LESSONS ENCOUNTERED

Lamb with Franco
Police training is one such example. Disputes over who should control the
police training effort generated much friction between DOD and State. Development
projects were another area of contention, with differences of opinion
on whether projects should serve short-term military or political objectives
or longer term development goals. New organizations such as the interagency
Provincial Reconstruction Teams did not work well; there was squabbling over
which department should lead the teams and difficulty manning them. Often
the teams were de facto DOD constructs because only it had the manpower to
populate them.
In the past, such requirements led to the creation of new organizations
and mandates, but in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, we tried to meet the need
by obtaining more flexible authorities for DOD and State. These authorities
helped but did not solve the problem. The misadventures of the Coalition Provisional
Authority in Iraq and other ad hoc civilian assistance efforts have been
laid bare in inspector general reports that are hair-raising for the amount of
waste they document, but more so for the consequences of the mismanagement.
298 Over time, greater civilian capacity was generated and coordination
problems were ameliorated, but we never were able to produce sufficient quantity
or quality of personnel to meet the need. 299
The failure to tackle this capacity shortfall is hard to explain. Senior leaders
characterized the issue as critical—indeed, a national imperative. Much
was written about it, but little was done. Pondering this inertia, Secretary
Gates and others made reference to Ambassador Robert Komer’s insights in
his classic study on Vietnam. Against great bureaucratic opposition, Komer
built and led a unique, large, hybrid civil-military administrative structure in
Vietnam (that is, Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support,
or CORDS) and used it to great effect, albeit too late to make a decisive difference
in the war. Komer is not cited as a model for emulation so much as
for his explanation as to why too little was done too late to make a difference.
Like Gates, he blamed the failure on “institutional inertia,” but also cited a
“shocking lack of institutional memory” and the “notable dearth of systematic
analysis of performance.” 300
Views differ on how best to overcome institutional inertia in this area.
Some leaders advocate an effective civilian reserve force that can be called up
in times of need. 301 Others have argued we need standing capacity to launch
236