Many NATO and national initiatives have attempted to collect Bosnia insights, assess the effectiveness of the IFOR, and assemble lessons learned from the Bosnia experience. Most of these activities were not well coordinated and no overarching set of issues or functions drove the independent activities. Furthermore, no one person or organization was given the responsibility for setting the agendas and priorities of these efforts. Hence, there were redundancies and overlaps in the related activities. The initiatives also varied in complexity and depth, duration of the efforts, and focus of the areas of interest. NDU was tasked by the ASD (C3I) to attempt to pull together an appropriate collection of ongoing activities and put a coherent C2 and supporting C4ISR picture together, including lesson learned. A by-product of this effort was firsthand experience with the numerous ongoing lessons learned activities and their strengths and weaknesses. This chapter discusses findings and experiences from both a U.S. and NATO perspective, including some national perspectives. This chapter discusses NDU's efforts to act as a clearinghouse for Bosnia study activities, to facilitate collaboration and cooperation among the related community initiatives, and to integrate the C4ISR community experiences and lessons learned into a coherent picture.
As soon as CCRP began organizing its effort and seeking to assemble a list of ongoing activities, it became clear that a multitude of organizations and agencies were either already engaged in lessons learned activities in Bosnia or planning for them. CCRP alone had more than 40 U.S. Organizations participating in its Bosnia C4ISR Lessons Learned Roundtables. There was also a variety of approaches being employed to collect insights, assess operations, and assemble lessons learned (figure 13-1). These approaches ranged from more formal and structured arrangements such as the IFOR JAT, CALL, and the JULLS process employed by USEUCOM, USAREUR, and USAFE, to ad hoc arrangements such as the Air Mobility Command and DCI quick-look assessment activities. There were also other structured approaches such as the NDU/CCRP study, the Army War College Peacekeeping Institute After Action Reviews, the IFOR CJ6/CJCCC, C-SPT and ARRC lessons learned activities, and the activities of the historians (USEUCOM, USAREUR, USAF, SHAPE, IFOR, and others). The French employed a more ad hoc (individual collection and hot debriefing of returning commanders) approach to collecting their lessons and the British used a more structured (team) and unifying approach for their national effort. There were longer term strategic thinking-oriented assessment activities such as those being conducted at the George Mason University (GMU) Institute of Public Policy, the Army War College Peacekeeping Institute, the National Defense University Institute for National Strategic Studies, the Naval War College, and the Pearson Canadian International Peacekeeping Centre. These activities employed workshops and modeling and gaming techniques to examine policy, strategies, and options for the future.
The formal approaches tend to be long-term efforts that employ highly structured processes with collection, analysis, dissemination, and action resolution phases. They use subject area experts to collect information and insights through interviews, after action reviews, unsolicited inputs, and formal reporting such as JULLS. They also use a collection plan to focus and guide their activities. Professional analysts are used to assess the insights and experiences and to derive the lessons learned and recommend actions to resolve outstanding issues. Extensive databases are maintained on findings and recommendations. A review process is employed to ensure consistency and quality and to provide direction and guidance to the overall effort as appropriate. Results are disseminated in the form of formal reports, pamphlets, memorandums, bulletins, newsletters, customized reports, and Web home pages (both Internet and military networks). Finally, in some cases, a remedial action program is used to task organizations to fix problems and to track the resolution of outstanding actions.
The ad hoc activities tend to be less structured and of shorter duration. Subject area expert teams are formed and quick-look assessments using detailed theater interviews and brainstorming sessions are employed to drive out the key findings and recommendations. As an example, this was the approach used by the Air Mobility Command. The actions from ad hoc efforts tend to be focused on fixing near-term problems.
