Through my experience here, I gained a better understanding of how people resolve conflicts through non-military approaches and how more interagency experiences and relations are vitally important.

I worked with Rule of Law Program Officers Christina Murtaugh and Fiona Mangan on the team’s research into justice and security in Libya by helping synthesize research conducted in the North African country. In doing so, I learned more about the challenges facing Libyans and the perspectives they brought and developed as they worked with USIP.

The research illustrated the underlying factors that contribute to Libya’s societal problems, information critical for outsiders trying to assist the country and that wouldn’t be available without the kind of personal access that USIP experts have to government officials and ordinary citizens. I gained a better understanding of not only current political, social, and economic problems, but, more importantly, how people viewed these problems and why they felt that way.

As a result, I feel better prepared to think beyond the military’s standard operating procedures, and how to understand the wants and needs of the local populace, and the do’s and don'ts of working with local counterparts.

To promote U.S. national interests most effectively, we need to better understand global challenges, and that means fully comprehending the underlying causes and drivers of those challenges. To do this, the military and civilian government agencies, quasi-governmental organizations like USIP, and non-governmental groups and individuals will need to continue working together.

I also had a chance to speak with United States Navy officers who are fellows at USIP to further my understanding of the merits of interagency work. Lieutenant Commander John Bright is a Navy pilot working at USIP who is part of the U.S. military’s Afghan Hands project aimed at developing a cadre of military and civilian personnel steeped in the region, and Lieutenant Commander Aaron Austin is the naval interagency professional in residence.

Hearing their stories and experience, I realized that a number of agencies and organizations are working on the same issues, from various vantage points. Creating more effective collaborations will help remove institutional biases and subcultures, foster relationship across institutions, and generally contribute to more comprehensive solutions to the complex global challenges we face.

I received this opportunity through an Academic Individual Advanced Development program run by the relatively new Center for the Studies of Civil-Military Operations. I am certain this experience will benefit me not only as a cadet but also when I become a commissioned officer in the United States Army.

After my time at USIP, it’s clear to me that the Army I’m preparing for would benefit from more exchange programs like these, or at the very least, maintaining the programs that it does have. The benefits are twofold -- soldiers increase their understanding of conflict, enabling them to better conduct missions in foreign areas, and they’ll be better able to work with other governmental and non-governmental organizations.

Walter Woo is a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and on detail to USIP. The views expressed are his own and not those of the Military Academy, the Department of Defense or the U.S. military.