The Evolving Humanitarianism

Essay: The changing concepts

of humanitarianism in

the past few decades

Reflections on the

“Guidelines for Relations

between U.S. Armed Forces and

Non-Governmental Organizations

in Hostile or Potentially

Hostile Environments”

Japan Self-Defense Forces

and their Reconstruction

Support Operations in Iraq

Experiences and interactions with

the civilian community, 2003-2006

Building Capacity Across the

Civil-MilitarySpectrum

A publication by the Center for Excellence in Disaster Management & Humanitarian Assistance

A journal of civil-military humanitarian relief collaborations

Volume IV Issue 1

LIAISON

32

ncreasingly, humanitarian assistanceand disaster relief (HA/DR) operationshave become a prominent part ofAmerica’s diplomatic repertoire, and

one in which its military forces are playingan ever more central role. Such operationshave yielded numerous “lessons learned”that have yet to be embedded fully into ourresponse strategies and capabilities.Consequently, there remain many organi-zational and operational challenges to reliefplanning and implementation that must beaddressed if disaster diplomacy is tobecome a more effective activity in supportof U.S strategic interests. In particular,critical military assets must not be undulydiverted from primary warfightingmissions, and an appropriate division oflabor must be achieved between militaryand non-military (and between U.S. andallied/partner state) responders. Greaterefforts must also be made to accustom themilitary and civilian disaster responsecommunities to their quite divergentoperational cultures. Over and above theseconsiderations, major disaster relief opera-tions have become highly complex andsophisticated exercises in internationalcooperation, requiring enormous manage-rial skill across diverse disciplines to link

together and effectively leverage a dizzyingarray of military units, humanitarianagencies, international organizations (IOs),Non-Governmental Organizations(NGOs), and private sector contributors.For this reason alone, integrating themultitude of actors now involved inHA/DR operations will require significantimprovements in joint, combined, andinter-departmental planning to achieveunity of effort. There is a pressing need,therefore, to reform the current system ofU.S. interagency coordination to make itless cumbersome and more responsive, allof which should also make multinationalcollaboration more successful.

Current U.S. Interagency ProcessBy its very nature, the process of providingU.S. military support to foreign disasterrelief operations, and associated humani-tarian assistance efforts, is an interagencyact. It is triggered traditionally by a requestfrom the U.S. Department of State’s (DoS)Executive Secretariat to the Executive

Reforming Military Support forForeign Disaster Relief andHumanitarian Assistance:By Dr. Charles M. Perry & Marina Travayiakis

By its very nature, the process ofproviding U.S. military support to foreign

disaster relief … is an interagency act.

Fea t u re Article & Es s ays

I

33

Secretariat of the U.S. Department ofDefense (DoD).1 In theory, DoS’ ExecutiveSecretariat is informed by the Office ofForeign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) withinthe U.S. Agency for InternationalDevelopment (USAID) that it has deter-mined – as the lead federal agent (LFA) forforeign disaster relief – that such assistanceis indeed required. DoS’ ExecutiveSecretariat then forwards a formal requestto its DoD counterpart. Upon receiving therequest for assistance, the ExecutiveSecretariat at DoD forwards the request tothe office of Coalition and MultinationalOperations (CMO), a sub-branch of the

Office of the Under Secretary of Defensefor Policy (OUSD(P)). Through an intra-DoD review process that it manages, CMOcollaborates with other DoD offices,

including the appropriate regional desk,the Joint Staff, the Office of theComptroller, Legal Affairs, and the DefenseSecurity Cooperation Agency (DSCA), toorganize and propose (or not) a militaryresponse. Even in cases involving a large-scale disaster and the prospect of majormilitary commitment, this review cangenerally be done within two to threehours, after which a draft plan is sent backup the chain of command for finalapproval by the secretary and/or deputysecretary of defense.

Once such approval is given, the JointStaff orders the proper regional combatant

command (COCOM), such as PacificCommand (PACOM) or SouthernCommand ( S O U T H C O M ), and if necessary,a functional COCOM, such as Transpor-

P h o to by PH2 Elizabeth A. Ed wa rd s

Representatives from the United Nations (UN); US Agencyfor International Development(USAID), the Office of ForeignDisaster Assistance (OFDA)Disaster Assistance Response Team(DART); meet on the aircraft carrierUSS Abraham Lincoln. The carrierwas deployed to the west coast ofSumatra, Indonesia, following thedevastating December 2004Indian Ocean tsunami.

tation Command (TRANSCOM), PACOM, or Joint ForcesCommand (JFCOM), to respond to the crisis and provideboth humanitarian assistance and any needed on-siteorganizational support.2 Meanwhile, throughout this wholeprocess, the DoD Executive Secretariat and the CMO officewill have been coordinating planning efforts via informalback channels with the DoS’ Executive Secretariat, andthrough it, with USAID, the local U.S. embassy, and otherrelevant agencies and departments, to determine the neces-s a ry ex tent of the opera ti on and the optimal military dep l oy -ment, given the evolving situation within the disaster zone.

