Copyright by Jeremy Ray Kasper 2021
The Dissertation Committee for Jeremy Ray Kasper Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation:
Forgetting How to Win: the U.S. Army, U.S. Department of State, and U.S. Agency for International Development in Post-Combat Operations (1983-2008)
Committee:
William Inboden, Supervisor
Robert Hutchings
Donald Kettl
Aaron O’Connell
Jeremi Suri
Forgetting How to Win: the U.S. Army, U.S. Department of State, and U.S. Agency for International Development in Post-Combat Operations (1983-2008)
by
Jeremy Ray Kasper
Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
The University of Texas at Austin May 2021 Dedication
To the warriors, diplomats, and foreign aid practitioners serving in the shadow of wars past, present, and future. And to my father, whose fascinating stories – told while milking cows on a modest Wisconsin dairy farm – inspired my interest in history and strategy.
Acknowledgements
This work was made possible by the support, mentorship, and encouragement of each dissertation committee member and the United States Army Goodpaster Scholars program; the candid insights of the practitioners and executives who agreed to be interviewed; and the saintly patience of the author’s wife.
v Abstract
Forgetting How to Win: the U.S. Army, U.S. Department of State, and U.S. Agency for International Development in Post-Combat Operations (1983-2008)
Jeremy Ray Kasper, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2021
Supervisor: William Inboden
This dissertation explores how bureaucracies adapt to – and learn from – unexpected crises that lay outside their core mission. Few modern crises have challenged bureaucratic practitioners more than unexpected post-combat operations, which is today a trillion-dollar policy problem with many lives at risk. The central research question for this study is how do bureaucracies adapt to conduct unexpected post-combat operations? This study examines three national security institutions – the U.S. Army, the U.S. Department of State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) – and how these organizations adapted to unexpected post-combat operations across four cases: Grenada (1983-1985), Panama (1989-1994), Kosovo (1999-2008), and Afghanistan (2001-
2008). The study is organized as a comparative case study that draws from three overlapping bodies of literature: bureaucracy theory, the theory and practice of modern post-combat operations, and the available literature on the four cases and three bureaucracies in question.
vi This dissertation makes two main arguments. The central argument is that these bureaucracies adapted to individual post-combat operations in similar ways. These comprise four adaptive pathways: relying on existing offices or capabilities; hand-selecting the best of its available leaders, resources, and capabilities; responding favorably to practitioners’ calls for more resources or autonomy; and investing in long-term organizational learning and institutional change. This dissertation’s secondary argument is that personal relationships and trust shaped how each bureaucracy adapted to each crisis. The study concludes that these lessons provide a framework for bureaucratic executives and practitioners guiding organizations through future crises. This work also examines interagency unity of effort in each case, the comparative advantages of each bureaucracy, and the merits and limitations of top-down and bottom-up adaptations.
vii Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1
Methodology and Case Selection ...... 8
The U.S. Army ...... 13
The U.S. Department of State ...... 26
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) ...... 38
Chapter 2: Background ...... 52
Background: U.S. Post-Combat Operations ...... 53
Theory of Organizations and Bureaucracies ...... 60
Modern Post-Combat Operations ...... 67
The Cases - Grenada, Panama, Kosovo, and Afghanistan...... 76
Chapter 3: Grenada ...... 83
Grenada in Context ...... 85
State in Grenada: My Operation ...... 90
The U.S. Army in Grenada: Big Trouble, Small Island ...... 103
USAID in Grenada: A Dream Job ...... 116
Bureaucracies in Grenada: Conclusion ...... 128
Chapter 4: Panama ...... 133
Panama in Context ...... 134
The U.S. Army in Panama: The Army's Show ...... 140
State in Panama: From Passenger to Driver ...... 153
USAID in Panama: Turning a Dump Truck into a Ferrari ...... 166
viii Bureaucracies in Panama: Conclusion ...... 177
Chapter 5: Kosovo ...... 182
Kosovo in Context ...... 183
State in Kosovo: A House United ...... 187
The U.S. Army in Kosovo: From Disaster to Success...... 200
USAID in Kosovo: Playing God ...... 210
Bureaucracies in Kosovo: Conclusion ...... 225
Chapter 6: Afghanistan ...... 228
Afghanistan in Context ...... 230
The U.S. Army in Afghanistan: Light Footprint, Heavy Burden ...... 234
State in Afghanistan: Not My Operation ...... 249
USAID in Afghanistan: Stealing the Ring ...... 265
Bureaucracies in Afghanistan: Conclusion ...... 277
Chapter 7: Conclusion...... 279
Adaptation in Post-Combat Operations: Fruit Salad ...... 281
The Human Dimension: Trust Matters Most ...... 289
Unity of Effort and Comparative Advantage ...... 294
Post-Combat Adaptation: Top-Down versus Bottom-Up ...... 301
Future Research ...... 307
The Last Word ...... 312
ix Appendix: Acronyms ...... 313
Bibliography ...... 316
x Chapter 1: Introduction
In 1983, the United States invaded the island of Grenada, rescuing American students and overthrowing the island’s communist government. For the Reagan administration, the geopolitical stakes were high, and U.S. national security institutions responded accordingly.
Facing a crisis outside their core mission, normally hierarchical organizations responded with bottom-up, network-centric and trust-based adaptations. Hand-selected practitioners traveled to
Grenada and capitalized on their autonomy, pressing beyond their respective organizations’ standard procedures and tailoring solutions for the crisis at hand. The Army dispatched civil affairs, military police, and special forces units to aid governance and security programs. State
Department diplomats directed a public diplomacy campaign toward Grenadian, American, regional, and global audiences. U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) foreign aid practitioners developed programs to grow Grenada’s tourist industry and oversaw construction of a major international airport. The collective work paid dividends; Grenada transitioned to a peaceful and stable democracy. Reacting to an unexpected post-combat crisis, American practitioners and institutions had adapted, consolidated military victory into lasting political success, and learned how to win.
It did not last. Organizations invested in reforms that benefited their core mission rather than the unwanted secondary task of post-combat operations. The Army’s experience is instructive. Following Grenada, Army civil affairs units – then the closest thing the Army had to post-combat experts – outlined their mistakes and lessons-learned for Army leadership. These lessons included the need for civil affairs planning to start early; the need to integrate Army,
State, and USAID efforts; the need to leverage Army reserves, which comprise 95 percent of the
Army’s civil affairs capacity; and the need to rush civil affairs soldiers to the crisis in the all-
1 important early days of the post-combat operation.1 Despite this, and the Army’s institutional focus on learning from previous mistakes, the Army repeated all these same mistakes six years later in Panama. What was true of the Army held true for State and USAID; post-combat operations in Panama required the same degree of ad hoc adaptation as Grenada. The national security institutions charged with post-combat operations had forgotten how to win.
The purpose of this dissertation is to answer a deceptively simple yet important research question: how do national security institutions adapt to conduct unexpected post-combat operations – a dynamic, high-stakes, and often unfamiliar environment? To answer this research question, this dissertation presents the results of a comparative case study of four modern post- combat operations spanning from 1983-2008 to examine how national security institutions adapted and learned. The post-combat environment during this period forced adaptation on the part of the participating departments and agencies; partly because the complexity of such a mission always requires adaptation, and also because the mission set fell outside each organization’s core mission during this historical period. Although this historical policy analysis draws some insights from classic bureaucracy theory, the focus of this dissertation is on pragmatic, adaptive policy solutions and their historical application.
This dissertation examines how three American national security institutions (the U.S.
Army, Department of State, and U.S. Agency for International Development [USAID]) adapted to address one complex policy problem (post-combat operations) across four cases (Grenada,
Panama, Kosovo, and Afghanistan) within a limited historical period (1983-2008). Despite acknowledged limitations to the external validity and generalizability of such a project, the prospective policy implications are considerable for both policy maker and practitioner. This is a
1 “Grenada Civil Affairs Lessons Learned,” (Fort Bragg, NC: John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center, Nov 24, 1983), 4. 2 high-stakes challenge. The transition from war to peace has become a trillion-dollar policy problem – not to mention the many civilian and military lives at risk.
The problems associated with post-combat operations are so diverse and complex that diplomats, soldiers, aid workers and scholars disagree even on how to label the subject.
“Military governance,” “nation-building,” “postconflict stabilization and reconstruction,”
“stability and support operations,” and “complex emergencies” are some of the terms that have fallen in and out of favor in recent decades, each with a definition slightly different than the next, and each carrying distinct political baggage. To sidestep terms that have become proxies for broader policy debates, this dissertation examines post-combat operations, a term that deliberately includes the aftereffects of offensive military action and the seizure of territory, as well as missions that fell short of formal U.S. military governance. This definition deliberately includes Grenada (1983), Panama (1989), Afghanistan (2001), and Iraq (2003), despite continual counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency operations in the latter two examples. This definition excludes humanitarian or nation-building missions that did not involve active conflict between armed groups.
This dissertation makes two main arguments. The central argument posits that these national security institutions adapted to individual post-combat missions in a variety of meaningful – and similar – ways. The secondary argument is that personal relationships – and trust – shaped how each department and agency adapted to each unexpected crisis. The fact that these organizations adapted in similar ways is significant because each of the three departments and agencies are so different. An eminent theorist on bureaucracies, James Q. Wilson, identified four broad categories of bureaucracies, each with its own optimal management technique; and
3 this sample is broadly representative of three of the four categories.2 The Army, State, and
USAID are vastly different in terms of history, structure, size, culture, and mission. That each adapted in broadly similar ways suggests that these common pathways may be applicable to a broader range of organizations and circumstances.
These adaptive pathways comprise the central argument of this work; they are listed below in the form of four propositions:
Proposition 1 posits that national security institutions will resist external missions that lie outside their core competency, and if forced into service, will rely on existing offices or capabilities and assign only minimal resources. In this case, the institution answers the external mission with low hanging fruit: the easiest, cheapest, or most immediately available resources. I further predict that national security institutions will act in this manner when the perceived risk of failure is Low; or that the perceived organizational consequences of failure are Low.
Proposition 2 posits that a national security institution will satisfice by seeking a satisfactory and cost-effective, but not ideal solution. The organization typically seeks to achieve this by cherry picking the best – or best-suited – of its available leaders, resources, and capabilities. In general, this approach seeks the highest possible return from a limited investment, increasing the probability of success. I further predict that national security institutions will act in this manner when the perceived risk of failure is Moderate; or in the event of failure, that the perceived organizational consequences are Moderate.
2 Wilson described four types of bureaucracies, three of which are represented in this study: procedural (Army), craft (USAID), and coping (State). The fourth type is a production bureaucracy, similar to a Department of Motor Vehicles that produces driver’s licenses. The Army is a special case because it is a procedural bureaucracy during peacetime, and a craft bureaucracy while at war. See: James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 158-159. 4
Proposition 3 posits that practitioners or executives assigned to the external mission will rebel against their existing constraints. I term this situation the revolt of the cherries. This situation is characterized by increased pressure for greater autonomy, increased resources, or institutional change. This pressure for change can be bottom-up from practitioners in the field, top-down from the organization’s executives, or outside-in from external stakeholders like
Congress, the White House, or adjacent bureaucracies. I predict this situation will occur when some agency members or external stakeholders perceive a High risk of failure, while others perceive the risk as Low or Moderate.
Proposition 4 predicts that national security institutions will adapt to an external mission by investing in long-term organizational learning and institutional change, often by creating new standard procedures or new offices. Some changes may be implemented quickly or on a temporary basis, but others are likely to require considerable time and investment to bear fruit. I term this situation planting the orchard. I predict that this situation will occur only when the national security institution’s executives, practitioners, and external stakeholders perceive the risk of failure is High, or such a catastrophic failure has already occurred.
Below is a visual model depicting a range of possible behaviors ranging from short-term, ad hoc adaptations to long-term organizational learning and change; or between satisficing and optimizing solutions.
5
Figure 1: A Model of Adaptation/Learning
The Army, State, and USAID each addressed the challenges of post-combat operations using a mix of the above pathways, typically applying a mix of several across a single case.
Although the pathways were similar, each organization demonstrated a unique mix or apparent preference over time. The Army attempted to pursue multiple pathways simultaneously, sometimes undercutting its own efforts to address a key problem. State consistently picked cherries, relying on its most experienced or uniquely qualified diplomats to address unexpected crises. USAID also picked cherries; but the small agency had fewer to choose from and devolved toward existing standard procedures and low hanging fruit.
The secondary argument of this dissertation presents an unexpected result of this research: that of all the variables shaping a national security institution’s response to an unexpected post-combat operation, personal relationships – trust – mattered most. In the cases examined here, trust determined which existing capabilities each institution leveraged
6
(Proposition 1); which practitioners each institution selected for the crisis (Proposition 2); the degree to which those practitioners received additional resources (Proposition 3); and whether long-term organizational change was required (Proposition 4). Trust in these cases was not blind
– it resulted from strong personal relationships that were preexisting – or were created in the crucible of the unexpected crisis. In retrospect, it should have been no surprise that personal trust played a vital role in organizational crisis-response and adaptation. Institutions are more than just standard procedures and organizational culture; they are comprised of people.
Having introduced the two main arguments above, this chapter proceeds as follows.
First, the reader is introduced to the methodology and case selection that drove this research project. This is followed by a brief introduction to each of the three national security institutions that will be examined throughout this dissertation: the United States Army, the United States
Department of State, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), respectively. Within each of these sections, the reader is introduced to the organization in terms of its core mission, organizational culture, and its defining characteristics in terms of James Q.
Wilson’s bureaucracy theory. These sections also provide a broad historical context for each organization, setting the stage for the individual cases that will be examined in later chapters.
7
METHODOLOGY AND CASE SELECTION
How do national security institutions adapt to a dynamic, unfamiliar, and high-stakes environment? To explore this question, we require a representative sample of institutions and an unfamiliar environment that compels adaptation. This study begins with the institutional level of analysis because institutions are the principal implementers of large-scale national security policy; arrows in the quiver of state that the government can launch at critical problems. An appropriate sample of institutions should represent a cross-section of national capabilities; here we turn to the diplomatic, military, and economic dimensions of national power. The State
Department, U.S. Army, and USAID provide just such a diverse array of national security institutions; each differs from the others in terms of history, culture, and core mission. These organizations also vary in terms of relative size: State is roughly ten times larger than USAID; and the U.S. Army is roughly ten times larger than State. Individually, these organizations are unique and valuable units of analysis. Collectively, they comprise a broader lens for examining national security policy.
These institutions also possess overlapping capabilities and authorities; each demonstrated comparative strengths and weaknesses in the cases examined here. The U.S.
Army’s comparative strength was consistently people – it possessed a large, well-trained and equipped workforce that the institution could deploy to a crisis on demand. State’s strength was consistently politics – its diplomats enjoyed considerable influence achieving desired political decisions.3 USAID’s comparative strength was money – the agency leveraged the economic dimension of statecraft to produce development programs, economic reforms, and technical
3 State diplomats have variously described their role as “gardeners” growing possibilities, “conductors” ensuring that all policy instruments play as one, and “herder[s] of geopolitical cats.” See: William Burns, The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal (New York: Random House, 2019), 407. 8 assistance in the post-combat environment. Each institution also encountered weaknesses or limitations; post-combat problems that the organization lacked the resources or authority to resolve. In the Grenada, Panama, and Kosovo cases – the most successful post-combat cases examined here – the national security institutions worked to solve one another’s impossible problems. This virtuous circle of interagency unity of effort contrasted with the Afghanistan case, where the same institutions devolved over time to a loose confederation of warring tribes – as the security situation worsened and turf battles in Washington spilled over to Kabul. In each case, personal relationships and trust determined the scope and scale of interagency cooperation
– or conflict.
To gage organizational leadership, adaptation, and learning, we require a dynamic, unfamiliar, and high-stakes environment. Anything less can be answered with incremental change, existing operating procedures, traditional foot-dragging, and an occasional turf battle.
Post-combat governance is just such an environment; the task has long been an unpopular and divisive subject for a contemporary United States eager to distance itself from imperial or colonialist ambitions. Since the 1930s, no U.S. bureaucracy was ideally designed, structured, or equipped for the messy work of post-combat operations.4 By 1960, the U.S. military had removed military government from its lexicon. By 1980, no U.S. bureaucracy possessed substantive doctrine, training, or institutional memory on the topic.
Post-combat operations thus represent an ideal venue for testing how national security institutions adapted and learned. From 1983-2008, unexpected post-combat operations provided these institutions with an unfamiliar crisis well outside their core mission or experience. The
4 In 1902, the War Department created the Bureau of Insular Affairs to oversee the administration of Puerto Rico and the Philippines. In the 1930s, it became the Office of Insular Affairs within the Department of the Interior, and dissolved its post-combat core mission. Today this office is responsible for Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and other small island territories, but not Puerto Rico. 9 complexity and uniqueness of each post-combat mission defies easy answers; if U.S. policy goals are to be achieved, then diplomat, soldier, and aid worker must adapt and cooperate. The nature of warfare makes it difficult to predict in advance the extent of wartime devastation, the effectiveness or corruption of a nascent government, and the legitimacy with which U.S. forces and operations are perceived by the affected population. And during the period in question
(1983-2008), the very complexity of post-combat operations challenged each department and agency to press beyond not just its own normal operating boundaries, but also toward a broader interagency unity of effort.
To gage adaptation and differentiate between short-term adaptation and long-term learning and change, this study will apply the same questions to each national security institution
– and each key adaptation – across each case:
• How did each organization approach the key problems in terms of its most precious
commodities: people and resources?
• What were the key adaptations – in each case – that forced each department and agency
from its existing culture and standard procedures to whatever the mission required?
• Was the key adaptation a top-down move by agency executives? Was it a bottom-up
move by agency practitioners reacting to the situation on the ground? Was it outside-in,
the result of a turf battle or other external pressure?
• Was the adaptation a short-term change to standard procedures, or a long-term change to
organizational culture? Did the organization retain lessons-learned?
• Was the adaptation successful?
This dissertation employs a comparative case study to analyze how three national security institutions adapted to conduct post-combat operations. This study addresses four cases spread
10 across four distinct historical moments, each with its own unique political, military, and economic circumstances:
1. The height of the Cold War. The Grenada intervention and post-combat operations
(1983-1985) struck a sudden blow against communism in the western hemisphere, and the
Reagan administration worked assiduously to make the small island a Cold War success story. It was also the first combat mission for the post-Vietnam all-volunteer force; a small-scale military action with potentially large-scale consequences for U.S. foreign policy.
2. The end of the Cold War. The Panama intervention and post-combat operations
(1989-1994) occurred on short-notice and at the inflection point between the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The rise of democracy in eastern Europe and the 1990-1991
Persian Gulf war quickly shifted U.S. political, economic, and military focus away from Panama.
3. The post-Cold War era. Kosovo (1999-2008) occurred as the United States enjoyed almost unrivaled influence as the sole remaining superpower, but in the wake of Clinton-era budget cuts that deeply affected each of the national security institutions. An array of recent nation-building missions, a clear presidential directive on the topic, and congressional interest in burden-sharing reduced turf battles, increased interagency unity of effort, and empowered NATO and the United Nations as lead actors.
4. The 9/11 era. Afghanistan (2001-2008) inaugurated the 9/11 era. Within weeks of commencing hostilities, the U.S. and its partners found themselves in military possession of every major city in Afghanistan. The Bush administration’s early antipathy to Clinton-era nation-building constrained early post-combat efforts, which subsequently suffered from loss of resources to Iraq, meddlesome neighboring powers, and a growing insurgency. Near failure
11 prompted these national security institutions to incorporate more lasting changes than the earlier cases.
Each of these four cases were short-notice missions, requiring urgent adaptation. These cases encompass over two decades of military, diplomatic, and economic history; they occurred across multiple different geographic regions, span four presidential administrations, and include key participatory roles for each of the three organizations (Army, State, and USAID).
Comparing the same organizations across each case permits analysis of how each changed and adapted over time, providing a wealth of within-case and between-case comparisons. The four cases are diverse in terms of host-nation culture, language, and predominant religion, and cover the spectrum from generally unilateral interventions (Grenada and Panama), to a secondary role for the U.S. under the leadership of international organizations (Kosovo), to initially parallel U.S. and allied military structures (Afghanistan). In each case, practitioners adapted in a variety of ways to the situation on the ground, creating a feedback loop to national policy makers and affected institutions alike.
12
THE U.S. ARMY
The U.S. Army is not only the largest bureaucracy examined in this dissertation; it is among the largest in the world. The Army is hierarchical in structure; though it is a streamlined hierarchy, with a clear chain-of-command that connects the most junior private to the president in just a few steps. Numbering roughly a million uniformed soldiers across active, reserve, and
National Guard components, the Army is the largest and oldest of the military services.5 The
Army considers its core mission to be: fight and win our Nation’s wars, a slogan that has echoed through generations of officer training. This combat focus helps unite a stunning array of capabilities: the Army consists of over 150 enlisted and officer career specialties organized into over two dozen branches and functional areas. The most influential of these are the preeminent combat arms branches of infantry, armor, and field artillery, which from 1983-2008 produced every Army chief of staff.6
Political scientist Samuel Huntington characterized the Army’s self-image as “the government’s obedient handyman performing without question or hesitation the jobs assigned to it.”7 Penned in the 1950s, this characterization remains relevant today. In contrast to the U.S.
Navy or Air Force, the Army was and remains “least toy oriented of the three services,” a characteristic the service forgets at its own peril.8 In contrast to State and USAID during this period, the Army invested heavily in training and professional education for its officers. To
5 In addition, the Army employs roughly a quarter million direct-hire civil service employees. See: “United States Army,” Wikipedia, accessed June 29, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army. 6 Every Chief of Staff of the Army from 1983-2008 served in one of these three branches prior to his promotion to general officer. General Peter Schoomaker (2003-2007) was originally an armor officer but spent a considerable portion of his career serving in special operations units. By 2020, the combat arms branches still comprised the Army’s “oligarchy.” See: Kimberly Jackson et al, Raising the Flag: Implications of U.S. Military Approaches to General and Flag Officer Development (Santa Monica, RAND: 2020), 46. 7 Samuel Huntington, The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957), 261. 8 Carl Builder, The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 158. 13 establish the Army’s institutional lens, this dissertation will focus primarily on the Army officers, units, and doctrine most relevant to the post-combat cases examined here.
The Army is what James Q. Wilson called a procedural organization during peacetime, and a craft organization during war. In a procedural organization, supervisors can monitor what subordinates do (output), but cannot clearly observe the end result (outcome). Training exercises are observable (output) but the end result (outcome) is unknowable without an enemy; this relationship reverses in combat, when uncertainty masks what troops are doing (output), while victories and defeats are soon evident (outcome).9 The Army officer must prepare for each environment: the endless repetition and constant supervision of peacetime; and the Clausewitzian fog and friction of war.
Wilson argued that bureaucracies benefited from different types of management, with high-performing procedural organizations relying on constant surveillance and statistical reports, while craft organizations were most successful when their members believe in a shared mission or ethos.10 The Army has adapted to suit both operating environments, leveraging regulations, traditions, and metrics to build upon the former, and cultivating a warrior ethos, shared Army values, and an extensive regimen of professional military education to strengthen the latter.11
Post-combat operations are a particular challenge for the Army, partly because this mission straddles the divide between peace and war; neither familiar environment is a perfect fit.
9 James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 163-165. 10 James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 175. 11 For an insightful analysis of three competing Army “schools of thought” that shape the Army’s vision of warfare, see: Brian McAllister Linn, The Echo of Battle: The Army’s Way of War (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007). 14
The Army’s familiarity with – and propensity for – post-combat operations dissipated in the years after World War II. In 1950, the U.S. military softened its definition of military government, eliminating language from 1943 that had granted “supreme authority” to the occupying force.12 In 1959, in response to pressure from civilian leadership and allies overseas, the U.S. Army abolished the term military government.13 Although the Vietnam-era Army detailed soldiers to advisory duty and to the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development
Support (CORDS), this duty was far from the Army’s core mission, and was not career- enhancing work.14 To the extent that there were post-combat lessons to be learned from
Vietnam, the combat-focused Army viewed those lessons as some other organization’s problem.
Yet the Army also failed to adapt its combat operations to the situation in Vietnam.
Institutional factors, including organizational culture, explain this reluctance to adapt. For the
U.S. Army, preparing for a global war against numerically-superior Soviet and Chinese communist forces was the core mission. The previous century of military history did much to sharpen this singular focus to a razor’s edge. In the American Civil War, two World Wars, and
Korea, the story of the U.S. Army had been largely the same. In each case, the Army was caught unprepared for high-intensity conventional war, and paid a heavy price in its early battles and campaigns. In the nuclear era, outnumbered and outgunned, early defeat was not an option for
Army leadership. The military’s politically-appointed civilian leaders agreed with the Army’s focus on high-intensity conventional war – during and after Vietnam.15 The Army’s refusal to
12 The 1943 definition also saddled the theater commander with “full responsibility” for the actions of the military government. See: United States Army and Navy, Military Government and Civil Affairs, FM27-5 (22 December 1943), 1. See also: Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dictionary of United States Military Terms for Joint Usage (June 1950). 13 Ltr. Hq. USCONARC, Fort Monroe, VA, Subject: “New Title for Civil Affairs Military Government.” File: ATTNG-D&R 312.7/42 (9 June 1959). 14 Andrew Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 232, 260. 15 Andrew Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 275. 15 adapt in Vietnam – and the results it produced – set a precedent that would nudge a future generation of enemies toward unconventional warfare, low-intensity conflict, and terrorism.
The Army entered the 1980s as an institution focused on a conventional war against the
Soviet Union, even as Congress and the president imposed fundamental changes. Having achieved sub-optimal results in Korea, and having weakened its handyman culture with a stubborn reluctance to adapt in Vietnam, the Army struggled with low morale and little constituency with Congress and the public.16 Nevertheless, the Army kept its doctrine and training centered on high intensity conventional warfare against its most dangerous adversary: the looming Soviet threat.17 In the 1970s the military services underwent a major transition from a largely conscription-based force to an all-volunteer force; the institutional significance of this move cannot be overstated. Adaptation in some areas, notably the growing professionalization of the Army, dovetailed with the service’s fixed institutional focus on the Cold War and potential flashpoints in Berlin, West Germany, and the Korean peninsula.
The 1980s brought accelerating change to the Army, as the seeds of professionalization bloomed and Congress imposed additional institutional change in the wake of operational failure.
The Army reestablished its National Training Center (1979-1980) to hone maneuver warfare skills; established a second major training center initially in Arkansas (1987) that later relocated to Louisiana; and adopted a rigorous Army-wide after-action-review process to critique and improve performance.18 The catastrophic failure in 1980 of the Iranian hostage rescue attempt,
16 For an insightful analysis of the Army’s failure to adapt its tactics and strategy to the situation in Vietnam, see Andrew Krepinevich’s work The Army and Vietnam. Krepinevich argued that a variety of institutional factors discouraged the Army from adapting to low-intensity warfare and counterinsurgency operations. Andrew Krepinevich, The Army and Vietnam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). 17 For an in-depth analysis of Army doctrine, see: Walter Kretchik, U.S. Army Doctrine: From the American Revolution to the War on Terror (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011). 18 Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, cited in: Kori N. Schake, State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2012), 16. 16 and mixed results from low-intensity conflicts in Central America, led the Army to revitalize its special operations forces and prompted Congress to establish the United States Special
Operations Command (1987).
This latter move created a four-star command for which Army officers with special operations experience could compete, elevating a secondary community within the Army.
Operational problems, including during the Iranian hostage rescue (1980) and Grenada (1983), led the Army to create an office dedicated to analyzing lessons-learned (1984), and prompted
Congress to pursue broad military reforms with the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense
Reorganization Act (1986).19 By the close of the 1980s, the military services in general and the
Army in particular were in the midst of a renaissance of interest in military strategy.20 Although the Soviet threat remained the Army’s supreme concern, the 1980s began a resurgence of the institution’s handyman culture, with the most dramatic adaptations occurring only in the wake of failure.
The 1990s brought new challenges and opportunities for the professionalized all- volunteer Army.21 The militarily successful 1990-1991 Gulf War dispelled some of the ghosts of
Vietnam and vindicated the Army’s institutional priority of conventional warfare, but it also encouraged a growing “technological romanticism” that benefited high-tech Air Force and Navy
19 The Army Studies Group (1984) was headed by then-Colonel Wesley Clark, and eventually became the Center for Army Lessons Learned. The Goldwater-Nichols Act (1986) strengthened the role of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, mandated greater interoperability among the military services, and made joint service a prerequisite for promotion to general officer. 20 During the 1980s, Professor (and retired Army Colonel) Arthur Lykke authored and refined the ends-ways-means model of military strategy; despite recent inroads by design-based strategic modeling, the Army retains Lykke’s strategic model today. For an illustrative example of this strategic resurgence within the Army and U.S. Southern Command, see: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 1992), 5. 21 For an authoritative Army-centric perspective on the Army’s post-Cold War institutional changes, see: John Sloan Brown, Kevlar Legions: The Transformation of the U.S. Army, 1989-2005 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2011). 17 platforms more than Army troop formations.22 It also discouraged potential adversaries from challenging the United States in conventional warfare, increasing the appeal of asymmetric strategies including guerrilla warfare and terrorism. The collapse of the Soviet Union also deprived the Army of its greatest potential adversary for conventional warfare – and its strongest justification for resources. In the absence of peer adversaries, the military services continually and counterintuitively advocated the need to fight a two-front war as a strategic imperative; this legend helped preserve capacity and limit the inevitable budget cuts.23 The Army mismanaged the subsequent drawdown, downsizing less essential career fields but inadvertently incentivizing top officers to depart the service for lucrative civilian positions. A wave of embarrassing sex scandals also challenged the military’s reputation and autonomy, prompting calls for reform.
By early 2001 the Army appeared to enjoy an enviable and influential position within
Washington. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff position, which normally rotated among the services, was occupied by an Army officer, and had been for nearly eight years. The powerful Secretary of State position, often a bureaucratic rival, was also occupied by a former
Army general: Colin Powell. The Secretary of the Army position, preeminent civilian supervisor of the uniformed service, would soon be filled by Thomas White, a retired Army brigadier general who had served under Colin Powell. The incoming Secretary of Defense, Donald
Rumsfeld, had previously held the defense secretary position, and one of his key advisors and best friends was a former Secretary of the Army.24 Even President Bush’s presidential campaign
22 Some analysts heralded a “Revolution in Military Affairs” based on technology. See: Dima Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation: The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the U.S., and Israel (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 131-133. 23 For a thoughtful discussion of this strategic imperative – or institutional myth – see: Ashton B. Carter, Inside the Five-Sided Box: Lessons from a Lifetime of Service in the Pentagon (New York: Dutton, 2019). 24 Martin Hoffman, Rumsfeld’s former college roommate and Secretary of the Army from 1975-1977, served as Rumsfeld’s legal advisor. See: Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 62. Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training, accessed February 24, 2020, https://adst.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Natsios-Andrew.pdf. 18 rhetoric, advised by a half dozen “Vulcans” headed by Condoleezza Rice, had echoed the
Army’s longstanding informal slogan: that the military’s mission was to win wars – not nation- building.25 Though initially promising, the Army’s honeymoon with the George W. Bush administration – and the Rumsfeld Pentagon in particular – did not last.
In the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks, the military services sought to leverage the sudden influx in defense spending to advance existing institutional priorities. The
Army’s part of this frenzy was to request funding for the ATACMS, a long-range anti-tank rocket useless in fighting insurgents or terrorists.26 Increasingly bitter funding battles followed, with the Army pressing its case for a massive howitzer too large to fit in any cargo aircraft
(Crusader), a prohibitively-expensive scout helicopter (Comanche), and an overall increase in
Army end strength designed to create additional Cold War-era troop formations.27 This pitted the Army’s considerable political clout against a secretary of defense intent on transforming the military into a lighter, leaner, more agile force tailored to the 9/11 world. As the Pentagon’s comptroller later wrote, “what Rumsfeld had was a bias against hidebound thinking and excessive parochialism…the essential trust so necessary between the secretary’s office and the service had disappeared.”28 Instead of cashing in on windfalls of defense spending, Army leaders were making credibility withdrawals from their account with the reform-minded secretary of defense.
25 Seth G. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009), 113. 26 Dov Zakheim, A Vulcan’s Tale: How the Bush Administration Mismanaged the Reconstruction of Afghanistan (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2011), 83. 27 The Crusader and Comanche both suffered from spiraling development costs. Dov Zakheim, A Vulcan’s Tale: How the Bush Administration Mismanaged the Reconstruction of Afghanistan (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2011), 148-155. 28 Dov Zakheim, A Vulcan’s Tale: How the Bush Administration Mismanaged the Reconstruction of Afghanistan (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2011), 155. 19
When the Army secretary and chief of staff later needed to convince the secretary of defense on vital operational matters – troop levels for the Iraq invasion and post-combat operations – they found their credibility account overdrawn. In particular, the bureaucratic battle over the Crusader “presaged the bitter rift…over the size of the force that was required to prosecute the invasion and occupation of Iraq. It is impossible to understand the latter without the former.”29 Institutional factors thus lay at the heart of the fateful decision on U.S. troop levels and resources for Iraq: more than enough to hobble post-combat operations in
Afghanistan, but too few to provide stability in Iraq. The post-combat situation in both
Afghanistan and Iraq predictably deteriorated.
Having lost the bureaucratic battle that mattered most, the Army’s chief of staff retired in
2003. Rather than select one of the Army’s pantheon of serving officers, Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld recommended a retired general for the post. General Peter Schoomaker had served much of his career in special operations assignments rather than the Army’s preeminent conventional combat units.30 This was an unambiguous message from the defense secretary to the Army as an institution. Rumsfeld also threatened the Secretary of the Army with dismissal in April 2003 and sacked him in late 2004, complaining that the civilian secretary was too close to the Army’s institutional priorities.31 The Army’s early battlefield victories in Afghanistan and
Iraq did little to repair the rift within the Pentagon, and only reinforced the defense secretary’s confidence in a light footprint.
29 Dov Zakheim, A Vulcan’s Tale: How the Bush Administration Mismanaged the Reconstruction of Afghanistan (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2011), 155. 30 Rumsfeld initially offered the position to General Jack Keane, a former infantry officer, who declined for family reasons. Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown (New York: Sentinel, 2011), 653. 31 Secretary of the Army Thomas E. White was also a retired Army brigadier general. Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown (New York: Sentinel, 2011), 651-655. 20
In terms of personnel policies, the Army faced myriad challenges in the early 1980s but by 2008 had evolved into a reasonably well-oiled machine. The 1970s transition to an all- volunteer force was a long-term advantage, but low initial pay and incentives increased the difficulty of recruiting and retaining high-quality soldiers. In 1980 Congress standardized officer personnel management, including the promotion and retirement system.32 Like its sister military services, and in contrast to State, the Army learned to match its current operational requirements to its recruiting, training, promotion, and educational standards; leveraged specialty pays to close capability gaps or meet retention goals; and retrained or restructured its workforce as necessary.33 The Army interspersed professional military education throughout an officer’s career – not only to prepare for and reflect upon command – but also to signal whether individual soldiers were competitive for the next promotion; an important consideration in a profession constrained by a rigid up-or-out promotion system.34 The Army personnel system was soon optimized to produce well-rounded colonels – each possessing a diverse range of tactical, strategic, and educational experience – to compete for general officer.
The Army’s peacetime status as a procedural organization encouraged its flirtation with metrics to become a happy marriage. Metrics – in the form of battles won, casualties lost, and logistics moved – have long played a role in military decision making; but the Department of
Defense under Robert McNamara elevated metrics from art to science. The Pentagon comptroller installed systematic, long-term quantitative analyses designed to improve
32 The Defense Officer Personnel Management Act was passed in 1980 and imposed an up-or-out promotion system in which officers not selected for promotion were forced to depart the service. 33 Kori N. Schake, State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2012), 33. 34 During this period, an Army officer might spend four years in a classroom over a twenty-five-year career; while a State diplomat might receive only initial-entry training and perhaps some foreign language courses. Kori N. Schake, State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2012), 47, 118. 21 justification and accountability for defense programs. Much of this system remains in use today.
By the 1980s, the Army had fully embraced quantitative analysis to justify its planning, programming, and budget to the Department of Defense and national leadership.35 The disciplined use of metrics – by a procedural bureaucracy whose peacetime nature made statistical analysis straightforward – allowed the Army to increase transparency and improve its constituency with Defense and Congress. The Army’s growing faith in quantitative analysis penetrated to the lowest levels of the Army, where metrics in performance evaluations helped separate officers from their peers at promotion boards.
Metrics, which benefit a procedural organization in peacetime, lose much of their charm for a craft organization at war. The McNamara Pentagon infamously placed enemy body count in Vietnam upon the altar of quantitative analysis; an unverifiable metric ill-suited to the fog of jungle combat against an often-invisible enemy. This complemented the Army’s institutional incentive to leverage metrics for officer promotions; together these factors encouraged the widespread inflation of unprovable statistics. A similar dynamic would bedevil future post- combat operations in places like Afghanistan, where the Army’s preference for quantifiable success fell victim to decentralized operations, manipulative local political actors, and the fog of counterinsurgency.36 A separate metrics-based approach to military planning known as Effects-
Based-Operations gained prominence during this period, but its promise of objectivity, simplicity, and transparency collapsed in a wartime environment characterized by subjectivity,
35 Here the terms “metrics” and “quantitative analysis” unfairly aggregate three schools of defense analyst wizardry: operations analysis, systems analysis, and requirements analysis. By 1989, the Army’s approach to quantitative analysis prized “detail and scope” even “at the expense of clarity or understanding.” McNamara’s analytical reforms, called the Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS), remain in place today. See: Carl Builder, The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 103-105. 36 For a detailed study on the wartime shortcomings of metrics, see: Ben Connable, Embracing the Fog of War (Santa Monica: RAND, 2012). See also: Leo Blanken et al, Assessing War: The Challenge of Measuring Success and Failure (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2015). 22 complexity, and opacity.37 Luckily for the Army, Congress exempted military reconstruction funds from the laborious and metrics-laden legislative burdens placed upon USAID’s foreign aid spending.
Less dependent on justifying and procuring particular toys than other military services, the Army is generally open to – and can often provide – a wider range of tactical or strategic solutions.38 A platoon of Army infantry can perform many tactical tasks in a war zone; a Navy nuclear submarine crew but few; and an Air Force nuclear ballistic missile crew only one. This mix of open-mindedness, a diverse array of capabilities, and its handyman culture, has perhaps helped the Army limit overt service parochialism and build constituency with senior policymakers. To date, ten Army generals have been selected to head the Pentagon as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, nearly as many as the Navy (5), Air Force (4), and Marine Corps (2) combined.39 Although the joint staff enjoyed less power than the individual military services, during the period examined in this dissertation, the Army often enjoyed the last word in strategic and policy debates.40
Parochialism may appear less visible in the Army than other military branches, but it is not absent. The Army has occasionally waged turf battles with its sister services, sometimes to spur adaptation (such as leveraging the reluctant Air Force to procure more remotely-piloted
37 Ben Connable, Embracing the Fog of War (Santa Monica: RAND, 2012), 77. 38 Carl Builder, The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 158. 39 Navy Admiral David Jeremiah served 23 days as acting chairman in 1993; excepting Jeremiah reduces the Navy’s number to four. During the period 1983-2008, the Army provided four of the seven chairmen (again excluding Admiral Jeremiah). 40 For a discussion of the services, not the Joint Chiefs of Staff, remaining the most powerful U.S. military institutions, see: Dima Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation: The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the U.S., and Israel (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 84, 132. For the Army often getting the last word, see: Eliot Cohen, “Kosovo and the New American Way of War,” in War Over Kosovo: Politics and Strategy in a Global Age, ed. Andrew Bacevich and Eliot Cohen (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 53. 23 surveillance drones after 2001) and sometimes to slow it (such as leveraging the Air Force to retain its aging fleet of A-10 close air support aircraft). The Army’s periodic – and failed – raids on the Marine Corps and its resources lend particular insight. The Navy fought doggedly to retain its marines; and the Marine Corps protected itself through a distinct culture (“every marine a rifleman”) and unique core mission (that of projecting power from the sea-to-shore). But the adaptation that most cemented the survival of the Marine Corps was its cultivation of a strong constituency with Congress, affected through a legislative liaison office that treated every congressional interaction with kid gloves and red carpet. The Marine Corps preserved its autonomy by earning the respect and admiration of members of Congress, an achievement that
State and USAID were unable to imitate during this period.
The Army and its sister services have long provided a “conveyer belt into the middle class,” and despite challenges with diversity – particularly at its most senior ranks – the Army made considerable strides from 1982-2008.41 During this period, the Army promoted its first
Hispanic brigadier general (1982), its first Asian-American brigadier general (1984), and its second African-American four-star general (1989). This latter officer was Colin Powell, who became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and later served as secretary of state. In 2005, the
Army established a Diversity Office to research future policy options; by 2008, the Army had 21 female general officers, including the military’s first female four-star general.42
41 Kori N. Schake, State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2012), 46. 42 “The Army and Diversity,” U.S. Army Center of Military History, accessed July 2, 2020, https://history.army.mil/html/faq/diversity.html. 24
THE U.S. ARMY: CONCLUSION
The Army is a procedural organization during peacetime, and a craft organization in times of war. Its decades-long marriage with metrics leads to institutional bliss in the former environment, but manipulation and scorn in the latter. Less toy centric than other military services, the Army’s preferred self-image is that of the obedient handyman, prepared to handle any challenge. Despite this adaptive outlook, the Army remained focused on high-intensity conventional warfare long after the collapse of the Soviet threat, and many of its adaptations during this period emerged in the shadow of imminent or actual failure. Organized as a streamlined hierarchy, and with considerable investment in training and professional education, the Army enjoys comparatively few institutional constraints to adaptation – provided its leadership is convinced of the need.
25
THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
The U.S. Department of State is bifurcated between career officers and political appointees; its bureaucracy is “turfy, slow, and dauntingly hierarchical.”43 It is the second largest bureaucracy examined within this dissertation, and arguably the most resistant to change.
Today State encompasses some 75,000-permanent staff, most of these are locally-employed foreign nationals serving at 277 U.S. embassies and overseas posts; fewer than 8,000 are career
Foreign Service Officers.44 The Department of State also includes around two dozen functional bureaus comprised mainly of civil service employees. State’s core mission is diplomacy, and its diplomats are by necessity policy entrepreneurs – a point emphasized by Ambassador James
Dobbins, whose diplomatic career spanned five decades:
Diplomacy is still largely about getting other governments to do what your government wants, and all governments are made up of people. Identifying the right people to talk to and establishing a degree of mutual trust are the first steps toward almost any objective. All governments, democratic or authoritarian, are also bureaucracies, and the successful diplomat must maneuver within his own government to secure adequate resources and realizable objectives, and within other governments to achieve those objectives.45
To establish State’s institutional lens, this dissertation will focus primarily on the Foreign
Service, regional bureaus, the politically-appointed leadership, and the functional offices that played important roles in the four case studies.46
43 State’s structure is notoriously top-heavy; more so than the Army or USAID. For example, six layers of bureaucracy separate the Ireland desk officer from the secretary of state. Ronald McMullen, “United States,” in Modern Diplomacy in Practice, ed. Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri (Cham: Palmgrave Macmillan, 2020), 198. 44 Ronald McMullen, “United States,” in Modern Diplomacy in Practice, ed. Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri (Cham: Palmgrave Macmillan, 2020), 196. 45 James Dobbins, Foreign Service: Five Decades on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy (Santa Monica: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), xiv. 46 This focus excludes many thousands of State Department foreign service nationals and civil servants who comprise a numerical majority of the State Department’s workforce. The functional offices of greatest interest include: the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM); the bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL); and the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS), which was established in 2004 and was converted to a functional bureau in 2011. 26
The Department of State enjoys a privileged position within the interagency arena and
U.S. foreign policy. State was the first cabinet department to be established. The secretary of state is often the face of United States foreign policy, normally enjoys regular access to the president, and is fourth in the line of presidential succession. In foreign countries, the U.S. ambassador serves as the president’s direct representative and oversees virtually all other U.S. agencies operating in-country.47 In the modern post-combat environment as with other overseas crises, State’s value proposition centers on keeping “multiple bureaucracies working in harness” with the ambassador providing coordination and direction.48 Although specific percentages vary by presidential administration, roughly thirty percent of ambassadors are political appointees, and most of the remaining ambassadorships go to career Foreign Service Officers. Ambassadors that are political appointees typically receive a Foreign Service Officer as their Deputy Chief of
Mission, cementing State’s influence within U.S. embassies overseas. While diplomats seldom command the first or loudest voice within policy debates in Washington, overseas their authority and influence is considerable; every diplomatic post is a de facto extension of State’s turf.
The professional Foreign Service was established in 1924, and reformed through legislation in 1980; State interpreted the both events as a mandate to seek out the best and brightest. In a stunning contrast to USAID’s hiring practices or the Army’s recruitment standards, State’s prestigious Foreign Service selects only three out of every hundred qualified applicants for accession as diplomats.49 This brings the benefit of an elite diplomatic corps comprised of well-educated, patriotic, upper-middle class diplomats; and the institutional
47 Ronald McMullen, “United States,” in Modern Diplomacy in Practice, ed. Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri (Cham: Palmgrave Macmillan, 2020), 190. 48 James Dobbins, Foreign Service: Five Decades on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy (Santa Monica: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 154. 49 Ronald McMullen, “United States,” in Modern Diplomacy in Practice, ed. Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri (Cham: Palmgrave Macmillan, 2020), 199. 27 drawback of replicating an elitist cadre of “pale males from Yale.”50 The Foreign Service prizes
“improvisation, intuition, and experience,” and its recruits are typically motivated by living overseas or making policy; sometimes both.51 Ninety-five percent of those hired receive
“tenure” after four years.52 Tenure provides remarkable career stability to the junior foreign service officer, but it also encourages inertia within a workforce largely immune to the priorities of short-term, politically appointed supervisors. Perhaps because of this, few secretaries of state have pursued meaningful institutional change within the Department; fewer still have succeeded.
The modern State Department has struggled to craft a shared historical narrative for its members. During World War II, State had been “adrift…pushed about by collisions with more purposeful craft,” and the successful post-War occupations of Germany and Japan were dominated by the Army, while State remained stubbornly divorced from “the practicalities of current problems and power relationships.”53 The post-War years produced major diplomatic successes, including George Kennan’s Long Telegram, the European Recovery Program, and an expansion of the Foreign Service to its modern size.54 Yet much of this period was shaped by the institutional influence of George Marshall – a former Army chief of staff.
50 Ronald McMullen, “United States,” in Modern Diplomacy in Practice, ed. Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri (Cham: Palmgrave Macmillan, 2020), 192-193. Kori Schake persuasively argues that “the Foreign Service is content to replicate itself rather than evolve, and has been permitted to.” See: Kori N. Schake, State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2012), 36. 51 Ronald McMullen, “United States,” in Modern Diplomacy in Practice, ed. Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri (Cham: Palmgrave Macmillan, 2020), 199. Living overseas or making policy: James Dobbins, Foreign Service: Five Decades on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy (Santa Monica: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 86. 52 Kori N. Schake, State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2012), 28. 53 Secretary of State Dean Acheson, quoted in: Kori N. Schake, State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2012), 19. 54 The Long Telegram helped establish the foundation for a U.S. strategy of containment against the Soviet Union. The Foreign Service grew from 840 personnel in 1940 to 7,710 in 1950. Harry Kopp and John Naland, Career Diplomacy: Life and Work in the U.S. Foreign Service (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2017), 14. Cited in: Ronald McMullen, “United States,” in Modern Diplomacy in Practice, ed. Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri (Cham: Palmgrave Macmillan, 2020), 191. 28
Contemporary Foreign Service Officers view the 1980s and early 1990s as the golden era of American diplomacy. During the Reagan administration, the Shultz State Department enjoyed interagency primacy, chairing interagency working groups and often outmaneuvering its bureaucratic rivals. The Iran-Contra scandal temporarily checked the growing power of the rival
White House National Security Council staff, while State brokered an array of prestigious arms control and trade agreements. The end of the Cold War brought unprecedented diplomatic influence and seminal triumphs for State in the form of Germany’s reunification and the Gulf
War coalition that ousted the Iraqi military from Kuwait. However, this diplomatic golden era soon gave way to a peace dividend – bringing downsizing to a State Department beset by stubbornly low morale.55 By 1999, State absorbed two smaller agencies and gained influence over a third (USAID).
State’s apparent primacy reversed course in the 9/11 era as State’s influence waned and that of the military and National Security Council steadily grew – a phenomenon that State diplomats considered to be “the era of the great inversion.”56 State Department advocates decry the resulting “over-militarization” of foreign policy, lobby for a fraction of the resources and trust lavished upon the military, and remind observers that for 25 years after Vietnam the military was training while State’s diplomats were “in the field doing diplomacy.”57 Critics of
55 Asked about the State Department’s chronic problem with low morale, Ambassador James Dobbins explained “I’ve never known the consensus in the State Department to be, ‘Boy, our morale is pretty good.’ It’s the most chronic group of whiners and complainers I’ve ever been associated with.” James Dobbins, Oral History, 182. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 56 Burns acknowledged that State overreached as its funding and role diminished after 9/11, taking on missions without adequate expertise or means: “We compounded the problem by failing to build the expertise and operational agility that we’d need to confront the increasingly urgent challenges of this century…[making] it infinitely harder to demonstrate the power and purpose of American diplomacy at its best, precisely when we needed it most….” William Burns, The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal (New York: Random House, 2019), 407. 57 Ronald McMullen, “United States,” in Modern Diplomacy in Practice, ed. Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri (Cham: Palmgrave Macmillan, 2020), 204. For a State-centric perspective, see also: Ronan Farrow, War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2018), xix- xxiii. 29
State label this “Pentagon envy” and view State as “an underperforming institution” that has mismanaged its existing resources while doing little to build transparency and trust with a skeptical Congress.58
Much of this disconnect is explained by James Q. Wilson’s bureaucracy theory. State’s mission of diplomacy makes it a coping organization; one whose processes (outputs) and results
(outcomes) are not readily visible, even to its own managers and executives. This makes it difficult for the organization to measure success, reward or punish operators, estimate or program resources, or demonstrate return-on-investment. Wilson insightfully summarized the problem:
Some of the activities of diplomats (for example, private conversations with their counterparts in a foreign government) are not observed and many of the outcomes (for example, changes in foreign perceptions of U.S. interests or in foreign attitudes toward U.S. initiatives) cannot easily be judged…In coping organizations effective management is almost impossible.59
Predictably, coping organizations like State find it more challenging to supervise its members or build a constituency within Congress and the public. State’s organizational culture exacerbates this challenge by prioritizing the least measurable and most opaque aspects of its mission (like bilateral diplomacy and multilateral negotiations), while devaluing others (like consular services and public diplomacy) that are easier to measure and more valued by Congress and the public.60
58 The phrase “Pentagon envy” belongs to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; the remainder of the critique belongs to Kori Schake, a veteran of both the Pentagon and the State Department. Quoted in: Kori N. Schake, State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2012), 8, 135. 59 James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 168, 175. 60 The disconnect between State’s institutional priorities and external expectations often runs deep. Secretary Rice recalled examining the department’s reward system and finding “thirty awards for political reporting, none for civil- military cooperation, and none for deploying to the wars.” Kori N. Schake, State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2012), 41, 105-106, 120. 30
Nowhere is this constituency challenge more apparent than with State’s checkered relationship with Congress. Diplomats maintain that “there is no constituency for foreign policy,” and they are correct – to a point. Many other bureaucracies – those Wilson labeled production, procedural, or craft organizations – can more easily point to measurable goals, show progress, and in so doing increase transparency:
The secretary of state, by contrast, does nothing for any [Congress] member’s district, can rarely prove that progress is being made toward any important goal, and sometimes must be less than frank in order to safeguard delicate negotiations or preserve political options. Small wonder that secretaries of state spend so much time staying as far away from Washington as possible.61
Yet State has made few coherent or long-term attempts to change this dynamic, despite the fact that its strained relationship with Congress has cost the department dearly over time. Members of Congress launched public attacks on State in the 1940s and 1950s under the guise of Lavender and Red Scare investigations, stripped State of much of its trade portfolio in the 1960s, and imposed legislative reforms to professionalize the Foreign Service in 1980. Obstructionist senators, notably Senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), routinely delayed or blocked the appointment of foreign service officers nominated to leadership positions or ambassadorships.62
Because of the difficulty in evaluating success and failure in work outcomes, coping organizations also tend to pit operators in the field against distant managers who can never be sure whether the few successes or problems they observe are isolated or endemic.63 This institutional tension has blocked State from building its relationship with the White House; an
61 James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 253. 62 Senator Helms is believed to have “single-handedly stopped more ambassadorial appointments than anybody else in the Senate by far.” Sherman Funk, Oral History, 29. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 63 James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 175. 31 eventuality that might aid the department’s leverage with Congress. Instead, State is hamstrung by its bifurcated structure, with its corresponding tension between career officers and political appointees. To impose the president’s policy aims on a notoriously unmanageable agency, State has many leadership positions, nearly all of which are occupied by political appointees who
“overwhelmingly view the career Foreign Service as impediments to the president’s agenda, not allies in its development.”64
The results are a top-heavy hierarchy and something of a vicious circle. Presidents tend to be skeptical rather than supportive of their career diplomats; Nixon for example had vowed to
“ruin” the Foreign Service, and only one Foreign Service Officer has served as secretary of state.65 This tension is reciprocated by Foreign Service Officers skeptical of the professional competence of those selected for leadership or ambassadorships based on political credentials or campaign contributions. State’s bifurcation – into competing tribes of tenured careerists and short-term, politically-appointed supervisors – strengthens political oversight but simultaneously increases State’s resistance to change.66
The output/outcome measurement problem is worsened by another aspect of State’s culture: it is allergic to quantitative metrics. The tasks that State prioritizes – bilateral and multilateral diplomacy – are inherently more difficult to measure than its lowest-priority tasks, such as consular services and public diplomacy. And while other institutions, like the Army and
USAID, go to great lengths to safeguard taxpayer dollars and demonstrate return-on-investment
64 Kori N. Schake, State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2012), 37. 65 CBS News, “Nixon Wanted to ‘Ruin’ Foreign Service,” January 4, 2007, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nixon- wanted-to-ruin-foreign-service/. Lawrence Eagleburger served as secretary of state briefly under the George H.W. Bush administration. 66 State’s Civil Service employees form a third tribe with “generally constructive” relationships. Ronald McMullen, “United States,” in Modern Diplomacy in Practice, ed. Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri (Cham: Palmgrave Macmillan, 2020), 205. 32 to Congress, State’s diplomats are reluctant to do so. The view of Ambassador Ronald
Neumann, who oversaw Afghanistan’s post-combat reconstruction from 2005-2007, is instructive:
Metrics – collecting statistics to measure how programs are performing – often actually retards actual work…I cannot recall an instance in which the data reported in this process told us of a problem of which we were aware by other means. While we continued to faithfully produce numbers each week…it was never seen as anything more than a distraction.67
In contrast, the Army and USAID incorporate metrics into a broader narrative of resource management and oversight, building trust with Congress in the long run. The Army leverages a robust Department of Defense comptroller system, and USAID leverages rigorous contracting best-practices and vetted networks of vendors. Although each national security institution chafed under the growing demand for metrics during this period, State did not even have an equivalent to the Department of Defense comptroller until 2009.68
State has long struggled to adapt at an institutional level. Nowhere more apparent than in its Foreign Service personnel processes, which have consistently lagged behind Congressional expectations. Prior to 1971, female Foreign Service Officers were required to resign if they married; by 1976, only 4 percent were black; and in 1980 Congress intervened with legislation that standardized personnel structure and required representativeness.69 In 1989, the department lost gender- and race-based discrimination lawsuits initiated years prior.70 By 1992, a dozen years after Congress mandated representativeness, special fellowships streamlined the hiring
67 Ronald Neumann, The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2009), 199-200. 68 Kori N. Schake, State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2012), 11. 69 Ronald McMullen, “United States,” in Modern Diplomacy in Practice, ed. Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri (Cham: Palmgrave Macmillan, 2020), 192-193. 70 The Palmer case (initiated in 1976) alleged discrimination against female diplomats, the Thomas case (initiated in 1985) alleged racism against African-Americans. 33 process for women, minorities, and those in financial need.71 In the 9/11 era the department was slow to implement effective incentives for its diplomats to volunteer for post-combat service in
Iraq or Afghanistan.72 A 2007 study revealed that the department had done little to adapt its hiring, training, and personnel practices to reflect current and emerging requirements.73 In 2008, seven years into the 9/11 era, State was still hiring more of what it already had rather than critically assessing its requirements and adapting to hire or train the skills it needed. 74
Each of the secretaries of state during this period (1983-2008) brought a different approach to wrangling the State Department bureaucracy. George Shultz brought few staffers with him, made no personnel or structural changes, balanced political appointees and career diplomats in key positions, and relied heavily on State’s existing bureaus.75 James Baker solicited early feedback from predecessor Henry Kissinger, who half-jokingly warned Baker that
State’s bureaucrats are “very ingenious. They give you three choices: nuclear war, unconditional surrender, and their preferred course of action.”76 Baker heeded Kissinger’s warning and brought his own inner circle, segregating the secretary from the bureaucracy and enforcing presidential priorities.77 Baker later wrote that “the natural tendency of any bureaucracy is to do
71 These Pickering and Rangel programs accounted for 60 candidates per year, a considerable number during the 1990s when the Foreign Service hired around 150 per year. These programs did much to increase the diversity of the Foreign Service over time. Ronald McMullen, “United States,” in Modern Diplomacy in Practice, ed. Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri (Cham: Palmgrave Macmillan, 2020), 200. 72 Incentives for one-year expeditionary assignments eventually included increased pay, the promise of a desirable follow-on posting, and increased chance of promotion. By 2012, approximately 40% of the Foreign Service had deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. Ronald McMullen, “United States,” in Modern Diplomacy in Practice, ed. Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri (Cham: Palmgrave Macmillan, 2020), 194. 73 Center for Strategic and International Studies, The Embassy of the Future, 9. 74 In contrast, the Army routinely adjusts its recruitment and retention goals, offers cash incentives to close capabilities gaps, and retrains personnel with obsolete specialties. See: Kori N. Schake, State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2012), 33. 75 James Dobbins, Foreign Service: Five Decades on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy (Santa Monica: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 74-75. 76 James A. Baker, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989-1992 (New York: Putnam, 1995), 29. 77 James Dobbins, Foreign Service: Five Decades on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy (Santa Monica: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 104. 34 nothing. That is true in spades at State, where doing something can lead to war or…even worse from the bureaucracy’s perspective, conflicts with regional clients.”78 Warren Christopher and
Madeleine Albright implemented the Clinton-era post-Cold War peace dividend, downsizing
State by reducing Foreign Service accessions to below the attrition rate. With the exception of a major reorganization in 1999 to be discussed later, Albright invested her considerable charm and talent in dealing with foreign policy crises such as Kosovo rather than institutional matters; she later regretted her inability to forge a better relationship with State’s career diplomats.79
During this period Secretaries Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice attempted sweeping changes to State’s organizational culture through increased professional education and training.
Career diplomats respected Powell but alleged he was trying to make State into the Army; or complained that Rice was “trying to make State into [US]AID, and we all resent it.”80 Powell leveraged seven former colonels and generals in senior leadership positions at State, and changed administrative rules to require training course attendance; but his distant relationship with the president undercut the agency’s buy-in.81 Although less management-focused than Powell,
Rice’s credibility benefited from her close relationship with the president. She suspended bidding on overseas posts until diplomatic vacancies in combat zones were filled, and threatened to fire any assistant secretary of state who stonewalled her training reforms.82 In the long run, many of these reforms were hamstrung by an organizational culture that equated training – or
78 James A. Baker, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989-1992 (New York: Putnam, 1995), 29. 79 James Dobbins, Foreign Service: Five Decades on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy (Santa Monica: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 306-307. 80 Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 75. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 81 Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 44, 73. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. Also: William Inboden, interview with the author, August 25, 2020. 82 Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 44, 73. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 35 institutional change – with punishment.83 By 2012, State’s Foreign Service retained only a single mid-career management course from Secretary Powell’s educational reforms; by 2019
State had reversed course by (again) offering its Foreign Service Officers additional leadership courses, professional development opportunities, and advanced education fellowships.84
83 Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 44. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 84 Kori N. Schake, State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2012), 96. See also: Ronald McMullen, “United States,” in Modern Diplomacy in Practice, ed. Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri (Cham: Palmgrave Macmillan, 2020), 207. 36
THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE: CONCLUSION
State is a coping bureaucracy; an organization in which neither its internal processes
(outputs) nor its external results (outcomes) are readily visible. This makes State’s diplomatic functions difficult to supervise and nearly impossible to manage. It also increases the institutional difficulty of demonstrating return-on-investment and undermines State’s ability to achieve transparency and build trust with key constituencies including Congress, the White
House, and the public. During this period, competition with the increasingly influential National
Security Council and Pentagon, along with advances in electronic communications and the modern news cycle, degraded State’s comparative advantage. State is further disadvantaged by a number of institutional features that generate inertia, increasing the institution’s resistance to change. These inertia-generating institutional features include: tenure among its Foreign Service employees, a top-heavy hierarchy, bifurcation between career and politically-appointed officers, and its institutional allergy to metrics.
37
THE U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (USAID)
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is small, decentralized, and commands less interagency influence than its larger Army and State cousins. Its career officers tend toward well-intentioned idealism and tend to view economic development as almost a religion.85 In post-combat operations USAID’s role is that of the unsung hero: its successes are often credited to State or the Army, while diplomacy or security setbacks are often branded as development failures.86 USAID is the smallest and youngest bureaucracy examined within this dissertation, and the one that has faced the greatest struggle to achieve autonomy.
Created in 1961 to institutionalize the successful aspects of the Marshall Plan, USAID’s core mission is foreign economic development, which the agency pursues by implementing U.S. foreign aid overseas. Between 1983 and 2008, USAID saw considerable changes in size, structure, and mission focus. The modern USAID comprises over 11,000 staff with roughly sixty percent serving overseas at permanent missions in 87 countries and 19 additional non- permanent programs.87 As Administrator M. Peter McPherson explained, USAID is a small agency with a weak constituency but access to development funds, so USAID Administrators
have to sleep with their sword under their bed so to speak because somebody is always trying to get your money, trying to get your program. You have to build the relationships; you had to be prepared to struggle. Such struggles are necessary for leadership of most federal government agencies, but [US]AID is particularly subject to attack for a range of reasons.88
85 Tom Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. David Cohen, interview with the author, September 16, 2020. 86 Patrick Fine, Oral History, 100. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. Fine served as the USAID Mission Director in Afghanistan from 2004-2005. 87 As of 2016, 4,200 employees were non-U.S. citizens (Foreign Service Nationals); 3,900 direct hire (Civil Service and Foreign Service); the remaining employees were hired under other mechanisms. “USAID: Agency Review Transition Binder 2016,” https://www.governmentattic.org/30docs/USAIDpresidentTransDocs_2016.pdf. 88 M. Peter McPherson, Oral History, 28. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. McPherson was USAID Administrator from 1981-1987. 38
Like many bureaucracies, USAID includes distinct tribes. This dissertation will examine USAID as an institution principally composed of the agency’s executives and two subordinate tribes: the regional bureaus focused on USAID’s core mission of foreign economic development; and the smaller, short-term, disaster response offices.89
As an infant bureaucracy born during the Cold War, USAID received the mandate to consolidate the nascent field of U.S. foreign aid into a coherent policy instrument. As a decentralized agency with no monopoly on U.S. foreign aid and little domestic constituency,
USAID was unable to do so. The agency struggled to overcome a congenital birth defect: whether to focus its aid programs on its core mission of long-term economic development, or as leverage to advance near-term diplomatic or military objectives. USAID’s ideological preference for the former invited friction with larger, more influential organizations focused on short-term pragmatic results, like State and Defense.90 USAID emerged as a weak player within the Executive branch; a subcabinet-level, semi-autonomous agency that struggled to find a seat at the crowded interagency table.91
In 2004, President George W. Bush and Congress addressed USAID’s birth defect by creating the Millennium Challenge Corporation as a separate bilateral aid agency. Under this new system, recipient countries competed for aid programs, received a scorecard for their economic policies, and were held strictly accountable for program implementation.92 This
89 The disaster response offices of interest include: the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, the Food For Peace program (FFP), the Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI), and the Disaster Assistance Response Teams (DARTs). The latter two capabilities were adaptations created during the period examined within this dissertation. 90 USAID considers itself to possess the more “strategic” perspective; while State is “reactive” in nature. See: Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 68. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 91 Carol Lancaster, Foreign Aid (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 101. 92 The Secretary of State chairs the Millennium Challenge Corporation Board; the USAID Administrator is also on the Board. Both USAID and the Millennium Challenge Corporation are bilateral aid organizations, linking U.S. foreign aid to an individual recipient country. The U.S. government also utilizes multilateral aid agencies such as the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme. 39 released USAID to move closer to State’s orbit by focusing on advancing U.S. interests, emergent political crises, and supporting recipient countries unable to reach the Millennium
Challenge threshold. By 2006, State had consolidated its authority – if not direct control – over
USAID’s foreign aid operations and budget.
