GPPi fellow speaks at German-US counterinsurgency conference

GPPi Fellow Philipp Rotmann gave a presentation on ​“measuring success, costs and benefits” at the Fourth German-US Counterinsurgency Symposium from 15 – 17 February 2012 in Washington, DC. After a series of conferences that addressed current issues from Iraq and Afghanistan, the fourth and final event in this series focused on the future of counterinsurgency and stability operations. The conference was part of a larger project conducted jointly by the Germany-based Institute for Security Policy at the University of Kiel and the US-based Center for a New American Security (CNAS). The conference was funded by the Policy Planning Staff of the German Ministry of Defense.

Rotmann spoke on a panel with Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution and Falk Tettweiler of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. CNAS’s Andrew Exum chaired the panel. During his presentation, Rotmann laid out the traps of measuring success in complex political environments, such as counterinsurgency and stability operations, particularly in a context where political strategies are often opaque. The effect of being unable to measure political success has often been to focus on things that are easier to measure, namely tactical and operational military progress or general indicators of development and governance. This, he argued, is one of a series of dangerous traps that foreign military interventions have fallen into repeatedly, including in Afghanistan. Rotmann went on to explain several issues of cognitive bias and organizational politics related to the observation, aggregation and reporting of common metrics and their influence on decision making. Ultimately, he argued, it is crucial to invest in a fine-grained, qualitative understanding of local politics and assess progress at that level.