ABSTRACT
During interviews with U.S. Army commanders, researchers from the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI) learned of a need for training that would equip unit-level Soldiers – particularly junior officers and senior noncommissioned officers (NCOs) – with the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to carry out and support missions to develop, enhance, and support local level host nation governance. At that time, however, the specific governancerelated skill sets required of Soldiers were not clear, as it was largely believed that only the most senior officers and NCOs were regularly engaged in governancerelated activities. Furthermore, Army doctrine offered only broad guidance on governance-related activities that are critical for fostering good governance – it did not provide detailed guidance on the best practices for unit-level Soldiers carrying out those activities or training them. In this report we describe our initial research efforts to identify those skill sets. Through interviews and literature searches we identified more than 30 governance activities frequently required of Soldiers, and shed light on the different roles of officers, NCOs, and enlisted Soldiers in the conduct of governance missions. The research also revealed aspects of governance operations that Soldiers found to be most challenging, and those that Soldiers found to be most important for mission success. We conclude the report with a description of the design and development of the Host-Nation Operations: Soldier Training on
Governance (HOST-G) Training Support Package (TSP), which contains a variety of training tools and job aids to support Soldiers tasked with local level governance missions. We also describe ongoing research to evaluate and refine the TSP, and to identify the skills required to meet one of the key challenges for Soldiers tasked with governance missions – that is, the challenge of operating in joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multi-national (JIIM) environments.
