Interagency Coordination Of Information

Reviews Federal efforts to disseminate unclassified scientific and technical data produced by research and development programs, especially in space science, defense, and medicine. Also reviews proposals to coordinate Federal information systems.

The confluence of a variety of factors especially exponential population growth, rapidly escalating population migration, and an unprecedented pace of urbanization-has increased the likelihood that each U.S. military operation will have a humanitarian or nation-assistance component. In the conduct of humanitarian or nation-assistance missions, be they free-standing or part of bigger operations, the military will usually encounter-and often support-civilians. They may be representatives from various U.S. government departments and offices, United Nations (UN) agencies' representatives, and/or personnel from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) who have established their own aid operations. This growing nexus of civilian and military efforts requires increased coordination to maximize each player's contribution and to avoid both redundancies and contradictory efforts. While all the services will contribute to humanitarian and nation-assistance missions, the Army brings unique scope, capacity, and resources to these missions and thus will bear more of the responsibility for interacting with civilian agencies and organizations. This research focused on identifying how the interagency process-at the policy, operational, and field levels can both complicate and enhance U.S. Army forces contributions to military operations other than war (MOOTW).