In practice, however, interagency coordination is oftennot so smooth or direct, whether it proceeds along theformal or informal routes described above. In certain situations, for example, local U.S. ambassadors in disaster-stricken countries have reached out directly to the regionalCOCOM to request military assistance well before theExecutive Secretariat process has really begun in earnest,sometimes leaving OFDA and the CMO office totally in thedark. At other times, regional COCOM commanders, eagerto be responsive and demonstrate goodwill, have deployedforces to a disaster zone and prepared to provide assistance

well beyond the levels they are allowed to without priorDoD approval, and before OFDA and CMO experts havedetermined that such assistance is necessary and appro-priate. Moreover, since a request for military assistance viathe Executive Secretariat process must be sent from onecabinet-level office to another (in this case, from DoS to theDoD), USAID’s authority and interaction with the DoD hasoften been subordinated to that of the U.S. ambassador, theregional bureaus, and more specifically, DoS’ ExecutiveSecretariat (which is populated largely by regionalbureau/country team veterans, none of whom are normallywell versed in HA/DR issues and procedures). As a result,the COCOMs sometimes provide services (or are pressed to do so) even when OFDA assessments have concluded (or would if asked) that such assistance, though useful, maybe unnecessary.

Improvements in Interagency ProceduresGiven these shortcomings in the DoS-DoD military assis-tance request process, disaster relief specialists in the CMOoffice have focused on introducing a higher degree ofprofessionalism and standardization to the overall process.

34

Adm. Timothy J. Keating, commander, U.S. Pacific Command, U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie A. Kenney and Philippine Armed ForcesChief of Staff Gen. Hermongenes C. Esperon Jr., respond to questions from the press at a Philippine high school, Feb. 26, 2008. Philippine andU.S. forces involved in the bilateral exercise Balikatan 2008 were working together to rebuild classrooms that were damaged in a fire last yearas part of civil military operations.

P h o to by MCS2 Elisia V. G o n za l e s

To a large extent, this has involved greater efforts on theDoD’s part to educate regional bureau and ExecutiveSecretariat personnel at the Department of State (DoS) onthe proper rules and procedures for assessing a foreigndisaster and for organizing a properly scaled (andcomposed) response that includes the military. This is avital first step toward improving DoS-DoD and broaderinteragency coordination, and it needs to be pursued on aregular, institutionalized basis, given that DoS has no estab-lished, functional equivalent to DoD’s CMO operation.Since defense spending on HA/DR activities began inearnest in 1996 via Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster, andCivic Aid (OHDACA) funding, personnelnow assigned to CMOhave developed consider-able expertise in HA/DRoperations. In contrast,the non-USAID personnelthey must interact with atDoS have relatively littlebackground in HA/DRissues and procedures,including for many only alimited understanding ofthe DoS/USAID role asLFA. To help bridge thisinformation gap, CMO hasdeveloped a detailed briefingentitled “Foreign DisasterResponse” that it has beenpresenting primarily toregional bureau personnel.The briefing is essentially aprimer on the overall U.S. foreign disaster responsedecision-making process, with an emphasis on the DoD’srole, authority, and organizational structure in the area ofHA/DR operations.

The Executive Secretariat Process In part as an outgrowth of these briefing activities, the DoDand the DoS (with CMO and USAID/OFDA, respectively,in the lead) have set up a joint working group aimed atreforming and professionalizing the somewhat convolutedExecutive Secretariat process (Figure 1), which remains thepreferred approach for larger-scale disasters. A key DoDobjective in the working group is to promote reforms tocurrent practice that would require the DoS to confirm that

