How we doin', GWOT? - Anthony Wayne Wright

 

How are we doing on the Global War on Terror (GWOT)?  Have we been spending our money wisely?  Is the terrorism-focused National Security Strategy making us safer now and in the future?  Answering these questions is difficult in light of many factors including both the threat and the expansive strategy designed to address that threat.  Measuring our success with any real manner of precision requires a level of understanding of the threat which is, perhaps, unknowable.  Not to mention the question of what constitutes a win when success means nothing happens.  
            Beyond that, however, there are many other issues bogging down the US Government’s execution of this strategy.  Simple bureaucratic inertia, inter-departmental miscommunication, and overly ambiguous strategic guidance all prevent the full application of the instruments of National power.  While the debate may rage on about whether Iraq is the cornerstone of a brave new world or just another version of Athens’s mistaken second front in Syracuse, the fact remains there is much improvement to be made in the more mundane details of running this Government at war.  
            This paper will focus on the difficulties and opportunities in the bureaucratic execution of the National Security Strategy.  It will discuss the difficulties of measuring this new kind of enemy and why it matters.  It will conclude with several suggestions to improve our performance in the GWOT.
As I began this paper, I focused on bringing efficiency and effectiveness to the GWOT by identifying the ways in which metrics and effects-based management could help our national security programs.  I believed that the nature of this very different war was making cause and effect difficult to see and that was the main reason for our bureaucratic inefficiencies.  However, during the process of tying National Security Strategy to amplifying strategy to department toprogram to effect, it became apparent to me that metrics would not generate the efficiencies I anticipated.  There were too many systemic problems which would render even the perfect measurement mote.  
I found that a lack of prioritization of tasks and very little assignment of duties have combined to make every department responsible for nearly every task while leaving none in charge.  In that leadership vacuum each department is pressing ahead with what works best from their own perspective, justified with their own analysis and colored by their own cultures.  Lacking the whole picture, Congress is unable to confidently execute their oversight role.
  There are tremendous opportunities in applying metrics wisely.  Each program should strive to define metrics that are relevant, measurable, responsive and resourced.  Achieving a quantum leap in efficiency will require large, cultural changes within the departments of the Executive Branch, however.  Better guidance, better interagency cooperation and, finally, an interagency analysis and budgeting process  are all required.