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Features: By Sunil B. Desai The lessons of “jointness” For any nation,
coordinating the diverse elements of national power — diplomatic,
economic, intelligence, military, and law enforcement to name a few —
is inherently difficult. The stakes of poor coordination among the various
agencies that wield the instruments of national power, however, are
exceptionally high — a reality that struck home for all Americans and
most of the world on September 11, 2001. Although the United States government’s
“interagency community” — including departments,
independent agencies, and many other organizations — is one in which
the power of a unified whole would be greater than the sum of its parts
working separately, unifying the whole has been elusive. As illuminated by
testimony to the 9/11 Commission, a systemic problem is widely acknowledged. The
problem, however, is much deeper than the legal and bureaucratic
impediments and much broader than the intelligence and law-enforcement
agencies currently under scrutiny. Rather, the essence of the problem is
that the entire interagency community is dominated by individual agency
cultures rather than a common interagency culture.
These organizational cultures — characterized by
different sets of values, goals, policies, and procedures, as well as
leadership and decision-making methods — often conflict with one
another, thereby making coordination and cooperation problematic. Even
after enactment of the National Security Act of 1947, through which Congress intended
to “provide for the establishment of integrated policies and
procedures for the departments, agencies, and functions of the government
relating to the national security,” individual agency cultures have
grown stronger — to the detriment of interagency unity. As National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice noted in her opening testimony before the
9/11 Commission,
“Integrating our counterterrorism and regional strategies was the
most difficult and the most important aspect of the new strategy to get
right.” While the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and other post-9/11 efforts such as the formation
of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center have made significant
improvements in coordination and integration, these efforts are unlikely to
achieve the full desired effect without a paradigm shift from strong
individual agency cultures to a strong interagency culture.
Presuming that the organizations that make up the
interagency community are so bureaucratically entrenched in their
individual cultures that they cannot embrace a broader interagency culture
is neither prudent nor correct. In the past, similar forecasts were made
about the U.S. military’s ability to overcome strong individual
service cultures and form a strong “joint” culture to improve
interservice coordination. Not only have these predictions proven wrong,
but the overwhelming success of joint military operations has encouraged
calls for an even stronger joint culture. Moreover, the critical role of
the individual services and their unique characteristics within the
overarching joint culture is still recognized. Indeed, the services have
not been amalgamated and creation of a single service is unlikely to
happen. Likewise, a strong interagency culture would provide the
fundamental basis for the parts of the interagency community to work
together as a cohesive whole without merging or marginalizing individual
agencies. With a strong interagency culture, individuals within the
interagency community would be far more likely to cooperate to achieve
broader interagency goals even when those goals are not fully in line with
their own agency’s goals.
Four strategic factors impede achieving this shift.
First, the interagency community lacks a formal overarching concept of
operations or “doctrine” for coordination — for either
routine or crisis response situations. Second, the interagency community
lacks an independent authority responsible for the development and training
of personnel in such a doctrine. Third, individual agencies use different
regional structures to organize their policies and operations both abroad
and domestically. Fourth, personnel policies within most, if not all,
agencies develop personnel who are primarily dedicated to their own agency
rather than the interagency community. These factors are similar to those
that thwarted interservice coordination within the U.S. military prior to
the development of its joint culture. Drawing on the U.S. military’s
joint experience, this essay details these four factors and proposes
specific reforms to overcome them.
Integrated operations doctrine
Through the national Security Act of 1947, Congress established the National Security Council (nsc) “to advise the
President with respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and
military policies relating to the national security so as to enable
military services and the other agencies of the Government to cooperate
more effectively in matters involving the national security.” The
act, however, did not explicitly call for the development of a doctrine
— a core set of principles, procedures, and technical definitions
— for interagency coordination. In contrast, through the
Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, Congress did mandate the
development of a doctrine for coordination among the military services. The
U.S. military’s resulting experience with “joint
doctrine” manifests the importance of having a common formal doctrine
for diverse organizations that must work together in complex situations.
