Blog Posts tagged with "Interagency"
An Interagency Persepctive on the Battle of Antietam
I was in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, no more than 3 miles from Antietam, attending an interagency course and was able to visit the site on the 150th anniversary of the battle.
Walking the ground of Antietam’s battle sites, on the very terrain and on the very day of so many American casualties was heartrending. It brought me back to a time when the formative history of America was still being written, when the united nation that we think of today -- and perhaps too often take for granted -- was not a certainty.
I couldn’t help but contrast the battlefield with my classroom setting of federal executives debating today’s contentious national policy issues. We were more than 30 civil servants hailing from a variety of agencies (Homeland Security, Defense, Social Security, Transportation,and others), a variety of states, and a variety of ethnic backgrounds all seeking ways to improve public policy-making for America. We certainly had our contentious disagreements (how to deal with pending sequestration, how to address the nation’s deficit, how to cut spending, etc.), but we settled those differences in a respectful manner unlike the disagreements of 1861-65 resolved on bloody battlefields.
Antietam was a Union response to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s first invasion of the north a year and a half into the Civil War. Lee marched his 40,000 Confederates across the Potomac River and was confronted at Antietam by Maj. Gen. George B.McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. Both generals made mistakes that day which are good tutorials for today’s military leaders. But those mistakes are also first-rate reminders for those of us who work with other agency partners.
The interagency lessons I learned are:
Divided Forces. Lee had divided his 40,000 Confederates between Hagerstown, Md., Harper’s Ferry, Va., and Sharpsburg, Md. McClellan used this occasion to strike Lee’s divided forces. Interagency Lesson: We are a stronger federal government when we work together and not in a divided manner. When DOD works closely with other pertinent federal partners, we leverage all elements of national power.
Communication. McClellan’s battle plan broke down because of his uncoordinated advances. He failed to communicate clearly with his three corps commanders and failed to meet with them before and during the battle. As a result, he was unsuccessful in taking advantage of opportunities during the battle. Interagency Lesson: The importance of open, frequent communication with interagency partners cannot be overstated. It is essential to ensure that all partners, from a variety of agencies, are on the same page and are aware of the commander’s intent.
Trust. McClellan did not adequately trust perhaps his most able field commander, General Ambrose Burnside (who had also been considered by President Lincoln for command of the Army of the Potomac). This left Burnside without adequate reconnaissance forces and lacking a clear understanding of McClellan’s plan. Interagency Lesson: Trust is the “coin of the realm” in interagency matters. It is even more important than within one’s own department because different agencies have different cultures, languages and operating styles – trust reassures. EUCOM’s J9 seeks to reassure and reinforce trust by periodic visits to sending Departments (those who have representatives in our office like USAID, Treasury, etc.) and by weekly face to face meetings.
The Battle of Antietam (‘antietam’ is a Native American term for “swift flowing water”) was a military stalemate. Lee’s Army retreated across the Potomac one day after the battle. The human costs, however, were numbing and the battle remains a defining moment in our nation’s history: only five days after the battle Lincoln, used its occasion to make his Emancipation Proclamation. The battle’s lessons remain worthy of study. In my opinion, its principal lesson, like our European Command motto, is that we are today ‘Stronger Together!”.
Mike Anderson
Deputy Director
J9-Interagency Partnering Directorate
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Arctic Nations Meet to Discuss Communication, Maritime Domain Awareness Strategy
As the Arctic climate continues to change, Arctic area nations are working together to address security concerns.
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An Active Autumn Ahead
As we wrap up high summer, it's a sensible time to look ahead at the fall and think about the big tasks facing the NATO Alliance and US European Command. The Olympics and the Jubilee fade to memory, and hopefully most folks have managed to break away for a short vacation to recharge. The autumn will be a busy time.
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Tale of Two Cities; J9s in Ulm and Stuttgart
In Stuttgart the U.S. European Command’s J9-Interagency Partnering Directorate was established in November 2009, while the multinational Response Forces Operations Command – Ulm, just established a “J9” within the last year.
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Words and Swords
Francois Bellon, the Head of Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross to both the EU and NATO, visted the command last week, the first senior ICRC visit to EUCOM in nearly two decades.
