The Role Of Civilian Contractors In Afghanistan And Afghanistan

When Halstead was given this mission in Iraq, she never anticipated the challenge she would soon face. She had one year to plan her operation, train and certify her units for deployments and after months of painstaking preparation and training, Halstead was confident her soldiers and unit were ready to be certified for deployment. However, certification had to be issued by her superior, a three-star general recently back from Iraq—and the most challenging boss Halstead had ever encountered in all of her years of services.

The U.S. Constitution provides power to the President and Congress to develop and enact national security policy (Ulrich, 1). As such our civilian leaders have the right and responsibility to maintain oversight of the military. Two civil-military relations theories, Normal and Clausewitzian, offer competing views. The Normal theory suggests officers are professionals and interference from civilian leaders is inappropriate (Cohen, 4). The Clausewitzian theory contends the statesman may inject himself in any aspect of military strategy since

The command structure in United States Military is vital to the success of missions carried out in or outside the country. The Department of Defense is responsible for overseeing the establishment of command hierarchies that work for specific units. The commands, guidelines, and orders are passed from the highest-ranking personnel to lowest ranking officers who must perform the directive or pass it to subordinates with the same instructions. The principles that establish the command structure in the military evaluates the performance of each command and the officers involved in the various missions. The key principles that affected the execution of Operation Anaconda resulting in mission deficiencies are organizational structure, decision-making, and collaboration.

The iconic American sitcom Seinfeld has this episode where George Costanza, the show’s lovable loser, mopes to friend Jerry Seinfeld: “My life is the opposite of everything I want it to be. Every instinct I have..it 's all been wrong.” Jerry deadpans back, “If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.” Washington will eventually have its own George Costanza moment on Afghanistan, and the futility of an open-ended war. The only question is how many more dead soldiers and civilians will it take to have this epiphany.

The realistic comparison that connects to monopolistic and oligopolistic structure of defense contractors resulting in reason for shutdown for cost efficient purposes rather than competition (Hayden et al., 2010). This cost efficient purpose then turns to intergroup relations between Congress, the President and the leading large-scale power-bloc defense contractors while during government shutdown continued to run while other DOD agencies suffered from furlough (Brass, 2014; Hayden et al., 2010; McPhail, 1991; Sy (2013). In perspective, the top five defense contractors awarded DOD contracts for year 2007 were Lockheed Martin Corporation - $27B, Boeing Company - $22B, Northrop Grumman - $14B, General Dynamics - $14B, and Raytheon - $11B respectfully (Hayden et al., 2010). Based on McPhail (1991), individual-group discontinuity is explicit contrast between intergroup relations, where Brass (2014) and Sy (2013) debated on intergroup relations distinction between government shutdown and debt limit impasse. According to Brass (2014), government shutdown is the lack of group performance, intergroup relations, and communication

Taking the field in 2003, the U.S Army, the most dominate fighting force in the world seized the initiative in Iraq. This paper outlines the staging of one command, the 101st Airborne Division, their commander Major General Petraeus, and the challenges of shifting rolls from combat to nation building and the effective transfer of power. Additionally, this paper will detail the Mission Command philosophy, specifically the describe action with the four step process of commander’s intent, planning guidance, critical information and friendly information as pertains to developing the commander’s intent during the initial occupation of Mosul, Iraq. While little was known about the current

Afghanistan was a challenging deployment for the 4th ABCT. From the beginning the issues with manning and equipment caused a strain on the daily operations within the Brigade. Though not an impossible issue it caused tension between the echelons of command. These minor challenges were magnified by the death of the BDE CDR, BDE CSM, and a BN CDR. This impacted the organization greatly as it should but COL Cutler, COL Timmon’s replacement, rarely displayed decisive leadership and did not take ownership of the Brigade. As a result, the trust that was built prior to and during the deployment began to degrade and continues to do so. Numerous indicators exist on this lack of trust and they there is no indication that these actions will cease under the current leadership. The central leadership problem that exists in the 4th ABCT is a lack of trust. This trust has eroded as a result of 3 primary factors which are the misalignment of ethics, leader imposed stress, and a lack of leadership.