DoD assistance was in fact “necessary and essential” (andnot simply “desirable” or “useful to have”) and to vest inUSAID (and OFDA specifically) the authority to make thatdetermination. At present, USAID/OFDA, despite theirputative LFA expertise, are only required “to check a box”(along with other main Department of State offices) toconfirm that military assistance would be “useful.”USAID/OFDA is generally quite willing to give this confir-mation as it would normally mean fewer demands on theUSAID budget to underwrite support that DoD and themilitary would otherwise provide.3 To help boostUSAID/OFDA authority, the CMO office in DoD also

supports the adoption of anational security presiden-tial directive (NSPD) thatwould give USAID cabinet-level authority, given thatthe DoS-to-DoD request formilitary assistance underthe Executive Secretariatprocess must proceed as acabinet-level exchange.Clearly, this will not happenin the near term, but if it everdoes, OFDA assessments ofthe need (or lack thereof) formilitary/DoD assistance –which more often than not arequite similar to those made by

disaster relief experts in the CMOoffice – would presumably hold sway over those

of the DoS’ Executive Secretariat and regional bureaus, whotend to support the requests of the local ambassador,however inexpert he or she may be.

This is not to suggest, however, that ambassadors,COCOM commanders, and others on the front lines of asudden disaster are wrong to try and expedite the process.Nor is it to suggest that following the Executive Secretariatprocess to the letter of the law will produce the best andmost effective response when time is of the essence. Indeed,unless there is high-level political pressure moving theprocess along, as there almost always is for large-scale disas-ters such as the 2005 Pakistan earthquake, the ExecutiveSecretariat process can be quite cumbersome and time-consuming, even when it unfolds as it should via theappropriate experts at OFDA and DoD. For the morecommon small- to medium-scale disasters, however, such

35

F i g ure 1

pressure is often absent, and requests for very specific,time-urgent military assistance can become unnecessarilybogged down in red tape, even if proper procedures arebeing followed.4 To some extent, this was the case duringthe Solomon Islands crisis in April 2007, and it seemedlikely to become an ongoing problem during a rash ofsimilarly small-scale, but nonetheless quite devastating,disasters that occurred within fairly narrow geographiczones during the summer and fall of 2007, including anAugust earthquake in Peru, flooding in Nicaragua inSeptember as a result of Hurricane Felix, widespread windand water damage in the Dominican Republic in Novemberdue to tropical storm Noel, and later in November theimpact of Cyclone Sidr on Bangladesh. Clearly, relying onan Executive Secretariat review process that could takeanywhere from 7 to 14 days to complete was not ideal forhandling back-to-back disasters of this magnitude.Something had to be done to accelerate the provision ofessential military assistance in these lesser but still seriouscases, when essential aid cannot be found from local orinternational civilian sources, and the prompt and targetedprovision of American military assistance could make aworld of difference.

New Two-Tier ProcessFortunately, lessons learned from these back-to-back criseshave prompted a real breakthrough in how requests formilitary assistance will be handled in the future for small-and medium-scale disasters. When such an event occurs,the appropriate officers from the DoS, USAID/OFDA, DoD,

and the local regional COCOM will have a four-waydialogue to determine if military assistance is necessary. Ifthe answer is yes, then USAID/OFDA will fax a one-page“letter of commitment” stating that this is indeed the caseto the regional COCOM, a copy of which is sent simultane-ously to the CMO office in DoD. CMO authorities then willexpedite the intra-DoD coordination they would normallyinitiate when military assistance is requested, facilitate aDoD decision on a proper course of action, and forwardthat decision to the secretary or deputy secretary of defensefor formal approval. The approval will then be transmittedto the COCOM, which will already be organizing therequired response on the basis of the faxed letter ofcommitment. The goal is to complete this whole process(Figure 2), from initial request to deployment, in less thantwelve hours, and recent experiences suggest that it canoften be done even more quickly. Operating with only askeletal crew the day before Thanksgiving in 2007, forexample, it took DoD no more than 10 hours to get themilitary aid requested headed to Bangladesh after CycloneSidr hit. It took only fifteen minutes to get the assistanceneeded on its way to the Dominican Republic duringtropical storm Noel.5 For comparison’s sake, under thetraditional Executive Secretariat format, it can take two tothree days just to complete the DoS-USAID-DoD coordina-tion process (Figure 3), and up to 7 to 10 additional days toget approved military assistance to the disaster zone.