For the U.S. military, a joint operation — where
each military component (air, land, and naval) works together to maximize
efficiency and effectiveness — is not a new concept. Until World War ii, however, joint operations
were conducted without permanent agreements and thus never resulted in a
lasting culture of “jointness.” After World War ii these ad hoc arrangements
proved ill-suited for the complexity of modern military operations.
Although the 1947
act made the Joint Chiefs of Staff (jcs) permanent, strong service cultures and the lack of other
permanent joint mechanisms continued to prevent a joint culture from taking
root. Problems such as those encountered during the invasion of Grenada in 1983 highlighted shortcomings in
the existing jointness of planning, intelligence, communications, and the
chain of command. Each service had its own plan, intelligence was not
disseminated well, units from different services could not communicate with
each other, and there was confusion over who was in charge. Such critical
deficiencies prompted the U.S. Congress to require and provide for a more
formal and enduring relationship. In 1986, Congress codified joint doctrine by specifically tasking
the chairman of the jcs with “developing doctrine for the joint employment of
the armed forces, formulating policies for the joint training of the armed
forces, and formulating policies for coordinating the military education
and training of members of the armed forces.”
The resulting development and implementation of joint
doctrine has enabled the growth of a joint culture within the military
that, while respecting individual service cultures and preserving
appropriately unique traditions and characteristics, ensures that all
service activities are conducted within the parameters of joint policies.
Moreover, by providing an overarching framework for interservice
coordination and by codifying procedures for joint operations, joint
doctrine has enabled the services to focus their own service-specific
policies, procedures, equipment, and budgets on interoperability and
conducting joint operations. Though it took many years to mature —
and continues to evolve today — joint doctrine has been directly
responsible for the success of many military operations, both small and
large, most recently the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Without joint
doctrine, a joint culture would not have grown and many of these operations
might have failed or even been impossible to undertake.
Ultimately, all elements of national power, not just
military, are necessary to protect U.S. interests at home and abroad.
Although coordinating and integrating the efforts of multiple agencies to
produce a cohesive result is not a new concept either, the interagency
community lacks a doctrine parallel to the military’s joint doctrine.
As a result, the structure and procedures used for interagency coordination
have changed with each presidential administration, thereby exacerbating
the problem. Even though any doctrine must be flexible so that it can
properly evolve and even rapidly transform when necessary, it should do so
only according to changes in concepts, technology, or other substantive
factors, but not personal preferences. A new president can, as seems
fitting, alter grand strategy — the national strategic objectives the
interagency community strives to achieve. To the greatest extent possible,
however, the detailed mechanics used by the interagency community to
achieve that grand strategy should not be altered.
Past efforts to improve and codify the procedures for
interagency coordination have had limited success. The first significant
efforts were made in the late 1990s, prompted by several grave failures in interagency
coordination earlier in the decade such as that experienced in Somalia.
These efforts, including Presidential Decision Directives (pdds) 25 and 56, provided specific guidance for interagency coordination
with regard to managing peacekeeping and complex contingency operations.
Most notably, pdd 56 included a format for a
generic political-military or “pol-mil” plan to provide the
interagency community a framework in which to facilitate coordination for
certain complex contingency operations. The generic pol-mil plan contains
extensive planning factors to be considered by the interagency community in
any given operation. The substantive value of these planning factors is
manifested by the fact that they have not significantly changed since the
plan’s first draft in 1996.
While these planning factors remain valid, there are
several reasons the pol-mil construct is fundamentally flawed and cannot be
part of a viable interagency doctrine. First, although it intends to
encompass all elements of national power, the plan format emphasizes
diplomatic and military considerations thereby marginaling the other
elements of national power, such as economic, intelligence, and law
enforcement. Second, it promotes division by implicitly recognizing two
distinct communities, military and nonmilitary, rather than one interagency
community. Third, it fails to incorporate the importance of vertical
coordination (among federal, state, and local governments) as well as the
complete breadth of horizontal coordination (among the different entities
of government, the private sector, and the international community).
