The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2008

The effort led to better civil-military integration, as well as a long-term planning document that provides guid- ance and continuity for new teams. Finally, while the military and civilians train together, they do deploy on slightly different cycles. When a new team arrives, it overlaps with the existing PRT, whose mil- itary elements depart after several weeks, leaving the civilians in place for up to three months. The resulting overlap promotes continuity and flattens the learning curve as new teams come into the country. Key Challenges Remain Despite our overall success, several key challenges remain. First and foremost is staffing. Given our goal of sending all of our officers to 44 weeks of either Pashto- or Dari-language training, and the fact that PRTs are one- year assignments, recruiting is a year-round job. Addi- tionally, the rigors of PRT life are such that we must be highly selective during the hiring process. Finally, we face the reality that as “the other war,” we are in constant competition with Iraq for qualified applicants. On a practical basis, our greatest challenge is obtain- ing funding for our officers. While State personnel bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table, they bring little or no money. While our public diplomacy col- leagues have worked long and hard to direct grant money to our PRTs, the lack of quick-impact funds has had a sig- nificant negative effect on the teams’ ability to do their jobs. We continue to examine new and innovative ways to support our PRT staff. In the six years since the first PRT was stood up, the teams have evolved from an interesting experiment into a key component of our effort to transform Afghanistan. While we have implemented a number of changes over the last year, we do not intend to rest on our laurels and say “good enough.” Working together at the embassy, with the military and with the international community, we will continue our efforts to keep our PRTs at the fore- front of civil-military cooperation in a counterinsurgency environment. n F O C U S J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 35