Book Description

The Defence Committee report recommends that when troops are committed to operations in future there must be robust plans to coordinate military and reconstruction efforts from the earliest stages. The next Government should lay out the requirements of the "Comprehensive Approach" (the combination of civilian and military actors in a counter-insurgency operation) in order better to preserve all the lessons learned in the complex operations of Iraq and Afghanistan, many of them having been painfully re-learned from Bosnia, Kosovo and even Malaya. The Committee looks to the recently formed Stabilisation Unit (owned by the Department for International Development, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Ministry of Defence) to maintain a capacity to deploy significant numbers of personnel for post-conflict reconstruction and to ensure that vital knowledge and skills gained during deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan are retained and built on. The Comprehensive Approach requires close work with local nationals to build up their capability and confidence in all fields including security, governance, law and order and development. This must include women at all levels. The Government needs to find better ways to draw on the expertise of NGOs without compromising the effectiveness and safety of aid workers on the ground.