Since late 2007, then, decisions on the DoD’s provisionof foreign disaster relief have in theory been guided by anew two-tier process. In the event of a large-scale disaster,

the more deliberative Executive Secretariat processwill be followed. This makes sense given that themilitary component of any response is likely to bequite diverse and sizeable, and it will almost certainlyplay a prominent management role in the early reliefphases of such operations, which must be carefullycoordinated across interagency lines and in sync withbroader international efforts. On the other hand,when one or more smaller disasters occur, the task isnot so much one of marshalling a huge multi-agency,cross-institutional response over a wide geographicalarea, but one of getting very specific assets andsupplies – such as search and rescue helicopters orfresh drinking water – very quickly on the scene. Forthis more limited, but still very essential, type ofoperation, the letter-of-commitment process will bepreferred, as it allows a timely and targeted response.

36

F i g ure 2

Other CMO EffortsBeyond these reforms, DoD efforts to improve HA/DRdecision-making remain focused on educating the non-expert community at the DoS on the proper criteria fordetermining whether or not military assistance is essential,and on the correct procedural steps to request and securesuch support. Toward that end, another key objective of theCMO office has been to develop a template for the DoS touse when requesting DoD assistance, so that such requestswill be more useable from a DoD/military perspective.Rather than make a specific request for a particular militarycapability, the template would lay out a more detaileddescription of the situation on the ground, such as the scale and type of physical damage, the level and nature ofcasualties, the status of any displaced persons or refugees,the condition of transport infrastructure, and overallsecurity conditions. The template would leave it to theOffice of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), the Joint Staff,and ultimately the regional and functional COCOMs todetermine what military assets to provide, where theyshould be drawn from, when they should depart or besupplied, and under what rules of engagement.

Working together with the DoS and USAID/OFDA specialists, CMO officials are also putting together a one-day training course and a longer course module on theforeign disaster relief decision process that will soon beintegrated into the core curriculum of the Foreign ServiceInstitute (FSI). Ideally, once the diplomats so trained areassigned to various regional bureaus and/or postedoverseas, the ideas presented in these educational materialswill be sustained by efforts now underway at theDepartment of State’s Bureau for Political-Military Affairs(PM) to publish a first-ever guidebook on HA/DR policiesand procedures.

Broader Changes in DoD GuidanceAt the Pentagon, recent efforts to update DoD policyguidance with regard to foreign disaster relief should alsoensure a smoother, better-coordinated interagency process.For example, the CMO office is in the midst of substantiallyupdating DoD Directive No. 5100.46, “Responsibilities forForeign Disaster Relief Operations,” a key DoD documentlast updated in December 1975. The current effort willbring the department’s stated policy more fully into accordwith the strategic realities of the post-9/11 world. It willalso ensure that the sections detailing which DoD officesand agencies have lead responsibility for organizing and

implementing any U.S. military support to a foreigndisaster relief effort reflect the organizational changes insti-tuted at OUSD(P) in January 2007. The updated directivewill also require COCOMs to file carefully structured after-action reports following any disaster relief operation theyare involved in, so that the primary lessons learned (withregard to operational challenges, capability needs, require-ments for interagency/multinational coordination, and thelike) are captured on paper and filed in a central location, ifstill not fully embraced by those responsible for disasterrelief planning and preparedness.

Moreover, while DoD Directive 5100.46 has been under-going revisions, the Partnership Strategy Office (PRT) atthe Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for GlobalSecurity Affairs (OASD/GSA) has been crafting a new DoDdirective on humanitarian assistance, outlining proceduresand assigning responsibilities for DoD relief efforts anddisaster prevention programs that may be set in motionafter an initial crisis response.6 Such a document (a finaldraft should be ready by mid-2008) has never existedbefore, and the need for one now is but one more illustra-tion of DoD’s growing role in post-disaster recovery andcapacity-building efforts, all of which must be closelycoordinated with those of the Department of State, otherfederal agencies and international organizations involved inforeign disasters, and the NGO community.

At a broader policy level, the PRT office is also leading aDoD effort to integrate the secretary of defense’s SecurityCooperation Guidance (which includes military training,exercise, and assistance projects by the COCOMs to helpbuild foreign partner skills and capabilities) with hisContingency Planning Guidance (which focuses on militaryservice requirements to cope with primary warfighting

F i g ure 3 37

scenarios). The end result, tentatively called Guidance forthe Employment of Forces (GEF), would presumably grantnon-warfighting, engagement-type missions – such asdisaster relief and humanitarian assistance – a higherdegree of importance in military planning circles.