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The 21st Century Force Multiplier: Public-Private Collaboration
The Department of Defense and most other U.S. government agencies are also looking for ways to improve effectiveness and efficiencies by reaching out to collaborate with private businesses, non-profit organizations and academia. EUCOM has already been working on initiatives like this for some time in areas such as cyber-security, communications, and humanitarian assistance, among others.
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Risks, Opportunities, and Open Source Security
In the world of security, we are generally focused on "risk." We worry about the chances of war, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the likelihood of a ballistic missile attack, or the possibility of a biologic contagion. Understanding risk allows us to calculate how much we should spend on defense compared to what our potential opponents are spending.
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Final Four and Interagency
As I followed the Final Four I was reminded that there were four common requirements necessary both for this basketball tournament and for interagency partnering, my line of work at US European Command (EUCOM).
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Connecting public and private efforts to create security in the 21st century
I'm thinking about how to connect public and private efforts to create security. In this turbulent 21st century, security is not about creating walls. We won't deliver a secure world strictly from the barrel of a gun.
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Happy Birthday, Lithuania!
Lithuania is a steadfast ally and friend of the United States. Also, US European Command is a bilateral partner with Lithuania’s new national Energy Security Center
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Trojans, Malware and Botnets got you down…?
We know that cyber attacks are employed not just for cyber crime (i.e. to access your bank account), but also to discredit national agencies and governments (i.e. the cyber attacks against Estonia and Georgia). It is incumbent on all of us to “know our enemy” to best defend against such attacks. The best means for doing so is for governments to regularly partner with academia and the private sector (i.e. with IT safety enterprises) to form a sort of cyber coalition.
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Interacting with AID
At the invitation of my good friend and colleague, AID Administrator Raj Shah, I had the chance to speak to his senior team about their extraordinary work on global issues of poverty, disease, and economic development.
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Learning to Institutionalize Partnership
"2011 Soft Power Symposium" hosted by Pepperdine University and the League for Hope, an NGO that promotes public-private partnership to foster educational, medical, and commercial opportunities for disadvantaged populations.
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Cooperate and Graduate; Interagency Advancements
COMMON EFFORT, involved a notional UN-backed NATO deployment to Africa. It had some 500 multinational participants, 150 of whom were civilians from more than 30 organizations.
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Interagency Teams Meet in Berlin
This was an outreach effort meant to enhance understanding and facilitate future cooperation between two interagency organizations.
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Why Public-Private Collaboration?
A few weeks ago, I had the unique and exciting opportunity to address the 28-member NATO Military Committee regarding Public-Private Collaboration.
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The Importance of Collaboration and Cooperation in 1648 and Today
The Treaty of Westphalia, signed in 1648 in the Rathaus of Muenster, Germany, ended one of Europe’s bloodiest periods: the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) fought mostly on German soil, and 80 years of war between Spain and the Dutch Republic. Today two nations that benefitted from that peace treaty, Germany and the Netherlands (it achieved its independence as a result), are the framework nations for a multinational NATO High Readiness Corps headquartered in Muenster.
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Dutch Treat: Interagency Collaboration in The Hague
These days The Hague, the Netherlands' third largest city, is most often in the news as the home of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the body that has recently indicted Muammar Gadaffi for war crimes or for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) which saw last week’s appearance of the former Bosnian Serb military general Ratko Mladic. Certainly both of these courts serve a valued purpose and The Hague -- with its history of hosting the first international peace conference in 1899 -- is a well-suited site for these courts.
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Discussing Turkey, Foreign Policy and what lies ahead
Dr. Soner Cagaptay, Senior Fellow and Director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy was a guest speaker for the EUCOM Forum for International Affairs Speaker Series Dec. 15.
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When Cultures Collide
Often, friction is the result of cultural collisions – disagreements stemming from differences in fundamental belief systems, well established processes, and patterns of execution.
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The Silk Road, Then and Now
The historic Silk Road traversed 3 present-day US geographic commands; European Command (EUCOM), Central Command (CENTCOM) and Pacific Command (PACOM), as it wound its way from Italy in the west to China in the east by way of Afghanistan pretty much right in the middle.
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Silly Bands, mood rings and… Interagency?
“Interagency…ah, that’s just a fad that will soon fade.” This was a comment overheard at a recent EUCOM meeting. The person seemed convinced that the pursuance of a “whole of government approach” and the continued emphasis on collaboration with interagency partners by EUCOM, a geographic military command, was just a fad. They also believed that this “fad” would soon fizzle once the novelty was gone or once there was new leadership in place. I beg to differ.