With the exception of the Marshall Plan – which predated USAID and consisted largely of reconstructing societies that were already modern and industrialized – many early foreign aid programs achieved failure rather than success.93 USAID launched a massive program in
Vietnam which failed spectacularly amid an unstable combat environment, a corrupt and inefficient recipient government, and restrictions emplaced by State and the Army. The aid agency hemorrhaged credibility, personnel, and resources to competing multilateral organizations in the 1970s and 1980s.94
The budget and personnel cuts of the 1990s devastated USAID to a greater degree than
State or the Army. In 1980, USAID had 4,058 permanent employees; by 2001, the number was
2,200, a 45 percent reduction that the agency mitigated by hiring contractors and foreign nationals.95 Congressional attacks on foreign aid grew so severe that the Clinton administration shifted many aid programs to agencies with more entrenched constituencies, including
Agriculture, Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services.96 After 9/11, policymakers rediscovered the links between the developing world, foreign aid spending, and national security;
93 Lawrence Korb, “Foreign Aid and Security,” in Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Lessons for the Next Half Century, ed. Louis A. Picard et al (New York: Routledge, 2008), 17. 94 David Ekbladh, The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 202, 222. 95 Andrew Natsios, “The Clash of the Counter-bureaucracy and Development,” Center for Global Development, July 13, 2010, http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1424271. 96 See: Lawrence Korb, “Foreign Aid and Security,” in Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Lessons for the Next Half Century, ed. Louis A. Picard et al (New York: Routledge, 2008), 31. See also: W. Haven North and Jeanne Foote North, “Transformations in U.S. Foreign Economic Assistance,” in Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Lessons for the Next Half Century, ed. Louis A. Picard et al (New York: Routledge, 2008), 291-292. 40
USAID also eventually benefited from sustained post-combat operations in Afghanistan and
Iraq.97
USAID is an example of what James Q. Wilson labeled a craft organization; one whose processes (outputs) are not readily visible, but whose results (outcomes) can be observed. This encourages a decentralized structure, but incurs the challenge of achieving policy integration within a dispersed bureaucracy, and limits operator evaluation to the end results achieved.98
Over a decade prior to Wilson’s book, former USAID economist Judith Tendler described the aid agency’s bureaucracy in almost identical terms:
In sum, [US]AID’s task differed significantly from that of a home-based moneyspending bureaucracy in two ways, both of which tended to place an excessive burden on the organization’s lower levels for innovative and adaptive behavior. First, the beneficiary of the program was far away and, at the same time, was a crucial and unpredictable contributor to the organization’s output. Second, the nature of the organization’s work was less understood than that of a home-based bureaucracy, so goals were not easily translatable into problem-solving tasks. Thus while the decentralized structure of [US]AID and its intimate country missions contributed to the ease of mobility and operation within the organization, decentralization also tended to inhibit the very type of behavior needed for the task at hand.99
As a craft organization, USAID faced real institutional challenges in developing a cohesive bureaucracy, building a domestic constituency, and achieving autonomy; the most successful craft organizations build a sense of ethos among their workforce.100 And as a craft organization practicing the infant discipline of development economics, its initial means of evaluating success was limited to “money moving” and development projects completed.
97 Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 67. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 98 James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 167. 99 Judith Tendler, Inside Foreign Aid (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 25. 100 Such an ethos might consist of a shared “sense of mission, a commitment to craftsmanship, or a belief in professional norms that will keep unobserved workers from abusing their discretion.” James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 167. 41
In the post-Vietnam era, USAID had no other option. By the mid-1970s, USAID had virtually no autonomy; its development projects were approved by its bureaucratic rivals – chiefly State, Treasury, and Commerce – each of which had a de facto veto over USAID development proposals. Congress also imposed strictures that constrained long-term development work, including the need to disburse appropriated funds by the end of the fiscal year, and aid financing rules that meant over 80 percent of foreign aid was spent in the United
States rather than the recipient country.101 Career progression within USAID soon depended on an individual’s ability to “move money” with large-dollar-figure project proposals that were supported by the agency’s Washington headquarters, defensible to Congress, acceptable to rival bureaucracies, and could be executed quickly.102 This formula for success downplayed other critical concerns of economic development, including a recipient government’s absorptive capacity, its ability to maintain major infrastructure projects once built, and the project’s net effect on the local economy. Institutional factors thus drove a wedge between the agency’s core mission and its emerging culture: “the organization’s goals, in sum, had been overcome by the struggle to survive in a hostile environment.”103
The agency’s troubled relationship with Congress contributed to this hostile environment.
Robert Komer credited USAID with a “largely successful” effort to limit inflation during
Vietnam, but he failed to convince a skeptical Congress that viewed USAID’s Vietnam program as a “shambles.”104 Congress overhauled U.S. foreign aid with the 1973 Foreign Assistance Act,
101 Judith Tendler, Inside Foreign Aid (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 73. 102 Friction between USAID headquarters and field missions typically occurs in the early stages of project formation and approval. Once approved, the mission is free to execute with minimal interference from USAID officials in Washington. Susumu Ken Yamashita, interview with the author, August 26, 2020. See also: Judith Tendler, Inside Foreign Aid (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 89, 99. 103 Judith Tendler, Inside Foreign Aid (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 50. 104 Republicans were generally less supportive of foreign aid during this period; the 1971 “shambles” criticism from Senator Fulbright, an influential Democrat, cut deeply. David Ekbladh, The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 42 directing a shift from top-down support to governments (like the Republic of Vietnam) and toward a strategy focused on addressing “basic human needs.”105 These reforms effectively ended USAID’s role as a technical agency; the agency shifted from direct hire personnel to increasing reliance on contractors and eventually foreign service nationals.106
Relaxing Cold War tensions also reduced congressional enthusiasm for foreign aid, particularly among conservatives, and growing enthusiasm for multilateral agencies sapped talent and resources from bilateral agencies like USAID. The aid agency fell into a vicious circle: legislative and institutional constraints incentivized large, expensive, and ineffective development projects; such projects then made USAID a target for members of Congress attacking wasteful spending, as well as foreign governments decrying economic dependency and neo-colonialism.107 Non-governmental organizations used their powerful political lobbies to defend the embattled aid agency, but also pressured USAID to decrease its use of binding contracts in favor of grants with fewer standards of performance and accountability.108
USAID also lacked a strong relationship with the White House during much of the post-
Vietnam period. As a government agency, USAID could oppose the edicts of its bureaucratic rivals, sending the issue to the White House for resolution. As a small sub-cabinet level agency
222. See also: Robert Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional Constraints on U.S.-GVN Performance in Vietnam (Santa Monica: Rand, 1972), 31-35. 105 Susan Epstein and Matthew Weed, “Foreign Aid Reform: Studies and Recommendations,” 4. Congressional Research Service, July 28, 2009, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R40102.pdf. 106 Haven North and Jeanne Foote North, “Transformations in U.S. Foreign Economic Assistance,” in Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Lessons for the Next Half Century, ed. Louis A. Picard et al (New York: Routledge, 2008), 282- 291-292. 107 Congressional earmarks became a favored instrument in regulating foreign aid. In Fiscal Year 2005 for example, congressional earmarks still constrained many of the top bilateral foreign aid programs, including 100% of funds allocated to the Child Survival and Economic Support aid program categories, and $1.4 of the $1.7 billion allocated to the Development Assistance program. See: U.S. House of Representatives, Making Appropriations for Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs for the Fiscal Year Ending September 2005 and for Other Purposes, conference report to accompany H.R. 4818, November 2004, 163-233, cited in: Carol Lancaster, Foreign Aid (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 88-89. 108 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 43 with little domestic constituency, USAID often lost these overt turf battles to larger agencies whose leaders enjoyed more frequent access to the president. USAID officials and supporters hoped in vain that the aid agency would someday be elevated to emulate the British model: a cabinet-level agency on par with State or Defense.109 This lack of size and status did not mean that USAID lost every turf battle – it simply meant the agency’s leadership often needed the creativity of an insurgent chieftain battling a more powerful adversary, including the ability to build personal relationships, and remembering to sleep with their sword under their bed.
From 1983-2008, USAID Administrators adapted to unconventional bureaucratic warfare in a variety of ways; seeking a positive relationship with the secretary of state was a common denominator. Peter McPherson (1981-1987) forestalled Reagan’s antipathy to foreign aid by cutting underperforming programs and staging a Rose Garden photo shoot at which he presented the delighted president with a huge check to return funds to the Treasury. McPherson gained credibility with the president, the secretary of state, the Office of Management and Budget
Director, and even a modicum of leverage with Congress – which later expanded USAID’s flexibility to shift funds from terminated to successful programs.110 In 2001, Andrew Natsios became USAID Administrator and discovered that State had gained increased control over
USAID’s budget; he “collapsed the system” by leaving State explain USAID’s complicated budget to Congress – a hopeless endeavor for any outsider.111 This maneuver achieved its intended effect: USAID resumed direct contact with the Office of Management and Budget,
109 Carol Lancaster and Ann Van Dusen, Organizing U.S. Foreign Aid: Confronting Challenges of the Twenty-First Century (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2005), 43-45. 110 M. Peter McPherson, Oral History, 28-28. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 111 Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 69. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 44 regaining a measure of autonomy over its budget. Natsios soon developed productive working relationships with secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice.
USAID Administrators during this period struggled to build a sense of ethos among their employees, thanks to the numerous political, fiscal, and bureaucratic setbacks. Peter McPherson refined the agency’s culture with a top-down Four Pillars directive; a popular mission statement that resonated within the agency for many years. He also centered his agency around President
Reagan’s comment that “a hungry child knows no politics.”112 Brian Atwood fought a noble but unsuccessful campaign in the 1990s to send aid to the Great North Korean Famine, and a more successful bureaucratic insurgency that prevented USAID from being folded into State.113
Andrew Natsios consolidated the agency’s hundreds of disparate programs into a manageable 39 program lines and authored white papers and articles that described a Bush administration vision for U.S. foreign aid and explained USAID to its interagency partners.114 These efforts helped build the shared ethos necessary to improve performance and reduce workforce attrition to competing agencies and non-profit organizations.
As a craft organization, USAID was able to measure its outcomes, and disciplined use of metrics eventually formed the foundation for the agency’s self-evaluation and improvement. In the 1960s and 1970s, development economics was in its infancy; the agency by default measured
“moving money” and aggregated estimates of development assistance, leaving an evaluative and decisional “vacuum often filled by career concerns such as risk aversion.”115 As the foreign aid
112 M. Peter McPherson, Oral History, 25, 42. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 113 For a detailed account of the North Korean famine that pitted the Clinton administration’s foreign policy realists against its foreign aid ideologues, see: Andrew Natsios, The Great North Korean Famine (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2001). 114 Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 69. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 115 Judith Tendler, Inside Foreign Aid (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 91-92. 45 community accumulated experience, prevailing views on development theory and institution- building began to change. By the early 1970s, USAID began incorporating quantitative measures to evaluate the net results of foreign aid programs. This early “logical framework” matured in the 1990s to results-based management under USAID Administrator Brian
Atwood.116 By 2001, USAID adopted a Strategic Results Framework that outlined individual goals, determined performance measures, and measured progress within a three-year programming strategy.117
While the ability to measure return-on-investment helped improve relations with
Congress, the agency increasingly struggled to cope with ever-expanding legislative restrictions and quantitative reporting requirements from government overseers. The 1994 Government
Performance and Results Act and Federal Acquisition Regulations enshrined these restrictions in legislation. The growing panoply of offices responsible for oversight exacerbated this trend; these included: USAID’s inspector general, the Office of Management and Budget, the
Government Accountability Office, and special inspector generals for Iraq and Afghanistan. The challenges of quantifying program eligibility, progress, and success disincentivized long-term development projects (for example: governance programs) and incentivized short-term, easily quantifiable aid projects (for example: health programs). Oversight requirements became so onerous that by 2010 one third of USAID officers were hired for compliance purposes rather than foreign aid expertise. 118
116 Andrew Natsios, “The Clash of the Counter-bureaucracy and Development,” Center for Global Development, July 13, 2010, http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1424271. 117 W. Haven North and Jeanne Foote North, “Transformations in U.S. Foreign Economic Assistance,” in Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Lessons for the Next Half Century, ed. Louis A. Picard et al (New York: Routledge, 2008), 294. 118 See: Terry Buss and Adam Gardner, “The Millennium Challenge Account,” in Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Lessons for the Next Half Century, ed. Louis A. Picard et al (New York: Routledge, 2008), 337. See also: Andrew Natsios, “The Clash of the Counter-bureaucracy and Development,” Center for Global Development, July 13, 2010, http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1424271. 46
If development was USAID’s original core mission, it soon gained a second: disasters. In the wake of an “embarrassingly inadequate” U.S. response to the 1963 Skopje earthquake, State
Foreign Service Officer Larry Eagleburger recommended that such an office be created, and
USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance was born.119 This office joined the existing
Food for Peace program, responsible for providing food aid to humanitarian crises, as the agency’s disaster response arm. By the late 1980s, the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance had established Disaster Assistance Response Teams; deployable interagency teams of experts capable of directing disaster relief efforts.120 In 1994, USAID Administrator Brian Atwood created the Office of Transition Initiatives to provide a rapid response capability for post-combat operations, a timely adaptation in an era marked by increasingly frequent peacekeeping, peacemaking, and post-combat operations. By the mid-1990s, these offices comprised USAID’s disaster assistance capability, a function almost entirely separate from USAID’s core mission of economic development.
This expansion of USAID’s mandate created internal and external friction. Internally,
USAID officers treated the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and its brethren as a bureaucratic “stepchild,” and service there as “career damaging or, in some cases, a career obituary column.”121 The Office of Transition Initiatives ignited particularly severe opposition from State and USAID regional bureaus. Resistance from USAID and State bureaucracies, as well as the American Foreign Service Officers union, combined to cut the size, mandate, and
119 Andrew Natsios, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Humanitarian Relief in Complex Emergencies (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), 44-45. 120 Julia Taft, Oral History, 16. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 121 Andrew Natsios, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Humanitarian Relief in Complex Emergencies (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), 44. 47 budget of the Office of Transition Initiatives, which soon comprised only four personnel and was
“nearly stillborn on delivery.”122
USAID’s disaster response offices may be the agency’s stepchildren, but they enjoyed strong relationships with State and the Army, and broad bipartisan support from Congress. State holds a special affection for these disaster assistance offices – and the separate funding available to the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance – while USAID’s disaster response practitioners note that ambassadors
sometimes try to declare disasters where none exist; they call for aid that is visible and tangible when something less dramatic is required; they try to channel aid through governments when OFDA usually works through nongovernmental organizations…or they attempt to divert aid to politically sensitive areas from where it is most needed.123
Army officers serving in post-combat operations sometimes express frustration at USAID’s long-term worldview, limited capacity, and its regional bureaus’ reliance on dollars, grants, and contracts. But the Army has also enjoyed a long and positive working relationship responding to emergencies in partnership with the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and its Disaster
Assistance Response Teams.124
USAID’s complicated relationship with State has shaped the development agency’s history and culture. During the Marshall Plan era, Congress established small bureaucracies to implement the development plans rather than trust State; these were consolidated into USAID in
1961. The creation of USAID and the establishment of a Special Trade Representative in 1963 stripped State of much of its economic portfolio. Since then, State has actively sought influence
122 Andrew Natsios, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Humanitarian Relief in Complex Emergencies (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), 43-44. 123 Andrew Natsios, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Humanitarian Relief in Complex Emergencies (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), 46. 124 Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 96. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 48 over USAID’s development efforts, often seeking to use aid as a diplomatic lever for current policy crises. This dynamic is especially visible in post-combat and third-world countries, where
State’s traditional diplomatic levers find little traction among rival warlords.
State also worked to gain institutional leverage over USAID’s budget: late in the Carter administration State exercised a “mild form” of budget takeover; in 1994 the secretary of state
“proposed that the vice president lead a study on…merging USAID into the Department of
State”; and by 1999 USAID had survived a “near-death experience,” retaining its autonomy but losing control of its budget to State.125 This reorganization acceded to pressure from Senator
Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), enabling State (and the Clinton administration) to improve its relationship with Congress, but from USAID’s perspective these machinations resembled a continual hostile takeover attempt by State.126 USAID survived by winning over Vice President Al Gore and First
Lady Hillary Clinton, who recommended against the proposed merger.127 In 2006, State created the Office of U.S. Foreign Assistance to consolidate authority over foreign aid funding; this move cemented State’s influence over USAID’s purse strings.128
USAID’s effort to build its constituency ultimately benefited from two additional organizational adaptations that must be addressed. The first is that the agency assumed responsibility for its own public diplomacy. USAID sponsored advertising campaigns to
125 By 1999, two other small bureaucracies, the Arms Control Disarmament Agency and the U.S. Information Agency, were folded into State. Lancaster, Foreign Aid (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 81, 87. 126 “Jesse Helms: The Senator Who Just Said No,” Oral History compilation. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 127 Ironically, during the Obama administration Secretary of State Hillary Clinton worked to expand State’s control to every level of USAID, further subordinating the aid agency whose autonomy from State she once defended. Andrew Natsios, “The Clash of the Counter-bureaucracy and Development,” Center for Global Development, July 13, 2010, http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1424271. 128 This proved a mixed blessing for State; it was this reorganization – and the accompanying training burdens and loss of autonomy for regional bureaus – that triggered inertia within State itself. Secretary of State Rice responded by threatening to fire any assistant secretary of state caught stonewalling the reform. Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 71-74. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 49 highlight its programs to overseas populations, hired foreign service nationals with journalism experience to publicize the agency’s activities, invited congressmen to attend ribbon-cutting events linked to their constituencies, and in 2003 developed a “From the American People” logo for its global branding.129 This publicity campaign increased the favorability of USAID and the
U.S. government overseas, and strengthened the agency’s ties to members of Congress.
The second adaptation: with diminished manpower and finite resources, USAID adopted a “wholesaler-of-wholesalers” system focused on becoming the connective tissue between the
U.S. government and the fast-growing constellation of foreign aid actors.130 Given a requirement and funding, USAID can and routinely does navigate the increasingly cluttered market of non- governmental organizations, contractors, aid agencies, universities, private voluntary organizations, and religious and philanthropic organizations – to match programs to qualified agents for implementation. Each of these two adaptations came with considerable drawbacks; both enabled the agency to make the most of its limited resources and build constituency over time.
129 These initiatives sparked some controversy, but unquestionably benefited USAID’s domestic and international standing. The British aid agency has copied USAID in this arena, branding itself as “UKAID: From the British People.” Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 99-101. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 130 Carol Lancaster and Ann Van Dusen, Organizing U.S. Foreign Aid: Confronting Challenges of the Twenty-First Century (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2005), viii. 50
USAID: CONCLUSION
USAID is a craft bureaucracy; an organization whose internal processes (outputs) are not readily visible; but its external results (outcomes) can be observed and measured. USAID struggled to achieve autonomy in the crowded and continually changing field of foreign aid; and worked to measure successful outcomes and build its constituency amid growing administrative burdens. USAID adapted almost constantly from 1983-2008 – often in response to unwelcome changes – and saw dramatic fluctuations to its size, resources, mission focus, and its relationships with Congress and State. USAID often found itself an underdog in an interagency arena dominated by larger and more influential cousins like State and the Army. For the purposes of this dissertation, USAID is bisected in support of two separate missions: regional bureaus supporting the agency’s core mission of long-term development; and a handful of offices dedicated to the secondary mission of short-term disaster response, including complex humanitarian emergencies and democratic transition. Both development and disaster capabilities played important roles in the post-combat cases examined here.
51
Chapter 2: Background
This chapter summarizes the historical background of U.S. post-combat operations, particularly since World War II, and reviews the existing scholarly literature on three overlapping academic disciplines relevant to this study. The first is the field of political science, particularly with respect to classic organizational theory and bureaucracy theory, and more recent literature on adaptive, bottom-up public management methods known as agile government. The second relevant discipline is the theory and practice of modern post-combat operations, particularly with respect to the key tasks associated with economic development, nation-building, and institution- building. The third area is the existing literature on each of the four historical cases in question, supplemented by general organizational histories that provide each bureaucracy’s institutional perspective. Each of these respective bodies of academic literature draws from a range of sources, chief among them political science and history. For purposes of clarity and brevity, the existing literature on each discipline is presented separately. Although the principal analytical lens for this dissertation is institutional in nature, this dissertation expands beyond the organizational behavior model to include the turf battles and bargaining that characterize government politics and decision making.131
131 Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow characterized the organizational behavior lens as a Model II analysis, and the governmental politics lens as Model III. See: Graham T. Allison and Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd ed., (New York: Longman, 1999). 52
BACKGROUND: U.S. POST-COMBAT OPERATIONS
U.S. post-combat operations occurred approximately every twenty years from the
Mexican-American War through World War II. The military governance mission in Mexico was followed by Reconstruction in the American south, Native American pacification campaigns in the American west, post-conflict nation-building in the Philippines, and a postwar occupation of the Rhineland following World War I. The Army played a leading role in each of these operations, and practitioners from one campaign tended to be sprinkled among senior leadership positions for the next, permitting the Army to leverage a modest degree of institutional memory.
For example, General George C. Marshall, prior to becoming an architect of the broadly successful American post-combat operations following World War II, had been a military planner for the American Expeditionary Force preparing the post-World War I Rhineland occupation.
He, along with Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and Army Provost Marshal General Allen W.
Gullion, rebuilt the Army’s post-combat capabilities from scratch following Pearl Harbor.
Yet these remarkable men had more than just fading memories of prior campaigns to guide their work. Institutional factors within the Army did much to shape the conduct of U.S. post-combat operations after 1945. The Army had taken its experience in the post-War
Rhineland seriously, publishing several important documents, notably a thorough after-action review known as the Hunt Report that emerged in 1920. The Army War College, at the pinnacle of its influence during the interwar period, stoked a continued interest in post-combat operations through guest speakers, academic lectures, and scholarly writings. This sustained attention culminated in a relevant Army doctrinal manual published in July 1940, before the coming
53 storm.132 In the wake of the subsequent war and victory, the Army’s preparations proved invaluable.
Following Pearl Harbor, the Army and War Department swung into action, creating the
School of Military Government in February 1942, increasing the number of students per class that August, and establishing training guidelines in accordance with the Army’s recent doctrinal manual. Stimson fought interagency turf battles against State and Interior; both departments were skeptical of the Army infringing on civilian turf. Marshall allayed President Roosevelt’s early concerns – that the school might be producing conservative ideologues – by citing the
Army’s doctrine and the school’s curriculum. Gullion actively recruited civilians skilled in civil government tasks for direct hire as military reservists for the eventual post-combat mission.133
The War Department won the interagency battles against Interior and State; Army generals would enact policy and enforce interagency unity of effort within defeated enemy states.
The military’s argument had rested on the concept of military necessity supplemented by precedent, a robust body of academic work, and an authoritative doctrine founded on previous lessons-learned. A disparity in resources carried additional weight in favor of the Army: while
State in 1940 had only 840 foreign service diplomats worldwide, the Army by 1945 had trained nearly 6,000 officers for the post-combat governance mission. It would take several years for
132 Army Field Manual 27-5 was revised in 1943 as a joint Army-Navy manual, to accommodate the Navy’s increasing role in post-combat operations at disparate points across the Pacific. The Navy nomenclature for this joint manual was OpNav 50E-3, published in December 1943. See: Walter M. Hudson, Army Diplomacy: American Military Occupation and Foreign Policy after World War II (Lexington, KY; University Press of Kentucky, 2015), 70. 133 For a look at WWII postwar planning from the Joint Chiefs’ perspective, see: Steven Rearden, Council of War: A History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1942-1991 (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 2012), 38- 43. 54
State’s growing foreign service to wrest influence from Army generals in Germany, Austria,
Japan, and South Korea.134
World War II post-combat operations, which were dominated by the Army and its uniformed practitioners, occurred at a point in history in which the Army considered postwar operations to be a core mission. Its professional military education, training, and doctrine had enabled not only increased effectiveness while conducting post-combat missions, but also formed the basis of logic upon which the Army and War departments won their interagency debates. The Army was well ahead of its civilian counterparts; its plan became the War
Department plan, and was largely adopted as the government’s policy. This did not imply the task would be simple, nor that adaptation would be unnecessary: post-combat missions are notoriously complex and routinely defy even the most thoughtfully-written doctrines.
While Germany and Japan were destined to become the most-cited exemplars of modern post-combat success, subsequent experience suggests the mixed results achieved in South Korea to be more instructive. South Korea proved less fertile ground for the seeds of economic aid and rapid democratization. The peninsula had little pre-existing economic development, few industries, no robust legal system, and no recent history or tradition of self-government. It was there that an Army general with less political acumen, fewer resources, and little understanding of the host culture struggled to overcome the manipulations of hostile neighbors, intransigent
Soviets, and myriad political groups – most notoriously the English-speaking South Korean leader Syngman Rhee. While Army generals in Germany, Austria, and Japan made bold and pragmatic political moves in coordination with Washington, the occupation in South Korea
134 For an excellent bureaucratic history of these events, see: Walter M. Hudson, Army Diplomacy: American Military Occupation and Foreign Policy after World War II (Lexington, KY; University Press of Kentucky, 2015). For State Foreign Service numbers in 1940, see: Ronald McMullen, “United States,” in Modern Diplomacy in Practice, ed. Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri (Cham: Palmgrave Macmillan, 2020), 191. 55 drifted toward inaction, awaiting a diplomatic consensus from Washington and Moscow that never came.
In 1948, the United States launched the European Recovery Program, widely known as the Marshall Plan. State played an outsized role in this initiative, and few practitioners were more influential than State Department strategist George Kennan. Army officers charged with reconstruction also called for immediate investment and warned of a potential global collapse in demand for U.S. exports; hundreds of American congressmen visited Europe in the fall of 1947 to see for themselves, and returned with bipartisan consensus.135
The Marshall Plan and its successor programs allowed war-torn societies to liberalize away from the fascist, imperial, or communist models. Economic aid in the form of food, a monetary stabilization and reinvestment mechanism known as counterpart funds, and the psychological impact of visibly assisting with reconstruction contributed to an enduring rise in pro-U.S. and pro-democracy sentiment within western Europe. In contrast, the Soviets taxed aid shipments and restored factories only to confiscate the resulting products as “hidden reparations.”136 Incidents like the Berlin Airlift of 1948-1949 only cemented the legitimacy of
U.S. influence in the eyes of many Europeans. In 1949, western allies formalized the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), adding an enduring military component to the previous year’s Marshall Plan legislation. In 1961, President Kennedy oversaw the establishment of
USAID by consolidating several smaller agencies created to implement the Marshall Plan.
In the wake of the post-war military drawdown, and in the context of a growing Cold War against a numerically-superior Soviet Union and China, the Army lost interest in post-combat operations. Civil affairs capabilities were largely disbanded as the Army shifted its focus toward
135 Benn Steil, The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018), 193. 136 Benn Steil, The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018), 310. 56 winning a high-intensity conventional war. When a pacification and counterinsurgency mission occurred in Vietnam, neither the Army nor the interagency was prepared. Institutional memory had evaporated, current doctrine was nonexistent, and unity of effort proved elusive. The role of lead agency, coveted by competing bureaucracies during World War II, had become a political hot potato. Consequently, each of the sixty U.S. bureaucracies in Vietnam in the mid-1960s “did its thing,” by clinging to its own standard procedures and core mission rather than adapting to the needs of the overall mission.137 Not until 1967 did a consolidated effort begin under the auspices of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) program. Its head,
Robert Komer, lobbied for unity of command under the authority of the Army’s commanding general, but later considered CORDS to have been too little, too late: “in an atypical situation that cried out for innovation and adaptation, a series of institutional constraints militated against them.”138
Vietnam cast a long shadow, but it was not the only major setback for these bureaucracies. By 1980, perceived problems triggered legislative consequences for the U.S.
Army, USAID, and the Department of State. In the wake of Vietnam, the Army and other military services transitioned to become an all-volunteer force. The change proved highly beneficial in the long run, but with low pay and few benefits, the Army initially struggled to fill its volunteer ranks with well-qualified recruits.
For its part, USAID had successfully limited economic inflation in Vietnam and earned terse praise from the recalcitrant Robert Komer, but the agency drew scorn from critics in
137 Walter M. Hudson, Army Diplomacy: American Military Occupation and Foreign Policy after World War II (Lexington, KY; University Press of Kentucky, 2015), 267. See also: Robert W. Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional Constraints on U.S.-GVN Performance in Vietnam (RAND: August, 1972), 15-16. 138 For an insightful dissertation that provides a thorough history of CORDS and interagency unity of effort, see: Patrick V. Howell, “Will the CORDS Snap? Testing the Widely Accepted Assumption that Inter-Agency Single Management Improves Policy-Implementation” (PhD diss., Duke University, 2018). 57
Congress.139 Tarred by the perception of failure in Vietnam, USAID struggled to maintain presidential and congressional support for foreign aid; by the early 1980s, USAID had become an anemic agency dependent on contractors rather than a robust staff of technical experts. 140
The State Department also labored under growing White House and congressional scrutiny, and eventually lost lawsuits by employees alleging racism or sexism in hiring and promotion matters.
The 1980 Foreign Service Act revamped the foreign service, expanded congressional oversight, and standardized benefits and structure.141 When U.S. forces invaded Grenada in 1983, each of these bureaucracies had undergone considerable institutional changes, and none was well- prepared to conduct post-combat operations.
Another crucial aspect of U.S. post-combat operations since Vietnam was the evolving role of time. During World War II, the U.S. government had over three years to prepare for a post-combat occupation of the Axis powers. In Vietnam, the U.S. government also had years to plan and adjust its support to the government of South Vietnam. After Vietnam, this trend changed abruptly. The U.S. interventions in Grenada and Panama were executed – and major combat completed – within days of the presidential decision to intervene. The Kosovo air campaign lasted only eleven weeks; longer than planners anticipated, but far too short a time to establish schools to train legions of post-combat practitioners, as during World War II. In
Afghanistan, Kabul fell to U.S. and Northern Alliance forces just two months after the
139 W. Haven North and Jeanne Foote North, “Transformations in U.S. Foreign Economic Assistance,” in Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Lessons for the Next Half Century, ed. Louis A. Picard et al (New York: Routledge, 2008), 292. 140 President Nixon recommended dissolving the agency, and USAID lost resources to competing multilateral aid agencies throughout the 1970s. Haven North and Jeanne Foote North, “Transformations in U.S. Foreign Economic Assistance,” in Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Lessons for the Next Half Century, ed. Louis A. Picard et al (New York: Routledge, 2008), 282-291-292. See also: Carol Lancaster, Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 75-78. 141 Ronald McMullen, “United States,” in Modern Diplomacy in Practice, ed. Robert Hutchings and Jeremi Suri (Cham: Palmgrave Macmillan, 2020), 192-193. 58
September 11th terror attacks. Each of these post-Vietnam cases forced American bureaucracies to initiate post-combat operations with little notice or prior planning, and with the personnel, capabilities, and doctrine they possessed when the clarion sounded.142 Perhaps not surprisingly, the lessons from post-combat operations in Grenada, Panama, and Kosovo generated little interest or long-term organizational change within U.S. bureaucracies.
142 The Army had an outdated post-combat plan for Panama, but it had negligible input from State or USAID, and was not executed as intended; ad hoc adaptation was once again the order of the day. See: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace (Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute, 1992), 11. 59
THEORY OF ORGANIZATIONS AND BUREAUCRACIES
Organizational theory encompasses a wide range of scholarship with ancient roots.
Since the 1950s this field has been heavily influenced – and perhaps dominated – by economists studying businesses, markets, and management techniques, in an econometrics-driven quest to optimize efficiency, value, profit, or collective good. This dissertation looks instead to the smaller subset of literature focused on the behavior, interaction, and leadership of government bureaucracies, with particular focus on how bureaucracies conduct short-term adaptation and long-term organizational learning.
A suitable intellectual foundation for this research may be found in Niccolò Machiavelli’s seminal work The Prince. Despite his ill-deserved modern reputation, Machiavelli was above all a pragmatist who viewed the people as the key to the survival of a prince and his regime.
Adaptive leadership is central to Machiavelli’s advice; the ideal prince needs to adapt constantly as “the winds of fortune and variations of things command him,” embracing as necessary the dichotomies of man and beast, fox and lion, law and force.143 The pragmatic leader constantly adjusts his strategy to the situation, and balances periods of crafty prudence with sudden impetuosity when opportunity presents itself.
German sociologist Max Weber built upon Machiavelli’s insights on adaptive leadership, and incorporated them into his views on modern government bureaucracy. As the state’s reach expanded, and the west grew to accept democracy, capitalism, and the rule of law, the need for equitable treatment in administrative matters became central to retaining the support of the people. The ideal prince of a small Italian city-state cannot be everywhere in a large, diverse, modern, post-industrial regime. Weber argued that bureaucracies were created to standardize and
143 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Harvey Mansfield (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 69-70, 78-79, 99-100. 60 more efficiently execute the state’s essential administrative functions. The expanding cadre of professional bureaucrats gradually extinguished the feudal inefficiencies of warlords, clientelism, and royal office-purchasers.144
In the 1950s, a handful of organizational theorists rebelled against the ever-growing numbers of economists then focused on rational actors optimizing business management and profits. Among these rebels were James March and Herbert Simon, who argued that organizational decision making is subject to a bounded rationality comprised of organizational process, imperfect information, and agenda-setting.145 Bounded rationality, along with Herbert
Simon’s parallel concept that organizations often settle for efficient, satisfactory solutions rather than optimal results – a process he famously termed satisficing – are important insights for any study of bureaucracies and their behavior. 146 Simon, who had helped administer the Marshall
Plan, was no stranger to bureaucracies adapting in post-combat situations. He received a Nobel award in Economics in 1978.
In 1973, practitioner and theorist Robert Komer authored a remarkable analysis of organizational behavior in the crucible of Vietnam. His scathing work Bureaucracy Does Its
Thing argued that each bureaucracy tends to adhere to its core mission, leading to much inertia and little innovation, despite mounting evidence of looming disaster.147 Komer had served in the
Army during World War II where he documented post-combat civil affairs missions; he later joined the Central Intelligence Agency, served on the National Security Council staff under
144 Weber argued that effective bureaucratization required a large and politically well-developed state that could provide secure salaries for career professionals. Max Weber and W.G. Runciman, Max Weber: Selections in Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 341-351. 145 James G. March and Herbert A. Simon, Organizations, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1993), 3-16. 146 Herbert A. Simon, Administrative Behavior (New York: Macmillan Co., 1947). 147 Komer referred to the organizational core mission and standard procedures as its “repertoire.” Robert W. Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional Constraints on U.S.-GVN Performance in Vietnam (RAND: August, 1972), 15-16. 61 presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and in 1967 was hand-selected to lead the Civil Operations and
Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) initiative in Vietnam. Although complimentary of USAID’s efforts in that conflict, Komer found institutional resistance to change – particularly in the Army and State – so egregious that he recommended creating special organizations for the tasks that fall outside existing bureaucracies’ core missions.148
In 1989, professor James Q. Wilson published Bureaucracy, arguably the most authoritative and comprehensive theory of how bureaucracies operate. Wilson linked mission, unity of purpose, autonomy, and organizational culture into a cohesive and primarily descriptive theory. Although focused on the internal workings of bureaucracies, he also outlined the constraints placed upon American bureaucracies by the President, Congress, and the judiciary.
Wilson equated organizational autonomy with turf, described how bureaucracies strive to increase their autonomy and build a political constituency, and explained how they innovate. Of particular interest to this dissertation, Wilson advises executives to avoid tasks that differ from their core mission, or that might offend core constituencies.149 Yet bureaucracies cannot simply refuse to participate when ordered to conduct complex, high-stakes missions outside their core responsibilities – such as post-combat operations. Wilson is virtually silent on this point.
As discussed in the previous chapter, Wilson categorized bureaucracies into four types – production, procedural, craft, and coping – depending on whether the bureaucracy’s outputs and outcomes are visible. The latter three categories describe the (peacetime) U.S. Army, USAID, and U.S. Department of State, respectively. This dissertation argues that despite these differences, each of the three bureaucracies examined here adapted in similar ways. Wilson also
148 Robert W. Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional Constraints on U.S.-GVN Performance in Vietnam (RAND: August, 1972), xii. 149 James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 190. 62 divided each bureaucracy into three employee subsets: executives, managers, and operators. For clarity and brevity, this dissertation streamlines these employee subsets into executives and practitioners, with executives often providing strategic direction from Washington and practitioners typically conducting post-combat operations overseas.
In 1972, Cohen, March, and Olsen analyzed the seemingly unruly and disorganized behavior of a university’s decision-making procedures, and developed the “garbage can” theory of organizational policy and decision making. By 1995, John Kingdon refined this approach by theorizing that “streams” of problems, policy options, and politics flow into the garbage can.
There policy entrepreneurs discover creative opportunities to match problems with people, resources, and a politically opportune solution.150 These theories expanded earlier linear- structured organizational decision-making models into a “policy primeval soup” that allowed for both incremental and dramatic change, and emphasized the importance of agenda setting.151 The
“garbage can” and “streams” theories have utility for each of the three bureaucracies examined here, but nowhere is the explanatory power more applicable than at the State Department, where tenured diplomats rather than professors work to set agendas and match problems to politically- opportune negotiated solutions.
In 1999, Richard Haass published The Bureaucratic Entrepreneur, a guidebook for the bureaucratic practitioner.152 Significant to this project, his work concluded that “personal relationships are often the key to effectiveness.”153 This dissertation likewise concludes that
150 John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1995), 85. 151 John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 1995), 200, 226- 227. 152 Richard Haass, The Bureaucratic Entrepreneur: How to be Effective in Any Unruly Organization (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1999). 153 Richard Haass, The Bureaucratic Entrepreneur: How to be Effective in Any Unruly Organization (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1999), 180. 63 personal relationships – and trust – proved the key to effectiveness (or conflict) for bureaucratic practitioners and executives in every case examined here. Haass blended lessons from theorists from Machiavelli to Kingdon and Wilson, emphasizing the importance of remaining alert to opportunities, agenda-setting, and respecting the organization’s core mission. Haass also emphasized the role of values and ethics in matters of policy; a critical foundation for all bureaucracies performing post-combat operations, but particularly significant in understanding
USAID’s efforts to lift populations out of poverty through development aid. Haass was both practitioner and theorist, having served within the Departments of Defense and State, as well as the National Security Council. He later returned to State as the Director of Policy Planning from
2001-2003, where he applied his bureaucratic principles as the U.S. government’s coordinator for post-combat reconstruction in Afghanistan.154
Haass was not alone in acknowledging the importance of personal relationships and trust; the subject has generated a massive literature spanning social, economic, and government dimensions.155 Trust in government is a particularly important corollary for the post-combat practitioner, whose challenge often centers on a race against time to build legitimacy and increase a foreign population’s trust in its new government. Political scientist Don Kettl argued that many Western democracies are experiencing near-historic lows in government trust; and that governments can improve the situation through top-down “wholesale trust” and bottom-up
154 Ironically, the Department of Defense had appointed Dov Zakheim as the government’s coordinator for post- combat reconstruction in Afghanistan, and Zakheim had no knowledge of Haass’s parallel role. Dov Zakheim, A Vulcan’s Tale: How the Bush Administration Mismanaged the Reconstruction of Afghanistan (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2011), 173. 155 Other theorists and political scientists have examined trust as a central feature within societies, economies, and institutions. For a classic study on social trust, see: Francis Fukuyama, Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (New York: Free Press, 1995). For government trust and economic growth and prosperity, see: Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, “Trust in Government,” accessed April 14, 2021, https://www.oecd.org/gov/trust-in-government.htm. 64
“retail trust” initiatives.156 The bottom-up, retail approach follows the business world’s lead with policies and programs designed to increase the satisfaction of the citizen as a customer. These and similar insights on building government trust have powerful implications for current and future post-combat practitioners.
By 2019, policy scholars sought to apply the adaptive, bottom-up problem-solving techniques of leading information technology companies to government. The resulting agile government concept promises a pathway toward “fast, flexible, inclusive, mission-centric responses that involve networks of government, not hierarchies.”157 The concept centers on small, trusted teams of experts that are empowered to deviate from standard procedures to create responsive solutions to a dynamic situation. “Historically,” a trio of agile government scholars noted, “only emergency managers typically had to deal with crisis situations in an agile way to respond to shifting realities on the ground.”158 In many ways, the executives and post-combat practitioners examined in this dissertation were emergency managers dealing with crisis situations. Their work required a level of agility uncommon for their respective organizations.
More broadly, this new concept of agile government parallels how these national security institutions adapted to unexpected post-combat crises from 1983-2008. This dissertation’s central argument is that each of these institutions adapted to each post-combat crisis along similar pathways: leveraging existing capabilities; hand-picking uniquely qualified practitioners; providing resources and autonomy; and creating new capabilities, standard procedures, or
156 Donald Kettl, Can Governments Earn Our Trust (Malden, MA: Polity, 2017), 41-45. See also: Tony D’Emidio et al, “The Global Case for Customer Experience in Government,” McKinsey & Company, September 10, 2019, https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/the-global-case-for-customer- experience-in-government. 157 G. Edward DeSeve, “The Road to Agile Government: Driving Change to Achieve Success,” 2020, https://napawash.org/uploads/The_Road_to_Agile_Government.pdf. 158 Ines Mergel et al, “Agile: A New Way of Governing,” Public Administration Review 81, no. 1, (2020): 161, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/puar.13202. 65 training if necessary. In the cases examined in subsequent chapters, each hierarchical institution relied on its deployed practitioners to operate as a mission-centric interagency network, crafting bottom-up solutions suited to an evolving crisis. Foreshadowing future advances in public administration, the Army, State Department, and USAID applied many principles of agile government to address post-combat emergencies – decades before theorists coined the term.
66
MODERN POST-COMBAT OPERATIONS
The conduct of post-combat operations has changed considerably since the 1940s. For the United States, armed occupation and military governance fell out of vogue, replaced by a gentler narrative of liberation and empowered self-government. Consequently, modern post- combat practitioners have expanded the existing scholarship in a number of areas aside from bureaucracy theory. To provide an intellectual framework as a springboard for examining cases, this section addresses two key aspects of modern post-combat operations from the practitioner’s perspective. The first category is an overview of recent literature on how to build a nation-state in the wake of conflict. This is necessary to provide a broader context for the adaptations made by each national security institution in each case. The second essential aspect of modern post- combat operations is a key and perhaps controversial theme: all roads lead to institution- building. The need to build institutions increasingly challenged practitioners over this period, as this long-term imperative conflicted with growing demands for immediate, measurable results.
Building Nation-States
The political aspect of post-combat operations is the foremost concern for the practitioner. In each of the cases examined within this dissertation, the political objectives included the establishment – or reestablishment – of democratic governance.159 Perhaps the most experienced practitioner in modern post-combat nation-building is Ambassador James Dobbins, whose career spanned five decades and included key roles in multiple post-combat operations.
While post-combat theorists generally agree that the hallowed touchstone of the nation-builder is
159 This has not always been the case. U.S. post-combat operations in Kuwait after the Persian Gulf conflict in 1991 restored the Kuwaiti monarchy. The mission was largely funded by the Kuwaiti and Japanese governments; few U.S. troops were involved. 67 to “do no harm”; Dobbins also insightfully argued that the weeks after the onset of peace constitute a “golden hour” of maximum opportunity for significant progress.160
This medical analogy can be extended to depict regime change as a sort of brain surgery, and the improvement or dissolution of government institutions as the surgical repair or replacement of organs, skeletal structure, and sinew. Dobbins depicted eight critical organs of nation-building: the military, the police, the rule of law, humanitarian relief, governance, economic stabilization, democratization, and long-term economic development.161 The greater the scope and scale of changes to be attempted, the greater the nation-builder’s challenge and associated cost. Within the U.S. bureaucracies, it is typically State’s diplomats that broker answers to these fundamentally political questions.
The greater the degree of nation-building changes to be attempted, the greater the cost and scope of the nation-builder’s challenge. Paul Miller examined forty modern cases of armed state building, identified three broad strategies used by state builders, and applied a metric for success and failure across five dimensions of statehood. He concluded that most successful cases occur when the state builders select the right strategy for the situation on the ground, and properly resource the appropriate state-building strategy.162 Miller’s work illustrated the risk of strategic mismatch, where the practitioner has the wrong strategy or lacks the resources to
160 Dobbins later attributed the metaphor to USAID official James Stephenson, who served as that agency’s Mission Director in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. In the field of emergency medicine, the term golden hour refers to the optimal period to get a critically-wounded patient to hospital to maximize the likelihood of survival. James Dobbins et al, The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building (Santa Monica: RAND, 2007), 15-17. Also: James Dobbins et al, Seizing the Golden Hour (Santa Monica: RAND, 2020), ix. 161 Dobbins also acknowledges the important role of neighboring powers, and argues that the nation-builder’s prime objective “is to make violent societies peaceful, not to make poor ones prosperous.” James Dobbins et al, The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building (Santa Monica: RAND, 2007), xxii-xxiii. 162 Miller’s three strategies: 1) The Observer: observing and encouraging reform, 2) The Trainer: build, train, equip, and implement reform, and 3) The Administrator: “assume control and directly administer reform efforts.” The greater the degree of state collapse, the more intrusive the appropriate strategy. Paul Miller, Armed State Building: Confronting State Failure 1898-2012 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013), 176-177. 68 achieve the policy maker’s aims; a dynamic that played a significant role across multiple cases of armed state-building.
Next to the political foundation, or brain, security is properly viewed as the next building block for nation-building, and a vital prerequisite for nation-building progress in all other areas.
Nadia Schadlow authored a superb work on this topic; she examined two centuries of U.S. military history and concluded that the U.S. Army is consistently tasked with establishing post- combat security and helping establish the new regime’s military.163 Despite this uncomfortable truth, the Army transitioned this mantle to State after World War II, disbanded much of its civil affairs capacity, and refocused its attention on winning wars. In 1959, the Army deleted the term military government from its lexicon.164
In the early 1990s, Army War College professor Max Manwaring developed a theoretical paradigm to gage internal conflicts and state legitimacy, but it applied to counterinsurgency rather than post-combat situations.165 A 1994 Army manual addressed peace operations, but even this was a catch-all that covered a wide range of “operations other than war,” including peacekeeping and peace-enforcement actions. The Army described post-combat stability and reconstruction missions as “peace building,” a “primarily diplomatic” action conducted in support of diplomats.166 Although a handful of war college scholars continued to write on post- combat or nation-building topics and recent Army experiences in Panama, the Army as an
163 See: Nadia Schadlow, War and the Art of Governance: Consolidating Combat Success into Political Victory (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2017), 3. 164 The Army’s decision was “based on the fact that the term has an unpleasant connotation to free people, especially our European allies, and that it is doubtful that the U.S. Army will ever find it feasible or practical to assume the degree of control the term implies.” See: Ltr. Hq. USCONARC, Fort Monroe, VA, Subject: “New Title for Civil Affairs Military Government.” File: ATTNG-D&R 312.7/42 (9 June 1959). 165 For an excellent analysis of the Manwaring Paradigm, see: John T. Fishel, ed., The Savage Wars of Peace: Toward a New Paradigm of Peace Operations (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998). 166 The Army’s then-recent post-combat experience in Grenada and Panama are not mentioned. Headquarters Department of the Army, FM 100-23: Peace Operations (December 1994), 2. 69 institution held its gaze fixed on high-intensity conventional war. For much of the period examined in this dissertation, Army practitioners had little post-combat theory or doctrine to guide their work. An updated Army doctrine on stability operations and support operations emerged in February 2003, and a more comprehensive doctrine on counterinsurgency was published in December 2006.167
The economic aspect of post-combat operations includes humanitarian relief, economic stabilization, and long-term economic development. USAID is the primary unilateral agency charged with these tasks, and it possesses separate offices dedicated to short-term humanitarian emergencies and long-term economic development. The short-term humanitarian relief mission is managed by three subordinate USAID offices, and the guiding principle is to rush necessary relief supplies to the affected population, minimizing human suffering and averting a societal catastrophe.168 The longer-term roles of economic stabilization and development align more closely with USAID’s core mission of economic development, and the agency’s dominant regional bureaus.
These regional bureaus follow the evolving tenets and best-practices of development theory, a family of theories that propose methods to improve social and economic advancement within societies, often through the judicious application of foreign aid.169 Like the Army,
USAID during this period had little institutional doctrine or training for post-combat operations;
167 Headquarters Department of the Army, FM 3-07 (FM 100-20): Stability Operations and Support Operations (February 2003). 168 The three offices of interest are the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, the Office of Transition Initiatives, and the Food for Peace program. The short-term goals are limited to the survival of the population and enabling the reestablishment of communities. For an excellent study of this important and underappreciated USAID role, see: Andrew Natsios, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Humanitarian Relief in Complex Emergencies (Westport: Praeger, 1997). 169 For a detailed overview of foreign aid and development theory during this period, see: Louis A. Picard et al, Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Lessons for the Next Half Century (New York: Routledge, 2008). See also: Sara Lorenzini, Global Development: A Cold War History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019). 70 its practitioners would rely on ad hoc adaptation and development theory for much of their work.
Despite having little existing doctrine, “virtually the entire development literature agrees that successful aid programs must be designed around local conditions, circumstances, culture, and leadership.”170 This rule held true in each case examined here; the degree of local ownership and buy-in correlated directly with the degree of success achieved by economic and governance- related programs. Fortunately, this principle provided foreign aid practitioners with a guiding light. Unfortunately, development theory involves a time horizon measured in years and decades
– a principle at odds with post-combat practitioners and policy makers desperate for near-term results. USAID belatedly published an excellent guidebook for its practitioners in 2009.171
Time is another critical factor that underlies modern post-combat and nation-building operations: practitioners inevitably learn that such work is notoriously messy and slow.
Sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf sagely noted that a constitution might be created in six months, and economic reform might possibly be achieved in six years, but developing a consolidated democracy with robust economic institutions is likely to require over sixty years.172 Jeremi
Suri’s history of American nation-building largely agreed with this point, and concluded that nation-building is an unpredictable process that requires diverse partners, creative problem- solving, a larger unifying purpose, and a focus on people.173 The time horizon for nation- building is a particular point of friction the disparate bureaucracies examined in this dissertation.
USAID’s focus on economic development produces a long-term worldview; the agency’s
170 Andrew Natsios, “The Clash of the Counter-bureaucracy and Development,” Center for Global Development, July 13, 2010, http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1424271. 171 U.S. Agency for International Development, “A Guide to Economic Growth in Post-Conflict Countries,” accessed February 24, 2020, https://fragilestates.itcilo.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/USAID-A-Guide-To- Economic-Growth-In-Post-Conflict-Countries.pdf. 172 Here Dahrendorf (1990) is paraphrased in: Louis A. Picard et al, Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Lessons for the Next Half Century (New York: Routledge, 2008), 92-93 173 Jeremi Suri, Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building From the Founders to Obama (New York: Free Press, 2011), 271-283. 71 overseas missions typically plan for the coming decade. This conflicts with the Army and State
Department, organizations with cultures that seek measurable success – now.
All Roads Lead to Institution-Building
Scholars of nation-building offer a wide range of recommendations on how best to sequence and implement reforms.174 On the whole, these scholarly debates offer little meaningful assistance to the practitioner on the ground, where issues of security, governance, and economics are interdependent and constantly changing. More useful is the key theme that all roads lead to institution-building. Economists Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson illustrated the fundamental importance of political and economic institutions in their landmark work Why Nations Fail.175 Ambassador James Dobbins applied this principle to the post-combat environment:
The term reconstruction, when used to describe the reform of post-conflict societies, conveys the sense that physical rebuilding of homes, factories, roads, and power plants destroyed in the war is the prime need. This is misleading. Even more than infrastructure, nations emerging from conflict need better institutions. In most cases, these institutions need to be refashioned, not just rebuilt, since it is the old institutions that will have failed in the first place. This is as true in the economic sphere as in the political.176
This theme is evident across all four cases examined here, particularly with respect to two overall trends. First, institution-building is expensive, tedious work that is difficult to measure and produces few gratifying metrics in the near-term.177 The political costs and obstacles associated
174 Paul Miller examined three schools of thought on how to sequence state-building efforts, and rejected all three. Paul Miller, Armed State Building: Confronting State Failure 1898-2012 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013), 21-38. 175 See: Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (New York: Crown, 2012). 176 James Dobbins et al, The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building (Santa Monica: RAND, 2007), xxxvi. 177 It is relatively easy to fund the construction of a paved highway; it is far more difficult to build a bureaucracy that can effectively maintain the asphalt highway indefinitely. The former requires only an initial infusion of funds, the latter a robust network of government structures to collect taxes, fund equipment and supplies, train workers, pay salaries, establish maintenance facilities, service vehicles, provide security, etc. 72 with institution-building – a complex endeavor in the best of times – grew steadily during this period thanks to growing oversight requirements and increasing demands for quantifiable return- on-investment. Second, after 2001 the Bush administration briefly attempted to implement its campaign-trail rhetoric that soldiers should not conduct nation-building. Events in Afghanistan and Iraq soon forced the Army back into the institution-building business.
The central role of building institutions (mostly bureaucracies) in a post-combat environment can be illustrated with a brief thought experiment. Consider a (hypothetical)
Afghan warlord allied with the United States following the collapse of the Taliban. Learning that the Americans pay dollars for militia payroll, our warlord invents battalions of ghost soldiers and police, pocketing the difference. As the governor with control over at least one city, our warlord implements formal and informal taxation systems, issues business licenses to family and friends, and purveys his kin for labor on American bases, pocketing a share of their salary. Learning that the Americans pay for information on Taliban and Al Qaeda; our warlord happily incriminates his political, tribal, or business rivals. Control of a border crossing is particularly gratifying, enabling the skimming of customs revenue and the export of opium and Afghanistan’s dwindling supply of timber. Soon our warlord has vast financial holdings and is considering retirement properties in Dubai. Too late – he is assassinated by a suicide bomber that infiltrated the Afghan army.
Let us consider the same warlord in a different context. The Afghan army and police pay scales are standardized, with salaries deposited directly into bank accounts and withdrawals subject to proof of identification. Legions of ghost soldiers vanish overnight. A justice system begins to hear cases, enforce laws, and release innocents falsely accused of association with the
Taliban. Institutions with nefarious reputations, like the corrupt highway police, are disbanded,
73 and others are professionalized. The central government, once distant and feeble, begins to gain control over revenue collection in cities and at border crossings. Suddenly recalled to Kabul, our warlord fears prosecution, and is both relieved and disappointed to be installed as a minor cabinet minister. Lacking sufficient power to overthrow his government by force, the warlord surveys his political capital and considers running for president instead. Even our suicide bomber finds his nefarious work more difficult, as Afghan army enlistment soon requires character references from the recruit’s village elders, and eventually a valid birth certificate and background check by the Afghan security services.178
The elaborate system of checks-and-balances presented in the latter scenario is the result of building the institutions that form Dobbins’ eight organs of state. The overarching goal is “to make violent societies peaceful, not to make poor ones prosperous, or authoritarian ones democratic.”179 Most of these key institutions are bureaucracies as Max Weber depicted, charged with implementing policy in an efficient and uniform manner. The key for post-combat practitioners is to tilt the institutional playing field in such a manner that competing warlords remain off-balance and have a continual vested interest in maintaining the legitimate government. Compared to the short-term humanitarian or medical aid programs favored by
Congress, “institution building is more difficult to measure, takes a long time to produce quantitative results, and is increasingly underfunded.”180 Yet the former pathways lead to
178 By 2008, the recruiting process for both the Afghan National Army and Police required a national identification card, verification by the Governor or a designated individual, an examination of health and criminal records, and signatures from two village elders and a district official. Report on Progress toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, (1230 Report), June 2008, 18-19. 179 James Dobbins et al, The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building (Santa Monica: RAND, 2007), xxiii. 180 Andrew Natsios, “The Clash of the Counter-bureaucracy and Development,” Center for Global Development, July 13, 2010, http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1424271. 74 dependency, the latter to sustainable self-government. For today’s post-combat practitioner, all roads lead to institution-building.
75
THE CASES – GRENADA, PANAMA, KOSOVO, AND AFGHANISTAN
The sudden and surprise U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983 occasioned considerable media, policy, and scholarly interest. Yet this interest in tiny Grenada faded almost immediately, as the American and Grenadian publics generally supported the “rescue mission.” Muckraking journalists and angry congressmen, frustrated with the U.S. military and Reagan administration for keeping them in the dark before and during the combat phase, swarmed to the tiny island hoping for scandal, only to discover stockpiles of Soviet weapons and throngs of grateful
Grenadians. Congressional visits to Grenada’s Eastern Caribbean neighbors revealed much the same. Journalistic and academic accounts of the crisis are generally focused on the brief combat operation, while critics focused on the souring relationship between the media and the U.S. military. Errors of military coordination during combat strengthened the case for what became the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act.
The existing literature on Grenada centers on the genesis and execution of combat operations, code-named Urgent Fury. Of note, several key individuals wrote relevant memoirs, including National Security Council staffers Constantine Menges and Oliver North, the British commander of the multinational peacekeeping force Major Mark Adkin, and Grenada’s Governor
General Sir Paul Scoon. A 1985 work subtitled “The Implications of Operation ‘Urgent Fury,’” examined none of the implications of post-combat operations there.181 Military-sponsored studies of Grenada focused on combat operations, logistical operations, or the stellar operational leadership of the U.S. Navy admiral who oversaw the tactical engagements from offshore.182
181 Peter Dunn, American Intervention in Grenada: The Implications of Operation “Urgent Fury” (New York: Routledge, 1985). 182 For representative examples of the military’s perspective on combat operations in Grenada, see: Ronald H. Cole, Operation Urgent Fury: Grenada (Washington, D.C.: Joint History Office, 1997). Logistics: Edgar Raines, The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 76
Unfortunately, these accounts typically end their narrative on or about 2 November 1983. Not to be outdone, in 1986 the Department of State published a pamphlet on the lessons of Grenada, but this document only reinforced the Reagan administration’s case for intervention, while the lessons of the ongoing post-combat operation go unmentioned.183 Each of these accounts provides some context to the situation that existed on Grenada; none is focused on the post- combat operation. It is a gap within the literature that this dissertation will help correct.
The dearth of literature on Grenadian post-combat operations reflects the small scale of the island and the U.S. operations, compared to missions before and since. Many scholars of
U.S. post-combat operations sidestep the paucity of sources by ignoring the case of Grenada altogether. For example, Nadia Schadlow’s masterful study of post-combat governance overlooks Grenada entirely, and a RAND assessment of U.S. post-combat operations from
Germany to Iraq excluded Grenada because it was “shorter lived and had more-limited political objectives.”184 While shorter lived, the mission in Grenada involved restoring a democratic government and capitalist economy after years of Marxist political rule and economic policy, a political objective of daunting magnitude. Perhaps the most detailed secondary source on post- combat operations in Grenada is a brief, scathing review of the U.S. effort that lionized the former regime’s socialist policies.185
The case of post-combat Panama received more attention from journalists, historians, and political scientists than Grenada, but once again the attention proved short-lived. The sudden
2010). Operational leadership: Samuel Ward, Urgent Fury: The Operational Leadership of Vice Admiral Joseph P. Metcalf, III (Newport: Naval War College, 2014). 183 United States Department of State, Lessons of Grenada (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1986). 184 See: Nadia Schadlow, War and the Art of Governance: Consolidating Combat Success into Political Victory (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2017). See also: James Dobbins, America’s Role in Nation- Building: From Germany to Iraq (Santa Monica: RAND, 2003), 2. 185 See: James Ferguson, Grenada: Revolution in Reverse (London: Latin America Bureau, 1990). 77 end of the Cold War, and the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf conflict understandably diverted western interest and U.S. dollars from post-combat operations in Panama. An initial spate of investigative journalism sources of varying quality focused on President Bush’s decision to intervene, or the U.S. Army-dominated combat actions, or scintillating details of Manuel
Noriega’s illicit business dealings and personal vices. John Dinges produced a detailed account of Noriega’s dealings in the years prior to the invasion; Bob Woodward focused on the Bush administration’s policy decisions; and Thomas Donnelly and Malcolm McConnell uncovered details of the invasion and its immediate aftermath.186 Political scientist Orlando Pérez later edited a volume documenting post-combat Panama as a narrow case amid a broader regional wave of democratization and a modernizing regional political economy.187 And historian Hal
Brands considered the Panama invasion to be a rare instance of Latin American democratization achieved by military force, and a case of a defiant superpower reasserting its authority and credibility in the waning days of the Cold War.188
By far the most thorough scholarly treatment of U.S. post-combat operations in Panama is the body of works written by Dr. John Fishel, a former Army lieutenant colonel who helped author the post-combat civil affairs plan for Panama and became a leading scholar on modern small wars and U.S. post-combat operations.189 Importantly, Fishel’s work on Panama unveiled the institutional factors at play for Army post-combat planners, with remarkable candor and little detectable bias. Another valuable contemporaneous source is a detailed monograph authored by
186 Each of these accounts offers useful context; none are focused on the aftermath of the combat operation. 187 For example, see: Orlando J. Pérez, Post-Invasion Panama: The Challenges of Democratization in the New World Order (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2000). 188 For example, see: Hal Brands, Latin America’s Cold War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010). 189 For Fishel’s seminal monograph on Panama’s post-combat mission, see: John T. Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 1992). See also: John T. Fishel, Civil Military Operations in the New World (Westport: Praeger, 1997). 78 professor Richard Shultz; this insightful work is based on numerous interviews of key personnel across multiple agencies.190 A separate, superb two-volume history of the Panama intervention commissioned by the Army’s Center of Military History regrettably ends its narrative in January
1990, just as post-combat operations were getting underway.191 The same is true of the Army’s
Center of Military History monograph on Operation Just Cause, which concludes its analysis when the shooting ceased.192
The Kosovo case marks an interesting contrast with Grenada and Panama. While analysts and bureaucracies alike could write off Grenada and Panama as post-Vietnam anomalies, Kosovo marked the sixth U.S. post-combat nation-building mission in the previous decade.193 This in combination with an ethnic cleansing campaign, a shooting war between
NATO and Yugoslavia, political friction between the west and Russia, and a semi-autonomous
Kosovo that declared independence in 2008, engendered considerable interest from scholars and practitioners. With Grenada and Panama, the researcher’s challenge is finding good sources; with Kosovo, the challenge is selecting which of many available sources to use.
Political scientists have provided incisive looks at nation- and institution-building progress in Kosovo from 1999-2008 and since; sometimes using development or democratization theory as their guide, and are generally disappointed about the progress to date. Florian Bieber edited a 2003 volume on Kosovo that examined the shortcomings of the post-conflict international administration, and a 2015 volume edited by Sabrina Ramet examined many facets
190 Richard H. Shultz, Jr., In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993). 191 See: Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2013). 192 R. Cody Phillips, Operation Just Cause: The Incursion into Panama (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2004?). 193 Previous operations in this category included the U.S. role in Panama (1989), Kuwait (1991), Somalia (1992), Haiti (1994), and Bosnia (1995). 79 of Kosovar society, and concluded that it is still too early to determine whether democratic and civic values have truly taken root.194 Gezim Visoka, a leading scholar of peace and conflict studies, argued in 2017 that western interventionists have failed at both peacebuilding and state building in Kosovo. He cites Serbian political meddling, domestic corruption, state capture, and organized crime as reasons for failure, along with inadequate application of political science theory.195
This perspective contrasts sharply with post-combat practitioner and theorist James
Dobbins, who by 2003 considered Kosovo the best organized and resourced post-combat operation since the Cold War.196 This fundamental disagreement was reflected by policymakers’ disparate views: in 2001 and 2003, key Bush administration officials viewed Kosovo, and
Clinton-era nation-building more generally, as an anti-model to be avoided at all costs.197 Two decades and trillions of dollars later, it is Kosovo that appears to be the cost-effective success story. Condoleezza Rice provides another surprising example of this disparity on Kosovo between critic and practitioner; ideologue and pragmatist. In 2000, Condoleezza Rice authored an article that criticized the Clinton administration’s Kosovo policy as incompetent, and called for a political plan to enable an American troop withdrawal.198 Years later as Secretary of State – with U.S. Army troops still serving in Kosovo – Rice’s department played a pivotal role in ushering Kosovo to independence, ironically fulfilling a Clinton administration pledge.
