DOD, State Dept. Eye Joint 'Hub' For Stability Operations, Irregular War
16 December Inside the Pentagon (subscription required) - DOD, State Dept. Eye Joint 'Hub' For Stability Operations, Irregular War by Sebastian Sprenger.
Quote:
Defense and State department officials are seeking funds for a new center charged with synchronizing military and civilian efforts to rebuild troubled states and fight unconventional wars, according to sources and documents.
The Pentagon’s high-powered Deputy’s Advisory Working Group received a briefing on the “Center for Complex Operations” earlier this month, and it endorsed the idea of establishing such an organization, according to a Pentagon official familiar with the development.
The panel, led by Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, has been considering a raft of critical budget questions over the last few months as officials put together DOD’s new six-year spending plan...
The new organization would implement the recommendation of two Pentagon policy documents -- Directive 3000 on stability operations and the classified 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review execution roadmap on irregular warfare -- to stand up centers of excellence for these mission areas.
The Center for Complex Operations would be a “hub” for integrating existing training, education, research and lessons-learned efforts throughout a stability operations and irregular warfare “consortium,” according to a set of September 2006 Pentagon briefing slides obtained by ITP...
Stability operations have gained greater currency throughout the Pentagon in recent years, as the military struggles to support fledgling democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan...
The April irregular warfare execution roadmap defines this kind of conflict as “a form of warfare that has as its objective the credibility and/or legitimacy of the relevant political authority with the goal of undermining or supporting that authority,”...
The Center for Complex Operations would serve to prepare civilian and military officials for “integrated interagency operations -- both in [Washington] and in the field,” the Pentagon briefing slides read. In addition, officials want to use the organization for building international “partner capacity” in the area of stability operations, according to the slides.
Once operational, the center would temporarily be run from the State Department or the Foreign Service Institute in Washington, defense sources told ITP. Officials are eying as a permanent location offices in a new building to be constructed for the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, these sources say.
A civilian would likely serve as the center’s director, they add...
