Quote Originally Posted by Surferbeetle View Post
This is where theory and reality clash. Of course it's military business...If we must intervene, it is to our economic benefit (and I would say that more than economics is involved) to leave behind stable countries which can contribute to the stability of the global system... Part of this fight included 'nation building' operations which brings us back to Uboat509's wisdom.(emphasis added / kw)
Note the words I placed in bold -- that's the issue, the worth of Civil Affairs is not being attacked.

There's no question that Civil Affairs as a branch and discipline is necessary nor is there any doubt about the good things they've done. The question is who can best provide the sustained efforts to other nations to preclude the commitment of US Armed Forces in large quantities. If such a commitment is necessary, then Civil Affairs will of course be critically important until some stability is obtained and the civil side which is capable of long term effort is able to initially augment and then eventually supplant the CA effort so that CA can reset for the next effort.

Military force should be a last resort when all other options fail. If, however, it's committed, then of course CA is necessary. The goal should be to avoid commitments of the Armed Forces, it's hard on the bods...

No one is arguing that nation building has not been or is not necessary nor does anyone dispute how we we've done it in the past or that CA has done great work -- but we also used to ride to work on elephants...