194 Florian Bieber and Zidas Daskalovski, eds., Understanding the War in Kosovo (Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2003). See also: Sabrina Ramet et al, Civic and Uncivic Values in Kosovo: History, Politics, and Value Transformation (New York: Central European University Press, 2015). 195 Gezim Visoka, Shaping Peace in Kosovo (New York: Springer, 2017). 196 James Dobbins, America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq (Santa Monica: RAND, 2003), 127. 197 For example, see: Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown (New York: Sentinel, 2011), 482. 198 Condoleezza Rice, “Promoting the National Interest,” 79 Foreign Affairs No. 1 (January/February 2000), 52. 80
Kosovo contrasts with the other cases other important ways. Since the principal action arms for Kosovo post-combat operations were multinational organizations, including the United
Nations and NATO, the bureaucracies of interest (Army, State, and USAID) played important but less visible roles. This is reflected in the existing body of journalism and literature on Kosovo, notably the insightful work of Balkan correspondent Tim Judah, which generally focuses on the
European, UN, or NATO actions at three key inflection points: the 1999 Kosovo war, the 2004 shockwave of violence that rippled across Kosovo, and the 2008 declaration of independence.199
Despite this, and the unfortunate fact that few official U.S. documents from this period have yet been declassified, there is sufficient scholarly material to gain insight on the role of the U.S. bureaucracies of interest. Published memoirs from key State and Army officials, recorded oral histories, and a superb Army Center of Military History monograph help establish the necessary institutional lens.200 Investigative journalism accounts and secondary sources from contemporary historians and security studies scholars like Andrew Bacevich also lend useful insights.201 And Henry Perritt authored a detailed account of Kosovo’s post-2004 march to independence that illuminated the central role of the Department of State throughout the negotiations.202
Of the cases examined within this dissertation, Afghanistan from 2001-2008 encompasses the richest and most diverse body of literature. In 2012, the Afghanistan Analyst Network
199 Tim Judah, Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). 200 Key memoirs include those of Army General Wes Clark, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. For the Center of Military History monograph, see: R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007). 201 For an excellent edited volume on the Kosovo war commissioned by the Smith Richardson Foundation, see: Andrew Bacevich and Eliot Cohen, War Over Kosovo: Politics and Strategy in a Global Age (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001). 202 Henry H. Perritt, Jr., The Road to Independence for Kosovo: A Chronicle of the Ahtisaari Plan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 81 released a bibliography that spanned 84 pages; by 2019 it had grown to 272 pages.203 Although many U.S. government primary sources remain classified, establishing an analytical lens based on institutional factors is relatively straightforward. Open-source reports from nonpartisan entities, such as the Government Accountability Office and the United States Institute of Peace, lend credible insight on the progress and challenges surrounding key institution-building initiatives. The Army commissioned professional historical studies on its role in Afghanistan, and key individuals from the Department of State, including Ambassadors James Dobbins and
Ronald Neumann, have published extensively on their experiences in Afghanistan. These sources help limit this dissertation’s dependence on the ever-expanding body of secondary scholarship that surrounds the ongoing case of Afghanistan.204
203 Afghanistan Analyst Network, “Afghanistan Analyst Bibliography,” accessed May 20, 2020, https://afghanistan- analyst.org/bibliography/. 204 Of the myriad of available secondary sources, the most useful to this dissertation is: Seth G. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009). 82
Chapter 3: Grenada
This chapter argues that when post-combat operations commenced in Grenada in 1983,
State, the Army, and USAID relied chiefly on existing capabilities and short-term adaptations
(Proposition 1). State and USAID also deliberately selected well-qualified practitioners for the crisis at hand, while the Army benefited from the selection of units with capabilities useful for the situation (Proposition 2). In the Grenada case, a revolt of the cherries is almost undetectable
– when USAID practitioners pressed for additional resources to complete the controversial Point
Salines airport, their agency supported the request and helped convince the Reagan administration (Proposition 3). Of these three national security institutions, only State and the
Army planted orchards (Proposition 4). State created temporary organizations to conduct specific tasks; and the Army made an institutional effort to convert its lessons-learned into long- term organizational learning – although the Army’s effort focused on combat rather than the post-combat mission. In Grenada, the individual bureaucracies did their respective thing, leveraged their respective strengths to accommodate the others’ problems, and managed to achieve a remarkable degree of interagency unity of effort.
Below is a brief analysis of the circumstances that led to the 1983 U.S. intervention in
Grenada, followed by sections dedicated to State, the U.S. Army, and USAID adaptations, with an eye toward the practitioner rather than the political science theorist. Because State’s adaptive diplomacy proved instrumental in the decision to use force – and the public diplomacy efforts afterward – the State section includes key adaptations that occurred during both the lead-up and in the aftermath of the conflict. State’s key adaptations centered around the safety of American civilians, re-establishing democracy in Grenada, and directing a public diplomacy campaign at the domestic, regional, and global levels. The subsequent section considers the Army’s post-
83 combat role in three distinct stages: the transition from combat to post-combat operations (25
October – 3 November 1983); the U.S.-led stabilization effort (4 November – 15 December
1983); and U.S. Army support to the Caribbean Peacekeeping Force (15 December – August
1984). The USAID section reviews the agency’s surprising contributions in the opening days of the conflict, its successful completion of the Point Salines airport, and its practitioners’ efforts to adapt standard development procedures to Grenada’s unique situation.
84
GRENADA IN CONTEXT
In October 1983, U.S. troops and elements of the Caribbean regional security forces invaded Grenada with overwhelming military force and defeated Grenadian and Cuban resistance. The mission quickly transitioned from several days of combat to a post-combat civil- military operation that spanned more than 18 months. During this period, a modest number of
Army troops, along with a handful of officials from the State Department and USAID, uprooted the communist regime, restored Grenada as a democracy within the British Commonwealth, and struggled to rebuild the island’s long-term economic prospects. These bureaucracies achieved an admirable degree of interagency unity of effort, and leveraged multiple instruments of U.S. national power to consolidate military success into enduring political victory.
Grenada is a small island country located in the Eastern Caribbean off the coast of
Venezuela; it is approximately a quarter of the size of Rhode Island, with several tiny outlying islands. Grenada’s terrain is rugged and volcanic; its interior is mountainous and blanketed with rain forest. A 1983 White House fact sheet listed Grenada’s population as 111,000 people, predominantly Black, English-speaking, and Catholic.205 A third-world economy, Grenada was home to beautiful beaches, a smattering of vacation homes, and as many as 1,000 Americans; most of whom were students or faculty at the St. George’s Medical School.
At the root of the conflict was a political comedy of errors with lethal consequences. In
1979, a Marxist revolution – comprising only a few dozen armed men – overthrew the democratically-elected but increasingly autocratic government of a committed UFO conspiracy
205 Subsequent, post-intervention documents estimated Grenada’s population at a more realistic 85,000-95,000. See: “Grenada: Basic Facts,” Oct. 28, 1983, box 90678, Constantine Menges Files, Ronald Reagan Library. 85 theorist.206 Maurice Bishop, a ruthless and charismatic Marxist, assumed power; he pivoted
Grenada toward the Cuban governance model, built a provocatively large military, and began constructing a military airfield at Point Salines in Grenada.207 Bishop was provocative but no fool; he openly criticized U.S. policy but never jeopardized the safety of hundreds of Americans at the St. George’s Medical School.208 In October 1983, Bishop’s military and political partners ousted him from power, and subsequently murdered him and a number of his followers – for the crime of being insufficiently communist.209 These more enlightened communists then declared military rule, refused to permit the evacuation of American citizens, and imposed a shoot-on- sight curfew.210
The Reagan administration took a dim view of these policies. Ronald Reagan had voiced concerns about Grenada during the 1980 election campaign. As president, he had suspended direct diplomatic ties to Grenada, and in a March 1983 speech that directly linked Grenada’s military construction – particularly its military airfield at Point Salines – to U.S. national security. Reagan had run for president on a platform of strength against communism and increased defense spending; he had assumed office in the wake of the botched Iranian hostage
206 Few Grenadians were sorry to see the increasingly eccentric and autocratic Prime Minister Eric Gairy ousted from office. He returned to Grenada after the U.S. intervention, and ran unsuccessfully for high office. Paul Scoon, Survival for Service: My Experiences as Governor General of Grenada (Oxford: Macmillan, 2003), 10-55. 207 Some 600 Cuban combat engineers assisted in the airfield’s construction. If completed, the airfield would have permitted direct Cuban military flights to Africa, where Cuban paramilitary forces were fighting in Angola. In the event the Cold War became a great power conflict, communist aircraft stationed in Grenada – some 200 miles from Venezuela – could interdict over 40 percent of U.S. oil imports. Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 27-28. 208 The safety of the students was a White House concern well before Bishop was murdered. In mid-1983 the National Security Council planned to persuade the St. George’s Medical School to relocate to Antigua by 1984, offering an attractive lease on a soon-to-be vacated military complex. Memo, Alfonso Sapia-Bosch to Robert McFarlane, June 7, 1983, folder "Grenada 06/01/83-06/14/83," Sapia-Bosch, Alfonso files, Ronald Reagan Library. 209 Bishop favored Castro-style Marxism, while his former partners favored a hardline Soviet philosophy. Scoon considered both parties to be equally ruthless in practice. Paul Scoon, Survival for Service: My Experiences as Governor General of Grenada (Oxford: Macmillan, 2003), 100-105. 210 Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 300-303. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 86 crisis. By October 1983, the Reagan administration was committed to resisting communist expansion in the Western Hemisphere. In launching their violent coup in Grenada, declaring themselves a communist state of the hardline Soviet model, and holding a thousand American citizens at risk, Grenada’s communist revolutionaries displayed great ideological fervor but little geopolitical wisdom.
By this point, the diplomatic warning system was blinking red. At State’s suggestion,
Vice President Bush sought personal opinions from Caribbean leaders who professed deep worry about events on Grenada even before Bishop’s murder.211 In the wake of Bishop’s death, Eastern
Caribbean prime ministers, lacking military forces and fearing communist revolutions in their own small and defenseless democracies, clamored for U.S. intervention.212 Grenada’s Governor-
General, Sir Paul Scoon, passed an urgent verbal request for assistance.213 On October 22nd,
President Reagan directed military intervention and the restoration of a democratic government in Grenada.214 The intervention occurred on October 25th.
The Grenada intervention was the first combat mission for America’s post-Vietnam all- volunteer force. It was a small-scale military action nested within an era of great power competition, with major consequences for the U.S. military services. The island was small, but the scope of the challenge was immense. With only a few days to plan, the military executed an
211 Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 288-290. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 212 Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 290-293. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 213 Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 301. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. For Sir Paul Scoon’s account of this delicate time, see: Paul Scoon, Survival for Service: My Experiences as Governor General of Grenada (Oxford: Macmillan, 2003), 124-136. 214 Caspar Weinberger, Fighting for Peace: Seven Critical Years in the Pentagon (New York: Warner Books, 1990), 112. 87 offensive operation 1,500 miles from Key West in a remote corner of the Caribbean.215 Enemy forces – unknown to U.S. planners – included roughly 350 poorly led and equipped members of the People’s Revolutionary Army, ten light armored vehicles, and a reserve militia; augmented by 700 Cuban military engineer reservists.216 U.S. military forces peaked at over 7,000 well- trained troops equipped with sophisticated weaponry, ships, planes, and helicopters. The military outcome was never in doubt. And while mistakes in planning and execution later contributed to military reforms including the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, the combat and post-combat operations achieved their major objectives. The Americans at the medical school were evacuated, a democratic and stable Grenadian government was restored, and the fragile Eastern
Caribbean region remained secure.
The Grenada intervention produced a curious anomaly for an era of great power competition: the financial cost of post-combat operations rivaled the cost of the military intervention. Analysts calculated that the 1983 U.S.-led intervention cost an estimated $75.5 million; U.S. aid to Grenada by February 1986 totaled $72.6 million.217 Future decades would convert this from anomaly into a general rule. In Panama, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, the financial cost, duration, and complexity of post-combat operations would dwarf that of achieving initial military victory.
As a post-combat case, Grenada produced other noteworthy characteristics. Because the
Grenada intervention occurred only two days after the October 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the National Security Council system was initially overwhelmed. Of the
215 For the military’s official history of the planning and combat phases of the Grenada mission – which concludes its narrative in early November, 1983, just as post-combat operations were getting underway – see: Ronald H. Cole, Operation Urgent Fury: Grenada (Washington, D.C.: Joint History Office, 1997). 216 Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 16-23. 217 James Ferguson, Grenada: Revolution in Reverse (London: Latin America Bureau, 1990), 1, 27. 88 cases examined here, Grenada is the case in which deployed bureaucratic practitioners from State and USAID enjoyed the most autonomy from Washington, particularly in the early weeks and months of post-combat operations. In contrast, Army practitioners labored to accommodate an array of early demands from Washington – many of these originated from the decisively-engaged
State Department rather than the overwhelmed National Security Council staff. In general, practitioners in Grenada leveraged this autonomy to build a degree of practitioner trust and interagency unity of effort unparalleled in subsequent cases; to create policies tailored to
Grenada’s unique situation; and to accomplish a truly remarkable reversal of Reagan administration policy – by funding the completion of the Point Salines airport.
89
STATE IN GRENADA: MY OPERATION
In his memoir, Secretary of State George Shultz proclaimed that “the entire Grenada operation was driven by the State Department.”218 Tony Motley, State’s assistant secretary for the Caribbean and Latin America in 1983, went even further: “I would like to consider Grenada as my operation.”219 Both men were substantively correct. Motley led the Reagan administration’s interagency group responsible for Grenada, and presciently viewed the island’s growing instability with a “gut feeling” that Reagan would not stand for an Iran-hostage situation.220 He threw himself into contingency planning, and had little difficulty convincing others at State that something needed to be done. State Department leadership lobbied President
Reagan to intervene; Shultz, Eagleburger, Johnstone and Gillespie led the charge and trampled what they perceived to be a reluctant Defense Department.221
In 1983, State was a bureaucratic powerhouse. To preclude unnecessary turf battles, the
Reagan administration had “from its first days” made State the lead agency for “all the regular interagency meetings on foreign policy issues below the presidential level.”222 Providing the chairperson for each of these interagency groups afforded State with tremendous influence;
“State was definitely not fair” in playing this “bureaucratic game: only those people who hewed
218 George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York: Scribner’s, 1993), 343. 219 Langhorne A. Motley, Oral History, 38. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 220 Langhorne A. Motley, Oral History, 40. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 221 Larry Eagleburger was then Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs; Craig Johnstone and Charles Gillespie were Deputy Assistant Secretaries of State. Along with Secretary of State George Shultz, these men were all “really pushing for intervention.” Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 327. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. Also: George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York: Scribner’s, 1993), 331. 222 Constantine Menges, Inside the National Security Council: The True Story of the Making and Unmaking of Reagan’s Foreign Policy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 66. 90 the State Department line would get invited to interagency meetings.”223 From Motley’s optic at
State, mitigating the influence of perceived political hardliners – ideologues that Motley labeled
“heavy breathers” – was a bureaucratic imperative that applied to both Republican and Democrat administrations.224
Atop the State bureaucracy rested Secretary of State George Shultz, who in October 1983 had served in the position for over a year. Shultz trusted and empowered his career foreign service officers, routinely clashed with Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, and believed that the “use of force, and the credible threat of force, are legitimate instruments of national policy.”225 On the topic of Grenada, State’s politically appointed leaders and its career foreign service officers were in violent agreement. In winning the president’s decision to intervene,
State and its secretary inherited tremendous responsibility to make the military intervention and subsequent post-combat operations a success story.226
The State Department’s priorities during the Grenada crisis included the safe return of the
American students and faculty at the medical school, the re-establishment of democracy on
Grenada, and a comprehensive public diplomacy campaign. Achieving these goals required
State to leverage its existing capabilities, hand-select superbly qualified officers for key tasks, and adapt well beyond its normal operating procedures. Grenada broke the State Department mold; it was the first major military intervention since Vietnam, and was “initiated out of the
223 Constantine Menges, Inside the National Security Council: The True Story of the Making and Unmaking of Reagan’s Foreign Policy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 67. 224 Motley enjoyed strong conservative credentials, and thus had a stronger position to counter ideologues who “translated ‘pragmatism’ as unpatriotic.” Motley considered Constantine Menges one of these “heavy breathers.” Langhorne A. Motley, Oral History, 28-29. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 225 George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York: Scribner’s, 1993), 345. Also: James Dobbins, Foreign Service: Five Decades on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy (Santa Monica: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 74-75. 226 Tony Motley later reflected, “we had caused Grenada, and therefore had to make it work.” Langhorne A. Motley, Oral History, 45. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 91
State Department” after diplomacy had failed.227 With little existing precedent, swift adaptation was the order of the day.
The escalating Grenada crisis illustrated the limits of State’s existing capacity in the
Eastern Caribbean – and State’s inability to compel its diplomats to serve in dangerous places.
The U.S. ambassador to the Eastern Caribbean was Milan Bish, a Republican campaign donor and political appointee who lacked experience in complex diplomacy. His embassy was in
Barbados but he was not credentialed to Grenada and had never visited there.228 Asked for volunteers to travel to Grenada and assess the situation, State’s Foreign Service Officers in
Barbados demurred and some even requested evacuation to the United States.229 American diplomats were not alone in their fears that the tiny, defenseless Caribbean democracies would topple like dominoes to their own communist revolutions; the Eastern Caribbean prime ministers pleaded for immediate U.S. assistance. The prime minister of Dominica, Eugenia Charles, was particularly vocal; her government had already survived two attempted coups.230 Despite State’s best diplomatic efforts, the new Grenadian regime refused to permit an evacuation of the students.
State adapted to the worsening crisis by hand-selecting qualified diplomats and practitioners. Tony Motley forged consent in Washington; recalled a key diplomat from
227 Langhorne A. Motley, Oral History, 28-29. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 228 Gillespie believed that Bish “had some very good ideas. He was very honest, very nice, but probably out of his element…[his] experience and knowledge were limited.” Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 334. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 229 Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 299-300. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 230 One armed attack on Dominica was “fixed” by the French, who intervened from Martinique without United Nations approval; the second was “Operation Red Dog,” which was foiled by U.S. law enforcement. Lacking military defense forces, the Caribbean states viewed communist revolutions in Central America and Grenada with abject terror. See: Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 298-299. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 92 sabbatical and sent him to Barbados; and dispatched another to Norfolk to convince the skeptical military that there were days, not weeks to plan an intervention.231 Meanwhile, Charles Gillespie took control of the situation from Barbados. Gillespie was State’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State for Caribbean Affairs, then on a familiarization trip in the region. He phoned Washington and received two hand-picked diplomats; approved a third volunteer from Antigua; and convinced three officers on Barbados to volunteer to travel to Grenada and report on the students’ situation.232 After the military intervention, Gillespie became chief of mission in
Grenada and continued this practice by telephoning personal contacts at sister agencies to lobby for their best-and-brightest, telling them: “I don’t want any bums.”233
State’s technique of hand-selecting quality officers for the crisis generated enormous return-on-investment. In Washington, Motley established and oversaw an interagency team of lawyers who crafted the legal justification for intervention; he incorporated various Caribbean security forces into the U.S.-led invasion; and he developed plans for an international peacekeeping force.234 In Barbados, Gillespie forged the embassy elements into a coherent team, dispatched personnel to Grenada to report on the situation and prepare the students, and
231 Norfolk was then the headquarters of United States Atlantic Command (USLANTCOM), the military’s regional command responsible for the Caribbean. Langhorne A. Motley, Oral History, 38-39. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. Also: Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 298-303. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 232 A 2010 Army history of Grenada reports that one of the volunteers who traveled to Grenada, Linda Flohr, was a Central Intelligence Agency officer. Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 298-303. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. See also: Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 95. 233 Another more qualified candidate for chief of mission declined the post, citing family reasons. Gillespie’s pleas achieved noteworthy success with State, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the U.S. Information Agency; this technique was not possible with the Army, which sent entire units with their commanders, but Gillespie considered himself “lucky” to receive soldiers and officers who were “by and large, pretty good, and some were outstanding.” Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 306, 328-329. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 234 The legal task force was headed by Motley’s principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Jim Michael, and comprised lawyers from State, Justice, and Defense. Langhorne A. Motley, Oral History, 43. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 93 leveraged his preexisting relationships with senior military officers.235 During the military operation, one of Gillespie’s hand-picked diplomats from Washington accompanied Navy SEALs on their combat mission to rescue Grenada’s Governor-General Sir Paul Scoon. 236 State headquarters dispatched another “very sharp officer” to accompany the rescued American students on their flight back to the United States, a flight that concluded with a student kissing the ground on arrival in the United States.237 Each of these officers was hand-selected for the crisis at hand, and each rewarded State’s trust with sound judgment, independent action, and results.
Once the American invasion achieved military victory, the State Department adapted swiftly and played a critical role in early post-combat operations. Its designated diplomat,
Charles Gillespie, arrived in Grenada immediately, commandeered a building as a temporary embassy, and coordinated with U.S. military leadership, the Grenadian Governor-General, and foreign diplomats holed up in communist embassies. The American students were evacuated without casualties, but an array of new crises filled Gillespie’s calendar. Communist diplomats and Cuban prisoners-of-war had to be evacuated from the island; Soviet diplomats demanded to sell their cars for hard currency before departing; and security inspections revealed illicit weapons and explosives concealed in supposedly diplomatic baggage destined for Havana and
235 Gillespie credited connections made at the National War College with producing “ready-made relationships: ‘Do you know so and so?...those relationships have their value, if you know how to use them.” Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 326. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 236 Larry Rossin had previously served in the Eastern Caribbean and knew Paul Scoon; Rossin’s helicopter took heavy enemy fire and diverted to a U.S. Navy vessel; he later met with Scoon and coordinated Scoon’s written request for U.S. support, a critical element of the legal justification for U.S. intervention. Rossin later served as the first chief of mission in Kosovo in 1999. Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 308-310. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 237 Charles Shapiro was the foreign service officer in question; Gillespie considered the famous incident to be “not totally spontaneous,” and believed Shapiro partly responsible for the student’s gesture. Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 330-331. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 94
Moscow.238 Gillespie also asserted his primacy over the post-combat mission as the president’s direct representative; a claim the military – only a decade removed from Vietnam – did not challenge.239
To restore democracy on Grenada, State had to adapt to the situation on the ground, and this meant relying on Governor-General Sir Paul Scoon to form an interim government. There were few other options. The Caribbean’s checkered history of colonialism precluded a U.S. military or civilian proconsul. Sensitive to this political and legal context, State’s lawyers had insisted that Sir Paul Scoon was an invaluable link to Grenada’s constitutional authority; their legal research determined that Scoon alone could provide a formal request for assistance and appoint an interim government.240 The Central Intelligence Agency had produced a list of
Grenadian exiles as possible interim leaders for Scoon to consider, but State’s regional experts scrapped the list as “some of the worst people in the Caribbean.”241
Instead, Gillespie and the State Department backed Sir Paul Scoon, who seized the golden hour, promptly adapting his role from ceremonial figurehead to policy entrepreneur.
Citing his authority under the Grenadian constitution, Scoon declared an emergency, broke ties with Cuba and the Soviets, and created a provisional government with respected attorney
238 Conservative ideologues in Washington sought to make an example of the communist diplomats for the concealed weapons, but State’s cooler heads prevailed, reminding policymakers of the many American diplomats around the world who might find themselves victims of retribution from communist regimes. Dozens of communist diplomats from multiple Iron Curtain countries were compelled to depart Grenada – some were grateful to Gillespie for enabling their departure from tiny, remote Grenada. Given the large numbers of communist diplomats, surprisingly few were believed to be intelligence officers. Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 321-322. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 239 Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 326. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. Also: Langhorne A. Motley, Oral History, 42-45. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 240 Langhorne A. Motley, Oral History, 43. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. Also: Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 308, 313. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 241 Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 340. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 95
Nicholas Brathwaite as acting prime minister.242 Scoon interpreted his mandate liberally; he appointed an Advisory Council absent of career politicians, removed internationalist workers and committed socialists from high office, brought trusted civil servants back from retirement to fill the vacancies, and eliminated several unnecessary ministries.243 Grenada’s much-diminished police force grew progressively as quality candidates were recruited, and communist militias comprised of uneducated youths were dispersed.244
The combination of State’s light touch and Scoon’s temperate judgment avoided many of the pitfalls that would hamstring future post-combat operations. There was no massive purge of government officials; essential ministries and public schools remained largely intact; and the country’s 1973 constitution was restored. This reinstated a democratic system compatible with
Grenada’s citizens and its history as a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Peace and reconciliation became the order of the day. Of the revolutionary regime, only eighteen stood trial for criminal acts, and those for the universally abhorred execution of Maurice Bishop, his pregnant girlfriend, and nine other victims.245
In backing Scoon, State continued its positive track record of adaptation – by hand- selecting talented individuals and providing autonomy. Although the role of Governor-General was intended to be ceremonial in nature, Scoon enjoyed considerable legitimacy in Grenada,
242 Paul Scoon, Survival for Service: My Experiences as Governor General of Grenada (Oxford: Macmillan, 2003), 146-151, 173. See also: Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 340. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 243 Paul Scoon, Survival for Service: My Experiences as Governor General of Grenada (Oxford: Macmillan, 2003), 162-180. 244 Scoon noted that under the socialist regime, many Grenadian police officers quit the force, departing the island under various pretexts and not returning. Under Scoon and Brathwaite, the interim government did not develop a training program for the uneducated militia members. Paul Scoon, Survival for Service: My Experiences as Governor General of Grenada (Oxford: Macmillan, 2003), 199-202, 212. 245 That the communist regime would murder a pregnant woman stunned and terrorized the population. For a brief synopsis of this episode, see: James Ferguson, Grenada: Revolution in Reverse (London: Latin America Bureau, 1990), 101-104. 96 where his career had survived multiple changes of regime. Gillespie found Scoon to be intelligent, honest, politically adaptive and a moderate; Scoon likewise considered Gillespie “the right man at the right time” to represent the United States.246 The pair worked well together.
Nicholas Brathwaite also proved to be “honest and straight” in Gillespie’s estimation.247
Brathwaite and Scoon were amenable to working with the United States; though neither could afford to be seen as an American pawn.248 Subsequent elections in December 1984 further validated State’s approach, and produced a government under the aging conservative Herbert
Blaize.
The State Department also played a critical role in crafting the Reagan administration’s public relations campaign on the intervention and its aftereffects. The public diplomacy campaign was a vital adaptation for State, for several reasons. As the bureaucracy most responsible for triggering the military intervention, State had a vested interest in making the end result a success at the domestic, regional, and global levels. As the U.S. diplomatic service, State was also partly responsible for healing the devastating rift between Reagan and Thatcher that the
Grenada intervention had caused. Here the agency benefited from its longstanding core mission of public diplomacy, its standard procedures and diplomatic relationships, and its willingness to select and empower highly qualified individuals. A failure in public diplomacy entailed great organizational risk for State, which approached the task with vigor. State made enormous
246 Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 340. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. Also: Paul Scoon, Survival for Service: My Experiences as Governor General of Grenada (Oxford: Macmillan, 2003), 149. 247 Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 341. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 248 This paralleled the future cases of the Endara regime in Panama and Hamid Karzai’s government in Afghanistan. To maintain credibility with the people, interim and elected leaders needed to publicly safeguard their autonomy from the U.S. government. Scoon recognized this tension almost immediately, and refused State’s immediate request for a public statement that would assist the U.S. position with the United Nations. Paul Scoon, Survival for Service: My Experiences as Governor General of Grenada (Oxford: Macmillan, 2003), 147-148. 97 contributions in shaping a positive narrative to U.S., Grenadian, and regional audiences, but success proved elusive within the United Kingdom, and on the global diplomatic stage. This challenge nevertheless required immediate adaptation.
As the chief of mission in Grenada, Gillespie became the focal point of the early diplomatic and public relations firestorm. The sudden, unilateral decision to intervene in
Grenada had shocked and angered the British and Canadian governments, the U.S. Congress, and the news media. A news editorial the morning after the invasion – reprinted in the White House news summary – captured the reaction in Washington and overseas: “Hawks screeched. Doves
Cooed. Enemies howled. And most politicians ran for cover, temporizing incoherently.”249
Within days of the invasion, the military informed Gillespie of the pending arrival of the first flight loaded with media personnel, telling the diplomat “They’re yours.”250 It was the first of what became legions of angry reporters and skeptical Congressmen to arrive in Grenada prepared to skewer the Reagan administration.251
Given this unfavorable initial context, Gillespie masterfully orchestrated a shift in narrative from inexcusable unilateralism; to minor diplomatic incident; to geopolitical success story. Gillespie prioritized exploration and transparency; he encouraged visitors to meet
Grenadians, ensured their access to communist weapons stockpiles, and enlisted Army officers as
249 Philadelphia Inquirer, October 26, 1983, included in the White House News Summary for October 26, 1983, Grenada (1 of 3) OA 9450, Edwin Meese files, Ronald Reagan Library. 250 Military public affairs personnel and U.S. Information Agency personnel accompanied the reporters on the flight to Grenada, after which the “angry, cynical, and doubtful” reporters became Gillespie’s problem. The U.S. military had strained relations with the media establishment since Vietnam, and kept reporters uninformed and out of Grenada during combat operations and for days after. Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 329-330. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 251 The focus of congressional and media criticism seized upon U.S. military coordination problems during the invasion; valid criticism that lent impetus to the later Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. Gary Williams, U.S.-Grenada Relations: Revolution and Intervention in the Backyard (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 158. For a superb insider account of Goldwater-Nichols, see: James Locher, Victory on the Potomac: The Goldwater-Nichols Act Unifies the Pentagon (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002). 98 tour guides.252 This strategy proved highly successful. Everywhere Grenadians demonstrated gratitude for their liberation; a CBS News poll revealed that a shocking 91 percent of Grenadian citizens supported the U.S. military intervention.253 Vast stockpiles of communist weapons and official documents helped Gillespie shape the narrative. Many visitors – including Democratic congressmen – left Grenada convinced that the U.S. intervention had been necessary and just.
The Army had wanted nothing to do with the media and passed the buck to Gillespie; who, with a diplomat’s eye for public diplomacy, turned the western media from a liability to an asset.
Tony Motley then tapped Charles Gillespie to expand his public diplomacy campaign from Grenada to the regional level.254 Gillespie was the right choice for this task and achieved considerable success; he had previously brokered the U.S. intervention on Grenada with highly supportive Caribbean prime ministers. These grateful prime ministers were receptive to
Gillespie’s personal plea for help with regional public relations, telling the diplomat “don’t worry. We’ll take care of this.”255 Gillespie accompanied the first U.S. congressional delegation to visit Barbados, where the Eastern Caribbean prime ministers lectured the visiting lawmakers that the intervention had been necessary to preserve regional stability.256 Republican
Congressman Dick Cheney privately commended Gillespie’s work in cementing U.S. legitimacy and revealing the truth, telling the diplomat, “there is a story here that tells itself.”257 A
252 Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 331-335. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 253 Gary Williams, U.S.-Grenada Relations: Revolution and Intervention in the Backyard (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 158. 254 Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 333-335. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 255 Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 334. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 256 Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 331-335. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 257 Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 333-334. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 99 subsequent visit by the Congressional Black Caucus met the same united front from the
Caribbean prime ministers.258 State once again reaped outsized returns from selecting the right diplomat for the crisis at hand.
However, State was less successful convincing a global diplomatic audience. In the wake of the invasion, Sir Paul Scoon declined to trumpet the American narrative to the United Nations with State’s hoped-for level of enthusiasm.259 The United Nations General Assembly soon condemned the U.S. invasion in a landslide vote of 108 to 9.260 Enemies howled and allies screeched, decrying the intervention as a new American imperialism. Although Tony Motley was able to retain a cooperative relationship with his contacts at the British Foreign Office, State proved unable to assuage a livid Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whose government nearly collapsed over the sudden U.S. invasion of Grenada. This prompted a major rift between Reagan and Thatcher; the latter of whom viscerally opposed the U.S. intervention and in Motley’s view
“never got over her petulance.”261 The global dimension of State’s public diplomacy campaign revealed the limits of what even the best diplomats could achieve.
State’s adaptive public diplomacy campaign achieved success at the local and regional levels, and helped blunt media and congressional criticism of the U.S. intervention. Within the administration, it cemented State’s early push for military intervention as wisdom rather than folly. It also complemented the Reagan administration’s broader public relations effort, which included a major presidential speech and later public displays of captured weapons and
258 Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 335-336. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 259 Paul Scoon, Survival for Service: My Experiences as Governor General of Grenada (Oxford: Macmillan, 2003), 147-148. 260 Gary Williams, U.S.-Grenada Relations: Revolution and Intervention in the Backyard (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 157-158. 261 Langhorne A. Motley, Oral History, 45. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 100 documents. American popular support for the intervention reached 86 percent.262 And despite garnering little public support at the global level, the U.S. military intervention in Grenada produced a number of salutary effects for U.S. diplomacy. Secretary of State Shultz noted approvingly in his memoir that “Grenada had a strong rippling effect in faraway places”; as strongmen in Suriname, Nicaragua, and Syria reconsidered policies out of concern they might be next.263
In sum, State adapted to the Grenada crisis with a mostly-successful mix of low-hanging fruit and cherry-picking. In facilitating the return of the American students, restoring democracy in Grenada, and managing a public diplomacy campaign, State relied on its existing bureaus to do their thing. State reinforced this by cherry-picking experienced and highly-qualified diplomats like Charles Gillespie, increasing the probability of success while limiting the institutional cost. Institutional changes – such as the hostage-focused embassy team in Barbados and the State-led interagency legal team in Washington – were ad hoc, aligned directly with
State’s priorities, and dissolved when their task was complete. While they existed, these teams operated as small, adaptive, mission-centric networks rather than rigid hierarchies. In the wake of apparent success, State established an embassy on Grenada and appointed qualified individuals as Chargé d’Affaires, but did little to convert lessons-learned into long-term organizational learning or change.
The notable exception to this lies with State’s professional mentorship and talent management processes. Tony Motley, who retired in 1985, returned to State to run the department’s Ambassadorial seminar; essentially State’s only training course for new
262 Gary Williams, U.S.-Grenada Relations: Revolution and Intervention in the Backyard (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 157-158. 263 George P. Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York: Scribner’s, 1993), 344. 101 ambassadors.264 This provided the next generation of U.S. ambassadors with a Grenada- experienced mentor. Other diplomats who performed during the Grenada crisis later found themselves cherry-picked as subject matter experts in subsequent national security crises.
Charles Gillespie, the first chief of mission to post-combat Grenada, was later selected to serve on the National Security Council. Larry Rossin, who accompanied the Navy SEALs into combat to rescue Sir Paul Scoon, was later tapped for service in the Balkans, becoming the first chief of mission in post-combat Kosovo in 1999. State thus preserved a measure of institutional memory from Grenada through professional mentorship, and enabled future iterations of cherry-picking.
264 Langhorne A. Motley, Oral History, 62-69. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 102
THE U.S. ARMY IN GRENADA: BIG TROUBLE, SMALL ISLAND
For the U.S. Army, the planning and combat phases of the Grenada intervention represented a key turning point. Converted from a conscript-dependent force to an all-volunteer force in 1973, the Army made a deliberate pivot toward hard, realistic training in the late 1970s.
Grenada represented the Army’s largest offensive military operation since Vietnam, and although the defeat of Grenadian defense forces was never in question, serious problems in planning and execution were plainly visible. Unlike State and USAID, which could claim Grenada as an unambiguous success story, the Army and its sister services faced substantive criticism from
Congress and the media. And unlike State and USAID, the Army put considerable institutional effort into learning from its mistakes. After Grenada, the Army incorporated a robust after-action review process to its culture; an enduring innovation that contributed much to the Army’s future successes.
In 1983, the Army was rebuilding itself and its reputation in the wake of Vietnam.
General Jack Vessey – an Army general then serving as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – enjoyed a “close personal relationship with Secretary of Defense Weinberger, who respected his judgment.”265 Other Army generals played critical roles in the Grenada rescue mission, including Trobaugh, Farris, Schwarzkopf, and Scholtes.266 And although the U.S. Navy, U.S.
Marine Corps, and U.S. Air Force played important roles in the planning and execution of combat operations – with a Navy admiral in operational command of the rescue mission – it would be Army leaders and Army units that dominated the post-combat phase. This chapter reviews the Army’s key post-combat adaptations in three sequential phases: the transition from
265 Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 31. 266 All but Farris played a significant role in both the combat and mopping-up phases of the intervention. Brigadier General Farris directed the U.S.-led stabilization mission from 4 November – 15 December 1983. 103 combat to post-combat operations (25 October – 3 November 1983); U.S.-led stabilization (4
November – 15 December 1983); and U.S. Army support to the Caribbean Peacekeeping Force
(15 December 1983 – August 1984).
The early mop-up and pacification phase, which spanned roughly ten days, was chaotic and characterized by episodes of ad hoc adaptation, friction, and cooperation. The rescue of
American students – the most critical military and political objective – was confounded by the belated discovery that the students were scattered across three separate areas. Coordinating ground operations from a nearby Navy ship, General Schwarzkopf’s reaction to this news is unprintable; it was one among many potentially devastating setbacks requiring immediate adaptation in the delicate transition from combat to post-combat operations. The first two planeloads of students were evacuated by air on 26 October, amid the sounds of nearby machine gun fire and explosions.267
The military’s plan for an initial peacekeeping force relied on battalions from the 82nd
Airborne Division – battalions that were pressed into a combat role when enemy resistance proved stubborn.268 And in addition to the rescue of American students, State had imposed additional constraints on the military, pressing for the immediate rescue of the Governor-General and the swift liberation of Richmond Hill prison; politically important but militarily insignificant objectives.269 From the Army optic, this intrusive meddling intensified in the days during and
267 Only 140 students were on these first two flights; four were Iranian nationals. They flew to Charleston, South Carolina, where a student famously kissed the ground on arrival. Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 350-355. 268 General Vessey, the Joint Chiefs Chairman, originally “envisioned the 82nd Airborne Division strictly in a follow-on peacekeeping role.” Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 86. 269 State needed Governor-General Scoon to provide a written request for U.S. intervention; and the prison housed political prisoners whose stories of torture further discredited the communist regime. Admiral McDonald ordered the prison to be added to the special operations forces’ target list, over the objections of Army Major General Scholtes. Vessey and McDonald thus accommodated virtually all of State’s strategic goals. Edgar F. Raines, Jr. 104 immediately following the invasion, as State strove to convert military success into a global propaganda victory over communism.
In Grenada, Army leaders “reacted with incredulity” to these demands from Washington, including State’s insistence on the immediate deployment of a graves registration team to repatriate Cuban remains; it was yet another State request to which General Vessey and the Joint
Chiefs acceded.270 Medical, engineer, military police, and civil affairs units also received immediate priority, to the chagrin of Army leaders on the ground who remained focused on combat until 2 November.271 This generated both friction and ad hoc cooperation on the island.
Discovering the imminent arrival of civil affairs and reservist units, General Schwarzkopf placed them out of harm’s way and under the direction of a trusted USAID officer.272
Schwarzkopf’s decision reflected his general distrust of civil affairs and reservist soldiers, and a corresponding measure of trust in the USAID officer who facilitated the student evacuation. The decision also brought considerable benefits; it kept specialist soldiers with little combat training out of harm’s way, and also resulted in cooperation that benefited both organizations. USAID had humanitarian relief supplies and reconstruction money but no people, and the Army had people but no money.273 By 31 October, civil affairs soldiers were distributing
The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 139-140. 270 Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 479-480. 271 Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 480. 272 The USAID officer was Ted Morse, who worked closely with Schwarzkopf during the student rescue and evacuation. Ted Morse, Oral History, 109. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. In his autobiography, Schwarzkopf was notably silent on post-combat matters – in both Grenada and Kuwait – which likely reflected his focus on combat operations. See: H. Norman Schwarzkopf, It Doesn’t Take a Hero (New York: Bantam, 1992), 282-299, 523-574. 273 Ted Morse, Oral History, 109. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 105
USAID humanitarian relief supplies and captured food and water to local residents.274 The Army reservists included technical specialists who were pressed into service assessing damaged
Grenadian telephone and electrical infrastructure; their recommendations informed early USAID reconstruction projects. USAID and Army practitioners on Grenada maintained a cooperative relationship until the Army completed its post-combat mission in 1985.275
With hostilities concluding, interagency cooperation soon prevailed in Grenada, as bureaucratic practitioners leveraged their respective organization’s comparative advantage and solved each other’s problems. Army leaders, reluctant to interact with the media or compromise the secretive combat role of special operations units, passed the arriving news media off on
State’s Charles Gillespie. Army and Air Force elements accepted State’s guidance on the repatriation of captured Cuban troops, including a delicate diplomatic row resulting from the discovery of concealed weapons among supposedly diplomatic baggage from communist embassies.276 Army units implemented State and Reagan administration guidance by sequestering communist embassies until Sir Paul Scoon formally broke ties and ordered these embassies closed. Army medical staff performed eight hours of surgery a day for two weeks to aid civilian casualties, and suggested Gillespie formally request their continued medical support; a request Gillespie made and General Farris approved.277 Interagency cooperation prevailed in the wake of battle.
274 “Grenada Civil Affairs Lessons Learned,” (Fort Bragg, NC: John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center, Nov 24, 1983), 1. 275 Bill Erdahl, interview with the author, October 12, 2020. 276 Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 495-496. See also: Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 320-324. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 277 The Army medical personnel swiftly established a network of mutually supporting clinics across Grenada. Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 495-496. 106
In the early days after the invasion, the Army also had to adapt to a host of problems on its own. Enemy prisoners were initially guarded by the Caribbean Peacekeeping Force; only on
28 October did Army military police soldiers take over and discover that innocent foreign nationals had been wrongfully imprisoned.278 These were released, and Army troops belatedly worked to improve shelter for Cuban troops sweltering under the Grenadian sun in deplorable camp conditions.279 Lacking vehicles, Army units had commandeered civilian and government vehicles from sedans to garbage trucks during combat operations; these had to be returned.
Damaged civilian homes had to be identified and their owners compensated. Solutions to these problems required a mix of Army standard procedures and creative problem-solving by soldiers and leaders on the ground.
By 4 November 1983, the Army had shifted from combat to U.S.-led post-combat operations, and the bulk of the 82nd Airborne Division units returned home.280 From 9 November until 15 December, General Farris commanded Operation Island Breeze, which sought to prevent insurgency and provide stability until a Caribbean-led peacekeeping plan could be established.281
Here General Farris represented low-hanging fruit; as the deputy commander of XVIII Airborne
Corps, he had little prior experience in post-combat operations but was immediately available and already located on Grenada. He established his headquarters close to USAID and the new
U.S. embassy, and immediately forged a positive working relationship with Ambassador Charles
278 Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 484. 279 The Cubans were repatriated just as the camp received tents and proper sanitation. Army soldiers and Cuban engineers worked side-by-side on the improvements, while other Army soldiers stood guard. Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 484. 280 The U.S marines, whose mopping-up activities in northern Grenada featured peaceful surrenders and soccer games with locals, departed Grenada on 2 November. See: Ronald Spector, U.S. Marines in Grenada 1983 (Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1987), 22-25. 281 The 1973 War Powers Act imposed a sixty-day limitation on the use of military force without Congressional approval; it was a timeline the Reagan administration could ill-afford to ignore. 107
Gillespie.282 Gillespie later described Farris as remarkably “smooth,” “tough as nails beneath an exterior of southern gentility,” and “superb.”283 Soldier and diplomat shared an awareness of mutual dependency, and strove to accommodate each other’s needs and solve each other’s impossible problems. Interagency cooperation would remain the hallmark of this second phase of post-combat operations.
Among Farris’s top priorities was the prevention of insurgency. In this he benefited from both standard procedures and earlier battlefield adaptation; and was constrained by the language of the Grenadian constitution.284 The U.S. military’s generic plan for a Caribbean intervention had anticipated a counterinsurgency campaign; these standard procedures produced a cargo ship loaded with counterinsurgency supplies, most of which proved unnecessary.285 And the stubborn resistance encountered during the invasion had led General Trobaugh to adapt; he summoned reinforcements and sequentially cleared hostile areas; a methodical approach that uncovered numerous weapons caches and reduced the means available for armed insurgency.286 By 4
November, both standard procedures and battlefield adaptation had reduced the likelihood of insurgency, as did the small island’s geography.
282 Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 488. 283 Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 328. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 284 The American view was that Sir Paul Scoon reconstituted the Grenadian government on 28 October 1983, with a radio address to the people. After that, “U.S. forces remained on the island at the invitation of the Grenadian government and hence operated within the framework provided by the Grenadian constitution and laws.” Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 508. 285 The Army’s apparent over-preparedness for counter-insurgency in 1983 triggered pundit criticism of wasteful spending. By 2004, it could only be viewed as a wise precaution. Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 497. 286 Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 543. 108
Although the American-led intervention had proven remarkably popular with the population, enemy snipers remained a periodic problem until mid-November.287 Farris adapted with the means at his disposal, launching what he labeled an “anti-subversion” campaign.288
Army troops identified, documented, and interviewed members and sympathizers of the previous regime; offered rewards in exchange for weapons or information on Cuban and foreign regime loyalists; and employed helicopters with loudspeakers to encourage any holdouts hiding in the jungle to surrender.289 In deference to Grenadian laws, Army soldiers pressed into policing duties apologized for vehicle searches and left notes to absent homeowners, earning rapport while providing security.290 The anti-subversion campaign proved to be a successful adaptation.
The last reported sniper incident occurred on 22 November, and by mid-December 1983,
Ambassador Gillespie received only occasional reports of a single haggard, pistol-toting individual who could not speak English but periodically emerged from the jungle to ask locals for food.291
General Farris adapted to other challenges during this period; typically, by leveraging his existing resources and units, and accommodating Ambassador Gillespie and USAID’s representative as much as possible. Given the short duration of his mission on Grenada, it is not surprising that Farris had little opportunity to hand-select uniquely qualified team members. As
287 Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 508. 288 James Ferguson, Grenada: Revolution in Reverse (London: Latin America Bureau, 1990), 96. 289 James Ferguson, Grenada: Revolution in Reverse (London: Latin America Bureau, 1990), 96. See also: Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 507-508. 290 Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 507-508. 291 Gillespie quoted in: Seth Mydans, “No Pullout Date for Grenada G.I.’s,” New York Times, December 18, 1983, https://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/18/world/no-pullout-date-for-grenada-gi-s.html. Also: Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 508. 109 the deputy commander of XVIII Airborne Corps, most of the active duty troops serving on
Grenada were Army soldiers subordinate to Farris in the United States as well as on this deployment; an unambiguous command relationship that precluded many turf battles.292 When the colonel responsible for the Point Salines airfield proved slow to improve security and sanitation standards, Farris relieved the colonel of command and “sent him back to Fort Bragg on the next plane.”293 The new colonel adapted to the situation – and General Farris’s high expectations – with greater alacrity than his predecessor.
On 12 December 1983 the last U.S. combat battalion withdrew from Grenada; General
Farris departed three days later, and Ambassador Gillespie soon followed.294 This marked the end of Operation Island Breeze and the U.S.-led post-combat effort. The Caribbean
Peacekeeping Force then assumed responsibility for post-combat operations, an arrangement that honored the 1973 War Powers Act, applied the principle of burden sharing, and created a distinctly Caribbean-led effort for enhanced legitimacy. The Army transitioned from star of the show to supporting actor in a post-combat action directed by Grenadian and Caribbean leaders.
In this third phase of post-combat operations, the Army again responded with low- hanging fruit; it contributed approximately 300 soldiers to this effort, almost exclusively from units at Fort Bragg.295 The new force was well-structured for the mission and situation; it
292 The Secretary of the Army at the time was John O. Marsh, Jr., “a former infantry officer who had participated in the occupation of Germany at the end of World War II.” Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 476. 293 Poor screening of local workers led to five former-regime loyalists gaining access to the airfield, where they sabotaged military equipment. Poor discipline and lax sanitation standards among U.S. soldiers and Grenadian workers led to human excrement contaminating the airstrip; a health risk and embarrassment that could be seen and smelled by distinguished visitors. Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 504-505. 294 Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 328. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 295 Seth Mydans, “No Pullout Date for Grenada G.I.’s,” New York Times, December 18, 1983, https://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/18/world/no-pullout-date-for-grenada-gi-s.html. 110 comprised a company of military police, an aviation detachment, and civil affairs, logistics, and medical personnel.296 Helicopters assured mobility across Grenada and its outlying islands, notably Carriacou to the north; and the civil affairs and medical personnel were always valuable in such missions. The small force represented low-hanging fruit; yet the professionalism of its soldiers and utility of its force composition ensured considerable return-on-investment.
This phase of post-combat operations revealed major challenges, particularly with respect to establishing a police force, a prison, and the judiciary. With communist militias disbanded, the Grenadian police force had to be rebuilt practically from scratch; former regime leaders sparked a worldwide controversy with allegations of abusive prison treatment; and
Grenadian leaders feared political or military insecurity in the event of a premature U.S. departure.297 These problems on tiny Grenada foreshadowed larger-scale crises in Panama,
Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In the Grenada case, the U.S., U.K., and Canadian governments proved reluctant to intervene directly; in the end, hand-selected Caribbean experts and respected expatriates arrived in Grenada to help reform the police, prison, and judiciary systems.298
Grenada’s security concerns – and those of the other Eastern Caribbean governments – forced the Army to adapt. This process began when Washington suspended the Army’s 1984 withdrawal plan, siding with a Grenadian interim government desperate for the Army to stay until the Grenadian police force was fully mission capable.299 Army and State crafted an
296 The military police were equipped with jeeps armed with machine guns. Seth Mydans, “No Pullout Date for Grenada G.I.’s,” New York Times, December 18, 1983, https://www.nytimes.com/1983/12/18/world/no-pullout- date-for-grenada-gi-s.html. 297 Paul Scoon, Survival for Service: My Experiences as Governor General of Grenada (Oxford: Macmillan, 2003), 199-205. 298 Paul Scoon, Survival for Service: My Experiences as Governor General of Grenada (Oxford: Macmillan, 2003), 199-205. See also: Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 342-343. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 299 Memo, Raymond Burghardt to Robert McFarlane, Feb. 6, 1985, folder "Grenada," box 30, Executive Secretariat, NSC: Records, Country File, Ronald Reagan Library. 111 accelerated training program for Grenada’s paramilitary Special Services Unit; this proposal balanced U.S. Army, Canadian, and U.K. capabilities, contributions, and legal authorities.300 The
Special Services Unit completed training in April 1985, and the Army’s remaining units withdrew that summer.301 The Army’s urgent need to accelerate a lethargic police training effort presaged similar situations in Panama (1990-1991) and Afghanistan (2003-2004). In all three cases, the Army relied heavily on its already-deployed and available capabilities.
A tragic setback in 1984 affirmed the strong relationship between the U.S. military and the Grenadian population. In August, a military police soldier accidentally shot and killed a
Grenadian boy while cleaning a pistol at a police station. A State Department memo recorded that leftist politicians from a socialist opposition party rushed to the boy’s neighborhood to exploit the situation for political gain, but
Were reportedly run off by the local populace who knew there was a good relationship between the boy and the MP [military police]. At the boy’s funeral the youth’s father made it a point to seek out the official embassy and CPF [Caribbean Peacekeeping Force] representatives to shake hands during the “sign of peace” part of the funeral ceremony. The community’s reaction to the tragedy underlined the positive way in which the average Grenadian continues to view the U.S. presence on the island.302
300 Section 660 of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act “prohibits U.S. assistance for police forces.” Under this plan, Army troops performed initial screening and physical training; and advanced security and paramilitary training, sidestepping the legal prohibitions with congressional acquiescence. Memo, Raymond Burghardt and Constantine Menges to Robert McFarlane, May 29, 1984, folder "Grenada," box 30, Executive Secretariat, NSC: Records, Country File, Ronald Reagan Library. 301 The Army’s departure left a 72 member Caribbean Peacekeeping Force and a small U.S. Coast Guard training detachment on Grenada; the former was scheduled to depart in fall 1985 and the latter in 1986. For details on the 1985 phased withdrawal of the Army’s 240-man security element, see: Memo, Oliver North to John Poindexter, Jan. 9, 1985, folder "Grenada," box 30, Executive Secretariat, NSC: Records, Country File, Ronald Reagan Library. Also: Memo, Oliver North to John Poindexter, Jan. 9, 1985, folder "Grenada, 1/11/84-1/21/85" box 30, Executive Secretariat, NSC: Records, Country File, Ronald Reagan Library. 302 The military police soldier was charged with negligence. The boy’s family was reportedly paid $370 USD for the incident. Memo, Charles Hill to Robert McFarlane, “Biweekly Status Report on Developments in Grenada,” Sep. 5, 1984, folder "Grenada, 3/1/84-10/31/84" box 30, Executive Secretariat, NSC: Records, Country File, Ronald Reagan Library. For consolation payment, see: James Ferguson, Grenada: Revolution in Reverse (London: Latin America Bureau, 1990), 105. 112
This tragic testament to the resilience of the Army’s relationship with the Grenadian population is still more impactful in light of the disappointing results of U.S. private investment initiatives, which by August 1984 were apparent throughout the island.
The Army, at the direction of the Reagan administration, also increased its support to regional security initiatives. Following the Grenada intervention, eight teams of Army special forces trainers deployed to five Eastern Caribbean democracies, augmenting some 30 U.S. military advisors stationed throughout the region.303 Until 1985, local Caribbean security forces trained in this program rotated to Grenada to apply their training to a real-world security operation.304 Although this effort eventually waned under heavy costs and regrettable incidents by undisciplined Caribbean troops, it nonetheless bolstered the confidence of fragile island democracies against future leftist coups.305
The security partnerships also provided a measure of deterrence against Soviet and Cuban adventurism in the Eastern Caribbean. In 1985 and 1986, the U.S. military provided thousands of troops to participate in joint training exercises in the Caribbean. These exercises incorporated
Caribbean island security forces and demonstrating U.S. continued commitment to regional security – and the U.S. willingness to protect fragile democracies against communist revolutionaries. Here too the Army adapted – mainly by employing its existing units and capabilities, notably special forces detachments trained and equipped to partner with foreign security forces.
303 James Ferguson, Grenada: Revolution in Reverse (London: Latin America Bureau, 1990), 122. 304 James Ferguson, Grenada: Revolution in Reverse (London: Latin America Bureau, 1990), 122. 305 The Regional Security System brought Caribbean police and paramilitary forces – as peacekeepers – to Grenada. These did not always comport themselves in a respectable manner: “There were a couple rapes, some robberies, and some burglaries.” Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 342. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 113
In post-combat Grenada, the Army leveraged its existing plans, capabilities, and units; and relied on officers and soldiers to adapt to the situation on the ground. Army practitioners accomplished their mission and achieved an enviable degree of interagency cooperation and unity of effort in this small-scale operation. It must be noted that the soldiers and officers of the
XVIII Airborne Corps that served on Grenada – and the special forces units that headed the regional security initiatives – represented a level of experience and professionalism that exceeded the average Army unit. These were – and remain – elite Army units. That the Grenada intervention was small in scale, geographically isolated, and conducted among a supportive populace, also increased the likelihood of success.
Yet no post-combat success could erase the problems encountered in the planning and execution of combat operations – problems that cost lives. Unlike State or USAID, the Army dedicated considerable institutional energy into deriving long-term organizational learning from the Grenada experience. The Army tasked its Combat Studies Institute and a military history detachment to capture lessons-learned, collect documents, and interview participants; these disparate organizations soon pooled their resources.306 Units produced their usual detailed reports on lessons-learned; the civil affairs report notably touted the importance of integrating
Army, State and USAID efforts.307 The Army staff incorporated these after-action reports into a comprehensive review of “the Army’s ability to adapt forces to local conditions in combat.”308
306 Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 518-519. 307 This recommendation ranked highly; it was lesson-learned #2 of 13. Priority #3 touted the importance of incorporating the reserves, which then housed 95% of the Army’s civil affairs assets. Continual problems with leveraging reserve assets would undermine the Army’s civil affairs effort in Panama six years later. See: “Grenada Civil Affairs Lessons Learned,” (Fort Bragg, NC: John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center, Nov 24, 1983), 4. 308 The Army Studies Group, then headed by Colonel Wesley Clark, performed the Army-wide review and recommended the creation of a permanent Army organization dedicated to the collection, analysis, and dissemination of lessons and best practices. Clark went on to lead NATO into combat in Kosovo in 1999. See; “U.S. Army Center for Army Lessons Learned,” Wikipedia, last edited April 21, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Center_for_Army_Lessons_Learned. 114
This review led to the 1985 creation of the Center for Army Lessons Learned. In the process, the
Army elevated its traditional after-action review process from a standard procedure to a pillar of institutional culture.
115
USAID IN GRENADA: A DREAM JOB
In 1983, USAID was a bureaucracy on the rise. Two years earlier, President Ronald
Reagan had assumed office intent on cutting foreign aid. Nudged by USAID and State missions overseas, foreign aid recipients protested through official channels, and the Reagan administration quickly relented.309 In 1981, USAID Administrator M. Peter McPherson strengthened his agency’s position with President Reagan and the State Department by cutting underperforming programs and returning $28 million to the U.S. Treasury.310 The Reagan administration soon discovered foreign aid to be a useful instrument of foreign policy in the Cold
War; a realization that benefited USAID.311 The agency also received a trusted and influential member of the Reagan transition team, Jay Morris, who became USAID’s deputy administrator in 1982; he would play a significant role in facilitating the agency’s work in Grenada.
For USAID, Grenada in 1983 was a unique opportunity. The U.S military intervention had produced the first military overthrow of a Marxist/communist state, and placed the tiny island firmly in the global spotlight. With the Reagan administration determined to make
Grenada a success story, USAID received ample resources to revert Grenada from a Marxist to a capitalist economy. The agency used these resources to achieve limited ends, strengthening
Grenada’s existing ministries with the minimal necessary changes; and addressing the top priority for all Grenadians: completing the international airport. “Grenada was a dream job,” the
309 Carol Lancaster, a prominent advocate of foreign aid spending who served in both USAID and the State Department, recounted this episode as a case of gaiatsu – energizing foreign government officials to achieve a bureaucrat’s desired policy end state. Carol Lancaster, Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 81-82. 310 M. Peter McPherson, Oral History, 28-28. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. For McPherson’s speech on this occasion, see: “File: M Peter McPherson presents check in 1981,” Wikimedia Commons, accessed October 19, 2020, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:M_Peter_McPherson_presents_check_in_1981.jpg. 311 The Reagan administration cut multilateral aid and increased bilateral aid; a net loss for the World Bank and gain for USAID. Carol Lancaster, Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 81-82. 116 agency’s senior representative in Grenada recalled decades later, “lots of money, good people, a lot of resources, nice island. Kind of a four-year vacation.”312
Grenada may have been a dream job, but it also pushed USAID outside its comfort zone in several respects. Infrastructure priorities included a massive international airport and paved roads; but by 1983 large construction projects had faded from USAID’s core mission. Liberated from communism, the island’s economy soon depended on tourism; an unstable economic foundation with which USAID had great antipathy and little expertise or regulatory authority.313
And attempting to roll back Marxist economic policies revealed the limitations of capitalist economies of scale on small, remote Caribbean islands.
The USAID office in Grenada addressed these priorities with ad hoc solutions that balanced Grenada’s unique political, economic, and geographic situation, while sticking as close to possible to the agency’s standard procedures for economic development.314 Supporting tourism initiatives was a noteworthy deviation from the agency’s standard procedures. The
USAID office worked directly with Grenada’s Tourism Board to identify and fund relevant projects. These included hiring an artist to paint buildings in tourist areas, installing street lighting, producing tourism brochures, renovating a visitor’s center at Grand Etang Lake, and diverting human waste runoff away from Grenada’s Grand Anse Beach.315 Despite raising
312 Bill Erdahl, interview with the author, October 12, 2020. 313 Few macroeconomists would recommend basing an economy on such a fickle mistress as tourism, which in 1983-1985 was far from the massive industry it would eventually become. Jim Holtaway, email to the author, October 24, 2020. By 1986, however, the Organization of American States and Grenada had established a task force to advance tourism, which reported that “Tourism is Grenada’s second industry, after agriculture, and currently the country’s leading foreign exchange earner.” Task Force Report on Short-Term Action Programme for the Development of Tourism in Grenada, 1986-1989, RAC box 4, Walter Raymond files, Ronald Reagan Library. 314 In 1983, economic development was USAID’s core mission. The agency had not yet standardized its checklist for emergency disaster assistance, and was still years away from expanding its portfolio to include democratization programs. Support to Grenada’s first post-intervention election involved “a lot of $20 bills handed out,” but that work was handled by other agencies. Bill Erdahl, interview with the author, October 12, 2020. 315 The USAID team on Grenada actively worked to promote “activities that supported tourism both directly and indirectly…we did not always see eye to eye with the Regional Office in Barbados…we were pretty much 117 agency eyebrows in Barbados and Washington, USAID practitioners leveraged their independence and flexibility to address Grenada’s unique situation. Although many of these adaptations proved successful, the agency retained none of its lessons learned in Grenada. Its adaptive mission-centric network in Grenada eventually dispersed into the agency hierarchy; practitioners in future post-combat and post-communist situations would have to fend for themselves.
USAID officers were involved from the outset of the 1983 Grenada hostage crisis. After the violent overthrow of Maurice Bishop, with concerns over the fate of American students on the island escalating, the U.S. ambassador in Barbados asked his staff whether anyone had experienced an evacuation. USAID officer Ted Morse had been evacuated from the India-
Pakistan war, and promptly became the embassy’s point person for evacuating the students.316
As an impromptu cherry selected because of his prior experience, Morse communicated directly with the students on Grenada and what remained of the Grenadian government – although his negotiations for the peaceful evacuation of U.S. citizens were destined to fail.
When negotiations collapsed and the U.S. military intervened, Morse flew into Grenada to personally oversee the evacuation of the American students and civilians. Sensitive to White
House concerns about how the invasion would be perceived at home, Morse made impassioned remarks to the students as he led them to their evacuation aircraft, reminding them of the
American military’s sacrifice to ensure their rescue and safety.317 Students wept, applauded, and
independent and had the necessary flexibility to implement our programs.” Bill Erdahl, email to the author, November 2, 2020. 316 Ted Morse, Oral History, 104. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 317 The Army provided a company of military police to safeguard Morse and the students during the evacuation, which occasionally drew enemy fire; Morse was later made an honorary member of the 82nd Airborne Division. State contributed a consular officer to the evacuation to guarantee those being evacuated were actually U.S. citizens. Ted Morse, Oral History, 104-108. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 118 thanked soldiers as they ran to their aircraft. When the plane landed in the United States, a student exited the plane and kissed the tarmac. 318 The gesture was immortalized by real-time news coverage on all three major networks, and helped galvanize American public support for the intervention.
Morse’s work during the Grenada crisis reflected adaptation on the part of the small network of practitioners in the field – the U.S. ambassador hand-selected him as the most experienced of the available staff members – rather than that of the agency. Morse recounted that USAID headquarters first learned that he was in Grenada on “the second day when they saw me on television.”319 Nevertheless, Morse had done much to assist State and the Reagan administration in establishing the narrative of Urgent Fury as a rescue mission. Talented USAID officers were soon volunteering for service on Grenada; by 31 October, the agency had shipped over six tons of food and supplies to the island.320
In some ways, the Grenada intervention posed a novel challenge for USAID. Since
Vietnam, the agency had gained little experience in post-combat operations; and Grenada was the first communist state to pivot forcibly toward capitalism and democracy. In the absence of standard procedures, the agency adapted by cherry-picking a team to participate in an interagency fact-finding trip to Grenada. The USAID delegation was led by Deputy
Administrator Jay Morris, and included career officer Jim Holtaway from the USAID
318 A State foreign service officer, Charles Shapiro, accompanied the students on the flight to the United States, and may also have contributed to the students’ frame of mind. Ted Morse, Oral History, 104. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. See also: George Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (New York: Scribner’s, 1993), 339. Also: Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 330. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 319 Ted Morse, Oral History, 112. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 320 These officers included Bill Erdahl, who went on to manage USAID’s cross-border program in war-torn Cambodia; and James “Spike” Stephenson, who later served with distinction in the Balkans and Iraq. For USAID’s 6-7 tons of relief supplies, see: Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 484. 119 headquarters Caribbean office. Morris’s influence within the Reagan administration lent weight to USAID’s post-combat plan for Grenada. Holtaway would oversee USAID’s Grenada operations from Washington, later becoming USAID’s mission director responsible for the
Eastern Caribbean in 1985.321
Arriving in Grenada soon after fighting ended, the USAID assessment team discovered an impoverished island and a supportive population. Fortunately, Grenada’s government ministries were intact, although in a “decrepit” state.322 Grenadian technocrats had been left in place rather than purged, a decision that greatly simplified USAID’s institution-building and economic growth initiatives. For much of the overall development strategy, USAID was able to stick to its “standard menu” for comparable Eastern Caribbean states.323 USAID also launched a small-grants project that supported community proposals, matching community contributions of labor and materials with up to $5,000 in aid.324 Because combat had lasted only a few days and the U.S. military had minimized collateral damage, there were relatively few projects linked to reconstruction. These included rebuilding the island’s mental hospital – accidentally bombed during combat operations – a radio station, and damage to the governor general’s compound.325
These priorities fell comfortably within USAID’s core mission and standard procedures; the agency received sufficient funding for each.
The USAID assessment team on Grenada also made a stunning discovery that would force the agency to adapt far outside its comfort zone: the Grenadian people expected – and
321 Jim Holtaway, interview with the author, October 1, 2020. 322 Jim Holtaway, interview with the author, October 1, 2020. 323 This menu included institution-building, education, health, and economic growth initiatives. Jim Holtaway, interview with the author, October 1, 2020. 324 Bill Erdahl, interview with the author, October 12, 2020. 325 Jim Holtaway, interview with the author, October 1, 2020. Also: Bill Erdahl, interview with the author, October 12, 2020. 120 demanded – the completion of the international airport at Point Salines.326 This initiative, which became the top economic and political priority for both the interim Grenadian government and its people, was problematic for USAID on several grounds. Since before taking office, President
Reagan had publicly argued the airport was for military use; and after the invasion USAID
Administrator M. Peter McPherson had openly disavowed any intention of completing the airfield.327 Additionally, USAID by 1983 had little experience overseeing major and highly technical construction projects. A small mental hospital was one thing; a major international airport quite another. The prestigious and expensive airport project would test USAID’s bureaucratic influence and technical competence.