Whether the GEF (or some variant of it) will eventuallybe adopted and embraced by the military services andCOCOMs remains to be seen. However, if it is, the incen-tives to develop better procedures and improvedcapabilities to support foreign disaster relief operations,including mechanisms to enhance interagency coordinationamong all primary participants in such operations, wouldcertainly receive a boost. Ideally, this would also help toreinforce recent calls by Congress for DoD and theCOCOMs to make greater efforts identifying potentialcapability gaps in the stability operations realm (whichincludes HA/DR missions),7 together with proposals forhow to more effectively leverage existing DoD/militaryassets in concert with those that non-DoD/civil contribu-tors may provide to foreign disaster relief.8

Obstacles to Interagency ImprovementThat said, clarifying capability needs and interagencycoordination requirements will be no easy task. Moreover,

as imperfect as the Department of State’s understanding ofDoD procedures and capabilities for HA/DR missions maybe, many of the roadblocks that now inhibit smoother DoS-DoD (and broader interagency) coordination can be tracedto shortcomings in DoD policies and organizational struc-tures. Among the COCOMs, for example, efforts tofacilitate interagency participation in contingency planningfor HA/DR missions and other stability operations –principally through each COCOM’s Joint InteragencyCoordination Group (JIACG) – have met with limitedsuccess so far, partly because relatively few qualifiedpersonnel from non-DoD agencies and organizations aretrained and available to participate in JIACG planningsessions. For example, CENTCOM’s JIACG, which is by farthe largest in terms of proposed staffing, had a totalprojected membership of fifty-six personnel in 2007. Ofthese, forty-nine were DoD em p l oyees (forty - one military,ei ght civi l i a n ) , t wo were FBI agen t s , and on ly one each camef rom Do S , D E A , Hom eland Sec u ri ty, Tre a su ry, and USAID.9

Si m i l a rly limited repre s en t a ti on from beyond DoD wasproj ected for the EUCOM and PACOM JIAC G s , and in allcases com peting com m i tm ents el s ewh ere and travel fundingcon s traints ren dered the pre s en ce of even these few non -DoD pers on n el an uncertain propo s i ti on . As one COC O M

38

Bangladeshi army Brig.Gen. Rashid Uzzamun

Khan, a Tropical CycloneSidr relief planner, speaks

before a committee ofU.S. and Bangladeshi

Military Personnel, USAIDmembers, and Bangladeshi

government delegates onNov. 24, 2007. The cyclone

struck Bangladesh as aCategory 4 Storm on

Nov. 15, 2007.

P h o to by Cpl. Peter R. M i l l e r

official su m m ed it up, “ It’s awf u lly hard to prom o te intera-gency coord i n a ti on wh en the people attending intera gen c ym eeti n gs are almost all DoD pers on n el .”1 0

Other DoD-related constraints include the fact thatDoD policy generally discourages the sharing of DoDcontingency plans with non-DoD agencies or offices unlessthe secretary of defense explicitly authorizes it. Moreover,COCOM commanders normally must pass the interagencyelements of any contingency plan (including those forHA/DR operations) through the Joint Staff to the NationalSecurity Council (NSC) for interagency staffing and plandevelopment.11 In addition to the coordination challengesthat such a cumbersome and hierarchical process presents,the planning cultures of DoD and non-DoD officials areoften quite divergent, leading to false expectations in DoDwith regard to the approach that other federal agencies arelikely to take in tackling a common problem and to under-estimations with regard to the level of resources they would(or could) assign to its resolution. As noted in a 2007 reportby the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) onthe interagency process, DoD maintains a very robustapproach to planning, supported by dedicated careerpersonnel with access to substantial resources (compared towhat is available to other executive departments), andtrained to anticipate and prepare for all manner ofplausible scenarios in any given situation. The Departmentof State, by contrast, tends to focus more narrowly oncurrent operations and the immediate task at hand, anapproach that has left it with a relatively small pool ofp l a n n ers to draw on to su pport COCOM planning activi ti e s .

As partial remedy, Department of State officials haveproposed that the COCOMs “virtually include” DoSplanners using electronic communication tools. They havealso suggested that DoD revise its policies to allowCOCOM commanders to reach back directly to DoS andother government offices (bypassing the Joint Staff and theNSC) for input as HA/DR and other stability operations arebeing organized.12 EUCOM is apparently testing the “virtuallinkage” idea with DoS, but broader adaptations of DoDpolicy to allow for more direct COCOM access to non-DoD assets have yet to be taken.

