by Colonel Gary Anderson
Download the full article: Putting the "I" in the COIN Team
The German General Staff system had it faults, but as T. N. Dupuy pointed out in has classic study, A Genius for War , it produced a system that institutionalized excellence at the tactical and operational levels of war from the defeat of Napoleon to the final moments of World War II. No-one who has ever served on or with a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Iraq or Afghanistan is likely to equate PRTs with the Germans who wore the purple stripe on their trousers. However, the Germans had one thing that PRTs could use; that being a shared vision and mission focus.
PRTs are, by nature, interagency bodies. There, we find their potential strength and their shared weakness. Each member of a PRT brings with him or her, the strength of his parent organization as well as its institutional baggage. If the members of the team cannot create a shared vision and shed some of that baggage, the team becomes dysfunctional. PRTs which develop a shared vision and mission focus inevitably will become key elements to the counterinsurgency effort; those that do not, become liabilities. Institutionalizing excellence in PRT performance should become a key goal as we move forward in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Download the full article: Putting the "I" in the COIN Team
Gary Anderson is a retired Marine Corps Colonel. He recently left the State Department after a year-long tour as the Senior Governance Advisor to and embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq.
About the Author(s)
Gary Anderson is a retired Marine Corps Colonel who has been a civilian advisor in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is an adjunct professor at the George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs.