Transforming America's collaborative crisis response capability: the executive education dimension.

• Author: Litt, David C.
• Position: Report

Editor's Note: The Obama Administration is undertaking measures to strengthen the ability of the State Department, USAID, and other civilian agencies to participate effectively in stabilization, reconstruction, and other crisis operations, though this will necessarily be a long-term process. An urgently important part of it, this paper argues, is developing and resourcing joint executive education and training programs that will bring together the military, government civilian agencies, NGOs, and the private sector.--Ed.

Summary

The United States should rapidly develop and expand executive education and training for collaborative, non-kinetic crisis response capability. The three "cultures" that traditionally are present on the scene in post-conflict and post-disaster environments--military, civilian government agency, and private/voluntary sectors--do not collaborate very effectively. Training for most civilian agencies--with the possible exceptions of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)--is less than satisfactory or non-existent. State, USAID, the military, and the private/voluntary sectors receive education and training in their own areas of expertise, but not necessarily in collaboration with each other. Few, if any, opportunities exist currently to bring all three cultures together in impartial, non-threatening, executive education environments in which they can break down cultural barriers, and arrive at workable solutions. Developing and resourcing executive education for crisis response is all the more urgent as the U.S. government restructures its institutions and hires thousands more practitioners over the next year or two.

Introduction

Given today's globalized economy, stabilizing and revitalizing societies emerging from conflicts and disasters should be much more effective than it is. On one hand, the information technologies and logistical capabilities associated with the planet's most powerful governments, and the rehabilitative potential of today's global corporations, should be able to put even the most devastated nations back on the road to healing much more quickly than is the case today. On the other hand, the complexities of insurgency and asymmetrical threats complicate international and interagency planning; organizations on the ground must be more agile and adaptable, and less risk-averse. (1) Identifying solutions, and who is responsible for implementing them, is not always obvious; conflict can decrease in intensity and scope, yet not come to a definitive end, simmer for years and flare up at any moment. To maximize global capability in a post-conflict scenario multiple agencies and organizations must act in concert as the transition occurs from major military involvement towards stabilization, rehabilitation, and reconstruction, the non-kinetic aspects of crisis response. (2) These are our challenges, and we are not yet measuring up to them.

This paper is not designed to propose broader institutional reform of our crisis response capability. Rather it is to urge immediate attention to educating cadres of crisis responders, in the public, voluntary, and private sectors, whether or not institutional reform occurs. The requirement will be all the more pressing whenever reform does take place.

The Military-Civilian Imbalance in Crisis Response

Many Americans understand the urgency of transforming our international civilian-military crisis response capabilities. A severe imbalance has developed over the past decade in which, for a variety of reasons, civilian organizations have been unable to perform the missions for which they should be in the lead during stabilization and reconstruction, and the military has stepped in to do the job. Certainly the U.S. military retains specific critical roles in these crisis environments, especially to stabilize insecure locations (principally through traditional military operations), to train host-nation security forces, and to provide much of the logistical requirements for relief, rehabilitation, and reconstruction. Over the last several years, however, our military forces, for lack of other actors on the scene, have assumed responsibility for other essential operations that they were not trained or designed to perform. At the same time, the civilian agencies of government that have the requisite skills and established networks lack the authorities and resources--human and financial--to accomplish these missions. An additional, critical defect of this system is an inability to coordinate effectively with both not-for-profit non-governmental (or private voluntary) organizations and for-profit corporations. NGOs and the private sector generally bear the lion's share of the burden of providing essential goods and services in crisis environments (3), but collaboration among public, voluntary, and private sectors currently is less than optimal. (4)

Several merit-worthy efforts are already underway to redress this situation at the strategic level. A few serious proposals to restructure our national security apparatus and enhance our crisis response cadres are making their way to Congress and the White House. (5) These contain key elements that would shift the center of gravity of our efforts in favor of appropriate civilian government agencies. The Obama Administration has already adopted this paradigm shift for dealing with crisis as a general matter of policy, but has not yet developed and resourced a strategy for getting there. The overall focus of the policy recommendations seems to be on hiring new personnel, reorganizing the bureaucracy, and developing new processes for devising strategies and resourcing policies.

Whatever the outcome, the effectiveness of these projects will depend in large part on our ability to educate and train American personnel quickly to apply their skills in international crisis environments, and more importantly, in effective collaboration with each other on the ground. In the last few decades in which Congress and the White House shrank some civilian agencies, most of our resident expertise has been lost, especially in USAID, and must...