Understanding Complex Military Operations: A case study approach

Description

This volume provides materials for active learning about peacebuilding and conflict management in the context of complex stability operations. Today, America faces security challenges unlike any it has faced before, many of which requiring lengthy U.S. involvement in stability operations. These challenges are exceedingly dynamic and complex because of the ever changing mix and number of actors involved, the pace with which the strategic and operational environments change, and the constraints placed on response options. This volume presents a series of case studies to inspire active learning about peacebuilding and conflict management in the context of complex stability operations. The case studies highlight dilemmas pertaining to the story of the case (case dilemma) and to its larger policy implications (policy dilemma). The cases stimulate readers to "get inside the heads" of case protagonists with widely differing cultural backgrounds, professional experiences, and individual and organisational interests. Overall, Understanding Complex Military Operations challenges the reader to recognize the importance of specific national security related issues and their inherent dilemmas, deduce policy implications, and discern lessons that might apply to other – perhaps even non-security related – areas of public policy, administration, and management. This volume will be of much interest to students of conflict prevention, transitional justice, peacebuilding, security studies and professionals conducting field-based operations in potentially hazardous environments. Cover Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of illustrations Notes on contributors Foreword Acknowledgments List of abbreviations 1 Complex operations: connecting scholarship and practice PART I Policy questions 2 The road to good intentions: British nation-building in Aden 3 The Declarations of Independence: the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic 4 Mozambique: a chance for peace 5 Basra: dilemmas and force options PART II Security providers 6 Security by contractor: outsourcing in peace and stability operations 7 Leading healing in a broken unit 8 Right and wrong, balanced on the edge of a spear: U.S. forces at a mosque in Baghdad PART III Coordination challenges 9 The Kuwait Task Force: postconflict planning and interagency coordination 10 Dynamics of humanitarian assistance: Civil Affairs in the Horn of Africa 11 CORDS campaign of pacification 12 Security by drones: the global market for remote-controlled warfare PART IV Security and development program challenges 13 Dynamic tension: security, stability, and the opium trade 14 A penny for your thoughts, a nickel for your heart: buying popular support for counterinsurgency 15 Reintegrating child soldiers PART V Analytic cases 16 Whole of society conflict prevention: a case study on Kenya’s success contrasted with failures in Afghanistan and Iraq 17 Military intervention and diplomatic engagement in Libya: a collage of policy, force, and law 18 The Iraq War: efforts during conflict to address past atrocities and seek accountability Index