Interagency Lessons Learned in Afghanistan
Abstract
Future conflicts will likely continue to blur the line between war and peace, necessitating close cooperation between groups previously considered the exclusive practitioners of each-soldiers and diplomats. Just as terrorism crosses military, economic, and criminal spheres, U.S. efforts to counter it must closely integrate the elements of national power-diplomatic, informational, military, and economic-and reveal no seams the enemy can exploit. Occasionally, the interagency process meant to bring all these elements to bear has worked well. More commonly, the coordination of these elements has been haphazard and ad hoc, particularly at lower levels. Action is required; the system will not improve by itself. A recent effort to improve lower-level coordination took place with the establishment of Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan (CFC-A) alongside the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, resulting in significant lessons learned in the execution of interagency policy that might be applied in other countries and situations. Such basic concepts as collocation of senior military and diplomatic leaders, consensus building, and military planning support to the U.S. Ambassador all contributed to greater integration in implementing interagency policy and increased success in carrying out U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA521754
Entities
People
- Tucker B. Mansager
Organizations
- National Defense University