The other efforts are somewhere in between in terms of complexity and duration. For example, the JITC put a team of subject area experts in Bosnia for 3 months to collect insights and develop the communications baseline and associated interfaces and interoperability issues. Two months were then spent documenting and briefing their findings and recommendations, and a final report was published for broader distribution. The Army War College Peacekeeping Institute convened subject area experts, specifically those with Bosnia operational experience, for two different 1-week intensive after action reviews. The AAR outputs were briefings and reports with actionable items that were strategically oriented, i.e., things the Chief of Staff of the Army needed to be aware of and could take an action on. This effort was mainly focused on Title 10 issues but some other C2 issue areas were also addressed. The NDU/CCRP effort employed a small team of professionals oriented toward leveraging community activities to put a coherent story together that addressed strategic, operational, and tactical issues. The products were and will be briefings, reports, symposia and workshop participation and papers, and books and other material for the professional military education program. The IDA study done for EUCOM employed a small team of professionals to review, document, and analyze the U.S. participation in the Bosnia operation. Their reports addressed strategic- and operational-level issues related to the planning, deployment, sustainment, and redeployment phases of the IFOR operation.
Many of the commands involved in Bosnia had staff historians who were also seeking to document their commands' participation in the operation. The SHAPE and IFOR historians, in particular, had rich access and developed valuable material on the command history. The EUCOM, USAREUR, USAF, SHAPE, and IFOR historians were valuable sources for the NDU study. The historians used both audio and video taping extensively as the principal means for recording insights and experiences.
The commands, including the combat support organizations, also tasked their own headquarters to assemble lessons learned and to perform assessments. There were a few organization elements who, because of resource limitations and pressures of the operation, were unable to devote the level of effort necessary to do as complete a job as they would have liked to do. These units were, however, willing to work with unifying activities such as the NDU/CCRP effort to help them, but their lessons learned story together. IFOR held meetings of senior officers to review phases of the operation and to look ahead at future challenges. Indeed, virtually every level of command established similar tasking to ensure that lessons were both recorded and acted upon in the near term. Some of these reviews included specific review of performance issues, but their major focus tended to be on process improvement.
Finally, the universities and the military education community also monitored Bosnia. GMU's Institute of Public Policy (Program on Peacekeeping Policy) used their Conceptual Model of Peace Operations to examine issues related to Brcko. As noted earlier, the Army War College Peacekeeping Institute held two After Action Reviews focused on Title 10 issues. NDU's Institute for National Security Studies has been engaged in political-military analyses based on its expertise in prior peacekeeping efforts such as Somalia and Haiti. They have held workshops and used the NDU gaming facility to examine Bosnia issues related to civil-military operations, Brcko, IPTF, and conditions for exiting Bosnia. The Naval War College has also used its Situational Influence Assessment Module (produced by SAIC) to examine exit strategies. The Pearson Canadian International Peacekeeping Centre has sponsored a number of workshops and symposia on conflict resolution.
Despite the number of organizations involved in the lessons learned effort, no one, has yet been able to pull all of these activities together into a coherent "big picture" story for the military aspects. Furthermore, since little to no collection of lessons learned has occurred in regard to the political, civil reconstruction, nation building, and economic recovery aspects, an integrated picture of the "Dayton Perspective" has not even been attempted and it is not clear who would put such a perspective together in any case.
The IFOR JAT observers noted that many nations had fielded teams of analysts in various HQs, so there was the potential for much duplication of effort. Additionally, there was the burden placed on the staff in these HQs by a multiplicity of queries for essentially similar information. If a more coordinated approach had been possible from the outset, perhaps greater value might have been achieved to the benefit of all parties.
Lessons learned are multidimensional. In addition to the doctrine, policy, processes, procedural, and training aspects, there are also technical, system, operational, and command structure perspectives. One can look at them from NATO and national points of view or from the civilian, military, and humanitarian aspects. There are mission and function cuts that can be looked at as well as the planning, deployment, sustainment, and redeployment phases of the operation. The point is that no one organization covers all aspects of an operation in a way that puts a coherent big picture story together. For example, the IFOR JAT did not address the intelligence aspects of the operation. The IFOR CJ6 and CJCCC focused mainly on communications. The IFOR Commander for Support focused on functions such as movement control, legal, medical, and contracting but also covered some C2 structure and communications and information support aspects. The Air Mobility Command focused mainly on the airlift support for deployment. CALL, USAREUR, and the Army War College focused on the Army role in support of the operation. EUCOM and its IDA study looked at the U.S support to IFOR. The French and British focused on their national roles. The NDU/CCRP effort tried to pull a bigger picture story together, but again its guidance was C2 structure and the supporting C4ISR. There are lessons to be learned from the political, economic, and humanitarian activities in support of the Dayton Accord but it is not clear if anyone will be collecting insights and lessons learned for these aspects of the operation.
