21st Century Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) Papers - Social Capital, Policing and the Rule-of-Law: Keys to Stabilization, Military Police - Prisons, Iraq, Afghanistan

Social Capital, Policing and Rule-of-Law: Keys to Stabilization reflects a breadth of U.S. Army War College Strategy Research papers which tackled tough issues. Stabilization is a process in which personnel identify and mitigate underlying sources of instability to establish the conditions for long-term stability. While long-term development requires stability, stability does not require long-term development. Therefore, stability tasks focus on identifying and targeting the root causes of instability and by building the capacity of local institutions.

Stability, ultimately, aims to create conditions such that the local populace regard the overall situations as legitimate, acceptable, and predictable. These conditions consist of: the level of violence; the functioning of governmental, economic, and societal institutions; and the general adherence to local laws, rules, and norms of behavior. Sources of instability manifest themselves locally. First, instability stems from the decreased support for the government, a result of the government failing to meet the expectation of the locals. Second, instability grows from increased support for anti-government elements, a situation that usually occurs when locals see spoilers as those helping to solve the priority grievance(s). Lastly, instability stems from the undermining of the normal functioning of society when the emphasis must be on a return to the established norms.

Stability tasks and activities are not things that we have only been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is a long-time recognition that we have been doing this "other stuff" for a long time. But the term(s) keep changing. Professor Bill Flavin, the Chief of Doctrine, Concepts, Education and Training (DCET) at PKSOI and one of the Army's foremost experts in stability operations, has been keeping track of the various terms used to describe stability tasks and activities over the past fifty years. This list includes terms such as: attenuated conflict, nation building, marginal military operations, indirect war, lower-level war, brush fire war, low intensity conflict, constrained operations, and ambiguous war. But the essential message has not changed. That being: there is something, other than offense and defense, that the military always winds up doing. We may not know what to call it, but we know it when we see it. But because we do not know what to call it - we often try to hide it under the rug and keep tripping over it. Only then do we deal with it. But in the interim, we have lost the competencies required to do it well. My fear, and others, is that as we become leaner, we will forget how painful it was to trip over the rug and, once again, lose our hard-earned competencies in the stability arena.

Topics and subjects include: Prisons, Afghanistan, Iraq, Timor, Kosovo, Military Police, Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), Bosnia-Herzegovina, Constabulary forces, counterinsurgency. Contents: Social Capital, Policing and the Rule-of-Law: Keys to Stabilization * INTRODUCTION * 1. SOCIAL CAPITAL AND STABILITY OPERATIONS * 2. HOME GUARD, POLICE AND THE SOCIAL CONTRACT * 3. PROVIDING SECURITY: THE STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF POLICING * 4. FOREIGN POLICE DEVELOPMENT: THE THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM * 5. AFGHAN CIVIL POLICE: POLICE INSTEAD OF SOLDIERS * 6. MOUNTING A U.S. CIVIL-MILITARY POLICE FORCE * 7. MILITARY POLICE: THE ANSWER TO THE STABILITY OPERATIONS GAP * 8. PUTTING THE POLICE BACK INTO THE MILITARY POLICE * 9. U.S. ARMY POLICE PROFESSIONALIZATION — RELEVANCY BEYOND 2012 * 10. MEDICAL SUPPORT TO FAILED STATES: START WITH THE PRISONS * 2013 U.S. Intelligence Community Worldwide Threat Assessment - Cyber Threat to Critical Infrastructure, Iran, Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, al-Qaida, Jihad, WMD, North Korea, Syria, Afghanistan