the descendants of the CA and Military Government
forces created prior to and during World War II, the
capabilities required to carry out military government
were shunned and neglected by DoD and the Army at
large until the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq made
it terribly clear that history was repeating itself: the
U.S. was quite unprepared for the responsibilities of
administering Iraq and supporting the government of
Afghanistan, and the ad hoc means we devised once
again “ranged from inadequate to near disastrous.”
As a consequence of now more than a dozen years
of conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have painfully
learned numerous lessons about how to stabilize a
country; however, we should have studied and understood these lessons well before the first U.S. boots
hit the ground. It is possible that these lessons can be
institutionalized in doctrine, training and force structure so that future leaders and commanders will not
be unprepared as their predecessors have been. In furtherance of this goal, DoD has established the policy
that it must maintain a capability to conduct a broad
range of Civil Affairs operations, including actions
that “establish and conduct military government until
civilian authority or government can be restored.”4
A very positive development is that the U.S. Army
John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School
has established the Institute for Military Support to
Governance (IMSG), which is in the process of studying and developing the doctrine, training, and force
structure for providing military support to civil governments in future conflicts. In particular, the IMSG
has focused on developing Civil Affairs specialists in
military government (AOC 38G). This paper discusses
what I believe to be the principal mission for which
38Gs must prepare.
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