The "Small Wars Journal Empire" might not want its name in the title; but Lessons Learned could be one product. Or, something more concrete might develop.
Mike
Hi Steve
The "Small Wars Journal Empire" might not want its name in the title; but Lessons Learned could be one product. Or, something more concrete might develop.
Mike
Quick note...via the ipod
Restoring basic services is key. *Focusing for a moment exclusively upon water SMEs could assess the condition of existing pipe networks (via visual, dye, smoke, camera), pumping systems (booster stations, lift stations, well houses, river intakes, treament plants),*storage sites (tanks and facilities) and treament sites (package plants and dedicated treament plants) SCADA systems, and trucks (delivery tankers, vac trucks, and maintenance). *Target is to provide a clean 7 to 15 liters/person/day and treat the resultant wastewater. * **
Sapere Aude
Along with a brief explanation of why that 7 to 15 is important, and its variabilities (temperature, etc...). And simple version of how to treat water, or detect water borne illnesses.
And some basics about wells, karsks, etc...
And about "water rights" and an overview of what of the farmework and implications of that concept are at a local level.
All the dumb stuff in one place,
Makes any soldier capable of being a fairly decent first level responder.
Now back to the structure. If you had this Dummies book, can you also arrange that upstairs is somebody who can serve as the basic second level responder (has access to water table, soils maps, rain fall stuff to assist, support the first level responder, and a framework for him to get dumb things deployed like chlorine tablets and simple test kits, or to coordinate testing processes (a good civilian business/employment opportunity---one per district or something). Somebody somewhere to make sure that each of the first and second level responders are on track, and not, trhough too much of one strategy, marching off a cliff.
I've seen plenty of really simple diagrams for the hydro cycle, water tables, stuff like that. But how does a person in the field link to find out what actually applies where he is, what typical local systems and components to understand and target, what NOT to do (drill lots of wells and collapse the aquifer).
Water for Dummies
Then Schools for Dummies, Health Clinics for Dummies, and Electricity for Dummies, and you start to have all the pieces for a component approach, less first time learning, and more synchronization and planning/resource/logistics options.
Anyone building or maintaining a school system knows that you try to standardize all the parts, equipment and FFE (furniture, fixtures and equipment---desks, flourescent tubes & starters, chalk boards, etc...) in order to improve service and cut costs.
Same stuff is just basic to health clinics, etc..., better to have five that are identically equipped and easily resupplied, maintained, operated, than ten that are all different and won't be sustainable beyond a year or two.
And that standardization is the essence of training for teachers, clinic staff, and maintenance workers for wells, power, etc... Common systems and common equipment supply chains... Now you can plan, train, employ and manage....improving the service of local government the way local governments actually do it.
Why would we want soldiers building water systems? We've spent prodigious amounts of time and money training and equipping them to be soldiers, let them do what they are trained and equipped to do. There are plenty of people out there trained and equipped to do water work. If immediate supply is a problem there are fast solutions available, for example biosand filters; easily made or delivered, long-lasting, and effective. You don't need to understand water tables or water rights or the hydro cycle at that level; that comes later, when you're looking for a long-term solution... and that's not a job for soldiers.Originally Posted by Steve the Planner
Not trying to put down soldiers here, it's just not what they do. You don't ask a dentist to do brain surgery, or a neurosurgeon to do root canal.
To some extent... however, I'd prefer to see buildings, furniture, and anything else possible contracted to local labor, even at the expense of identicality. Large procurement contracts seem more efficient but they draw vultures faster than a decomposing elephant carcass on the Serengeti; opportunities for corruption are rarely passed up. Local contracting puts money into the community, and when people have a role in building something they tend to see it as theirs, rather than something an outsider took out of a box. They also know how to fix it when it breaks.
The single most important variable in making a school or a clinic work is competent, motivated staff.
Steve, re this:
Are we still talking about a village? For a village setting this seems way over-engineered. You want it as simple as possible. If possible you want to be able to build everything with local labor and local skills: again, if they build it they know how to fix it. You don't need piped house-to-house water and sewage collection systems; small wells at strategic locations, or springbox systems with standpipes in key locations, do fine. The biosand filters are very useful and can be locally made. Water-seal toilets over septic tanks are quite adequate for village needs.Infiltration flows may be an issue for both water and wastewater piping systems depending upon their current condition, baseline + earthquake damage. *Crosscontamination (fecal) and the introduction of anthropogenic sources (chemical etc.) are a concern for treated water that is being piped. *Wastewater quantities to be treated may increase due to infiltration. *An additional caveat to wastewater treatment quantities would be a combined sewer system. *In this instance both wastewater and stormwater are carried by the system and quantities to be treated are greater than those resulting from a system limited to just wastewater.
The appropriateness of a CMOC or CIMIC is not addressed in this note but I would like to come back to that in later post. In this note I have crossed from aid to development and assume that local inhabitants are in the lead of that effort, again, we are functioning in a tech support role.
Once the water systems have been triaged project management skills will be needed to rehabiltate things. *We have touched upon how Walt Whitman Rostow's linear evolutionary development model has echos in maturity models employed by business and engineering communities. *However, for us, things start to get a bit nonlinear for the next portions of solution development. *Using the water system assessment a work breakdown system, which describes tasks, roles, and responsibilities would be developed. *A cost estimate (often close hold) project schedule, statement of work (operations order), specifications, and design are developed in concert with a variety of professions to include maintenance personnel, planners, legal personnel, community members, NGO, IO, and military - aka the CIMIC - something in between the hood of a truck and a facility.