Long-Term Solutions in Interagency CoordinationOn the specific issue of interagency coordination for

foreign disaster relief, there aresigns of movement towardlonger-term solutions,including the new interagencyworking group known for nowas the Foreign Disaster ReliefStanding Committee. This

group was created in mid-2007 as a way for the true expertsand practitioners from the U.S. government’s four maindisaster relief offices (the CMO in DoD, USAID/OFDA, andboth the PM and the Refugees, Population, and Migration(RPM) bureaus at DoS) to gather on a regular basis tocompare notes, float proposals, coordinate policies, andidentify key areas for further improvement. Within thePentagon, the CMO office has also prepared an in-depthreview section on HA/DR planning and operations forDoD’s standard action officer training course (held severaltimes each year) that will provide new staff with a compre-hensive overview of the key players and their roles, at boththe national and international levels. A similar CMO brief(but with a more focused DoD pitch) will be integratedinto USAID’s Joint Humanitarian Operations Course(JHOC) that OFDA regularly presents to COCOM staffs.According to DoD officials, these JHOC presentations,which began in February 2007, have helped to bringCOCOM personnel up to speed on the HA/DR responsibil-ities and capabilities of non-DoD agencies, while ensuringthat they also understand proper procedures and decision-making channels for requesting and approving DoD andCOCOM assistance for foreign disaster relief (beyond theinitial emergency response that any COCOM commandermay authorize).13

So, too, recent adjustments at the Department of Statesignal a more determined effort to foster DoS-DoD andbroader interagency coordination in the stability operationsarena, including HA/DR activities. In February 2007, therelatively new Office of the Coordinator for Reconstructionand Stabilization (S/CRS) was removed from the mainDepartment of State’s organizational structure and placedunder the foreign-aid coordinator (who also headsUSAID), a shift that brought the S/CRS enterprise squarelywithin a policy planning community that is deeplycommitted to (if not always adept at) the civil dimensionsof stability operations. With support from the foreign-aidcoordinator, this consolidation should eventually help the

39

“It’s awfully hard to promote interagency coordination when the people attending interagency meetingsare almost all DoD personnel.”

S/CRS office to attract much-needed funding increases and more personnel, both of which could help ease anumber of the DoS-DoD coordination difficulties notedabove (e.g., limited staff for JIACG meetings).

For example, S/CRS plans to have on hand by 2008 an active response corps of about 30 stabilization andreconstruction (S&R) technical experts, and perhaps asmany as 250 sometime in the future, who could bedeployed to crisis spots overseas within forty-eight hours.This plan, together with proposals for a much larger civilianreserve corps (possibly in the thousands) that couldmobilize for deployment in four to six weeks,14 may eventually pave the way to closer and more effective civilianand military collaboration across a range of stability andreconstruction missions. By definition, this would includeoperations aimed at building up local capacity in countriesthat have been destabilized or have become vulnerable toinstability as a result of natural or man-made disasters. Theprospects for such collaboration seem particularly bright (if still somewhat distant) when noting the fact that S/CRSofficials, in contrast to their Department of State’s“cousins,” appear to have adopted a robust approach tooperational planning similar to DoD’s.15

ConclusionIn the end, while there are clearly specific improvements to be made in current HA/DR planning and implementa-tion procedures, solving interagency challenges at thebroader stability operations level may be the real key tosolving these same challenges at the more specific level of individual HA/DR operations. Both sets of activities,HA/DR missions and stability operations, confront acommon underlying reality: that the tasks they mustmanage can not be done by the military alone, but ratherrequire a multifaceted interagency, and often multinational,team. That team, moreover, must be tailored to fit thechanging needs of the overall operation (e.g., moving from initial crisis response to stabilization, recovery, andreconstruction), drawing from a mix of civil and military,national and international, and governmental and NGOassets, including private-sector sources. However, the main point here is that policy reforms and organizationalshifts now in place or proposed for the DoS/DoD disasterrelief decision-making process will never be as effective as planned or expected unless (or until) the diverse interagency and institutional contributors that increasinglyare drawn into foreign disaster relief operations – particularly large-scale ones – really learn to collaborateand achieve a unity of effort.16 As most American disasterrelief specialists never tire of saying, this could requirenothing less than the equivalent of a Goldwater-Nichols Act for the interagency and its likely partners outside theU.S. government.17

Notes1 . In the U. S . govern m en t , the Dep a rtm ent of S t a te is the cabi n et - l evel

forei gn affairs agen c y, equ iva l ent to the forei gn affairs ministries ofo t h er co u n tri e s . The Dep a rtm ent of S t a te is ad m i n i s tered by thes ec ret a ry of s t a te , while the DoD is ad m i n i s tered by the sec ret a ry ofdefen s e .

