Be prepared: that’s the motto of the Boy Scouts. “Be prepared for what?” someone once asked Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting. “Why, for any old thing,” said Baden-Powell.
In the years ahead, great thinkers, including the regular patrons of the local Tim Horton’s, will invariably ponder the question: “Was Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan a worthwhile expenditure of the nation’s spirit, blood and treasure?”
While mulling this over, they should consider that the worthiness of Canada’s decade-long involvement in Afghanistan does not rest solely on whether Afghanistan eventually achieves a level of nationhood satisfactory to the West. The extent to which we are successful in institutionalizing what we’ve learned from the conflict is equally important – it will affect the success or failure of future interventions.
This begs a further the question: “Has Canada’s whole-of-government (WoG) team been successful in institutionalizing what it learned about the WoG approach from its decade-long mission to Afghanistan?”
The future of WoG
There are several key factors that will shape the future of Canada’s whole-of-government approach. These factors can be correlated to elements of the McKinsey 7-S (or simply 7-S) organizational theory model. The model is a tool to initiate change processes in business organizations and give direction, but it can also be easily applied to government organizations. For our purposes, I’ll focus on the elements of “structure” and “systems.”
Structure
Canada’s commitment to Afghanistan in 2002/2003 included a military and diplomatic component. These efforts were not, however, truly representative of a whole-of-government approach. As the mission evolved, a more sophisticated WoG approach was required for the complexities of rebuilding Afghanistan in the context of a counterinsurgency. A steady increase in Canadian government civilian numbers and structures occurred on both sides of the Atlantic, resulting in the Provincial Reconstruction Team, Representative of Canada in Kandahar (and staff), Afghanistan Task Forces within DFAIT and CIDA, and Privy Council Office Afghanistan Task Force.
Unfortunately, these structures are temporary and ad hoc, generated in response to a specific mission, due to end in 2012. Presumably after 2012, these will all disappear.
Furthermore, being ad hoc, they often lagged behind the need that drove their creation. In a failed or fragile state, time is a commodity you can ill afford to waste. Flexible, responsive and prepared structures are what is required. At least a modicum of these capabilities should be on the shelf, ready to go. Outside of the Canadian Forces and the extant Embassies/High Commissions, there is little in the way of contingency WoG structures at the operational and tactical levels.
One organization that will endure is the Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force (START). Established in 2005, START represents a significant enhancement to our WoG approach at the strategic level. Mandated to provide a strategic level crisis response capability, its success should be continued through the establishment of standing, formed or partially formed structures at the operational and tactical levels, ready to go when a new crisis arises. While not every crisis will require a separate organization to support a mission, some will and even a small investment could reap potentially large returns.
Before generating structures, you need to make an intellectual investment to determine what organizations are required, what they will do, and how they will do those tasks. As a WoG team member, the CF is notable for its efforts to institutionalize the intellectual advancement of Canada’s WoG approach.
There is a desperate need still for a “centre of excellence” for that approach (DFAIT-led, perhaps under the auspices of START, noting it does some of this work already) with a few experienced personnel from the key government departments with ties to appropriate academic, research, commercial and peer organizations. Such an institution could be responsible for doctrine, processes, research, models, experiments, concepts and ideas that would enhance Canada’s WoG approach for future missions. Put more directly, this centre would be a thinking rather than doing institution.
Systems
7-S posits that the Ss are interrelated and in Canada’s WoG approach, structures and systems are intertwined. The needs of structures drive the establishment of systems. In the CF, systems exist for the collection, production and dissemination of lessons learned. For example, Joint Task Force Afghanistan Headquarters in Kandahar has three of its staff dedicated to joint lessons learned, capturing lessons as they occur. There is no comparable capability in Canada’s whole-of-government structure in theatre.
The “systems” shortcoming is not limited to lessons learned. The military operational planning process is the de facto WoG planning process in Afghanistan because there is no agreed upon WoG process. If you need added convincing on the need for WoG systems, look no further than the consequences of Canada’s imperfect system for handling, processing and hand-over of detainees in Afghanistan.
The ad hoc nature of the WoG structure (at the operational and tactical levels) and varying approaches of government departments leaves Canada challenged to institutionalize the complex systems required to fully apply the WoG approach. Who in the WoG team has primary responsibility to determine which of the various civilian structures that were used in Afghanistan (and there have been a number) was the best one and why it was the best one? Who is developing systems to support such WoG structures? The approach is inadequately supported at the operational and tactical levels by proven, agreed-upon and institutionalized systems. This bodes ill for the future of Canada’s WoG approach.
If Canada learns nothing else from its decade-long involvement in Afghanistan, it should be the Boy Scout motto: “Be prepared.” A failure to invest in capabilities like contingency WoG structures at the operational and tactical levels, a dedicated centre of excellence for the WoG approach, and the development of institutionalized, common WoG systems are serious impediments to the advancement of Canada’s WoG approach.
A brief examination of structure and systems suggests the future of Canada’s approach is far from assured. The establishment of START in 2005 was an important step forward but needs to be followed up with additional efforts, particularly at the operational and tactical levels. The impetus from being in a war will rapidly dissipate when the last C-130 Hercules departs Kandahar Airfield in 2012. This will be exacerbated by staff turnover (and consequent loss of experience) within government departments. Barring some action being taken soon, this suggests the half-life of the progress made to date lies in the three- to five-year range.
The tremendous expenditure of this nation’s spirit, blood and treasure in Afghanistan merits a greater investment in our whole-of-government approach so that the WoG team will always be ready “for any old thing.”
Steve Fritz-Millett has worked in the Comprehensive Approach arena, principally in the pre-deployment stage, integrating civilian actors and agencies in military training. For the past three years, he has worked as a contractor in preparing staffs and higher headquarters for the complexities of operations in Afghanistan and in Canada, and in the delivery of training to other government department personnel preparing for deployment. He was a contributing author to Land Operations 2021: Adaptive Dispersed Operations and Towards Land Operations 2021 (fritzmillett@hotmail.com).
The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the organizations specifically mentioned.