Every day someone’s child, spouse, sibling or parent makes the courageous decision to join the United States Army. This is something less than one percent of Americans ever do, this takes a special person to become a defender of the Constitution. Of those defenders, how many of them have deployed to a combat zone, most specifically Afghanistan? The United States military has spent over 10 years in Afghanistan. Soldiers and families are beaten and tired after this decade of combat and losses no one can even understand. These losses and brokenness is why it is time to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and bring them home in a steady and slow pattern or increments. Closing out a combat and war zone takes a lot of planning, preparation, training and cooperation from all Allied forces and host nations; Afghanistan is no different. A decade of war needs to come to an end and Afghanis need to take charge of their country and people and stand on their own two feet.

The US Central Command’s planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) was not the all-inclusive plan that joint operations require. Joint operations are no longer limited to major combat operations, but encompass a wide range of actions. Planning for joint operations requires input from many sources to produce a successful campaign plan to meet the desired end state. Operational design provides a concept and a construction framework that underpins a campaign and its execution. (JP GL13). Evaluating the planning process by using the operational design identifies some of CENTCOM’s shortfalls. US military planners’ lack of understanding of the operational environment led to an inadequately defined problem that resulted in a faulty operational approach. CENTCOM’s approach did not have the right assessment to gauge the effectiveness of the plan such as alerting planners when and if the plan needed modification. Current joint planning policy incorporates several of CENTCOM’s shortfalls in an attempt to provide a better planning process for future joint operations.

Afghanistan has been in the spotlight since the 9/11 attacks, which was followed by the war in Afghanistan until 2014. The aftermaths of the war continue to be felt here as this nation is still developing and the Taliban groups continue to hold loads of power over this country such as practicing violent attacks in aims to push all foreigners out of Afghanistan. Additionally, Afghanistan is extremely vulnerable to natural disasters as there was an earthquake just three day ago with a magnitude of 4.4 in Ashkasham, and a flood during April of this year that killed 50 people. Moreover, these natural disasters have an enormous impact on this country as they already lack employment opportunities thus their economy is deteriorating. Hence voluntary

It is in this type of environment that the USAASC operates, demanding it imperative that broad consensus is reached through an adaptable understanding of the unique Mission(s) of the organization and a flexible approach (either militaristic, civilianized or a hybrid) to determine what is best at any given time and effort. Military personal tend to want to sprint and civilians are marathoners. It was once said by General Carter Ham, “If you go quickly, you go alone, if you go slowly, we go together.” There is also a decision that Military Leaders must consider. Do they want Compliance or Commitment? Demanding Compliance tends to get things done (not all the time) but limits initiative and Commitment takes longer and is harder, yet tends

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate what I learned about mission command and reflect on how I will use the philosophy and concepts of mission command in my future duty assignment following graduation from the Sergeants Major Course. Although mission command is commander centric, noncommissioned officers (NCO’s) play a dynamic role in facilitating it.

In this research paper I will discuss the process of contracting out, issues of cost, credibility, accountability, and quality and quantity of services. My discussion will also include reasons for contracting out, opposition, and advantages and problems of contracting out.

October. A “residual force” that will remain in Afghanistan after 2014 is likely to consist of about 12,000 U.S. and NATO trainers and mentors, of which about two-thirds would be U.S. forces, plus about 3,000 mostly U.S. counterterrorism forces. No decisions on the residual force have been announced, in part because President Hamid Karzai refuses to sign a required Bilateral

Security Sector Reform (SSR) first emerged in the 1990s around Eastern Europe. SSR can help fix dysfunctional security sectors in countries emerging from years of internal warfare. The armed forces and police embrace a new mission of meeting the human security needs of their population. SSR targets all state institutions and ensures the security of the state and its people. Security Sector Reform is optional as well as a “normative concept.” Afghanistan is working on SSR and it is an ongoing struggle for the countries. The goal of SSR in the countries is to organize a way to achieve peace so that the people may not fear the armed soldiers and establish democratic control. Security Sector Reform contributes to sustainable peace in Afghanistan in many ways.