Planning for Stability Ops

CSIS, 18 Dec 07: Planning for Stability Operations: A Capabilities-Based Approach

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The conduct of stability operations is a mission area with particular promise for the application of capabilities-based planning. Department of Defense Directive 3000.05, “Military Support for Security, Stabilization, Transition, and Reconstruction Operations”, requires components to give such operations priority comparable to that of combat operations. It also assigns the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff the responsibility to “identify stability operations capabilities and assess their development.” Yet there is no agreed definition of capabilities-based planning, no framework for its use in force development, and no approach to developing outcome metrics to gauge progress. Those within the Defense Department charged with tracking progress on the directive’s implementation have underscored their inability to assess the state of stability operations capabilities development because the joint and interagency community does not yet have a framework for conducting such assessments.

Recognizing these analytic deficiencies and their real world ramifications, the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Transformation and Resources tasked the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) with developing a capabilities-based framework to generate generic capability packages for future stability operations. The study was conducted from March 2007 through August 2007 and included a scenario-based workshop to test the validity and utility of CBP-derived capability packages. This report delineates CSIS’s findings and recommendations on the project. Chapter 1 describes the study’s overall methodology and analytic framework. Chapter 2 summarizes five stability operations cases examined by the CSIS team and the key insights derived from them, with particular attention to operational and environmental considerations. Chapter 3 sets forth a proposed typology of stability operations and associated measures of success. It concludes with a proposed set of generic capability packages derived from the typology and metrics. Finally, chapter 4 discusses the findings from the scenario-based workshop, the project’s overall insights into the application of CBP to the stability operations mission set, and key policy and capability considerations for stability operations.....

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Complete 57 page report at the link.

From the USIP website

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The success of efforts to stabilize and reconstruct failed states and war-torn societies is heavily dependent on proper assessment tools and reliable measures of progress. Previous interventions have been severely hampered by faulty initial analysis that has overlooked the entrenched drivers of conflict and instability. Lofty goals are rendered unattainable by unrealistic time frames, inadequate resources, and constrained authorities. Progress is judged on the basis of programs that have been implemented rather than on actual results.

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Progress in stabilization and reconstruction efforts should be based on the mission's ability to reduce the means and motivations for violent conflict in a society and to build local and state capacity to sustain peace. Progress should be measured in terms of outcomes. Indicators should focus on measuring outcomes or processes leading directly to these outcomes, as opposed to assessing the number of products and services delivered or the amount of resources consumed. Indicators should draw on an appropriate mix of data sources, including quantitative data and local perceptions.

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Military Review, Jul-Aug 08: FM 3-07 Stability Operations: Upshifting the Engine of Change

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The release of Field Manual (FM) 3-07, Stability Operations, in the coming months will acknowledge and stress the criticality of the “whole-of-government” approach essential to achieving sustainable success in an era of persistent conflict. This approach is the key to operating in the uncertain future before us. The new doctrine will also represent a number of important firsts. It will be the first stability doctrine—service or joint—to answer the immediate needs of the force already actively engaged in ongoing operations. It will be the first doctrine of any type to undergo a comprehensive joint, service, interagency, intergovernmental, and nongovernmental review. It will also mark the first time any service has attempted to capture and define a national approach to conflict transformation in doctrine, and to do so with the broad support of the agencies, organizations, and institutions that share in that approach.

The publication of FM 3-07 will fill a critical void in our knowledge base at a key moment in the history of our Army and our Nation. At a time when we find ourselves engaged simultaneously in the Middle East, the Far East, and Latin America, the new manual will provide the intellectual underpinnings needed to deal comprehensively with the uncertainty, chance, and friction so common to operations conducted among the people.....

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