Capacity Building in the Operational Environment: Stories and Lessons Learned

Abstract : Building Partner Capacity (BPC) has emerged as a crucial, non-kinetic process for sustaining operational success, particularly in Afghanistan. As of this writing, there was no definition for BPC in U.S. Army documents that offered a clear and accurate representation of capacity building, as we found it during our research. Nor were there published field manuals specific to or systematic analyses of BPC. These knowledge and information gaps provided the impetus for exploring BPC as seen through the eyes of the leaders, Soldiers, and civilians who applied it. We collected capacity building stories and lessons learned that showed the scope of BPC to be extremely broad and its conditions and determinants to be as varied as the myriad cultures and environments in which Soldiers operated. Those who conducted BPC operations experienced success largely as a function of their knowledge and skills acquired from trial and error and shaped by environmental circumstances. In addition, because formalized doctrine relative to BPC was largely absent, Soldiers, U.S. Government personnel, and civilians exchanged BPC experiences and conducted themselves according to what they gleaned from them. Such story telling has imparted knowledge and the wisdom of experience throughout military history. The purposes and methods for collecting and telling capacity building stories and lessons learned contained in this book followed that tradition.