World Affairs Council of Philadelphia

This will require developing better access to the non-mainstream media around the world--as their influence continues to grow and as the influence and reach of more traditional channels continue to decline.

Despite the damage that can be done in an era of mass--and sometimes reckless--communications, free people eventually get it right. The American people seem to have an inner gyroscope that can sort through the clutter of information, misinformation and opinion and eventually reach balanced conclusions.

Policymakers will also need to consider new approaches for the government as a whole. The old, rigid divisions between war, peace, and diplomacy, conflict and reconstruction--and the roles of the various government departments that go with them--may no longer serve us as well, as we should require.

For example, when I was in Afghanistan recently, I visited a Provincial Reconstruction Team site near Kandahar that exemplified this point. Outside of Kabul, the U.S. military is playing a nearly exclusive role in helping train local Afghans in reconstruction efforts--reaching out to local populations, building trust and confidence, while at the same time being ready to respond to attacks waged by Al Qaida and Taliban remnants.

The original concept behind Provincial Reconstruction Teams was to involve other federal agencies in partnership with the Afghan people. Their tasks could best be done not by the military alone, but by cooperation from a variety of departments and agencies.

In 1986, the Goldwater-Nichols legislation transformed the way the U.S. Armed Forces fought conventional wars. I am increasingly persuaded that the entire federal government may need a similarly transformative cultural, if not institutional, shift. The interagency process eventually will need to be adjusted to bring the disparate elements together.

In this complex multi-dimensional struggle, the President needs the flexibility to choose which instrument of national power, from within which agency, may be best suited for a given situation, challenge, region or country.

This presents a formidable challenge for the U.S. defense establishment--still largely organized, trained, and equipped to fight conventional wars against other large armies, navies, and air forces. For example, while the mission of training and equipping other nations' forces had once been the mainstay of elite special units, it has become, and will likely remain, a standard requirement for our military as a whole--across different branches and components.

This has implications for the kind of people we recruit and the skill sets they will need--physical, cultural and intellectual.

The tasks ahead for them will continue to be demanding and will continue to evolve--encompassing such things as the need to shift seamlessly between warfighting and diplomacy, serving as educators and humanitarians, working not only with other branches of the military, but other agencies of government, private organizations and Coalition partners.