With enough money you can bring any village up to western standard, but then you have a few thousand more villages... a project has to be replicable to be anything more than a showcase and a windfall for the selected village.
When I went into the Peace Corps, back in the dim distant recesses of the last century, there was already an enormous base of literature on village-based water and sanitation systems; by now I'm sure it's increased a hundredfold. There are people out there who specialize in that field, so if you want the expertise, it's there. No need to reinvent the wheel.
Is anyone here familiar with community-driven development, originally created by the world bank in Indonesia (now over 10 years, $1 billion spent and over 30,000 villages touched) and now implemented in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. It's not national government building, but it is intended to strengthen local governance and reduce poverty. Good article on subject is:
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/I...KDP-Crises.pdf
Soldiers doing civilian things
Hi Steve (in fact, hi to all the Steves)
We don't (at least I don't; except for their own use); but ...from Dayuhan
Why would we want soldiers building water systems?
"instability situations" (where the US takes enough interest in an insurgency to intervene via "stability operations") are "insecure" - bang, bangs. Our civilian capabilities in those situations are either limited in fact (STP has spent 400+ posts describing those limitations) or foreclosed by charter (Peace Corps).
So, the Army's civil affairs units (and lesser so the Marines' two units) end up being tasked because they have the bodies and funding. Join in DoS and USAID (a shadow of its former self) components, such as STP (a armor commander in a former life), and that pretty much sums up the deployable components to build water systems in "instability situations".
No doubt that the US has a very large civilian capability to build water systems - and all other aspects of local governance. My own Copper Country could be stripped out (of its local governance folks) and they would make a very large "civil affairs" unit. The reality is that won't happen (for many reasons); and those USAian capabilities are not easily transferred to a foreign environment.
So, we are left with deploying military units, such as our local combat engineering company which has had multiple deployments (e.g., here and here). And, yes, we do recognize the effort - and that 40+ PHs were pinned, out of the 120 combat engineers who deployed (here).
One purpose of this thread is to find a better way - and, if PHs can be avoided or lessened, so much the better.
Regards
Mike
Dayuhan:
Like Mike, I think soldiers are just first responders, not builders or operators.
But the current set in Afghanistan, is, as I reckon it---5,000 civilian experts, based on a Carr Center figure, of which 1000 are US civs, set to "explode" to 1300. Most heavily hampered by movement security, resources, etc... so their ability to get out and about and o things in far-afield Afghan areas will always be very limited, even if security were no an overwhelming issue.
Fact is Afghanistan is remarkably logistically constrained. And the math of sending 1000 new civilians (plus terps and security) is fabuluous strain on the limited resource paths.
If thousands of new soldiers are coming soon (September accdg to Petreaus) they are going to be the major thrust and asset. If they don't move toward becoming effective first responders, then they must be there as guards to other first responders, doubling the logistical hurdle, and delaying responses.
My guess is that if there is a good reconstruction civ, he should be in Haiti very soon, so that military can move out, and back to primary AOs. In large part because, with limited training and support, they could easily do a more effective job of service expansion and aid delivery than a highly constrained civilian.
As for standardizing packages for schools, all over the US, school systems use uniform standards, but they are both locally built and with local design and materially. Establishing that, say a classroom, should be 500 square feet and generally a rectangle laid out for 20 or thirty students does nothing to affect local design, content, building materials or local labor and contracting opportunities.
On the other hand, recognizing that (1) about 30 percent of current afghan schools are tents of informal places for the 60% or so of eligible students currently enrolled (6 million), suggests that thousands of schools and classrooms may/will be built.
If there is a consolidated plan for desks, there is then a consolidated opportunity for local, regional and national desk manufacturing---rather than each NGO doing its own thing. And for specific amounts of books to be planned/made/delivered, and specific amounts of teachers to be trained/hired/housed by language/province/district/appropriateness.
From prior adventures, I believe a 20-30% efficiency and local content standard is a minimum goal. Mr. Ghani belives their is a 90% efficiency just by getting more national/local procurement focus. Given resource and logistical constraints unqique to Afghanistan, sending billions of dollars is not going to have POSITIVE effects so much as improving our efficiency of actual delivery (more planned and exploited local content, more dual use of military cross-trained for first responding).
First responding is, in most instances, no different than knowing when and how to call for a fire mission. You don't need to know how to fly or make artillery calculations.
But if soldiers are going to do COIN, and get to know and win relationships (if not hearts and minds), being able to coordinate basic services and assistance should be focused on the soldier in Afghanistan, and not the civilian (until way into the build phases).
I was once dispatched to assist an LTC assigned to Balad/DoS/PRT Satellite.
He was building relationships anyway he could with local folks. Bringing a higher ranking DoS grey-haired SME was not, we both agreed, the way to bolster his relationships or juice with the locals, and could, if not real careful, undermine it.
Translating the many missions and objectives in COIN in Afghanistan is no less easy. Better to have an empowered E-7 wiyth local juice and connections than a bunch of discordant civs/ngos undermining his shtick. No?
How do you really do this stuff effectively in the field?
As MA and Beelz both point out, standardizing and simplifying all this civilian aid/HA stuff is a well-trodden path for actual professionals in the field (UNDP, UNHCR, World Bank)---getting their basics and standards out there is the way to integrate and synchronize US civ and mil operations. Inventing new wheels takes up to much energy (and scarce logistics and head-space).
Steve
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