More PRTs or More personnel on PRTs

The recent House Armed Services Report on Provincial Reconstruction Teams states that the current 24 PRTs in Iraq and 26 in Afghanistan are "underfunded and undermanned."

Here is the AP article from Friday April 18, 2008 and the link to the HASC report:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j...tnH7gD903QGAG0

From what I hear, State just doesn't have the budget to get more non-military boots on the ground.

However, it seems that PRTs are the way to win "hearts and minds" by getting the economies and the societies back on their feet.

Is the grander solution: more PRTs or more personnel within the existing PRTs??? And therefore more contractors/specified military support?

And then on top of that, how much does Congress need to spend to make this happen?

Fortuna Iuvat - "Fortune Favors the Brave"

PRT's if properly led and organized, solidly funded and fully intergrated to the local and international civ-mil presence and contributing to FID & IO in their AO (gotta luv acronyms) can be a huge part of our bid for success. Unfortunately the job isn't considered very 'sexy' in military terms and it is not considered very 'safe' in civilian terms. Perhaps the newer generation of civ-mil volunteers may make this change but the signs are in the dollars. No money, no personel that tells you where the priority is, or in this case isn't.

Hey PRT interest, Welcome to the SWJ !

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Originally Posted by PRT interest

The recent House Armed Services Report on Provincial Reconstruction Teams states that the current 24 PRTs in Iraq and 26 in Afghanistan are "underfunded and undermanned."
Is the grander solution: more PRTs or more personnel within the existing PRTs??? And therefore more contractors/specified military support?

And then on top of that, how much does Congress need to spend to make this happen?

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As time permits you, please introduce yourself here.

There's a full report at State on PRTs and funding issues that may shed more light on this subject. Indeed, yet another program under funding scrutiny.

Regards, Stan

While reasons cited in the article may be true, it's my understanding DoS has a difficult time getting people to volunteer. Remember these are civilians who have an expectation (legal right?) to work in an OSHA compliant workspace.
-LC

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Originally Posted by Lostcomm

While reasons cited in the article may be true, it's my understanding DoS has a difficult time getting people to volunteer. Remember these are civilians who have an expectation (legal right?) to work in an OSHA compliant workspace.
-LC

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The question is ( Is it the right expectation?):rolleyes:

My personal experience (Afghanistan 2006-2007) partially supports the conclusion that PRTs are 'underfunded and undermanned'. About half the PRTs in Afghanistan were run by non-US nations and they were of dubious effectiveness. The US PRTs were much better funded and for the most part better manned, but I don't think they were more effective for that reason alone. They were more effective because they were subordinate to the local maneuver commander and therefore better integrated into the overall security/stabilization effort. Beyond that, though, I have a few observations:

1. The most important determinant of a PRTs success was the commander. Good ones overcame the shortages and operated effectively; bad ones did not. This may be a blinding flash of the obvious, but it gets back to the 'sexiness' of PRT command. Some of the US PRT commanders were hacks, bodies swept up in our desperate attempt to fully man the operation. They were not 'hand-picked' in the same sense that battalion commanders or even primary staff officers were. You get what you pay for.

2. There were too many PRTs. A lot of our coalition partners wanted the prestige of running a PRT. It was a nice place to run the flag up every day, and it was 'liberal-friendly' in a way that attack helicopters or infantry battalions are not. So we sprinkled PRTs around without much thought as to where they could do the most good, given limited resources. They also became a drain on the maneuver elements because they had to be protected at all costs. Security has to come first, or else PRTs become little more than targets.

3. Having a large number of PRTs in a country with no infrastructure, no money, and no government dissipates resources. Schools were built with no teachers, roads were built to nowhere, and bridges were built when there was no traffic to speak of. It would have been much better to concentrate our efforts - either geographically or in a particular sector - than to spread our largesse too thin.

4. I'm a skeptic that PRTs actually win hearts and minds. Maybe agnostic would be a better term. I have yet to see any convincing evidence that the locals are bought so easily. At best, they earn tolerance. At worst, in a tribal society, they make as many enemies as they do friends.

5. Way down on my list of concerns would be the number of non-military 'experts' assigned to the PRTs. Many of those that did show up were ill-suited to the assignment, lacking maturity, cultural awareness, or the ability/willingness to adapt their expertise to local conditions.

