Anyone looking for a conceptual link between the "War on Terror" and the incompetence that led to the drowning of New Orleans need look no further than an article printed in today's LA Times entitled,
"A Silence in the Afghan Mountains."
As you read it, I urge you to overlook the details of the actions and personalities, and look closely at evidence of uncoordinated responses to specific threats on the part of unit leaders, battalion command, central command, the State Department, the Government of Afghanistan, and (not mentioned in this story, yet), other partners in the area which would include other foreign military agencies, and nongovernmental organizations providing aid services in the area.
The common thread between the mountains of Afghanistan and the delta of the Mississippi: a dramatic inability to create a consensus on the why and how of emergency response, and the desire to accomplish more than can possibly be accomplished than resources permit.
Whether you're fighting bad guys in the mountains or responding to a rapidly unfolding disaster, it is imperative that your team share a common sense of priorities, a clear understanding of who is supposed to be responsible for what decisions, and a sense that what one unit does affects the performace of everyone.
In this breaking investigative story in the Los Angeles Times, it is clear that the culture of cowboys and Indians, coupled with a lack of oversight, exacerbated a difficult situation and led to serious problems regarding the US military mission in Afghanistan.
The problem here is not that there is an enemy, or bad guys that want something different from us and are willing to fight dirty: the problem is that because the focus is on the bad guys, on the "other", it shifts attention away from what should be the primary concern -- the effectiveness of our concerted action to achieve our long-term goals in the region.
The disjunction between the Guard, Special Forces, Central Command, the Pentagon, State, the Afghan government are all going to be around for a while. These disjunctions are currently papered over by the fact that we are facing an intractible opponent who happens to be pretty good fighting in their own environment. What to do in the long term to address these issues?
My suggestion:
1) Forget long term goals. Fix short term problems. Then re-negotiate.
We have a tendency to promise long-term stability, then leave when we run out of steam, or achieve some short-term goal. It the result of imperial hubris, and makes tactical and operational decision-making difficult because it introduces conflicting values into the decisions. Do we go after a warlord or do we support the long-term need for Afghan self-determination? Do we hang on to a detainee to try to extract maximum tactical intelligence or do we forward the detainee to headquarters for debriefing focusing on operational and strategic needs?
Refocusing on short term goals would be a very difficult process. One that will leave participants open to criticism about "Why don't you care about democracy? Why can't we address human rights problems now? Why can't we solve this through consensus?" It requires participants to be knowledgeable about practical things in the area of concern, to be educated about the realities of the environment, resource availablity, and requires some humility to realize that not everything is going to be able to be done, in order to accomplish the short-term, primary goals. In the case of Afghanistan, it clearly appears that security is the primary, short-term goal. In New Orleans, it was pretty much the same thing: get people out of harms way, first. Get the evacuees housed, fed, medical care. Then focus on limiting damage. Then talk about reconstruction/rebuilding.
The problems arise when the priorities conflict. In the case of Afghanistan, much of the violence is based on the realities of local economies. Those local economies create radicalizing conditions, and enmesh security issues with economic issues. So then, how to proceed? On a national level? On a regional level? On a local level? Should it be coordinated or not? What are the realities and practicalities of the situation?
Our nation's approach to national security has a tendency to obscure practical realities at the local and regional level. Because we focus on "national," we tend to place much less emphasis on "local." This tendency happens both here, and overseas. The result, in an absence of limitless resources, is gaping holes between policy, execution, and results, leading to horrible anecdotes and a sense of general failure. Not a good way to win friends and influence enemies.
2) Once short-term goals are clear, increase transparency of operational units.
Effective performance then becomes visible to every partner, or not. Unfortunately, this runs counter to the organizational culture of just about every emergency operations unit. In part, because they are frequently held accountable for conditions they cannot control, by politicians who a) disagreed with the goals in the first place or, b)sense a chance to score points by making someone else look bad in a high-profile, visible position. This dynamic works in virtually every organization, "progressive", "liberal" or "conservative." It's an attribute of being human, and must be strongly resisted. How?
3) Observe proper protocols for communication.
If you have ever been in a high-stress operation, you know how important it is to have communciations come from designated sources. High transparency doesn't imply democratic or anarchic input: it simply means that everyone can gauge performance. The rules need to be that pressure for change is funnelled through the appropriate channels, and those channels are held accountable for results.
4) Most importantly, accountability must accompany responsibility.
Easy to say, difficult to do in a productive way. There is a very interesting article in the NY Times today on how difficult it is to get doctors to wash their hands, ( Freakonomics: Selling Soap, login required). Management and supervision must be routine, (the "Where's Waller" game mentioned in the LA Times article is dramatic evidence of ineffective supervision), from the top, through the bottom. 360 reviews, routinely practiced in corporate and nonprofit circles, somewhat practiced in the military at some levels, should be formally instituted for all levels of government management, including elected officials and political appointees. In virtually every organizational crisis I've personally been involved in, the simple step of documenting performance against explicit goals was not done efficiently or effectively. Why? It's too difficult because most of these kinds of things focus on 1001 aspects of performance and take major levels of effort to complete. The most effective performance reviews have been when there are 5-10 measures of effectiveness, short-term goals, and clear benchmarks for success, (again, referencing point #1).
We are too greedy for progress. We want too much to change too quickly. It is difficult to prioritize our common goals and then gain consensus. We want quick fixes and we don't want to change ourselves (it's much easier to change someone elses behavior).
The link between Afghanistan and New Orleans is a dysfunctional management culture that ignores basic human behavior, and enables/facilitates the rewarding of personal accomplishment at the expense of common purpose. This path, this culture, leads directly to the tribalism we are battling in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and the Middle East. We must do better.