Civil-military coordination for operational effectiveness: Towards a measured approach

摘要

The last decade has witnessed a cascading proliferation of strategic concepts that emphasise the importance of civil-military cooperation, coordination, or integration for effectiveness in complex operations. These efforts nevertheless often lack an appreciation for why, where, and how such integration and coordination should take place to achieve the desired outcomes. This article introduces a new approach to civil-military coordination that incorporates the challenges and possibilities at both the national/strategic level and the tactical level in field of operations. By integrating and coordinating these efforts at the strategic level, this approach allows policymakers to achieve separation of actors and responsibilities in the field of operations. By doing so, the proposed approach seeks to answer more specific questions about when coordination is necessary for effectiveness, what its aims are, what actors need to be involved, and to what extent and at what level of command the actors need to be coordinated.