The leveraging of doctrine to design a planning process that
produced a clear, understandable country plan for Army South’s
critical partner countries fell to the G3 plans branch.5 The
collective minds of trained planners, strategists, and operations
research/systems analysts were used to design the process that
would focus the security cooperation activity. Army South leaders required the planning process to include four imperatives;
the process must 1) fit into the operational battle rhythm of the
Army South headquarters, 2) be led by G3 plans branch and
involve all directorates and eliminate stove pipes, 3) yield engagements that target host nation military requirements, and 4)
produce clear products for the commander to make decisions.
The design team worked through a concept approval process
to design and implement a modified security cooperation
operational planning process that focused on country specific
security cooperation planning within the headquarters, entitled
the Theater Security Cooperation Planning Process, or TSCP2.
TSCP2 is the art and science of understanding the situation for
command emphasized countries in the region, and describes
the desired future of their landpower forces. TSCP2 lays out
effective ways of engaging partner nation to build capabilities or
increase capacities.
As currently designed, one iteration of TSCP2 for a single
partner nation is a 16-day process conducted across four to five
calendar weeks. Shown in Figure 1, it consists of five primary
parts that align as closely as possible with the JOPP: 1) Country
Immersion Workshop (Mission Analysis), 2) Objective Refinement Working Group (COA Development, Analysis, Comparison, and Approval), 3) Objective Assessment Development
Working Group, 4) Node-Action-Resource Development, and
5) Synchronization Workshop, which lead to the development
of a country plan. Through these steps, the process is intended
to achieve five objectives: 1) develop, and on subsequent process
cycles, validate a common understanding of the current operating environment, 2) develop/validate the Army South’s objectives and effects for a country, 3) develop/validate the metrics
for measuring progress towards the effects, 4) develop/confirm
Nodes-Actions-Resources, and 5) publication of an updated
Country Plan. See Figure 1 below.
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