The Civil Affairs’ (CA) Role In Stability Work Group gathered
to address the fact that both the Army and CA lack clarity on
exactly what CA’s role is in stability. The group consisted of
individuals from the following organizations: CENTCOM,
AFRICOM, USAID, NDU JSOMA, USACAPOC, AR-
SOUTH, 1ID, USAJFKSWCS Army CA Proponency, SO-
COM Joint CA Proponency, HQDA 3/5 SSSC, 18 ABC,
353 CACOM, 304 CA BDE, 415th CA BN, the Civil Affairs
Association, PKSOI, and the US Army War College staff. The
mix of CA and non-CA personnel and experience levels of the
participants resulted in deep, honest discussion on the problem.
The working group reviewed and discussed current USG policy
and relevant Army and Joint Force Doctrine. Discussions in-
cluded past and recent experiences with CA operations and sta-
bility activities and objectives, with the focus of the discussion
on how CA conducted or supported stability activities from the
tactical to strategic levels. Based on doctrine and operational
reality, it became clear that CA is unmistakably the Army and
Joint Force’s most optimal force provider with the capabilities
that most appropriately align with stability activities, a point
that many in CA and the Army previously did not recognize.
The group agreed that the lack of clarity on CA’s role in stability
resulted in shortfalls in doctrine and training for CA personnel,
and that a coherent, agreed upon description of CA’s role in
stability was required as the starting point for addressing these
shortfalls.
The group collectively developed and agreed on the following
description of CA’s role in stability. CA is the lead military plan-
ning element for stability activities, lead integrator/coordinator of
military stability activities with unified action partners, mission
command element for entities executing stability tasks, primary
force provider to execute stability tasks, and initial preparation of
the environment provider to illuminate, understand, and share
the political, economic, social, and infrastructure elements of the
civil operational environment. Using this description as a base,
the group established a post-PSOTEW continuation plan con-
sisting of doctrinal change recommendations within Stability
and Civil Affairs doctrine as manuals come up for review, while
also focusing efforts on developing opportunities to increase
stability planning capability.
PKSOI's Civil Affairs Colonel Jay Liddick working
group 5 leader serves as the moderator. This group con-
cluded that the lack of clarity on CA's role in stability re-
sulted in shortfalls in doctrine and training for CA personnel.
PKSOI's Colonel Jay Liddick while conducting the out
brief to the PKSOI Director and PKSOI Visiting Profes-
sors answers questions from the audience.
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