Complex Operations and Interagency Operational Art

Abstract

The term comprehensive approach has been used by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and European Union not only with great frequency but also with a high degree of ambiguity.1 The U.S. Government Interagency Counterinsurgency (COIN) Guide provides a graphical depiction of a Comprehensive Approach to Counterinsurgency, showing a mixture of economic development, political strategy, information, security, and control, but does not define the term within the text.2 Army Field Manual (FM) 307, Stability Operations, defines comprehensive approach as one that integrates the cooperative efforts of the departments and agencies of the United States Government, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), multinational partners, and private sector entities to achieve unity of effort toward a shared goal.3 Additionally, it states that through a comprehensive approach to stability operations, military forces establish the conditions that enable the efforts of the other instruments of national and international power. By providing the requisite security and control to stabilize an operational area, those efforts build a foundation for transitioning to civilian control, and eventually to a host nation.4 Although a comprehensive or whole-of-government approach is widely accepted as a requirement for successful humanitarian assistance, COIN, and stability operations, it is nonetheless extremely rare to find the requisite levels of political, military, economic, and civil resources being successfully integrated into the prescribed collaborative effort. This observation begs the question: If there is consensus that a comprehensive approach is required for complex operations, why has the concept proven so difficult to implement? Much of the attention regarding shortfalls in American interagency coordination has focused on bureaucratic wrangling at the National Security Council level.5 This is certainly part of the problem.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Dec 01, 2009
Accession Number
AD1042859

Entities

People

  • Christopher M. Schnaubelt

Organizations

  • NATO

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • C4I
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Command And Control
  • Doctrine
  • Economic Development
  • Education
  • Foreign Service Officers
  • Governments
  • Interagency Coordination
  • Military Education
  • Military Science
  • National Governments
  • Nongovernmental Organizations
  • Public Policy
  • Stability Operations
  • Students
  • Training
  • United States Government
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Military and Counterinsurgency Studies.
  • Systems Analysis and Design