Fourth, it perpetuates the dominance of individual agency cultures in the
interagency community by building each interagency task force around a
“lead agency.” For example, “Joint-Interagency Task
Forces,” used in multiagency counter-drug operations, report to the
regional military commander. Likewise, even though many agencies contribute
to them, the fbi’s
“Joint Terrorism Task Forces” are fbi-centric.
Instead of using the pol-mil construct to build
interagency task forces, a broader integrated approach would be more
conducive to coordination and cooperation. Like the U.S. military unified
joint commands and joint task forces, which bring together elements from
each of the services under one joint headquarters formed by personnel from
multiple services, integrated task forces (and other entities) would have
an integrated headquarters staff formed by personnel from multiple agencies
and would bring together elements from all agencies as required. The leader
of each major integrated task force would be designated by, represent, and
report to the president. Unlike joint doctrine, which allows senior
officers from each service to be eligible to lead joint military commands,
the increased complexity and sensitivities of the interagency community
demand that leaders of interagency task forces not be from a specific
agency. Rather, leaders of integrated task forces should be accomplished
leaders without strong ties to any agency but with some experience in the
dynamics of the interaction among those agencies. Ideally, former elected
officials such as governors, congressmen, and mayors would fill these
leadership positions.
Just as the individual military service chiefs are
responsible for training and equipping the individuals and units of their
services for participation in joint military operations, individual agency
heads should remain responsible for training and equipping their
agency’s personnel and organizations for participation in integrated
interagency operations. During different phases of an operation, specific
components of an integrated task force might be considered the main effort,
but none should ever be considered the lead. Joint military operations do
not have lead services or lead components; they are, simply, joint efforts
led by a joint headquarters with a single commander. A component that has
been designated the “main effort” does not lead the other
components (the joint force commander does that). Rather, designation as
the main effort simply requires that priority of support be given to that
component during the time so designated.
Forming integrated headquarters and task forces and
conducting integrated operations, however, cannot be done without a
doctrine. Properly developed, an integrated doctrine would provide the
framework necessary to help ensure that all national policies, plans, and
operations are integrated and none is centered on any one agency.
Ultimately, such an integrated doctrine would cultivate a strong
interagency culture in which individual agency goals would be subordinate
to national interagency goals.
An independent national authority
An organizational doctrine is most likely to be respected and followed when
there is a single authority, properly designated and independent of the
organizations subject to the doctrine, responsible for its development.
Though the National Security Act of 1947 established the nsc as the nation’s highest authority responsible for
coordinating interagency efforts, it did not specifically task the nsc to develop an interagency
doctrine, but rather to manage the process of interagency coordination.
Moreover, the nsc
staff has become, through practice, more like an agency itself —
directly involved in the process and less independent of it. Additionally,
since 1947 several
other formal entities with responsibility in interagency coordination have
come into being, albeit with varying degrees of authority. Specifically,
the National Economic Council, Domestic Policy Council, and, most recently,
the Homeland Security Council (hsc) — all a part of the Executive Office of the President
— have a direct role in achieving effective interagency cooperation.
Of these and others, only the hsc has influence over interagency coordination similar to the nsc as provided in Homeland
Security Presidential Decision 1 and the Homeland Security Act of 2002.
The hsc’s role is essentially the same as the nsc’s. Of note, the new
Department of Homeland Security consolidated 22 agencies whose primary functions directly affect homeland
security into one department, thereby greatly enhancing coordination of and
accountability for those functions. Quickly following through on their
mandates, both the hsc and the Department of Homeland Security made great strides in
consolidating domestic incident response plans and procedures for
interagency coordination — the first national “all
hazard” Initial Response Plan was published on September 30, 2003, and the National
Incident Management System was published in March 2004.
