Past is Prologue: Abroad in Syria with the Ghosts of Iraq PKSOI Papers | Page 42

The complex post-hostilities operating environment in which both military forces and civilian organizations will operate requires a truly integrated civil / military approach and structural and intellectual agility , at every level .” 45 Although future interventions will not be the same as in Iraq , it ’ s extremely unlikely that Garner ’ s understanding of complex operational environments as fluid , chaotic , non-linear and varied depending on your perspective , will lose much relevance .
Reexamining “ governance reform ”
In the aftermath of a series of failed interventions , the ideas of state-building and governance reform have both been re-examined . The concept of statebuilding no longer has the same prominence or parameters that it did in the early stages of the 2003 Iraq mission , and proponents of democratization have distanced themselves from it as much as possible . That re-examination is still ongoing , but lacking clear conclusions , some elements still tend to remain , such as a reliance on the structure and component institutions of liberal democratic government , as opposed to focusing on the functions of governance .
The nature of governance , and in particular good governance , exists at the core of any definition of a functioning , safe society , so they will be examined in depth . This examination will incorporate many of the features of the sections above , as ultimately those sections describe a set of principles and process that lead from analysis through the inception of planning ,
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