Defense and State: Mandate for Partnership
| Date | Thursday, February 23, 2006 |
| Location | Longworth House Office Building, Room 1539 |
Todd Harvey from the Defense Department's Office of Stability Operations and Chris Hoh from State's new Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization discuss Directive 3000.05: "Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction Operations" and National Security Presidential Directive 44. In late November 05, the Department of Defense issued the groundbreaking directive that places stability operations tasks --like support for civil society-- on par with combat as a mission for the armed services. The following month, President Bush put forward a directive designating the Secretary of State as the lead on post conflict reconstruction. Today's missions often entail a heavily interdependent military-civilian effort. A key goal for our agencies is to improve planning and coordination in these efforts within the federal government, but also with international partners, NGOs and private sector organizations. Previously, these activities had no "home," in the Executive Branch. The combination of these two directives sets out to fundamentally fill this gap.