robert.ooi's blog

2010 National Security Strategy

Yesterday, the White House released the 2010 National Security Strategy:

To succeed, we must face the world as it is. The two decades since the end of the Cold War have been marked by both the promise and perils of change. The circle of peaceful democracies has expanded; the specter of nuclear war has lifted; major powers are at peace; the global economy has grown; commerce has stitched the fate of nations together; and more individuals can determine their own destiny. Yet these advances have been accompanied by persistent problems. Wars over ideology have given way to wars over religious, ethnic, and tribal identity; nuclear dangers have proliferated; inequality and economic instability have intensified; damage to our environment, food insecurity, and dangers to public health are increasingly shared; and the same tools that empower individuals to build enable them to destroy.

The report is available at Whitehouse.gov

Case Study No. 4: The Kuwait Task Force

The CCO has released the fourth in its continuing series of educational case studies in complex operations:

The Kuwait Task Force: Postconflict Planning and Interagency Coordination by Dennis Barlow
Student and Teacher editions are available for download

We hope you enjoy these case studies and welcome your feedback.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The CCO has released the third in its continuing series of educational case studies in complex operations:

Burn it Down: Planning a Raid on a Baghdad Mosque by Joshua Potter
Student and Teacher Editions, plus a video introduction are available for download

 We hope you enjoy these case studies and welcome your feedback.

 Photo courtesy of U.S. Army

The CCO is pleased to announce the first in a new series of educational case studies. The Center for Complex Operations Case Studies Series provides classroom teaching case studies that focus on complex operations --   stability, security, transition and reconstruction, counterinsurgency and irregular warfare. These teaching cases are provided with instructor guides and are relevant to the many disciplines needed to achieve stability goals -- establishment of safe and secure environments, the rule of law, social well-being, good governance, and sustainable economic growth.The protagonists in the case studies include the many actors involved in a comprehensive approach to complex operations-- governmental, nongovernmental, public and private, domestic and international.

This first case study is Security by Contractor: Outsourcing in Peace and Stability Operations by Volker Franke. Student and Teacher editions are available for download.

Several important recent studies have called for incentives to grow the field of capable scholars and practitioners, and to provide tools for educators, students and practitioners. The Center for Complex Operations, in particular Dave Sobyra and Michael Miklaucic, answered that call with support for this series of complex operations teaching case studies. Series Editor Karen Guttieri worked with talented civilian and military practioners and scholars as well as the Georgetown Institute for the Study of Diplomacy in a process that include intensive workshops and peer review. This series has thus not only promoted research, it has also established and strengthened relationships among civilian and military researchers and practitioners.

We hope you enjoy these case studies and welcome your feedback. We hope further you will inform us of your experience using them, and that you will consider becoming involved in writing for the series or NDU's new journal, Prism, in the future.

Photo Courtesy of U.S. Army

The Center for Complex Operations is pleased to announce the release of Volume 1, Issue 2 of PRISM, the journal of complex operations. PRISM is available for online viewing and download here.

This issue's articles include:

Pauline Baker: Forging a U.S. Policy Toward Fragile States

Yet for all the talk of the critical importance of such challenges, the U.S. Government lacks a comprehensive strategy and overall set of objectives to prevent state failure and to strengthen weak states. While many U.S. agencies are engaged in activities related to state fragility, their efforts are typically fragmented into different priorities, goals, and frameworks. 3 In sum, the terminology of conflict risk varies; the metrics of successful interventions are not uniform; and operational functions are usually divided into pre- and postconflict phases, with analysts rarely looking at the full life cycle of a conflict.

AMB. Ronald Neumann: "Security is More than "20" Percent

Security is only 20 percent of the solution; 80 percent is governance and development.” “There is no military solution to insurgency.” These and similar statements have rightly refocused counterinsurgency doctrine and popular thinking away from purely military solutions to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet these catchphrases have become substitutes for deeper consideration of the role of security in the current conflicts and in insurgency in general, hiding some important points and leading to assumptions that are an insufficient basis for policy.

William Reno: Complex Operations in Weak or Fragile States: The Sudan Rebel Perspective

Sudan thus serves as a good illustration of complex operations that can inform effort of “synchronization, coordination, and/or integration of military operations with the activities of governmental and non-governmental entities to achieve unity of effort.”2 Even though the military component played a minimal role in the Sudan case until recently, this experience with coordinating the other two components of this trinity highlights some important lessons for complex operations in the future.

Plus an interview with Gen. Raymond Odierno and a report from the CCO on building a civilian lessons learned system.

To subscribe to the paper version of PRISM, please contact us.