PKSOI Papers

The United States has a compelling national security interest to promote stability in select fragile and conflict-affected states.  Such an operational environment is complex and requires a whole-of-U.S. Government response, coupled with non-governmental and international partners and supported by the affected nation to achieve their own national goals.  Since 1947, the national security system has struggled to handle effectively the range and complexity of the existing global threats and opportunities. 

The issue of the role of Civil Affairs in consolidation activities – across all phases and in particular the human domain – was the main focus of the opening workshop. MG Sonntag noted how timely this event was given how Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster (the 2015 Symposium keynote speaker) see the increased need to consolidate military and security gains into political and civil outcomes.

This monograph explores how and why to pursue the integrated program management function as a means to improve the effectiveness of stability operations. Section 1 of the analysis defines a traditional military approach to stability operations and a traditional program management approach. Section 2 juxtaposes stability operations with program management to showcase already-existing similarities. Section 3 applies four program management domains to stability operations to demonstrate potential benefits. Section 4 highlights how the application of program management functions to stability operations is compatible with the interagency approach. Lastly, Section 5 discusses Army Acquisition Corps capabilities that the Army can modify to perform this role.

This case study examines the intervention and stability operations in Kosovo from March 24, 1999 through approximately 2 years thereafter. Set during the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia and preceded by ethnic carnage in Bosnia, Croatia, and elsewhere, the intervention, named Operation ALLIED FORCE, was executed in order to protect Kosovars of Albanian descent from the ethnic cleansing of the Serbian leaders of the remaining federation of Yugoslavia.

Operation UNITED ASSISTANCE (OUA), which deployed to Liberia between September 2014 and June 2015, provides an example of how a Joint Force can support a lead federal agency (LFA), in this case the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other interagency and international partners to end a raging epidemic of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

The stability operation in Haiti from January 14 to June 1, 2010 demonstrated how over a dozen U.S. Government departments and agencies worked together effectively in an unprecedented large-scale foreign humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (FHA/DR) effort. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, precipitated the operation. The Haiti action, known within the U.S. military as Operation UNIFIED RESPONSE, was not only a whole-of-government, but also a whole-of-nation and global undertaking. The United States played a significant role in the Haiti earthquake relief effort in collaboration with more than 140 countries and over 1,000 non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

For three years now, the Civil Affairs Association and its partners have provided the Civil Affairs Regiment a way to provide experience-based feedback and advice to institutional and policy level leadership on the future of the Civil Affairs force through an annual fall symposium. These symposia result in Civil Affairs Issue Papers published and presented at the spring roundtable. With every successive year, the discussion has become increasingly impactful, improving the Regiment as a learning organization by advancing a unified, whole of CA force view of professional and force development discussion using this unofficial, collegial platform.

In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the short-lived Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) briefly held a mandate to lead post-war reconstruction efforts. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) under L. Paul Bremer replaced ORHA before its plans could be implemented. Autopsies of replacing the ORHA and the consequences of the CPA’s subsequent handling of the Iraq mission abound, but they focused on the Iraq mission as a historical narrative. However, the United States (US) now faces a lengthening list of probable reconstruction and stabilization (R&S) missions in the near future. Rather than burying the autopsies, the contrast between ORHA’s plans and the CPA’s implementation offers instructive lessons for future R&S missions.