2 . A unified combatant command (COCOM) is a military com m a n dcom po s ed of forces from two or more military servi ces with a broadcon ti nuing mission under a single com m a n der. The opera ti on a lchain of command runs from the pre s i dent to the sec ret a ry ofdefense to the combatant com m a n ders . C OCOMs are or ga n i zed onei t h er a geogra phic basis (Un i ted States Af rica Com m a n d , Un i tedS t a tes Cen tral Com m a n d , Un i ted States Eu ropean Com m a n d ,Un i ted States Pacific Com m a n d , Un i ted States Nort h ern Com m a n d ,Un i ted States So ut h ern Command) or on a functi onal basis (Un i tedS t a tes Joint Forces Com m a n d , Un i ted States Special Opera ti on sCom m a n d , Un i ted States Stra tegic Com m a n d , Un i ted State sTra n s port a ti on Com m a n d ) .

3 . Si m i l a rly, DoD never re a lly wants to refuse a serious request fromthe DoS for military su pport . In c re a s i n gly, su ch su pport is seen as ani m portant mission in what is now call ed phase 0 (pre - con f l i ct )

40

m i l i t a ry opera ti on s , wh i ch are aimed at shaping the sec u ri tyenvi ron m ent in key regi onal theaters , as well as en ga ging po ten ti a la llies and coa l i ti on partn ers , to prevent futu re crises and/or toprep a re for an ef fective re s pon s e . Hen ce , the import a n ce of en su ri n gthat there is a real need , lest scarce DoD re s o u rces (inclu d i n gfunding) for disaster rel i ef be misapp l i ed .

4 . Th o u gh ad m i t tedly som ewhat arbi tra ry, d i s a s ter re s ponse plannersin DoD define small- to med ium-scale disasters as events that co s ta round $2 mill i on or less, and in wh i ch no more than 2,000 to 3,000(and norm a lly con s i dera bly fewer) people die and no more than afew thousand are displaced . In con tra s t , a large-scale disaster migh ti nvo lve tens of thousands of deaths and hu n d reds of thousands (ifnot mill i ons) of d i s p l aced pers on s , while imposing costs of tens orhu n d reds of m i ll i ons of do ll a rs .

5 . In tervi ew with DoD disaster rel i ef p l a n n ers , Novem ber 30, 2 0 0 7 .6 . In 2007, OUSD(P) was reor ga n i zed to bet ter ad d ress the growi n g

em phasis on managing intern a ti onal military coa l i ti on s , equ i pp i n gp a rtn er nati ons to fight terrori s t s , and improving U. S . and coa l i ti onre s ponses to the gl obal war on terror and hu m a n i t a rian cri s e s . Asp a rt of the OUSD(P) reor ga n i z a ti on , a nu m ber of n ew assistant anddep uty assistant po s i ti ons were establ i s h ed , i n cluding the Office ofAssistant Sec ret a ry of Defense for Global Sec u ri ty Af f a i rs( OA S D / G S A ) , OASD/GSA is re s pon s i ble for defen s e - rel a ted issu e scon cerning building the capabi l i ty of p a rtn ers and all i e s ; coa l i ti ona f f a i rs ; tech n o l ogy sec u ri ty po l i c y; s ec u ri ty coopera ti on ; co u n tern a r-co ti c s , co u n terpro l i fera ti on , and co u n tering gl obal thre a t s ; det a i n eea f f a i rs ; and POW/MIA issu e s .

7 . In Novem ber 2005, DoD issu ed Di rective 3000.05, Mi l i t a ry Su pportfor Stabi l i ty, Sec u ri ty, Tra n s i ti on , and Recon s tru cti on (SSTR)Opera ti on s . The directive def i n ed stabi l i ty opera ti ons as all militaryand civilian activi ties con du cted ac ross the full spectrum from pe aceto con f l i ct to establish or maintain order in states and regi on s , su chas re s toring sec u ri ty, m eeting hu m a n i t a rian need s , devel oping repre-s en t a tive govern m ent insti tuti on s , and reviving the priva te sector.Opera ti ons ac ross the full spectrum from pe ace to con f l i ct inclu deHA/DR mission s , pe ace keep i n g, pe ace en forcem en t , and pe acebuilding mission s , con f l i ct preven ti on , c ivil war, regi onal con f l i ct ,and gen eral war. Most import a n t ly, the directive el eva ted stabi l i tyopera ti ons to the level of a core military mission on par (forplanning purposes at least) with combat opera ti on s . ( 2 0 0 7 , May ) .

