Improving Assessments for Strategic Decision-Making in Counter Insurgency Operations.

摘要

How can we show irrefutable progress in Afghanistan. This question, which was posed by General Stanley McCrystal to his staff, revealed limitations in the process used by his assessment teams to address strategic, operational, and tactical applications across the command. While Joint, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Service-specific literature define how and why assessments are conducted, they generally fall short in addressing the data collection required for the complex counterinsurgency (COIN) environment. Analysis for COIN operations is very challenging, due in part to the need to understand perceptions and culture, the need to track hundreds or thousands of personalities, the local nature of insurgencies, and the tendency of insurgencies to change over time. To measure progress at the strategic level, there must be data collected not just at the strategic level, but also at the local, tactical level where insurgents are most active. These measures help planners understand the operational environment to frame the problem and develop operational approaches. This monograph proposes a methodology for collecting relevant data that provides a more robust assessment of the operational environment. The paper is organized into six sections. Following this short introduction is a section on assessment doctrine. The third section examines two counterinsurgencies, namely Vietnam and Afghanistan, to determine where there are specific shortfalls. The fourth section contains the proposed framework for data collection and data sharing pertinent to the strategic, operational, and tactical environments. Additional techniques specific to counterinsurgencies and transition are provided in the fifth section. The final section contains the conclusions of this research.