It is impossible to overstate the significance of the Point Salines airport to U.S. strategic objectives for post-combat Grenada. Jay Morris acknowledged the importance of this bottom-up request for additional resources – his recommendation to the White House is insightful and worth quoting at length:
I recommend that the U.S. anticipate finishing construction of the Point Salines airport…Rightly or wrongly the populace has become convinced that the airport is the one essential element in reviving their economy. Any government which attempts to stay in power or be elected to power and allows that airport to languish will have severe political difficulties. Abandonment of the airport would produce such disillusionment as to constitute a fundamental threat to our primary political objective of providing for the democratic election of a stable, friendly government in the long run.328
326 Grenada’s existing airport had a runway too small for airliners, which precluded international flights. For a detailed account of the importance of the airport to Grenada, and the USAID assessment team’s stunned realization of this fact, see: Ted Morse, Oral History, 112-113. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 327 On November 8, 1983, USAID publicly stated the agency had “no plans” for the airport; by November 22 the agency urged the Reagan administration to complete the airport, despite the president’s pre-invasion statements. For an analysis of this remarkable about-face for USAID and the Reagan administration, see: James Ferguson, Grenada: Revolution in Reverse (London: Latin America Bureau, 1990), 19-22. 328 Memo, Jay Morris to M. Peter McPherson and Craig Fuller, Nov. 22, 1983, box 90378, Constantine Menges Files, Ronald Reagan Library. 121
Had USAID proffered such a recommendation a few years earlier, it might have fallen on deaf ears. But in 1983, Jay Morris was an influential and trusted voice within the Reagan administration. His recommendation found a supportive State Department and an accommodating National Security Council; two entities eager to make Grenada a Cold War success story.329 The Reagan administration approved the project, which became one of
USAID’s most important post-combat adaptations.
Another important decision for USAID was “what type of expertise to put in Grenada.”330
With considerable regional capacity already resident in Barbados, USAID opted for a small satellite office on Grenada.331 To lead the office, USAID initially selected one of its few engineers; an officer better suited to manage the airport contract than the simultaneous development mission. He was soon replaced by Bill Erdahl, a USAID foreign service officer who had served in the Civil Operations and Rural Development Support (CORDS) in Vietnam.
Erdahl also had considerable experience working on major contracts for USAID’s Office of
Commodity Management.332 Erdahl, whose selection reflected USAID’s willingness to pick cherries, had little difficulty keeping his small office staffed with experts, and served with distinction in this “dream job” from June 1984-1988.333
329 A National Security Council memo on January 17, 1984 reported that the author had “talked to Bud McFarlane [NSC], Peter McPherson [USAID] and Tony Motley [State] concerning the airport. We have unanimity that it should proceed…the fire has been lit under all the appropriate bureaucratic feet.” Memo, Walter Raymond to James Coyne, Jan. 17, 1984, RAC box 5, Walter Raymond Files, Ronald Reagan Library. 330 Jim Holtaway, interview with the author, October 1, 2020. 331 The USAID office on Grenada was comprised of an office director, an economist, and a handful of staff and foreign nationals. Jim Holtaway, interview with the author, October 1, 2020. 332 Bill Erdahl, interview with the author, October 12, 2020. 333 Erdahl would go on to run USAID’s cross-border operations in Cambodia (from neighboring Thailand) between 1989-1993, during a de facto civil war. As with Grenada, USAID never captured the lessons from the cross-border mission in Cambodia, leaving Erdahl with the impression the agency wanted to forget unwanted combat-related missions as quickly as possible. Bill Erdahl, interview with the author, October 12, 2020. 122
In selecting a contractor for the airport construction project, USAID adhered to its standard procedures and hit a home run. USAID officers later recalled with admiration that the selected contractor dispatched barges of equipment to Grenada within days of winning the bid;
“it was just unbelievable.”334 Structured as a cost-plus contract, the selected firm could – and did
– send its best engineers and paid their regular salaries. Of the company’s two dozen engineers in Grenada, Bill Erdahl judged that “any one of them could have run the project.”335 The presence of this vendor’s engineers and heavy equipment, and the structure of the contract, allowed USAID to handle in stride additional projects mandated by emerging political and security requirements. These included paving roads, adding protective barriers to the USAID compound, and converting excess military jet fuel storage tanks into civilian water tanks.336
To supervise the massive airport construction – a skill set long out of practice for USAID
– the agency leveraged an uncommon form of cherry-picking. USAID’s chief engineer hand- selected a former subordinate – a trusted civil engineer for the Forest Service then serving in
Nepal.337 One call from the White House and several weeks later, John Lamb arrived in Grenada to supervise the undertaking at Point Salines. He arrived to find an unparalleled degree of interagency cooperation. Upon meeting Army Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Graves in Grenada,
Lamb was stunned when the officer stated Lamb had the most important job on the island, and offered any support he or his soldiers could provide.338 In Lamb’s view, cooperation between
USAID and the Army on Grenada “couldn’t have been better.”339 With financial support from
334 The selected vendor was Morrison-Knudsen. Jim Holtaway, interview with the author, October 1, 2020. 335 Bill Erdahl, interview with the author, October 12, 2020. 336 Bill Erdahl, interview with the author, October 12, 2020. 337 John Lamb, interview with the author, November 16, 2020. 338 John Lamb, interview with the author, November 16, 2020. 339 John Lamb, interview with the author, November 16, 2020. 123 the U.S. and partner donors, the Point Salines airport opened on schedule on October 28th, 1984.
In the wake of success, John Lamb became a permanent hire at USAID.
From 1983-1985, USAID’s practitioners on Grenada enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy, and consistently received policymaker approval for their recommended programs.
USAID officers kept the embassy apprised of development progress and worked cooperatively with Army civil affairs soldiers.340 The development agency also achieved physical autonomy from the embassy, leasing a compound formerly occupied by the Cuban military for its office space.341 Minor points of friction arose, but these typically originated from within USAID’s own bureaucracy. “Hand-wringers” at USAID’s Washington office launched numerous official audits at the unconventional post-combat mission; the agency’s security officers demanded protective tank traps be built around USAID’ Grenada office; and friction points periodically occurred with the agency’s Eastern Caribbean mission located in Barbados.342 On the whole, however, the
USAID team on Grenada received the leeway necessary to develop and manage programs tailored to Grenada’s situation. After completing its major programs, USAID began to draw down its presence on the island; by 1988 the agency had only one direct-hire American officer stationed there.343 USAID’s adaptive post-combat network returned to the agency’s hierarchy.
340 Bill Erdahl, interview with the author, October 12, 2020. Also: John Lamb, interview with the author, November 16, 2020. 341 A USAID office separate from the embassy was then a standard procedure. In Grenada, Erdahl negotiated with Prime Minister Blaize to lease the Cuban compound for $1 for ten years, making him USAID’s finest real estate agent. State eventually renegotiated the terms to pay Grenada handsomely each year; Erdahl later learned that the State administrative officer who renegotiated the lease from ten cents a year to tens of thousands of dollars a year received an award. Bill Erdahl, interview with the author, October 12, 2020. 342 USAID’s own security officers mandated the construction of tank traps around the USAID compound; a laughable administrative mandate that the team fulfilled via Morrison-Knudsen. Bill Erdahl, interview with the author, October 12, 2020. 343 USAID’s regional office on Barbados assumed increasing responsibility for programs on Grenada. By May 1988, USAID was prepared to withdraw its final direct hire officer from Grenada, but State wanted a USAID representative to remain on the island. United States Department of State Office of Inspector General, “Report of Inspection, Embassy Grenada, O-88-19,” May 1988, 11. 124
USAID may have enjoyed considerable autonomy on Grenada, but it did not entirely escape Washington-directed economic initiatives or administrative meddling. Western democratic governments in general – and the Reagan administration in particular – championed private investment over state-owned enterprises. In Grenada, the White House and the Overseas
Private Investment Corporation sponsored a litany of capitalist initiatives that were unable to overcome Grenada’s remote location, poor natural resources, and small workforce. Private companies declined to take on Grenada’s decrepit and unprofitable utilities; a fleet of fishing boats sat unused after years of overfishing decimated fish populations; venture capitalists and privatization specialists traveled to the island in a futile quest for profitability.344
USAID built an industrial park to accommodate the private investment initiatives, but few businesses came to Grenada and many of those soon folded. The lack of commercial interest forced a continued government subsidization of utilities that kept Grenada close to a socialist economic model.345 As USAID’s Bill Erdahl later reflected, “people had good intentions, but some things just aren’t doable. And privatization in the Caribbean was one of them. If something had been profitable, somebody would have stepped in and done it on their own.”346
The wily entrepreneurs who remained proved “reluctant or too sly to use equity or their own money”; weaning them off of public debt financing became one of the central themes of
USAID’s private investment programs.347
344 Bill Erdahl, interview with the author, October 12, 2020. Also: Jim Holtaway, interview with the author, October 1, 2020. 345 This was common throughout the tiny Caribbean democracies, few of which could muster the economy of scale necessary to make essential services commercially profitable. Bill Erdahl, interview with the author, October 12, 2020. For an incisive analysis critical of U.S. economic efforts in Grenada, see: James Ferguson, Grenada: Revolution in Reverse (London: Latin America Bureau, 1990). 346 Bill Erdahl, interview with the author, October 12, 2020. 347 Jim Holtaway, email to the author, October 26, 2020. 125
Grenada revealed the limits of what could be imposed on a foreign economy. Political stability and capitalist principles benefited the growing tourist trade, but made few inroads on farming or public utilities.348 Bottom-up initiatives, such as the Point Salines airport and small- grants program, generally advanced both Grenadian and U.S. interests and proved successful and popular. Top-down programs – such as the White House sponsored junkets for venture capitalists – appeased ideologues in Washington and garnered positive press coverage, but achieved little practical success in Grenada.
In post-combat Grenada, as in other recipient countries, local ownership mattered;
USAID proved most effective when its programs accelerated change desired by the host government and population. Asked in 1988 what USAID’s most worthwhile program had been,
Grenadian Prime Minister Blaize replied that it had been the small-grants program: under this program, local communities proposed a project and typically provided the labor, and received up to $5,000 to pay for materials.349 Not all programs were as successful. Even when the
Grenadian government proved open to suggestion, it often struggled to implement programs.
This was the case with USAID-recommended tax reforms; poorly implemented by a weak government, these reforms increased government debt and Grenada’s dependency on foreign aid to cover persistent budget shortfalls.350
In the end, USAID adapted to post-combat Grenada through a mix of its existing procedures and capabilities; cherry-picking uniquely qualified practitioners; and supporting its
348 Farmers of nutmeg, cocoa, and bananas often preferred traditional business partners over the highest-bidder as a hedge against future market swings. And few of Grenada’s utilities could be made profitable, limiting privatization efforts. 349 The small-grants program represented a tiny fraction of the overall U.S. foreign aid commitment to Grenada; the island quickly became one of the highest per capita recipients of U.S. foreign aid. The small-grants program was one of the few programs visible to rural Grenadians. who viewed U.S. aid as “radio money” because large sums announced on the radio seldom reached rural areas. Bill Erdahl, interview with the author, October 12, 2020. Also: James Ferguson, Grenada: Revolution in Reverse (London: Latin America Bureau, 1990), 39. 350 James Ferguson, Grenada: Revolution in Reverse (London: Latin America Bureau, 1990), 52-55. 126 practitioners’ requests for additional resources to complete the Point Salines airport. USAID completed the coveted airport; strengthened Grenadian ministries, institutions, and communities; and helped restore Grenada to a level of economic growth comparable to other Eastern
Caribbean states. Key to these successes was the relative autonomy the agency’s practitioners enjoyed in Grenada and Washington; a testament to the Reagan administration’s trust in USAID in general and Deputy Administrator Jay Morris in particular.351
Like State, USAID would rely on its Grenada practitioners for similar crises in the future
– Bill Erdahl later ran USAID’s cross-border mission in Cambodia, and also served in the
Balkans. Jim Holtaway later served on the faculty at the National War College. Yet these were half-hearted efforts to preserve institutional memory by an agency that had little interest in post- combat or mid-combat missions.352 In the wake of apparent success in Grenada, USAID made no attempt to retain its convert its short-term lessons-learned into long-term organizational learning. USAID’s subsequent post-combat and post-communist missions proved to be ad hoc affairs, and benefited little from the challenges posed and solutions forged on the tiny island of
Grenada.
351 USAID’s Caribbean office representative, Jim Holtaway, recalled that rather than USAID Administrator McPherson, “it was Jay Morris that was running the show.” Morris convinced McPherson and the White House to approve the pivotal Point Salines airport project. Jim Holtaway, interview with the author, October 1, 2020. 352 Asked whether USAID attempted to capture any lessons-learned from his cross-border mission to conflict-torn Cambodia, Bill Erdahl replied “No, they wanted it to go away.” Bill Erdahl, interview with the author, October 12, 2020. 127
BUREAUCRACIES IN GRENADA: CONCLUSION
State, the Army, and USAID – three very different national security institutions – adapted to the unexpected crisis of post-combat Grenada in remarkably similar ways. Each relied on its existing capabilities (Proposition 1), and both State and USAID cherry-picked uniquely qualified individuals to participate (Proposition 2). Each bureaucracy encountered significant and unexpected problems, often originating from within, and each worked aggressively to solve the other’s unsolvable dilemmas. State – in the parallel forms of Charles Gillespie in Grenada and
Tony Motley in Washington – moved boldly to achieve primacy over post-combat Grenada; having succeeded in this, State preserved the autonomy of USAID and Army practitioners.
There is little evidence of a widespread revolt of the cherries (Proposition 3). Bureaucratic headquarters in Washington – and the White House – generally backed the network of deployed practitioners’ requests for resources or personnel. The most remarkable example of this support was the complete reversal of the Reagan administration’s policy toward the Point Salines airport.
Of these national security institutions, only State and the Army planted orchards
(Proposition 4). State created short-term organizations that operated as small mission-centric networks, including the interagency legal team in Washington and the reinforced embassy team in Barbados. These networks dissolved after serving their purpose. The Army invested more heavily in converting lessons-learned into long-term organizational learning in the wake of
Grenada. Yet this institutional change, most apparent in the creation of the Center for Army
Lessons Learned, focused primarily on improving the Army’s performance in combat rather than in post-combat operations. This reflected the enduring primacy of the Army’s core mission. The
Army civil affairs unit’s after-action review of Grenada poignantly emphasized the need for contingency planning with State and USAID, and the need to seamlessly integrate the Army’s
128 reserve component into post-combat operations.353 Despite the Army’s avowed interest in institutional learning, and the plaintive cries from its civil affairs experts in Grenada, the Army would pay to re-learn the same post-combat lessons in Panama.
In Grenada, each bureaucracy discovered severe institutional problems related to the post-combat mission. State’s critical dependency on volunteers became apparent when foreign service officers on Barbados refused to travel to unstable Grenada; an embarrassment that foreshadowed an era of diplomatic vacancies in austere Kabul, while pleasant London enjoyed a perpetual surplus of volunteers. Having arrived in Grenada on four days’ notice, the Army discovered to its horror that it was not permitted to leave until a robust police force was in place; a problem that the Foreign Assistance Act prevented the Army from solving. False hopes of an early post-combat departure also foreshadowed the Army’s experience in Kosovo and
Afghanistan. And USAID, the smallest of these institutions, discovered that it had money, but few people and limited technical expertise; an endemic problem imperfectly mitigated in
Grenada through reliance on contractors and Army soldiers. These were institutional challenges that none of the organizations solved, and that each would confront again in the future.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of post-combat operations in Grenada is the extent to which individual bureaucracies worked to solve one another’s unsolvable problems. The Central
Intelligence Agency provided at least one of the three officers that ultimately traveled to Grenada in October 1983 to check on the potential hostages. State rescued the Army by brokering a multinational plan to train the Grenadian police, carefully skirting U.S. legal prohibitions and briefing the relevant Congressional committees.354 The Army contributed its comparative
353 “Grenada Civil Affairs Lessons Learned,” (Fort Bragg, NC: John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center, Nov 24, 1983), 9. 354 State branded the Army’s contribution to police training as “defense training to policemen in the Eastern Caribbean,” a legal sleight-of-hand to which Congress was witting. Memo, Raymond Burghardt and Constantine 129 strength – people – to USAID’s economic program. Civil affairs soldiers and reservists distributed USAID supplies, repaired schools with USAID resources, and provided engineering assessments that informed USAID projects; the Army even activated and deployed a reservist with technical expertise in tourism.355 USAID projects – notably the Point Salines airport and tourism assistance – provided the necessary grist for State’s long-term public diplomacy campaign.
What accounts for the remarkable interagency unity of effort and cooperation achieved in the Grenada case? Certainly, the mission’s small scale, ample resources, supportive population, and lack of meddlesome neighboring powers each contributed mightily. And each national security institution achieved considerable return-on-investment from selecting the best practitioners (or Army units) for the situation at hand. Practitioners from the various bureaucracies almost universally agreed on another essential ingredient for their respective organization’s overall success in post-combat Grenada: relationships.
Here the evidence is nearly overwhelming. USAID accomplished a stunning bureaucratic achievement: convincing the Reagan administration to reverse the president’s public stance on completing the Point Salines airport. This vital, if unlikely adaptation was made feasible by Jay Morris’s strong relationship with State and senior White House officials.
Ambassador Gillespie credited much success to “ready-made” relationships with the military thanks to his National War College experience; went out of his way to “woo” General Farris; and
Menges to Robert McFarlane, May 29, 1984, folder "Grenada," box 30, Executive Secretariat, NSC: Records, Country File, Ronald Reagan Library. 355 The Army reservist officer’s civilian job was as deputy director of tourism for Philadelphia. See: John Cusick and Mark Flavin, “’Golden Griffins’ Pave the Way,” Army Logistician 16 (July-August 1984), 20-21. See also: Colonel Bernardo C. Negrete, “Grenada, Case Study in Military Operations Other Than War,” U.S. Army War College monograph, 1996, 8. 130 encouraged his staff to build interagency relationships through the “cumshaw game.”356 General
Schwarzkopf trusted USAID’s Ted Morse to employ Army civil affairs and reserve soldiers, inaugurating a fruitful organizational partnership. General Farris accommodated Gillespie’s every request with an air of “southern gentility,” while staying “tough as nails” in demanding initiative, adaptation, and professionalism from his troops.357 Strong personal relationships forged networks out of hierarchies, and enabled many of these bureaucracies’ most important adaptations. Personal relationships and trust also set the conditions for these national security institutions to solve each other’s impossible problems.
A small incident in Washington illustrates the relationships that formed the connective tissue between otherwise rival bureaucracies. In 1984 Jim Holtaway, the USAID Caribbean bureau chief responsible for USAID’s support to the Grenada mission, departed his post for a new assignment. Tony Motley, State’s powerful bureau chief and chief architect of the Grenada mission, authored a personal letter to the USAID Administrator. In the letter, Motley praised
Holtaway’s ability to defend USAID interests during the Grenada crisis while “ensuring a mesh with our overall policy priorities.”358 This gesture exemplified the collaborative partnership that existed between these individuals – and by extension, these bureaucracies – at that time. The feeling was reciprocal; nearly forty years later, USAID’s Jim Holtaway still credited State’s Tony
356 Here “cumshaw” means “gift.” For example, State could purchase alcohol using government funds in Grenada, but the Army could not. Gillespie’s staff arranged for a bulk purchase of inexpensive wine for Army soldiers to enjoy for Thanksgiving dinner. It was one of many ways – small and large – that State leveraged its comparative advantage to benefit partner organizations while building relationships. Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 325-328, 333-334. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 357 General Farris’s collaboration with Ambassador Gillespie is all the more remarkable because it occurred despite an openly strained relationship between the secretaries of Defense and State. Charles Gillespie, Oral History, 328. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. See also: Edgar F. Raines, Jr. The Rucksack War: U.S. Army Operational Logistics in Grenada, 1983 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2010), 504-505, 536. 358 Memo, Langhorne Motley to M. Peter McPherson, Aug. 9, 1984; from the personal files of Jim Holtaway. 131
Motley and Rich Brown for Washington’s interagency unity of effort in the Grenada post-combat operation.359
On the whole, U.S. post-combat operations on Grenada reestablished security, rebuilt a democratic government in Grenada, and improved Grenada’s economic situation. Adaptive
American national security institutions contributed much to this effort, and achieved U.S. strategic objective at an acceptable cost. Although economic and governance issues persisted, and private investment programs floundered, Grenadians appreciated both the U.S.-led intervention and subsequent post-combat efforts. From 1984-1986, Grenada recorded a stunning
71.3% pro-U.S. voting record within the United Nations, making the tiny island the Third
World’s most ardent supporter of U.S. policy.360 In the wake of relative success, none of the three national security institutions incorporated post-combat lessons into their standard procedures. Six years later, post-combat Panama proved to be every bit the ad hoc improvisation that Grenada had been.
359 Jim Holtaway, email to the author, October 24, 2020. 360 James Ferguson, Grenada: Revolution in Reverse (London: Latin America Bureau, 1990), 115. 132
Chapter 4: Panama
This chapter argues that the U.S. Army, Department of State, and USAID adapted to post- combat Panama in nearly identical ways. Each institution leveraged its existing capacity and capabilities (Proposition 1); and each institution produced cherry-picked practitioners who were uniquely qualified for the crisis at hand (Proposition 2). Army and State practitioners found creative ways to leverage their respective institutions for resources and autonomy; while USAID provided the clearest example of a revolt of the cherries – in the form of a mission director who strove to turn his agency from a slow-moving dump truck into a nimble Ferrari (Proposition 3).
The Army and USAID also planted an orchard during this period – in 1990 the Army helped establish a Military Support Group that lasted a year; and in 1994 USAID created of the Office of Transition Initiatives (Proposition 4). The Army also produced new doctrine and documented its lessons-learned – but once again focused its long-term investment toward the Army’s core mission. As with the Grenada case, personal relationships set the conditions for many significant adaptations.
This chapter proceeds as follows. A brief summary of the historical and political context of the Panama case is followed by sections analyzing each national security institution’s most significant adaptations. Each institution adapted in similar ways, and each could claim Panama as a success; although in Panama these organizations achieved less interagency unity of effort than in Grenada. This chapter’s conclusion examines the Panama case through the lens of each of the four research propositions; compares the ragged interagency unity of effort in Panama with that achieved in Grenada six years prior; and underscores the outsized impact of personal relationships on organizational adaptation in post-combat Panama.
133
PANAMA IN CONTEXT
On December 20th, 1989, U.S. forces invaded Panama in the middle of the night and controlled all major Panamanian military bases by morning.361 Sporadic fighting continued for approximately five days. The combat phase, called Operation Just Cause, was a one-sided affair; superior U.S. forces had preserved the element of surprise, minimized collateral damage, and executed complex attacks with clockwork precision. Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega narrowly avoided capture and went into hiding; his officers were quick to change into civilian clothes and disappear from the battlefield, leaving their men to surrender or fight. The U.S. airborne assault force captured not a single Panamanian field grade officer on the day of the invasion.362
American combat operations enjoyed tremendous success; on the other hand, the transition to post-combat operations was nearly a disaster. Massive fires destroyed the El
Chorrillo district, a shanty town surrounding Noriega’s military headquarters in Panama City, scene of the heaviest fighting. Fleeing the fires, thousands of newly homeless refugees sought food and shelter from U.S. forces still engaged in combat. Their plight became an enduring public relations disaster. In urban areas, civil society broke down completely amid several days of widespread looting, lawlessness, and violence – as U.S. troops watched passively, and in full view of the western news media.363 The looting cost Panama between $1 billion and $2 billion.364 The Army’s senior general in Panama had reviewed and extensively revised combat
361 DoD press release, 20 Dec 89. Cited in: James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet (New York: Penguin, 2004), 181. 362 Godfrey Harris and David S. Behar, Invasion: The American Destruction of the Noriega Regime in Panama (Los Angeles: Penguin, 1990), 122. 363 John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 29. 364 Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 28. 134 plans, but mistakenly considered the corresponding plan for post-combat operations “the least of my problems at the time.”365 This lack of attention nearly snatched strategic defeat from the jaws of tactical and operational victory.
Panama is a narrow isthmus; in much of the country, fewer than 75 miles separate the
Caribbean Sea from the Pacific Ocean. Panama joins Central and South America; it is slightly smaller than the state of South Carolina. In 1989 its population was roughly 2.3 million, mostly mestizo, mulatto, or black; and primarily Spanish-speaking and Catholic.366 Its terrain features jungles, mountains, and porous borders with neighboring Costa Rica and Colombia. The fabled
Panama Canal runs northwest from Panama City on the Pacific coast to Colόn on the Caribbean coast. The Canal Zone, considered U.S. territory until 1979, was jointly managed by U.S. and
Panamanian officials until it reverted to Panamanian control in 1999. In 1989, Panama had been a republic for 86 years, but had never achieved a consolidated democracy, and was home to some
50,000 American citizens. Many of these American civilians lived near the Canal in dangerous proximity to Panamanian Defense Forces loyal to General Noriega.367
365 General Maxwell Thurman later conceded that U.S. Southern Command “probably did not spend enough time on the restoration,” and acknowledged that in his initial briefings on taking command, “I did not even spend five minutes” on the post-combat plan. See: Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 16. 366 Roughly 200,000 were Amerindian, many of whom lived in rural areas in indigenous tribes. In the wake of the 1989 intervention, Noriega supporters sought to portray the U.S. as racists forcibly installing a white president (Endara). This narrative was unconvincing, as the Bush administration’s media point person for the invasion was General Colin Powell, a universally-respected black officer. For the demographic groups and associated statistics mentioned here, see: Wikipedia, “Demographics of Panama,” accessed November 10, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Panama#Indigenous_Panamanians. For the anti-U.S. race argument, see: Alberto Barrow, “Racism Was Central to the Invasion,” in The U.S. Invasion of Panama, The Truth Behind Operation Just Cause, prepared by the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the U.S. Invasion of Panama (Boston: South End Press, 1991), 81. 367 American canal workers were an outspoken constituency for members of the U.S. Congress, complete with their own political lobby. Their activism – and support from members of Congress – complicated Bush administration policy. It was something of an American parallel to the French pied noir civilian population in Algeria. Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Origins, Planning, and Crisis Management June 1987- December 1989 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2008), 94. 135
In addition to affecting regime change, the invasion of Panama punctuated an epic turf battle within the U.S. government. State had long advocated against Noriega’s de facto dictatorship on policy grounds; while Army, Defense, and Central Intelligence Agency leaders viewed Noriega as a valuable ally and Panama as their bureaucratic turf.368 Noriega had long profited by playing one side against the other. Upon taking office, President George H. W. Bush sided with State and began setting the conditions for regime change.369 As relations worsened,
Noriega escalated provocations against vulnerable U.S. citizens and interests in Panama, annulled the May 1989 election that his puppet candidate lost by a landslide, and assumed the title of “maximum leader” after his National Assembly unanimously declared that a state of war existed with the United States.370 After Panamanian forces killed a U.S. Marine lieutenant at a checkpoint – and arrested and assaulted a Navy officer and his wife who witnessed the incident –
President Bush authorized the invasion.371
368 The U.S. Southern Command headquarters, traditionally commanded by an Army officer, was located in Panama. The Army used Panama as a logistics hub for operations in Central America, and the Central Intelligence Agency had a longstanding relationship with Noriega, particularly under Director William Casey. See: Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 83. There are numerous accounts from State diplomats of this friction. For a brief example, see: John Bushnell, Oral History, 585. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 369 Among President Bush’s early presidential acts was to authorize a covert action to support Noriega’s political opposition; Noriega’s candidate lost and Noriega annulled the election. When the Army general in Panama seemed to oppose military intervention – and developed strained relations with key members of Congress – the Bush administration replaced him with General “Mad Max” Thurman, an officer known for his aggressiveness and his understanding of Washington politics. See: Peter W. Rodman, Presidential Command: Power, Leadership, and the Making of Foreign Policy from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush (New York: Knopf, 2009), 179. See also: Ronald H. Cole, Operation Just Cause: The Planning and Execution of Joint Operations in Panama February 1988- January 1990 (Washington D.C.: Joint History Office, 1995), 13. 370 A Bush administration report documented 723 incidents and 1,232 treaty violations over eighteen-months. See: “Harassment of DoD Personnel and Dependents in Panama 1 Feb 88 – 10 May 89,” 11 May 89. Rostow, Nicholas. NSC Files, Panama, OA/ID CF00741-018, George H.W. Bush Presidential Records, Bush Presidential Library. See also: James A. Baker et al, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989-1992 (New York: Putnam, 1995), 188. 371 Secretary of State Baker considered the decision meeting “anticlimactic,” probably because Bush had long since made his decision. James A. Baker et al, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989-1992 (New York: Putnam, 1995), 189. 136
The Panama invasion was the largest military operation since Vietnam. It was a medium- scale action that followed the broad model of Grenada six years prior: preserve surprise; strike with overwhelming force; protect American civilians. It is impossible to understand the military’s approach to Panama without understanding the need for surprise. In Grenada there had been perhaps 1,000 American citizens that were potential hostages; in Panama, a country 240 times larger than Grenada, there were perhaps 30,000 potential American hostages.372 Noriega’s war plans in the event of invasion – known to U.S. intelligence – consisted of taking American hostages and launching a Vietnam-style insurgency.373 Army General Maxwell Thurman concluded that surprise and overwhelming force offered the greatest chance to safeguard
American citizens and protect the vulnerable Canal infrastructure.374 Fearing leaks, the Pentagon compartmented its planning on security grounds; a decision that many critics subsequently derided as unnecessarily toxic to interagency unity of effort.375 Nevertheless, the military’s gamble worked.376
372 President Bush directed an evacuation of non-essential civilians from Panama (Operation Blade Jewel) months prior, reducing the number of American civilians in Panama from 50,000 to perhaps 30,000, consisting primarily of those not employed by the U.S. government. Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Origins, Planning, and Crisis Management June 1987-December 1989 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2008), 220. 373 After the invasion, credible media reports indicated that Noriega’s chief intelligence officer was on the U.S. payroll. See: Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 89. See also: John Bushnell, Oral History, 595. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. Also: Manuel Noriega, America’s Prisoner: the Memoirs of Manuel Noriega (New York: Random House, 1997). 374 There are many accounts from witnesses and historians of Thurman’s revision to the Panama contingency plan. Perhaps the best of these is: John Bushnell, Oral History, 595-597. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. For a brief historical overview of this decision, see: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 25-29. 375 For a well-argued perspective on this, see: Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 18-20. Nevertheless, given the low U.S. military and civilian casualties, the lack of insurgency, and the absence of costly sabotage to the vulnerable Canal infrastructure, it is questionable whether any military commander armed with hindsight would reverse the decision for absolute secrecy. 376 Several groups of Americans were taken hostage or murdered during the invasion, but most hostages were released unharmed once it became clear to all that the question of military victory was decided. Panamanian Defense Forces also had large caches of military equipment hidden in the jungle to support an insurgency that never materialized. 137
In Panama, enemy forces consisted of nearly 12,800 soldiers and militia, but only 4,000 of those were combat troops.377 The U.S. brought 27,000 well-trained and equipped troops to the fight; nearly 13,000 of those were already located in Panama when hostilities commenced.378
The U.S. invasion achieved its military objectives. Panama’s autocratic regime was toppled and a democratic government installed; many thousands of American civilians remained safe; and
Noriega himself was eventually captured and flown to the United States, where he was convicted and imprisoned. When the shooting stopped, the Army had over twenty thousand soldiers in
Panama; State had a senior Chargé d’Affaires supervising a reduced embassy staff of perhaps fifteen personnel; and USAID had no career officers and only two foreign service nationals working in Panama.379
In terms of financial cost, the Panama mission followed the precedent of Grenada, although at a larger scale. The cost of combat operations – which totaled approximately $163.6 million across all military services – was quickly dwarfed by emergency aid bills of $42 million and $420 million in 1990, and an additional $395 million in 1991.380 Loan guarantees and trade incentives pushed total U.S. aid close to President Bush’s desired figure of $1 billion. Given the
377 Ronald H. Cole, Operation Just Cause: The Planning and Execution of Joint Operations in Panama February 1988-January 1990 (Washington D.C.: Joint History Office, 1995), 37. 378 Of this force, approximately 22,000 U.S. troops saw action. Of the 13,000 troops already stationed in Panama, only a minority were combat troops. Ronald H. Cole, Operation Just Cause: The Planning and Execution of Joint Operations in Panama February 1988-January 1990 (Washington D.C.: Joint History Office, 1995), 38. 379 USAID had two foreign service nationals serving in Panama; they were nominally overseeing training programs. Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. Also: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 33. 380 The military cost figure included operations and maintenance costs, military pay and allowances, and procurements for destroyed equipment and expended ammunition. U.S. General Accounting Office, “Panama: Cost of the U.S. Invasion of Panama,” (Washington, D.C.: GAO, 1990), 2. For the U.S. appropriations supporting Panama in 1990-1991, see: William L. Furlong, “Panama, a Nation Apart,” in Post-Invasion Panama: The Challenges of Democratization in the New World Order, ed. Orlando J. Pérez (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2000), 47. 138 economic stakes that were ultimately involved, the scant attention paid to post-combat planning prior to the military intervention is startling.
In Panama, the Army, State, and USAID leveraged adjusted their existing procedures with ad hoc, short-term adaptations to accommodate the post-combat situation. Each institution also hand-selected well-qualified practitioners for the crisis. In Panama, the Army created a new organization to handle the post-combat mission, and sought to convert its lessons-learned into long-term organizational learning. Yet, as with Grenada, much of this learning centered on the
Army’s core mission – combat – rather than the post-combat mission. USAID experienced a modest revolt of the cherries, and in 1994 created a new organization – the Office of Transition
Initiatives – to increase its ability to respond to future post-combat and peacekeeping missions.
In Panama, these bureaucracies were unable to replicate the level of interagency unity of effort they had achieved in Grenada. Because State and USAID were largely cut out of the planning for Panama – many of their key practitioners would learn of the invasion from the news as it unfolded – this chapter proceeds with the Army’s side of the story.
139
THE U.S. ARMY IN PANAMA: THE ARMY’S SHOW
Grenada had been largely State’s show. Six years later, Panama was primarily the Army’s show. Citing the need for absolute secrecy, Army leaders kept State, USAID, and other civilian agencies out of the planning process, while focusing on combat plans. The commander of U.S.
Southern Command hand-selected a general to fight the upcoming battles; this general submitted his plan to the Joint Staff operations chief; who vetted and submitted it to the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs for approval. In late 1989, each of these key generals was an Army officer.381 Army troops ultimately comprised 81 percent of the U.S. forces involved in the invasion of Panama; and 95 percent of funding for the mission – renamed Operation Just Cause – went to the Army.382
The Army had studied Grenada closely and picked its cherries well, factors that reduced the frequency of combat-related blunders. Less-studied were some of Grenada’s post-combat lessons; which the Army soon paid to relearn.
In the Panama case, Army officers shaped even fundamentally political decisions. It was
U.S. Southern Command – not State – that proposed to replace the Noriega regime with the winners of the presidential election that Noriega had annulled.383 It was also an Army colonel who recommended inviting these three Panamanian politicians to an American military base the night of the invasion – to ensure their safety, swear them into office, and receive their formal
381 President Bush selected the aggressive General Maxwell Thurman to command U.S. Southern Command. Thurman hand-selected Lieutenant General Carl Stiner, commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps, to lead the operational planning and execution; a decision praised by the Joint Staff Operations (J3) Director, Lieutenant General Thomas Kelly. General Colin Powell became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in October 1989, and approved the plan. See: Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 99-104. See also: Ronald H. Cole, Operation Just Cause: The Planning and Execution of Joint Operations in Panama February 1988-January 1990 (Washington D.C.: Joint History Office, 1995), 2. 382 Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause, December 1989-January 1990 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2013), 52. For operational costs, see: U.S. General Accounting Office, “Panama: Cost of the U.S. Invasion of Panama,” (Washington, D.C.: GAO, 1990), 2. 383 The Panamanian system of government included a president and two vice presidents. These were Endara (president), Arias Calderon, and Ford. Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause, December 1989-January 1990 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2013), 75. 140 request for U.S. assistance.384 The Bush administration accepted these recommendations, described the subsequent invasion as a liberation rather than an occupation, and relieved the
Army of the unwanted burden of a period of military governance.385 General Thurman, whose military responsibility covered the entire region, nevertheless remained decisively engaged in the military’s contribution to post-combat Panama.
This section explores how the Army adapted to post-combat operations in Panama in three phases. The first consists of early adaptations on the ground by Army practitioners and leaders; a period characterized by remarkable cooperation between Army General Maxwell
Thurman and State’s Chargé d’Affaires John Bushnell.386 During this period the Army tried to make the most of its existing plans, capabilities, and procedures. These nevertheless proved inadequate to a situation bordering on disaster, which forced the Army to a second stage: cherry- picking leaders and creating a new organization for the post-combat mission. The third stage consisted of Army post-combat adaptations during and after this new organization – called the
Military Support Group – assumed responsibility from January 1990 – January 1991; a period in which Chargé d’Affaires John Bushnell departed Panama, and Ambassador Deane Hinton strove to achieve policy primacy over the Army.
Panama is the only case examined in this dissertation in which the U.S. military had a post-combat plan tailored to the country in question prior to the start of hostilities. In the event,
384 Army Colonel Robert “Jake” Jacobelly devised this plan as an alternative to special operations forces rescuing each politician in the early hours of the invasion. Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause, December 1989-January 1990 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2013), 75-76. 385 General Thurman was adamant that he would not be a proconsul in Panama. By acknowledging State’s senior diplomat as the president’s direct representative, Thurman undercut U.S. Southern Command’s original civil- military plan, which was based on the assumption of a period of military governance in Panama. See: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 67. 386 The remarkable degree of civil-military cooperation between General Thurman and State’s John Bushnell – and subsequently Ambassador Deane Hinton – predated similar relationships in Afghanistan between General Barno and Ambassador Khalilzad, and in Iraq between General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. 141 the Army fatally undermined and discarded its own plan. With the Army’s top commanders and strategists dedicated to combat plans, the associated post-combat planning was relegated to the
Army’s low-hanging fruit: civil affairs officers. Overwhelmingly reservists, these officers had generally weak relationships with key Army leaders, and few possessed the necessary security clearance for Panama contingency planning. 387
In the absence of clear guidance, Army civil affairs officers and units stuck to their standard procedures and did their thing. Civil affairs reservists periodically deployed on temporary duty to Panama to revise the civil-military plan; these apparently self-serving changes bred mistrust from active duty officers serving in Panama.388 Recognizing that their plans infringed on State’s turf, Army civil affairs planners only belatedly received permission to meet with State personnel at the embassy, and then with extensive security constraints.389 Untrusted, ill-informed, and planning in a vacuum, the Army’s post-combat planners produced a deeply flawed product.
Despite these challenges, the Army civil affairs planners adapted – by leveraging doctrine and by picking cherries. Their plan hinged upon a presidential activation of the Army’s civil affairs capability, which was believed to be a standard procedure in the post-Vietnam era of great
387 U.S. Southern Command in 1988 had only four civil affairs officers on its staff; only one of those had previously served in a civil affairs assignment; and none had the requisite “Top Secret” clearance to participate directly in contingency planning. This necessitated the use of temporary duty soldiers who held the appropriate security clearances. By mid-1989, this planning office was halved, and only one of the original four civil affairs soldiers was still serving at U.S. Southern Command. John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 14, 18. 388 “Each colonel wanted to put his own particular stamp on the plan,” while every version seemed to include the promotion of a civil affairs colonel to the rank of brigadier general once the plan was activated. Friction over this aspect of the plan touched off Army-internal turf battles between active-duty staff members and visiting reservists. See: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 11. 389 The civil affairs planner received orders to “talk around” the Department of Defense plan. The single approved conversation revealed that the Panamanian Defense Forces would have to be disbanded; but the discussion did not cover other key Army assumptions that proved erroneous – such as the political feasibility of a period of U.S. military governance. John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 21. 142 power competition.390 If the planned call-up was disapproved, Army planners added an alternate course of action centered on the immediate deployment of a select group of 25 uniquely qualified reservists – each of whom had agreed to volunteer for a 31-day period to stand up the mission.391
This added a creative twist to a sub-optimal plan, offering outsized value-added at limited institutional cost.
Armed with a flawed plan that offered creative use of civil affairs reservists, the Joint
Staff simultaneously approved and fatally undermined the alternate plan. The Joint Staff approved Operation Promote Liberty on 20 December, but declined to pursue a presidential call- up, and inserted a mandatory minimum tour length of 139 days for the initial core of 25 hand- selected volunteers.392 Few of these reservists could leave their civilian jobs for 139 days without a call-up. As a result, only 3 of the 25 specially-selected civil affairs soldiers deployed immediately; and only one of those was both a Spanish speaker and intimately familiar with the post-combat plan.393 Had General Thurman placed a higher value on the post-combat mission in general – or the civil affairs reservists in particular – he might have addressed this problem immediately. He never did.
Built on a foundation of low-hanging fruit and standard procedures, and without interagency input, the Army’s civil-military plan soon foundered. The plan had assumed a period of U.S. military governance; an assumption that the Army helped overrule before the first shots
390 Approximately 96 percent of the Army’s civil affairs personnel (and two-thirds of the Army’s psychological operations personnel) were then resident in the reserves. Doctrine assumed the activation of the reserve capabilities in the event of major conflict. Neither Grenada nor Panama triggered a call-up; the Army was compelled to adapt in both cases. Jennifer M. Taw, Operation Just Cause: Lessons for Operations Other Than War, (Santa Monica: RAND, 1996), 26. 391 The 25 preselected individuals each had experience or expertise uniquely relevant to the Panama post-combat mission. 392 John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 35. 393 John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 35. 143 were fired.394 In the United States, civil affairs soldiers sat awaiting transportation to Panama while additional combat forces took priority. These civil affairs troops trickled into Panama individually and typically for short 31-day tours; the Army’s plan to deploy 300 civil affairs soldiers peaked at only 152 personnel.395 Poor post-combat coordination between U.S. Southern
Command and XVIII Airborne Corps resulted in three separate civil-military headquarters performing overlapping tasks – two of which had similar names, adding to widespread confusion.396 None of these three entities had the capability or expertise to deal with widespread lawlessness, thousands of homeless refugees, or a new Panamanian regime.
Despite the unexpected scope and scale of the problems, in the immediate aftermath of
D-Day the Army strove to do the best it could with its available means. Army units flowed into
Panama to establish security; consolidated thousands of refugees from the burned-out slum at El
Chorrillo to empty airport hangars and soccer fields; and cooperated with USAID and the El
Chorrillo mayor to provide basic services and sanitation.397 When the Endara regime decided to stand up its government in the Congress building for reasons of legitimacy, Army units secured the building, cleared it of booby traps, and added hundreds of phone lines.398 When Noriega sought refuge at the Papal Nunciature, Army soldiers provided an influential archbishop with a
394 Under Army General Maxwell Thurman, U.S. Southern Command recommended replacing the Noriega regime with the Endara regime; this undermined a key assumption on which its post-combat plan was based. The Bush administration accepted this recommendation. U.S. Southern Command’s post-combat plan, renamed Operation Promote Liberty, remained unchanged. Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause, December 1989-January 1990 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2013), 75. 395 Only 57 of those personnel deployed for the longer 139-day deployment period. Stanley Sandler, Glad to See Them Come and Sorry to See Them Go: A History of U.S. Army Tactical Civil Affairs Military Government, 1775- 1991 (Fort Bragg, N.C.: U.S. Army Special Operations Command History and Archives Division, 1993), 379-380. 396 Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause, December 1989-January 1990 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2013), 447. See also: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 35. 397 Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause, December 1989-January 1990 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2013), 442-444. 398 John Bushnell, Oral History, 668. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 144 shocking tour of Noriega’s illicit properties and illicit proclivities, aiding the war termination effort.399 A Spanish-speaking Army general negotiated Noriega’s surrender and telephoned isolated garrisons, informing them that the conflict was already over and brokering their safe surrender.400 Army psychological operations teams broadcast messages encouraging law and order, and advocating for the newly-inaugurated Endara regime.401 Army leaders also authorized and implemented a weapons buyback program, spending over $800,000 to purchase nearly 9,000 weapons ranging from rusted junk to armored personnel carriers.402
Many of the most significant Army adaptations during this early period trace their origins to the positive working relationship between General Thurman and Chargé d’Affaires Bushnell.
Turf battles, policy disputes, and poor working relationships between the embassy and U.S.
Southern Command had become “one of the biggest U.S. problems in Panama”; to fix the longstanding problem, the men forged a strong bond even prior to the invasion.403 Bushnell became State’s leading advocate for Thurman’s revised invasion plan.404 Although Bushnell was
399 The tour featured shocking evidence of torture and murder, books and memorabilia dedicated to history’s most ruthless figures, stockpiles of pornography, weapons, and cash, and two houses dedicated to Candomble, a Brazilian form of voodoo, complete with evidence of dark rituals cursing Noriega’s many enemies. Kenneth J. Jones, The Enemy Within: Casting Out Panama’s Demon (Cali: Carvajal, 1990), 129-130. 400 Major General Cisneros spearheaded what became known as the “Ma Bell campaign,” a highly successful method of neutralizing Panamanian Defense Force outposts. Most Panamanian officers capitulated; few were die- hard Noriega loyalists, and peaceably acknowledging a fait-accompli was a longstanding practice for Central American coups. Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause, December 1989-January 1990 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2013), 385-388. 401 These teams also played loud rock music at the Nunciature, initially to prevent nearby reporters armed with boom mikes from overhearing negotiations for Noriega’s surrender; and eventually played around the clock. The loud music soon created an international outcry, and State demanded the Army cease. John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 46. 402 Malcolm McConnell, Just Cause (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), 267-268. See also: Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause, December 1989-January 1990 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2013), 425-427. 403 The State-Army turf battles in Panama effectively ended the careers of each man’s predecessor, heightening the importance of a positive relationship. The Bush administration recalled Ambassador Arthur Davis to Washington, and forced General Frederick Woerner to retire. John Bushnell, Oral History, 585. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 404 John Bushnell, Oral History, 596-598. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 145 far junior in rank, Thurman treated the diplomat as the president’s representative, deferred to
Bushnell even during combat operations, and placed his civil-military task force at Bushnell’s disposal virtually as soon as it was activated.405 Thurman also used his rank and operational funding to resolve some of the diplomat’s stickiest problems: he spent military dollars to put
Panamanians to work clearing war debris; activated and deployed Spanish-speaking Army reservists who were police officers in their civilian life; and directed subordinates to assist the embassy and the nascent Endara regime in every feasible way.406
These ad hoc adaptations, though necessary, proved insufficient for the scale of Panama’s post-combat problems. Noriega loyalists had emptied their prisons, pillaged their own ministries, and disappeared; the predatory Panamanian Defense Force had to be dissolved and ethical security forces created; and the entire Endara regime consisted of three stunned politicians with no cabinet and no plan for ruling the country.407 Institutionally focused on combat, the Army had little useful doctrine and few standard procedures from which to draw.
The Army adapted by appointing hand-selected officers to key positions (Proposition 2), and by creating a new organization to perform post-combat nation-building (Proposition 4). The resulting Military Support Group-Panama was the most important Army adaptation in post- combat Panama, and a clear example of a national security institution investing considerable
405 John Bushnell, Oral History, 595, 636. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. See also: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 33. 406 The entire Endara regime initially consisted of only three men – the president and his two vice presidents. John Bushnell, Oral History, 662-665. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. See also: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 34-38. 407 This period required Army soldiers to adapt from a combat mentality to a post-combat, nation-building focus. This included partnering with newly rehired security forces that U.S. soldiers had been fighting just days or weeks earlier. John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 36. See also: Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause, December 1989-January 1990 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2013), 434. 146 resources to address a problem with a high risk of catastrophic failure (Proposition 4). The
Military Support Group was activated on January 17, 1990, it spearheaded the Army’s post- combat operations until its dissolution a year later.
General Thurman had little first-hand post-combat expertise; when his original civil- military task force was quickly overwhelmed, he adapted by cherry-picking trusted officers and relying on their judgment. Thurman selected an Army colonel to serve as direct liaison to Arias
Calderon, whose vice-presidential portfolio included security and law enforcement.408 Other
Army officers became liaisons to Panama’s nascent law enforcement and judiciary institutions.
From Tampa, Army General James Lindsay offered Thurman the expertise of a trusted civil affairs colonel and veteran of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support
(CORDS) in Vietnam. Thurman accepted, and the civil affairs officer traveled to Panama to assess the situation.409 He initially recommended an interagency organization similar to
CORDS; Army leaders reshaped this proposal to form the Military Support Group-Panama, an all-military organization.410 General Thurman selected a subject matter expert on Central
408 Colonel Jack Pryor became U.S. Southern Command’s top trouble shooter and designated “liaison with Vice President and Minister of Government and Justice, Arias Calderon.” Colonel Pryor earned notoriety for his sudden appearances at crisis spots, armed with a radio connecting him to Vice President Arias Calderon. See: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 38. 409 General James Lindsay was the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command and an outspoken proponent of Army civil affairs. General Thurman immediately accepted the offer. Colonel Harold Youmans was dispatched to Panama on December 25, 1989, and submitted his proposal on January 8, 1990. The Military Support Group was created on January 17, 1990. See: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 39-40. See also: Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 33. 410 General Lindsay revised the original CORDS-like interagency proposal to include only military personnel. This exclusively-military format had been used successfully by the U.S. military in Latin America during the 1960s, and was included in the Army’s doctrine for low-intensity conflict. U.S. Southern Command further amended the proposal by making its commander a general officer and granting operational control of Army military police and Judiciary liaisons in Panama. This made the Military Support Group an ad hoc adaptation based loosely on Army doctrine. See: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 39-41. See also: Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause, December 1989-January 1990 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2013), 449- 450. 147
America – and a trusted personal colleague – to lead this new organization.411 In this way, the
Army’s cherry-picking and orchard growing went hand-in-hand.
The Military Support Group, commanded by Colonel Jim Steele (Brigadier General- select), became the focal point of Army post-combat adaptation in Panama. Well-placed liaisons embedded within the Government of Panama armed Steele with accurate information; and
Steele’s control over the Army’s military police, civil affairs, special forces, and psychological operations soldiers in Panama provided operational capability.412 Steele’s strong relationship with General Thurman afforded both bureaucratic top-cover and a powerful advocate for Steele’s well-informed recommendations. It was an institutional adaptation that endured a full year, outlasting General Thurman’s fortuitous partnership with diplomat John Bushnell, and General
Thurman’s command of U.S. Southern Command.413
The Military Support Group was tasked to “conduct nation building operations” which the organization interpreted along three operational lines: “establish a Panamanian security force; reconstruct the infrastructure; and provide information program” to support the new government of Panama.414 Army engineer units soon deployed to Panama for training exercises and were instead put to work on infrastructure projects; Army special forces teams helped vet and train new Panamanian security forces; and psychological operations teams broadcast messages in
411 Colonel Jim Steele had already been selected for brigadier general, spoke Spanish fluently, and had served as commander of the USMILGROUP in El Salvador. Steele wrote to Thurman offering his services, and Thurman ordered him to Panama on practically the first available flight. See: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 39-41. See also: Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 35. 412 Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 35. 413 Ambassador Deane Hinton replaced John Bushnell as State’s senior diplomat in Panama in January 1990. Thurman, who became seriously ill, commanded U.S. Southern Command until November 1990, and was succeeded by General George Joulwan. Military Support Group-Panama was deactivated in January 1991. 414 Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 33, 37. 148 support of the Endara regime.415 When lack of transportation became a critical shortcoming of
Panama’s new police force, General Thurman procured a fleet of pickup trucks from a strategic reserve in Germany for use as police vehicles.416 With the embassy barely functional, the
Military Support Group “played the role of the country team”; its leadership ensured all reconstruction activities had Panamanian government buy-in, and even shared a weekly breakfast with President Endara to discuss strategy.417
The problem of the Panamanian Defense Forces echoed Grenada and presaged future challenges in Afghanistan. As early as 1988, General Colin Powell realized the Panamanian
Defense Forces would have to be dissolved in the event of a U.S. military intervention.418
Unfortunately, this realization only belatedly reached U.S. Southern Command planners, whose original plan was virtually silent on Panama’s post-combat public security and judicial system.419
In the wake of the invasion, the Military Support Group adapted swiftly, moving to establish and vet a new security force – only to be curtailed by legal prohibitions.420 Responsibility for
415 John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 43-50. 416 John Bushnell, Oral History, 662-665. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 417 Ambassador Hinton took a dim view of this expansive, decidedly political role for Army officers. Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993), 40, 62. 418 The Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF) was the rare institution in Panama that allowed upward mobility by non- aristocratic classes; however, it was guilty of praetorianism. General Powell later wrote that “I had thought all along that if we ever did get involved in Panama, dumping Noriega would not end the problem. His power base was the PDF. When we got rid of Noriega, another PDF goon would rise up to take his place.” See: Colin Powell, My American Journey (New York: Ballantine, 1995), 403. For a discussion of the PDF as praetorian rulers, see: Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993), 6-7. 419 U.S. Southern Command post-combat planners learned from State – not from Army or Defense channels – that the Panamanian Defense Forces would likely be dissolved in the event of a U.S. intervention. The planners incorporated this aspect, but other erroneous assumptions remained part of the plan. See: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 21, 42. 420 Army special forces helped vet police applicants, and Army military police conducted joint patrols with the new police force for the duration of the Military Support Group’s existence. Once combat operations are complete, section 660 of the Foreign Assistance Act prohibits the military from supplying or training foreign police without a legislative mandate. State lobbied Congress to preclude this mandate. See: Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of 149 training the Panamanian police transferred to ICITAP, a small Justice Department program that hired contractors to provide a modicum of police training.421 This approach disappointed its advocates; Panama would have six different police chiefs and one coup attempted by its police forces in the next four years.422
The Military Support Group was a vital Army adaptation in post-combat Panama – but it was not perfect. Colonel Steele insisted it become a Joint rather than an Army-only organization, which prevented the Army from surging extra personnel to Military-Support Group-Panama.423
Nor did the Military Support Group achieve a presidential activation of the reserves; Army reservists continued to trickle into Panama as individual volunteers for 31-days, ensuring high turnover and limited impact.424 Military Support Group initiatives in police training, host-nation liaison, and psychological operations ran afoul of Ambassador Hinton’s sensitivities as turf battles resurfaced between State and Army.425
War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993), 36, 45-54. 421 In 1974, Congress forced USAID out of the business of training foreign police forces. The International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) received responsibility for training the Panamanian police. ICITAP was a small program which had never undertaken a training program of comparable magnitude. ICITAP was run by Justice and supervised by State. See: Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993), 45-48. 422 Army-led vetting eventually “eliminated all [Panama Defense Force] colonels, 83 percent of the lieutenant colonels, 38 percent of the majors, 31 percent of the captains, and 19 percent of the lieutenants” for suspected loyalty to the former regime. Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 47, 54. 423 The Army used Directed Military Overstrength authorization to rapidly increase personnel for Army operational priorities, but this mechanism does not apply to Joint organizations. Insisting on a Joint unit was consistent with congressional expectations in an era of Goldwater-Nichols, but constrained the Army’s contribution to post-combat Panama. The Army contained most of the military’s relevant post-combat capabilities, and the other services were not enthusiastic about the mission. Steele later admitted his mistake; by reducing the percentage of Army billets to 50-60 percent, the Military Support Group remained perpetually understrength. See: Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 35. 424 Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 35. 425 Ambassador Hinton supported a shift in police training from military to civilian trainers; he curtailed Military Support Group meetings with President Endara; and he restricted and eventually eliminated Army psychological 150
After the Military Support Group was disbanded in January 1991, the Army continued to contribute to post-combat operations in Panama. General Thurman approved Army engineer exercises and medical unit deployments that became regular events, blending Army training requirements with Panama’s infrastructure and human needs.426 The Army psychological operations teams in Panama outlived the Military Support Group, but not by much; their element was reduced in size in April 1991, and ordered to depart Panama in June 1991.427 Colonel Steele continued to attend breakfasts with President Endara and Ambassador Hinton long after the dissolution of the Military Support Group.428 U.S. Southern Command also made creative and aggressive use of Army assets to prosecute the war on drugs while assisting Panama’s nascent security forces.429 Operation Promote Liberty continued in diminishing scale until September
1994.
In the Panama case, due in part to the operational need for absolute secrecy, Army planners developed a flawed post-combat plan under the auspices of U.S. Southern Command.
Army generals in Panama and Washington then simultaneously approved and undermined this civil-military plan. Following widespread looting that illustrated the shortcomings of their existing plan and capabilities, Army leaders adapted swiftly by cherry-picking trusted officers
operations missions. Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation- Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 48, 57, 62. 426 In 1991, Army engineer exercises repaired 91 schools, 42 clinics, 7 bridges, and over 150 kilometers of roads. In 1992, Army engineers repaired 61 schools, 29 clinics, 12 roads and 16 bridges. Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 57. See also: Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 432. And: Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause, December 1989-January 1990 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2013), 465. 427 Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 57. 428 After the dissolution of the Military Support Group, Steele remained in Panama under the U.S. Southern Command J5, which made Steele the direct subordinate of a U.S. Air Force Brigadier General. As of May 1991, Colonel Steele was still attending the weekly breakfasts. John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 52. 429 Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 432. 151 and creating a new organization to address the problem set.430 Military Support Group-Panama, staffed primarily by Army soldiers, attacked its nation-building mission with zeal and creativity.
In this case the Army transitioned through multiple stages of organizational adaptation; from early reliance on low-hanging fruit, to cherry-picking leaders as the crisis escalated, to providing additional resources, to the temporary creation of an organization dedicated to the post-combat mission.
In Panama as in Grenada, the Army strove to incorporate lessons-learned into long-term organizational learning – only to focus on its core mission of combat rather than post-combat operations. The relatively new Center for Army Lessons Learned dispatched a team to Panama, but this team curtailed its investigation after an influential Army general publicly stated “there were no lessons learned on this operation. I don’t think that I or my commanders or our armed forces learned a single lesson…but we did validate a lot of things.”431 Thus chastened, the research team changed their product from “lessons-learned” to “first impressions.”432 In 1994, the Army approved an updated field manual covering peace operations and post-conflict actions, but the Army’s recent post-combat experiences in Grenada and Panama went unmentioned.433
430 Army leaders at U.S. Southern Command adapted relatively quickly. The widespread looting and lawlessness in Panama occurred from 20-24 December 1989. The Military Support Group-Panama was activated on 17 January 1990. 431 This quote came from Army Lieutenant General Stiner, the commander of XVIII Airborne Corps and Joint Task Force-South, who was General Thurman’s designated commander for the invasion of Panama. Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause, December 1989-January 1990 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2013), 52. 432 This was General Stiner, who directed the combat phase of the Panama invasion – but was never tasked with post-combat operations. Stiner later explained that “you only learn a lesson as the result of a big mistake, or when you have failed to anticipate an event somewhere along the line….” Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause, December 1989-January 1990 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2013), 52, 470. 433 Field Manual 100-23 Peace Operations made little mention of post-combat operations and included a single vignette from Panama on the exercise of treaty rights prior to the invasion. Headquarters Department of the Army, FM 100-23: Peace Operations (December 1994), 2. See also: John Fishel, The Savage Wars of Peace (Boulder: Westview Press, 1998). 152
STATE IN PANAMA: FROM PASSENGER TO DRIVER
For the Grenada intervention, State was in the driver’s seat from start to finish. In the case of Panama, State began as a passenger on a Pentagon bus driven by the Army. When the shooting stopped, State clawed its way to the wheel, eventually replacing Army generals with
State diplomats as the architects of U.S. foreign policy in Panama.434 To achieve this, State relied heavily on its standard procedures – including Ambassadorial authority – and on hand- selected, uniquely qualified diplomats. Achieving bureaucratic primacy in Panama was an incremental process, since State remained dependent on Army or USAID capabilities for virtually every aspect of post-combat institution building.
In the Grenada case, State’s regional bureau was fully informed during the lead-up to intervention, and established a task force of lawyers to outline the legal authority for intervention. In the Panama case, President Bush affirmed the Pentagon’s plea for absolute secrecy and maximum surprise – which meant that Secretary of State Baker and Chargé d’Affaires John Bushnell were the only State leaders witting to the upcoming invasion.435 Just days prior to D-Day, Bushnell asked Baker about the international legal authority for intervention; a stunned Baker belatedly got State’s lawyers involved “without telling them what country.”436 While select Army units had rehearsed the invasion for weeks as relations between
434 In this regard, post-combat Panama paralleled post-World War II Europe, where Army generals served as de facto military governors and Army units provided the bulk of stabilization and governance capacity. It took State several years after 1945 to establish the diplomatic primacy of U.S. ambassadors in occupied countries. 435 To prevent any intelligence leaks to Noriega, Bushnell declined to inform his embassy staff and communicated with Baker via a secure telephone. John Bushnell, Oral History, 631. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 436 John Bushnell, Oral History, 631. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 153
Panama and Washington soured, at State there was little awareness and no post-combat plan.437
Last-minute, ad hoc adaptation became the order of the day.
State’s transition to post-combat operations in Panama began with Chargé d’Affaires
John Bushnell, and his strong relationship with General Thurman. Bushnell was a highly qualified diplomat who had worked well with the military; the National Security Council deputies recommended Bushnell for the Panama posting after lengthy deliberations.438 Even before traveling to Panama, Bushnell met with Thurman, and both agreed to set aside their predecessors’ turf battles and collaborate closely.439 In Panama, they co-hosted at least eight
Congressional delegation visits between late-October and mid-December 1989, strengthening bipartisan support for a potential military intervention against the Noriega regime.440
The relationship between these two men proved essential to their respective organizations’ priorities and adaptations. Bushnell went to exceptional lengths to keep the invasion secret – an all-important issue for Thurman – and alerted Thurman to the effectiveness of Noriega’s intelligence service through a friendly wager.441 Thurman reciprocated on matters of importance to the State Department, deferring to the diplomat as the president’s direct
437 John Bushnell, Oral History, 626-628. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 438 Bushnell had served at the National Security Council, had a positive track record of collaborating with the Pentagon, and experience in Latin America. His selection represented a case of cherry-picking on the part of the National Security Council deputies. John Bushnell, Oral History, 594-595. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 439 John Bushnell, Oral History, 595. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 440 Virtually all of the foreign affairs, defense, and intelligence committee members made the informative trip to Panama during this period. State-Army cooperation yielded tangible results: “there was almost universal Congressional support when President Bush did launch the large-scale military operation.” John Bushnell, Oral History, 615-618. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 441 Diplomat bet soldier that the contents of a fake memo at U.S. Southern Command would reach Noriega within days. U.S. intelligence methods soon confirmed that Bushnell had won the bet. Considerable evidence suggests that U.S. and Panamanian intelligence services had penetrated each other’s headquarters. “Moments in U.S. Diplomatic History: Hard Rock Hotel Panama – Noriega and the U.S. Invasion, Part I,” Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training, accessed May 28, 2019, https://adst.org/2012/12/hard-rock-panama-december-20-1989-noriega-and-the-u- s-invasion-part-i/. See also: Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 89. 154 representative before, during, and after the invasion.442 Bushnell enjoyed maximum flexibility from State during this early period, and benefited from his positive work relationship with
Thurman: “The military’s job was to take down the Panamanian military, and my job was to produce a civilian government…Thurman had the entry plan for the military, and I had the exit.”443 Minutes before the invasion commenced, Bushnell watched as Endara, Arias Calderon, and Ford were sworn into office at a secure U.S. military installation in Panama.444
As the invasion commenced, the need for secrecy disappeared. State adapted by selecting uniquely qualified officers for immediate travel to Panama. These included a trio of senior political advisors: Deputy Undersecretary of State for Interamerican Affairs Michael
Kozak, as well as a U.S. Information Agency officer who had worked closely with Kozak, and a
“former junior political officer in the embassy who had forged close links with Endara, Arias
Calderon, and Ford when they constituted the opposition.”445 Two more State officers followed, both assigned to General Thurman’s original civil-military task force.446 State also nominated one of its most senior diplomats for the ambassadorial post in Panama: Deane Hinton.
