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.
While al Qaeda's capacity for large-scale attacks has been drastically reduced and the organization seriously weakened, the United States can expect to continue its battle with the terrorist group for many years to come.
The U.S. Department of Defense Civilian Expeditionary Workforce (CEW) was established to deploy in support of combat and noncombat operations. Meanwhile, deployments of private military and security contractors have reached unprecedented levels in recent years. Building on prior RAND research on private security contractors in Operation Iraqi Freedom, this paper examines how these contractors may affect the CEW in ongoing operations.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Continuing tensions between Arab and Kurdish communities in Iraq could lead to inadvertent armed conflict unless Iraqi leaders resolve outstanding disputes regarding federalism, the legal and political status of disputed territories, and the management of northern Iraq's oil and gas resources.
An analysis of 30 insurgencies worldwide between 1978 and 2008 determined what factors were ultimately correlated with success or defeat. Comparing Afghanistan in early 2011 against this scorecard results in an uncertain outcome for the conflict there, but the findings may help provide additional guidance as operations continue.
Unstable and violent political environments often give rise to a range of complex problems for peaceful development. RAND Europe reviewed the state of the art in monitoring and evaluation in stabilization environments and found ways to improve practice.
Project assessment is central to ensuring that DoD humanitarian assistance projects are compatible with broader policy goals. RAND developed a prototype handbook to provide project staff with an introduction to monitoring and evaluation terms, approaches, and best practices and a step-by-step user's guide for project assessment. It also includes worksheets to help users plan and monitor different types of humanitarian assistance projects.
The "Americanization" of NATO's mission in Afghanistan may prove crucial to the future of Afghanistan, but the alliance could suffer long-term harm by being relegated to the position of junior partner to the United States.
The Afghan government and NATO can improve security in Afghanistan by leveraging traditional policing institutions in rural villages and mobilizing the population against insurgents. However, action needs to happen quickly to take advantage of a growing amount of local resistance against the Taliban across Afghanistan.
Approaches to counterinsurgency from 30 recent resolved campaigns show that good counterinsurgency practices tend to "run in packs" and that historically, the balance of selected good and ineffective practices perfectly predicts the outcome of a conflict.
Effective counterinsurgency is dependent on understanding the local population. A survey of those living in Iraq's Anbar Province (once one of the country's most violent areas), reveals both the many improvements that have occurred, as well as the extent to which these Iraqis have suffered from the effects of war.
Building on a framework for integrating civil and military counterinsurgency (COIN), this volume presents an approach to the civil component, illustrated with three case studies from Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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