Transforming Joint Interagency Coordination: The Missing Link Between National Strategy & Operational Success

摘要

Increased speed of action, enhanced depth of planning, and innovative management of resources have long been considered by many in the national security establishment to be critical in today's volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world of asymmetric terrorist threats. With the proliferation of non-state actors with global reach and their willingness to use weapons of ever-increasing lethality, solutions to the problems of the 21st century became less and less likely to reside within the capabilities of a single agency or department even where that department possesses superb military forces, unparalleled information-collection assets, and dedicated intelligence analysts. Yet, in the fall of 2001, the United States in general and the Department of Defense (DOD) in particular suffered from an almost systemic and often self-imposed lack of coordination and information sharing among governmental agencies. Thus it was that on September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists hijacked 4 planes, murdering at least 2,973 men, women, and children from 70 countries.1 The success of the attacks and the growing dangers represented by disenfranchised extremists demonstrated the need for a new approach to the application of all of the elements of national power. In a world increasingly dominated by the need for the swift identification, integration, and use of the capabilities of multiple agencies, effective interagency coordination has emerged as the best way to defeat today s threats. By harmonizing otherwise isolated governmental actions through the facilitation of synchronized planning at multiple levels from multiple perspectives, interagency coordination has the potential to address operational planning deficiencies that have historically undermined mission success in complex contingencies.