Preparing the Army for Stability Operations

This monograph presents the results of a project entitled Improving Army Doctrine and Planning for Stability Operations. A great deal of activity has been aimed at revising the approach to the planning and implementation of Stabilization, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) operations. The primary emphasis of the changes is on ensuring a common U.S. strategy rather than a collection of individual departmental and agency efforts and on mobilizing and involving all available U.S. government assets in the effort. However, using a template to assess the extent of progress in building collaborative interagency capacity for SSTR operations, the authors find that some elements essential to the success of the process are not yet in place. They provide a series of recommendations on how the Army, as a major stakeholder, can act to advance the interagency process. The authors also assess the ongoing development of Army doctrine on SSTR operations and compare it to the emerging guidelines for SSTR operations at the interagency level. They provide specific recommendations for the Army to consider in revising its doctrine on SSTR operations, to bring it further in line with interagency guidelines. They also point out omissions in the security sector of the emerging interagency task list for SSTR operations.