Strengthen Civilian Forces, Too
18 February Washington Times commentary - Strengthen Civilian Forces, Too by Richard Lugar.
Quote:
American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are foremost in our thoughts and prayers, but the U.S. military has been quietly fighting the war against terror in scores of other foreign countries. Since September 11, 2001, the number of military personnel and Defense Department activities in non-combat countries has soared.
Finding, capturing and eliminating terrorists and their support networks are only part of the military's new mission. They have won new authority outside the traditional foreign aid framework to provide military training to foreign countries. Increasingly, the military is taking on roles once reserved for civilian agencies, such as building schools and clinics, drilling wells and conducting public information campaigns.
A strong military response is necessary for the war against terrorism. When our foreign friends use our training and intelligence to round up global terrorists on their soil, it is clearly a mutual success. But over-reliance on the military also carries risks...
Strengthening civilian capabilities
For what it's worth, there is movement on this.
At the end of March (07) the Deputies approved the creation of an "interagency management structure" (IMS) for S&R missions; a civilian response system capable of supporting 3 concurrent missions (1 small like Haiti, 1 medium like Kosovo, and 1 large like Afghanistan). $50M has been allocated for a civilian cadre of 500 people to be recruited, trained, equipped, and organized for deployment in a year.
We'll see, of course; there's a lot of daylight between words and actions. Right now the $50M is contingent on enabling legislation; S.613 (Lugar, Biden, Warner, Hagel) and H.R.1084 (Farr, Saxon). If/when that passes, the funds should flow and things should start happening very quickly.
More to follow if there's interest...
My Experiences With Civilian Agencies And Lessons Learned
I regards to civilian support for military operations, stability operations and emergency responses I have some experience which has lead me to the conclusion that it just won’t work. In order to get any meaningful support from the civilian agencies (or even civilian employees of Depart of Defense and Department of Homeland Security) would require incurring expenses far out distancing the eventual benefits.
Let me provide examples from my own experience:
a. During the Haitian Boat Refugee crisis many years ago, I worked for the
Department of the Navy. A request went out for volunteers to go to Mississippi to help the CB’s set up a refugee camp for the Haitians. I volunteered but was not taken. This hurt my feelings until one of my office’s supervisors pointed out to me that the people all being sent were the least productive and least competent people in the office.
Lesson: Departments will not send their “A Team”, because they want then home working in their work. They will send the “Z Team” to get rid of them for a while.
b. During the First Gulf War I was the only person in my office to volunteer to go to either Saudi Arabia or Bahrain to assist the Navy’s efforts. Then I was told that the decision h ad been made that it was too dangerous. Eventually, they did send civilians over to do contracts with the locals. However, they only sent female civilians to deal with local businessmen in a Muslim country. A LCDR from my office had to be sent to Saudi Arabia to be the “face” of the office with the locals.
Lesson: Civilian agencies follow their procedure with little regard for local customs. Also, planning is not something that a great deal of effort is put into.
c. When the campaigns started in Afghanistan and Iraq, I considered going overseas to help out with the reconstruction efforts. I found a website run by the Army called “Support Our Friends in Iraq and Afghanistan”. I contacted the people through the website to see if I went overseas for a year to help out, what my rights would be. I was told that the only reinstatement rights I would have would be up to the individual agencies policy. In other words I could come home to unemployment.
Lesson: People who take place stability operations or reconstruction are on their own. They will not receive much support from either the agency that they come from, or the agency that they help.
c. When Katrina hit New Orleans I responded to a call for volunteers to help out. I am a Contracting Officer and September is the end of the Fiscal Year when certain funds have to be obligated or lost. I was told by my management that assisting New Orleans and that region was not a priority for my region in San Francisco. I was eventually allowed to go after the end of the Fiscal Year.
Lesson: Agencies are very parochial. What does not effect then directly they have very little concern about. One of the high priority procurements that they kept me at my home office for was – to get a clown to entertain at a kiddy party for “Bring Your Daughter to Work Day”. New Orleans and tens of thousands of Americans citizens took a back set to that.
d. Once I got to New Orleans there was no leadership, no support, and the Region that was affected by the Hurricane treated all of the volunteers like slaves. Hardly anyone did more then one assignment of two weeks (and many left before that on their own accord). The food was so bad that some people started going around to Red Cross Shelters and the Salvation Army to get food handouts. I never once saw or heard from the Incident Commander or anyone else above first line supervisor. Everyday they had a staff meeting for management that last 6 – 7 hours.
Lesson: Most civilian agencies (with some exceptions) do not know how to provide logistical support in the field. Most managers for the Federal Government have no idea what direct personal leadership or motivation (while we were starving in trailers they stayed at a hotel and ate at restaurants). Federal employees who are deployed are deployed for brief periods (two weeks in the case of Katrina). For a number of reasons Federal civilian agencies have almost no standards – appearance, conduct, education or enforcing the length of a deployment. Most Federal Agencies have a culture that discourages cooperating with other offices in the same agency, other agencies in the Federal Government, and other levels of government (State, City, and County).
As a final note, when I got back to my home office a women who I work with walked up to be and said – “You have to pay for talking a two week vacation”. About a year later my agency had a ceremony where people who had deployed for Hurricane Katrina were given a medallion. I threw mine away.
My experiences have led me to believe that to get adequate support for stability operations or for emergency response – you will need to create a new agency specifically for that. Something along the lines of a “National Police”. An organization that has standards and discipline similar to the military and has specific responsibility for these actions (so they can not decide that they have higher priorities). Thank you
