Mike:

Your question:

"PS: looking at your DoS link, I find featured: Provincial Reconstruction Team Advisor (ASO), SALARY RANGE: 73,100.00 - 113,007.00 USD /year ... SERIES & GRADE: AD-0301-3/3; and Provincial Reconstruction Team Senior Advisor (ASO), SALARY RANGE: 102,721.00 - 153,200.00 USD /year ... SERIES & GRADE: AD-0301-IV/IV."

The answer is that they don't really. These are all term-assignment specialists whose links to any Common Operating Procedure or institutional framework was always tenuous at best. The first thing you learn about the State Department is how many people genuinely dislike/compete with each other within the organization. But all gather together around outsiders. Term-assignment folks are outsiders, even more so since Mr. Hoh's resignation. Just another of the many out-of-sync organizations and actors.

Beetle's points about a COP are on target, but, if you create one: (1) How do you institutionalize it so that it continues to build and be supported?; and (2) How do you operationalize it?

Right now, Afghanistan is a place of many actors, many actions, but little cohesive or sustainable traction or results. Militaries, civilians, internationals, NGOs.

Hit Marjah; drop in stability and "government in a box;" move to the next square. Come back to Marjah in two years.

So, what do you do with a COP if, for example, the first cut identifies deep structural and organizational divisions?

The problem as I continue to see it from MG Flynn's critique is that Intel has become disconnected from both the field and the actors.

It is not that some guys in some room didn't do a good job, and need to improve what they do in that room. It is that nobody has a clearly and effectively linked path between viable intel, actors and actions. (it is a very deep strategic problem that is not going to be solved in that hut in Kabul)

Better intel must be grounded in operations to become both effective, and sustainable. More action drives the COP; more COP drive the actions. Iterative and inter-active feedback systems.