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Law enforcement links along the Danube River: ILEA and EUCOM
I visited the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA), located on the Buda side of the Danube. I did so to better comprehend the current curriculum at ILEA and to discuss possible future collaborative training engagements. This was part of our ongoing J9 outreach efforts to meet with and understand the actions of other federal agencies, Departments, and organizations also operating in Europe and Eurasia.
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An “ICEman Cometh” to EUCOM J9
Kevin works in the J9 Interagency Partnering Directorate and is one of a growing number of law enforcement/border protection-oriented interagency representatives now on the EUCOM J9 “interagency team”. Kevin, for example, is also joined by a Customs and Border Protection representative, Christina Bell, and will soon be joined by a Drug Enforcement Administration representative, Mr Nick Brooke.
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Time for a Paradigm Shift?
If you are a cable news junkie, then you’ve probably watched BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), one the largest, if not the largest, broadcasting organizations in the world. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to listen to Nik Gowing speak courtesy of ADM Stavridis’ 'Notable Film and Author Series’ and the EUCOM J9 Directorate. Nik presents the BBC's flagship news program, The Hub, which reports on global news for audiences across South Asia and the Middle East. He interviewed ADM Stavridis about operations in Marjah this past February and also recently wrote 'Skyful of Lies' and Black Swans, a study that addresses the role hand-held, multi-media technology plays in shaping public perceptions of government responses in crisis situations.
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Public–Private Collaboration: The Next Big Thing
Over 25 years ago our defense establishment – pushed by Congress – started the process of creating a “joint” military – where services plan, train for, and execute military missions together. Then about five years after that, mainly because we found we needed better coordination among agencies conducting peace and stability operations, the government started to work on creating an interagency culture and process.
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Interagency Partnering -- Batter Up!
EUCOM’s Commander, Admiral Stavridis, often points to the importance that he attaches to “partnering,” both military and interagency partnering. In his recent Capitol Hill testimony he said that interagency partnering is “more than a tool or a method, 'interagency partnering' is an expanding paradigm at EUCOM and we are intent on serving as a model of interagency cooperation."
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“Smart” Engagement with the “Capital of Europe”
Last week, I spent two days in Brussels attending two European Union conferences “EU Smart Power” and “Energy Security” and got the chance to visit with my counterparts at the EU Military Staff.
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On the Road with Dr. Hubner
In support of EUCOM’s efforts to do more interagency partnering, I found myself driving through the pouring rain out of Tirana, Albania to visit a remote hospital in Kukes. Kukes is one of 14 hospitals in Albania we would like to connect to the main Albanian hospital through telemedicine. This project would combine the efforts of USAID, an NGO and the DoD to link the hospitals by using the internet for training, counsel and a second opinion via a program like Skype. It will allow Albanian citizens with complex or rare medical conditions to receive high quality care from Albanian and potentially world-wide specialists. This is a major feat for a country with a poorly developed transportation system and difficult living conditions. Interagency team made up of: J4-Medical Readiness, Army Corps of Engineers, Regional Minister of Health of Kukes, University of Arizona, Tucson, director, Kukes Regional Hospital, J4-Humanitarian Assistance. (Photo by Tara Clark)
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Latest session in the EUCOM Forum for International Affairs
Yesterday the Commander s Interagency Engagement Group CIEG hosted the latest speaker in the EUCOM Forum for International Affairs series. Dr. Kathleen Reedy took a few days away from her work at the Human Terrain System Iraq Reachback Center to talk to roughly 50 EUCOM and AFRICOM personnel about identity and Islam with a focus on Muslims living in Europe and the Middle East. Dr. Reedy is an anthropologist PhD U. Edinburgh who has done a good deal of research into identity formation political symbols social and political identities and ethics. She raised a number of very interesting points in her talk which generated quite a lot of discussion and Q A afterwards.
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EUCOM wrapped up a successful symposium on Global Supply Chain Management: Security Challenges and S
EUCOM just wrapped up a successful symposium on "Global Supply Chain Management: Security Challenges and Solutions." I was the lead organizer for this symposium, and have been asked to talk a little about the event for this blog.
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