Since there are now two organizations, the nsc and the hsc, diligently working at the highest
level of the federal government to improve interagency coordination, their
efforts must be bridged. Even though their jurisdictions differ, there is
almost always going to be an overlap in their missions. Many, if not most,
national security threats have domestic components or implications, and
many, if not most, homeland security threats originate abroad. Clearly it
is not prudent to deal with each type of threat distinctly. In fact,
eventually it may be prudent to consolidate the hsc staff as well as the other
interagency councils within the nsc staff structure. Moreover, the potential for two different
processes — one used by the nsc staff and the other by the hsc staff — to create more rather than less confusion
requires urgent attention.
The importance of addressing this situation is
demonstrated by the U.S. military’s experience with joint doctrine.
Development of joint doctrine is headed by a section of the Joint Staff,
which provides all staff support to the chairman of the jcs. Because the Joint Doctrine,
Education, and Training Division has no operational authority and reports
to neither the services nor the regional commanders, but rather to the
chairman, it is appropriately independent. Each of the services and the
unified joint commands, however, has an opportunity to review and provide
input for new or revised portions of joint doctrine, which must be approved
by the chairman prior to publication. As a result, joint doctrine is
respected and, once published, must be followed by all military forces
except when, in the judgment of commanders, “exceptional
circumstances dictate otherwise.” Joint doctrine addresses all types
of military operations and is applicable both abroad and domestically.
A doctrine developed by an independent authority with
input from all agencies as well as state and local governments would be of
similar benefit to the interagency community. Although the nsc has tasked the National
Defense University (ndu) with training and educating senior personnel in the process of
interagency coordination, the nsc has tasked no one with developing and codifying a doctrine.
Moreover, as an element of the Department of Defense, ndu is not independent and therefore is
unlikely to gain the full support of other agencies. Furthermore, since ndu has been tasked only by the nsc, interagency procedures it
develops are unlikely to fully reflect hsc concerns and priorities. An Office of Integrated Doctrine,
Training, and Education within the Executive Office of the President, but
not part of any other staff such as the nsc and hsc, would be an ideal location for such an independent authority.
This same office also could oversee training of
personnel. A national interagency university would be necessary as the
focal point for educating senior personnel from all agencies. Individual
agencies, working from interagency doctrine, would continue to operate
their own schools and centers to train their personnel in agency as well as
interagency policies and procedures. Given the current situation in which
both the nsc and hsc staffs have significant
interagency coordination responsibilities, the doctrine developed by this
office should be approved by both the national security adviser and the
homeland security adviser, possibly even the vice president, prior to
publication.
Such an authority should be established as soon as
possible for several reasons. First, just developing the doctrine will take
a long time. Even though joint doctrine offers a good model, interagency
coordination is far more complex than interservice coordination. Second, an
independent authority is necessary to ensure that other ongoing
initiatives, such as the fielding of interoperable equipment to first
responders, dod’s
“Force Transformation,” and the continued evolution of joint
military doctrine ultimately support an integrated doctrine. Finally, just
as joint doctrine serves as the foundation for U.S. involvement in
multinational military operations today, an integrated doctrine would serve
as the foundation for U.S. involvement in multinational multiagency
operations in the future.
Regional structures
The regional lens through which U.S. government agencies look at the
world is just as important to interagency coordination and cooperation as
the procedures they employ. Unfortunately, individual agencies currently
use notably different regional structures to organize their policy and
operations both abroad and domestically. While these structures likely make
sense within the organizations that use them, the disparity among them
significantly inhibits interagency coordination. Any advantages gained by
specific agencies from their unique structures are offset by the greater
disadvantage to coordinating and unifying the broader national interagency
effort.