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Originally Posted by Eden

My personal experience (Afghanistan 2006-2007) partially supports the conclusion that PRTs are 'underfunded and undermanned'. About half the PRTs in Afghanistan were run by non-US nations and they were of dubious effectiveness. The US PRTs were much better funded and for the most part better manned, but I don't think they were more effective for that reason alone. They were more effective because they were subordinate to the local maneuver commander and therefore better integrated into the overall security/stabilization effort. Beyond that, though, I have a few observations:

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Hey Eden !
Some great salient points. Having also observed PRTs since their infancy in 2002, I’d have to conclude we’ve come a long, long way. I never found them to be undermanned (I guess you’d need access to their mission profile and the financial aspects of individual contracts to adequately determine if they were up to the task at hand, or undermanned and underfunded).

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Originally Posted by Eden

1. The most important determinant of a PRTs success was the commander. Good ones overcame the shortages and operated effectively; bad ones did not. This may be a blinding flash of the obvious, but it gets back to the 'sexiness' of PRT command. Some of the US PRT commanders were hacks, bodies swept up in our desperate attempt to fully man the operation. They were not 'hand-picked' in the same sense that battalion commanders or even primary staff officers were. You get what you pay for.

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Fully concur with you. The team leader is key with small teams. I sincerely doubt that any of the local commanders had the luxury of hand picking his/her team. If you ever served in Africa, you’d come to realize setting up a team with locals from scratch (even if they like the fact you’re there) is nothing short of a nightmare. Let’s face facts we’re not going to find jobless civil engineers, electricians and plumbers in the middle of nowhere. So, it is indeed little more than sweeping able and willing bodies together and trying to figure out their strengths and weaknesses (as a leader), all the while trying to keep them protected. With our exit strategy, those folks take over, and hopefully with not only will, but a little more experience.

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Originally Posted by Eden

2. There were too many PRTs. A lot of our coalition partners wanted the prestige of running a PRT. It was a nice place to run the flag up every day, and it was 'liberal-friendly' in a way that attack helicopters or infantry battalions are not. So we sprinkled PRTs around without much thought as to where they could do the most good, given limited resources. They also became a drain on the maneuver elements because they had to be protected at all costs. Security has to come first, or else PRTs become little more than targets.

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Of all the teams that came and went, I don’t think I ever wanted much to do with them, yet alone run their day-to-day business. I feel the PRTs that were “sprinkled around” had more to do with the locations, environment and limited resources. No sense in sending a team into a combat zone knowing they won’t do much hunkered down behind a dirt mound most of the day. Better to get the church builders to any ol’ church, but at least out of immediate harm’s way. You’re certainly right though, most of the critical comments regarding PRTs at Bahgram translated into extra work, even for off-duty EOD personnel.

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Originally Posted by Eden

3. Having a large number of PRTs in a country with no infrastructure, no money, and no government dissipates resources. Schools were built with no teachers, roads were built to nowhere, and bridges were built when there was no traffic to speak of. It would have been much better to concentrate our efforts - either geographically or in a particular sector - than to spread our largesse too thin.

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I kinda sorta agree, but how would we attract priests and schoolteachers to return to a sand lot with no buildings ? Is it the chicken or the egg :D

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Originally Posted by Eden

4. I'm a skeptic that PRTs actually win hearts and minds. Maybe agnostic would be a better term. I have yet to see any convincing evidence that the locals are bought so easily. At best, they earn tolerance. At worst, in a tribal society, they make as many enemies as they do friends.

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I reckon we could just dump the PRT program and return to the days of Civil Affairs and PSYOPS. At the very least we’d now have armed, real, qualified and very capable soldiers performing specific CA missions. Not sure there’s much reason to further worry about gaining enemies and friends (talk about a cynical NCO).

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Originally Posted by Eden

5. Way down on my list of concerns would be the number of non-military 'experts' assigned to the PRTs. Many of those that did show up were ill-suited to the assignment, lacking maturity, cultural awareness, or the ability/willingness to adapt their expertise to local conditions.

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Difficult to pin that one down. The local commander or team leader obviously has to decide between his pick-up basketball team, or nothing at all. You’re not going to find all the mature senior members with cultural awareness, abilities and willingness all in one basket. Hell, we can’t even get 6 Arabic-speaking Anthropologists to form a team of specialists :o

Regards, Stan

Just got back from a fifteen month deployment in Baghdad in January. I commanded a combined arms battalion in the Mansour Security District in west Baghdad. A few thoughts about PRTs and the reconstruction.

1. We had too few PRTs to start with and they were only at upper echelons. The challenge this placed at the battalion level was that they were unresponsive to our needs and did not have an understanding of the challenges at the ground level. Other than that I can not comment on what they were doing since we initially had only one PRT in Baghdad and I never came across them since I had to work through BDE and DIV.

