The Myth of the Interagency Process

This study addresses potential reasons why the United States government struggles to attain its political objectives in the aftermath of dramatic military victories during conventional conflicts. The author introduces his study by asserting that security, stability, transition, and reconstruction (SSTR) operations--including nation building efforts--can play a strategically critical role in mitigating threats to US interests and promoting stability in failed or failing states that might otherwise foster the growth of terrorist movements and other forms of low-intensity conflict. The author then asserts that SSTR operations require the effective integration of all the instruments of national power, and that the US government lacks an organizational structure appropriate for achieving the level of integration required to ensure the success of such operations. In an effort to identify successful organizational models that promote effective interagency integration for the development of national-security policy and strategy, and for the conduct of successful nation-building operations, the author examines the British Committee of Imperial Defence and the British colonial bureaucracy from the early and middle 20th century. After these two case studies, the author then investigates the formulation of US policy and strategy for Operation Iraqi Freedom and seeks to identify the source of the subsequent problems encountered during US-led nation-building operations in post-war Iraq. The author concludes that many of the challenges impeding stabilization and reconstruction efforts in Iraq stem from US policy makers' aversion to SSTR efforts--including nation building operations--and from the US government's lack of an organizational structure appropriate for the management and execution of such operations.