This situation is similar to the one faced by the U.S.
military until just after World War ii. Before then, each service’s regional structure
reflected its parochial view of the world. Recognizing that the adverse
impact on interservice coordination outweighed the benefits to the services
for their individual regional structures, the newly formed Joint Chiefs of
Staff required all the services to adopt a single structure. Since 1946, a “unified command
plan” for a single global regional structure has been in place. In
addition to requiring each military service to share the same regional view
of the world, the services are required to support and participate in a
unified regional command structure. Specifically, there is only one
military command for each region, and the headquarters for those commands
are joint — composed of personnel from each service. Although
services do maintain small components within each regional command to
represent service interests, ultimate authority for military operations
within each region rests with its commander, regardless of the service from
which he or she comes.
Although the geographic regions around which the nsc organizes its regional policy
coordination committees are identical to those around which the State
Department organizes its regional bureaus, the unity of regional structures
used by the interagency community ends there. Most significantly, the
geographic regions used by the nsc and the State Department bear little resemblance to those
used by the dod or
the Central Intelligence Agency (cia). In fact, the nsc-State Department regional structure for the world has six
regions, whereas the dod has five and the cia has three. This disparity prevents a regional unity of effort
— let alone clear lines of responsibility and authority — from
being achieved and thus impedes efficient and effective planning and
conduct of policy and operations. For example, the State Department’s
Bureau of African Affairs must coordinate with three regional military
commands to cover all of the countries in its region. Moreover, because
each agency relies on its regional structure as a frame of reference, there
is great potential for the agencies to give confusing or even conflicting
advice to the president, since their advice will be based on different
regional structures and therefore different regional assumptions, dynamics,
considerations, and priorities.
Aligning these various regional structures into a
single structure would foster unity of effort, enable far better planning
and conduct of policy and operations in each region, and ensure that all
advice to the president comes from the same frame of reference. Perhaps,
had there been a single interagency regional structure in 1994 whereby the dod, State Department, cia and other agencies had a
common frame of reference, the genocide in Rwanda could have been
prevented. Moreover, a single regional structure would facilitate
interregional coordination, which is especially important when achieving
national crisis response goals requires shifting limited resources between
regions without adversely affecting readiness in the regions providing the
support. It also would facilitate better coordination with international
organizations, regional organizations, nongovernmental organizations and
individual nations — all of which play an increasingly vital role in
achieving U.S. national objectives. Furthermore, any critical reasons an
individual agency may have for a specific aspect of its current regional
structure should be applicable to all agencies in the national strategic
context — the one important to the president. Though every agency
likely would have to adjust its current regional structure, all should
participate in the development of a single structure.
Exacerbating this disunity is the different degree of
authority placed on the regional leaders of the different agencies.
Specifically, the regional military commanders are the senior military
commanders in their regions. They are responsible for all U.S. military
activities — with the exception of certain special operations —
in their regions.1 In contrast, the assistant secretaries heading the State
Department’s regional bureaus have less practical authority than the
U.S. ambassadors to the individual countries in their regions.
Paradoxically, in many cases, the regional military commanders have more
diplomatic influence in a particular country in their region than the U.S.
ambassador there does. Moreover, from a basic leadership or management
standpoint, it is simply impossible for one person (the president or the
secretary of state) to directly lead or even manage some 200 people (all the ambassadors).
Thus, serious consideration should be given to appointing regional
ambassadors. Such regional ambassadors, of necessity, would be senior to
the individual ambassadors to nations in their regions and would provide
the appropriate link to the president, the secretary of state, the State
Department’s regional bureaus, and the regional leaders of all other
agencies.
For the same reasons, the goal of a single regional
structure should be applied within the nation’s borders as well.
