Operationalizing Capacity Building in Theater Security Cooperation Plans - A New Operational Function: Capacity Building-Lost in Translation.

摘要

Capacity building is the way in which productivity, a function of knowledge and skill, leads to increased national output and potentially the enhanced quality of life of a society. This enhanced quality of life thus cognitively influences behavior, historically known as winning the hearts and minds. That enhanced quality of life, manifested economically as increased national output or Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is also known in this context as the end-state objective. The means by which productivity leads to this end-state objective is through the consecutive process of assessment, planning and implementation. Capacity building is one of the most widely used terms in Iraq and Afghanistan today, the ultimate inter-agency term. It potentially offers significant positive impact as a way to exercise soft power, non-kinetic effects that have lasting quality of life impact. Yet in trying to define capacity building, you will find as many definitions as you will people that use the term. It s meaning and therefore its value, has become 'lost in translation.'.