MG Flynn (on intell mainly)

[jmm99]

Curious about why in this:

from SB
.... Military E1 to O-10, DOJ/USDA/USAID/OGA GS-12 to GS-15 as well as SES ...

training for mil goes down to E1, but for civ agencies goes down to GS-12 (roughly = O-4). Are GS-11 and below untrainable ?

I expect you have some rationale.

Regards

Mike

[Surferbeetle]

Curious about why in this:


training for mil goes down to E1, but for civ agencies goes down to GS-12 (roughly = O-4). Are GS-11 and below untrainable ?

I expect you have some rationale.

Regards

Mike

Mike,

Glad to see you are up, about, and sharp as ever.

Could be wrong and mea culpa if so, however it is my observation in my small piece of the battlefield that on the civilian side GS-12 + (or equiv) are commonly out and about...

As to the trainable question, I myself started as a GS-3 back in the day, most anyone is trainable it's the positions/opportunities/grades that are limited.

Best,

Steve

[jmm99]

from SB

Could be wrong and mea culpa if so, however it is my observation in my small piece of the battlefield that on the civilian side GS-12 + (or equiv) are commonly out and about...

was the rationale. Which I guess could bring up the question of where we would be if the military force consisted only of MAJs and above.

As a practical matter, the civilian "force" is pretty much limited to the provincial level and above. It doesn't have the Willies and Joes to handle my little villages and hamlets. Is that observation about correct ?

Regards

Mike

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.

Where do those fit (approx.) into the GS pecking order ?

DoS's Office of the Legal Adviser basically is looking at GS-11 for regular, just out of law school hires and up into GS-15 for non-government laterals:

Compensation and Benefits
Attorneys are paid according to the General Schedule for Federal employees. For recent law school graduates with less than 1 year of relevant legal experience, the standard appointment is at GS-11, step one. Candidates with at least one year of experience, such as judicial clerks, will be appointed at GS-12, step one. Non-government laterals are appointed at the grade level (up to GS-15) and step that they would have earned had they joined the Office directly from law school. On a case-by-case basis, we may be authorized to compensate a newly appointed attorney with “superior qualifications” at a higher step level. Attorneys at the GS-11 level may be appointed at up to step 10 in their salary grade. The possible step increase varies for the higher grades. Salary levels for laterals from other Federal agencies are based on their current grade and step.

[Steve the Planner]

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.

[davidbfpo]

Taken from al Sahwa blogsite a commentary: http://al-sahwa.blogspot.com/2010/03...mg-flynns.html

A recent report written by the RC-West SOIC Director provides an excellent summary of their efforts to stand up one of these SOICs in Western Afghanistan.

There is a potential problem with the report al Sahwa cites, 'The Stability Operations Information Center (SOIC) Comprehensive Understanding for Comprehensive Operations' by Regional Command (RC) West SOIC Director; there are two copies available via Google: on Cryptome:http://cryptome.org/dodi/af-soic-2010.pdf and ScribD (which SWC does not use). Neither has clear markings as to released to the public and some diagrams used are marked Unclassified / FOUO (the lowest US classification?).

The report and commentary are a reasonable read and will read again to follow better.

[Steve the Planner]

David:

Having exhausted myself on the read of so many structural and operational issues, I am still back to several common problems.

First, I still don't see a credible effort at "population-centric" problem definition. To define the problem of one or a series of exogenous actors is not defining "the" problem, but defining "their" problem. Knowing who is in the room certainly defines what their problems are, but it does not indicate anything new or different.

Second, it is still to focused on defining the enemy, and the enemy's activities, rather than defining actual problems to which "breakthrough" solutions can be found. If the population is the target, do we know anything more (or less) about that population, or are we just regurgitating the same old tired crap that produced the same old tired answers?

Third, how does this do anything more than incorporating the buzzwords of civ-mil into an organizational chart?

We started this at the White House---their routine and traditional questions about "the population," the answers for which were non-existent: How many? How are they organized? Who is in charge? what do they need? How does what we are doing hope to change things?

This was followed by reports of a group of intel folks being brought to a hut at Baghram where they were shown the difference between what they produced, and the richer, deeper and more accurate coverage that newspaper reporters were creating in the same AO (including problem definitions and reactions). Why did they know so much more? Why was their take so different? How do we catch up?

Presumably, the purpose of the improved picture is to drive alternative solutions allowing us to, in theory, make substantive operational changes that produce substantially more effective results.

Now, at long last, we have----an organizational powerpoint.

As a consulting expert, I am usually brought in to solve a serious problem, the first step of which is to define the problem (usually a wicked one or I would not be involved). The next is to define options for solutions (usually Gordian Knot stuff).

I cross my fingers that Marjah does not demonstrate the full value of this effort: bringing Karzai and Mullen down to hear local gripes about the lack of paved roads and university education hardly seems like a productive way forward.

According to Bing West's coverage, Marjah was a McKeirnan effort planned months ago, so when does the fruit of the COP/SOIC ripen?

What happens if, for the Kandahar example, we discover that the core problem is Walid, and the folks he is associated with? We say he is a bad actor. The CIA says he is a hero. And the cat-and-mouse game continues. Does it all just stop there (same old, same old), or, does the new improved intel provide a breakthrough?

[Steve the Planner]

From World Politics Review:

http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx?id=5358

The Chowkay is one of those places on Afghanistan's fringes that are all but off-limits to foreign forces. The existence of such no-go zones, eight years into the Afghan war, represents a huge obstacle to NATO's efforts to uproot criminality and violent extremism. A lack of resources on NATO's part and the total absence of the Afghan government mean the zones are unlikely to disappear anytime soon.

The Chowkay shura, led by local elder Abdul Ghafai, was the last stop on a mission lasting several hours for elements of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. It was also a rare event: The last time NATO ventured deep into the valley was in February. Missions that far into the Chowkay are a roughly monthly occurrence, Snowden said. With small contingents of just a few hundred soldiers, each one responsible for several large valleys apiece across eastern Afghanistan, more frequent missions to the more remote locations are impossible.

The Afghan government, for its part, never ventures into the Chowkay unless as part of a NATO patrol. A low-ranking district agricultural official was the only Afghan government representative at the March shura.