I think those are great ideas Rob. They're challenging, but good nonetheless. I'd like to think of the proposed CSTs as a directory or "google" of sorts. The guy on the ground has an issue, and even if the CST member doesn't have the answer (or they do not have the rope to impact decision-making directly), they can provide the referral to information that will help.

That happens all the time here when someone puts out an RFI, or poses a question in their post. Recommendations come out in the responses, not necessarily answering the query, but saying "check this out."

As for areas of expertise that we need to mine from, here's a short list:

-A down and dirty retired beat cop, preferrably from a tough inner city beat. Philly, Baltimore, Detroit or NYC would do nicely. Narcotics or undercover experience would be a plus.
-A former or retired ICE agent. Cracking the code on how the smugglers practice their craft is a key to 25% of the kinetic problems.
-A top-of-the-line linguist. Access to language software on both ends would be a must.
-Pediatric and prenatal physicians and RNs.
-A successful venture capitalist. Those types of guys can sniff out where the pump needs to be primed very well.
-A journalist who could archive all the writing and blurbs that the CST puts out.
-Someone with public policy/administration/planning experience.
-A veteran of UNHCR and USAID work. The important thing with this person is that he/she would have to have had experience on an actual mission, not an admin or policymaker who never left the beltway.
-A veteran of a neighborhood watch initiative.

The biggest obstacle I see with the process of working with a CST would be time. If you stop and think about it, the guys on the ground are already overwhelmed with current and future ops, reports to higher, and the daily white noise that makes steady state ops anything but. Getting a CST tied into a COP would be difficult, and even then, you'd spend a lot of time simply articulating the issue at hand and building situational awareness that these CSTish issues would get shuffled to the bottom of the deck of priorities.

If they were tied into the civil affairs folks, then I think there would be more bang for the buck, because CA is generally a longer-term effort and already focuses effort at the project level (keep the former cops tied into the guys at the tip of the spear though).

I think a more likely branch to this would be CST support of a CA unit during its pre-deployment phase. After the pre-deployment site survey, the leadership could come back and host a conference. All the current/pending projects get laid out, the friction points to current ops are discussed, and best practices of the in-country unit are thrown out on the table for discussion. It would require something like two weeks, some per diem and travel funds, but it would be manageable given the right command influence and focus. Instead of looking at how the in-country unit is doing business solely through the military lens, the CST could serve as a "murder board" of the ideas and initiatives. Given the sensitivity of current ops, I think there would be too much push-back on having them tied into a COP, while working at home from their Apple. Front-end efforts, coupled with post-deployment defriefing efforts, might gain more traction.

In probably every CST position, we'd have to look closely at their background and steer clear of some retirees. Not that retirees don't have experiences to offer, but they still look too much like us (the active duty guys) and could become deadlocked in a spiral of, "well, when I was in uniform..." I don't think we'd want that, but rather frank assessments. Sometimes we need someone to step back out of the hurricane and say that we are all hosed up in our approach.

Another downside I see to getting this kind of idea approved is we would see significant push-back from the lessons learned centers. We are supposed to reference them first, or so I have been lead to believe, because they have captured the lessons from those who have gone before.