8 . G overn m ent Acco u n t a bi l i ty Office (GAO ) , “ Mi l i t a ry Opera ti on s :Acti ons Needed to Im prove Do D’s Stabi l i ty Opera ti ons Approachand Enhance In tera gency Planning,” Report to the Ranking Mem ber,Su bcom m i t tee on Na ti onal Sec u ri ty and Forei gn Af f a i rs , Com m i t teeon Overs i ght and Govern m ent Reform , House of Repre s en t a tive s ,G AO - 0 7 - 5 4 9 , May 2007, 2 4 - 3 3 .

9 . Ibi d . ( 2 0 0 7 , May ) . 2 8 .1 0 . In tervi ew with PACOM disaster rel i ef p l a n n er, May 1, 2 0 0 7 .1 1 . G AO. ( 2 0 0 7 , May ) . 3 0 .1 2 . Ibi d . ( 2 0 0 7 , May ) . 3 2 .1 3 . USAID pers on n el cannot form a lly pre s ent or explain DoD bri ef i n g

m a terial inclu ded in the overa ll JHOC co u rse materi a l , but they can(and do) provi de it to COCOM JHOC atten dees as a key “l e avebeh i n d .” This would inclu de clear or ga n i z a ti onal ch a rts and dec i s i ontree s , detailing pri m a ry POCs and tel eph one nu m bers / em a i lad d resses for key OSD officials who manage Do D / C OCOM con tri-buti ons to disaster rel i ef opera ti on s . In tervi ew with DoD disasterrel i ef p l a n n ers , Ju ly 12, 2 0 0 7 .

1 4 . Com m ent by Am b a s s ador John Herb s t , ( 2 0 0 7 , June 13), coord i n a torfor recon s tru cti on and stabi l i z a ti on , U. S . Dep a rtm ent of S t a te ,

Rethinking the War on Terror work s h op, or ga n i zed by the In s ti tutefor Forei gn Policy An a lysis in su pport of U. S . Cen tral Com m a n d .

1 5 . D avid H. Gu rn ey and Merri ck E. Kra u s e . ( 2 0 0 6 , Ju ly ) . “An In tervi ewwith Vi ce Pre s i dent and Di rector of Forei gn Policy Studies at theBroo k i n gs In s ti tuti on : Ca rlos Pa s c u a l ,” Joint Fo rce Quarterly 42.Am b a s s ador Ca rlos Pascual was the first coord i n a tor for the Officeof the Coord i n a tor for Recon s tru cti on and Stabi l i z a ti on .

1 6 . In this con tex t , u n i ty of ef fort could be def i n ed as the ex i s ten ce acom m on understanding among the va rious participants in a disasterrel i ef opera ti on of the overa ll purpose and con cept of opera ti on s ,b a s ed on cl o s ely coord i n a ted plans and policies and a solid fo u n d a-ti on of mutual trust and con f i den ce . See GAO. ( 2 0 0 7 , May ) , 2 4 - 2 5 .

1 7 . The Goldw a ter- Ni chols Act of 1986 reworked the command stru c-tu re of the Un i ted States military, p l acing new em phasis on joi n t ,c ro s s - s ervi ce planning and opera ti ons (as oppo s ed to servi ce - s pec i f i cactivi ties that were of ten uncoord i n a ted ) .

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D r. Ch a rles M. Pe r ry

Marina Travayiakis works as a research associate at IFPA.Her research interests include civil-military affairs, crisismanagement, and reconstruction and stabilization operations. Her most recent work at the Institute includesstudies on civil-military coordination for disaster reliefoperations. Ms. Travayiakis holds an M.A. in law and diplomacy from The Fletcher School, Tufts University. Shecan be reached by e-mail at mtravayiakis@ifpa.org.

Dr. Charles M. Perry is vice president and director ofstudies at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis (IFPA).He has written extensively on a variety of national andinternational security issues, especially with respect toU.S. defense policy, regional security dynamics, alliancerelations, and strategic priorities in the post-9/11 securityenvironment. Dr. Perry is currently directing a major IFPAstudy focused on the rising role of military forces inforeign disaster relief, humanitarian assistance, andstability operations as a whole. He holds an M.A. in inter-national affairs, an M.A. in law and diplomacy, and a Ph.D.in international politics from The Fletcher School, TuftsUniversity. Dr. Perry can be reached by e-mail atcperry@ifpa.org.

M a rina Travayiak is