John H Ebbighausen

Provincial Reconstruction Teams and Good Governance John H Ebbighausen

Publisher Marketing: The United States has witnessed a change in its approach to warfare. The former approach focused on breaking the enemy's will to fight while leaving the governing process intact. The new approach focuses on replacing the standing government with a new democratic model. The US military created multiple Provincial Reconstructions Teams (PRTs) to assist in the process of building the new model. Several years later, the US Military developed doctrine describing how to accomplish the task. As PRTs formed prior to doctrine for building governance, the study asks, "Do US PRT models contain the structure necessary for building good governance?" This study examines the military's and other governmental agencies'; definitions and methods for building good governance. It then evaluates Iraqi and Afghanistan PRT models to determine if they contain the structure necessary for building good governance while minimizing financial and force structure costs for the US Military. The analysis finds that both the Iraqi and Afghanistan PRT models lack the necessary structure to complete their mission of building governance. As both PRT contain different strengths, the study recommends combining those strengths to generate an organization more capable of building governance. It also recommends a more comprehensive definition for governance.