Unfortunately, the domestic regional structures used by U.S. federal
agencies are even more incongruous than their foreign ones. In fact, the
number of regions currently in use varies from three to 33. Even in cases where two agencies
have the same number of regions, the regional boundaries often differ. Many
agencies have different regions from their parent departments, whereas some
have no regional structures but rather require all local offices to report
directly to their national headquarters. Some domestic regional structures
do not even follow state boundaries, so that some states fall into more
than one region. While the Department of Homeland Security may succeed in
aligning the regional structures of the agencies now under its authority,
many others are not under dhs’s authority and will remain unaligned
without action to that end. This situation is simply not tenable given all
the other complicating factors in planning national policy and conducting
complex operations.
While there are many competing considerations and
interests, even collectively they do not outweigh the need to improve
interagency coordination to protect national interests and counter present
and future threats to the U.S. Although every agency likely will have to
endure short-term difficulties to adjust to a unified regional structure,
all should be involved in its development to ensure the best structure for
long-term integration from the national strategic level down. Due to the
immense disparity in existing structures, achieving an interagency
consensus for a single domestic regional structure probably will be even
more difficult than for a foreign one. But a single structure for regional
policy coordination committees in both the nsc and hsc would greatly enhance unity of effort at both the national
and regional levels. As currently required by law for the regional military
commands, a single regional structure should be reviewed periodically and
adjusted to address changing situations.
Personnel policies
Ultimately, it is people and ideas that will matter most in developing a
genuine interagency culture. While current personnel policies in the
individual agencies provide for some interagency exposure, overall they
foster the development of individuals with an agency-specific focus. Again,
the U.S. military experience with joint doctrine offers a guide for
building a common culture through personnel policies.
In addition to mandating the development of joint
doctrine, the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 also mandated the
establishment of personnel policies to ensure the development of officers
with significant joint experience who would form a core of experts in joint
operations dedicated to the joint culture. For example, the act requires
that officers who successfully complete assignments to joint staffs receive
favorable consideration at promotion boards. Additionally, all officers are
required to receive formal training in joint doctrine and must complete a
joint assignment prior to being considered for promotion to general or
admiral. These policies have ensured that all services fully participate in
joint staffs and that a joint culture prevails regardless of the service
from which the commanders come.
Also important to developing a joint culture among the
military services have been interservice personnel assignments. Not to be
confused with liaison duty, personnel on such assignments have actual
positions in units from services other than their own for a substantial
(though limited) period of time, ideally two to four years. Known as
personnel exchanges when such assignments are reciprocated, these
assignments allow individuals to become deeply familiar with the specific
capabilities and cultures of other services, making them better prepared to
plan, conduct, and lead joint operations. Additionally, such personnel
represent their own service’s capabilities and culture to the
personnel in the unit or office to which they are assigned. These
assignments enhance unity of effort by building personal bonds and
facilitating interoperability at all levels and in all functional areas.
Similar policies and programs would produce similar
results for the interagency community. Accordingly, personnel from all
agencies should be required to receive training in interagency
coordination. Even though not on the same scale as the military’s
joint staffs, which have thousands of personnel assigned to each, the
interagency community does have opportunities for assignments to
interagency staffs. These staffs, such as the working groups and committees
of the nsc and hsc as well as various other
interagency task forces, coordination groups, and fusion cells have
hundreds, if not thousands, of positions. Assignments to these groups
should be made at all levels of seniority and be required for promotion to
the highest ranks in each agency. Although most of these staffs are not
full-time assignments (that is, the personnel assigned have primary duties
within their parent agencies), they represent an opportunity to work with
personnel from other agencies. With regional alignment as proposed earlier,
permanent integrated staffs could be formed to coordinate policy and
operations in each region. Then personnel on integrated staffs would have
duties only within those staffs — just as military personnel assigned
to joint commands have duties only within those commands and not with their
parent services during those assignments.
Interagency personnel assignments also would enhance a
common culture within the interagency community. Although some agencies
already have interagency exchange assignments, these assignments are mostly
at the headquarters level. Assignments among all agencies to regional and
local offices (and operational military units), however, are necessary to
develop an interagency mindset early in the careers of personnel and to
ensure integration at all levels. Many positions at all levels in every
agency could be effectively filled by personnel from other agencies. For
example, Department of Justice personnel could serve in legal sections,
Department of Homeland Security personnel could serve in security and force
protection units, and cia personnel could hold billets in intelligence sections.
