Procedural Control: The Future of the Provincial Reconstruction Team

Abstract

President Karzai, in his February 2011 speech to the Munich Security Conference, argued that Afghanistan's Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) have performed below expectations due to conflicts in goals and coordination among the various organizations involved, specifically among parallel PRT command and control structures. These parallel command and control structures have resulted in major command and control issues, particularly a lack of flexibility and coordination, which counter the two command and control tenets of timeliness and coordination. The apparent failure of the PRT control method (positive control) to correct these command and control issues raises questions about its effectiveness. In contrast, the ballistic missile defense (BMD) structure uses a different control method (procedural control) to resolve issues associated with parallel command and control structures, and inflexibility and lack of coordination are not prevalent in this structure. So, should procedural control be used to correct some of the PRT command and control issues? The author concludes that the use of procedural control may successfully resolve the PRT command and control issues of flexibility and coordination.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 19, 2011
Accession Number
ADA546237

Entities

People

  • Marc E. Davis

Organizations

  • United States Army Command and General Staff College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Ballistic Missiles
  • Combatant Commanders
  • Command And Control
  • Command And Control Systems
  • Defense Systems
  • Doctrine
  • Governments
  • Interagency Coordination
  • Military Force Levels
  • Military Organizations
  • Military Personnel
  • Security
  • United States
  • United States Strategic Command
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Military and Counterinsurgency Studies.
  • Robotics and Automation.
  • Systems Analysis and Design

Technology Areas

  • Fully Networked C3
  • Fully Networked C3 - Command and Control