Clearly, broad participation has considerable benefits. The recognition of the importance of learning from the Bosnian experience, the active participation of both C4ISR producers and consumers, and the involvement of many agencies and organizations in both issue identification and problem solving are signs of learning and adaptive organizations. Hence, this bodes well for the future.
The current "catch as catch can" broad participation lessons learned system also has some very positive attributes. Lessons learned were sought throughout the operation and its supporting activities. The variety of actors involved meant that a broad range of perspectives were being considered. Moreover, because the operators were deeply involved, lessons were not generally collected and forgotten, but rather became the subject of specific actions to correct them. Obvious examples included the vigorous follow-up after LIWA reported vulnerabilities in unclassified LANs to USAREUR and the intelligence community's review of dissemination policy and follow-on aggressive action to change the field practices to improve the service to the coalition operation.
However, the lessons learned process had its problems. First, overlap and redundancy existed, which led to excessive demands on operator time. One senior NATO officer identified nine separate occasions when he had been interviewed by U.S. lessons learned efforts. Second, to the extent that lessons learned activities were performed within operating organizations, they tended to have parochial agendas and results. Third, no overall set of integrating issues or functions was created, so the lessons learned suffered from gaps on key issues and lacked systematic data collection efforts and sharing of lessons and insights. Finally, while lip service to information exchange was plentiful, many products were still held closely by their originators. The players in Bosnia lessons learned represented almost every organization or agency involved in or supporting Operation Joint Endeavor. The most important lessons learned activities were those of the commands and headquarters themselves, both U.S. and coalition partners, because they typically involved vigorous action programs to resolve the issues identified and because they represented the difference between the anticipated operating environment and the one actually encountered.
NDU's efforts to assemble a coherent lessons learned picture highlighted several difficulties as well. The most important problem encountered was the uncoordinated collection of information. In an effort to reduce demands on operators and simplify the situation, some commands granted "official" status to some collectors. For example, the IFOR JAT was given official monopoly on collecting lessons learned for NATO. Unfortunately, the focus of the formal IFOR effort was limited to the nine items in the JAT charter (see chapter 12). Furthermore, the quality of collection and analysis was dependent upon the specific officers the member nations were willing and able to provide the JAT for this tasking (it was necessary to augment the JAT with observers and analysts provided by NATO member nations). Only a fraction of the JAT team were trained analysts, and data collection tended to be more idiosyncratic than systematic. EUCOM granted similar "official" status to its IDA team. CALL functioned as the primary activity for U.S. Army collection. Allied efforts were seldom as systematic as those used by U.S. commands. All in all, the high level of activity did not translate into systematic coverage of key issues.
Many of the lessons learned efforts have also proven parochial. They tended to focus on the relatively minor and technical issues that made day-to-day operations inconvenient or difficult rather than on more fundamental questions. There was a natural tendency to avoid putting one's own command on report so this resulted in a careful documentation of external factors without a balanced recognition of internal problems. Moreover, internally identified lessons learned had a tendency to focus on symptoms rather than causes. As a simple example, analyses of problems with computer systems viruses focused more on installing better virus protection devices rather than changing the behaviors that caused them to proliferate.
The most serious problem in lessons learned has been the inability to create an overarching set of issues or functions. While most lessons learned charters were very broad, no single person or organization had been given responsibility for setting the agenda. This resulted in gaps in coverage, particularly where the issues were potentially embarrassing or resided near organizational boundaries.