Personnel from the various law enforcement agencies could be assigned to
military police units or security sections of other federal agencies, and
vice versa.
Such assignments also should include personnel whose
jobs are common to all agencies (for example, human resources,
administration, and communication) as well as regional experts and
analysts. Reflecting the tenet that the interagency effort is a national
and not just a federal one, interagency personnel assignments should be
made with state and local governments as well. For example, state police
could have officers assigned to military police units on bases in their
states as well as the regional federal law enforcement offices that include
their states. For military personnel, rotating assignments among duty
positions and units at the tactical, operational, and strategic level are
critical to developing a well-rounded perspective that understands the
priorities, dynamics, and nature of the big picture, the details involved
with execution at the tactical level, and the operational area in between.
Interagency assignments among local, state, and federal personnel would
benefit from similar exposure. Finally, as noted earlier, an integrated
doctrine likely will become the foundation for multinational operations.
Therefore, all agencies should start (or expand) personnel exchange
programs with their counterparts from other nations. For example, the
Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention could exchange personnel with the corresponding agencies from
other nations. Such exchanges would likely enhance efforts to prevent and
control the spread of infectious diseases across international borders.
In the short term, interagency personnel assignments
would have an immediate impact on improving operations at the tactical
level. For example, instead of relying on National Intelligence Support
Teams (nists)
— with personnel from various intelligence agencies to augment
military units as they deploy for contingencies — such personnel
should be exchanged routinely. National intelligence personnel assigned to
operational military units could ensure that the units have access to
national-level intelligence during operations and have trained with it
beforehand as well. Personnel in such assignments can facilitate working
through barriers such as noninteroperable communications systems, nonmutual
security access regulations, and differences in terminology and procedures
until they are eliminated. Moreover, nists, which bring communications gear that gives them direct
access to national intelligence organizations, would be more effective if
they were augmenting colleagues from their parent agencies already assigned
to the units (and already equipped with the gear).
Over time, ideas and knowledge would be exchanged more
freely and frequently, resulting in a better understanding of other
agencies’ (and other countries’) capabilities, improved and
more uniform procedures at the tactical/local and operational/regional
levels, and the development of more interoperable equipment. Upon returning
to their parent agency, these personnel would share what they learned and
be able to recommend changes to improve their agency’s ability to
conduct integrated operations. Close personal relationships would develop
and endure, producing more leaders with broader experience and better able
to serve at the top of their organizations (especially when planning and
conducting integrated policy and operations). The key to this proposal is
that such assignments, successfully completed, must enhance each
individual’s potential for promotion to senior ranks within their
parent agencies, as is the case within the military services.
Implementing reform
The attacks of September 11, 2001 and testimony before the 9/11 Commission investigating them leave no doubt that there
remains room for substantial improvement in the process of interagency
coordination. Even before September 11, 2001 several independent studies and commissions had made
hundreds of recommendations to improve interagency coordination. Many of
those recommendations have since been implemented and have led to some
improvements. None of them, however, has truly tackled the broader
requirement to integrate and unify the interagency community as a whole.
The updated National Response Plan (nrp), dated December 2004, makes great headway in creating a basic framework for
domestic interagency coordination and cooperation, most notably in
identifying planning assumptions and considerations, articulating roles and
responsibilities, and thinking through necessary interagency actions for a
variety of incident scenarios. Although procedures in the nrp and the associated
National Incident Management System attempt to outline a framework for a
unified interagency command structure, what they actually achieve is a
framework for unity of effort. This collaborative command structure, where
agencies are expected to “work together effectively without affecting
individual agency authority, responsibility, or accountability,” does
not achieve the genuine unity of command that is required. Moreover, as
noted previously, Department of Homeland Security documents have
applicability only in the domestic context.