By January 9, Ambassador Deane Hinton arrived in Panama, and State’s trio of senior political advisors departed soon after.447 Hinton was a perfect example of institutional cherry-
442 When Thurman wanted to advance the hour of the invasion by 15 minutes, he requested and received Bushnell’s concurrence before issuing the order. John Bushnell, Oral History, 636. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 443 John Bushnell, Oral History, 628. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 444 Only after Bushnell informed the three politicians of the imminent invasion did the question arise of how to swear them in to office. Fortunately, Arias Calderon had a copy of Panama’s constitution, which permitted “any two citizens of good standing” to conduct the swearing-in. With the invasion only hours away, Bushnell hurriedly sent for two such citizens. The incident illustrated the truly ad hoc nature of State’s post-combat adaptations. John Bushnell, Oral History, 634. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 445 These three senior political advisors traveled to Panama on 20 December 1989. John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 33. 446 John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 33. 447 John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 38. 155 picking. A career foreign service officer, Hinton had served at complex and challenging posts from Syria to Chile, and accrued considerable experience balancing political, military, and intelligence equities. He had served as ambassador to four countries – including Pakistan – and possessed considerable expertise on Latin America. Hinton also brought a wealth of knowledge on economic issues, foreign aid, and democratization. He had previously served as the USAID mission director in Guatemala; worked on the White House Economic Council; and served as
State’s Assistant Secretary for Economic Affairs. As the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador, Hinton had reined-in the military, applied spurs to the Central Intelligence Agency, pressed hard for additional foreign aid spending, and developed plans to transition the country’s economy from wartime to peacetime footing.448 He was also “an old friend” of one of State’s most influential diplomats: Larry Eagleburger.449 Considered a “career curmudgeon” by some, and a “lamb in wolf’s clothing” by others, Hinton was just the man to assert State’s authority over rival bureaucracies in post-combat Panama.450
Why did Ambassador Hinton – a married man with plans to retire – agree to yet another dangerous diplomatic assignment in an unstable country? The answer centered on a miscommunication. With only ten minutes notice that the president would call and ask him to take over the embassy in Panama, Hinton quickly checked with his wife, who agreed. Only later did Hinton discover that his wife – a native Salvadoran whom Hinton married while ambassador
448 In El Salvador, Hinton also cultivated a positive civil-military relationship with Army Colonel John Waghelstein, who led the U.S. foreign internal defense mission. It was also in El Salvador when a catastrophically poor briefing from Army psychological operations soldiers inspired Hinton’s antipathy toward psychological operations – a bias experience that shaped Hinton’s later decisions in Panama. Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 331-342. 449 Eagleburger was State’s top career foreign service officer; he later served as Secretary of State. Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 353. 450 Both descriptions of Hinton come from the author’s interviews of USAID officers who served with the veteran diplomat. 156 there – “had misunderstood, thinking I was talking about a trip, not an assignment.”451 On such issues rest the future of even mighty bureaucracies – particularly civilian institutions that rely on volunteers to fill assignments.
Arriving in Panama, Hinton dedicated considerable effort to hand-selecting members of his embassy team from State and USAID. These consisted of individuals he trusted personally from previous assignments, or those who brought uniquely relevant skills to the post-combat crisis. The bureaucracies at State and USAID generally accommodated Ambassador Hinton’s attempts to cherry-pick key leaders and form a tight, mission-focused network. Hinton later recalled a noteworthy incident at State that illustrates the broader bureaucratic trend:
For the critical [Deputy Chief of Mission] position…I thought David Beall, then the assistant secretary’s staff assistant, would be ideal. I asked David if he would be interested. He was, but Assistant Secretary Aronson vetoed the idea. Back in Panama, I outlined the situation in an “Eyes Only” cable to Larry Eagleburger. Result: David was assigned to Panama, where he proved to be a superb DCM. Bernie Aronson was understandably furious that I had gone over his head, but he eventually calmed down, judging from his efficiency report on me.452
Even as Hinton’s top picks agreed to serve – and other acceptable candidates contacted him to volunteer for Panama – existing embassy staff sought to leave the hazardous post.453 The result was a high rate of turnover at the embassy. Asked in the fall of 1992 why it took so long to create an effective country team, Hinton stated that the post-combat mission was one “we do not do very often,” and suggested he still had not achieved interagency unity of effort within the embassy.454 These examples reveal both the strengths and limitations of State’s cherry-picking.
451 Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 413. 452 Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 417. 453 Hinton received his top choice for Deputy Chief of Mission, USAID Mission Director, staff assistant, and political counselor. The political counselor, who had not previously served with Hinton, did not last long before requesting – and receiving – a curtailment. Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 417. 454 Hinton also attributed State’s lengthy process of advertising available billets and soliciting volunteers for his department’s inability to fill vacant positions with alacrity. Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. 157
Facing the diplomat’s perennial challenge of having authority but lacking organizational capacity, Ambassador Hinton adapted. Knowing that he needed to “work harmoniously” with
U.S. Southern Command, Hinton cultivated a close working relationship with its commander,
General Thurman.455 Hinton regularly invited Thurman to play tennis, and facilitated an invitation for the general to attend an upcoming meeting with President Bush in Washington.456
Thurman reciprocated by revealing that Hinton’s own staff was keeping intelligence from the ambassador, and by placing the Military Support Group at Hinton’s disposal.457 The two men worked to solve each other’s problems in Panama, and remained friends until Thurman’s death.458 It was a relationship that Hinton was unable to replicate with Thurman’s successor,
Army General George Joulwan.
Ambassador Hinton was also determined to assert State’s diplomatic primacy over the
Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. military in Panama. He used his ambassadorial authority to reduce the number of Central Intelligence Agency staff on the embassy staff, eliminated Panama-based regional Central Intelligence Agency elements, and forged an agreement with General Thurman to limit the activities of Army intelligence collection
Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 40, 63-64. 455 Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 415. 456 Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 415, 420-421. 457 Prior to the invasion, bureaucratic turf battles in Panama often pitted State against a united front comprised of U.S. Southern Command and the Central Intelligence Agency. This dynamic shifted after the invasion, and the Central Intelligence Agency became the isolated institution. Hinton later wrote “Max [Thurman] showed me a C.I.A. assessment different from what I had been given! Max also told me someone was blocking access to me of an intelligence agent he had sent to see me. I was not amused.” See: Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 420. 458 General Thurman’s subordinates advanced their commander’s intent. When Hinton confronted a diplomatic obstacle – in the form of an unexpected demand that the U.S. return all areas temporarily occupied for post-combat operations – it was Army Major General Marc Cisneros whose suggestion carried the day. Governors and provincial authorities soon bombarded the government of Panama with demands that U.S. peacekeepers remain in their respective regions. This forced the Panamanian government to reconsider forcing a premature U.S. withdrawal from areas the Panamanian government could not yet secure. Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 425. 158 activities.459 Hinton opposed Army psychological operations activities, and directed Colonel
Steele to “phase out PSYOPS as a high priority.”460 The Army psychological operations element had originally sought to increase public support for the Endara regime, which Hinton considered a political act beyond the military’s mandate.461 His decision removed a valuable capability, but also helped establish a professional distance between the U.S. government and the faltering
Endara regime.
As Chief of Mission in Panama, Hinton adapted by balancing inclusiveness with assertiveness. For example, he invited the Military Support Group to participate in country team meetings, which allowed Hinton to keep tabs on Army post-combat activities. Hinton then asserted his ambassadorial authority to address political concerns that were not apparent to Army leaders. When Army Colonel Steele invited Hinton to the Military Support Group leadership’s weekly breakfasts with President Endara, a stunned Hinton immediately declared such meetings
“an ambassadorial prerogative.”462 Henceforth, the Army officers had to request Hinton’s permission to attend the presidential breakfasts – and the ambassador’s permission grew more difficult to obtain over time.463 These breakfast meetings provided State, Army, and USAID with
459 Hinton permitted case officers from the Central Intelligence Agency to remain on the embassy staff, but remained deeply skeptical of Army and Central Intelligence Agency intelligence collection activities. Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 418-419. 460 Here Hinton is quoted in: Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 40. 461 Army officers viewed psychological operations units as invaluable post-combat capabilities; Ambassador Hinton viewed them as too risky – any public disclosure that these units were supporting the Endara regime risked making Endara look like a U.S. puppet; an early an enduring domestic criticism of the Endara regime. Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 57-58. See also: Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause, December 1989-January 1990 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2013), 442, 476. 462 Hinton was stunned to learn that these breakfasts were taking place. Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 421. 463 Hinton reduced but did not eliminate Army participation, and regularly invited his USAID Mission Director, Tom Stukel, to attend these breakfasts. See: Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 40, 63-64. 159 an unparalleled degree of access to Panama’s president.464 Hinton’s curtailment of Army psychological operations activities was another excellent example of this dynamic.
Not all the ambassador’s adaptive interventions were long-lived or well-advised. Hinton periodically relocated Army civil affairs personnel around Panama; sometimes triggering
Panamanian protests, and occasionally reversing his decisions.465 And since State had little institutional capacity for post-combat missions, Hinton discovered to his dismay that post- combat progress in Panama depended on the Army. And the Army would acknowledge Hinton’s primacy, while respecting its own chain-of-command, as General Thurman politely explained to
“my buddy,” Hinton, whom Thurman considered to be a “good man, but you’ve got to straighten him out every now and then.”466 This illustrated State’s comparative strength and limitation in post-combat operations: achieving a desired decision was one thing; implementation another.
Nowhere was this more apparent than in the dissolution and rebirth of Panama’s security forces – arguably State’s most consequential and least successful post-combat adaptation. Even before the invasion, diplomats at the embassy preferred to dissolve the praetorian and predatory defense forces and replace them with the Costa Rican model: a police force subordinate to civilian authority, without an accompanying military.467 Within two weeks of the invasion, John
Bushnell began lobbying Endara, Arias Calderon, and Ford to select this model.468 Bushnell also
464 These meetings often featured the irascible Hinton “screaming at [Endara] at the top of his lungs…and it didn’t faze Endara at all! He sat there with his big Cheshire-cat smile on his face, while Deane Hinton was beating him up.” Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 465 Thomas Donnelly et al., Operation Just Cause: The Storming of Panama (New York: Lexington Books, 1991), 376. 466 Thurman quoted in: Lawrence A. Yates, The U.S. Military Intervention in Panama: Operation Just Cause, December 1989-January 1990 (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2013), 461-462. 467 In the only documented pre-invasion meeting between U.S. Southern Command planners and the U.S. embassy, the military learned of State’s preference that the existing Panamanian Defense Forces “would be destroyed and under no circumstances replaced by any military organization.” John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 21. 468 Vice President Arias Calderon was the first of the Big Three to support the Costa Rica model. John Bushnell, Oral History, 670-672. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. For an 160 worked to convince a reluctant General Thurman to support the Costa Rican model.469 Once these dominoes had fallen, Bushnell cabled a surprised State Department with the fait accompli, reminding Washington that Panama had no bellicose neighbors to warrant a military, and downplaying his and Thurman’s role in the Endara regime’s decision.470 It was a textbook example of a uniquely qualified, hand-selected diplomat adapting to the situation and achieving a favorable decision.
Implementation proved another matter entirely. To train the new police force, State advocated for its own low-hanging fruit over the Army’s existing – and far larger – organizational capacity. In a bureaucratic – and nearly Pyrrhic – victory, State undermined the
Army’s ability to train the new Panamanian police force, and delegated that herculean task to
ICITAP – a tiny Justice Department training program that State controlled.471 In January 1990, the head of ICITAP and personnel from USAID’s Administration of Justice Program visited
Panama; ICITAP then presented its proposal to train the new police, which Ambassador Hinton promptly approved.472 Meanwhile, State Department officials in Washington convinced
Congress to broaden ICITAP’s authority – and simultaneously deny the Army a legislative
Army-centric perspective on this decision, see: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 45-47. 469 John Bushnell, Oral History, 670-672. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 470 John Bushnell, Oral History, 672-673. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 471 The International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) had never undertaken a training program of comparable magnitude, it normally ran workshops and seminars for experienced policemen. Its presence in Panama eventually comprised perhaps seven officers with up to 50 contracted trainers – to train a police force of 12,000. David Kriskovich, the head of ICITAP, visited Panama at the request of his State Department boss, Michael Kozak. Kriskovich stated that his task was to “convince a lot of people, with Mike Kozak’s assistance, that ICITAP was the right institution for the job.” Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 48. 472 For a State-centric perspective on this, see: Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 429. For an Army-centric perspective, see: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 49. 161 exemption to section 660 of the Foreign Assistance Act.473 In a prologue to future events in
Afghanistan, contracted civilian trainers flew to Panama to provide a modicum of classroom instruction to former regime loyalists wearing new uniforms. It was hardly a recipe for comprehensive institutional reform.474
In seizing bureaucratic responsibility for the Panamanian police training, State overreached ICITAP’s meager capabilities, with considerable downstream consequences.475
“Unquestionably,” Hinton fumed years later, “I spent more time on police issues than any other.”476 Tangible progress proved slow and arduous; political squabbling delayed the creation of a police academy, and ICITAP short training courses produced only a trickle of semi-trained officers.477 State’s bureaucratic victory forced the Military Support Group to curtail its promising “RC Cop” program, which had combined Spanish-speaking special forces soldiers with reservists that had civilian law enforcement experience; the teams were then assigned to
473 Partly based on arguments that U.S. military training had produced the pro-Noriega Panamanian Defense Forces in the first place, Congress affirmed State’s success with the Urgent Assistance to Democracy in Panama Act in February 1990. This legislation granted ICITAP the authority to train Panamanian police, while denying that authority to the military. Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation- Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 47-50. 474 The Endara regime opted to rehire and retrain former members of the Panamanian Defense Forces; a pragmatic decision that placed great hopes on screening and training procedures to reform the previous institutional culture. ICITAP training could not live up to this expectation: “Forming the kinds of bonds that the [Military Support Group] did was outside ICITAP’s standard operating procedures.” Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 50. 475 Participants on both sides recorded tension between ICITAP and the Military Support Group. The former had all the authority for training but almost negligible capacity, and the latter had direct access to Panama’s leadership and tremendous resources, but no authority to use them. Debates between ICITAP (and its embassy supporters) and the Military Support Group forced General Thurman to make several personal trips to the Justice Department to “expedite the process.” Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation- Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 65n44. 476 Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 429. 477 Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 429-431. 162
Panamanian police precincts and training programs.478 Widespread public fear of the new police soon compelled Hinton to request the continuation of joint police patrols with U.S. troops.479
Panama’s public was right to worry; an abortive police coup on 4-5 December 1990 shed no blood, but sparked a vicious circle of domestic conspiracy theories and finger-pointing – with the end result that Arias Calderon and his Christian Democrat party were forced out of the ruling coalition.480 In ousting the Christian Democrats, Endara lost his parliamentary majority and his popular mandate.481 By 1992, Endara’s approval rating had plummeted to 12 percent; by 1993, only 26 percent of Panamanians expressed confidence in their police, which had seen six police chiefs in only three years.482 The coup attempt also forced Ambassador Hinton to delay the dissolution of the Military Support Group, underscoring State’s dependence on the Army.483 Had
State endorsed a more comprehensive interagency plan for police institution-building, the fledgling democracy might have been spared some of these consequences. It was a microcosm of State’s institutional strengths and weaknesses: State succeeded in influencing decisions in
Panama and Washington, but struggled to implement solutions. State possessed little low- hanging fruit, and had little interest in planting its own orchard.
State had a number of additional priorities in post-combat Panama; most of the associated adaptations leveraged existing diplomatic capabilities and achieved only mixed results. Attempts to emulate the successful public diplomacy campaign from Grenada faltered. A 1992 visit by
478 John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 49-51. 479 Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 52-53. 480 Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 431-432. 481 Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 432. 482 Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 54. 483 John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 52. 163
President Bush to Panama triggered violent demonstrations and an embarrassing presidential retreat to the safety of the embassy; a stark contrast from President Reagan’s triumphal 1986 visit to Grenada.484 State’s diplomatic campaign to revise Panama’s infamous banking secrecy laws – to eliminate the longstanding safe haven for illicit drug money – made considerable progress by
1992, but angered many Panamanians.485 Innovations in the war on drugs produced fleeting successes against resilient and adaptive narcotrafficking networks.486 State and Army efforts to negotiate a continued military presence in Panama beyond 1999 failed completely.487 Each of these priorities reflected State’s core mission and standard diplomatic procedures; none resulted in long-term organizational learning or change.
In post-combat Panama, State adapted with a mix of low-hanging fruit and cherry- picking. State nominated uniquely qualified diplomats as Chargé d’Affaires and Ambassador –
John Bushnell and Deane Hinton – and relied on their judgment for key adaptations. These adaptations included moving Panama toward the Costa Rican model of a police force without a military; and asserting State’s primacy over rival bureaucracies as the architect of U.S. policy toward Panama. State also relied on its existing bureaus and capabilities – notably ICITAP – to assume the task of training new Panamanian police forces. Here the results were mixed, as implementation took longer and achieved less than expected. Even then, the Army was forced to
484 Ambassador Hinton offered to resign over the embarrassment; President Bush and the White House Chief of Staff shrugged off the incident. Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 435. 485 When he retired in early 1994, Hinton considered the pending U.S. ratification of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty to be “unfinished business.” Panamanian opinion was mixed; many felt the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty imposed greater restrictions on Panamanian banks that even American banks experienced. A more optimistic 1992 State Department assessment praised the Endara regime’s advances in combating money laundering through tightened banking regulations. Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 438. See also: State Department Fact Sheet, “Panama 2 years after Operation Just Cause,” 4 Feb 92. Gillespie, Charles A. NSC Files, OA/ID CF01375-009, George H.W. Bush Presidential Records, Bush Presidential Library. Also: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 60. 486 Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 434. 487 Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 433-434. 164 step in to purchase police equipment, conduct joint patrols, stop a coup, and ease implementation in creative ways – within the constraints of existing legislation. Despite universally acknowledged shortcomings, the model of using civilian contractors to train post-combat police forces became something of a standard procedure for State. State later employed this model in the Balkans with some success, and less successfully in Afghanistan from 2001-2004 under its
Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement.
165
USAID IN PANAMA: TURNING A DUMP TRUCK INTO A FERRARI
USAID responded to Panama in much the same manner as it had Grenada: by leveraging existing capabilities and picking cherries. As with Grenada, USAID practitioners in Panama benefited from a high degree of autonomy - USAID’s regional bureau provided top-cover in
Washington; Ambassador Hinton empowered the USAID mission director in Panama; and relationships with the government of Panama remained positive and productive. In the Panama case, however, USAID’s practitioners rebelled against their agency’s standard procedures – which prioritized accountability over relevance or timeliness. The biggest problem was their own agency’s red tape. “That was our big obstacle in Panama” USAID Mission Director Tom
Stukel recalled: “trying to turn a dump truck into a Ferrari.”488 In 1994, USAID adapted by creating the Office of Transition Initiatives to build capacity for the growing array of peacekeeping and post-combat cases.
This section examines USAID’s participation in post-combat Panama across the range of organizational adaptation. First, USAID leveraged low-hanging fruit (Proposition 1) in the early days of the post-combat mission – as the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance provided humanitarian relief. Second, USAID aggressively utilized cherry-picking (Proposition 2), from its mission director to hand-selected office staff, even at the expense of other missions and during an agency-wide hiring freeze. These officers implemented an array of ad hoc, bottom-up adaptations to address the post-combat situation. Third, the agency’s mission director in
Panama, Thomas Stukel, led a revolt of the cherries (Proposition 3) to turn the restriction-laden
USAID dump truck into a responsive and adaptive Ferrari. And finally, the agency planted an
488 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 166 orchard (Proposition 4) by creating the Office of Transition Initiatives to address future peacekeeping, post-combat, and democratization cases.
The 1989 invasion of Panama caught USAID by surprise, and presented a host of humanitarian and economic challenges. In December 1987, Noriega’s de facto dictatorship compelled USAID to close its longstanding mission in Panama; at the outset of the U.S. invasion in 1989, the agency had only two foreign service nationals and no career officers in Panama.489
During combat operations, fires had destroyed the El Chorrillo district creating 2,000 homeless refugee families in Panama City.490 In the immediate aftermath of the invasion, days of widespread looting and lawlessness had devastated urban business districts.491 President Endara outlined Panama’s worsening economic crisis in a 9 January 1990 letter to President Bush: the economy had contracted 25 percent in two-and-a-half years; unemployment stood at over 30 percent; and infrastructure, business, and the banking system were in tatters following a decade of military rule and the U.S. invasion.492 Despite these challenges, Panama also had a number of economic advantages, including reliable income from the Panama Canal, a lucrative – if
489 The two foreign service nationals oversaw the few USAID-funded programs to survive escalating U.S.-Panama tensions, notably a training program for Panama Canal operators. Noriega’s decision to forcibly close the USAID mission stunned even senior members of the government of Panama – one told the departing USAID mission director that “throwing out USAID makes no sense, it’s like killing Santa Claus.” See: David Cohen, Oral History, 57. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. Also: Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 490 Robert Gersony, USAID consultant, “Characteristics and Perspectives of Families Displaced from El Chorrillo: Results of an Informal Sample Survey Conducted in Panama City During January 1990” Feb 90. Pryce, William T. NSC Files, Panama (Economic Issues) OA/ID CF00731-017, George H.W. Bush Presidential Records, Bush Presidential Library. 491 Looters included Noriega security force members and both poor and wealthy Panamanian civilians. In a few cases, the looting was halted successfully by armed vigilantes protecting businesses and neighborhoods. See: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 29. 492 Here Endara downplayed the complementary role of U.S. sanctions in Panama’s economic decline. Informal State Translation, President Endara Letter to President Bush, 9 Jan 90. Scowcroft, Brent. Latin American Files, Panama Chronological Files (December 1989-April 1990) OA/ID 91140-003, George H.W. Bush Presidential Records, Bush Presidential Library. 167 notorious – banking system, and an overall level of development that could support a Marshall
Plan.493
USAID initially responded to the post-combat humanitarian crisis with a mix of low- hanging fruit and cherry-picking. The agency tasked its Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance to augment Army and Defense efforts to feed and shelter displaced civilian refugees. A USAID memo on 27 December 1989 summarized the military’s existing humanitarian efforts and outlined the limited response capabilities of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. The same memo assured the Bush administration that the Foreign Disaster Assistance chief and the regional disaster relief coordinator, Paul Bell, were en route to Panama to assess the situation and recommend mid- and long-term solutions.494 Arriving in Panama, these USAID leaders found
Army units providing ad hoc shelter and food to refugees housed in tents on soccer fields or in massive airfield hangars.495
The personal involvement of Paul Bell was particularly fortuitous, as he was already a legend in the field of disaster risk management. A former missionary, Peace Corps member, and veteran of the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Refugee Programs before coming to USAID,
Bell had recently authored and implemented a disaster relief training program for the Latin
American and Caribbean region.496 Bell had access to prepositioned USAID emergency food
493 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 494 Frederick W. Schieck USAID memo, “Panama: Emergency Relief,” 27 Dec 89. Rostow, Nicholas. NSC Files, Panama – Current (Daniel Levin) OA/ID CF00741-004, George H.W. Bush Presidential Records, Bush Presidential Library. 495 News media photographs from Albrook Air Force Station and the temporary Balboa refugee camp reveal well- clothed families living in private fabric cubicles or tents, eating food and receiving medical attention. See: Kenneth J. Jones, The Enemy Within: Casting Out Panama’s Demon (Cali: Carvajal, 1990), 146-148. See also: Godfrey Harris and David S. Behar, Invasion: The American Destruction of the Noriega Regime in Panama (Los Angeles: Penguin, 1990), 84-85. 496 As of this writing, the Paul C. Bell Risk Management Program remains an academic program at Florida International University. See, “About Paul C. Bell,” Florida International University – Steven J. Green School of International & Public Affairs, accessed May 23, 2019, http://drr.fiu.edu/paul-bell-risk-management/about-paul- bell/. 168 stockpiles located in Panama and Costa Rica, and could recommend the redirection of USAID funds from other regional projects to the emergency in Panama.497 Bell and his team lent expertise and resources to the Department of Defense’s ad hoc efforts and did “a magnificent job there.”498 He was undoubtedly the right individual – and his office the right organization – for the early days of the post-combat crisis.
Selecting a USAID mission director to enable Panama’s economic reconstruction proved to be another exercise in institutional cherry-picking. USAID nominated a highly-qualified individual for the post-combat posting; he flew to Panama and interviewed with Ambassador
Hinton, but declined the difficult and hazardous assignment.499 Hinton then contacted
USAID/Washington and personally requested Tom Stukel as mission director. Hinton viewed
Stukel as “a terrific colleague, a superb program administrator, a fellow poker player, and a shrewd bureaucrat.”500 This was heady praise from the recalcitrant diplomat; the pair had served together in civil war-ravaged El Salvador. Upon learning that USAID headquarters had already approved the assignment, Stukel accepted the post, leaving his dream job and his sailboat in the
Dominican Republic to rebuild USAID’s mission in post-combat Panama.501
497 Frederick W. Schieck USAID memo, “Panama: Emergency Relief,” 27 Dec 89. Rostow, Nicholas. NSC Files, Panama – Current (Daniel Levin) OA/ID CF00741-004, George H.W. Bush Presidential Records, Bush Presidential Library. 498 Fellow USAID officers credited Bell’s OFDA team with superior collaboration, and with improving the privacy and quality of life for the refugees. When Bell passed away in 2003, USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance included a 3-page tribute in its annual report. The tribute stated that “Don Paul…was mourned, and is now missed, by an entire hemisphere.” Quote from: David Cohen, interview with the author, September 16, 2020. Also: Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. For the Paul Bell tribute, see: U.S. Agency for International Development, “Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance 2003 Annual Report,” 17-19, accessed February 3, 2021, https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pdaca555.pdf. 499 Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 416. 500 Stukel and Hinton had served together in El Salvador. Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 416. 501 Hinton called Stukel to offer him the job, but had already gained approval from USAID’s regional bureau. Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 169
Arriving in Panama and charged to rebuild the USAID mission from scratch, Stukel capitalized on his highly visible mission – and the Panama budget supplemental bill that was winding its way through Congress. He invested this political capital by handpicking the very best individuals for the mission. Although USAID was in the middle of a hiring freeze, Stukel successfully lobbied his agency to hire his former secretary from the Dominican Republic, who had retired two years earlier.502 He also tasked the two foreign service nationals then working in
Panama to scout and hire talented locals for service with USAID, a job made easier by Panama’s high unemployment.503 Stukel also raided his fellow mission directors’ staffs: “I made a lot of enemies of my other mission director friends by plucking people from different missions…We got the very best. I asked for them and they grudgingly gave them to me.”504 Given a crisis and a blank check, Stukel wisely bought a network of cherries.
To address the humanitarian crisis of displaced refugees from the El Chorrillo district,
Stukel leveraged handpicked experts and his agency’s standard procedures. Stukel invited Bob
Gersony, a legendary consultant in humanitarian relief work, to author an urgent survey on the refugees.505 The resulting study, completed in January 1990, provided timely and valuable insights on the plight of the refugees and recommended that each displaced family be allowed to choose from a menu of fixed-cost housing options and locations.506 Stukel adopted the proposal,
502 Stukel argued that he needed an American secretary to handle confidential material. Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 503 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 504 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 505 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. Journalist Robert Kaplan recently published an insightful biography of Robert Gersony’s four decades of experience in post-war and post-disaster environments around the world. See: Robert Kaplan, The Good American: The Epic Life and Adventures of Bob Gersony, the U.S. Government’s Greatest Humanitarian (New York: Random House, 2021). 506 The study proposed a fixed $7,000 per family allotment, but afforded the families the flexibility of how and where that funding would be applied. Robert Gersony, USAID consultant, “Characteristics and Perspectives of Families Displaced from El Chorrillo: Results of an Informal Sample Survey Conducted in Panama City During January 1990” Feb 90. Pryce, William T. NSC Files, Panama (Economic Issues) OA/ID CF00731-017, George H.W. Bush Presidential Records, Bush Presidential Library. 170 and later applied a similar housing model after a hurricane hit Honduras years later.507 In
Panama, it was an innovative merger between handpicked expert and organizational standard procedure.
Armed with a creative solution for refugee resettlement, implementation once again proved a more difficult matter. Despite broad bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress for the military intervention, appropriations for post-combat operations in Panama were delayed, and once begun, housing construction proceeded slowly.508 Constant news media coverage of unhappy refugees led to criticism of everything from the food quality and quantity to the small size of the family housing unit provided.509 The refugees proved a major public diplomacy challenge for the USAID team in Panama; Stukel adapted by contracting a caterer for meals, breakfasting with the refugees regularly, and providing seemingly endless explanations of the small houses to critical reporters.510 A year after the invasion, some El Chorrillo refugees were still languishing in temporary housing.511
Despite the many problems associated with the refugees, USAID’s Tom Stukel enjoyed maximum autonomy and positive relationships. Ambassador Deane Hinton had an outsized appreciation for economics, held USAID’s role in high esteem, and trusted Stukel implicitly.512
507 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 508 Congress passed an original emergency aid bill of $42 million that was not distributed in quantity until May 1990. A second bill, the Dire Emergency Act, was passed in late May 1990, and contained only $420 million of the $500 million originally promised. There was often considerable lag between obligating the funds and actually disbursing them. See: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 62. See also: Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 55. 509 The proposed houses were approximately 600 square feet, small by any measure but vastly superior in size and construction to the wood shacks and barracks that previously filled El Chorrillo. The former structures were originally built to house workers constructing the Panama Canal. Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 510 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 511 Deane Hinton, “Panama one year after,” 27 Nov 90 cable. Pryce, William T. NSC Files, OA/ID CF00732-013, George H.W. Bush Presidential Records, Bush Presidential Library. 512 Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 416. 171
Stukel enjoyed a standing invitation to attend the weekly breakfasts with President Endara, and maintained a positive working relationship with Vice President “Billy” Ford, who oversaw
Panama’s economic portfolio.513 Stukel was able to leverage this autonomy toward his other priorities for post-combat Panama: private sector reactivation, restoration of government services, and democratization programs.514 He put this personal and professional credibility to good use; Ambassador Hinton later recalled a noteworthy incident in which Stukel “ignored my instruction that there were to be no new [US]AID projects in [Fiscal Year 1992] and eventually convinced me to agree to seek some funding for Panama’s judicial system.”515
Broad autonomy and a handpicked team made for adaptive foreign aid initiatives. Within weeks of arriving in Panama, Stukel had started operations from his apartment, hired a staff, secured office space, commissioned Bob Gersony’s survey of refugees, and allocated millions of dollars in aid.516 To address mounting fears of a catastrophic run on Panamanian banks, Stukel deposited USAID funds into the local banks, restoring public and investor confidence in one of
Panama’s critical industries.517 USAID also complemented interagency institution-building efforts; for example, by establishing maintenance facilities for vehicles that the Department of
Defense provided Panama’s new police force.518 A wide range of USAID’s economic and
513 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. Also: Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 422-423. 514 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 515 To this end, Stukel evoked Hinton’s “history of fighting to help the Salvadoran judicial system.” Hinton considered this evidence that Stukel was a “shrewd bureaucrat.” Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 416. 516 USAID’s Tom Stukel and State’s Deane Hinton signed the first project agreement on February 2nd, 1990, allocating $2.5 million of the $42 million initially provided by Congress. Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. See also: Mark Edelman, acting USAID administrator memo, “Signature of First Assistance Agreement with the Government of Panama,” 5 Feb 90. Pryce, William T. NSC Files, Panama (Economic Issues) OA/ID CF00731-014, George H.W. Bush Presidential Records, Bush Presidential Library. 517 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 518 Hinton recorded that Army Colonel Steele purchased police vehicles with emergency funds. Bushnell recalled Army General Thurman gifting Panama a fleet of old but unused pickup trucks from a strategic reserve in Europe. The two accounts are not mutually exclusive; in any event, Army officers spearheaded Department of Defense efforts to equip the Panamanian police with desperately needed vehicles. Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy 172 democratization programs found fertile ground in Panama, thanks largely to Panama’s pre- existing institutional capacity, honest officials at the head of government, and the Endara regime’s disciplined approach to approved budgets and fair elections.519
Aside from the difficult problem of the refugees, USAID’s own bureaucratic red tape posed the greatest challenge to the agency’s mission in Panama.520 The same agency headquarters that approved Stukel’s many seemingly-impossible personnel requests soon demanded repayment with interest. USAID’s deputy administrator insisted on holding the agency’s regional Mission Director’s Meeting in Panama – imposing a heavy logistical burden on Stukel’s team within months of the invasion.521 USAID auditors pilloried the Panama mission for failing to publish a 40-page, ten-year development strategy; an unrealistic expectation in the wake of widespread upheaval and regime change.522 USAID and State leadership urged Stukel to spend faster, while USAID auditors criticized the mission for administrative policy violations and ad hoc shortcuts.523 In sum, USAID was an agency with standard procedures ill-suited to dynamic post-conflict or post-disaster environments. USAID was a dump truck, and post-combat Panama needed a Ferrari.524
(Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 431. See also: John Bushnell, Oral History, 664. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 519 Conspiracy theories have long been a fixture of Central American politics. Although rumors of Endara’s corruption persisted, in the final analysis there was little credible evidence of corruption by the big three. Endara, Arias Calderon, and Billy Ford were already wealthy men, and had no need to raid the state’s coffers. Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. Also: State Department Fact Sheet, “Panama 2 years after Operation Just Cause,” 4 Feb 92. Gillespie, Charles A. NSC Files, OA/ID CF01375-009, George H.W. Bush Presidential Records, Bush Presidential Library. Also: Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 422-423. 520 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 521 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 522 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 523 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 524 USAID created a more responsive and agile Ferrari in 1994 with the creation of the Office of Transition Initiatives – but institutional pressures conspired to keep this office small in terms of size and funding. The Office of Transition Initiatives promoted governance programs and its members served with distinction in Kosovo and Afghanistan. 173
Tom Stukel – who began his USAID career as an auditor – adapted by initiating a de facto revolt of the cherries. He pressed for the people and resources he needed, bent or ignored administrative rules, and maintained an open line of communication with his regional bureau leadership and the USAID Deputy Administrator, as well as with Ambassador Hinton.525 This did nothing to appease USAID’s legions of auditors, but it ensured that the auditors’ howls of outrage fell on largely deaf ears in the places that mattered. And while Stukel could not win every fight – USAID’s regional Mission Director’s Meeting occurred in Panama as scheduled – he was in no danger of getting fired or jailed for mismanagement or corruption. Instead, Panama became a springboard for a subsequent mission director position in the Philippines. Stukel later retired and joined the newly created Office of Transition Initiatives as a contractor, in which capacity he served in Haiti, Indonesia, and Kosovo. He was also one of USAID’s earliest participants in post-9/11 Afghanistan.526
Post-combat Panama pushed USAID practitioners outside the agency’s comfort zone in several respects. First among these was the need for speed. The need to produce immediate economic results in Panama ran counter to a USAID dump truck that prized accountability, transparency, and exhaustive long-term planning. And in 1990, USAID had not yet institutionalized democratization programs to the extent that would soon be required. Support to
Panama’s banking industry fell closer to USAID’s core economic mission; averting a run on the banks by depositing local currency was nevertheless a timely and creative bottom-up adaptation.
In the Panama case, ad hoc adaptations by USAID practitioners yielded a measure of economic success. By mid-1992, USAID had helped disburse $368 million, which comprised 82 percent
525 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 526 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 174 of the total aid appropriated by Congress.527 Six months later, with U.S. financial resources diminishing and urgent post-Cold War aid requirements elsewhere, Panama’s economy would stand largely on its own.
Each step of the organizational learning model is detectable in the case of USAID in post- combat Panama. The agency leveraged its existing capacity and standard procedures, dispatching agency leadership and Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance experts to Panama within days of the intervention. This contributed USAID resources and best-practices to an otherwise ad hoc Army-led effort to house and care for thousands of unexpected refugees from the El Chorrillo district of Panama City. USAID also picked cherries, nominating a highly qualified expert for the position of mission director, and approving another when the first candidate declined the post. The agency then responded favorably to the mission director’s bureaucratic revolt; acceding to numerous by-name personnel requests and turning a deaf ear to imperfect audits and administrative rule-bending.
Although USAID developed little in the way of new standard procedures, training, or doctrine to capture its lessons-learned in Panama, the agency did not ignore the sudden increase of similar cases that arose following the Cold War. In 1994, Administrator Brian Atwood launched the Office of Transition Initiatives to provide an enduring and adaptive capability to accelerate democratization in recipient countries. This office combined mostly contractors as aid officers who could deploy on short notice with ready money and the autonomy to pursue political development programs. This filled the notable gap between the Office of Foreign
Disaster Assistance’s short-term humanitarian relief, and the long-term economic development initiatives of the agency’s regional bureaus – which could take decades to show results. The
527 State Department Fact Sheet, “Panama 2 years after Operation Just Cause,” 4 Feb 92. Gillespie, Charles A. NSC Files, OA/ID CF01375-009, George H.W. Bush Presidential Records, Bush Presidential Library. 175
Office of Transition Initiatives became one of the most important examples of bureaucratic orchard planting examined in this work.
176
BUREAUCRACIES IN PANAMA: CONCLUSION
State, the Army, and USAID adapted in post-combat Panama along similar lines. Each agency leveraged its existing capacity (Proposition 1), and each selected uniquely qualified and highly-respected individuals for positions of responsibility during the crisis (Proposition 2).
Unlike Grenada, in Panama the post-combat phase triggered widespread upheaval, lawlessness, and looting. The Army’s adaptive response was noteworthy. In a matter of days, General
Thurman surged troops into Panama for stability (Proposition 1), set aside the flawed civil- military plan, hand-selected trusted experts to handle the unfamiliar post-combat mission
(Proposition 2), and created a new organization for civil-military operations (Proposition 4).
State and USAID stuck more closely to their respective standard procedures – reconstituting their embassy and foreign aid missions with trusted practitioners, and deferring to their judgment. USAID experienced a modest bureaucratic revolt from its mission director in
Panama, and generally acceded to his requests for additional resources and personnel
(Proposition 3). In 1994, USAID also stood up the Office of Transition Initiatives, planting an orchard of institutional capacity for future post-combat cases (Proposition 4).
The Army also invested in capturing lessons-learned and produced new doctrine, but remained an organization focused on fighting and winning wars. The civil affairs and civil- military lessons-learned from Grenada made few institutional inroads in the years since, and the
Army repeated its poor interagency civil-military planning in the Panama case, with nearly disastrous results. The resulting Military Support Group lasted a year, and entered the dustbin of history as a generally successful adaptation. The Army’s 1994 doctrine on peace operations covered post-combat missions and included fifteen brief historical vignettes, but not one vignette
177 addressed post-combat Grenada or Panama.528 The Army’s future post-combat operations would remain generally dependent on networks of deployed practitioners driving short-term, ad hoc adaptations.
In Panama, these bureaucracies helped achieve U.S. policy goals at acceptable cost, despite limited interagency unity of effort. Soldier-scholar John Fishel wryly observed that in post-combat Panama, “unity of effort among the several U.S. Government agencies involved was ragged at best.”529 Another Army officer who served in both Grenada and Panama concurred, remarking that “I didn’t see the same effort from the State Department and USAID and all those guys that I’d seen in Grenada.”530 What accounts for this ragged unity of effort in Panama – compared to the case of Grenada where each bureaucracy strove to solve the other’s unsolvable problems? Fishel – who served in Panama during this period – credibly argued that the foremost reason was the military’s paramount concern of secrecy, which “precluded any meaningful interagency planning.”531 Bureaucracies the military had cut out of planning seemed reluctant to rescue the Army from a near-disaster of its own making. Scale also undoubtedly played a role.
In Grenada, positive relationships between mid- and senior-level leaders resonated across small teams on the small island – in a way that the larger organizations in Panama could not sustain.
The bureaucratic ecosystem of this case was also unique. In some ways, post-combat
Panama resembled post-World War II Europe more than Grenada. In Panama as in postwar
528 Headquarters Department of the Army, FM 100-23: Peace Operations (December 1994). A 1995 Joint doctrine on Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW) spanned only 70-pages that focused on general military principles. Post-combat Panama received mention only in name, and Grenada is cited only as a case of a military strike that had ripple effects in Central America. Joint Chiefs of Staff, JP 3-07: Joint Doctrine for Military Operations Other Than War (June 1995). 529 John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 58. 530 Thomas Donnelly et al., Operation Just Cause: The Storming of Panama (New York: Lexington Books, 1991), 375. 531 John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 58-59. 178
Europe, State was late to the party, and strove to replace the Army as lead agency for shaping
U.S. policy. Before the 1989 invasion, the Army held the preponderance of bureaucratic influence in Panama, with thousands of soldiers and marines in country, including a major regional headquarters commanded by a 4-star Army general. Treaty rights granted the Army considerable autonomy to protect the Canal – and tens of thousands of American citizens working there. In 1989, the Panama Canal Commission administrator was a retired Army general, and the Canal Board of Directors was chaired by the Secretary of the Army.532 Army intelligence units operated with few constraints in Panama; and Army logisticians and special operators used Panama as a hub for missions in Central America.533 State, in contrast, operated an embassy that in December 1989 comprised approximately fifteen personnel – few of whom were senior staff.534
By 1994, State had clipped the Army’s wings and asserted its own authority as chief arbiter of U.S. foreign policy in Panama. In 1990, President Bush appointed a Panamanian citizen – proposed by President Endara and nominated by Ambassador Hinton – as Panama
Canal Commission administrator; replacing the retired U.S. Army general.535 State used its influence to dissolve the old Panamanian Defense Forces, encourage a police-only model similar to Costa Rica, and achieve legislation that limited the Army’s interaction with Panama’s new security forces. Senior Army officers soon had little official reason – or authority – to leave their
532 Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 415, 428. 533 By 1983, U.S. Southern Command’s Panamanian bases had transitioned from a mostly diplomatic command to a principal staging base for Central Intelligence Agency-led operations in Nicaragua and El Salvador, complete with logistics, intelligence, and training activities. For an insightful and detailed analysis of this topic, see: John Dinges, Our Man in Panama (New York: Random House: 1990), 145. 534 John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 33. 535 Treaty requirements mandated a Panamanian become administrator of the Panama Canal Commission in 1990, well in advance of the Canal’s formal turnover to Panama at the end of 1999. Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 427. 179 offices, especially after Ambassador Hinton reinterpreted treaty language as restricting U.S. troop movements outside existing bases.536 When a Panamanian policeman killed a U.S. servicemember driving the wrong way on a one-way street, General Joulwan could only summon a Panamanian police major for a verbal protest. Even this proved too much for Ambassador
Hinton, who decried Joulwan’s response as “out of order,” since the general had not first gained the ambassador’s permission.537
This stunning shift in bureaucratic primacy undoubtedly contributed to the ragged interagency unity of effort in post-combat Panama. Given this shifting landscape, turf issues between State and Army were almost inevitable. Still, Ambassador Hinton and the two Army generals who commanded U.S. Southern Command during this period raised only a few issues to
Washington for resolution – a laudable overall record. And strong personal relationships between Army General Thurman and State’s Bushnell and Hinton greased the skids in the critical formative stage of post-combat operations in Panama. Of the three bureaucracies examined here, only USAID could defend a consistently positive track record of collaboration with its sister bureaucracies in Panama. Here too, the relationship between mission director and ambassador proved essential. USAID’s focus on economic programs in Panama meant reduced interaction with Army elements focused primarily on security and infrastructure, but country team meetings and breakfasts with President Endara aided overall unity of effort.
For the Army, State, and USAID, post-combat Panama represented a success rather than an ominous warning of future challenges. In early 1990, polls revealed that a stunning 92
536 Hinton successfully made his case to the Pentagon, which “instructed us that in Panama, outside of Treaty- designated base areas, prior agreement was needed for U.S. troop movements.” This was a major reversal from the Pentagon’s pre-invasion policy. Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 426. 537 Hinton sent Joulwan an official, “Eyes-Only” letter of protest, stating he was “disappointed” that Joulwan had proceeded “over my objections.” General Joulwan did not reply. Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 432-433. 180 percent of Panamanians supported the U.S. intervention. State declared Panama a firmly established democracy in 1992; U.S. economic aid dropped significantly that year, and the
Army’s much-diminished role in post-combat operations lingered until 1994.538 And despite continued economic issues and domestic skepticism of the Endara and subsequent Balladeres administrations, a 1996 poll revealed that 60 percent of Panamanians ranked the U.S. highest on a list of nations which inspire confidence.539 In 1997, U.S. Southern Command headquarters relocated to Florida, and by the close of 1999 all remaining U.S. military installations in Panama reverted to Panamanian control, as did the Panama Canal. With Noriega imprisoned and no hostile powers on Panama’s borders, there was reduced risk of a sustained insurgency, and the police-only Costa Rica model endured.
538 See: State Department Fact Sheet, “Panama 2 years after Operation Just Cause,” 4 Feb 92. Gillespie, Charles A. NSC Files, OA/ID CF01375-009, George H.W. Bush Presidential Records, Bush Presidential Library. 539 William L. Furlong, “Panama, a Nation Apart,” in Post-Invasion Panama: The Challenges of Democratization in the New World Order, ed. Orlando J. Pérez (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2000), 53-55. 181
Chapter 5: Kosovo
This chapter argues that when post-combat operations began in Kosovo in 1999, State, the Army, and USAID adapted along similar lines. Each of these national security institutions relied on its existing capabilities and short-term adaptations to address the crisis (Proposition 1).
State and USAID also made concerted efforts to hand-select uniquely qualified practitioners to lead their agency’s respective efforts in mid-combat and early post-combat operations
(Proposition 2). There is little evidence of a major revolt of the cherries (Proposition 3). Of these bureaucracies, the Army made the most deliberate effort to convert lessons-learned into long-term organizational change – this investment focused yet again on the Army’s core mission rather than the secondary post-combat mission (Proposition 4). State and USAID’s crisis- response offices created new initiatives and offices in the wake of Kosovo, but these were short- term adaptations that performed a specific and temporary role (Proposition 4). In post-combat
Kosovo, each national security institution served in a subordinate role within a broader multinational environment led by Europeans, and each institution contented itself with satisficing solutions. As with previous cases, personal relationships mattered.
This chapter continues with a brief overview of the historical and political context that shaped the 1999 NATO air war; followed by sections dedicated to each national security institution – State, the U.S. Army, and USAID, respectively – analyzing each organization’s most significant individual and collaborative adaptations. Because a decade separated the 1989
Panama invasion and the 1999 Kosovo conflict – years in which none of these organizations stood still – relevant bureaucratic and historical anecdotes are brought to the reader’s attention where appropriate. This chapter concludes with an overview of the remarkably similar ways in which these different institutions adapted to the unexpected post-combat crisis in Kosovo.
182
KOSOVO IN CONTEXT
In March 1999, simmering tensions within the Yugoslav province of Kosovo reached the boiling point. In its first offensive military campaign, the NATO alliance launched a sustained series of airstrikes against Slobodan Milosevic’s Yugoslavia, and positioned ground forces in neighboring Albania.540 Milosevic, then embroiled in a bitter counterinsurgency against Kosovar separatists, responded to NATO’s military intervention with defiance and brutality. He promoted hardliners to senior positions within his security services, absorbed escalating punishment from
NATO airstrikes, and accelerated the brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo that had triggered NATO’s intervention.541 Whereas offensive military operations in Grenada and
Panama were over in a matter of days, NATO’s air war over Kosovo lasted eleven weeks.
Kosovo is roughly the size of the American state of Connecticut, with a population in
1999 of roughly 2 million people; approximately 90 percent of Kosovars were ethnic Albanians, and most of the rest were ethnic Serbs.542 The ethnic Albanian population was predominantly secular, though with a Muslim background; the ethnic Serb population had close cultural and religious ties to the Orthodox Christian church.543 By the time Yugoslavia capitulated and U.S. and allied troops entered Kosovo in June 1999, nearly 850,000 of Kosovo’s 2 million civilians had fled the province, and as many as 1.45 million may have been forced from their homes.544 In other respects, Kosovo followed the pattern of earlier cases: military victory proved faster and
540 For a detailed account of the political and military aspects of the Kosovo war, see: Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000). 541 Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 108-115. 542 After Milosevic achieved power, Kosovo lost its semiautonomous status within Yugoslavia, and the ethnic Albanian majority languished under a decade of apartheid-style Serb-dominated government. An ethnic-Albanian shadow government provided limited basic services by soliciting contributions from overseas. See: Tim Judah, Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 66-74. 543 Precise figures for Kosovo’s population and ethnic religious affiliations are unknown. Tim Judah, Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 8-9, 14-17. 544 Tim Judah, Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 88. 183 cheaper than subsequent post-combat operations. The Pentagon estimated the war had cost $2 billion, and that peacekeeping would cost $1 billion in the first four months and $2 billion each successive year.545 Combat operations had lasted 78 days. As of this writing, over twenty years later Army peacekeeping troops continue to serve in Kosovo.
Kosovo may have been NATO’s first offensive war, but it was the sixth U.S. foray into post-combat reconstruction or nation-building in just the previous decade; a startling escalation in frequency.546 This meteoric rise in nation-building was a growing bureaucratic distraction; it was neither a desirable nor a career-enhancing task for American bureaucrats.547 Nation-building missions during the 1990s had become so unpopular – and so common – that the very term acquired toxicity within Washington. In the wake of dismal results in Somalia and Haiti, and sub-optimal results in Bosnia, the Clinton administration formulated a 1997 presidential directive under the less-confrontational rubric of complex contingency operations.548 The Army, State, and USAID were subject to the new guidance, but in the waning years of the Clinton administration, none of these bureaucracies implemented meaningful change to their organizational structure, doctrine, training, or operating procedures.
Absent a strong push for reform from the White House or Congress, inertia had largely prevailed, and these bureaucracies remained focused on their respective core missions. State built little institutional capacity for post-combat and nation-building missions, but it retained some of the diplomats involved with previous missions, creating a measure of institutional
545 Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 238. 546 Previous operations included the U.S. role in Panama (1989), Kuwait (1991), Somalia (1992), Haiti (1994), and Bosnia (1995). 547 James Dobbins et al, The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building (Santa Monica: RAND, 2007), v. 548 See: Presidential Decision Directive 56, “Managing Complex Contingency Operations,” Washington, D.C.: White House, May 1997, https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd56.htm. 184 memory. The Army considered including substantive post-combat guidance in its main operations doctrine after Panama, but opted instead to publish a separate field manual in 1994.
This new doctrine on peace operations barely mentioned post-combat nation-building, and made few intellectual inroads on an institution geared toward large-scale conventional war.549 USAID
Administrator Brian Atwood created the Office of Transition Initiatives in 1994 to address peacebuilding and democratization crises, but that office was tiny, possessed a limited mandate, and was hounded by USAID and State regional bureaus that perceived it as an invasion of their turf; it was “nearly stillborn on delivery.”550 Each individual agency could depict its role in previous post-combat missions as reasonably successful; none bore the stigma of failure, with its attendant incentive for institutional change.
Despite the modest degree of adaptation demonstrated in the Kosovo mission, the Clinton administration’s strategic-level planning for post-combat operations in Kosovo proved remarkably effective. Planners benefited from the clear guidance in the 1997 presidential directive, as well as recent institutional memories from Bosnia and Haiti. These factors combined to make turf battles and interagency debates “much muted.”551 In Kosovo, the United
States prioritized burden-sharing over unity of command; the U.S. contributed only 16 percent of the post-combat military and economic effort in Kosovo, and Europeans occupied all the top
549 The Army’s 1994 manual covered peace operations, but even this was tailored toward “operations other than war,” peacekeeping, and peace enforcement. Post-combat stability and reconstruction missions are described as “peace building,” “primarily diplomatic” actions, and command only two paragraphs in the first chapter. The Army’s post-combat experience in Panama from 1989-1994 goes unmentioned. Headquarters Department of the Army, FM 100-23: Peace Operations (December 1994), 2. See also: John Fishel, The Savage Wars of Peace (Boulder: Westview Press, 1998). 550 By 1997, the Office of Transition Initiatives had shrunk from ten to only four personnel. Andrew Natsios, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Humanitarian Relief in Complex Emergencies (Westport: Praeger, 1997), 44-45. 551 Among the mistakes from Bosnia corrected for Kosovo were the appointment of a strong civil administrator, and granting United Nations police the authority to make arrests. James Dobbins, America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq (Santa Monica: RAND, 2003), 116. Also: James Dobbins, interview with the author, September 16, 2020. 185 positions under the auspices of the UN, OSCE, and European Union.552 By 2003 post-combat operations in Kosovo had matured into “the best managed of the U.S. post-Cold War ventures in nation-building. U.S. and European forces demilitarized the [Kosovo Liberation Army]; local and national elections took place two years after the conflict ended; and economic growth has been strong.”553
This rosy view of the Kosovo mission did not go unchallenged. Conservative ideologues and eminent scholars derided Kosovo as war – and peace – by committee.554 Early critics included Condoleezza Rice, who argued in 2000 that the Clinton nation-building effort in
Kosovo was mishandled and nearly an outright failure.555 Ironically, it would be Rice herself as
Secretary of State who later maintained U.S. support to post-combat Kosovo, and who played a pivotal role in engineering Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008. In the end, U.S. and allied post-combat operations achieved their political aims of a peaceful, politically stable and democratic Kosovo.
552 Congress imposed the percentage cost ceiling on U.S. nation-building efforts in Kosovo. James Dobbins, America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq (Santa Monica: RAND, 2003), 116. 553 James Dobbins, America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq (Santa Monica: RAND, 2003), 126. 554 Notable critics included Donald Rumsfeld, who viewed Kosovo as an anti-model and argued the U.S. military should not participate in nation-building. His views influenced the Pentagon’s very different approach to post- combat Afghanistan and Iraq. See: Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown (New York: Sentinel, 2011), 482. For a political scientist’s critical perspective of Kosovo post-combat operations, see: Gezim Visoka, Shaping Peace in Kosovo (New York: Springer, 2017). 555 Condoleezza Rice, “Promoting the National Interest,” 79 Foreign Affairs No. 1 (January/February 2000). 186
STATE IN KOSOVO: A HOUSE UNITED
In 1999, the State Department was ideally positioned to respond to a crisis in Eastern
Europe. The end of the Cold War, punctuated by a resounding military success against Iraq in
1990-1991, had left the United States as the world’s sole and undisputed superpower. Despite
1990s budget cuts and personnel reductions, American diplomats enjoyed a level of diplomatic influence unrivaled since perhaps the Roman Empire. The State Department bureaucracy often resembled a split personality, with politically-appointed leadership and career diplomats seemingly working at cross-purposes. However, during the Kosovo crisis both halves of the agency worked in unison, eventually brokering political independence for Kosovo. The agency relied heavily on existing offices and cherry-picked diplomats from 1999-2008.
Institutional factors formed the foundation of State’s success during and after the NATO air war. Within State, the European bureau was the largest, most powerful, and best resourced of its regional bureaus; the office produced over 50 percent of the memos ready by the agency’s senior leadership.556 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had made Europe a priority; she traveled to the continent routinely and played such an active role in the NATO intervention that the conflict was nicknamed “Madeleine’s War” by the western media.557 Albright’s deputy,
Strobe Talbott, was a Russia expert who would play a key role in limiting Russian involvement during and after the conflict. In 1999, the Clinton administration was approaching the end of its second term; agencies and career officers knew their lanes, and political appointees were no
556 An Executive Secretariat survey found that 54 percent of all memos written for State’s senior leadership came from the Europe bureau, which comprised some 500 of State’s 20,000 personnel. James Dobbins, Oral History, 179. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 557 Albright found the phrase “Madeleine’s War,” the title of a Time magazine article, to be pejorative and unfortunate. A recent biography of Richard Holbrooke indicates he may have coined the unflattering phrase. Madeleine Albright, Madam Secretary (New York: Miramax, 2003), 410, 421. See also: George Packer, Our Man (New York: Knopf, 2019), 409. 187 longer jockeying for influence or position.558 Post-combat operations in Kosovo would be executed with a minimum of interagency turf battles.
This section reviews three State Department priorities during the Kosovo crisis: ensuring the conflict ended on favorable terms, stabilizing the region by ousting Serbian dictator Slobodan
Milosevic, and first deferring – and then enabling Kosovo’s independence.559 Each priority required adaptive diplomacy. First among these was ensuring the war ended on favorable terms; to achieve this, Secretary of State Albright became personally involved. With military action imminent, Secretary Albright and Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott selected Ambassador
James Dobbins to take over the Balkan portfolio, and wrested peace negotiations away from rival diplomat Dick Holbrooke.560 Dobbins proved an inspired choice to complement Albright; he had coordinated State’s role during post-combat operations in Somalia and Haiti.
During the eleven-week NATO bombing campaign, State made maximum use of its key leaders and existing capabilities. Secretary Albright made numerous phone calls to her European counterparts, bolstering support for a conflict that many erroneously believed would last only a few days. State leveraged its diplomatic networks to build consensus around NATO’s war termination aims: “Serbs out, NATO in, refugees back.”561 The department also had to react to unexpected challenges that accompanied the war. These included numerous foreign diplomatic proposals that unhelpfully suggested peace without victory, as well as the unintentional allied bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade – an unfortunate error with considerable human
558 James Dobbins, interview with the author, September 16, 2020. 559 James Dobbins, Foreign Service (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 187. 560 Holbrooke, the principal architect of peace in Bosnia, had met with Milosevic at State’s request on several occasions but was unable to broker an agreement. Holbrooke routinely clashed with Secretary Albright, and Albright determined that she alone would direct U.S. diplomacy toward the Balkans. James Dobbins, Foreign Service (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 181-189. 561 Keeping the alliance together proved difficult, in part because many strategists believed Milosevic would capitulate after a few days of bombing. Madeleine Albright, Madam Secretary (New York: Miramax, 2003), 410. 188 and diplomatic costs.562 State’s effort to shape war termination thus leveraged both cherry- picked leaders – often the secretary herself – and State’s existing diplomatic networks and standard procedures – State’s low-hanging fruit. That State proved unable to secure United
Nations Security Council authorization for the war was no failure – it was unlikely that any diplomatic service on earth could have persuaded Russia to condone a NATO military offensive in Eastern Europe.563
To achieve NATO’s goals for war termination, Secretary of State Albright selected what she called a “double magnet” strategy to bring Russia closer to NATO’s position, and then
Belgrade closer to Russia.564 This strategy required considerable time and effort because the
Russians were “apoplectic” over the NATO intervention.565 When the conflict began and the
Russians angrily withdrew from the Contact Group, State quietly shifted peace negotiations from the Contact Group to the Group of Eight, which since 1997 had included Russia.566 This diplomatic adaptation traded one pre-existing diplomatic venue for another, permitted Russia to save face, and kept the Russian magnet in the game.567
As NATO’s resolve held firm and its air attacks grew in effectiveness, the Russian magnet began to move. Perhaps seeking political gains from a war he had been unable to
562 The errant strike killed three Chinese and wounded twenty. Madeleine Albright, Madam Secretary (New York: Miramax, 2003), 413, 417. 563 A Russian Security Council veto was certain; a Chinese veto likely. Albright advocated military action without a UN Security Council authorization. When the British Foreign Ministry protested that Security Council resolution was necessary for NATO to go to war, Albright told the UK Foreign Minister to “get himself new lawyers.” See: Madeleine Albright, Madam Secretary (New York: Miramax, 2003), 384. 564 Madeleine Albright, Madam Secretary (New York: Miramax, 2003), 413. 565 NATO – an ostensibly defensive military alliance that in 1999 had just expanded eastward – initiated offensive military action against Yugoslavia without a United Nations Security Council resolution that Russia would have vetoed. James Dobbins, Oral History, 156. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 566 The Contact Group included: the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, and Russia. The Group of Eight (G-8) included: the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada, and Russia. 567 James Dobbins, Oral History, 160-161. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 189 prevent, Russian president Boris Yeltsin appointed a personal envoy to help negotiate peace in
Kosovo. Madeleine Albright and Strobe Talbott met with Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin, who proposed finding a trusted dignitary to represent the international community in upcoming negotiations with Milosevic.568 Albright suggested Finnish president Marrti Ahtisaari, and the
Russian instantly accepted. Ahtisaari firmly believed in NATO’s war aims and was widely respected in both Europe and Russia. Strobe Talbott and Marrti Ahtisaari began weeks of shuttle diplomacy in which they convinced first Chernomyrdin, and through him Milosevic, that
NATO’s war aims were the necessary and unavoidable terms for peace.
The Russian magnet finally moved on June 1, 1999, at a meeting in Bonn between the
U.S., Russian, and Finnish delegations. The meeting, which revealed a deep and genuine fissure between Russia’s civilian diplomats and its military representatives, ultimately upheld NATO’s goals of getting the Serbs out, NATO in, and the refugees back. Once the Russian magnet moved, the Yugoslav magnet followed. Ahtisaari and Chernomyrdin flew directly to Belgrade and presented the completed document to Milosevic, who squirmed but capitulated when
Chernomyrdin refused to negotiate.569 State’s careful selection of key individuals – Ahtisaari and
Talbott among them – paid dividends in achieving Albright’s diplomatic strategy for war termination.
State proved equally adept at leveraging its existing offices and capabilities after the shooting stopped. In the wake of NATO’s apparent military and diplomatic success, the Russians surprised the allies and reversed their magnet. With little warning and before NATO troops occupied Kosovo, approximately 200 Russian peacekeepers in neighboring Bosnia suddenly
“left their posts and, with apparent Serb complicity, moved rapidly through Serbia into Pristina
568 Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand (New York: Random House, 2002), 313-314. 569 Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand (New York: Random House, 2002), 328. 190
[Kosovo], deploying to the airport.”570 Seizing the airport in Pristina set the conditions for
Russian military aircraft to transport thousands of additional troops, presenting NATO with a fait accompli: the establishment of an exclusively Russian zone of occupation within Kosovo. If successful, this move would have reasserted Russian power, checked U.S. and NATO influence, prevented eventual Kosovar independence, and bolstered Milosevic’s political position in
Yugoslavia. U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, then commanding NATO forces, ordered British troops to block the Russian advance and the airport runways; but the British military commander refused, and London and Washington ruled against Clark.571
The crisis was resolved – not by the U.S. Army or NATO troops – but by the U.S.
Department of State. The Russians had neglected to get permission for their transport aircraft to overfly the European countries that surrounded Yugoslavia, and American diplomats beat the
Russians to the punch.572 Hungary, Romania, and the Ukraine refused the belated Russian request, preventing as many as 10,000 Russian troops from reinforcing the isolated detachment.573 The Russian element at the Pristina airport had traveled without logistical support, and were soon asking surrounding British soldiers for food and water.574 Russian troops eventually participated in the peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, but under American command
570 Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 175. 571 Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 176. See also: Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), 386-400. 572 Strobe Talbott was in Moscow during the crisis, which occurred while Yeltsin was unreachable. He recorded a comedy of errors that illustrated the limited power of Russia’s diplomatic service and called into question the extent of civilian control over the Russian military. Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand (New York: Random House, 2002), 346-347. See also: Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), 387, 401-403. 573 Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand (New York: Random House, 2002), 346-347. See also: Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), 387, 401-403. 574 “Incident at Pristina Airport,” Wikipedia, accessed September 23, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incident_at_Pristina_airport. See also: Strobe Talbott, The Russia Hand (New York: Random House, 2002), 346-347. 191 rather than within their own sector. State had adapted to – and resolved – the unexpected military crisis by leveraging its existing network of diplomatic contacts with alacrity.
After withdrawing from Kosovo, Milosevic may have believed he was done with the
State Department, but the State Department was not done with him. Pursuant to the diplomatic goal of regional stability, the agency and its secretary coordinated a maximum-pressure campaign to oust Milosevic from power.575 State encouraged democratization initiatives and allocated funds to strengthen free media and opposition political parties in Serbia. 576 The
Department continued its anti-Milosevic campaign in public and private settings, placed new sanctions on the regime, tracked Milosevic’s personal financial assets, and pressed for
Milosevic’s extradition to face trial for war crimes.577 State also lent support to Milosevic’s nemesis Milo Dukanovic in Montenegro, ensuring he remained a “burr” under Milosevic’s saddle.578 Surrounded by enemies and hounded by State’s relentless diplomatic pressure,
Milosevic became the first sitting head of state to be indicted for war crimes. He resigned in
October of 2000 after losing an election he could not steal, and died in prison in 2006, having presided over his country’s disintegration and the deaths of an unknown number of innocents.
