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This report examines the history and issues involved with complex military and political operations. As acknowledged throughout the essays in this volume, the best approach to complex operations is a genuine whole of government approach. Joint analysis, planning, and implementation are appropriate, not just on the eve of a complex operation, but on a routine and habitual basis--in the pre-conflict phase as well as once conflict has begun. Yet, many barriers to effective joint collaborative analysis, planning, and implementation remain. As 9/11 recedes in memory and Iraq and Afghanistan become part of our quotidian experience in the foreign policy world, there is a risk of reverting to old habits of stove-piping and agency parochialism. Will the whole of government approach that has become so popular in response to the Iraq and Afghanistan experiences be limited to those experiences? Will the benefits of civilian-military collaboration be disregarded as agencies seek to return to more "normal" practices? Already it is possible to detect a note of impatience to do so, or of whole of government fatigue. If the insights of these essays are to be trusted failure to firmly institutionalize a whole of government philosophy and associated practices would be a lamentable mistake, and would constitute an unforgiveable failure to learn the lessons of our experience.Introduction * By Michael Miklaucic * Essay 1 * Command in Afghanistan 2003-2005: Three Key Lessons Learned * Essay 2 * Understanding the Situation * Essay 3 * Reflections on Post-Conflict Politics of Reform: A Voice from Inside Iraq * Essay 4 * Preemptive Post-Conflict Stabilization and Reconstruction * Essay 5 * Lessons Learned in the Fog of Peace * Essay 6 * Complex Operations in Practice * Essay 7 * No Formulas: Bosnia, Haiti, and Kosovo * Essay 8 * The Balkans Revisited: Kosovo 1999 * Essay 9 * Retaining the Lessons of Nation-Building * Essay 10 * Missions Accomplished and Unaccomplished * Essay 11 * The Politi