2. The ePRTs that were established at the BDE level were a positive move in the direction of becoming more responsive to the developmental needs based upon the assessments of the ground commanders. I tried to get my battalion to work closely with the ePRT to ensure we had a coordinated effort. I gave them a detailed brief on our area and my vision for needed development and how we thought they could help us. Still there were some challenges with coordinating efforts and getting the money to flow. In particular, I was consistently disappointed in the effort by USAID.

3. The CA teams at the battalion level are too small and not well trained. Most of these guys have been moved from other MOS and have little to no experience in CA, developing projects and reviewing contracts. Their understanding of the culture is also generally lacking and at about the same level as most Soldiers. To increase our capability at the battalion level I pulled up a junior captain to my staff as my CMO and gave him the responsibility to work with the local community to develop projects, review contracts, and provide quality control. I also pulled a security element out of hide so that he could move his team around the AO without having to rely on another patrol. The CA team also came under his supervision. The most valuable players on this team were two bilateral, bicultural advisors that we requested. These contracted workers were both of Iraqi descent, trained engineers and had been working in the US and Europe for at least five years. These guys were worth their weight in gold and could cut through a lot of BS that the average American could not. Not only did they do the heavy lifting for our contracts, but I also took them along with me to meetings with local civilians.

4. I believe the best approach is a multi-layered one that focuses not just on the national level structure like we initially started, but at each echelon down to battalion level. The PRT works with the division to look at the systems and structure at the national or provincial level. The ePRT at the brigade level focuses at the district level helping to develop the bureaucracy at the local level that ties into the provincial. A heavy CMO team with bilateral, bicultural advisers at the battalion level focuses down the neighborhood level providing feedback and assisting with the development of projects for the shorter term.

5. One thing to keep in mind is that no amount of money thrown at development will work until the security situation is stable enough to allow for services and projects. For months we kept banging our head on the wall to get services and projects in as we were trying to defeat al-Qaeda. Senior leaders wanted to get projects started on the tail of large clearing operations, trying to capitalize on the "security" they just established. Honestly it does not work that way. First, the large clearing operations were marginally effective at best. Second, I found that there was a gap between actual security and the local contractors feeling that things were secure enough for them to work. For us it was a couple weeks. Senior commanders need to be patient. When the chief complaint of the locals switches from security to trash or sewage you are probably ready for the projects to start. The key is to do as much as you possibly can to lay the ground work with contracting so that you can get workers on the ground as fast as you can.

Thank you for this feeback. This project is evolving to possibly link in with the House Bill 1084, which calls for the creation of a Civil Reserve Corps. I'll reply to each of you personally to thank you, but for now:

(to use Stephen Colbert's terminology facetiously) Is the creation of a Civilian Reserve Corps within USAID (as a seperate entity than the State Department) a good idea or the best idea?

Very interested to hear your thoughts.

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Originally Posted by PRT interest

Thank you for this feeback. This project is evolving to possibly link in with the House Bill 1084, which calls for the creation of a Civil Reserve Corps. I'll reply to each of you personally to thank you, but for now:

(to use Stephen Colbert's terminology facetiously) Is the creation of a Civilian Reserve Corps within USAID (as a seperate entity than the State Department) a good idea or the best idea?

Very interested to hear your thoughts.

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Take a look at nearly 12 separate links to Provincial Reconstruction Teams here.

Hat tips to Marc !

Excellent resource...I've got some reading to do. Thanks.

Agency Stovepipes vs. Strategic Agility: Lessons We Need to Learn from Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Iraq and Afghanistan.

US House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. April 2008.

From the Introduction:

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The House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations chose to investigate Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) because they are considered to be critical to our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The subcommittee used PRTs as a case study of an issue that the subcommittee has been interested in – examining in more depth how multiple agencies work together, or for that matter, do not work together in the field and in Washington, as the third quote above suggests. As we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, the national effort involves more than just military actions, and instead requires integrated efforts and the resources of government departments and agencies beyond the Department of Defense (the Department, DOD). PRTs illustrate the need for effective, integrated action to achieve government-wide “unity of effort” in complex contingency operations. We wanted to know how the departments and agencies in Washington give comprehensive and consistent guidance to the military services and combatant commanders (COCOMs), as well as how both Washington and organizations at agency, service, and COCOM levels support interagency operations in the field. After all, mission success will only be ensured if senior leaders adequately guide and support the people who the nation has asked to do difficult jobs under dangerous and challenging conditions...

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