575 The intelligence community also contributed to the shadowy regime-change operation, which predated the war in Kosovo. James Dobbins, interview with the author, September 16, 2020. See also: Madeleine Albright, Madam Secretary (New York: Miramax, 2003), 499-501. 576 As part of this maximum-pressure campaign, State’s funding sources included Support for East European Democracy (SEED) Act funds. The SEED Coordinator, nominally an official with government-wide authority to allocate democratization funding, was in practice always a senior State Department Foreign Service Officer. This guaranteed State’s influence over the allocation of funds. Larry Napper, interview with the author, September 11, 2020. See also: James Dobbins, Foreign Service (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 212-217. 577 Milosevic was originally indicted in May 1999, during the NATO air war. Madeleine Albright, Madam Secretary (New York: Miramax, 2003), 499-501. 578 The Foreign Service Officer then serving as SEED Coordinator resisted Congressional pressure to provide Dukanovic – suspected of involvement in black-market dealings – with a direct cash transfer. Larry Napper, interview with the author, September 11, 2020. 192
Within Kosovo, State found post-combat operations to be smooth sailing in a “quite benign environment.”579 The U.S.-led intervention had proven overwhelmingly popular with the ethnic Albanian Kosovars that comprised some 90% of the population. Statues and pictures of
President Bill Clinton emerged everywhere.580 United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 established a multilateral approach to post-combat operations in Kosovo; it established the
United Nations Mission in Kosovo and allocated “Four Pillars” of peace-building to multinational entities.581 State exited the spotlight, and quietly contributed much-needed capacity to the European-led efforts – for example, by detailing a half-dozen development experts to the European Union’s reconstruction office.582
In the wake of the conflict, State’s major challenges in Kosovo included post-conflict reconstruction, as well as dissuading the ecstatic Kosovar Albanians from the goal of immediate independence. Another challenge was the demobilization and disarmament of the Kosovo
Liberation Army and other resistance groups. Ambassador Dobbins advocated a French proposal that disarmed the Kosovo Liberation Army without disbanding them, creating a self-protection force of limited size.583 The Kosovars accepted this solution, rotating ethnic Albanian personnel
579 James Dobbins, interview with the author, September 16, 2020. 580 Craig Buck, Oral History, 76. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 581 Diplomat James Dobbins influenced the content and language of UNSCR 1244, and inserted a clause to “make internal security a joint responsibility of NATO and the UN.” The four pillars (and the organization tasked with each) are: humanitarian affairs (UNHCR), civil administration (UN), democratization and institution building (OSCE), and economic reconstruction (EU). See: United Nations Mission in Kosovo, “United Nations Resolution 1244,” accessed February 24, 2020, https://unmik.unmissions.org/united-nations-resolution-1244. See also: James Dobbins, Foreign Service (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 204-205. 582 James Dobbins, Foreign Service (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 204-205. 583 James Dobbins, interview with the author, September 16, 2020. 193 in and out of the Kosovo Protection Corps to increase the number of trained combatants in case of future hostilities.584 State also supported the European-led efforts on police training.585
For State, deferring Kosovo’s independence was a diplomatic imperative. In 1999, the international community was firmly opposed to Kosovo’s independence on several grounds.
Russia and China feared the precedent it might set for their own separatist movements in places like Chechnya and Tibet.586 And no diplomat could answer the perennial question of East
European diplomacy: once one begins redrawing the borders of the Balkans, where does one stop?587 Nor was the nascent government of Kosovo ready for leadership. Under the Serb-led apartheid regime, Kosovar Albanians had been evicted from government service for a decade, and when the air war ended Serb officials fled to Serbia or consolidated within ethnic Serb enclaves. Government buildings were looted or destroyed, and practically every institution would need to be created from scratch.
State adapted by leveraging its political capital in Kosovo – first to freeze the independence movement, and eventually to promote Kosovo’s independence. In counseling patience and delaying independence – a policy eventually known as “Standards before Status,”
United Nations and U.S. diplomats accrued criticism for vague goals that were perpetually out of
584 The Kosovo Protection Corps was limited to 3,000 personnel (at a time) and was commanded by Agim Ceku, a former Kosovo Liberation Army leader who later served as Kosovo’s prime minister from 2006-2008. Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 178-179. 585 State facilitated SEED funds for police training in Kosovo; in a prelude to the later Afghanistan case, the firm Dyncorp was among the principal vendors for support services. Larry Napper, interview with the author, September 11, 2020. Also: James Dobbins, interview with the author, September 16, 2020. 586 Madeleine Albright cited pragmatism as a leading reason to defer Kosovo’s independence. Yugoslavia, Macedonia, Greece, and Russia were strongly opposed. Several nations opposed the idea partly because of their own violent separatist movements, including “Russia’s Chechens, Georgia’s Abkhaz, Turkey’s Kurds, and Spain’s Basques.” Madeleine Albright, Madam Secretary (New York: Miramax, 2003), 385. 587 Some ethnic Albanian nationalists advocated the creation of an “ethnic Albania” or “Greater Albania” that included Albania, Kosovo, and perhaps also Albanian enclaves in Serbia and Macedonia. The idea garnered no support within the international community. Tim Judah, Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 120. 194
Kosovo’s reach. Within the U.S. consulate in Pristina, this policy adaptation meant diplomatic gradualism, a reluctance to forge ties to business and opinion leaders in Kosovo who might be tainted by corruption, and official nervousness to even discuss Kosovo’s final status.588 Yet, as
Ambassador Dobbins explained, this policy created the diplomatic space necessary to
promote a democratic transformation in Belgrade, work out an accommodation between Serbia and Montenegro, defuse a civil conflict in Macedonia, continue to build multiethnic institutions in Bosnia, and begin the integration of the region into both NATO and the EU.589
Pausing the move for Kosovo’s independence made these other diplomatic gains possible, with
State Department diplomats operating behind the scenes while the United Nations, the European
Union, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe played the starring roles.
Delaying Kosovo’s independence was a necessary diplomatic adaptation.
However, the “Kosovo Albanian elites equated peace with statehood,” and in March
2004, a sudden and ominous shockwave of violence rippled across Kosovo.590 Violent protests resulted in nearly a thousand civilian casualties, as well as the destruction of homes and Serbian cultural sites.591 The violence, which stopped short of restarting the war, was pitch-perfect in reasserting the interests of Albanian elites. It reminded Serbia that Orthodox religious sites and the ethnic Serb minority in Kosovo were at risk. Foreign capitals had to recalculate the grim possibility of insurgency and casualties among vulnerable peacekeepers in Kosovo. Even the most reluctant members of the United Nations Security Council were shocked into reexamining the status quo. Fourteen months of intensive negotiations later deadlocked with Serbia and
Russia still opposed to granting Kosovo independence and autonomy. However, the 2004
588 Henry H. Perritt, Jr., The Road to Independence for Kosovo: A Chronicle of the Ahtisaari Plan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 75-78. 589 James Dobbins, America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq (Santa Monica: RAND, 2003), 123. 590 Gezim Visoka, Shaping Peace in Kosovo (New York: Springer, 2017), 81. 591 Gezim Visoka, Shaping Peace in Kosovo (New York: Springer, 2017), 43. 195 violence and subsequent diplomatic negotiations convinced Ahtisaari, the Bush administration, and many European governments that independence was the only feasible option.592
By 2005 the Bush State Department, then headed by Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, was asserting its influence to achieve Kosovo’s independence. In part, this was because
“the Atlantic Alliance was frayed over Iraq…The Kosovo issue provided an opportunity for the
U.S. and Europe to find common ground.”593 State was instrumental in prying the stalled negotiations on Kosovo’s independence out of the United Nations Security Council – and another certain Russian veto. The State Department also worked to convince China to withhold its objection to Kosovo’s independence; established the Ahtisaari Plan for independence as the default option in the event negotiations again failed; and imposed a suspense date on the stalled negotiations.594 State attendees in National Security Council meetings routinely lobbied the
Bush administration to keep the Clinton administration’s diplomatic promise to the Kosovars.595
State slowly and inexorably tilted the international and domestic scales in favor of Kosovo’s independence.
By mid-2007, State’s campaign had succeeded. In June, President Bush publicly stated his support for the Ahtisaari Plan and Kosovo’s independence; in July, Secretary Rice promised a
Kosovar delegation that the administration would see the matter through to completion; and in
592 Ahtisaari played a critical role in the war termination process in 1999, as well as negotiations over independence and autonomy in 2005. The U.S. Department of State and the Russian foreign ministry both trusted his expertise and judgment. Madeleine Albright, Madam Secretary (New York: Miramax, 2003), 417. See also: Tim Judah, Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 111. 593 The process was also aided by a changing of the guard in France’s foreign ministry, which had previously supported the Serb position. The quote is from Ambassador Frank Wisner, the U.S. Secretary of State’s Special Envoy for Kosovo Final Status Talks. Henry H. Perritt, Jr., The Road to Independence for Kosovo: A Chronicle of the Ahtisaari Plan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 106-107. 594 Henry H. Perritt, Jr., The Road to Independence for Kosovo: A Chronicle of the Ahtisaari Plan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 183-192. 595 Henry H. Perritt, Jr., The Road to Independence for Kosovo: A Chronicle of the Ahtisaari Plan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 193. 196
September a State Department spokesman publicly stated that if Kosovo unilaterally declared independence, the United States would recognize its independence.596 In December,
Ambassador Frank Wisner – State’s hand-selected Special Envoy for Kosovo Final Status Talks
– met with Kosovar officials at the USAID mission in Pristina, and provided detailed guidance on the substance, timing, and conditions for a coordinated declaration of independence. The
Kosovars followed Wisner’s guidance to the letter.597
On February 17, 2008, Kosovo declared its independence. Initially planned for the previous December, Kosovar prime minister Hashim Thaci – following Wisner’s visit – delayed the declaration until mid-February to avoid interfering with Serbia’s tight presidential election on
February 3rd. The delay paid off: Serbia narrowly re-elected its more moderate and pan-
European president, Boris Tadic, over his hardline nationalist challenger.598 Neither Kosovo’s declaration of independence, nor the role of American diplomacy in its timing and execution, were much of a secret. In Pristina, the declaration of independence was greeted with fireworks and American flags waved in celebration; in Belgrade, angry rioters staged protests and set fire to the U.S. embassy.599 It was nevertheless a successful adaptation – and a much-needed foreign policy victory for the Bush administration, whose diplomats had played a critical but behind-the- scenes role. It was Martti Ahtisaari rather than Condoleezza Rice who received the 2008 Nobel
Peace Prize.
596 Henry H. Perritt, Jr., The Road to Independence for Kosovo: A Chronicle of the Ahtisaari Plan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 181-182, 186, 198. 597 Wisner emphasized a number of diplomatic prerequisites for Kosovo’s independence; these included the timing of the declaration and security guarantees. Wisner told the Kosovar Albanians: “Not a house can burn.” Henry H. Perritt, Jr., The Road to Independence for Kosovo: A Chronicle of the Ahtisaari Plan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 207-209. 598 Tim Judah, Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 142. 599 Tim Judah, Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 141-147. 197
Throughout the Kosovo case, from war termination in 1999 and subsequent post-combat operations, to Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008, the U.S. Department of State demonstrated adaptability and unity of effort. Its career diplomats and politically-appointed leadership helped achieve U.S. diplomatic aims within the existing diplomatic and material constraints. State brokered a post-combat arrangement characterized by visible international and
European ownership, temporarily constrained Kosovo’s autonomy to focus on regional stability, and eventually coordinated Kosovo’s well-timed march to independence – efforts that spanned three Secretaries of State and two presidential administrations. To accomplish these tasks, State relied on existing offices and hand-selected some of its most experienced diplomats. The former included State’s influential European bureau and the SEED Coordinator, and the latter included
James Dobbins and Frank Wisner – experienced diplomats that State leadership trusted for their judgment and expertise.600
Yet prior to the disastrous post-combat results in Iraq in 2003-2004, there is little evidence that the comparative success of Kosovo inspired long-term organizational learning at
State. In her memoir, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright touted her agency’s work toward a comprehensive Marshall Plan for the Balkans, but this effort largely followed the lead of
European diplomatic services and foreign aid agencies.601 There is little evidence that the
Kosovo case inspired later efforts by Secretaries Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice to update
State’s professional education and training programs. State would not establish the ill-starred
Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization until 2004, and the Bush administration did not emulate the 1997 presidential decision directive on complex contingency
600 The Support for East European Democracy (SEED) Act authorized funds for democratization efforts in Eastern Europe; its Coordinator was routinely a State Foreign Service Officer. 601 For Albright’s description of this planning initiative, see: Madeleine Albright, Madam Secretary (New York: Miramax, 2003), 411. Also: James Dobbins, interview with the author, September 16, 2020. 198 operations until 2005.602 It would be looming disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan that inspired long- term organizational change, rather than success in Kosovo.
602 See: National Security Presidential Directive 44, “Management of Interagency Efforts Concerning Reconstruction and Stabilization,” Washington, D.C.: White House, December 2005, https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/nspd/nspd-44.html. 199
THE U.S. ARMY IN KOSOVO: FROM DISASTER TO SUCCESS
For the U.S. Army as an institution, the Kosovo air campaign was a disaster. Army leaders had occupied many of the military’s top positions in the 1990s, and had often enjoyed
“the last word – and the last word was to be wary of the extravagant claims of air advocates.”603
Yet during the Kosovo conflict, allied air forces dominated the campaign’s execution, while the
Army had watched from the sidelines in Albania. Task Force Hawk, the Army’s “mammoth task force” and a “much ridiculed effort,” cost $480 million and comprised over six thousand troops, including armored vehicles too heavy to maneuver on Albanian roads and helicopters that were vulnerable to Yugoslav air defenses and were thus never used.604 Critics debated whether Task
Force Hawk had any meaningful impact on Milosevic’s eventual decision to capitulate.605 In a separate incident, Yugoslav military forces captured and briefly detained three U.S. Army soldiers who were operating along the border between Macedonia and Kosovo. Having largely missed out on a shooting war dominated by bureaucratic rivals, sophisticated aircraft, and precision-guided munitions, the Army was then relegated to the thankless post-combat mission.606
603 Eliot Cohen, “Kosovo and the New American Way of War,” in War Over Kosovo: Politics and Strategy in a Global Age, ed. Andrew J. Bacevich and Eliot A. Cohen (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 53. 604 Macedonia refused to authorize NATO offensive operations from its territory, making austere Albania the only feasible staging base for Task Force Hawk. General Clark overcame the objections of a reluctant Army bureaucracy to get the Apache helicopters, but risk assessments frustrated Clark’s efforts to employ them. Michael Vickers, “Revolution Deferred,” in War Over Kosovo: Politics and Strategy in a Global Age, ed. Andrew J. Bacevich and Eliot A. Cohen (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 198. See also: Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), 224. 605 Some analysts argued that the credible threat of a ground war was “a critical factor” in Milosevic’s capitulation. See: Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 203-204. 606 At State, the running joke during this period was that MOOTW – the Army’s 1990s-era acronym for Military Operations Other Than War – actually stood for “missions other than what we want to do.” James Dobbins, interview with the author, September 16, 2020. 200
NATO’s militarily successful Kosovo campaign, commanded by U.S. Army General
Wesley Clark, had been tarnished with further embarrassment for the Army. Clark had engineered a seminal feat in modern military history, winning a war without losing a single soldier in combat. He often agreed with Madeleine Albright and benefited from a longstanding friendship with Strobe Talbott. 607 In a highly political alliance command billet, Clark had done much to enable State’s peace initiatives and bolster reluctant allies; efforts that advanced U.S. diplomatic objectives and earned gratitude and advocacy from State.608 But Clark struggled with worsening relationships with an array of key stakeholders, including Pentagon policy makers and his nominally subordinate Air Force and British ground force generals.609 Weeks after winning
NATO’s first offensive war, the Pentagon announced General Clark’s retirement and his replacement by a U.S. Air Force general.610 Even in victory, Kosovo merited little institutional celebration from the U.S. Army.
The U.S. Army principally adapted to the Kosovo mission by leveraging its existing offices and capabilities. The Army entered post-combat operations in Kosovo as a supporting actor in a play dominated by multinational and international organizations, and adaptation to the new mission and situation began immediately. Weeks before the war concluded, General Clark canceled military training exercises across Europe to make transportation and logistics available
607 Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), 118. 608 James Dobbins, Foreign Service (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 184. 609 Clark’s advocacy of a potential ground campaign and his media statements drew censure from the U.S. Secretary of Defense. During the Pristina airport crisis UK general Mike Jackson had refused Clark’s order to block the runways, famously stating “I’m not starting World War III for you.” Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), 394-403. For a State perspective on Clark’s “poisonous” relationship with the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, see: James Dobbins, Foreign Service (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 191-194. 610 This position, whose incumbent simultaneously serves as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander – Europe, had been occupied by a U.S. Army officer since 1963. 201 for Kosovo troop deployments.611 While diplomats and policymakers wrangled over the scope and scale of the U.S. military presence in Kosovo, Clark made the most of his few available ground forces. Army elements from the ill-starred Task Force Hawk shifted from Albania to
Macedonia, were rechristened as Task Force Falcon, and on June 12th entered Kosovo with U.S.
Marine Corps units, competing with tens of thousands of refugees returning along a single two- lane highway.612
NATO created five multinational brigade sectors in Kosovo. The United States requested and received responsibility for MNB-East, an ethnically diverse area with less wartime damage that was believed to be a quiet sector with less risk to peacekeeping forces.613 This pleased
Pentagon officers who anticipated – erroneously – an early U.S. withdrawal from long-term,
European-led post-combat operations.614 The U.S. Army provided the multinational brigade’s commander and the bulk of allied troops for MNB-East. The brigade also included military detachments from Poland, the Ukraine, Greece, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia.615
In the wake of military victory and Yugoslav troop withdrawal from Kosovo, General
Clark and his planners prioritized combat power and deterrence over post-combat stabilization and reconstruction. Accordingly, active-duty Army combat units were alerted on 8 June for operation in eastern Kosovo. By July 1999, the U.S. component of Task Force Falcon consisted
611 R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 17. 612 The marines departed Kosovo by the end of July 1999, leaving the Army the dominant U.S. force provider. R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 17, 21, 25. 613 Thomas Mockaitis, Civil-Military Cooperation in Peace Operations: The Case of Kosovo (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2004), 13. 614 General Clark recalled that “This motivation wasn’t lost on the Europeans.” Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), 163. 615 Part of the war termination agreement brokered by State was that Russian peacekeepers would serve under direct U.S. command rather than NATO. R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 18. 202 of a brigade from a mechanized infantry division, complete with two infantry battalions, a tank battalion, and a field artillery battalion.616 This force was augmented by a battalion of engineers and modest numbers of military police and civil affairs soldiers.617 Department of Defense photographs of U.S. checkpoints along the Kosovo-Yugoslav boundary reveal guard towers and surface-to-air missiles, showcasing the Army’s concerns over internal security and external protection for Kosovo.618 Task Force Falcon, which peaked at 7,000 American troops and 2,000 soldiers from partner countries, soon adapted from their core mission of combat to the less- familiar mission set of stabilization and peacekeeping.619
Arriving in Kosovo, American soldiers were stunned by the degree of violence and lawlessness they encountered; the situation was far worse than peacekeepers had experienced in neighboring Bosnia.620 Expecting to protect ethnic Albanians from ethnic Serbs, American soldiers quickly discovered they had to protect the minority Serbs from Albanian retribution.
Nationalist hatreds seemed to reign supreme. Even Serbs who had protected Albanian families during the ethnic cleansing campaign found themselves subject to theft, arson, and summary execution. This prompted a flood of Serbian refugees north to Serbia, or to one of a few ethnic
Serb enclaves within Kosovo. One municipality dropped “from a population of ten thousand
616 This task organization offered the benefit of retaining the Army’s customary balance of combat capabilities, and carried the disadvantage of possessing relatively few of the Army’s most relevant post-combat units and skill sets. R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 18. 617 R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 18. 618 R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 1, 59. 619 R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 50. 620 Army planners looking to Bosnia as an exemplar discovered few parallels in Kosovo. Bosnia had state institutions, a heterogenous ethnic mix, and buffer zones between ethnicities. Kosovo enjoyed none of these advantages. R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 54. 203
Serbs to fewer than twenty.”621 Land mines, booby traps, widespread poverty, smuggling, prostitution, and drug trafficking further complicated the security situation.
The Kosovo Liberation Army presented another security problem. Among the “most successful military organizations in history,” the insurgent group had employed ruthless terrorist tactics and won no battles; its sole military success had been getting “NATO [to] win its war for it.”622 While some leaders of this and other Albanian nationalist groups demobilized and transitioned to politics or civilian life, others set to work expanding their insurgency to neighboring Macedonia and Serbia. This began a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, as Army- led units in eastern Kosovo sought to prevent the establishment of insurgent safe havens and disrupt the flow of fighters, weapons, and black-market goods to Montenegro and Serbia.623
Making matters worse, an earlier collapse of governance in Albania had flooded the black market with cheap weapons.624
The Army in Kosovo produced a diverse array of tactical adaptations in response to the situation on the ground. These innovations included developing and sharing best practices for riot and crowd control; techniques to outwit and detain cross-border smugglers; and aggressive investigation, patrolling, and raids that disarmed and isolated violent Albanian nationalists.625
Army engineers focused on rebuilding schools; Army units developed local partnerships with
621 R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 21. 622 Tim Judah, Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 75. 623 These operations continued until achieving overall success in the fall of 2001. R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 42-44. 624 A hand grenade cost about $7.50 in post-conflict Kosovo; less than a pound of coffee. See: R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 37 625 Violent groups included holdouts from the Kosovo Liberation Army, as well as the Albanian National Liberation Army, and the Macedonian Liberation Army. These groups failed to achieve independence for Kosovo by force, and some instigated violent revolution in ethnic Albanian communities beyond Kosovo’s provincial borders. R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 43-44. 204
U.S. institutions that donated materials to impoverished Kosovar schools; Army commanders hosted equal numbers of ethnic Serb and Albanian students at collaborative engagements and summer camps; and civil action projects sponsored multiethnic cooperation.626 As with the other cases examined in this dissertation, successful innovations were often the product of officers and soldiers adapting to their situation; few could be found in existing Army doctrine or training.627
Other adaptations failed or achieved checkered results. Guarding Serb homes with
NATO troops did little to halt ethnic Albanian intimidation and ethnic Serb emigration; attempts to force Kosovar businesses to hire both Albanians and Serbs collapsed; and time-share arrangements for harvesting crops in multiethnic communities met with mixed results.628 Army officers chafed under rigid and imperfect deployment plans; and arrived in Kosovo to discover that combat units and civil affairs teams operated in overlapping sectors with little coordination.629 To outside observers, some Army units seemed reluctant to depart their bases and risk injury to their troops, and others were initially too quick to impose solutions upon
Albanians, Serbs, the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, or NGOs.630 Army troops enjoyed less autonomy than their European counterparts, and labored under stricter force protection measures and more layers of bureaucracy.631
626 R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 29, 49. 627 Some USAID officers noted that U.S. Army officers were less innovative and less willing to assume risk than their U.S. Marine Corps colleagues. Tom Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 628 Tom Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. Also: R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 29, 31. 629 R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 53. 630 Tom Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. Also: R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 53-54. And: Thomas Mockaitis, Civil-Military Cooperation in Peace Operations: The Case of Kosovo (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2004), 11-12, 15. 631 Thomas Mockaitis, Civil-Military Cooperation in Peace Operations: The Case of Kosovo (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2004), 11-12. 205
However, the Army did react to the needs of its commander on the ground. By summer
2001, the Army had established a standard deployment length of six-months, and prepared units deploying to Kosovo with a series of specific mission readiness exercises.632 As violence levels declined – and no U.S. troops died from insurgent attacks – NATO and the U.S. Army reduced force levels in 2001 and 2002, freeing units for use in Afghanistan or preparation for Iraq. When violence spiked in 2004, Task Force Falcon requested and received a rapid reinforcement of five hundred soldiers.633 In 2003, the Army published a more extensive doctrine manual on stability and support operations that mentioned Kosovo but overlooked Afghanistan.634 These adaptations, while imperfect, generally leveraged existing capabilities while meeting the needs of both the commander in Kosovo and the Army as an institution.
In selecting existing combat units and commanders for service in Kosovo, the Army principally chose from its inventory in nearby Germany, and did little to cherry-pick uniquely qualified units or individuals. The first Army commander for the post-combat mission in
Kosovo was Brigadier General John Craddock, who had departed a staff position in the Pentagon for a maneuver unit in Germany less than a year prior. He had little previous post-combat experience, but succeeded in Kosovo and in subsequent assignments, later retiring as a 4-star general and Supreme Allied Commander – Europe. Other Army commanders in Kosovo went on to serve in post-combat roles in Iraq, notably Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez and General
632 Army units deploying to Kosovo included both active duty and national guard units. R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 44, 52. 633 Task Force Falcon had then shrunk to approximately 2,000 personnel; the reinforcement of 500 soldiers was a significant increase in capability. R. Cody Phillips, Operation Joint Guardian: The U.S. Army in Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2007), 69. 634 Kosovo received several brief mentions in the new doctrine, including a vignette that erroneously names the Kosovo mission Operation Joint Guard. Operation Joint Guardian was in Kosovo, Operation Joint Guard was in Bosnia. U.S. post-combat operations in Afghanistan went unmentioned in the new manual. Headquarters Department of the Army, FM 3-07 (FM 100-20): Stability Operations and Support Operations (February 2003). 206
Ray Odierno. Some of these officers had previously served in Europe, but few possessed post- combat experience prior to their service in Kosovo.
The Army also leveraged its existing civil affairs units for service in Kosovo, but kept them on a short leash. In European sectors, civil-military troops traveled without body armor, lived and cultivated relationships with the Kosovar people, and could use military engineering equipment for local reconstruction projects. In the American sector, body armor and security detachments were universal, sharing a drink with a Kosovar was forbidden, and narrow interpretation of authorities meant Army troops had to find an NGO to dig a village well while
Army engineering equipment sat unused. The Army’s civil affairs reservists achieved noteworthy successes by making their bureaucracy work, and by leveraging their expertise from civilian professions in law enforcement, civil engineering, and other relevant specialties.635
Despite the many challenges of Kosovo, the Army benefited from a clear mission, limited objectives, and a favorable ratio of troops-to-civilian population. The preeminent role of the
United Nations, NATO, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe meant that
Europeans occupied the overall leadership positions. The U.S. Army was responsible for security in the eastern sector, a limited objective that aligned with its comparative advantage and core mission. Happily, international organizations were charged with messy political tasks like establishing civil governance and a local police force.636 The per capita troop level was initially
20 peacekeepers per thousand Kosovars, among the highest troop levels for any modern
635 A 2004 study of Kosovo post-combat operations noted that the U.S. civil affairs teams were highly respected by most other organizations for their invaluable skills, positive attitude, and creative problem-solving. Thomas Mockaitis, Civil-Military Cooperation in Peace Operations: The Case of Kosovo (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2004), 11-16. 636 James Dobbins, America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq (Santa Monica: RAND, 2003), 119- 123. 207 peacekeeping mission.637 Coupled with the overwhelming support of perhaps 90 percent of
Kosovo’s population, this favorable mix of ends, ways, and means did much to enable the
Army’s success.638
Although Kosovo was in many respects the best coordinated post-combat operation in recent history, it was not without the occasional bureaucratic disagreement or turf battle. One such incident occurred in February 2000, when the NATO KFOR commander urgently requested
U.S. troop reinforcements at a prospective riot in the Serb-dominated city of Mitrovica.
Concerned about force protection and perhaps negative media coverage, the Pentagon refused, arguing on institutional grounds that Army soldiers “don’t do crowd control,” and triggering a contentious argument with Ambassador James Dobbins in the White House Situation Room.639
The net result was effectively a draw; French troops received no U.S. Army support in Mitrovica, and State experienced no further objections from the Pentagon related to Kosovo’s internal security. The incident is noteworthy on two grounds. First, as with USAID in the Grenada and
Panama cases, the Army’s principal constraints in Kosovo were imposed by the Pentagon and not a rival bureaucracy. And second, that in the Kosovo case a White House decision was required to approve or deny a small-scale military task that in Grenada or Panama would have been decided by practitioners the field.
637 This was roughly four times the per capita troop presence in post-World War II Japan, and roughly one hundred times the per capita troop presence in Afghanistan in 2002. James Dobbins, America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq (Santa Monica: RAND, 2003), 136, 150. 638 Army practitioners in Kosovo noted with dismay the arrival of well-funded Islamic religious instructors/recruiters that soldiers dubbed “the Longbeards.” This Wahhabist brand of fundamentalist Islam did not take root among mostly secular Albanian Muslims, who overwhelmingly favored the American and Western European nation-building model to calls for a broader jihad. GEN(ret.) Vincent Brooks, interview with the author, September 16, 2019. 639 By then, Army soldiers in Kosovo were performing crowd control on a routine basis. Dobbins also objected because “American officials had for years been criticizing other allies for opting out of certain NATO missions.” James Dobbins, Foreign Service (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 204. Also: James Dobbins, interview with the author, September 16, 2020. 208
In the Kosovo case, the Army relied primarily on its existing capabilities for much of its organizational adaptation, and its subordinate offices each did their thing. The Army’s Training and Doctrine Command had been the proponent for the broad 1994 doctrine on peace operations, and in the wake of the NATO war in Kosovo this command facilitated training exercises tailored to post-combat tasks for units preparing to deploy. The Army also had an office dedicated to lessons-learned, established in the wake of Grenada based on an after-action recommendation from then-Colonel Wesley Clark. In 1993, the Army had even established a Peacekeeping
Institute within its war college, responsible for developing peacekeeping scholarship and doctrine. In 2007, the Army’s Center for Military History published an excellent monograph of the Army’s role in Kosovo post-combat operations. Although none of these offices was focused on post-combat stabilization or nation-building per se, each performed its normal bureaucratic functions after Kosovo, with ancillary benefits to future Army post-combat practitioners. In light of the scant resources available to State or USAID for institutional change, the Army possessed almost an embarrassment of riches.
The Army’s modest degree of adaptation proved sufficient to establish security in eastern
Kosovo. Deployed commanders eventually received mix of active duty and national guard units, generally for predictable six-month deployments, and the Army adjusted troop levels as the situation required. Soldiers experimented and innovated well beyond doctrinal norms, but their experiences made few inroads on Army training and doctrine. Adequate troop levels and limited objectives increased the probability of success; as early as the spring of 2000, an ethnic Serb in
Kosovo was no more likely to be killed than an ethnic Albanian.640
640 Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 177. 209
USAID IN KOSOVO: PLAYING GOD
In theory, USAID should have played a small supporting role in Kosovo’s economic and political development; in practice, the agency stole the show. While NATO retained responsibility for security, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 had established the
United Nations Mission in Kosovo, and allocated four pillars of peace-building to multinational entities. One of these pillars, economic reconstruction, nominally fell to the European Union.641
However, the European Union moved slowly and allocated little manpower; it soon inherited a program of economic institution-building that was largely designed and initially implemented by
USAID.
Arriving in Kosovo after the conflict in 1999, USAID Mission Director Craig Buck discovered that “we had the opportunity to play God.”642 In Panama and Grenada, post-combat operations involved reconstituting existing government ministries. In Kosovo, none existed.
After a decade of apartheid government, minority Serbs had forcibly occupied virtually every government job in Kosovo; after the NATO air campaign, the Serb government officials fled
Kosovo or consolidated within ethnic Serbian enclaves. The pacifist Kosovar politician Ibrahim
Rugova had previously established a shadow Kosovar government to provide basic services to ethnic Albanians, but the loose network had not survived the pressures of systematic ethnic cleansing and war. USAID and its international counterparts thus had the opportunity to build a government and political economy largely from scratch. Perhaps most importantly, USAID’s
641 The four pillars (and the organization tasked with each) are: humanitarian affairs (UNHCR), civil administration (UN), democratization and institution building (OSCE), and economic reconstruction (EU). See: United Nations Mission in Kosovo, “United Nations Resolution 1244,” accessed September 10, 2020, https://unmik.unmissions.org/united-nations-resolution-1244. 642 Craig Buck, Oral History, 75. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 210 well-intentioned efforts met a grateful and supportive Albanian population: “the United States could do no wrong by the Kosovars…anything that we said was fine.”643
USAID had several priorities in Kosovo. During and immediately after the conflict, refugee and humanitarian concerns were a critical issue. As displaced Kosovars resettled or relocated in the wake of the conflict, the humanitarian situation stabilized and the longer-term priorities of economic governance and political development assumed center stage.644 To address the humanitarian crisis, USAID relied on low-hanging fruit (Proposition 1): the agency dispatched a DART team and Food for Peace resources to assist United Nations relief efforts.
Following the conflict, the DART team moved into Kosovo and focused on emergency housing issues, while teams from the Office of Transition Initiatives assisted with governance programs and worked to alleviate interethnic tensions. These crisis-response offices demonstrated remarkable agility and even planted their own orchard (Proposition 4) by temporarily creating new offices and capabilities to support their work.
To service its longer-term objectives for economic and political development, USAID relied on both low-hanging fruit (Proposition 1) and cherry-picking (Proposition 2). The decentralized aid agency selected a uniquely qualified officer to serve as the first Kosovo mission director, and subsequently relied on his judgment to design and implement programs.
Although the agency offered assistance from a regional support office in nearby Budapest, in practice the mission in Pristina communicated directly with USAID headquarters in
Washington.645 The USAID mission in Kosovo enjoyed relative autonomy from 1999 until
643 Craig Buck, Oral History, 74. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 644 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 645 Regional support offices, once a significant innovation that empowered small USAID missions, lost relevance as modern communications expanded to even the most remote U.S. diplomatic posts. Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 211
Kosovo’s independence in 2008; its greatest bureaucratic obstacles were USAID’s unresponsive personnel system and sluggish European and international agencies.646
On the whole, USAID’s adaptive response to the Kosovo crisis was a noteworthy achievement for an agency that had spent much of the 1990s fighting for its bureaucratic life.
The end of the Cold War had brought unprecedented development opportunity in the form of a wave of democratization across Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Latin America – countries that were solid candidates for U.S. foreign aid. Unfortunately, the collapse of the Soviet Union also dissolved the national security justification for foreign aid; doves in Congress sought peace dividends and defense hawks devolved into budget hawks. Improved quantitative analytical methods revealed USAID’s flagship development projects in Africa to be less effective than its competitors’ programs, or costly outright failures.647 These revelations strained the agency’s credibility at an inopportune time.
As domestic political attacks on foreign aid increased, President Clinton had shifted some programs to other agencies with more entrenched constituencies – including the Departments of
Agriculture and Education – preserving the aid programs but fragmenting the U.S. foreign aid community and weakening USAID.648 So much blood in the bureaucratic water was bound to attract sharks; in 1994 State launched a concerted effort to absorb USAID, which the aid agency survived by the narrowest of margins.649 By 1995, budget cuts had reduced the USAID direct
646 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 647 Carol Lancaster, “Foreign Aid in the Twenty-First Century,” in Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Lessons for the Next Half Century, ed. Louis A. Picard et al (New York: Routledge, 2008), 57. 648 Lawrence Korb, “Foreign Aid and Security,” in Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Lessons for the Next Half Century, ed. Louis A. Picard et al (New York: Routledge, 2008), 31. 649 Vice President Al Gore and First Lady Hillary Clinton were instrumental in staving off what many USAID advocates viewed as a hostile takeover attempt. See: Carol Lancaster, Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 87-90. 212 hire workforce to only 2,000 personnel, a fraction of its size two decades earlier.650 By 1996, the
U.S. foreign aid budget had shrunk by 25 percent in just three years; until 1998, Congress re- authorized USAID’s existence on an annual basis.651 The small agency hemorrhaged talent as experienced aid workers departed government service in favor of more stable and lucrative NGO jobs. These were dark days for the beleaguered development agency.
In response to the threats and challenges of the 1990s, USAID responded with an array of short-term organizational adaptations and long-term learning. Perceived development failures, particularly the wasteful top-down programs in Africa, drove an institutional shift toward hybrid programs.652 The post-Cold War rise in humanitarian complex emergencies and post-combat operations also led to long-term institutional change. In 1994 USAID created the Office of
Transition Initiatives, an office focused on governance and democratization that deployed teams to Kosovo five years later.653 Even then, USAID officers serving in this office and others responsible for disaster response or post-combat operations were seldom selected for promotion within an agency focused on its core mission of long-term development.654
650 USAID’s detractors disputed the severity of the cuts by including the agency’s many contractors and foreign nationals when describing the size of the agency. W. Haven North and Jeanne Foote North, “Transformations in U.S. Foreign Economic Assistance,” in Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Lessons for the Next Half Century, ed. Louis A. Picard et al (New York: Routledge, 2008), 291-292. 651 For foreign aid budget decreases in the mid-1990s, see: Carol Lancaster, Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 86. For USAID’s tenuous relationship with Congress during this period, see: W. Haven North and Jeanne Foote North, “Transformations in U.S. Foreign Economic Assistance,” in Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Lessons for the Next Half Century, ed. Louis A. Picard et al (New York: Routledge, 2008), 270. 652 Hybrid solutions divided resources between top-down governance issues as well as small-scale, bottom-up civil society initiatives. Here USAID emulated the evolving best-practices of the World Bank and achieved better results in Eastern Europe. See: Kevin Quigley, “USAID and Eastern Europe,” in Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy: Lessons for the Next Half Century, ed. Louis A. Picard et al (New York: Routledge, 2008), 223-224. 653 In contrast, the State Department would not create a comparable post-combat capability for another ten years, and then only after disastrous results in post-combat Iraq and pressure from Congress. See: Carol Lancaster, Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 85. 654 Andrew Natsios, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Humanitarian Relief in Complex Emergencies (Westport: Praeger, 1997), 44-45. 213
The 1990s personnel drawdown – and persistent complaints over foreign aid inefficiencies – forced USAID to adopt a “wholesaler-of-wholesalers” approach based on
“increased outsourcing of larger contracts and grants…[and] more elaborate control-oriented planning and results-measurement systems.”655 This institutional marriage between USAID and metrics-based results-measurement was a priority for USAID Administrator Brian Atwood, then striving to build constituency with Congress and demonstrate return on taxpayer investment.656
Many USAID officers decried these changes and longed in vain for the cabinet-level status enjoyed by the British aid agency. Despite the many threats and challenges, the story of USAID in the 1990s was nevertheless one of constant adaptation.
In 1999, USAID responded to the growing humanitarian plight of Kosovar Albanian refugees by leveraging its existing crisis response capabilities. USAID dispatched a DART team and allocated Food for Peace resources to assist the refugees. The agency soon became a minor player in a broad international humanitarian relief effort headed by the United Nations. Despite efficient management by the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR), this collective effort was nearly overwhelmed by a flood of refugees after hostilities commenced and the Serbs accelerated their ethnic cleansing campaign. By mid-April 1999,
USAID reported over 540,000 refugees in neighboring Macedonia, Albania, and Montenegro, with over 25,000 additional refugees arriving daily; the agency forecast the urgent need for
250,000 metric tons of food aid in the coming year, and anticipated the U.S. government could provide perhaps one-half.657
655 Lael Brainard, in: Carol Lancaster and Ann Van Dusen, Organizing U.S. Foreign Aid: Confronting Challenges of the Twenty-First Century (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2005), viii. 656 Andrew Natsios, “The Clash of the Counter-bureaucracy and Development,” Center for Global Development, July 13, 2010, http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1424271. 657 These statistics, which do not include the many internally displaced persons still in Kosovo, are stunning given that Kosovo’s entire population was then approximately 2 million. U.S. Agency for International Development, 214
When Belgrade capitulated in June, ethnic Albanian refugees swiftly returned to Kosovo and USAID’s humanitarian focus responded accordingly, again leveraging existing offices and capabilities. Small numbers of aid workers from USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance
DART team and the Office of Transition Initiatives arrived in Pristina within days of the war’s end. The agency’s humanitarian focus shifted to repairing damaged and destroyed homes, with secondary efforts in food, school reconstruction and local infrastructure.658 The Office of
Transition Initiatives established a presence in five cities, and worked on local governance and civil-society initiatives, including programs designed to reduce interethnic violence.659
USAID’s emergency housing program was an especially noteworthy adaptation. Perhaps one-third of Kosovo’s 365,000 homes had been damaged or destroyed, increasing the risk of another humanitarian crisis in the coming Balkan winter.660 In response, USAID’s Office of
Foreign Disaster Assistance launched the largest emergency shelter program in its history, providing over 20,000 repair kits and expanded roofing packages “that were provided under the condition that families receiving them would shelter one or two additional families.”661 The
DART team remained in Pristina, Kosovo, until spring returned, and departed in March 2000.
That year the total U.S. government assistance to Kosovo topped $135 million, of which over
$22 million had been dispensed by the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and its DART team.662
“Kosovo Crisis Fact Sheet #28,” accessed May 2, 2020, https://reliefweb.int/report/albania/kosovo-crisis-fact-sheet- 28. 658 U.S. Agency for International Development, “Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance 2000 Annual Report,” 71-72, accessed May 2, 2020, https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pdabt656.pdf. 659 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 660 U.S. Agency for International Development, “Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance 2000 Annual Report,” 71-72, accessed May 2, 2020, https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pdabt656.pdf. 661 U.S. Agency for International Development, “Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance 2000 Annual Report,” 71, accessed May 2, 2020, https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pdabt656.pdf. 662 In 2000, State’s Population, Refugees, and Migration office also provided over $82 million in regional aid for refugee support, and USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives spent $13 million on democracy, civil society, and 215
USAID’s disaster-response offices – the agency’s low-hanging fruit that had adapted swiftly to the humanitarian needs of Kosovo – also proved capable of planting their own orchard.
When the DART team withdrew from Kosovo in March 2000, the Office of Foreign Disaster
Assistance established a Kosovo Program Office that existed until September 2001 to “retain the institutional knowledge and capacity that the DART had accumulated during its presence in
Kosovo.”663 This adaptation is noteworthy on three grounds: first, that the bureaucracy created an institutional capacity in case of a future humanitarian crisis in Kosovo; second, that it dissolved the unnecessary office when the specter of ethnic civil war had passed; and third, that this adaptation spanned two presidential administrations. The crisis in Kosovo, in conjunction with natural disasters in Turkey and Central America, also led USAID’s Office of Foreign
Disaster Assistance to create Response Management Teams within the agency’s Washington- based staff, to streamline support to the field.664 These efforts to showcased a remarkable degree of institutional adaptation within USAID’s crisis-response offices.
USAID’s crisis-response offices proved responsive and adaptive to the crisis in Kosovo, but they were a small-scale, short-term defense against humanitarian apocalypse. As this threat receded, the agency shifted its humanitarian capacity to crises elsewhere in the world. By 2001, only one program officer from the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance was still working in
Kosovo, and that was only to address refugees fleeing neighboring Macedonia, where ethnic
Albanians were attempting to emulate Kosovo’s bloody insurgency.665 To address Kosovo’s
ethnic tolerance programs in the region. U.S. Agency for International Development, “Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance 2000 Annual Report,” 71-72, accessed May 2, 2020, https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pdabt656.pdf. 663 U.S. Agency for International Development, “Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance 2000 Annual Report,” 72, accessed May 2, 2020, https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pdabt656.pdf. 664 U.S. Agency for International Development, “Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance 2000 Annual Report,” 15, accessed May 2, 2020, https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pdabt656.pdf. 665 U.S. Agency for International Development, “Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance 2001 Annual Report,” 64, accessed September 10, 2020, https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pdabw905.pdf. 216 long-term development needs, USAID created a mission in Pristina to operate under its Europe bureau, and selected a uniquely qualified officer to serve as mission director.
Craig Buck was the ultimate example of bureaucratic cherry-picking. A veteran of counter-narcotics development programs in Latin America and post-combat work in Uganda,
Buck had also established USAID’s presence in five newly-independent Central Asian republics.666 A bureaucratic entrepreneur known for standing up new missions and operating in post-conflict and post-Soviet environments, Buck had attracted a following of “pioneers,” enterprising young USAID officers “willing to take risks, to go into brand new situations, to assess them from a different perspective.”667 Buck had become a “known quantity” to his agency’s senior leadership; he was also single and willing to accept austere assignments that his married colleagues often refused.668 With these factors in mind, USAID Administrator Brian
Atwood had hand-selected Buck to stand up USAID’s mission in post-combat Bosnia in 1995, and provided Buck with essential top-cover against bureaucratic rivals.669
In 1999, Craig Buck and several of his pioneers were still serving in Bosnia. Geographic proximity, experience in the Balkans, and his coterie of post-combat experienced USAID officers added to Buck’s qualifications for the emerging Kosovo crisis. While NATO bombed Serbian targets, USAID tapped Buck for the Kosovo mission in a late-night phone call.670 Buck would
666 In 1993, Buck oversaw USAID programs in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Craig Buck, Oral History, 27, 55. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 667 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 668 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 669 When USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance insisted their officers would be independent of the mission director, Atwood backed Buck, who achieved unity of command for all USAID personnel in Bosnia. Later, the presidentially-appointed Special Representative for Civil Reconstruction, Richard Sklar, regularly called for Buck to be fired over development disagreements. NGO lobbyists also pressured USAID and Buck to issue grants rather than contracts. Atwood consistently backed Buck, as did key Congressional staff members. Craig Buck, Oral History, 65. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. Also: Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 670 Craig Buck, Oral History, 75. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 217 be dual-hatted as mission director in both Bosnia and Kosovo for a year and a half, sometimes traveling between the missions for a week at a time.671
Having picked the right cherry, USAID trusted Buck to select the right priorities and programs for the situation in Kosovo. Although a few turf battles and political concerns had emerged in the Bosnia mission, Buck enjoyed relative autonomy in Kosovo. With USAID’s crisis-response offices focused on the immediate humanitarian issues, Buck focused on the longer-term priorities of economic governance and political development.672 He traveled to
Washington every few months to explain his mission’s programs to Congress and the interagency, finding little friction and receiving few changes to guidance.673 In Kosovo, Buck found the U.S. military to be “great colleagues” and had “superb relations” with all four of
State’s chiefs of mission with whom Buck served in Pristina.674 It is also noteworthy that in the
Kosovo case, each of these early chiefs of mission were career State foreign service officers; each had the authority to empower or constrain Craig Buck; and each chose to empower the small USAID mission.675
Although United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 charged the European Union with Kosovo’s economic reconstruction, it could do little to hasten its implementation. Realizing that “the pace of the European Union is glacial,” Craig Buck proceeded to seize the golden hour.
He brought in a team of contractors to provide technical assistance and established institutions for economic governance, including a Central Bank, a banking system, a ministry of finance.
671 Craig Buck, Oral History, 75. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 672 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 673 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 674 Buck got State’s people involved in USAID’s programs in Kosovo, and filled in as the acting chief of mission when State’s senior diplomat went on leave. Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 675 The first of these chiefs of mission was Larry Rossin, who in 1983 had accompanied Navy SEALs into combat to rescue Sir Paul Scoon. 218
His team drafted laws to establish and govern these institutions; and created units for treasury, budgeting, taxation, and analysis. Buck brought in contractors who were technical experts to head each of these functions, and then hired educated Kosovars to staff each office, gradually phasing out the contractors as Kosovars assumed the leadership positions.676
In creating new economic institutions from scratch in Kosovo, Craig Buck was practically on his own. With little institutional capacity – and even less interest in the rare and unwanted post-combat mission – USAID had done little to formalize its lessons-learned from post-combat missions like Panama or Grenada. As a result, even the most successful short-term adaptations were forgotten rather than institutionalized within regional bureaus focused on the agency’s core mission. Buck’s experience in establishing the USAID mission in war-ravaged
Bosnia was instructive; there he had received a barrage of useless recommendations from his agency’s Washington staff. 677 The agency’s lack of specific guidance, institutional memory, or relevant operating procedures forced Buck into an ad hoc approach, applying his own judgment and experience to adapt to the situation in Bosnia and Kosovo. One such bottom-up adaptation from the Balkans was a joint military-USAID partnership in which the military identified and proposed community projects for USAID to review and implement.678
This ad hoc approach to post-combat and post-Soviet environments was the rule rather than the exception for USAID, which had been eviscerated by the 1990s drawdown and lacked both doctrine and a surge capacity for new missions in challenging environments. Buck later
676 Details in this paragraph may be found in: Craig Buck, Oral History, 76. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. Also: Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 677 Craig Buck, Oral History, 66. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 678 This Community Infrastructure Rehabilitation Program began in Bosnia as a collaboration between Buck and General Bill Nash; the program was duplicated in Kosovo. A predecessor to the Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan, this earlier effort occurred in a more permissive region, allowing USAID to perform due diligence of project design and implementation. This level of due diligence and oversight proved impossible for USAID to achieve in Afghanistan. Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 219 lamented that “in Central Asia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Afghanistan, I went through this five different times, being held responsible for doing something that, basically, Washington did not have the capacity to provide for.”679 In 2009, USAID released a superb treatise on economic growth in post-combat countries; far too late to help Craig Buck, who retired in 2005.680
In outpacing the Europeans in Kosovo, USAID’s mission in Pristina also made the most of the golden hour in legal, judicial, and infrastructure programs. As with Kosovo’s nascent economic institutions, the key to USAID’s speed and flexibility proved to be Buck’s use of contractors. Contractors provided the capacity and expertise to “draft the fundamental laws, to train people, bring people back in, and to get the new judicial system going.”681 Contractors also provided the muscle for USAID’s infrastructure programs, which enabled economic growth and the movement of goods and people to market by repairing “roads, bridges, markets, water, sewage system, [and] the electrical power system.”682 Unlike the Afghanistan case, in Kosovo
USAID contractors found a relatively stable security situation, a supportive population, and ample human capital with which to partner. The small size of Kosovo and the USAID mission also played a salutary role. Buck’s team eventually included sixty USAID-funded contractors, many of them experts in technical specialties, who undergirded multiple dimensions of state- building in Kosovo.
USAID’s leadership could provide contractors to the priority mission in Kosovo, but the agency was almost incapable of producing career officers to serve in unexpected crisis locations.
Administrative challenges – particularly involving USAID’s personnel system – proved to be
679 Craig Buck, Oral History, 64. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 680 U.S. Agency for International Development, “A Guide to Economic Growth in Post-Conflict Countries,” accessed September 10, 2020, https://fragilestates.itcilo.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/USAID-A-Guide-To- Economic-Growth-In-Post-Conflict-Countries.pdf. 681 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 682 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 220
Craig Buck’s greatest bureaucratic challenge in Kosovo.683 Even with the support of USAID’s senior leadership for a priority mission, USAID’s personnel system lacked the ability to break normal assignment cycles for career officers. Buck had to “find somebody to make the system work. That meant breaking rules and going around assignment regulations, and getting people in the positions where they are needed.”684 Like his predecessors in Grenada and Panama, Buck found his own agency to be his chief constraint; improvisation was again the order of the day.
With the exception of short-term capabilities like DART teams and the Office of
Transition Initiatives, USAID had little ability to surge personnel to a new crisis – or to shift appropriated funds to sudden emergencies. Like State, USAID officers voluntarily bid for assignments. The agency had many vacant overseas billets and little ability to compel its officers to accept undesirable posts, creating a “buyer’s market” for positions.685 With a ponderous human resources mechanism and few career officers volunteering for austere and dangerous assignments, Buck routinely had to “rob Peter to pay Paul,” bringing his pioneers to Kosovo for short-term temporary duty while appealing to Washington for resources and dedicated personnel.686
Despite Kosovo’s deep ethnic tensions, and its lack of robust institutions, agriculture, or industry, many of USAID’s early initiatives yielded tangible progress. Buck’s team created the
American Bank of Kosovo, which accelerated loans to accelerate private sector growth; USAID later brokered the bank’s sale to an Austrian banking group at a handsome profit and established an endowment to train Kosovars.687 The Kosovars quickly implemented USAID’s budgeting and
683 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 684 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 685 Ken Yamashita, interview with the author, August 26, 2020. 686 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 687 Hilda Arellano, interview with the author, September 2, 2020. See also: Craig Buck, Oral History, 77. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 221 taxation system, limiting the risk of gross corruption and reducing Kosovo’s financial dependence on the international community.688 The prompt inclusion of Kosovars from diverse backgrounds into nascent economic and democratic institutions siphoned talent away from the demilitarized Kosovo Liberation Army and other still-active insurgent groups.689 USAID and
OSCE’s judicial and rule-of-law programs proved less successful and slower to implement in
Kosovo; although by 2009 USAID recognized that a 5-10 year lead time was endemic to judicial programs in post-conflict states.690
If Craig Buck’s service in Kosovo exemplified successful cherry-picking by a small bureaucracy, his sudden departure to Afghanistan showcased the limitations of the approach.
When Buck and his pioneers transferred to post-combat Afghanistan in early 2002, the veteran mission director received an irate call from the head of USAID’s Europe bureau protesting the sudden loss of talent.691 The small agency, running out of cherries to pick, adapted by hiring a retired USAID officer to serve as the Kosovo mission director after Buck and his team left.692
Tiny Kosovo would remain an incubator for USAID’s larger-scale post-combat operations. The aid agency dispatched Earl Gast, a former military reservist, to Kosovo as the deputy mission director; Gast went on to serve with distinction at USAID’s missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.693
After September 11th 2001, Kosovo lost its primacy to post-combat missions in
Afghanistan, which dwarfed Kosovo in breadth, depth, and urgency. The 2003 invasion of Iraq
688 Craig Buck, Oral History, 79. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 689 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 690 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. See also: U.S. Agency for International Development, “A Guide to Economic Growth in Post-Conflict Countries,” accessed September 10, 2020, https://fragilestates.itcilo.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/USAID-A-Guide-To-Economic-Growth-In-Post-Conflict- Countries.pdf. 691 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 692 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. 693 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 4, 2020. Also: Andrew Natsios, interview with the author, July 27, 2020. 222 pushed Kosovo even further down the agency’s list of priorities. Cherry-picking, orchard planting, and post-combat adaptation were no longer on the agenda; the Kosovo mission was firmly ensconced in standard programs and standard procedures. By 2006, USAID’s mission in
Kosovo resembled many other small missions; although it remained involved in all development sectors except security, and continued to prioritize “the stabilization and reconciliation between
Kosovars and Serbs.”694 By then, the U.S. was reducing its development assistance to Kosovo to levels dwarfed by the European Union, although USAID officers serving there were still “treated as demigods. Americans were so favored it was astounding, humbling, and on occasion even embarrassing.”695
From 2006-2008, the USAID mission in Kosovo was headed by Mission Director Ken
Yamashita. Yamashita had earned a PhD in economics and was a USAID officer with experience in Africa and Latin America; he had no post-combat service but applied for the vacancy in
Kosovo to explore a new region.696 During this period, the mission benefited from an absence of interagency turf battles, few changes to its operational guidance, and a clear U.S. diplomatic objective: “independence status for Kosovo.”697 The chief sources of tension for the USAID mission were conflicts of opinion between the United States, the European Union, and the United
Nations.
This was particularly true with respect to independence for Kosovo: “By and large, we were probably more forward-leaning than the Europeans and certainly than the UN. We had the
694 Ken Yamashita, Oral History, 44-45. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. Also: Ken Yamashita, interview with the author, August 26, 2020. 695 Ken Yamashita, Oral History, 42. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 696 Yamashita’s dissertation centered on the economics of the family and marriage; much of his early USAID work was in the fields of population and health, not stabilization and reconstruction. Ken Yamashita, Oral History, 42. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 697 Ken Yamashita, interview with the author, August 26, 2020. 223 desire to push farther and push faster.”698 This recurring tension placed allies at odds with one another in the economic and diplomatic dimensions, as European Union representatives advocated Serbia’s position, the U.S. argued on behalf of the Kosovars, and the United Nations attempted the role of neutral arbiter.699 As mission director, Yamashita adapted to this delicate diplomatic situation by pressing for the privatization of publicly-owned enterprises and gently advocating for self-reliance and autonomy for the Kosovar government.700 He viewed stabilization and ethnic reconciliation as his mission’s top priorities; and continued supporting civil society and governance initiatives in ways large and small.701
From 1999-2008, USAID relied initially on a mix of existing procedures and hand- selected practitioners; with existing offices and standard procedures assuming primacy as the agency’s priority shifted to Afghanistan and Iraq. In Kosovo, the agency’s economic and governance programs centered on the nascent government’s institutional needs, and helped bring economic and social opportunity to Kosovar civilians. USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster
Assistance proved particularly adaptive in the early months of the crisis, establishing new offices and capabilities to build capacity and retain institutional memory; and dissolving them as the situation stabilized. As Kosovo neared its 2008 declaration of independence, “Washington felt like the job of the U.S. was done.”702
698 Ken Yamashita, interview with the author, August 26, 2020. 699 Ken Yamashita, Oral History, 44-45. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. Also: Ken Yamashita, interview with the author, August 26, 2020. 700 Ken Yamashita, Oral History, 46. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 701 Ken Yamashita, interview with the author, August 26, 2020. 702 Ken Yamashita, Oral History, 46-47. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 224
BUREAUCRACIES IN KOSOVO: CONCLUSION
In the Kosovo post-combat case, State, the Army, and USAID adapted in similar ways.
Each of the four national security institutions predictably leveraged existing offices and capabilities (Proposition 1). State and USAID also cherry-picked uniquely qualified practitioners for the crisis, including James Dobbins and Craig Buck (Proposition 2). This technique provided both civilian agencies with outsized return from a limited investment. There is little evidence of a major revolt of the cherries in Kosovo; partly because of the Congress- imposed ceiling on the U.S. financial contribution to post-combat Kosovo (Proposition 3).
Burden-sharing with Western Europe was the order of the day. Noteworthy exceptions to this rule included James Dobbins lobbying for more SEED money for Kosovo (SEED funds were not affected by the cost ceiling), and Craig Buck hiring contractors and lobbying his agency to assign more pioneers to the Balkans. Both USAID and Army practitioners in the field confronted limitations principally imposed by their own institutions – in the form of USAID’s personnel and administrative obstacles, and the Pentagon’s force protection constraints.
Of the national security institutions examined here, the Army invested the most effort to convert short-term lessons into long-term organizational learning; and in a parallel to the
Grenada and Panama cases, this effort focused on the Army’s core mission (Proposition 4).
NATO’s air war over Kosovo had brought the Army “face-to-face with irrelevance”; the Army promptly scrapped its “ill-advised Army XXI project,” shifting instead to fielding lighter and more mobile units.703 The Army soon fielded the Stryker infantry fighting vehicle, a medium- weight and technologically advanced wheeled armored vehicle that could provide soldiers with protection and mobility even on Albanian roads. General Clark considered the lighter and more
703 Michael Vickers, “Revolution Deferred,” in War Over Kosovo: Politics and Strategy in a Global Age, ed. Andrew J. Bacevich and Eliot A. Cohen (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 204. 225 deployable Stryker-equipped units a move “in the right direction,” but presciently emphasized the need for adaptive Army leadership in an environment with ever-decreasing time available for planning and decision.704 For Clark, buying the right equipment was good; building an adaptive network of practitioners was better.
The Army’s adaptation in the wake of Kosovo illustrates two important and broader themes. First, the institution that came closest to perceived failure was the one that made the most concerted effort to incorporate organizational learning. Perceived failure – or risk of failure
– appears to be a powerful motivation for long-term change. Yet in conception and implementation, the Army’s adaptation was oriented toward its core mission of warfighting rather than the unwanted secondary task of enabling post-combat operations. Here lies the second theme: the bureaucracy’s core mission often wins in the end. Even as the risk of post- combat failure – and corresponding adaptations – increased, each organization shaped its institutional adaptations toward its respective core mission. These broader trends held true for other institutions and other orchards.
What can be gleaned from the short-term orchard planting that occurred – such as
USAID’s temporary Kosovo Program Office and State’s Marshall Plan for the Balkans
(Proposition 4)? The former reflected an effort by USAID’s disaster response offices to retain institutional knowledge as a hedge against resumed hostilities. The latter followed parallel efforts by diplomatic counterparts in Europe, contributing to a broader conversation and perhaps saving face in the absence of greater financial commitment. Each of these initiatives received top-down support from bureaucratic leadership, each served a specific function, and each program dissolved when no longer required. Neither threatened or expanded the bureaucracy’s
704 Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), 459. 226 core mission or culture. These organizational adaptations were the bureaucratic parallel to
State’s legal task force in the Grenada case: short-term, and valuable in their own right – but not game-changing.
In the Kosovo case as in previous cases, each national security institution encountered challenges related to the post-combat mission. State struggled with Congress’s funding ceiling;
USAID struggled to produce people; and the Army failed to achieve the politics necessary for an early departure. For the most part, each of these institutions worked to solve one another’s unsolvable problems. And as in previous cases, personal relationships undergirded both success and failure. General Clark’s positive relationships with Secretary Albright and Strobe Talbott empowered State’s early diplomatic efforts and expedited a diplomatic solution to the Pristina airport crisis; Clark’s worsening relationships with Pentagon leadership foreshadowed his retirement. State’s James Dobbins observed that well-established relationships between key players late in the Clinton administration muted turf battles.705 When Dobbins later engaged in a rare Kosovo-related turf battle – against Pentagon officers reluctant to assist the French in
Mitrovica – the absence of personal relationships was conspicuous. Dobbins did not know the officers with whom he was engaged in “acrimonious discussion.”706 USAID’s Craig Buck found the Army and State to be great partners. The Kosovo case paralleled the other post-combat cases examined here: personal relationships – and trust – mattered.
705 James Dobbins, America’s Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq (Santa Monica: RAND, 2003), 116. 706 James Dobbins, Foreign Service (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 204. Also: James Dobbins, interview with the author, September 16, 2020. 227
Chapter 6: Afghanistan
This chapter argues that in Afghanistan from 2001-2008, the U.S. Army, State, and
USAID adapted in similar ways – and across the full spectrum of organizational adaptation examined here. Each national security institution leveraged its existing capabilities against the initial post-combat mission (Proposition 1). Each organization selected uniquely qualified practitioners or units for the crisis (Proposition 2). With insurgency growing and failure looming, each institution acceded to its practitioners’ calls for greater resources or autonomy
(Proposition 3). And by 2008, each institution had invested in long-term organizational change – notably by establishing new offices or capabilities (Proposition 4). Afghanistan eclipsed the earlier cases in scale, cost, and complexity; produced greater constraints and competition for resources between the bureaucracies; and compelled each organization to adapt more broadly than the previous cases. In terms of interagency unity of effort, Afghanistan trended toward a loose confederation of warring tribes. Like the previous cases, personal relationships between practitioners in Afghanistan and between executives in Washington set the conditions for cooperation – or conflict.
This chapter continues with a brief historical overview of the U.S.-led post-conflict operation that began in Afghanistan in late 2001 – including some of the complexities that made
Afghanistan such a challenging case for policy makers and practitioners. This is followed by sections dedicated to the U.S. Army, State Department, and USAID, respectively. For clarity and brevity, this chapter considers several key and representative adaptations from each organization.
The Army section analyzes the light footprint approach that shaped both combat and post-combat operations; the Afghan National Army training effort and Task Force Phoenix (2002); the
Provincial Reconstruction Teams (2002); and Lieutenant General Barno’s shift to a
228 counterinsurgency strategy (2003-2005). The State section reviews the diplomatic success at
Bonn (2001); the Afghan National Police training effort (2003), and Ambassador Neumann’s nation-building initiatives (2005-2007). The USAID section analyzes the agency’s early humanitarian and governance efforts (2001-2002); its early post-combat programs and careful selection of uniquely-qualified mission directors (2001-2004); and the Kabul-to-Kandahar highway (2002-2003) – the first segment of the massive Ring Road construction project. The chapter concludes that each of these institutions adapted to the crisis in Afghanistan in similar ways.
229
AFGHANISTAN IN CONTEXT
Afghanistan was yet another sudden, unexpected post-combat mission. On September
11th 2001, the Afghan Taliban controlled 90 percent of Afghanistan; the United States had no military forces in Afghanistan, and no plan for military operations there.707 At the end of the year, U.S. partner forces held every major Afghan city. By April 2002, surviving Taliban and Al
Qaeda leadership had withdrawn their shattered organizations to the Pakistani side of the border
– or were lying low within Afghanistan. State, the Army, and USAID found themselves operating in Afghanistan on short notice, with few personnel and little oversight. Unlike the previous cases examined here, Afghanistan was a large, populous, and pre-modern country; utterly devastated by drought and civil war, with long porous borders, restive tribes, and entrenched opium networks.
Afghanistan dwarfs the previous cases examined here – in both size and complexity.
Afghanistan is nearly the size of the American state of Texas, with an estimated 2001 population of between 18 and 21 million people. Another 4 million civilians had fled Afghanistan in the previous years of civil war and drought, most as refugees. Afghanistan is overwhelmingly
Muslim and ethnically heterogeneous; the largest faction is Pashtun, which comprises about 40 percent of the population. Other major ethnic groups include the Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks and
Turkmen, and Aimaqs. In 2001, perhaps three quarters of Afghans lived in poverty; over half its young children were malnourished; the average life expectancy was 40 years; and the literacy rate was among the lowest in the world.708 The scope, complexity, and cost of post-combat
707 Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 42. 708 Reliable statistics do not exist. These approximations are taken from: International Monetary Fund, Islamic State of Afghanistan: Report on Recent Economic Developments and Prospects, and the Role of the Fund in the Reconstruction Process Washington, D.C., Country Report No. 02/219, October 2002. 230 operations quickly eclipsed that of an initial military victory achieved through partner warlords and U.S. contributions of cash, small teams of special operations forces, and precision airpower.