With the recent enactment of the Intelligence Reform
and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, the president has signed into law what will likely be the
most dramatic change in interagency coordination since the enactment of the
National Security Act of 1947. As important as this new legislation is, it is focused on the
intelligence community rather than the broader interagency community. For
example, the requirement for personnel to have assignments outside their
parent agency to be eligible for promotion applies only to intelligence
professionals and intelligence agencies. In order for any of its specific
improvements to be truly effective, an overarching doctrine to unify
and integrate all interagency coordination must be established. Although
doing so will require a shift from the current competing strong individual
agency cultures to a strong unified interagency culture — an
admittedly difficult requirement — the U.S. military’s
experience with creating a strong interservice culture provides a model
upon which to do just that. Simply expanding joint doctrine to include
interagency coordination, however, will only preserve its military focus
and discourage the full involvement of nonmilitary agencies. Moreover,
using joint military terminology and concepts (and watering down their
military meaning) for use in the interagency context creates more confusion
rather than less. To solve this puzzle the interagency community must have
its own overarching doctrine and a single strong interagency culture.
Although the national interagency community is much
larger and far more diverse than the military (interservice) community,
building a strong interagency culture is achievable. Many, if not most,
members of the interagency community respect — even admire —
their colleagues from other agencies and try to work together in all
endeavors. But they all face the same grim reality every day: Their own
agency’s future budgets are dependent upon their agency’s
success or failure. Consequently, personnel are compelled to treat
interagency coordination as a zero-sum game.
The proposals here, however, would fundamentally change
the rules. Moreover, they could potentially result in significant savings
— thereby offsetting the cost of implementing them. Codifying
interagency procedures would reduce time lost in ad hoc efforts.
Integration of regional staffs could produce substantial savings in funds
and free hundreds of personnel for other assignments, including assignments
to advanced professional education courses, without leaving positions in
the operational organizations vacant. But most important, the interagency
community as a whole would be more efficient and effective.
With a strong interagency culture the community will be
far better able to coordinate among the agencies and with external
organizations including state, local, and foreign governments;
international organizations; nongovernmental organizations; academic
institutions; and the private sector — which not only has a vested
stake in America’s security, but holds most of the resources
necessary to protect it. Moreover, it will enable actual integrated
operations, and not just improved coordination and cooperation. Finally, it
will enable more effective oversight by Congress — though Congress
must make changes in its current committee structure for this benefit to be
realized.
Although new legislation will be necessary to achieve
an enduring interagency culture, progress can be made without it. By
executive order, the president can establish the basic doctrine, create
— within his Executive Office — an office with the authority to
develop it, and direct all executive branch agencies to submit proposals
for aligning their regional structures and implementing personnel exchange
programs such as those described here. While there will no doubt be
parochial resistance to such an effort, the U.S. military was able to
overcome substantial similar resistance to the development of a joint
culture. The interagency community can do likewise. Just as joint culture
unifies the military services without destroying individual service
traditions, an integrated culture can unify the interagency community
without destroying individual agency traditions. Without a strong
interagency culture, the U.S. will continue to wrestle its way through
tough interagency challenges inefficiently and possibly ineffectively. Such
an approach, dependent on the raw determination and selfless devotion of
countless individuals, will be unnecessarily difficult and costly —
in money and lives.
1 In addition to the regional commands, the U.S. military has several joint functional commands. These commands, notably U.S. Special Operations Command, U.S. Strategic Command, and U.S. Transportation Command, have global responsibility for their functional areas. Usually the funtional commands are in a supporting role to the regional commands, though in certain special cases the roles could be reversed. This is an evolving area within joint doctrine and not further explored in this article. Of note is the recently established National Counterterrorism Center, which may prove to be an analogous construct to these functional military commands. |
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