How to Think About Arms Control, Disarmament, and Defense

Politics & Social Sciences

Lamb, Christopher J.

Politics & Government

Pearson College Div

This study explains the performance of Human Terrain Teams, why the large majority of commanders found them useful, and why collectively they did not ameliorate—much less reverse—growing cross-cultural tensions between U.S. forces and Afghans. It examines the tremendous challenges the Human Terrain Team program faced in starting and rapidly expanding a non-traditional military capability, and why some challenges were met successfully while others were not. First, a historical analysis explains how external forces and management decisions affected team performance. An organizational analysis then explains the variations in team performance by examining the teams with variables substantiated by previous studies of small cross-functional teams. Finally, all available commander observations on Human Terrain Team performance are analyzed to better determine why commanders were satisfied or dissatisfied with their teams. The insights from the three analyses—historical, organizational and commander assessments—are then integrated. The results demonstrate that Human Terrain Teams had to overcome numerous organizational limitations to perform well, but that they were able to meet the expectations of commanders who did not fully appreciate the optimum role the teams could play in an integrated counterinsurgency strategy.

Human Terrain Teams: An Organizational Innovation for Sociocultural Knowledge in Irregular Warfare

Orton, James Douglas

Davies, Michael C.

Pikulsky, Theodore T.

Institute of World Politics Press

<p>The national security system has an authority problem. The problem is highlighted by the debate over czars, Presidential appointees who oversee a particular issue area, often without Senate confirmation. The practice of appointing czars is controversial for the wrong reasons. Commentators worry that czars create confusion and circumvent congressional oversight. What deserves greater attention is why Presidents appoint czars in the first place and what, if anything, should be done about it. When the interagency process fails to produce the cooperation among departments and agencies necessary to solve a national security (or other) problem, Presidents often designate a lead individual—or czar—to do the job because they do not have enough time to do it themselves. It is widely recognized that the chief executive needs help integrating the diverse departments and agencies, but past attempts to improve interagency cooperation have generally failed because they paid insufficient attention to the difficult problem of authority. New positions or organizations are often created with great fanfare and directed to ensure a coordinated response to some particular national security issue—intelligence, warfighting, reconstruction, or counterterrorism— only to fail because they lack sufficient authority. Ultimately, the departments and agencies in the national security system see little reason to follow their lead. At the heart of the problem is the inability to reconcile a desire for a clear chain of command from the President down through the heads of the departments and agencies with the need to empower new mechanisms (individuals or organizational constructs) with sufficient authority to integrate efforts across the departments and agencies in pursuit of specified national missions. “Unity of command” from the President on down through the functional departments and agencies seems to preclude “unity of effort” for missions that are intrinsically interagency in nature and cut across those same chains of command. In this paper, we argue that solving the interagency integration problem requires an expanded Chief of Mission (COM) authority. COM authority is granted to Ambassadors to oversee and direct the activities of employees from diverse government organizations working in a foreign country, but it could also serve as a model for empowering other leaders in the national security system to solve problems requiring interagency cooperation. As we explain, the Chief of Mission model requires expansion to work well beyond the bilateral setting of a U.S. Embassy in a foreign country, including more legal authority, process adjustments, and wider application. However, the model does point a way forward to escape the dilemma that the current system imposes on Presidents who want unity of effort without sacrificing unified command.</p>

Chief of Mission Authority as a Model for National Security Integration: Institute for National Strategic Studies, Strategic Perspectives, No. 2

Marks, Edward

University, National Defense

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Secret Weapon: High-value Target Teams as an Organizational Innovation: Institute for National Strategic Studies, Strategic Perspectives, No. 4

Munsing, Evan

Joint Interagency Task Force-South: The Best Known, Least Understood Interagency Success: Institute for National Strategic Studies, Strategic Perspectives, No. 5

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lamb, Christopher J.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Lamb, Christopher J.