In Afghanistan, post-combat practitioners found a remarkably dynamic situation, and little human capital with which to partner. In the wake of the retreating Taliban, profiteering warlords moved to secure cities and border crossings with private militias. Millions of displaced refugees returned to devastated homes in a nation that verged on famine. An American diplomat learned that the Afghan central bank contained “only three computers, and no one was trained to operate them”; USAID officers visiting the Education ministry found a minister working alone
“with a single lamp and no computer”; and Army soldiers inspecting the Kabul Military
Academy in April 2002 found “No power, no water, just dirt, debris, dust, and feces.”709 As in previous post-combat cases, ad hoc adaptation became the order of the day. By 2002, the national security institutions were shifting focus and resources to a potential invasion of Iraq; as early as 2003, signs of an Afghan insurgency were detectable; by 2008, there were two separate
Pashtun-led insurgencies, one in Afghanistan’s south and another in the east.710
The institutions involved in post-combat Afghanistan faced an additional array of challenges: those originating in Washington. President George W. Bush and Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld were openly skeptical of nation-building efforts, particularly those involving U.S. troops.711 Neither President Bush nor the National Security Council showed interest in developing an integrated political-military plan for Afghanistan – instead proposing to turn post-combat Afghanistan over to the United Nations, while shifting U.S. attention and
709 Ronald E. Neumann, The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2009), 183. See also: Charles Briscoe et al, Weapon of Choice: U.S. Army Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Comat Studies Institute Press, 2003), 349. 710 Report on Progress toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, (1230 Report), June 2008, 10. 711 See: Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown (New York: Sentinel, 2011), 482. 231 resources to a future campaign in Iraq.712 Gone was clear primacy of the Reagan State
Department and the camaraderie of the Bush 41 Cabinet. Gone too was the clear Clinton-era presidential guidance on complex contingency operations; the George W. Bush administration did not produce comparable guidance until 2005.713 As Ambassador James Dobbins, State’s most experienced nation-builder, recalled: “Within weeks of the fall of Kabul, those of us working on Afghanistan found ourselves in a backwater, operating within a larger bureaucracy that had other more pressing matters.”714 Bureaucratic turf battles and competition for resources increased to a level unseen in Grenada, Panama, or Kosovo.
These myriad challenges limited the resources available and gains obtained during
Afghanistan’s golden hour; that initial period in which post-combat change is most feasible and least opposed.715 Host nation cooperation and local ownership hit disappointing lows compared to previous cases, as relations between the U.S. and the Karzai government soured. Pashtun militant groups continually found safe haven, recruits, and funding from neighboring Pakistan – a state that saw little incentive in a strong, independent Afghanistan that might side with India in a future conflict. Considering the totality of circumstances, the Army, State, and USAID adapted surprisingly well to the situation in Afghanistan. An interim government and an Afghan constitutional process were no small victories for State; USAID averted a famine, improved
712 James Dobbins et al, After the War: Nation-Building from FDR to George W. Bush (Santa Monica: RAND, 2008), 92-93. See also: Bob Woodward, Bush At War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), 241. 713 In December 2005, President Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 44, Management of Interagency Efforts Concerning Reconstruction and Stabilization. 714 James Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2008), 134-135. U.S. military planning for Iraq began on November 27th, 2001. Tommy Franks, American Soldier (New York: Regan Books, 2004), 315. 715 Kosovo had benefited from 20 peacekeepers per thousand civilians; in Afghanistan, the troops-to-population level in spring 2002 was 50 times smaller, and many of those troops were U.S. forces focused on hunting terrorists rather than post-combat operations. Per capita external financial assistance was $814 in Kosovo and only $52 in Afghanistan. James Dobbins et al, America’s Role in Nation-Building from Germany to Iraq (Santa Monica: RAND, 2003), 136, 146. 232
Afghans’ health and literacy, and accelerated economic growth; and the Army aided in
Afghanistan’s reconstruction, trained a new Afghan National Army, and adapted to address a growing insurgency.
Growing insecurity and faltering post-combat operations in Afghanistan (and Iraq) also prompted each agency also invest in long-term organizational change – to a greater degree than the earlier, more successful post-combat cases. The Army expanded its special operations capability after 2006 – dramatically expanding the active-duty civil affairs and psychological operations units that had proven valuable in earlier post-combat cases. State established an
Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stability in 2004 that later became a functional bureau. USAID consolidated its humanitarian and crisis-response offices, established a robust military liaison office, and produced relevant documents – including a 2009 treatise on economic growth in post-combat countries.
233
THE U.S. ARMY IN AFGHANISTAN: LIGHT FOOTPRINT, HEAVY BURDEN
This section examines four key military adaptations related to Afghanistan. First among these is the light footprint approach – initially an adaptive way to apply U.S. strengths against
Taliban weaknesses for combat operations. In February 2002, the Bush administration opted to continue the light footprint approach for the post-combat phase. This decision constrained each of the U.S. national security institutions serving in Afghanistan. Compelled to assist in
Afghanistan’s reconstruction and train a new Afghan military, the Army adapted by establishing
Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) and Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) Phoenix – these form the second and third adaptations, respectively. The fourth major adaptation considered here is Lieutenant General Barno’s 2003-2005 pivot toward a strategy of population-centric counterinsurgency – an adaptive response to a resurgent Taliban. These adaptations are a small representative sample of the myriad ways Army practitioners applied limited available resources to the problems of post-combat Afghanistan from 2001-2008.
In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001, the Army exercised considerable influence over military operations in Afghanistan. At the outset of hostilities, Army officers occupied key positions including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff (General Hugh Shelton), the commander of U.S. Central Command (General Tommy
Franks), and the land component commander for U.S. Central Command (Lieutenant General
Paul Mikolashek).716 An Army officer commanded the special operations teams conducting combat operations in Afghanistan in late-2001, and from 2001-2008 the senior American general in Afghanistan was consistently an Army officer, as was the commander of U.S. Central
716 U.S. Air Force General Richard Myers became the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on October 1, 2001; and U.S. Air Force General Charles Holland commanded U.S. Special Operations Command from 2000-2003. 234
Command.717 NATO would assume command of the International Security Assistance Force in
2003, but since 2007 the senior U.S. military officer – then Army General Dan McNeill – has been dual-hatted as the top NATO commander in Afghanistan. The Army did not have a monopoly on the U.S. military’s contribution in Afghanistan, but from 2001-2008 it did maintain a controlling interest.
In September 2001, the prospect of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan – a remote, austere nation with a proud history of rebuffing invaders – comprised a daunting challenge. With no plans on the shelf for ground operations in Afghanistan, and little resident expertise on
Afghanistan within U.S. Central Command, General Tommy Franks and his staff solicited advice from outside experts. These experts included Afghan-American National Security Council staffer Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad, author Lester Grau and other scholars and historians of
Afghanistan, and even former Russian generals who had served there.718 An Army history of the
Afghanistan campaign noted that “CENTCOM’s historical analysis suggested that any large foreign element would inevitably face an armed and violent Afghan opposition unified across ethnic and political divisions.”719 A strategic preference for a light footprint during combat operations was among General Franks’ and Lieutenant General Mikolashek’s earliest adaptations to the Afghan situation – a key decision informed by cherry picking outside experts on Afghan history.720 Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld echoed General Franks, arguing that the light footprint approach and consequent partnership with indigenous Afghan forces was “the best way
717 U.S. Navy Admiral William Fallon took command of U.S. Central Command in March 2007, but he resigned in March 2008 and was replaced by an Army general. 718 Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 42. 719 Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 43. 720 Seth G. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009), 113. 235 to avoid the heavy-handed errors of Afghanistan’s past invaders and occupiers.”721 The approach produced initial military victory over the Taliban with stunning speed, and at low cost.
In February 2002, the Bush administration overruled the State Department’s preference for a nation-building approach, and instead adopted the light footprint strategy for post-combat operations in Afghanistan. This decision, discussed in greater detail in the State section of this chapter, was one of the most consequential decisions for the U.S. national security institutions conducting post-combat operations in Afghanistan. For State, the light footprint meant negotiating a rapid transition of power to an Afghan government; and soliciting other countries to contribute capacity to limit U.S. troop levels, cost, and risk. The former objective found success at the Bonn Conference in December 2001; the latter resulted in the less successful lead nation approach crafted in early 2002. For USAID, the light footprint presaged a short-term focus on humanitarian aid, followed by increasing demands for projects and decreasing freedom of action outside the embassy. For the Defense Department, the light footprint meant an economy of force mission that husbanded military capacity for future campaigns in the War on Terror; a global war within which Secretary Rumsfeld considered Afghanistan to be merely “the opening salvo.”722
For the Army, the light footprint meant modest objectives and limited resources for post- combat operations, predicated on the assumption of a swift withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Accordingly, the U.S. Central Command plan for this phase predicted 3-5 years of primarily humanitarian aid; this complemented the Bush administration’s aversion to using troops for nation-building.723 The light footprint strongly influenced the military’s allocation of troops, and the Army was no exception. To command conventional combat forces in Afghanistan, the Army
721 Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown (New York: Sentinel, 2011), 373. 722 Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown (New York: Sentinel, 2011), 367-368. 723 Tommy Franks, American Soldier (New York: Regan Books, 2004), 272. 236 had tapped the 10th Mountain Division to establish a forward headquarters in late 2001, but the division had so many troops allocated to other peacekeeping missions that its staff comprised only 167 personnel.724 The Army then tapped the elite XVIII Airborne Corps to provide a larger headquarters and higher-ranking general in early 2002, but constrained its commander to bringing only half of his headquarters; the Army Vice Chief of Staff warning “Don’t you do anything that looks like permanence. We are in and out of there in a hurry.”725
With this guidance in mind, the Army adapted to the Afghanistan post-combat mission incrementally, leveraging existing capabilities, selecting key practitioners, acceding to the need for additional resources, and eventually creating organizations dedicated to core challenges - including post-combat reconstruction and training a new Afghan military. The evolution of the
Provincial Reconstruction Teams illustrates this process. In late 2001, Army civil affairs teams moved into Afghanistan and began distributing humanitarian aid in the form of food and blankets, but they lacked vehicles and funds. The civil affairs battalion’s 6-person teams were scattered across Afghanistan as Coalition Humanitarian Liaison Cells (CHLCs). Short on resources, they sometimes paired with Special Forces teams for protection; the battalion’s house in Kabul was rented by the British equivalent of USAID.726 The Army’s standard procedure for civil affairs was to create Civil-Military Operations Centers (CMOCs) to coordinate aid, but these sometimes caused friction with civilian NGOs and aid agencies resentful of national
724 This to supervise military operations across a country the size of Texas. Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 190. 725 This informal force cap was both unquestioned and undocumented. Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 190. 726 Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 190. 237 interests influencing foreign aid. 727 The intrepid 96th Civil Affairs Battalion instead adapted by adopting the less-offensive CHLC moniker, and became the face of the U.S. military’s early post-combat efforts.
To lead the Army’s civil affairs and reconstruction efforts, U.S. Central Command created a new civil-military headquarters in Afghanistan; Lieutenant General Mikolashek personally selected Brigadier General David Kratzer – a trusted reservist logistician with no prior civil affairs experience – to command the effort.728 As an accidental cherry, Kratzer revolted almost immediately. Recognizing the need for decentralized authority to approve reconstruction projects and disburse funds, Kratzer pressed his case fervently: “I was on the border of…being insubordinate and at one point sent a message saying either give me the money or send me home.”729 By spring of 2002 it was clear that U.S. forces would be in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future, and that additional resources would be required. By the time Kratzer returned to the States in April 2002, the Coalition had approved flexible and decentralized procedures for the civil affairs teams.730 In the fall of 2002, there were ten of these 6-person cells, and they
727 See: Charles Briscoe et al, Weapon of Choice: U.S. Army Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Comat Studies Institute Press, 2003), 183-184. Also: Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 193-194. 728 Army Lieutenant General Mikolashek, the U.S. Central Command Land Component Commander, personally selected Brigadier General Kratzer, reflecting “a strongly held view within CENTCOM” that the new task force required a general officer. Informed that he was being restored to active-duty status to command the Combined Joint Civil-Military Operations Task Force (CJCMOTF), BG Kratzer replied “Great, what is that?” The CJCMOTF itself was an ad hoc deviation from prior civil-military operations. Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 190. 729 BG Kratzer quoted in: Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 196. 730 Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 195-196. 238 were expanding to comprise Joint Regional Teams, which by the winter of 2002 had evolved into the first interagency Provincial Reconstruction Team.731
The Provincial Reconstruction Team – armed with streamlined funding procedures – proved to be one of the most significant Army-led adaptations during post-combat Afghanistan.
It created a capability for decentralized, quick-impact aid projects that many NGOs and aid agencies lacked. It also united expertise from the Afghan central government, State, USAID, and the Department of Agriculture with military elements most suited to post-combat work – including Army civil affairs teams. These Provincial Reconstruction teams became the centerpiece of Coalition post-combat operations; they provided a non-kinetic outreach for
Coalition forces – and the Afghan central government – to Afghanistan’s 40,000 rural villages.
By mid-2005, there were 13 U.S.-led Provincial Reconstruction Teams, and 9 led by the
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), with access to multiple sources of funding.732
The bottom-up reconstruction approach embodied in the Provincial Reconstruction
Teams was a critical and effective adaptation from 2002-2008, but it also drew criticism. State critics lamented the embassy’s imperfect control over decentralized teams armed with flexible funding sources.733 USAID critics noted that many projects violated the principles of development; and that perhaps a third of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams ignored the advice
731 Karzai disliked the term “Regional” and feared it would denigrate the authority of the central government and encourage cooption by regional warlords. Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 193-194. See also: Robert Perito, “The U.S. Experience with Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan: Lessons Identified,” U.S. Institute of Peace, Special Report 152, October 2005, 2. 732 Each team adopted its own personality; those run by allies reflected their national priorities for Afghan reconstruction. The U.S. teams consistently operated in the most dangerous regions. Robert Perito, “The U.S. Experience with Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan: Lessons Identified,” U.S. Institute of Peace, Special Report 152, October 2005, 3. 733 A Provincial Reconstruction Team Executive Steering Committee worked to consolidate the teams’ disparate efforts, but with little success. Barbara Stapleton, “Military and Civilian Assistance in Afghanistan: An Incoherent Approach,” in State Strengthening in Afghanistan: Lessons Learned, 2001-14 ed. Scott Smith and Colin Cookman (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 2016), 26-27. 239 of their USAID representative.734 NGOs also criticized the teams as flawed hybrids of military and foreign aid missions best kept separate. By 2010, President Karzai viewed these teams as parallel structures competing with the central government; by the end of 2014 they had been disbanded.735
These critiques, though valid, do not outweigh the overall benefits of the Provincial
Reconstruction Teams. History is still in search of a perfect instrument for post-combat reconstruction, and subsequent empirical research has validated the importance of decentralized bottom-up foreign aid during emergencies and in chaotic environments.736 As Ronald Neumann, the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005-2007, noted, “the PRT was a partial solution. It had all kinds of problems, but it’s difficult to see what we could have done without the PRT.”737
The Army’s mission to train the Afghan National Army followed a similar adaptive pathway – from leveraging existing capabilities, selecting trusted practitioners, approving urgent requests for additional resources, and creating new organizations for the crisis at hand. During the diplomatic negotiations for the lead nation approach in early 2002, the U.S. had volunteered to take the lead on building the Afghan National Army. This herculean task fell primarily on the
U.S. Army as the leading force provider; but the Army had limited existing capacity for training foreign militaries.
The Army began by leveraging its existing capabilities. In Afghanistan, Brigadier
General Kratzer mitigated Afghan aspirations for an unsustainable 200,000-man army and a
734 Andrew Natsios, interview with the author, July 27, 2020. Also: Robert Perito, “The U.S. Experience with Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan: Lessons Identified,” U.S. Institute of Peace, Special Report 152, October 2005, 11. 735 Jamie Lynn de Coster, “Building and Undermining Legitimacy,” in Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan, ed. Aaron B. O’Connell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 172. 736 Dan Honig, Navigation By Judgment: Why and When Top-Down Management of Foreign Aid Doesn’t Work (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). 737 Ronald E. Neumann, Oral History, 168. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 240 defense ministry based on the outdated Soviet model. 738 From U.S. Central Command in
Tampa, General Franks “push[ed] aside or ignor[ed] a number of bureaucratic obstacles to ensure that American troops became involved in the training effort early.”739 Lieutenant General
McNeill, the senior Army general in Afghanistan, consolidated control over special operations soldiers training Afghan army trainees, and “gave greater emphasis to the overall [Afghan
National Army] program by taking formal control of the Office of Military Cooperation-
Afghanistan (OMC-A) from the U.S. Embassy.”740 These initial efforts represented low-hanging fruit (Proposition 1); they cost the Army little, and made use of existing capabilities and relationships.
The Army’s efforts to train the Afghan National Army accelerated in the fall of 2002 when Major General Karl Eikenberry, an officer with considerable experience serving in Asia, took over the Office of Military Cooperation-Afghanistan. Stunned by the scope of his mandate, the scarce resources assigned (about 15 people at the embassy and a Special Forces battalion), and the deplorable condition of the Kabul Military Training Center (terrible food and sanitation, and no heat in the barracks), Eikenberry pressed hard for change.741 He designed a strategy, convinced Lieutenant General McNeill to transfer more personnel, and lobbied Coalition militaries to provide training assistance in the fall and winter of 2002.742 Cherry-picked to train
738 Interim President Hamid Karzai approved a new Afghan National Army of 70,000 troops in December 2002. Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 201. 739 Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 201. 740 Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 211. 741 Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 231-232. 742 Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 231-232. 241 the Afghan army, Eikenberry had revolted almost immediately, and made a compelling case for additional resources to address the crisis.
In spring 2003, most of an Army brigade from the 10th Mountain Division deployed to
Afghanistan, and General Eikenberry was able to create a new organization dedicated to the
Afghan National Army training mission. Armed with additional resources, Eikenberry’s office created Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix, a new task force structured to provide mobile and embedded teams of soldier-trainers.743 Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix and its mobile training teams proved their value against seemingly impossible odds – the Afghan National
Army faced problems with low pay, high desertion rates, abysmal training facilities, and conflicting loyalties to old warlords. Despite this, the new Afghan army gradually improved into a more capable institution. By 2004, the Afghan National Army was broadly representative of
Afghanistan’s ethnic makeup, the desertion rate had dropped to 1.3 percent per month, and its operational units were performing on the battlefield.744
Few would argue that the Afghan National Army matured into an effective institution overnight, but the Afghan army compared favorably to the Afghan National Police. While the
Afghan army benefited from wide-ranging adaptation by the U.S. Army, the Afghan police training effort suffered from disparate donors and debilitating turf battles between State and
Army. By 2008, the United States had invested over $10 billion in the Afghan National Army, and roughly 38 percent of Afghan army units were assessed as “capable” or “fully capable” of
743 Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 232-233. 744 Part of the early desertion problem was due to the lack of a modern banking system; many Afghan soldiers departed their units without permission to hand-carry salaries to their families. Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 262-268. 242 performing their mission.745 In contrast, by 2008 the Afghan National Police had received $6 billion but far less institution-building or oversight; not a single police unit was assessed as
“fully capable,” fewer than one-quarter of police units had trainer/mentors; and the service continued to struggle with pay problems, endemic corruption, and insurgent attacks.746 The
Afghan National Police training effort is discussed in greater detail in the State section of this chapter.
Much of this post-combat institution-building occurred against the backdrop of increasing violence in Afghanistan – an inconvenient and uncomfortable truth for Americans serving there.
By mid-2003, U.S. and Coalition forces were deliberately shifting from combat to post-combat operations. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld announced the policy change in Kabul on 1 May
2003, stating “we clearly have moved from major combat activity to a period of stability and stabilization and reconstruction activities”; weeks later the warfighting commander devolved in rank from an Army 3-star to an Army 2-star, as Lieutenant General McNeill departed
Afghanistan and Major General Vines assumed the senior military command position.747 In
October 2003, Lieutenant General Barno arrived in Afghanistan to serve in a political-military liaison role, commanding a small new headquarters called Combined Forces Command-
Afghanistan. His boss, the commander of U.S. Central Command, Army General John Abizaid, advised Barno that his role was “big POL and little MIL,” reinforcing the undocumented but
745 Government Accountability Office, “Afghanistan Security,” GAO-08-661, June 2008, 3-4. 746 In 2006, the entire Afghan Highway Police force was disbanded; widespread corruption was a critical factor. Andrew Wilder, “Cops or Robbers? The Struggle to Reform the Afghan National Police,” Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, July 2007, 13. See also: Government Accountability Office, “Afghanistan Security,” GAO-08- 661, June 2008, 3-4. 747 Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 237. 243 universal belief that Afghanistan was an economy of force mission, and Iraq the military’s main effort.748
Lieutenant General Barno soon discovered that his role would be “big POL and big
MIL,” as the supposedly secure Afghanistan concealed simmering conflicts – between coalition forces and foreign terrorists, growing insurgencies by Taliban and Hizb-i-Islami Gulbuddin
(HIG) factions, and hostilities between regional leaders, warlords, and the central government. 749
Barno adapted by pivoting the U.S. mission in Afghanistan toward a strategy of population- centric counterinsurgency. Since the U.S. Army then lacked suitable doctrine, Barno relied on his notes from a West Point class on the Revolutionary War, books by John Nagl and Louis
Sorley, and advice from British officers.750 Barno limited the military’s kinetic role to 20-percent of the overall effort and increased the non-military or non-kinetic share of the counterinsurgency mission to 80-percent, while encouraging units to “do no harm” and reducing friction points with the Afghan population.751 Barno kept an office in the U.S. embassy in Kabul, two doors down from Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, which increased interagency unity of effort through daily meetings and personal interactions.752 The cooperative relationship between Barno and
Khalilzad echoed that of Thurman and Bushnell/Hinton over a decade before.753
748 Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 244. 749 Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 244. 750 The British had recent experience with population-centric counterinsurgency – from operations in Northern Ireland. David Barno, “Fighting ‘The Other War’: Counterinsurgency Strategy in Afghanistan, 2003-2005” Military Review, September-October 2007, 34; see endnote 12. 751 David Barno, “Fighting ‘The Other War’: Counterinsurgency Strategy in Afghanistan, 2003-2005” Military Review, September-October 2007, 38-43. 752 Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 242-243. 753 In his memoir, Ambassador Khalilzad said of Lieutenant General Barno, “I could not have asked for a more capable and impressive military partner…We hit it off immediately.” Zalmay Khalilzad, The Envoy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016), 186-187. 244
Lieutenant General Barno’s pivot toward population-centric counterinsurgency was a bold and necessary adaptation and a major inflection point for the Afghanistan campaign. Barno placed combat units along insurgent lines-of-communication to sanctuaries in Pakistan, enacted the principle of area ownership that distributed units away from large operating bases, and requested troop surges to protect key events like the 2004 Afghan national elections. In the absence of existing counterinsurgency doctrine or training, Army commanders purchased classic books on counterinsurgency for their officers, increased their reliance on the Provincial
Reconstruction Teams, and forged relationships with local leaders within their areas of responsibility.754 In short, Lieutenant General Barno pivoted toward counterinsurgency at a time when Pakistan-based insurgent groups were gaining support and momentum. In the military dimension, his judgment and timing were impeccable.
At the political level, Lieutenant General Barno’s shift in strategy came at an inopportune time. Trust between Secretary Rumsfeld and the Army as an institution had degraded in the wake of battles over Army acquisitions and proper troop levels for Iraq.755 Lieutenant General
Barno’s views on the Afghan insurgency also contradicted Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s position of just six months prior. Moreover, a worsening security situation in Iraq brought competition for resources, and Afghanistan’s role as the economy-of-force mission meant the lion’s share of Army and other military assets were allocated elsewhere. State and USAID also struggled to fill their allocated positions at the embassy and in Provincial Reconstruction Teams.
754 In some areas, a single 800-person battalion was responsible for “entire provinces that were the size of small New England states.” Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 244-247, 254. 755 This includes the Army’s effort to retain funding for the Crusader artillery system, as well as the public disagreement between the Secretary of Defense and the Army Chief of Staff on the subject of troop levels for Iraq. See Chapter 1 of this dissertation. See also: Dov Zakheim, A Vulcan’s Tale: How the Bush Administration Mismanaged the Reconstruction of Afghanistan (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2011), 83. 245
Lieutenant General Barno did what he could to fill the gaps, leveraging reservists to fill vacancies in the field, loaning planners to undermanned State and USAID offices at the embassy, and incrementally growing his headquarters from 2003-2005.756 Despite a brilliant record of adaptive leadership and interagency cooperation in Afghanistan, Lieutenant General Barno retired in the spring of 2006 without receiving a fourth star. His transition to a strategy of population-centric counterinsurgency reflected a hand-selected practitioner making the most of limited resources, and seeking more resources for a growing crisis. In December 2006, the Army and Marine Corps belatedly planted the orchard; institutionalizing lessons from Afghanistan and
Iraq in a jointly-published counterinsurgency doctrine.
From 2001-2008, the Army adapted in numerous ways to the situation in Afghanistan. It utilized existing organizational capabilities, such as tasking Special Forces and civil affairs units to perform their core tasks of training a foreign military and conducting civil-military affairs. As
Iraq assumed precedence for a limited pool of active-duty soldiers, the Army addressed gaps in
Afghanistan with contractors, reservists, and troops loaned by Coalition partners. The Army also occasionally picked cherries, selecting its best and most capable units and leaders – for example the XVIII Airborne Corps headquarters or Lieutenant General Barno – and relied on them to make the most of limited available resources. These operated under noteworthy constraints, such as deploying with a fraction of the Corps headquarters to conserve capacity for other contingencies. Identifying a clear revolt of the cherries is a challenging task for any analysis of the Army, particularly during Afghanistan from 2001-2008, in part because Army leaders in
Afghanistan dutifully acknowledged theirs to be an economy-of-force mission.
756 Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 243-260. 246
Nevertheless, some Army leaders in Afghanistan did revolt – quietly, professionally, and in keeping with their service’s organizational culture of the Nation’s obedient handyman.
Brigadier General Kratzer flirted with insubordination by demanding flexibility in funding reconstruction and quick impact projects. In the end, he received the additional resources and authorities that made the Provincial Reconstruction Teams a key innovation. Major General
Eikenberry – later promoted to Lieutenant General and eventually appointed U.S. Ambassador to
Afghanistan – pressed for the additional resources necessary to train and equip the Afghan
National Army. The resulting Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix and mobile training teams accelerated the institution-building process for a critical organ of state, and outpaced other post- combat institution-building efforts. Lieutenant General Barno identified multiple insurgent threats and pivoted Coalition forces to a population-centric counterinsurgency strategy that he and his advisors created from scratch.
The Army also adapted by planting the orchard. Where specific capabilities were required but not available, the Army and sister services created organizations to provide capacity.
With Army civil affairs teams achieving success in the field and civilian agencies lacking adequate security or operational reach, the Provincial Reconstruction Team was born. Lacking enough Special Forces troops to train the entire Afghan National Army, General Eikenberry created Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix, and established its mobile training teams from a core of Army troop formations. Afghanistan and Iraq also prompted the Army to update its doctrine; the service published a field manual on stability operations and support operations in early 2003, and another on counterinsurgency in late 2006.757 The Army also adapted major field
757 In 2006, the Joint Staff also published an updated Joint Publication 5-0, Joint Operation Planning, that expanded guidance to all U.S. military services on the transition to civil authority. 247 exercises at its large training centers to incorporate lessons-learned during post-combat and counterinsurgency operations.
Of the key Army-related adaptations examined in this chapter, none were imposed on
Army practitioners from outside-in pressure and only the light footprint was a top-down initiative mandated in part by General Franks and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. The other key adaptations were bottom-up initiatives by practitioners in Afghanistan. These include the
Provincial Reconstruction Teams, Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix, and the 2003-2005 pivot to population-centric counterinsurgency. Army senior leaders at U.S. Central Command and the
Pentagon were generally supportive of the commanders in Afghanistan, and held the practitioners responsible for overall results, consistent with a craft bureaucracy. It is also important to note none of the adaptations examined here was the exclusive province of the Army, either in conception, implementation, or in terms of impact on institutions or individuals.
248
STATE IN AFGHANISTAN: NOT MY OPERATION
This section examines how State adapted to the Afghanistan crisis using representative examples of cherry-picking (selecting Ambassador James Dobbins to broker a peace agreement); low-hanging fruit (State-INL’s police training effort); revolt of the cherries (Ambassador Ronald
Neumann’s expanded nation-building initiatives); and planting the orchard (creating the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization).758 State’s most successful adaptation was the one in which the Department enjoyed the greatest degree of flexibility: war termination – including the Bonn Conference that formally ended the conflict and endorsed an interim Afghan government. Subsequent adaptations examined here, such as the lead nation approach, the development of the Afghan National Police, and the pivot toward increased nation-building under Ambassador Neumann, faced greater bureaucratic constraints and produced more checkered results.
In 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell was struggling to bring institutional reforms to an unruly coping bureaucracy; he was also struggling to improve State’s strained relationship with the Bush administration in general, and Defense in particular.759 Reacting to the sudden challenge of war in Afghanistan, State turned to one of its favorite bureaucratic techniques: convincing an elder statesman to delay retirement and lead the U.S. diplomatic effort.
Ambassador James Dobbins, who on 9/11 had been preparing for retirement, was State’s
“handyman of choice for the increasingly busy craft of nation-building”; he had served as the
758 State-INL will be used throughout this chapter; the acronym refers to the State Department Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. 759 A series of media leaks were attributed to unidentified State diplomats or employees, weakening State’s bargaining position within the Bush administration. See: Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New York: Crown, 2011). For Powell as a secretary of state with a rare focus on institutional reform, see: James Dobbins, Oral History, 182. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 249 agency’s Washington-based “troubleshooter” for post-combat operations in Haiti (1994), Bosnia
(1995), and Kosovo (1999).760 In late October 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell asked
Dobbins to delay retirement and serve as the U.S. envoy to the Afghan opposition. Following the swift military defeat of the Taliban, Dobbins’ diplomatic assignment quickly shifted to creating a post-Taliban Afghanistan.761 Dobbins’ early priorities included wrangling an office and staff at State, gaining access to a military aircraft for travel, and receiving approval to engage with the United Nations and Afghanistan’s neighbors – including Iran.762
Dobbins quickly forged a shared understanding with United Nations representative
Lakhdar Brahimi, a longtime colleague who – like the Bush administration as a whole – was initially skeptical of including regional powers like Iran in the war termination negotiations.
When the United Nations convened a peace conference in December 2001 at the Petersberg in
Bonn, Germany, Russia and Iran were represented; and Dobbins instructed his own delegation to maintain a low profile. Dobbins’ diplomatic visits to Europe, Asia, and New York had revealed a twofold challenge: “to find Pashtun leaders who retained credibility in their community and who had not been contaminated by collaborating with the Taliban, and then to persuade the Northern
Alliance leadership to share power with those figures.”763 Personal relationships and trust proved key at every step. Fortunately, most regional powers found Hamid Karzai to be an acceptable choice for interim president of Afghanistan.
760 James F. Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2008), 12-13. 761 James F. Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2008), 16. 762 James F. Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2008), 23-24, 35- 36. 763 James F. Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2008), 20. 250
Once at Bonn, Dobbins enjoyed a remarkable degree of trust from his bureaucracy and the Bush administration – which provided the diplomat with flexibility and increased the likelihood of successful diplomatic negotiations:
For almost all the issues discussed in Bonn, I had no written instructions and a good deal of leeway. My job was to get an agreement and almost any agreement would do, so long as it resulted in an Afghan government that would replace the Taliban’s, unite the opposition, secure international support, co-operate in hunting down al Qaeda’s remnants, and relieve the United States of the need to occupy and run the country.764 With the United Nations ostensibly in the driver’s seat, Dobbins and his team were freed to operate behind the scenes, identifying roadblocks and quietly negotiating solutions.
Three crucial roadblocks emerged during negotiations. The first was a conflict between pro-Karzai elements and pro-monarchist elements; an issue that was resolved by Lakhdar
Brahimi with discreet American diplomatic support.765 The second roadblock was (former)
Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who had never resigned his title and now refused to approve nominations for the interim government.766 This issue was resolved when the Russian ambassador informed the Northern Alliance that if they did not accept the Bonn settlement,
Russia would suspend further aid to the group.767 The third roadblock occurred when a Northern
Alliance representative stonewalled the proposed division of cabinet ministries among the
Afghan factions; an objection the representative withdrew at the last minute after a hushed conversation with the Iranian delegate.
764 James F. Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2008), 85. 765 Brahimi privately informed the leading monarchist candidate that “his nomination could not succeed.” Zalmay Khalilzad also called deposed Afghan King Zahir Shah, who helped rein in the pro-monarchist element. James F. Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2008), 90-91. 766 Rabbani became president in 1992 and maintained his claim to the office throughout the civil war; a claim supported by the Northern Alliance. 767 Secretary of State Colin Powell made several calls to help resolve this issue, including one to Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov. Dobbins also applied pressure through diplomatic contacts and by holding a press conference. James F. Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2008), 93-94. 251
In the end, the Bonn Conference selected a broad and representative interim Afghan government, endowed that government with broad international legitimacy, established an international security and assistance force, and set the conditions for a future Afghan constitution. It was diplomatic adaptation and cherry picking at its finest; State had selected a uniquely qualified diplomat and armed him with as much flexibility as possible. James Dobbins capitalized on this flexibility to procure a staff, gain the use of Department of Defense aircraft, and ensure the ostensible leadership of the United Nations and the participation of regional powers for peace negotiations. This last investment proved decisive to the success of the conference, as representatives of the United Nations, Russia, and Iran resolved the three critical roadblocks to a negotiated settlement. State successfully applied its cherry-picking methodology to a number of other post-combat initiatives, including brokering the Loya Jirga assembly that crafted Afghanistan’s constitution.
State was less successful in leveraging existing offices or creating new ones in the early days of the Afghanistan case. Having selected James Dobbins as its peacemaker and promised flexibility and a staff, the bureaucracy delivered the former but struggled with the latter. State’s hiring process produced only a couple of the fifteen personnel promised to Dobbins; and State’s leadership subordinated his new office to the Bureau of South Asian Affairs, “the smallest, weakest, and least prestigious of the State Department’s regional subdivisions.”768 After the
Bonn Conference, the National Security Council sought to anoint State with overall responsibility for Afghan post-combat operations, but State had few resources and little authority.
Dobbins found himself at the bottom of a top-heavy bureaucracy, working from offices a half-
768 This was a sharp contrast from Dobbins’ work on the Kosovo case, where he worked with the European Bureau – the largest and most influential of State’s regional bureaus. James F. Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2008), 118-119. 252 mile from the State Department, without a direct line to the secretary of state, and utterly powerless to resolve the inevitable turf battles with Defense.769
Working within these constraints – and with less flexibility than at Bonn – State struggled to achieve an effective diplomatic agreement for burden-sharing in post-combat Afghanistan.
Diplomat James Dobbins – with noteworthy support from Defense comptroller Dov Zakheim – set the conditions for what became the lead nation approach at an international conference in
Tokyo in January 2002. With little Bush administration enthusiasm for nation-building in
Afghanistan, Dobbins’ mission at Tokyo was “to enlist donors’ help in reforming the Afghan army, police, courts, and prisons.”770 In theory, partner nations would take the lead for their respective sector; “In practice, this approach was a disaster.”771 For its part, State had adapted to
Bush administration constraints, and Dobbins delivered an agreement in principle among donor countries that furthered U.S. interests and Afghan reconstruction. The devil lay in the implementation: neither the United Nations nor the United States had much interest in taking charge, and absent a formal agreement with enforceable rules, neither the U.S. nor the UN had the ability to compel foreign governments to act. The U.S. pledged barely five percent of the overall reconstruction funds – far less in terms of percentage and dollars than the U.S. had committed to the post-combat Balkans.772
Many of State’s subsequent adaptations occurred in the wake of a key turf battle against the Defense Department. With friendly forces holding every major city in Afghanistan,
769 Defense also wanted to saddle State with responsibility for all nation-building efforts, including training the Afghan National Army. James F. Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2008), 138-139. 770 James Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2008), 122. 771 Seth G. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009), 240. 772 James Dobbins, Foreign Service: Five Decades on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy (Santa Monica: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), 255. 253
Secretary of State Colin Powell and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage proposed transitioning to post-combat operations using Panama as a nation-building model.773 State’s experienced post-combat practitioner, James Dobbins, proposed the Kosovo model; a nation- building effort based on multinational organizations. State thus favored a nation-building approach in Afghanistan: a surge of additional troops for security, establishment of a new and friendly form of government, and economic assistance for reconstruction and institution- building. This approach, which was also favored by Afghan leaders including Hamid Karzai, prominent Afghan warlords, and United Nations official Lakhdar Brahimi, would require peacekeeping forces to deploy to cities and villages beyond Kabul.774
General Franks, the Department of Defense, and some National Security Council staff members favored continuing the light footprint approach, and avoiding nation-building. Some considered Bosnia and Kosovo as anti-models, a strategic failure that created dependency rather than self-reliance, and produced costly “long-term wards of the international community.”775
The issue came to a head in a National Security Council meeting in February 2002.776 State lost, and the light footprint remained U.S. policy for the transition from war to peace. This decision reduced the perception of imperial conquest and mitigated the risk of insurgency, honored
President Bush’s campaign pledge not to use U.S. troops for nation-building, and limited the
773 Seth G. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009), 109. 774 James Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2008), 126-133. See also: Seth G. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009), 109-114. 775 Douglas Feith, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism (New York: HarperCollins: 2008), 101. 776 At issue was whether to expand the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) beyond Kabul, which would require more international peacekeepers, a more robust nation-building effort, and more funding. State’s Colin Powell and James Dobbins favored the expansion; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Council member Elliott Abrams were among those opposed. See: James Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation- Building in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2008), 129-133. 254 perceived dependency issues that characterized operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. The light footprint also conserved U.S. resources for future contingencies.
Unfortunately, the light footprint also meant continued reliance on anti-Taliban warlords, a delayed start to building institutions, and the loss of the golden hour.777 This decision proved a critical inflection point for post-combat operations in Afghanistan, particularly with respect to the loss of the golden hour – that formative early period in which dramatic social, political, and economic change is most feasible and least opposed. It was brief a window of opportunity that later surges in funding and personnel could not reproduce. Flush with early military success, actively hunting al Qaida on both sides of the Pakistani border, and with an eye toward a future campaign in Iraq, the light footprint appeared the pragmatic option.
Having secured its preferred strategy of a light footprint with limited aims, and extracted promises of post-combat cooperation from key allies, Defense officials blamed State when allied efforts fell short of expectations. A frustrated Douglas Feith summarized this viewpoint: “State
Department officials generally resisted suggestions to pressure Afghan aid donors publicly or privately…Our diplomats generally took the view that if another country failed to deliver on an important promise, the United States should simply serve as the default provider.”778 Yet State’s critics were silent on how American diplomats could compel sovereign governments, especially given the lukewarm commitment to Afghanistan on the part of both the United States and United
777 The empowerment and reliance on Afghan warlords negated many of USAID’s standard procedures for foreign aid. In Kosovo, the political objective seldom trumped economic best-practice; USAID screened every program for ethnic neutrality and to prevent warlords from profiting. These safeguards eroded in Afghanistan, where political need, lack of regional access, and the eventual appearance of vast foreign aid sums trumped procedural safeguards. Craig Buck, interview with the author, January 11, 2021. For a strategic perspective on the loss of the golden hour, see: Paul Miller, “Graveyard of Analogies: The Use and Abuse of History for the War in Afghanistan,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 39:3, 446-476. 778 Douglas Feith, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism (New York: HarperCollins: 2008), 155. 255
Nations.779 State’s moral suasion was further degraded by the internationally unpopular U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
While the Bonn Conference exemplified the advantages of State’s cherry-picking strategy, the lead nation approach showcased its limitations. Operating with numerous constraints, little flexibility, and no leverage, the veteran diplomat who had delivered success at
Bonn failed to produce a comparable miracle weeks later at Tokyo. However, on the whole,
State’s cherry-picking produced outsized return from limited investment. From its most experienced nation-builder (James Dobbins); to a polyglot with experience in Central Asia
(Robert Finn); to Ronald Neumann; and the former ambassador to Colombia (William Braucher
Wood), State’s career diplomats each brough unique and relevant qualifications as ambassadors.780
The Afghan National Police exemplified the shortcomings of the lead nation approach, and forced State to adapt to yet another unwelcome mission. Germany had volunteered as lead nation for training the Afghan police, but dispatched only a modest contingent of trainers to administer a detailed program using a European model. The German effort produced graduates so slowly that it would have required decades to train the entire Afghan police force.781 By 2003, with the Afghan security situation beginning to worsen, the United States increased its involvement in training and equipping the Afghan National Police. With no U.S. bureaucracy
779 Dobbins recounted another turf battle that erupted when Defense attempted to make State the lead agency for creating the Afghan National Army, following a model used in Bosnia. State won this battle after “several weeks of interagency wrangling” and Defense received the mission to train the Afghan National Army – a mission executed primarily by the U.S. Army. James Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2008), 137. 780 Zalmay Khalilzad served as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2004-2005, but was a political appointee. 781 Pashtoon Atif, “The Impact of Culture on Policing in Afghanistan,” in Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan, ed. Aaron B. O’Connell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 141. 256 designed or equipped to train foreign police forces, the responsibility for this mission fell to
State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (State-INL).
For State, the INL bureau represented low-hanging fruit; it was an existing office that had statutory responsibility for U.S. training of foreign police forces. State-INL was a small bureau with planning and management experience but little capacity; the office adapted by contracting
DynCorp to provide hundreds of trainers for Afghan police officers. This was State-INL’s standard procedure; it had followed a similar model in Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo.782 This approach produced mixed results in Afghanistan. One Afghan policeman wryly observed that while the ambitious Europeans moved too slowly and dedicated too few resources, “The
Americans, on the other hand, poured resources into hastily conceived training programs and rushed to failure.”783 State-INL’s approach to the Afghan National Police paralleled ICITAP’s experience in Panama – the approach improved metrics and responded to the urgent need for capacity, as the number of supposedly trained Afghan police steadily ticked upward. However, it did little to build an institution that remained burdened with corruption, low pay and employee literacy, and weak recruiting and vetting procedures. As an Afghan police chief observed, it was merely “putting uniforms on thieves.”784
It also triggered a major turf battle with military practitioners in Afghanistan – which one senior U.S. official labeled “the most frustrating, bureaucratic, counterproductive interagency battle I’ve ever known.”785 State-INL fought to keep police assistance civilian-led, and resisted
782 During the 1990s, State-INL had supervised Justice Department contractors, as in the Panama case. This gradually shifted to State-INL managing police contractor/trainers directly. James Dobbins et al, The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building (Santa Monica: RAND, 2007), 64. 783 Pashtoon Atif, “The Impact of Culture on Policing in Afghanistan,” in Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan, ed. Aaron B. O’Connell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 151. 784 Andrew Wilder, “Cops or Robbers? The Struggle to Reform the Afghan National Police,” Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, July 2007, xi. 785 Vance Serchuk, “Cop Out: Why Afghanistan Has No Police”, The Weekly Standard, July 17 2006. 257 militarization of the Afghan police force; while Army, Defense Department, and Afghan leaders argued that Afghanistan was a country at war, and its police required some military capabilities.786 The turf battle raged in Washington and Kabul; senior State-INL officials periodically “were not allowed without an escort onto Camp Eggers in Kabul, the headquarters of U.S. police training efforts.”787 Afghan police consistently lagged the Afghan National Army in training, competence, and equipment – and became the preferred targets for insurgents. By
2004, the situation with the Afghan police was so bad that the senior Army general in
Afghanistan, Lieutenant General Barno, requested to bring the police training program under military control.788 The secretaries of State and Defense agreed, effectively reversing the decades-long Congressional prohibition in the name of military necessity; even then, State-INL’s assistant secretary stonewalled the shift until after his departure in spring 2005.789
The turf battle over the U.S. role in training Afghan police took over a year to resolve, and the debate over the militarization of Afghan police continued for many years thereafter. It would take until 2006 for the Army to design and implement “a program for the police similar to the one they had put in place for the Afghan National Army.”790 That year the growing disparity in the performance of Afghan police and army units was illustrated when riots in Kabul broke out
786 Andrew Wilder, “Cops or Robbers? The Struggle to Reform the Afghan National Police,” Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, July 2007, 47. 787 Seth G. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009), 167. 788 By then, Afghan interior minister Ali Jalali was openly lobbying the Coalition for a more concerted effort to develop the Afghan National Police, ideally based on the Kosovo model. Seth G. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009), 168. 789 Seth G. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009), 168. 790 The Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan responsible for this was joint and multinational organization, but was commanded by Army Major General Robert Durbin, who then reported to Army Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry. Seth G. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009), 168-169. 258 on May 29.791 Nor was this transition the final word; the challenge of institution building amid an insurgency frustrated the Army’s efforts as it had those of State. By 2009, the Afghan
National Police was still the “weak link” in the security chain, plagued by a 20 percent annual attrition rate, endemic corruption, poor leadership, chronic drug abuse, and more combat casualties than Coalition Forces and the Afghan National Army combined.792
State’s approach to the Afghan National Police reflected the lowest level of organizational adaptation: that of low-hanging fruit. The agency tasked an existing office, which in turn relied on existing standard procedures to address the police training problem. State-INL contracted DynCorp to provide capacity in a high-risk environment, as it had in previous post- combat missions. Challenged by disappointing results and mounting insurgency, the bureaucracy zealously protected its turf. Although this produced more conflict than collaboration, State-INL eventually brokered other critical and far-reaching police adaptations, including: payroll and rank/promotion reforms (2005), a merit-based selection process (2005), disbanding the corrupt
Afghan highway police (2006), and disbanding the problematic Afghan National Auxiliary
Police force (2008).793
State’s most notable revolt of the cherries occurred under Ambassador Ronald E.
Neumann, who had previously served as U.S. Ambassador to Algeria and Bahrain. He had also
791 A U.S. Army truck collided with civilian vehicles, and nervous gunners fired into a hostile crowd, prompting rioting across Kabul. In many areas, the Afghan police performance was “poor,” while the Afghan army’s performance was a “bright spot.” Ronald E. Neumann, The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2009), 76-79. 792 Robert Perito, “Afghanistan’s Police: The Weak Link in Security Sector Reform,” U.S. Institute of Peace, Special Report 227, August 2009, 8-9. For an assessment of Afghan police casualties, see: Andrew Wilder, “Cops or Robbers? The Struggle to Reform the Afghan National Police,” Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, July 2007, 45. 793 Endemic corruption within the Afghan Ministry of the Interior proved a cancerous influence on the Afghan National Police; lack of political will to reform made corruption a longstanding challenge for both Afghan bureaucracies. Andrew Wilder, “Cops or Robbers? The Struggle to Reform the Afghan National Police,” Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, July 2007, ix-x, 29-42, 52-54. See also: Ronald E. Neumann, The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2009), 124. 259 served in Yemen, Iraq, and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State of Near Eastern Affairs, positions that provided him a wide range of relevant diplomatic expertise. Neumann arrived in
Afghanistan in mid-2005, where he found a worsening security situation, looming elections, an
Afghan National Development Strategy that was still being formulated, and an Afghan central government with surprisingly little reach beyond Kabul.
Neumann revolted almost immediately, submitting a supplemental budget request totaling
$600 million to fund infrastructure, agriculture, and Provincial Reconstruction Team projects.794
Neumann noted that the stunning size of the supplemental budget request meant he “was playing in the major leagues for the first time”; nothing in his broad experience at State prepared him for the upcoming funding battle.795 The request touched off months of infighting between the Kabul embassy and the Office of Management and Budget, charged with balancing available resources between Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, domestic priorities, and competing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Ambassador Neumann also consistently refused Washington’s top-down attempts to
“micromanage field operations or chase strategic diversions.”796
The State Department did not join its rebellious ambassador at the barricades; neither did the bureaucracy deliver a whiff of grapeshot. State trimmed the supplemental request to under
$400 million and imposed its own information requests and bureaucratic hurdles upon the beleaguered embassy staff.797 With little experience with – or patience for – seemingly endless demands from the State Department and the Office of Management and Budget for metrics
794 Ronald E. Neumann, The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2009), 40- 41. 795 Ronald E. Neumann, The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2009), 41. 796 Ronald E. Neumann, The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2009), 146. 797 Neumann’s infrastructure-centered proposal received support from Army Lieutenant General Eikenberry and USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios. Secretary of State Rice told Ambassador Neumann that was “as high a figure as she could push through.” Ronald E. Neumann, The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2009), 41, 47. 260 corroborating his requirements, Ambassador Neumann secured only $43 million of his original
$600 million request.798 Neumann adapted by reprogramming funds appropriated for
Afghanistan; an effort that addressed some priorities but sacrificed State and USAID flexibility for the rest of fiscal year 2006.799 The rebellious ambassador achieved greater success staffing his 2007 budget request, which received accolades for thoroughness and advocacy from
Secretary Rice.800
In the end, Neumann’s revolt achieved little in Washington – inspiring few changes at
State – and produced only mixed results in Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, the surge in infrastructure-centric investments prioritized roads and electrical power generation, costly macro-level investments that were easily disrupted by insurgents and difficult for the Afghan government to maintain.801 Institution-building dollars went to creating an Afghan National
Auxiliary Police – a paramilitary community policing force with greater ties to local warlords than the Afghan government – that was disbanded by 2008.802 The State bureaucracy ultimately backed Neumann’s efforts, which may have increased attention on Afghanistan and slowed the
798 Ronald E. Neumann, The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2009), 49- 50. 799 Ronald E. Neumann, Oral History, 166. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 800 Ronald E. Neumann, The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2009), 128, 145-146. 801 The Kajaki hydroelectric dam, deep in Taliban territory, is a notable example. Neumann pressed for an additional turbine in 2006, but Taliban interference delayed the turbine’s arrival at Kajaki until 2008, and it was not operational until 2016. For a balanced account of this project from a State/USAID perspective, see: Susumu Ken Yamashita, Oral History, 65-66, 73. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 802 The program hoped to make local militias loyal to the central government, thereby improving security and slowing the spread of insurgency in southern Afghanistan. By 2007, the Afghan National Auxiliary Police had few remaining advocates. Ronald E. Neumann, The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2009), 128, 121-124. See also: Andrew Wilder, “Cops or Robbers? The Struggle to Reform the Afghan National Police,” Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, July 2007, 13-17. 261 growing insurgency; but they came at a cost. The Bush administration declined the rebellious ambassador’s offer to serve a third year in Afghanistan.803
State’s most noteworthy attempt to plant the orchard was the 2004 creation of the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS). An outside-in initiative urged by members of Congress to improve the effectiveness of ad hoc post-combat operations in
Afghanistan and Iraq, State caught at the opportunity but fumbled its implementation. Kori
Schake, State’s former Deputy Director for Policy Planning, provided an insightful explanation worth quoting at length:
Rather than build on USAID’s strong record in disaster relief, State established an Office of Stabilization and Reconstruction within State proper. USAID supporters…viewed this as yet another evisceration of an organization that had been starved of resources and authority by Congress and the State Department for over a decade…State never developed a persuasive plan for what the office would accomplish or the required resourcing…[the office] declined to contribute to the wars the country was fighting, preferring to set its sights on putative future crises…It became the symbol of State’s ineffectualness.804 Designed to emulate the military’s reservist model to increase civilian capacity for post-combat operations, the office was further hamstrung by State’s antiquated personnel system, which provided neither post-combat experts nor relevant training to the new office.
Secretary of State Colin Powell oversaw the inception of S/CRS in 2004, but departed
State before assuring the new office survived its infancy. A threat to regional bureau rice bowls at State and USAID, S/CRS struggled to gain permission to deploy to post-combat locations; proposed physical fitness requirements and survivability training for S/CRS diplomats drew threatened lawsuits from the Foreign Service Association.805 By 2007 the office had proposed a
803 Ronald E. Neumann, The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2009), 156- 157. 804 Kori N. Schake, State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2012), 66-67. 805 Larry Sampler, interview with the author, September 28, 2020. 262 framework for post-combat operations, but this framework could not be evaluated since “it has not been fully applied to any stabilization and reconstruction operation.”806 The office did not significantly contribute to post-combat operations in Afghanistan until 2009.807 In 2011, the office was redesignated as a weak functional bureau; its director, a career diplomat, had received no career training relevant to post-combat work other than language training.808
From 2001-2008, State leveraged its existing capacity, carefully selected its post-combat practitioners, and reacted favorably – if grudgingly – to their urgent demands for additional resources. But State struggled to make institutional changes, harness lessons-learned into long- term organizational learning, or update its training or standard procedures. After 2001, the Army and USAID produced post-combat field manuals, journal articles, or white papers to provide members and outsiders a baseline of key lessons – as well as institutional arguments for the inevitable turf battles. State rarely did so.809 When Secretary of State Rice belatedly revamped
State’s personnel policies to address the perennial shortage of volunteers for service in combat zones, State’s diplomatic corps resisted the change.810 State only belatedly expanded its career skills training program for mid- and senior-level diplomats, and the department did not emulate the highly successful Defense Department comptroller system until 2009.811 As Ambassador
806 Government Accountability Office, “Stabilization and Reconstruction: Actions are needed to develop a planning and coordination framework and establish the civilian reserve corps,” GAO-08-39, November 2007. 807 In 2009, S/CRS deployed over 65 staff and Civilian Response Corps members to Afghanistan. See: Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Applying Iraq’s Hard Lessons to the Reform of Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations (February 2010), 6-7. 808 State’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations was inaugurated on November 22, 2011. Kori N. Schake, State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2012), 38. 809 In 2003, State and USAID released a joint strategic document nesting their priorities under the Bush administration’s 2002 National Security Strategy, but even this joint document was tailored toward broad diplomatic and development goals rather than post-combat lessons-learned. See: U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development, “Strategic Plan: Fiscal Years 2004-2009,” August 2003. 810 See: Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New York: Crown, 2011). 811 Kori N. Schake, State of Disrepair: Fixing the Culture and Practices of the State Department (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2012), 11. 263
Neumann explained, “one of the problems is we don’t have a lot of capacity for hanging on to what we learn, so that we’re always relearning…too few of those lessons have really been implemented in a way that gives you confidence we’ll do better on other occasions.”812
812 Ronald E. Neumann, Oral History, 175. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 264
USAID IN AFGHANISTAN: STEALING THE RING
This section explores how USAID adapted to post-combat operations in Afghanistan from 2001-2008 using its existing capacity (Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and Office of
Transition Initiatives); cherry-picked mission directors (including James Kunder and Craig
Buck); revolt of the cherries (Patrick Fine’s expansion of the USAID mission); and planting the orchard (Administrator Andrew Natsios’ organizational changes). Because bureaucratic competition, external constraints, and turf battles played a greater role in Afghanistan than the previous cases examined here, this section also examines how USAID adapted to a high-priority
White House directive: the Ring Road highway construction project that linked Kabul and
Kandahar. Like the Point Salines airport in Grenada, this major infrastructure project forced
USAID beyond its standard development procedures. Unlike Grenada, the Ring Road project illustrated a broader trend endemic to the Afghanistan case: USAID accomplished the project on time and under budget – but triggered an escalatory turf battle with bureaucratic rivals seeking to steal the prestigious and high-dollar project.
In 2001, USAID was emerging from the bureaucratic wilderness and glimpsing a brighter future. The severe budget and personnel cuts of the 1990s had culminated in a near- death experience: a State Department-initiated merger proposal that USAID narrowly avoided.
By mid-2001, President George W. Bush was signaling his commitment to foreign aid and economic development as a vital policy instrument; and Andrew Natsios was confirmed as
Administrator. Natsios had previously served as the director of USAID’s Office of Foreign
Disaster Assistance, and also as an Army civil affairs reservist. A former student of James Q.
Wilson and bureaucracy theory, Natsios immediately began making institutional changes to
265
USAID. Perhaps more importantly, he rapidly developed a positive working relationship with
Secretary of State Colin Powell, and later Condoleezza Rice.
For USAID, Afghanistan in late 2001 was a perfect storm – and also an unprecedented opportunity. The country was large, pre-modern, on the verge of famine, and utterly devastated by years of drought and civil war. USAID adapted immediately. Following the 9/11 attacks and the swift liberation of Afghan cities and territory, USAID requested and (just days later) received
$125 million to avert the specter of mass starvation.813 Administrator Natsios ordered a seed program to provide high-yield, drought-resistant wheat seeds to Afghan farmers; alleviating the risk of starvation as Afghan cities swelled from returning refugees.814 This top-down adaptation produced more success than failure; a bumper crop of wheat deflated market prices, but food security was reestablished and no famine occurred in the wake of allied military victory. The agency also leveraged its low-hanging fruit, dispatching a Disaster Assistance Response Team
(DART) from the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) to coordinate humanitarian relief efforts. By August of 2002, USAID’s pre-existing offices and its new Afghanistan mission had supported over “4,000 small rehabilitation projects, including repairs to approximately 2,600 km of roads, 1,500 wells and irrigation systems, and more than 100 schools and hospitals.”815
In late 2001, the Office of Transition Initiatives initiated the first USAID stabilization and governance campaign in Afghanistan.816 Constraints including the light footprint, limited resources, and a flawed central government did little to dampen USAID practitioners’ early
813 Andrew Natsios, interview with the author, July 27, 2020. 814 Andrew Natsios, interview with the author, July 27, 2020. 815 U.S. Agency for International Development, “Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance 2002 Annual Report,” 65, accessed July 30, 2020, https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/pdaca303.pdf. 816 By the end of 2003, USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives spent $18 million on 435 projects, on par with the military Provincial Reconstruction Teams. William Hammink, “USAID in Afghanistan: Challenges and Successes,” U.S. Institute for Peace, December 2017, www.usip.org. See also: Government Accountability Office, Afghan Reconstruction: Deteriorating Security and Limited Resources Have Impeded Progress; Improvements in U.S. Strategy Needed, June 2004, 18. 266 optimism for governance and institution-building programs in fragmented Afghanistan. The first individual from the Office of Transition Initiatives to arrive in Kabul was Tom Stukel – who had served in post-combat Panama and Kosovo. Stukel admitted to colleagues a decade later “I drank the Kool-Aid like everyone else (i.e., let’s remake Afghanistan in our image).”817 By 2006 the office declared its stabilization mission a success despite evidence of a resurgent Taliban; acknowledging its error by 2008: “we then shifted focus back to stabilization and added counter insurgency to the USAID agenda.”818 Unlike the previous cases examined here – which featured a supportive host nation government – in Afghanistan, no amount of practitioner enthusiasm could overcome the absence of a committed and effective host nation partner.
As in previous cases, USAID made a determined effort to cherry-pick uniquely qualified leaders for the critical role of mission director in post-combat Afghanistan. USAID
Administrator Andrew Natsios hand-selected Jim Kunder, a trusted colleague and former Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance director, to serve as Acting Mission Director in Kabul for several months beginning in December 2001. There Kunder – a former United States marine – seamlessly collaborated with Army civil affairs officers, deconflicting early USAID and Army assessments and building trust.819 His selection placed one of USAID’s most experienced managers at the helm of what became one of the largest missions in the agency’s history. Natsios later wrote that when Kunder returned to Washington months later, “I named him the DAA
[Deputy Assistant Administrator] for the Asia Bureau in charge of Afghan reconstruction and co- chair of the Afghan Reconstruction Task Force.”820 This elevated an experienced manager with
817 Tom Stukel, e-mail dated September 23, 2012, forwarded to the author. 818 Tom Stukel, e-mail dated September 23, 2012, forwarded to the author. 819 Michael Warmack, interview with the author, October 13, 2020. 820 Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 58. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 267 recent first-hand Afghanistan expertise to a position to shape the interagency reconstruction effort.
USAID’s subsequent selection of Craig Buck as mission director in Afghanistan was an equally inspired choice. Buck was then serving as the mission director for Kosovo, having previously been dual-hatted as the mission director for both Bosnia and Kosovo; this made him
USAID’s resident expert on post-combat operations. He knew how to leverage the bureaucracy in the absence of clear guidance or doctrine. Buck also had a history of standing up new missions in dynamic environments, including post-Soviet states. Perhaps most importantly,
Buck’s work in post-combat Bosnia and Kosovo had proven popular with Senator Mitch
McConnell’s office (R-KY); and as a result, Buck enjoyed a positive working relationship with
Robin Cleveland.821 Cleveland, formerly a staffer in Senator McConnell’s office, had moved to the Office of Management and Budget, where she controlled USAID’s budget and oversaw
Afghanistan’s reconstruction. In selecting Buck for Afghanistan, USAID gained a potential ally for the turf and budget battles that lay ahead, and credibility with an influential Senator.822 Craig
Buck served as USAID’s mission director in Afghanistan from 2002-2003.
This mix of existing capabilities and uniquely qualified mission directors led to a wide array of adaptive programs in the early months of post-combat operations in Afghanistan. Most of these were bottom-up initiatives, and many produced outsized return-on-investment.
Innovative programs included use of food aid to incentivize teachers and students to return to
821 Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 61-62. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 822 From her position at the Office of Management and Budget, Robin Cleveland – once a staunch critic of USAID – became a de facto ally of Natsios and USAID in turf battles with Rumsfeld’s Pentagon over post-combat policy in Iraq and Afghanistan. See: Stuart Bowen, Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2009), 110. See also: Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 76, 85-86. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 268 school; the creation and distribution of new, culturally and religiously acceptable textbooks; the restoration of ancient canals, irrigation systems, and the Shomali Plain – the farms that fed
Kabul; and provision of local medical clinics, child immunizations, and a midwife training program.823 Craig Buck replicated some of his Balkan initiatives in Afghanistan, hiring technical advisors for the Afghan government and improving the central government’s revenue collection.824 USAID practitioners also implemented top-down or outside-in policy initiatives during this period, including the high-yield wheat program; the Kabul-to-Kandahar highway
(discussed below); provision of over 130 advisors to Afghan ministries; and funding for over 800 staff positions, notably a Finance Ministry staffed by professionals, along with a central bank and new currency.825
Despite these noteworthy initiatives, USAID practitioners in Afghanistan faced growing institutional constraints. With few U.S. troops and growing security concerns, State increasingly confined USAID career officers to the embassy grounds – soon nicknamed the prison. When
Craig Buck proposed expanding USAID’s autonomy with additional personnel, billeting, and a separate building to oversee his $2 billion mission, State overruled the suggestion.826 From
2002-2006, an additional group of economic advisors set up shop in the Kabul embassy; this
Afghan Reconstruction Group lacked development or Afghanistan experience, and triggered early turf battles with the USAID mission.827 Shifting policy mandates drained the USAID
823 For an overview of these and other 2002-2003 USAID initiatives, see: Government Accountability Office, Afghan Reconstruction: Deteriorating Security and Limited Resources Have Impeded Progress; Improvements in U.S. Strategy Needed, June 2004. 824 Andrew Natsios, interview with the author, July 27, 2020. 825 See: Government Accountability Office, Afghan Reconstruction: Deteriorating Security and Limited Resources Have Impeded Progress; Improvements in U.S. Strategy Needed, June 2004. 826 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 11, 2020. 827 The Afghan Reconstruction Group was a Defense-sponsored group of private sector experts sent to the embassy in Kabul as economic advisors. This pitted USAID’s often young development officers against titans of industry with no Afghanistan or foreign aid experience. Relationships and cooperation eventually improved, and the Afghan Reconstruction Group was dissolved in 2006. See: James Dobbins et al, After the War: Nation-Building from FDR 269 mission’s bandwidth and budget – the Pentagon insisted on building schools, the White House demanded highways, and State reprogrammed security funds. As USAID Administrator Andrew
Natsios poignantly summarized, “The interagency process from 2001 through today [2018] could never decide whether the reconstruction process was the principal objective, or defeating the
Taliban, or combatting the narcotics trade which was corrupting the country.”828
USAID’s small size and competing demands in Iraq also constrained the agency’s post- combat work in Afghanistan. By late 2003 it was clear that USAID was running out of cherries to pick. With Buck’s departure the small agency lost its most experienced post-combat practitioner and Iraq had become the Bush administration’s top priority. Mission director vacancies at smaller missions like Kosovo and Macedonia drew no career officer applicants. The agency adapted by finding new ways to pick cherries. In 2004, Natsios selected a talented young education development officer from the Africa bureau as mission director in Afghanistan, promoting him out of grade. Patrick Fine went on to serve with distinction as USAID’s mission director in Afghanistan from 2004 until departing the agency in 2005. Fine later lamented
USAID’s inability to compel its officers to extend key leaders beyond a year in a critical overseas post, an institutional weakness characteristic of both USAID and State.829 To address the need for experienced leadership at missions like Kosovo, Natsios adapted by hiring former
USAID officers as contractors. These contractors brought experience while not competing
to George W. Bush (Santa Monica: RAND, 2008), 101-102. See also: Patrick Fine, Oral History, 67-69. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 828 Because of the ever-shifting priorities, USAID granted its Afghan mission director a waiver for producing a development strategy in 2002, 2003, and 2004. Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 58. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 829 Patrick Fine, Oral History, 87-88. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 270 directly with career officers for career advancement, and they could be fired instantly if necessary, thus increasing USAID’s capacity while reducing the agency’s risk.830
USAID’s cherry picking ultimately resulted in many of the early bottom-up initiatives listed above. This is not surprising for a decentralized agency that has long relied on its forward- deployed officers to generate innovative solutions. Nor is it surprising that USAID’s executives proved responsive to the requests of its practitioners, limiting the institutional infighting that sometimes characterizes the revolt of the cherries. When Mission Director Patrick Fine applied substantial resources to create an independent media, radio programs, and education programs for Afghan women, he received praise rather than criticism from USAID leadership.831 When
Fine achieved Ambassador Khalilzad’s concurrence and pressed his agency more personnel,
USAID responded affirmatively, swelling the agency’s mission from approximately 35 to 135 personnel in less than a year.832 As the security situation in Afghanistan deteriorated and Fine’s career officers lost the ability to leave the embassy compound, USAID adapted by hiring more contractors – immune to the safety restrictions imposed on foreign service employees – to inspect major projects.833 In short, when USAID cherries revolted in Afghanistan, they found their entire agency joining them at the barricades.
