Military Review English Edition January-February 2017 | Page 32

do not see value in such hypothetical planning and resist military efforts to prod them in that direction. Consequently, because of the disparity in capacity and culture between the military and other nonmilitary agencies that would have to be involved to achieve long-term political objectives associated with a potential conflict, the military deliberate war planning community finds itself operating in a vacuum. Thus, when left alone, interagency bureaucratic politics degrade the dimension of value-added deliberate war planning. This is reflected adversely in the emergence of a dysfunctional bias toward the use of military force in planning for situations where other value-added tools might generate better outcomes. Furthermore, the formidable expertise that resides in the intelligence community to guide planning is often left largely untapped. Individual planners’ initiative and major interagency organizational reform might help on the margins to resolve such friction, but attempts to achieve improvement through organizational reform have been mixed or even counterproductive. Therefore, what is important here is to understand and acknowledge the inescapable effect of interagency bureaucratic politics 30 President Barack Obama meets with combatant commanders and other military leadership 12 November 2013 in the White House Cabinet Room. (Photo by Pete Souza, White House) and use that understanding to design a more effective theoretical framework to mitigate the most adverse political tendencies of the process. Deliberate war planning is a mechanism that offers great promise to connect individuals across stovepiped organizations into a multifunctional community of practice. The challenge becomes one of promoting a broad understanding of the magnitude of these intangible benefits and utilities among those involved in planning. Positing such a framework to overcome this challenge will be a contribution of this article. With such an understanding, deliberate war planning can be carried out in a manner that increases its value to the national security community. Civil–Military Relationship Tensions Civil–military relations are another source of tension that influences the strategic value offered by deliberate war planning. The relational dynamics between the officials in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and January-February 2017  MILITARY REVIEW