re: "Getting Embed with the Military"

Peter Van Buren at posted at Small Wars Journal blog (" facilitates the exchange of information among practitioners, thought leaders, and students of Small Wars, in order to advance knowledge and capabilities in the field ") shared some lessons-learned from his time with an ePRT.

Money quote(s):

"As a Foreign Service Officer plucked from a cozy cubicle in Foggy Bottom and dropped into an embed situation with a succession of can-do Army units (3/82nd Airborne, 2/10thMountain and 1/3rd ID) with no military experience of my own, I had a lot of learning to do. In the end I practiced more diplomacy and cross-cultural skills inside the wire than outside. Of the many uncertainties of the next gasps of our foreign policy, one thing is certain: our future wars will continue to feature civilian-military combined efforts.

Getting along is not always easy; military personnel will always vastly out number (and out spend) civilians and so most of the adapting needs to happen on our side of the equation, not theirs."

Peter provided 19 "additional ideas" for those embedding with the military; CAA's best picks of those are the first four:

"1) Earn respect by being very good at whatever it is you are doing there. Don't expect second chances to move from the dumb ass to the useful category. Don't be a know it all either, especially if your knowledge is mostly book learning.

2) 0900 means be there no later than 0845. Don't operate on civilian time. If you're late for a movement, you'll be left behind, or worse, they'll wait for you. Don’t be late even though you know the movement will start late, as it often does.

3) If you are entitled to privileges beyond what the military gets, share if you are allowed (sat phone, laptop, movies, books) or keep quiet about it (booze).

4) Follow the rules even if you can get away with not following the rules. Shave, keep your hair cut, don't dress like a slob."

Read them all, especially #19:

"19) Special for fellow State Department heroes: don't ask officers to fetch coffee for you, don't wear bow ties, don't speak in passive-aggressive slights, don't complain when your shoes get dusty, don't wear white pants to the field, don't show up without a PowerPoint to briefings, don’t expect soldiers to make your PowerPoint slides for you, don't ask soldiers to take notes for you, don't talk about your next assignment to Paris, overall just don't be a weenie and make it harder on the rest of us."

9/26

WI - As Troops Withdraw, Iraq Provincial Reconstruction Teams to Change

Washington Independent

As Troops Withdraw, Iraq Provincial Reconstruction Teams to Change


Director Expects Phase-Out by 2011


By Spencer Ackerman 3/11/09 2:35 PM


A key State Department program that seeks to bolster the capability of Iraqi provincial and local authorities to govern will remain in place over the next year with some modifications, its Washington-based director said. But concerns remain about whether the program will be sufficient to address the continuing political and economic challenges in Iraq as U.S. troops withdraw.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Since 2005, small groups made of U.S. diplomats, military officers, development experts and legal advisers called Provincial Reconstruction Teams have worked with Iraqi leaders at the province and district levels around the country to bolster their capacity to govern."

"(T)he PRT program will change between now and August 2010, when the U.S. combat mission ends. In addition to the 14 PRTs, there are also ten teams that work at the district level, known as Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams, or ePRTs, owing to their status as embedded units within the U.S. Army’s Brigade Combat Teams. Over the course of the next 15 months, the Brigade Combat Teams will leave Iraq or transition into Advisory and Assistance Brigades. Weems said the ePRTs’ personnel — a smaller team than the 15 to 25 members of an average PRT — will probably be absorbed into a regular PRT. Regular PRTs rely on partner relationships with the military to move around Iraq, which will continue to be the case."

"No decisions have yet been reached about the pace of consolidating the PRTs into consulates or embassies before 2010."

"The PRTs’ budget request for the next fiscal year will be the same as for the current one, according to State Department spokesman John Fleming, approximately $650 million. That decision may alarm some Iraq specialists in and outside the administration who fear that the department may not be prepared to shoulder a sufficient amount of the burden in Iraq as the U.S. withdraws its troops. The PRTs took years to develop capacity and competence among the Iraqi provincial leadership. But much of that leadership has been voted out of office in January’s provincial elections, and the incoming leadership will not be familiar with Iraq’s arcane budgetary and governing process. On top of Iraq’s continued sectarian strife, a shift to new leadership that’s unskilled in the unglamorous decision making that delivers services to Iraq’s population risks a discontinuity in governance that could invite new violence."

"There are about 460 U.S. officials from the departments of State, Defense, Justice, Agriculture and USAID working for the PRTs currently, as well approximately 250 Iraqis employed by them"

&

"There have been some disagreements between the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and diplomats out in the field with the PRTs about how rapidly PRT consolidation should occur. Some administration and State Department officials have noted that the PRTs implicitly challenge the notion of traditional diplomacy, in which two governments deal with each other in national capitals, rather than take a more expeditionary approach and work with local or even opposition officials on bolstering aspects of governance. Such a challenge can lead to discomfort with the idea of the PRTs.

But some see the department as adapting to a more expeditionary mindset, however slowly."