USAID also planted the orchard during this period, in a number of key ways – most notably through internal structural changes. Administrator Andrew Natsios later recalled fourteen major institutional changes he made that were still in place in 2019 – several of which
830 Andrew Natsios, interview with the author, July 27, 2020. 831 The teacher training program aired on nation-wide radio once a week for two hours. Andrew Natsios, interview with the author, July 27, 2020. 832 Fine also requested – and received – dozens of military planners from General Barno’s staff; these officers were detailed to USAID and streamlined communication with military units and facilities across the country. Patrick Fine, Oral History, 65-66. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 833 Andrew Natsios, interview with the author, July 27, 2020. 271 increased the agency’s ability to conduct post-combat missions.834 These changes included consolidating the agency’s humanitarian, democracy, and disaster response capabilities into a single bureau; and expanding the role of the DART teams and the Office of Transition
Initiatives.835 Natsios also created the Office of Conflict Mitigation and Management, as well as a liaison office to formalize ties between USAID and the U.S. military.836 These changes increased USAID’s effectiveness and reputation in the post-combat environment.
USAID also strengthened its interagency bargaining position by taking a page from the
Army playbook: the aid agency codified its standard procedures in doctrine. USAID and State produced their first joint Strategic Plan in 2003, nesting their cooperative goals and policies within the 2002 National Security Strategy guidelines. USAID went a step further in January
2004 with a white paper that linked USAID’s best practices to the administration’s broader strategic vision, and proposed five core operational goals to implement policy and improve aid effectiveness.837 In 2005, the agency published a key article in a prominent Army journal, demystifying its principles of foreign aid for military practitioners. Published under Andrew
Natsios’s name, this article was actually a collaborative effort by USAID’s headquarters and practitioners, and became required reading for a generation of USAID officers.838 In 2009
834 Some of these changes predated the September 11th terror attacks. Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 87-88. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 835 Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 102. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 836 European aid agencies and NGOs criticized the military liaison office, but many foreign aid agencies have since duplicated this precedent. Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 102. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 837 This visionary document was well-received at the Office of Management and Budget, where it improved USAID’s hand in budget debates with Pentagon rivals. See: United States Agency for International Development, U.S. Foreign Aid: Meeting the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century (January 2004). See also: Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 76. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 838 The article borrowed the Army’s Nine Principles of War. See: Andrew Natsios, “The Nine Principles of Reconstruction and Development,” Parameters, Autumn, 2005. Also: Andrew Natsios, interview with the author, July 27, 2020. 272
USAID produced a detailed, superb guidebook for its practitioners operating in the post-combat environment.839 These documents standardized and demystified USAID’s standard procedures regarding foreign aid, and strengthened the agency’s position in policy debates.
In response to the unexpected post-combat crisis in Afghanistan, USAID adapted in a variety of ways. However, the above examples do little to illustrate the competitive interagency environment and turf battles that increasingly plagued the Afghanistan case from 2001-2008. To illuminate this shadowy but vital connective tissue between agencies and departments, this study examines a major project in Afghanistan through the lens of bureaucratic warfare: the Kabul-to-
Kandahar highway that USAID constructed from 2002-2003. This highway project became a noteworthy battle in a larger struggle between USAID and its Pentagon rivals – including the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In the competition for autonomy, resources, and relevance,
USAID lost the initial skirmish; won the battle; lost the campaign; and eventually won the war.
USAID lost the initial skirmish: it received a mission it did not want. Mission Director
Craig Buck supported the construction of small farm-to-market roads for economic growth, but was skeptical of the sustainability of major asphalt highways transiting hostile territory.840
Administrator Andrew Natsios was equally skeptical of embracing a task that had long since faded from his agency’s core mission, flatly telling Zalmay Khalilzad “USAID does not build roads.”841 USAID had once built roads – in fact, forty years prior, USAID had constructed a portion of the Ring Road for the Afghan monarchy. In 2002, State and Army officials supported
839 The agency’s subordinate bureaus produced internal policy guidelines for specific issues, but these were far from comprehensive. See: U.S. Agency for International Development, “A Guide to Economic Growth in Post-Conflict Countries,” accessed February 24, 2020, https://fragilestates.itcilo.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/USAID-A- Guide-To-Economic-Growth-In-Post-Conflict-Countries.pdf. 840 These smaller farm-to-market roads could be built from river rock using local labor, and required little maintenance. Craig Buck, Oral History, 86-87. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 841 Zalmay Khalilzad, The Envoy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016), 199. 273 a Kabul-to-Kandahar highway for the political, military, and psychological advantages; and so did Afghan interim president Hamid Karzai. Outnumbered and outgunned, USAID was overruled. In December 2002, the White House tasked USAID to construct the asphalt road – in only 13 months.842
Having lost the skirmish, USAID won the subsequent turf battle. The agency successfully pressed the White House for a massive funding increase, swelling rather than depleting its Afghan reconstruction coffers.843 Natsios soon learned that the defense secretary, a bureaucratic rival, had projected a minimum three-year construction timeline if the Pentagon executed the project with the Army Corps of Engineers, reinforcing the element of competition.844 USAID swung into action, selecting a prime contractor, establishing oversight mechanisms, and contracting with the Army Corps of Engineers to provide low-level technical oversight of the USAID project.845 In Washington, advocates of the Army Corps of Engineers launched an effort to steal the Ring, lobbying Congress to transfer control of the prestigious Ring
Road highway project from USAID to the Pentagon. In Kabul, USAID practitioners were initially mystified when an Army Corps of Engineers “hired gun” arrived to criticize technical contract issues – until someone circulated a circa-1964 memo that described how Army Corps of
Engineers advocates had previously stolen the Ring and completed the Cold War-era highway construction project that USAID had begun.846 Forty years later, USAID won the turf battle,
842 The timeline was politically significant, as it would ensure completion prior to the Afghan elections. Roughly 35 percent of the Afghan population lives near this highway, which today connects Afghanistan’s two largest cities. For the December 2002 tasking, see: Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 60. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 843 Retired senior USAID official, interview with author. 844 Andrew Natsios, interview with the author, July 27, 2020. 845 Andrew Natsios, “The Nine Principles of Reconstruction and Development,” Parameters, Autumn, 2005, 11-12, 18. Also: Andrew Natsios, interview with the author, July 27, 2020. 846 USAID practitioners initially did not understand why this “hired gun” was starting shouting matches with the prime contractor, given that Army Corps of Engineers members were already providing technical oversight of the contract. The criticism hinged on issues as technical as the grade [percent incline] of asphalt approaching bridges. 274 retaining control of the prestigious project and completing the Kabul-to-Kandahar section of the
Ring Road on time and on budget.
USAID had won the turf battle against its erstwhile Pentagon rivals, but it lost the larger campaign. Visiting Afghanistan in December 2003 for the Kabul-to-Kandahar highway ribbon- cutting – a moment of bureaucratic triumph – USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios received news that his agency had been cut out of the reconstruction of Iraq.847 The Army Corps of
Engineers would lead the reconstruction and economic aspects of post-combat operations in Iraq;
USAID would receive only the funds necessary to complete projects it had already begun.848
USAID, whose leadership attended National Security Council meetings on Afghan reconstruction once or twice a week, was barred from the Iraq reconstruction meetings until mid-
2004.849 This set the stage for bureaucratic clashes over Iraq reconstruction policy that pitted
USAID and its Administrator in an uphill battle against the Pentagon and its Secretary of
Defense. The Army Corps of Engineers, having won the campaign – and the larger prize of
Iraq’s reconstruction – stuck close to its core mission: large infrastructure construction projects.850 Exhausted from the constant bureaucratic warfare, Natsios resigned from USAID in early 2006.851
In light of the Cold War-era Ring Road project history, the 2003 effort to discredit the prime contractor (Louis Berger Group) – and USAID’s management of the contract – suddenly made sense. Discrediting USAID’s project management strengthened the case for shifting the contract to the Army Corps of Engineers. Retired senior USAID official, interview with author. 847 Retired senior USAID official, interview with author. 848 Retired senior USAID official, interview with author. See also: Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 79-82. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 849 Natsios had transferred 260 USAID planners to the Iraq planning as early as September 2002. Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 62. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 850 When James Q. Wilson wrote his seminal book Bureaucracy, he needed a bureaucracy that illustrated the many benefits of dogmatic fixation on its core mission. He chose the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its dedication to the infrastructure construction project. The Army Corps of Engineers specialized in projects, not programs, while USAID specialized in programs, not projects. See: James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (New York: Basic Books, 1989), 190. 851 Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 73. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 275
USAID won the Ring Road battle and lost the Iraq campaign – and lost even more autonomy with State’s 2006 consolidation of control over USAID’s budget – but by 2007 it was winning the war. That year the Pentagon declared a cease fire and publicly reversed course –
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and senior military officers openly advocated for increases to
USAID’s budget and workforce.852 In 2009, the inspector general overseeing Iraq’s reconstruction released a watershed report detailing what practitioners and policy makers already knew: that the Pentagon does not do economic development.853 By 2012, USAID was an honored as a coequal participant – along with bureaucratic titans State and Defense – in the 3D
[Diplomacy, Development, Defense] Planning Group, a collaborative body in Washington focused on improving interagency unity of effort in overseas operations.854 From 2014-2016, the agency’s leadership was invited to nearly 600 National Security Council meetings – and a subsequent attempt by the Trump administration to reduce the agency’s funding met bipartisan opposition in Congress.855 Post-combat adaptations helped a small agency – that spent much of its existence fighting for its life – increase its value and relevance to national security.
852 For example, see: Thom Shanker, “Defense Secretary Urges More Spending for U.S. Diplomacy,” New York Times, November 27, 2007, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/washington/27gates.html. See also: Robert Gates, Exercise of Power: American Failures, Successes, and a New Path Forward in the Post-Cold War World (New York: Knopf, 2020), 31-33. 853 The balanced report chronicled the many bureaucratic battles over Iraq’s reconstruction, including numerous cases of mismanagement. Many of USAID’s policy positions and objections to Pentagon guidance and Army Corps of Engineers implementation today seem prescient. Stuart Bowen, Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2009). 854 For an overview of this interagency group and its goals, see: 3D Planning Guide: Diplomacy, Development, Defense, accessed July 31, 2020, https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1866/3D%20Planning%20Guide_Update_FINAL%20%2831% 20Jul%2012%29.pdf. 855 “USAID: Agency Review Transition Binder 2016,” https://www.governmentattic.org/30docs/USAIDpresidentTransDocs_2016.pdf. 276
BUREAUCRACIES IN AFGHANISTAN: CONCLUSION
In the Afghanistan case from 2001-2008, the Army, State, and USAID again adapted in similar ways in response to the unexpected crisis. Of the cases examined here, Afghanistan posed the greatest challenge in terms of scale, security, and perceived risk of failure – with its attendant consequences. Institutions and practitioners serving in Afghanistan also had to compete for resources with the higher priority post-combat operation in Iraq. With more at stake, the period from 2001-2008 witnessed greater interagency competition and more significant turf battles than the previous cases. USAID’s Ring Road saga was one bureaucratic battle among dozens – in what became a broader war for autonomy, resources, and relevance. Yet, overall, these institutions adapted along the same lines. Each organization utilized its existing offices and capabilities (Proposition 1); each cherry-picked well-qualified practitioners or units for the crisis
(Proposition 2); each received institutional pressure from its field practitioners for increased resources or autonomy (Proposition 3); and each invested in institutional change to improve its post-combat capabilities (Proposition 4).
A major difference between the organizational adaptations during the Afghanistan case and the previous cases is that from 2001-2008, each institution planted their post-combat orchard
(Proposition 4). Although this category includes temporary organizations and inexpensive memos or doctrinal manuals, each department/agency also invested in lasting – and costly – institutional changes, with support from its executives, approval from the White House, and funding from Congress. These long-term adaptations were not immune from normal institutional pressures. State’s regional bureaus constrained the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization – at least until it became a minor functional bureau. USAID’s robust military liaison office and Office of Conflict Mitigation and Management generated outrage in the NGO
277 community and partner aid agencies. And the Army shifted its post-combat investment toward its core mission by investing in counterinsurgency rather than post-combat reconstruction and stabilization – the expanded active-duty civil affairs and psychological operations capacity after
2006 were small subsets of a growing special operations community focused on combat missions.856 Yet prior to 2001-2008, none of the earlier post-combat cases examined here produced a comparable degree of investment.
In Grenada, Panama, and Kosovo, bureaucratic practitioners enjoyed a virtuous cycle, as each institution strove to solve the others’ impossible problems. Although there were noteworthy examples of this in Afghanistan – such as General Barno lending Army planners to undermanned
State and USAID embassy offices – the overall trend reversed. National security institutions constrained rather than empowered one another. The light footprint of Army troops stoked
State’s security fears, which then constrained USAID’s autonomy, making the embassy a prison.
While relationships between deployed practitioners was often positive – for example, USAID and Army Corps of Engineers practitioners in Afghanistan collaborated smoothly on the Ring
Road project – increasingly turf battles in Washington spilled over to Kabul. Bureaucratic knives and hired guns came out; turf battles damaged relationships and destroyed trust. The virtuous cycle became a vicious cycle.
856 The Department of Defense recommended increasing special operations forces to counter “decentralized network threats from non-state enemies.” See: United States Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, February 6, 2006, vi. 278
Chapter 7: Conclusion
This dissertation examines how three national security institutions adapted to unexpected post-combat crises across four cases. In each case, the crisis forced practitioners and executives to operate outside their organization’s core mission, often at the fringe of their institution’s legal authorities. This chapter concludes that each of these very different organizations adapted along four similar pathways. These include: leveraging existing capabilities and procedures
(Proposition 1 – low hanging fruit); hand-selecting uniquely qualified practitioners (Proposition
2 – cherry-picking); reacting to practitioners’ urgent need for resources or autonomy (Proposition
3 – revolt of the cherries); and by creating new organizations, procedures, or training – to handle the crisis or institutionalize lessons-learned (Proposition 4 – planting the orchard). Below is a visual model depicting this range of possible behaviors ranging from short-term, ad hoc adaptations to long-term organizational learning and change; or between satisficing and optimizing solutions.
279
Figure 1: A Model of Adaptation/Learning
Since each institution’s major post-combat adaptations have been examined previously, this concluding chapter examines the central argument across all the propositions, cases, and institutions, again with an eye toward the practitioner rather than the political scientist. This core argument will be followed by additional themes uncovered during research – and corresponding implications for the practitioner – as well as suggestions for future research.
280
ADAPTATION IN POST-COMBAT OPERATIONS: FRUIT SALAD
This dissertation has argued that national security institutions leverage their existing capabilities and capacity to respond to crises – this principle formed the first of four research propositions. Existing capacity is what each organization had on hand when the unexpected crisis occurred; in many ways, applying existing resources to a crisis represents the lowest level of organizational adaptation. That each institution utilized its existing offices, standard procedures, and personnel to address each post-combat case is not surprising. What is surprising is that in no case did the institution with the greatest existing post-combat capabilities – the Army
– make optimal use of its low-hanging fruit.
Consider the Army’s civil affairs units, whose core mission and standard procedures are centered upon civil-military activities and post-combat governance. Neither of the other institutions possessed such a tailored post-combat capacity during this period. Yet in none of these cases did the Army make optimal use of its civil affairs units. In Grenada, General
Schwarzkopf relegated the civil affairs soldiers and reservist logisticians to USAID’s control even before the shooting stopped; and on 7 December 1983, the civil affairs battalion reduced to
“residual force” operations, even though the post-combat mission lasted until 1985.857 In
Panama, Army and Joint Staff generals first overlooked and then undermined the civil-military plan authored by Army civil affairs officers. Only after the situation worsened did a civil affairs colonel visit Panama and propose what became the Military Support Group. Army civil affairs
857 Ted Morse, Oral History, 109. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. See also: “Grenada Civil Affairs Lessons Learned,” (Fort Bragg, NC: John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center, Nov 24, 1983), 6. 281 soldiers also participated in Kosovo, but found their autonomy hamstrung by drastic force protection constraints.858
This trend continued in Afghanistan. An Army civil affairs brigade headquarters possessed the force structure, communications equipment, and standard procedures to manage scattered civil affairs teams – but the Army instead tapped a National Guard headquarters to manage its early civil-military efforts in Afghanistan.859 Instead of selecting a civil affairs officer to command the civil-military effort, General Mikolashek selected General Kratzer, a well- respected logistician.860 The creation of the Provincial Reconstruction Team extended the reach and capabilities of Army civil affairs teams; in 2005 the military commander was “normally a
CA [civil affairs] officer,” but by 2011 many U.S. Provincial Reconstruction Teams were commanded by Navy or Air Force officers.861 Army civil affairs officers steadily lost their influence over post-combat projects and programs. Resources and projects increased over time, but the linkage with stabilization or development progressively weakened.
What accounts for the limited use the Army made of its civil affairs units in each of these cases? In a word: trust. In Grenada, General Schwarzkopf told USAID’s Ted Morse that the reservists and civil affairs soldiers were “a bunch of civilians…I sure the hell don’t want them with live ammunition.”862 During contingency planning for Panama, senior military officers were skeptical of civil affairs planners, each of whom “wanted to put his own particular stamp on
858 Thomas Mockaitis, Civil-Military Cooperation in Peace Operations: The Case of Kosovo (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2004), 11-16. 859 The National Guard Rear Area Operations Center personnel had no relevant experience, and lacked the necessary communications equipment to provide command-and-control supervision of geographically disparate civil affairs teams. Brigadier General (retired) Mike Warmack, interview with the author, October 13, 2020. 860 Donald Wright et al, A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom October 2001-September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010), 190. 861 Robert Perito, “The U.S. Experience with Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan: Lessons Identified,” U.S. Institute of Peace, Special Report 152, October 2005, 4-6. For 2011, see: Center for Army Lessons Learned, Afghanistan: Provincial Reconstruction Team Handbook, No. 11-16, February 2011, 39-42. 862 Ted Morse, Oral History, 109. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 282 the plan,” creating friction between active-duty officers and civil affairs reservists.863 In Kosovo, other multinational brigade commanders afforded their civil-military teams far greater autonomy than that enjoyed by U.S. civil affairs teams.864 In the Afghanistan case, senior civil affairs officers did little to advocate their capabilities to Army planners and generals – with whom the civil affairs officers had strained personal relationships.865
The Army’s civil affairs conundrum rings true across these cases for other Army specialties well-suited to post-combat operations, including military police, psychological operations, and even engineer units. Similar institutional tensions are periodically visible within the other bureaucracies’ sub-tribes, including USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and the Office of Transition Initiatives; and State’s office for reconstruction and stabilization
(originally S/CRS, and later the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations). For bureaucratic practitioners – operators and managers – serving within secondary sub-tribes, the importance of personal relationships cannot be overstated, and will be discussed in greater detail later in this conclusion. For bureaucracy executives – and senior military leaders in particular – the Army’s limited use of its existing post-combat capacity is worthy of consideration. The future general officer tasked with a massive post-combat mission would certainly be wrong to demand one-third of the Army’s operational civil affairs, military police, psychological operations and engineer capacity in the first year.866 But she would not be wrong by much.
863 John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 11. 864 Thomas Mockaitis, Civil-Military Cooperation in Peace Operations: The Case of Kosovo (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2004), 11-16. 865 Another institutional limitation was the command relationship for the Army’s active-duty civil affairs component, which reported to the Army’s Special Operations Command (USASOC). This dynamic contributed to Army civil affairs officers viewing USASOC rather than U.S. Central Command as their principal customer. Retired Army General Officer, interview with the author. 866 At the height of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Army leveraged a 3-to-make-1 deployment model, with one unit deployed, a second training and preparing for deployment, and a third recovering and refitting 283
The second research proposition posits that a national security institution will hand-select practitioners who are uniquely qualified for the crisis at hand. Each of the institutions pursued this technique to varying degrees in each of the four cases examined here, with generally positive results. Cherry-picking the right practitioners generally provided the institution with outsized return from limited investment. USAID and State, the smaller civilian organizations, relied on this technique more heavily than the Army, which typically alerted and deployed entire units.
Here it is important to note that the most senior practitioners – ambassadors and generals – typically require presidential and congressional approval. At the most senior levels, the institution’s ability to select its own cherries is not absolute.
That national security institutions would select their most trusted practitioners for an unexpected post-combat crisis is not surprising. However, the cases examined here also illustrate the limits of cherry-picking. This is most apparent in Afghanistan; a larger-scale, more austere, and more challenging mission than the previous cases. When USAID’s Craig Buck and his pioneers departed the Balkans for Afghanistan, it left a void that the agency filled with contractors; Bosnia and Kosovo were no longer USAID’s post-combat priorities.867 In 2004,
USAID Administrator Natsios selected Patrick Fine, an education specialist from the Africa bureau, to become USAID’s mission director in Kabul.868 Grappling with the large-scale crisis in Afghanistan, and an even larger-scale post-combat crisis in Iraq, the small agency was running out of cherries. Short on capacity, USAID adapted by hiring still more contractors – a bureaucratic response that produced mixed results in the field.
from its recent deployment. This model forms the basis for the one-third estimate; more is unsustainable, less leaves untapped capacity. 867 After 2001, USAID Administrator Natsios considered the selection a mission director for Kosovo to be a low priority. Andrew Natsios, interview with the author, July 27, 2020. 868 Andrew Natsios, interview with the author, July 27, 2020. 284
What happens when existing resources and standard procedures prove inadequate to the post-combat crisis at hand? This leads to the third research proposition, that practitioners will urgently request additional resources and autonomy; and push the limits of their bureaucratic headquarters. Of the four propositions examined here, this revolt of the cherries scenario is the most difficult to prove. In many cases, practitioner requests found an approving headquarters, falling short of the implied revolt. USAID’s proposal to complete the Point Salines airport in
Grenada was a good example of this. And in Afghanistan, Ambassador Neumann’s requests to
State for increased foreign aid were ultimately successful. Other examples are more ambiguous and difficult to categorize. In Afghanistan, General Barno’s pivot toward population-centric counterinsurgency was a significant adaptation; whether it constituted a revolt against Pentagon leadership committed to a mission-accomplished narrative is difficult to prove. Army officers in
Afghanistan and Kosovo routinely accepted resource limitations with the understanding that Iraq was a higher priority for the Bush administration.869
Despite the murky nature of intra-organization practitioner revolts, some conclusions can be drawn from existing evidence. The success of the technique varied widely; USAID’s proposal for the Point Salines airport became one of the agency’s seminal success stories, while the long- term effectiveness of Ambassador Neumann’s foreign aid program in Afghanistan remains a point of debate.870 Practitioners who won their organization’s approval redeemed their political
869 The situation reversed after the Obama administration summarily relieved General McKiernan in June 2009. McKiernan, who as the Army’s senior general in Afghanistan had operated under the resource constraints of the “economy of force” role, was replaced by General McChrystal. Not surprisingly, General McChrystal launched an immediate strategic review and pressed urgently for more resources. Whether McChrystal’s review and associated troop request – soon leaked to the press – constituted a revolt of the cherries is also difficult to prove. 870 Ambassador Neumann defended his foreign aid requests and their implementation in his memoir. See: Ronald E. Neumann, The Other War: Winning and Losing in Afghanistan (Dulles: Potomac Books, 2009), 108-158. For a more skeptical perspective on the same programs, see: Jamie Lynn de Coster, “Building and Undermining Legitimacy,” in Our Latest Longest War: Losing Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan, ed. Aaron B. O’Connell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 157-188. 285 capital in diverse ways. For example, USAID’s Tom Stukel and Craig Buck leveraged their standing to ignore standard procedures, survive auditors’ wrath, and compel their agency to hire uniquely qualified personnel for their missions.871 In the Afghanistan case, State’s James
Dobbins insisted on getting a Department of Defense aircraft, cashing in political capital for autonomy and reliable access to a volatile region. In none of the cases examined here did a clear revolt of the cherries succeed in creating long-term institutional change. That required institutional investment and support from bureaucratic executives at a minimum – major reforms also required support from the White House and Congress. This scenario leads to this dissertation’s fourth and final research proposition.
The fourth research proposition posits that national security institutions will create new organizations, procedures, or training to address a post-combat crisis or institutionalize lessons- learned. Each institution took meaningful steps in this direction between 1983 and 2008. The arguably successful post-combat efforts in Grenada, Panama, and Kosovo triggered incremental rather than dramatic institutional changes. Examples of this include the Army’s creation of the
Center for Army Lessons Learned, and the publication of updated Army doctrines in 1994 and
2003. USAID’s 1994 creation of the Office of Transition Initiatives built a lasting and adaptive capability, but this small office was “nearly stillborn on delivery.”872 In 1997, the Clinton White
871 Tom Stukel enjoyed Ambassador Hinton’s strong support; from the perspective of USAID headquarters, refusing Stukel’s demands risked Hinton’s ire – and Hinton had a strong personal relationship with Lawrence Eagleburger, State’s most influential Foreign Service Officer. Craig Buck made his acceptance of the Balkans assignment contingent on gaining authority over normally autonomous DART teams operating in his area; a request approved by USAID Administrator Brian Atwood. Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 11, 2020. 872 A 2009 Congressional Research Service report noted that USAID Administrator Brian Atwood created this office “reportedly in response to outgoing Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger’s advice that USAID should find ways to address key foreign policy priorities more quickly if the agency was to remain relevant.” Marian Lawson, “USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives After 15 Years: Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, May 27, 2009, 1. The “nearly stillborn on delivery” quote is from: Andrew Natsios, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Humanitarian Relief in Complex Emergencies (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), 43-44. 286
House consolidated lessons-learned with Presidential Decision Directive 56, but this generated few real changes for institutions satisficing a secondary task. In the cases examined here, success – however loosely defined – seldom inspired long-term organizational change.
Why did Afghanistan (and Iraq) prompt greater institutional adaptation than the earlier and more successful post-combat cases? In a word: risk. Risk of catastrophic failure appears to be a better motivator for organizational investment, learning, and change. The worsening situations in Afghanistan and Iraq compelled drastic changes on the part of the affected institutions. Even then, each institution’s long-term core mission often trumped its short-term needs. State’s proposal for a Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization emerged in mid-
2004, but swiftly devolved toward “marginalization within State’s bureaucracy”; the new office did not support post-combat operations in Afghanistan until 2009.873 USAID adopted a variety of institutional changes – such as establishing a robust office for military coordination – partly in response to Afghanistan, but the agency remained focused on its congressionally-mandated global development mission. The Army produced a new doctrine for stability operations in 2003 and expanded its active-duty civil affairs units after 2006, but dedicated the bulk of its effort to combat-focused counterinsurgency operations. Even as the risk of post-combat failure – and corresponding adaptations – increased, each institution remained focused on its core mission.
The casual reader might conclude that creating new organizations and standard procedures is the ultimate solution for an institution adapting to crisis. This is misleading. In fact, these cases suggest that an institution’s executives are incentivized to minimize the investment necessary to muddle through the unexpected crisis – satisficing rather than optimizing behavior. In the constant struggle for talent and resources, each organization’s core
873 Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, Applying Iraq’s Hard Lessons to the Reform of Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations (February 2010), 6-7. 287 mission eventually trumped the secondary, unexpected, and in many cases unwanted post- combat mission. Organizational culture played a role in shaping this outcome, as did the laws and regulations that govern each bureaucracy’s activities. Some of the most impactful new organizations were also the shortest-lived, such as the Military Support Group in Panama. Other temporary organizations produced fewer results but reduced the institution’s risk of failure, such as USAID’s Kosovo Program Office. And the prospect of creating a permanent bureaucracy to oversee post-combat operations bore too many hallmarks of imperialism to be politically feasible during this period. As with the research propositions and corresponding adaptations that came before, planting the orchard is no panacea.
Taken together, the four techniques these national security institutions pursued in these post-combat cases form a useful framework for future practitioners and executives. This framework offers a menu of overlapping and mutually supporting options: leveraging existing capabilities and procedures; hand-selecting trusted practitioners or units; responding favorably to practitioners’ need for resources or autonomy; and creating new organizations, procedures, or training. Individually, each option provides capacity, generates costs, and incurs limitations. In some cases, the institutions satisficed with a lesser degree of organizational adaptation (and cost), such as the Army’s small post-combat presence in Grenada after December 1983. In other, more drastic examples of adaptation – such as State in Grenada and USAID in Kosovo – the institution incorporated each of these four techniques into its response to the crisis at hand.
288
THE HUMAN DIMENSION: TRUST MATTERS MOST
The second major argument of this dissertation is that trust matters most. Trust – based largely on personal relationships – was a common denominator between each institution’s choices on short and long-term organizational adaptation. This unexpected research finding held true for each institution, and in each case. Trust determined the employment of existing capabilities (Proposition 1); the selection of key practitioners (Proposition 2); the flexibility and resources those practitioners received to address the crisis (Proposition 3); and whether long- term learning and change was necessary (Proposition 4).
The selection of uniquely qualified practitioners illustrates this trend. What constitutes a cherry? Unquestionably, prior experience in post-combat situations – or crisis management more generally – played a role in the selection of many uniquely qualified practitioners examined in this work. Niche skill sets or regional expertise explains others. However, experience does little to explain the selection of individuals like General Maxwell Thurman. Thurman was not a warfighting commander, nor was he a regional expert, nor was he an experienced practitioner of post-combat operations – yet he was the Bush administration’s choice to command U.S.
Southern Command as tensions with Panama escalated. Thurman was best known for his personal intensity, and for revamping the Army’s recruiting campaign – he approved the slogan
“Be all you can be.”874 What accounts for Thurman’s selection and his subsequent successes planning a major military intervention, rescuing a post-combat situation from near-disaster, and building interagency unity of effort – without the benefits of direct experience or expertise?
Here the common factors were personal relationships – and trust. Personal relationships drove the selection of key individuals; and set the conditions for organizational autonomy and
874 See: Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 93-96. 289 interagency unity of effort. Despite lacking relevant experience, General Thurman understood the Pentagon and Washington politics; he had served as the Army’s vice chief of staff and had positive relationships with key members of Congress. These were attributes that his predecessor lacked.875 Selected to command U.S. Southern Command, Thurman prioritized the forging of new relationships and leveraged existing relationships to good effect. He worked tirelessly to build and maintain positive relationships with State’s John Bushnell and Deane Hinton. He also leveraged his preexisting relationships within the military. Thurman entrusted combat operations to General Stiner, agreed to a visit from General Lindsay’s handpicked civil affairs colonel, and accepted Colonel Steele’s offer to come to Panama and help.876 Strong personal and professional relationships led to Thurman’s selection, the early unity of effort between Army and State, and the adaptations that helped arrest Panama’s descent toward post-combat chaos.
The theme that trust and relationships matter holds true across each post-combat case and each national security institution examined in this dissertation. In his memoir, Ambassador
Deane Hinton began his Panama chapter acknowledging the need to “work harmoniously” with the other players. Hinton focused the remainder of his chapter – not on the economic factors that were the hallmark of his long career – but on the personal and institutional relationships at play in Panama and Washington.877 State practitioners, including post-combat expert James Dobbins,
875 Having served as the Army’s vice chief of staff, Thurman’s personal connections within the Pentagon were unrivaled. See: Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 81-93. See also: John Bushnell, Oral History, 615-618. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 876 Thurman had previous relationships with Stiner, Lindsay, and Steele. The handpicked civil affairs colonel was Colonel Youmans, whose recommendations resulted in the Military Support Group. See: John Fishel, The Fog of Peace: Planning and Executing the Restoration of Panama (Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1992), 39-40. See also: Richard H. Shultz, In the Aftermath of War: U.S. Support for Reconstruction and Nation-Building in Panama Following Just Cause (Maxwell Air Force Base: Air University Press, 1993) 33. 877 Hinton’s editors at the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training – which published the work through New Academia/Vellum – apparently agreed with the theme that relationships matter; the memoir’s index consists almost exclusively of people, to the exclusion of places or things. Deane Hinton, Economics and Diplomacy (Washington, D.C.: Vellum, 2015), 415-420. 290 echoed this theme as the core tenet of diplomacy: “Identifying the right people to talk to and establishing a degree of mutual trust are the first steps toward almost any objective.”878
Relationships were also vital to USAID practitioners. As members of the smallest and least influential organization examined here, USAID officers depended on their personal relationships not only to get selected for the job and to achieve interagency autonomy in country, but also to achieve intra-agency autonomy. The foreign aid officer running operations from an apartment bedroom in a war-torn country can seldom provide the detailed data analysis required by the agency’s auditors.879 In the dynamic post-conflict environment, the practitioner’s relationships with agency leadership often proved the difference between trust or doubt – and between success or failure.
This theme presents clear implications for bureaucratic practitioners in future crises.
Prior service, regional experience, technical expertise, or command of a relevant unit might lead to an individual’s selection to a future crisis. Once assigned, personal relationships are likely to determine the degree of interagency unity of effort achieved – with lasting effects upon the overall success or failure of U.S. policy. Practitioners and executives choose whether – and how
– to solve each other’s unsolvable problems. In the cases examined here, personal relationships were a – perhaps the – key variable in this dynamic. This study indicates that personal relationships are also essential within one’s own institution – and for senior practitioners and agency executives, with Congress. Practitioners who enjoyed stellar relationships with
Washington consistently achieved the autonomy necessary to adapt beyond standard
878 James Dobbins, Foreign Service: Five Decades on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy (Santa Monica: Brookings Institution Press, 2017), xiv. 879 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 291 procedures.880 Conversely, in a crisis situation those who lacked the trust of their respective headquarters – and senior practitioners or executives who lacked the trust of Congress or the
White House – were soon replaced.881 This should not surprise the attentive reader. Recall from
Chapter 2 that a focus on people comprised the final tenet of historian Jeremi Suri’s study of
American nation-building; and that theorist and practitioner Richard Haass concluded that for the bureaucratic entrepreneur: “personal relationships are often the key to effectiveness.”882
Trust in government also mattered. In each of these cases, post-combat practitioners and new government institutions found themselves in a race against time to earn citizens’ trust. In
Grenada and Kosovo, U.S. post-combat practitioners earned and maintained a high degree of popular trust, which increased host nation buy-in for institution building and bottom-up economic programs. In Panama, distrust of the national police threatened to undermine high public trust in other post-combat institution building programs – and democracy in general.
There, popular trust in U.S. policies outlasted the abortive police coup in 1990; but the dysfunctional Endara regime was not so fortunate. In post-2001 Afghanistan, the central government never received the trust of its multiethnic population. In religiously conservative
Pashtun areas, U.S. post-combat practitioners fared little better. Much as Don Kettl outlined, governments can – and must – overcome the associated challenges and earn the trust of the
880 Strong relationships with Congress also benefited several senior practitioners, notably State’s Tony Motley, USAID’s Craig Buck, and the Army’s General Maxwell Thurman. Motley, previously a political lobbyist, stated that “you are dead in Congress if you are not fully up-front.” Buck believed Congress was “absolutely vital to what we do,” and made a point of cultivating productive work relationships with Congressional staffers during visits to Washington. Thurman had “lobbied Congress more than any other general to get what he thought the Army needed.” See: Langhorne A. Motley, Oral History, 60. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. See also: Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. And: John Bushnell, Oral History, 595. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 881 In Grenada, USAID’s Bill Erdahl replaced the agency’s initial representative in June 1984. In the Kosovo case, Army General Wes Clark ran afoul of Pentagon leadership, which announced his early retirement within weeks of Clark winning a war without losing a single American soldier killed in action. 882 Richard Haass, The Bureaucratic Entrepreneur: How to be Effective in Any Unruly Organization (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1999), 180. 292 governed. For the post-combat practitioner tasked with accelerating this process, bottom-up
“retail trust” programs offer particularly useful insights.883 Many of the most successful bottom- up adaptations examined in this work succeeded because they enjoyed a high degree of support from the affected population.
883 Donald Kettl, Can Governments Earn Our Trust (Malden, MA: Polity, 2017), 41-45. 293
UNITY OF EFFORT AND COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE
Each national security institution examined here enjoyed one or more comparative advantages in the post-combat environment. The Army’s relative strength was consistently people; State held an understandable advantage in politics; and USAID’s comparative advantage was consistently money. These relative advantages are discussed in greater detail below. Each institution naturally sought to make the most of its strengths and to limit its respective weaknesses. However, many of the most important and successful adaptations examined in this dissertation came when the institutions solved one another’s impossible problems.
The Kosovo case provides an illustrative example this broader trend. When State needed diplomatic leverage for early peace negotiations, Army General Wesley Clark lobbied the
Secretary of Defense for permission to support State’s effort, and later personally interceded with
Albanian and Serbian leaders.884 Weeks later, when General Clark was unable to resolve the
Pristina Airport crisis through military means, State resolved the dangerous impasse through diplomatic channels. When State and the Army could do little to assist many thousands of
Kosovar refugees returning to damaged or destroyed homes, USAID launched an emergency shelter program and built Kosovo’s political economy largely from scratch. In Kosovo and elsewhere, successful adaptations depended on an institution’s ability and willingness to solve a problem that a sister bureaucracy could not.
Legal authorities also limited what bureaucratic practitioners could do to help one another
– even when they wanted to. Legal constraints forced the Army to find creative ways to support police institution-building in Grenada, Panama, and Afghanistan. And in Afghanistan, adjacent institutions like Agriculture discovered administrative obstacles to deploying their personnel:
884 Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001), 118-119, 169-170. 294
Congress had imposed constraints that prevented Agriculture from funding the effort, and precluded Defense from funding it either.885 Getting other agencies to provide manpower and budget proved so difficult that Ambassador Neumann likened it to “pulling teeth out of a rooster.”886 And in no case examined here did the post-combat effort trump the Congressionally- mandated core missions assigned to these bureaucracies. For example, USAID maintained approximately 22 foreign aid initiatives in addition to the ongoing post-conflict situations in
Afghanistan and Iraq.887 Much can be achieved when institutions leverage their comparative strengths to mitigate one another’s weaknesses in a post-conflict crisis. Even then, there are limits.
This point dovetails with the growing body of literature on interagency unity of effort in post-combat situations; scholars and practitioners are united about its importance, but divided on how best to achieve it. One camp favors a whole-of-government approach, with bureaucracies buying into a shared framework in advance of a crisis, and a Coordinator loosely overseeing disparate agencies. The creation of S/CRS under State institutionalized this approach to some degree. Another camp argues that interagency unity of effort can only be achieved – or sustained over time – by unity of command. This approach favors a single boss with agencies detailing personnel to what is essentially a new bureaucracy created for the mission. The former model has existed since 2004 but was not seriously implemented. The latter model loosely describes the Civil Operations and Rural Development Support (CORDS) initiative in Vietnam – but also
885 This and similar issues outlasted the Bush administration. Robert Gates, Exercise of Power (New York: Knopf, 2020), 75-76. 886 Ronald Neumann, Oral History, 170. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 887 Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 81. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 295 the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq under L. Paul “Jerry” Bremer. Neither model has demonstrated clear success. The debate continues.
The cases examined here bring more nuance than clarity to this ongoing policy debate. In
Grenada, practitioners from all three national security institutions achieved a remarkable degree of unity of effort in both Grenada and Washington – despite persistent tension between secretaries George Shultz at State and Caspar Weinberger at Defense. In Panama, practitioners forged a moderate degree of unity of effort – despite misgivings over the Army’s secrecy and
State’s wresting policy primacy away from the Army and Central Intelligence Agency. In
Kosovo, practitioners established a high degree of unity of effort but managed only a small slice of the overall post-combat mission – to the extent there was a powerful central administrator, that person was a European. Each of these three cases witnessed at least a functional degree of interagency unity of effort; none did so through a whole-of-government or a unity of command model.
In each of the cases examined here, the Army demonstrated a comparative advantage in people. The largest of the three institutions, the Army by extension possessed the largest workforce. However, the Army’s advantage was not only quantitative, but also qualitative.
Arriving at the scene of the crisis, Army officers and soldiers brought training, relevant skills, and often cohesive command relationships. Sometimes they brought operational funds unavailable to State and USAID. Mid-grade and senior Army officers also benefited from an extensive program of professional military education. Perhaps most importantly, the Army also had the institutional ability to compel its personnel to deploy to the crisis in question.
In contrast, both State and USAID ran short on volunteers for undesirable or dangerous missions. Seldom can civilian diplomats or aid workers be compelled to accept an assignment –
296 they can simply resign, comfortable with the knowledge that diplomacy and development are marketable credentials. And with more vacancies than officers available, both civilian agencies are locked into a buyer’s market when it comes to assignments. The cases examined here illustrate this trend. State diplomats initially refused to risk travel to post-revolution Grenada to check on students; USAID’s original nominee for the Panama mission declined the post;
Ambassador Hinton struggled to find enough volunteers for his country team in Panama; and
USAID found no volunteers to backfill Craig Buck in Kosovo. Both State and USAID struggled to fill vacancies in Afghanistan. At one point USAID’s Afghanistan mission had the agency’s largest health assistance portfolio anywhere in the world, but USAID could not produce a single senior foreign service officer volunteer to manage the portfolio.888 When State’s S/CRS proposed physical fitness and survivability training for its diplomats, State employees threatened lawsuits. When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice froze the diplomatic assignment process until State and USAID vacancies in combat zones were filled, it triggered massive internal dissent.889 Getting the right people to the crisis was a constant challenge for both State and
USAID.
State demonstrated a comparative advantage in politics, particularly with respect to decision-making. This effect was most pronounced when State’s career officers and politically- appointed leaders worked in concert, as in Grenada and Kosovo – in both of these cases State achieved virtually all of its conflict termination and post-combat aims. In Panama, Ambassador
Hinton and the State Department also worked in concert to place State and ICITAP in the lead for police training in Panama, simultaneously leveraging ambassadorial authority and institutional relationships with Congress. Even when State’s practitioners and executives
888 Retired senior USAID official, interview with author. 889 See: Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New York: Crown, 2011). 297 differed, State’s practitioners often achieved their desired decision. In Panama, John Bushnell shaped the decision to permanently dissolve Panama’s military, and only then informed
Washington of the fait accompli. In the Afghanistan case, Ambassador Neumann ultimately succeeded in lobbying Washington for increased foreign aid spending. Neither the Army nor
USAID achieved such an enviable a record for achieving their desired post-combat policy decisions.
In these cases, State possessed outsized influence over the autonomy of its sister bureaucracies; this influence often took the form of the ambassador (or Chief of Mission) who possessed authority over all agencies operating in-country.890 State leveraged this influence to empower or constrain the others. In Grenada, State consistently empowered both Army and
USAID practitioners, with salutary effects. In Panama, State empowered USAID and constrained the Army – until Ambassador Hinton realized that only the Army could implement many policy decisions. If achieving the desired policy decision was a State strength, implementation was decidedly a State weakness. In Kosovo, State again empowered both Army and USAID practitioners – the Army’s extensive force protection constraints were imposed by the Pentagon. In the early years of the Afghanistan case, State constrained USAID, and State-
INL fought to keep police training out of Army hands; with deleterious effects on USAID programs and the Afghan National Police. These examples suggest that State can constrain other bureaucracies in a post-combat environment – and that State should exercise this power with restraint.
890 This relationship was codified in 1982 under National Security Decision Directive 38, which provided the Chief of Mission – typically a State diplomat – with control over the size and composition of U.S. government agencies operating in a host country. 298
Throughout these cases, USAID’s comparative strength was money; development programs and technical assistance were the small agency’s stock-in-trade. Each of the cases examined here pushed USAID out of its institutional comfort zone, even more so than the other institutions. In Grenada, support to tourism and the airport construction project were far beyond
USAID’s core mission and development ethos – but these adaptations proved central to the agency’s success. Bolstering Panamanian banks with financial deposits proved an innovative and successful adaptation that restored confidence in a vital economic sector. In Kosovo,
USAID faced the challenge of creating a government and a political economy from scratch – as a supporting actor in a show directed by slow-moving European partners. In Afghanistan, USAID practitioners faced a large-scale mission with security and autonomy constraints not seen since
Vietnam, in one of the world’s most impoverished nations. In each case, the success of USAID programs was correlated with the autonomy its overseas practitioners achieved – and to the degree its practitioners leveraged autonomy to design programs tailored to the host nation.
As members of the least powerful institution examined here, USAID practitioners achieved autonomy in a creative variety of ways. In Grenada, Bill Erdahl benefited from strong relationships with USAID/Washington, from USAID Deputy Administrator Jay Morris’s early visit to Grenada, and from the prominent airport construction project. In Panama, Tom Stukel enjoyed a strong relationship with his ambassador, hosted his agency’s regional leadership for a mission director’s conference, and implemented the Bush administration’s prominent foreign aid program with minimal interference. In the Kosovo case, Craig Buck was recognized as his agency’s most experienced post-combat practitioner, and held a trump card in the form of strong relationships with key Congressional staffers. These advantages produced autonomy for Buck and his pioneers in Kosovo, but proved inadequate in Afghanistan in 2002-2003, amid mounting
299 security concerns, State’s administrative constraints, and Washington’s demands for results.
Confined to the embassy with a team too small to supervise his budget; directed to find contractors and spread “fairy dust” across Afghanistan; and with the link between money and development principles steadily eroding – Craig Buck decided it was time to retire.891 USAID adapted to these constraints by hiring contractors, producing capacity while sidestepping State’s administrative constraints on Foreign Service Officers.
Each of the three national security institutions possessed unique advantages and challenges in the post-combat environment. Each strove to utilize its strengths and mitigate its weaknesses, and each brought vital capabilities to the security, diplomatic, and economic situation. Each encountered impossible challenges that could only be addressed with the help of other organizations with different mixes of capabilities and authorities. Each found the success of its post-combat programs to be dependent upon local ownership and buy-in. Practitioners from each institution sought to achieve autonomy in each case, and each case pushed each institution beyond its core mission, standard procedures, and comfort zone. Practitioners overseas and executives in Washington adapted in each case – sometimes independently and sometimes in unison – but always in pursuit of their nation’s post-combat objectives.
891 In both Kosovo and Afghanistan, Buck faced equal pressure to produce immediate results. In Kosovo, many potential programs competed for U.S. funding, and USAID’s standard “filters” remained in effect, balancing U.S. policy goals against development best-practices. In Kosovo, the agency never would have approved a program that benefited a warlord. In Afghanistan, security and political considerations intervened and these filters eroded. Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 300
POST-COMBAT ADAPTATION: TOP-DOWN VERSUS BOTTOM-UP
In terms of top-down and bottom-up adaptation, the cases examined here reveal some general trends. First, practitioners serving on the ground in a host nation had better ideas for projects and programs than executives in Washington. This trend of bottom-up adaptation is explored below, including an important exception to the rule: USAID in the Afghanistan case.
Second, executives in Washington – not practitioners in the field – drove long-term organizational change (Proposition 4). Planting an orchard required these executives, and often required their advocacy with the White House and Congress. In many instances of top-down orchard planting – such as State’s S/CRS and USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives – the original impetus for change can be traced to external, outside-in sources. Congress played this role for State’s S/CRS, and State’s Lawrence Eagleburger played this role for USAID’s Office of
Transition Initiatives. Once approved, implementing changes within reluctant bureaucracies required continual attention from agency executives – at least until the desired change was institutionalized. These aspects of top-down adaptation are also illustrated below.
As a rule, deployed practitioners generated programs and projects that were well-adapted to the host nation and overall situation. In the Grenada case, State relied on hand-picked diplomats like Charles Gillespie to generate solutions from Barbados and later Grenada. In
Washington, Tony Motley and Secretary of State Shultz backed and empowered their deployed practitioners, which resulted in sound adaptations, including the decision to trust Sir Paul Scoon and Nicholas Brathwaite in the golden hour. The Army did much the same, entrusting first
General Farris and then Lieutenant Colonel Graves to consolidate success and enable sister agencies. Top-down prerogatives, including a boatload of counterinsurgency supplies, could be used, stored, or returned as the deployed practitioners saw fit. From the USAID perspective, the
301 successful Point Salines airport project and the small-grants program were bottom-up initiatives.
Top-down economic mandates produced less success; these included White House junkets for venture capitalists, the industrial park in Grenada, and headquarters’ demands for tank traps.
Panama reinforced this theme. State seldom overruled the judgments of its veteran diplomats; the Department backed John Bushnell’s push for the Costa Rica model of a police without a military, and supported Deane Hinton’s campaign to force police training away from the Army and into ICITAP and State hands. These and similar bottom-up initiatives produced implementation challenges, but advanced State’s primacy and stood the test of time. The
Military Support Group, the Army’s RC Cop program, and breakfasts with President Endara were Army adaptations that originated in Panama. Top-down initiatives produced less success – these included the Joint Staff refusal to allow hand-picked civil affairs reservists to deploy for
30-days during the golden hour; a visit from the Center from Army Lessons Learned that produced only “first impressions”; and a belated 1994 doctrine that made few institutional inroads. For USAID, strengthening Panamanian banks by depositing funds and a long-term housing program for displaced El Chorrillo residents were successful bottom-up initiatives, while the agency’s own top-down red tape produced the single greatest obstacle for practitioners attempting to turn “a dump truck into a Ferrari” the field.892
In Kosovo, it was the Pentagon’s top-down red tape that constrained Army practitioners; civil affairs teams struggled to implement bottom-up projects and programs that were simple for other nations’ peacekeepers. In Kosovo, State achieved a degree of intra-agency unity of effort rare for the bifurcated department, with political appointees – including Secretary Albright – advancing top-down diplomacy and career diplomats pressing bottom-up policy initiatives in
892 Thomas Stukel, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 302 concert. USAID’s top-down suggestions for post-combat aid programs in the Balkans proved ill- informed and useless; while Craig Buck’s mission designed and implemented creative bottom- up, contractor-based solutions to help create local government and a political economy in
Kosovo.
In the Afghanistan case, Ambassador Dobbins began his work in Washington and New
York; but the success at Bonn owed much to his adaptive diplomacy in the field. State backed
Ambassador Dobbins’ peace negotiations and later approved Ambassador Neumann’s bottom-up calls for foreign aid, with net beneficial results. State’s top-down initiatives produced less happy results. It was State headquarters – not the ambassador – that Craig Buck believed responsible for overruling his request for a separate USAID building, additional agency personnel, and increased autonomy in 2002-2003 Afghanistan.893 While the Ring Road linked Kabul and
Kandahar, generated economic activity, and helped Hamid Karzai politically, subsequent top- down mandates from the White House and State compelled USAID to launch vulnerable projects and programs in hostile, Pashtun-and Taliban-controlled areas. The Army experience was similar; the Provincial Reconstruction Teams, Combined Joint Task Force Phoenix, and General
Barno’s early pivot to counterinsurgency were adaptations born in Afghanistan; while U.S.
Central Command’s top-down light footprint constrained options and limited gains during the golden hour.894
In the majority of these cases and examples, bottom-up adaptations proved more effective than top-down mandates. Practitioners in the field were consistently well-informed about risks and opportunities. USAID’s top-down effectiveness in the Afghanistan case was a noteworthy
893 Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 11, 2020. 894 For an article-length treatment of this strategic issue and the loss of the golden hour in Afghanistan, see: Paul Miller, “Graveyard of Analogies: The Use and Abuse of History for the War in Afghanistan,” Journal of Strategic Studies, 39:3, 446-476. 303 exception: the agency swiftly obtained emergency funding and launched tailored programs including a high-yield seed program that averted a looming famine. These singular achievements resulted from the personal direction of USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios, whose prior experience made him uniquely qualified for the Afghanistan crisis. Before becoming USAID Administrator, Natsios had served as an Army civil affairs reserve officer, where he planned and executed post-combat operations in Kuwait. In his civilian capacity, he had also previously headed USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (1989-1991; including during the Panama case), and led its Bureau for Food and Humanitarian Assistance
(1991-1993; including during the Gulf War and post-combat Kuwait). Natsios was the rare case of an experienced post-combat practitioner leading an agency’s response to an unexpected post- combat crisis. In this context, the comparative success of his agency’s top-down initiatives in
Afghanistan is less surprising.
If practitioners in the field enjoyed a strong track record for adaptation in these cases, long-term organizational change appeared impossible without the strong support of executives in
Washington. In some examples, executives had to impose institutional change upon their reluctant bureaucracies, as USAID’s Bryan Atwood did in founding the Office of Transition
Initiatives, and State’s Condoleezza Rice did in freezing diplomat assignments until post-combat vacancies were filled. In other examples, a lack of executive support doomed long-term adaptations. Secretary of State Colin Powell oversaw the creation of S/CRS in 2004 but left
State before implementation was complete. The S/CRS Coordinator lingered for years as an unwelcome threat to many bureaucratic rice bowls; lacking support from the powerful regional bureaus, the new office did not contribute significantly to post-combat Afghanistan until 2009.
In 2011 it became an anemic functional bureau that threatened no rice bowls.
304
In the USAID example, Administrator Andrew Natsios implemented an array of early organizational reforms. These included creating a robust Office of Military Affairs, establishing an Office of Conflict Mitigation and Management, and consolidating crisis-response capabilities within a single bureau. Natsios also proposed changes to State and USAID’s funding relationship; but unlike his earlier reforms, Natsios departed USAID without seeing this last vision through to completion. After his departure from office in early 2006, State amended his proposal and consolidated its control over USAID’s budget. Natsios later lamented, “I should have stayed on another year.”895 These examples from State and USAID illustrate the vital role of top-down executive leadership in implementing long-term organizational adaptation.
Both top-down and bottom-up adaptations played complementary roles in the post- combat cases examined here. Practitioners in the field enjoyed an advantageous position for crafting short-term, adaptive, bottom-up policy solutions. Executives who selected trusted practitioners and provided resources and autonomy were generally pleased with the result.
However, long-term organizational learning and change remained a top-down affair for these bureaucracies. These cases suggest that practitioners can leverage low-hanging fruit; they can sometimes pick cherries or press for additional resources and autonomy. But it takes a bureaucracy’s executives – in conjunction with the White House and Congress – to plant an orchard of long-term organizational change.
Another way to compare the top-down and bottom-up dichotomy is through the lens of hierarchies and networks. Each national security institution examined here acted as a hierarchical bureaucracy – even the notably decentralized USAID. Charged with addressing an unexpected post-combat crisis outside each institution’s core mission – the institutions responded
895 Andrew Natsios, Oral History, 75. Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org. 305 in similar ways. They established a “fast, flexible, inclusive, mission-centric response that involve[d] networks of government, not hierarchies.”896 Selected practitioners deployed to the crisis and became an interagency network empowered to look beyond organizational standard procedures. These networks of post-combat practitioners crafted adaptive, bottom-up policy solutions. Contemporary advocates of agile government seek to apply this same network-based problem-solving methodology to a broad range of public policy and governance functions.897
Bottom-up networks produced most of the successful post-combat adaptations examined in this work. In Grenada, Panama, and Kosovo, these bottom-up solutions helped consolidate military success into political victory. Yet even in the wake of success, the hierarchy reasserted itself and its core mission. Adaptive networks disbanded, and practitioners returned to their hierarchy or retired, taking their expertise with them. National security institutions invested in organizational changes that improved their core mission; they paid lip service to other lessons- learned.898 Presidential administrations – and their attitudes toward post-combat institution building – changed over time. National security institutions that participated in Grenada had to re-learn the same post-combat lessons six years later in Panama. The post-combat nation- building approach that produced success in Kosovo was discarded two years later in
Afghanistan. We forgot how to win.
896 G. Edward DeSeve, “The Road to Agile Government: Driving Change to Achieve Success,” 2020, https://napawash.org/uploads/The_Road_to_Agile_Government.pdf. 897 See: Ines Mergel et al, “Agile: A New Way of Governing,” Public Administration Review 81, no. 1, (2020): 161, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/puar.13202. 898 In contrast to the government institutions examined here, some businesses deliberately institutionalize bottom-up adaptations. See, for example, Google’s service reliability hierarchy: Google, “Site Reliability Engineering,” https://sre.google/sre-book/part-III-practices/. 306
FUTURE RESEARCH
This research question that drove this dissertation is how national security institutions adapted to unexpected post-combat missions – not why. Why individual institutions – and their practitioners – choose particular means of adaptation and investment, is another matter worthy of inquiry. This author acknowledges the limited causal evidence and generalizability of a small-n case study constrained to institutions conducting unexpected post-combat operations. However, the cases examined here suggest that institutions adapt to crisis with a level of organizational investment selected based on risk. USAID went to considerable lengths to get the right people out of Nepal (and even retirement) to places like Grenada (and Panama); the high-cost, highly prestigious airport project in Grenada (and the enormous $1 billion foreign aid commitment to
Panama) incurred considerable risk for the agency as a whole. Conversely, a task outside the organization’s core mission that posed little organizational risk seldom triggered organizational investment. The causal link between risk and adaptation merits the attention of theorists; it appeared obvious to many of the practitioners interviewed for this study.
This study has focused on three unilateral institutions – the U.S. Army, Department of
State, and USAID – each of which is representative of a broader constellation of interrelated U.S. departments, agencies, or special representatives. None of these agencies enjoyed a monopoly over the nation’s military, diplomatic, or economic dimensions of power. With this in mind, a similar institutional analysis could be undertaken for other unilateral, multinational, and multilateral entities, such as NATO, the United Nations, and the World Bank. In an era of alliances and multilateral diplomacy and economic development, this research might yield substantive insights into how such organizations adapt to crises. However, as Andrew Natsios insightfully observed, organizations like the United Nations are seldom independent actors
307 conforming to norms of bureaucratic behavior, but instead represent “an imperfect extension of the interests of its member states, interests that conflict with each other much of the time.”899
This author does not envy the researcher who takes on such a labyrinthine task.
Just as each institution examined here was one of a constellation of overlapping organizations, so too was each institution the key to a broader community. For example, State leveraged its diplomatic connections with the Vatican to good effect in the primarily Catholic countries of Grenada and Panama – where the Church encouraged reconciliation, safeguarded election integrity, and even nudged Manuel Noriega to face secular justice. The Army utilized its military-to-military relationships to advance U.S. interests; and USAID provided an institutional inroad to the vast network of NGOs whose actions and motivations are a cause of perpetual mystery to many military officers and even some diplomats. These communities also exerted influence over the national security institutions – such as the NGO community pressuring USAID to fund post-combat grants rather than enforceable and results-based contracts.900 When Craig Buck agreed to serve in the Balkans, he asked USAID Administrator J.
Brian Atwood for help running interference against NGOs that would surely demand grants when Buck insisted on binding contracts. Atwood promised – and delivered. More broadly, this relationship – between government bureaucracies and diverse communities of interest – is underexplored in the preceding chapters, and worthy of further analysis. This author anticipates that personal relationships and trust will prove important variables in that dimension as well.
899 Here Natsios was referring to the United Nations, an organization whose members “want the organization to remain weak” for “widely divergent reasons.” Andrew Natsios, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Humanitarian Relief in Complex Emergencies (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), 77-78. 900 State also helped run interference against the NGOs; the NGO community had powerful political lobbies with Congress. Buck’s positive relationship with Senate staffer Robin Cleveland also helped limit Congressional pressure on USAID to issue grants rather than contracts. Craig Buck, interview with the author, September 17, 2020. 308
Of the national security institutions examined here, USAID has produced the smallest of professional and historical literatures, and much of that is focused on the agency’s core mission.901 There exists little institutional memory of how the agency operated successfully in mid-conflict situations in denied areas, such as cross-border missions in Afghanistan and
Cambodia during the Cold War. This is not surprising for an agency whose culture is devoted to balancing U.S. policy interests with development theory; even the adaptive Office of Transition
Initiatives was envisioned as a “post-bullet program.”902 More conventionally, USAID’s positive record of institution-building in places like South Korea and Thailand is today underappreciated by sister agencies; a study of these and similar decades-long success stories would help manage Army, State, and policy maker expectations of measurable results in weeks or months. Three of the cases examined here – Grenada, Kosovo, and Afghanistan – involved impoverished populations with considerable out-migration and economically vital remittances, suggesting that creative foreign aid programs tailored for similar economies may provide great value in the future.
Creating an effective police force and judiciary proved among the most difficult and longest-lasting post-combat problems. In each of the four cases examined here, institution- building in these areas took longer, cost more, and delivered less return on investment than practitioners and policy-makers expected. In Grenada and Kosovo, police training took a regional approach that leveraged Caribbean and European police and gendarmes as trainers. In
Panama and Afghanistan, American contractors provided classroom and hands-on instruction.
901 The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training is a noteworthy exception to this trend; this impressive organization produces diplomatic oral histories, consolidated digital stories on cases like Panama, and even publishes State and USAID memoirs as books. The USAID Alumni organization has sponsored a forthcoming history of the agency, and former Administrator Andrew Natsios reportedly intends to publish another book. 902 Rick Barton, Peace Works: America’s Unifying Role in a Turbulent World (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), 56. 309
Neither model has proven ideal. Efforts to superimpose American values and legal standards on judicial programs in Panama and Afghanistan proved similarly problematic. Here additional research is required. With no U.S. bureaucracy structured to perform in this capacity – and the handyman Army legally constrained from doing so – police and judiciary are likely to be every bit as problematic in a future post-combat crisis as they were from 1983-2008.
This research uncovered another peculiar gap in the existing literature: the life and far- reaching influence of State’s Lawrence Eagleburger. The only career foreign service officer to serve as secretary of state, Eagleburger played an active role in many diplomatic initiatives, including the Grenada and Panama cases examined here. Eagleburger was also influential in kick-starting two of USAID’s most significant adaptations. He was directly responsible for the creation of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance in the wake of the 1963 Skopje earthquake.903 Decades later Eagleburger urged USAID Administrator Brian Atwood to enhance
USAID’s relevance – a recommendation that Atwood brought to life as the Office of Transition
Initiatives.904 Although Eagleburger authored a number of works on particular policy issues, an insightful biography detailing his diplomatic and bureaucratic ventures would benefit rising foreign service officers at State and USAID. Alas, such a work does not yet exist.
This study examined three national security institutions adapting to crises in the form of unexpected post-combat operations. A final suggestion for future research is to examine these and other institutions adapting to different types of crises, such as natural disasters or the
COVID-19 pandemic. Such an examination might dispute, validate, or yield valuable additions and revisions to the fruit-based model illustrated in this dissertation. This could lend further
903 Andrew Natsios, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Humanitarian Relief in Complex Emergencies (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997), 43-44. 904 Marian Lawson, “USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives After 15 Years: Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, May 27, 2009, 1. 310 insights on how bureaucracies adapt to unexpected crises outside their core mission, and improve the generalizability of the conclusions offered here.
311
THE LAST WORD
This study began as an effort to discover how three very different national security institutions adapted to unexpected crises – post-combat operations – that lay outside their respective core missions. The answer can be boiled down to a single word – and it is not fruit. It is trust. Trust was the hidden variable that determined the institution’s decisions regarding its existing capabilities, hand-selected practitioners, the degree of resources allocated and autonomy bestowed, and even the degree of investment in long-term institutional change. Institutions and governments are made up of people, and the relationships and trust between people formed the connective tissue between decision and implementation; and between crisis and adaptation.
Reflecting on his hundred years of life well-lived, former Secretary of State George Shultz captured this theme with eloquence: “Trust is the coin of the realm. When trust was in the room…good things happened. When trust was not in the room, good things did not happen.
Everything else is details.”905 Important details to be sure, but details nonetheless.
905 George Shultz, “The 10 Most Important Things I’ve Learned About Trust Over My 100 Years,” Washington Post, December 11, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/11/10-most-important-things-ive- learned-about-trust-over-my-100-years/?arc404=true. 312
Appendix: Acronyms
3D: Diplomacy, Development, Defense
ANA: Afghan National Army
ATACMS: Army Tactical Missile System
CENTCOM: United States Central Command
CHLC: Coalition Humanitarian Liaison Cell.
CJCMOTF: Combined Joint Civil-Military Operations Task Force
CJTF: Combined Joint Task Force
CMOC: Civil-Military Operations Center
CPF: Caribbean Peacekeeping Force
CORDS: Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support
DAA: Deputy Assistant Administrator
DART: Disaster Assistance Response Team
DCM: Deputy Chief of Mission
DOD: Department of Defense
EU: European Union
HIG: Hizb-i-Islami
ICITAP: International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program [Department of Justice]
INL: Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement
KFOR: Kosovo Force [NATO]
KLA: Kosovo Liberation Army
MNB: Multinational Brigade
MP: Military Police
313
MOOTW: Military Operations Other Than War
NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NGO: Non-Governmental Organization
NSC: National Security Council
OFDA: Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance
OMB: Office of Management and Budget
OMC-A: Office of Military Cooperation – Afghanistan
OSCE: Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
OTI: Office of Transition Initiatives
PDF: Panamanian Defense Forces
Pol-Mil: Political-Military
PRT: Provincial Reconstruction Team
PSYOPS: Psychological Operations
RC: Reserve Component [U.S. Army]
S/CRS: [Office of the] Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/ indicates the Coordinator reports directly to the Secretary of State)
SEAL: Sea-Air-Land [U.S. Navy special operations forces]
SEED: Support for East European Democracy [SEED Act]
State-INL: Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement
UFO: Unidentified Flying Object
UN: United Nations
UNHCR: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
U.S.: United States
USACOE: United States Army Corps of Engineers
314
USAID: United States Agency for International Development
USASOC: United States Army Special Operations Command
USLANTCOM: United States Atlantic Command
315
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