Rebuilding After War
In the final exchange of CFR.org’s Online Debate on post-conflict reconstruction today, Craig Cohen of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Col. Garland H. Williams, author of Engineering Peace: The Military Role in Post-Conflict Reconstruction, seem to have found some common ground. 
Cohen, who has argued that post-conflict reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan should be led by civilian, not military efforts, says he and Williams agree that military and civilian agencies can be “complementary” in a post-conflict scenario, and that civilian agencies “currently lack the standby capacity to deploy.” They also agree that post-conflict reconstruction “occurs in dynamic environments that do not lend themselves to neat typologies or one-dimensional thinking.” Still, he concludes, the political nature of a post-conflict environment, efforts should be headed by “a civilian ambassador rather than a military officer.”
Williams, who has argued for military leadership in post-conflict reconstruction, notes the problematic lack of a “clear timeline or planning process that bridges rapid-response
initiatives with developmental initiatives,” and says the government must establish a “clear interagency process” to allocate responsibility in humanitarian efforts. Outside agencies “must never lose sight of the fact that the purpose of external nation assistance during post-conflict reconstruction is to help the host nation develop its own capabilities and its own public and private institutions,” he concludes.
Read the entire Online Debate here.
