Paul Hughes, the U.S. Institute of Peace’s chief of staff, recently delivered a major lecture at the 2012 Special Operations Summit in Tampa, Fla., on best practices and new tools for post-conflict peacekeeping and stability operations.
Paul Hughes, the U.S. Institute of Peace’s chief of staff, recently delivered a major lecture at the 2012 Special Operations Summit in Tampa, Fla., on best practices and new tools for post-conflict peacekeeping and stability operations.
The retired U.S. Army colonel, who was appointed USIP’s acting senior vice president for conflict management in December, briefed summit attendees on the organizational challenges of peace and stability operations, the relationship between end states, and the key transition points from military to civilian primacy.
The annual Special Operations Summit is a forum for the discussion on effective practices and policies needed to ensure the Special Operations elements of the Army, Navy, and Air Force are capable and equipped to accomplish the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) mission. The focus of this year’s summit was building and enabling globalized Special Operations.
Hughes told the group, “Managing conflict in an era when complexities continue to grow and evolve requires a clear understanding of our national capabilities and limitations, and of the various drivers of conflict, whether they are in the form of belligerent forces, collapsing systems, or natural disasters.”
On USIP’s role in national security, Hughes made it clear that USIP is America’s only institution created by Congress to develop, apply, foster, and continuously update cost-effective strategies and tools to prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent international conflicts, particularly those that threaten or harm America’s strategic interests.
“Stability operations have been and remain an important tool in our kitbag for dealing with conflict,” Hughes said. “Our current set of doctrine and guidelines on stability operations now needs a thorough review to better define the types of contingencies that might require the response of stability operations. If one word could help us better understand and prepare ourselves to confront the complexities of organizing ourselves to manage conflict, that word would be ‘partnership.’”