NATO Defense College publishes GPPi fellow's analysis of the Comprehensive Approach

On December 2, the NATO Defense College in Rome published a research paper in which GPPi Fellow Philipp Rotmann analyzes the obstacles to NATO’s so-called Comprehensive Approach, which calls for using various civilian and military instruments in a more integrated way. In his paper, Built on Shaky Ground: The Comprehensive Approach in Practice, Rotmann examines the lofty aspirations and mixed reality of civil-military cooperation in Afghanistan and beyond. He also proposes a way forward.

In his paper, Rotmann argues that despite its mixed record in practice and reputation as a catchphrase of little consequence, the Comprehensive Approach and its underlying intent are a necessary response to practical coordination challenges and capability gaps that affect all of NATO’s operations. While being well founded, however, the Comprehensive Approach has been up to now far from successful. Importantly, Rotmann argues, the problem runs deeper than a mere failure in implementation: the fragmentation of national governments, conflicts between organizational and professional cultures, different approaches to violence and unresolved political-strategic disagreements among contributing nations all deepen or maintain existing divisions between key institutional actors. In examining the individual, institutional and political constraints faced by decision-makers at every level, the author comes to the conclusion that adverse incentives are pulling key actors away from collaboration. As a result, a classic top-down reform effort holds very little promise to move from the lofty declarations of comprehensiveness to putting the Comprehensive Approach into practice. Instead, Rotmann suggests three ways of supporting a flexible bottom-up evolution of pragmatic collaboration among officials on the ground in areas of operations such as Kosovo or Afghanistan.