO community - following the guidance from NSPD-44 and DODD 3000.05. A quick glance at the appendices in the manual give insight into the level of collaboration that was involved in the "penning" of the manual: Appendix B, for example, is entitled "the Interagency Management System"; Appendix C is entitled "USAID Principles for Reconstruction and Development." Throughout the entire development of the manual there was close interaction, with one of the most important being the Interagency Symposium that was held at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in June 2008 (the keynote speaker was Ambassador Herbst, the State Departments Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization). For over a year during the development of the manual there was an unprecedented cooperation with the community of practice including the wider US military, civilian USG practitioners, think tanks, and a collection of international, non-governmental, and private voluntary organizations.
Perhaps the best evidence of interagency participation was the way the manual was released on October 7, 2008. The release took place at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC. The speakers at the release of FM 3-07 represented the range of participants in the planning and future execution of stability operations:
- Lieutenant General William B. Caldwell, IV, Commanding General, United States Army Combined Arms Center and Ft. Leavenworth
- Ambassador John Herbst, Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, United States Department of State
- Ambassador Richard H. Solomon, President, United States Institute of Peace
- Ambassador James Bishop, Vice President, InterAction
- Mr. Michael Hess, Assistant Administrator of the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, United States Agency for International Development
The new Stability Operations manual is important but why are these manuals (COIN, etc.) not penned in an interagency forum? After all, haven't we learned from both Afghanistan and Iraq that the lack of unity-of-effort in both planning and execution has been one of the primary causes of ineffectiveness? Shouldn't some doctrine be thought out in collaborative ways?
<em>Edited by administrator:</em>
Luis Carlos Montalvan co-authored <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/luis-carlos-montalvan-and-gene-dewey/afgh… piece</a> at The Huffington Post, relevant to this discussion.
I'd highlight that the manual introduces a new term, "Security Force Assistance", which it defines as "unified action to generate, employ, and sustain local, host-nation, or regional security forces in support of a legitimate authority". It centers on organizing, training, equipping, rebuilding and advising foreign security forces - assisting their development to operate across the spectrum of conflict - combating internal threats such as insurgency, subversion, and lawlessness; defending against external threats; or serving as coalition partners in other areas.
As Secretary Gates said (10 Oct 07), "... arguably the most important military component in the War on Terror is not the fighting we do ourselves, but how well we enable and empower our partners to defend and govern their own countries. The standing up and mentoring of indigenous armies and police - once the province of Special Forces - is now a key mission for the military as a whole."
Via e-mail today (<i>Inside the Army</i> - subscription required):
<i>The Army's new stability operations field manual, unveiled this month, has inspired a complementary project to address the role of civilians in such operations, according to an official involved in the project.
"You can't write the whole thing in an Army manual, you need a civilian manual too," said Daniel Serwer, vice president of the Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations at the U.S. Institute of Peace, in an interview with Inside the Army. He said USIP, along with the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, PA, is drafting "guiding principles" that will give direction to the civilian side of stability operations for non-military agencies.
The principles are being written for the State Department, which will make its own changes to the document before it is finalized.
In writing the manual, the Army included input from numerous sectors that have not traditionally worked with the military on doctrine (ITA, Aug. 18, p.1)
"Not only, I think, has the Army done a good job for itself, and done it in a good way, but it also has inspired the civilian counterparts to step up and deliver their piece," said Serwer, who worked with the Army to coordinate its manual with other agencies.</i>
"... we do not have a choice between preparing for pure scientific battles and preparing for stability operations."
There was just one other point I think needs to be considered, is there such thing as a purely scientific battle except as matter of abstract thought?
As battles are fought by "people", over things "people" have decided are worth fighting over, and often occur in the midst of "people", to be purely scientific in my opinion would require us to ignore those as conditions, and forget that the range of outcomes produced by people interacting in complex environments create the basis for new interactions and outcomes - its never done.
This is why we recognize the need for art along with science. The gaps in our understanding of the environment due to emphasizing one over the other to accommodate our self interests and timelines may not only be artificial, they are self imposed and may be delusional to the point of risking the objective.
My point is that everywhere within the full spectrum of operations is complex and requires application of both science and art - even if we dont recognize the relationship of our actions on the front end to the consequences we have to contend with on the back end. We may still have to make hard choices, but we should at least know why we had to make them and consider what the implications are if we are to mitigate risk some to the objective to which military force (or forces) was committed.
Again, thanks for a thoughtful piece.
Best, Rob
A very thoughtful piece. Two observations worth emphasizing:
"If there is one thing this manual makes very clear, it is that stability operations are not rocket science - they are actually more complex and uncertain. Having a better understanding of the complexity and cost of these missions can only enhance the policy and strategy-making processes."
A good analogy - the next step might be Joint Stability doctrine to facilitate the understanding more broadly - e.g. its not just an Army thing.
The conversation between senior military and civilian leadership about the consequences of actions and inaction ideally informs the rush to achieve a policy/military objective, but only if both sides are educated on the subject and can present the risks and values in such a way that clearly articulates them up to the PCC level before it goes for a decision. The standard in a crisis however often seems to be sausage however, as policy emerges concurrent with strategy. This may be because while steady state engagements offer insights into the risks to other policy objectives, the risks from a crisis are also contingent on the perception of actions as on the actions themselves.
This in my view is the value of something like ODP (Operational Design Process) or CACD (Commander's Appreciation for Campaign Design) which allows for a fuller consideration of the range of possible outcomes based on our actions and inaction. A process like that generates new knowledge that can be used to educate and facilitate the Civ/Mil discussion.
"More importantly, even if and when USAID, State and all the other agencies were to enhance their expeditionary capacity 10 fold, these civilians would still not be capable - nor should they be - of doing their thing while bullets are still flying. That is the definition of a combatant, not a civilian. This means that the military will, at a minimum, be required to set a trajectory for accomplishing the long term strategic objectives with or without civilian experts on the ground."
Again, a very cogent point. When "perfect" is not an option - which is more often then not, decisions have to be made about what is "the better" option to meet the requirements given the policy/military objective and the conditions. Recognizing that, and reflecting it in how we see ourselves allows us to do it better, with less risk to the policy objective.
Best, Rob