51. Inevitable Conflicts, avoidable Failures Preparing for the Third Generation of Conflict, Stabilization, and Reconstruction Operations
- Author:
- Liora Danan and Johanna Mendelson Forman
- Publication Date:
- 12-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- PRISM
- Institution:
- Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
- Abstract:
- Foreign internal conflicts clearly remain a permanent feature of the u.S. foreign policy landscape, especially since the united States regularly participates in efforts to stabilize countries affected by conflict and then helps them recover afterwards. Yet u.S. government officials and the american public in general have difficulty accepting the inevitability of u.S. involvement in such efforts. to ensure lasting progress and security in post-conflict situations, the united States must adjust its approach from a focus on large military operations to preparing adequately for small-scale, long-term interventions. Most u.S. military deployments since the end of the Cold War have been in “small wars” or what the Department of Defense once called “military operations other than war.”1 Yet the military has usually been more prepared to fight large, technologically advanced wars than smaller contingencies that require greater integration with civilian capacities. as a consequence, each time the u.S. military is deployed to a complex–but “small”–emergency, it has had to relearn lessons on the ground about the best way to manage these types of contingencies. Civilian participation in stabilization and reconstruction efforts is likewise inevitable, but civilian institutions are even less prepared for such work than the military. Lessons learned over the last decade are only recently being institutionalized, through offices like Department of State's Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO) and the u.S. agency for International Development's Office of transition Initiatives (OtI). In part this is due to bureaucratic politics.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy and Cold War
- Political Geography:
- Afghanistan and United States