The lack of an overall structure for lessons learned collection and sharing was reinforced by the multiplicity of nations, organizations, and agencies involved and the inability to freely share findings and experiences. As noted earlier, the NATO JAT charter was limited to nine specific functional areas. C4ISR issues that cut across levels or national boundaries were particularly difficult to analyze because the charter seldom existed to examine the causal factors at work. Finally, broad community information exchange was more difficult than anticipated. The players were willing to orally discuss issues, insights, and lessons learned but few were willing to pass on formal or draft documentation until it was appropriately staffed and/or approved by their respective organizations for more general release. This reflected parochial agendas, NATO sensitivity to national access, and the lack of a central, authoritative lessons learned organization to facilitate information exchange and provide issue-focused guidance to the various efforts.
The need to capture lessons learned from real-world operations and use them for subsequent remedial actions is widely acknowledged throughout the international community. The need to build a more coherent story and more effectively collaborate and coordinate the collection and sharing of experiences and lessons learned may not be as widely accepted. Certainly, the international community needs to consider putting some mechanism in place to better focus, facilitate, and encourage the coordination, collaboration, and sharing of lessons learned activities and findings. The ability to enforce remedial actions also needs to be a part of this consideration. In order to accomplish this, an international organizational element needs to be granted some degree of official status and authority to perform the role. It also needs a staff of appropriate subject area experts and professional analysts, adequate funding, and an agreed process to guide the participation of the international community. NATO would be a logical organization to establish such a capability. If NATO were to provide such a capability, it would need to go beyond the level of effort and capability the JAT established to support IFOR and the NATO Permanent Maritime Analysis Team that supports maritime exercises and operations. Furthermore, it would need to not only be a BI-Major NATO Command (MNC) initiative that addresses the military aspects but also include the political aspects of NATO as well.
The NDU/CCRP approach to facilitate coordination, collaboration, and sharing through the use of the Bosnia C4ISR Roundtable was quite successful. This coupled with the special relationships formed with the IFOR JAT and U.S. command elements significantly helped CCRP's attempts to build a coherent story out of the various independent lessons learned activities. CCRP has been able to perform the role of clearinghouse with a reasonable degree of success. A lot of perseverance and community willingness to cooperate was necessary to pull off the successes to date. The effort is now bearing fruit.
The use of a unifying organization is certainly one way of pulling the community and their activities together. In the end, this may be the best way to approach improved collaboration, coordination, and sharing in order to ensure that a more coherent story emerges from the large number of activities triggered by a major international operation. It is certainly not a technology issue; the information networks of today provide the means to the end. It is an issue of political will. There is certainly a need to do this but the issues of who, where, level of effort, staffing, ability to enforce remedial actions, and funding of such an activity are yet to be fully addressed for either national or international initiatives. The system is broken and needs to be fixed.
There is an encouraging sign on the horizon. The lack of a standing NATO Joint Analysis capability, which led to the creation of the ad hoc JAT, also prompted discussion on the requirement for a permanent JAT. As a result of SHAPE's experience with IFOR, there is a BI-MNC proposal in front of the NATO Military Committee to consider the establishment of a BI-MNC Joint Analysis and Lessons Learned Centre. The stated purpose of this center is to be NATO's central agency for the operational analysis of exercises and real-world operations, and for the coordination of the related lessons learned and the associated remedial action process. It is the view of the two MNCs (SACEUR and SACLANT) that these three activities-analysis, lessons learned, and remedial action process-are closely connected and mutually supportive. This is certainly a step in the right direction to fixing the system for NATO and possibly for multinational operations as well.
| Bosnia Index | Foreword | Acknowledgments | Preface | I. Introduction | II. Bosnia—Setting the Stage | III. Command and Control Structure | IV. Intelligence Operations | V. Civil-Military Cooperation | VI. The International Police Task Force | VII. Information Activities | VIII. Tactical PSYOP Support to Task Force Eagle | IX. Counterintelligence and HUMINT | X. Information Operations in Bosnia: A Soldier's Perspective | XI. C4ISR Systems and Services | XII. NDU/CCRP Bosnia Study | XIII. Lessons Learned About Lessons Learned | XIV. Summary | End Notes | Appendix A: The Dayton Peace Agreement Summary | Appendix B: Chronology of IFOR Events | Appendix C: References | Appendix D: Acronyms | About the Contributing Editor | About the Authors