As part of peacekeeping efforts, stability operations—post-conflict military efforts to bring peace and security to a region or country—represent an ongoing challenge for both military planners and civilian policymakers. RAND research has provided effective strategic recommendations in many such operations, helping those involved in unified stabilization, peacekeeping and security, transition, and reconstruction.
COMMENTARY
With U.S. troops out of Iraq, the U.S. presence there will fall to 5,000 private security contractors....The experience with private security contractors during the war was fraught with challenges that pose risks now, writes Molly Dunigan.
COMMENTARY
The Vietnam negotiations arose from a U.S. initiative, in response to domestic political imperatives and over repeated objections from the Saigon regime. By contrast, the incipient Afghan process has its roots in that society, not ours, writes James Dobbins.
COMMENTARY
The Arab Spring demonstrated that leaderless revolutions are difficult to repress or co-opt. Unfortunately, it is also true that leaderless revolts find it difficult to make transition to authority, writes Charles Ries.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Helps to develop an integrated strategy for building partner capacity for stability operations through an analysis of key strategic elements within the context of BPC and stability operations guidance as well as ongoing security cooperation programs.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Describes a framework for thinking about commanders' critical information needs in countersurgency operations and offers practical ways for commanders to integrate influence activities into combined arms planning and assessment.
REPORT
As challenging as coalition warfare is during conventional conflicts, the difficulties are compounded in number and character when the contingency is instead a stability operation. The absence of a threat that puts survival interests at risk translates into weaker commitment and more-restrictive caveats on how a participant's capabilities are employed.
RESEARCH BRIEF
Designed to help U.S. Army personnel more effectively use economic assistance to support economic and infrastructure development.
REPORT
Tests the hypothesis that development and reconstruction actors can feasibly implement sound development and reconstruction across a relatively wide spectrum of conflict, but varying levels and natures of violence can affect its delivery.
REPORT
An overview of Soviet efforts to improve and facilitate the training and development of Afghan security forces from 1920 to 1989 can inform U.S. and allied forces' current approaches to planning and operating with Afghan forces and overcoming cultural challenges.
REPORT
Governments intervening in post-conflict states face challenges and dilemmas regarding stabilization and reconstruction, where measures that may improve conditions in one respect may undermine them in another. A review of relevant literature seeks to inform strategic planning at the whole-of-government level.
COMMENTARY
If the Afghan government is to have a chance of defeating the Taliban, its national-security forces must successfully leverage the country's many competing factions, village by village, writes Seth G. Jones.
COMMENTARY
Multiple polls commissioned by independent news and other organizations consistently reveal an Afghan population that sees improvement in its well-being, has a favorable view of its government and is optimistic about its future, writes James Dobbins.
REPORT
The Global Train and Equip "1206" Program is a multiagency security cooperation program that supports U.S.-led capacity-building activities focused on counterterrorism and stability operations with foreign military partners. Interviews with policymakers and subject-matter experts, combined with a survey of program stakeholders, revealed some challenges and best approaches to establishing an assessment framework for 1206 Program projects.
REPORT
This book identifies the procedures and capabilities that the U.S. Department of Defense, other agencies of the U.S. government, U.S. allies and partners, and international organizations require in order to support the transition from counterinsurgency, when the military takes primary responsibility for security and economic operations, to stability and reconstruction, when police and civilian government agencies take the lead.
REPORT
This book examines six case studies of insurgencies from around the world to determine the key factors necessary for a successful transition from counterinsurgency to a more stable situation. The authors review the causes of each insurgency and the key players involved, and examine what the government did right — or wrong — to bring the insurgency to an end and to transition to greater stability.
COMMENTARY
The SCAF's attempts to curtail dissent and the democratic process have fueled doubts about its true intentions. Will the military fulfill its promise to support democracy? Or will it seek to replace Mubarak's rule with its own or that of a friendly autocrat? write Jeffrey Martini and Julie Taylor.
COMMENTARY
If Libya is to have a chance of replacing Qaddafi with something better, the United States, its allies, and the rest of the international community will need to pivot very quickly from the rather straightforward requirements of war fighting to taking seriously the complex and demanding tasks of peace building, write James Dobbins and Frederic Wehrey.
REPORT
Using primary sources and interviews with those involved in the fighting and its aftermath, the authors describe the 2008 Battle of Sadr City, analyze its outcome, and derive implications for the conduct of land operations. Their analysis identifies factors critical to the coalition victory over Jaish al-Mahdi and describes a new model for dealing with insurgent control of urban areas.
REPORT
A sustained focus on Afghanistan at all levels of the U.S. government is needed for the United States to make the most of its limited influence on the complex Afghan peace process.
NEWS RELEASE
A sustained focus on Afghanistan at all levels of the U.S. government is needed for the United States to make the most of its limited influence on the complex Afghan peace process.
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