Errors in crisis management operations can have deadly consequences. Some international organizations take steps to reform, whereas other organizations tend to repeat the same errors. As budget cuts have led to increased turnover in personnel, how is it that international organizations have maintained any knowledge about past errors? This book introduces an argument for how and why international organizations develop institutional memory of strategic errors. As Heidi Hardt shows, formal learning processes - such as lessons learned offices and databases - can ironically deter elite officials from using the processes to share their relevant knowledge. Elites have few professional incentives to report observed strategic errors. As a result, most memory-building occurs behind the scenes via informal processes. These informal processes include elites' use of transnational interpersonal networks, private documentation, and conversations during crisis management exercises. Such processes ensure that institutional memory develops, but they do so at a price: an organization's memory is vulnerable to knowledge loss if even one critical elite chooses to retire. Hardt tests her argument through extensive, original field research inside one of the world's largest crisis management organizations - the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). She conducted interviews and a survey experiment with 120 NATO elites, including almost all NATO ambassadors and military representatives, all assistant secretary generals, and civilian and military leaders engaged in the decision-making and planning of operations. Her findings provide insights into NATO's institutional memory concerning three cases of crisis management in Afghanistan, Libya, and Ukraine. Ultimately, this book argues that formal learning processes alone are insufficient for an organization to capture knowledge, learn and change.

In conflict-affected regions, delays in international response can have life or death consequences. The speed with which international organizations react to crises affects the prospects for communities to re-establish peace. Why then do some international organizations take longer than others to answer calls for intervention? To answer this question and explore options for reform, Time to React builds on contemporary scholarship with original data on response rates and interview evidence from 50 ambassadors across four leading organizations (AU, EU, OAS and OSCE). The explanation for variation in speed ultimately lies in core differences in institutional cultures across organizations. Although wealth and capabilities can strengthen a peace operation, it is the unspoken rules and social networks of peace and security committees at these organizations that dictate the pace with which an operation is established. This book offers a first analysis of the critical importance of and conditions shaping timeliness of crisis response by international organizations.

In conflict-affected regions, delays in international response can have life or death consequences. The speed with which international organizations react to crises affects the prospects for communities to re-establish peace. Why then do some international organizations take longer than others to answer calls for intervention? To answer this question and explore options for reform, Time to React builds on contemporary scholarship with original data on response rates and interview evidence from 50 ambassadors across four leading organizations (AU, EU, OAS and OSCE). The explanation for variation in speed ultimately lies in core differences in institutional cultures across organizations. Although wealth and capabilities can strengthen a peace operation, it is the unspoken rules and social networks of peace and security committees at these organizations that dictate the pace with which an operation is established. This book offers a first analysis of the critical importance of and conditions shaping timeliness of crisis response by international organizations.

Errors in crisis management operations can have deadly consequences. Some international organizations take steps to reform, whereas other organizations tend to repeat the same errors. As budget cuts have led to increased turnover in personnel, how is it that international organizations have maintained any knowledge about past errors? This book introduces an argument for how and why international organizations develop institutional memory of strategic errors. As Heidi Hardt shows, formal learning processes - such as lessons learned offices and databases - can ironically deter elite officials from using the processes to share their relevant knowledge. Elites have few professional incentives to report observed strategic errors. As a result, most memory-building occurs behind the scenes via informal processes. These informal processes include elites' use of transnational interpersonal networks, private documentation, and conversations during crisis management exercises. Such processes ensure that institutional memory develops, but they do so at a price: an organization's memory is vulnerable to knowledge loss if even one critical elite chooses to retire. Hardt tests her argument through extensive, original field research inside one of the world's largest crisis management organizations - the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). She conducted interviews and a survey experiment with 120 NATO elites, including almost all NATO ambassadors and military representatives, all assistant secretary generals, and civilian and military leaders engaged in the decision-making and planning of operations. Her findings provide insights into NATO's institutional memory concerning three cases of crisis management in Afghanistan, Libya, and Ukraine. Ultimately, this book argues that formal learning processes alone are insufficient for an organization to capture knowledge, learn and change.