Grading the Surge

REPORT: Civilian Surge: Key to Complex Operations, by Hans Binnendijk and Patrick M. Cronin, linked on Small Wars Journal, February 6, 2009

I know both Hans and Patrick (especially the latter). They're the right guys to have done this report--and it shows.

Very much worth reading.

I point out this chapter summary from SWJ:

Chapter 5 suggests that USAID should be the operational agency charged with training and equipping civilians for complex missions. This will require doubling its personnel strength and endowing it with new authorities akin to those associated in the past with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and new funding to reimburse other agencies that provide personnel for overseas deployment. USAID also will need to undergo a significant cultural change. To promote that change, and to reflect its new mission, USAID might be renamed the Agency for Development and Reconstruction (USADR). The reconstituted USAID/USADR might have two basic divisions, one for each major function.

As a disbeliever in top-down fixes, I nonetheless am impressed by this idea--a serious leap toward the Department of Everything Else. There is a solid logic to it.

(Thanks: Lexington Green)

Comments

[hof1991]

Even bottom up change needs to be institutionalized and given the safety and permanence of structure at some point. Task is to identify the tipping point to get the most bottom up creativity before setting up the structure.