HELSINKI, Finland, April 16 (UPI) -- In a recent commentary, "Afghanistan and Obama Transparency, Credibility and a Long War," Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted that both the current and the previous administrations failed to address the war effort's most critical aspect of strategic communications.
Cordesman wrote that previous U.S. Defense Department reports of the war in Afghanistan have been plagued by a "Politically Correct - Cover Your Ass - Lowest Common Denominator" style that has diminished government credibility and, if continued, wouldn't lead to the kind of trust that might build lasting support for the war.
For example, it has only just become known that the United States came close to decisively losing the war by early 2009. The U.S. country team has begun to address the need to transform integrated civil-military efforts from hollow rhetoric to actual practice. After eight years, the National Security Council, State Department, Department of Defense and the intelligence community are finally starting to develop broad models to provide an integrated civil-military set of metrics, or matrix, to provide a clear picture of what is happening.
If the past is any indication of the success of U.S. inter-agency collaboration, the best we can expect is a collection of simultaneous arguments. The challenge is compounded by the stove-piped and uncoordinated efforts by NATO members, the United Nations and other non-governmental organizations all trying to have their own unique impact in Afghanistan.
Overall progress in civil-military operations could be accelerated if the United States provided sufficient leadership by addressing its own collaboration gap. That is, better matching the individual capabilities of agencies such as the departments of State and Defense and the U.S. Agency for International Development with the mission requirements.
Most successful businesses have already learned that strategic objectives can be more effectively achieved by combining and deploying resources from across organizations in the form of cross-functional and optimized core processes.
As Cordesman implied, the first step toward improvement is to monitor and truly understand what is actually happening in a measurable and objective way. Often processes aren't documented, bottlenecks aren't identified, key performance indicators aren't defined and systems aren't in place to provide sufficient real-time visibility of performance, thereby permitting rapid adaptation to changing or unforeseen events.
Continuous monitoring of civil-military performance metrics is critical for efficiency and effectiveness and, when necessary, updating key performance indicators. Through real-time visualization of performance and financial data, civil-military operational leaders can constantly evaluate and analyze process execution and results to provide implementable recommendations for optimization.
Agility is an essential component of success. This means avoiding artificial and improbable performance deadlines, which tends to produce the unrealistic government "happy talk" that has permeated previous reports describing progress in Afghanistan. The traditional "boil the ocean" or "one size fits all" solutions need to be replaced by shorter, more focused civil-military operations, in which effective inter-agency collaboration is easier both to measure and achieve than in longer more complex operations.
Integrating combat and non-combat activity is a key to successful stability operations in Afghanistan. Ultimately, the U.S. military as the lead agency should be prepared to lead the collaborative effort and share information with relevant U.S. departments and agencies, coalition forces, international organizations and private sector companies. Unity of effort requires centralized coordination but decentralized execution working directly with reliable local leaders to help organize bottom-up security, reconstruction and economic development.
Well-constructed processes and predictive, real-time analytics empower individuals at the operational point of impact and provide the basis for genuine transparency and realistic accountability. Such an approach allows better alignment of civil-military activities within the context of an ongoing operational environment. It also facilitates a shift in focus from a reactive response to enemy activities to a forward-thinking, predict and act paradigm based on objective and reliable information.
Implementing effective processes and performance metrics for Afghanistan operations may seem trivial in the grand scheme of things but it may be the only means of distinguishing between progress and motion and between rational strategic decision-making and an ad hoc, open-ended commitment.
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(Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and a veteran of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. The views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army or government.)
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(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)
