Comments on: Militarising foreign policy: what are the alternatives?

By: Exhumed and abused: the sorry fate of the Malayan Emergency | Kings of War

Exhumed and abused: the sorry fate of the Malayan Emergency | Kings of War — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:35:14 +0000

[...] the population and honouring other traditionally ‘civilian’ duties. This is a serious conundrum of modern counterinsurgency but it cannot be solved by basing our division of labour on a colonial infrastructure that no [...]

By: HBO on Marjah, Bing West on Afghanistan | Kings of War

HBO on Marjah, Bing West on Afghanistan | Kings of War — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 04:54:33 +0000

[...] and the ability to operate in non-permissive environments. Who has all of these? The military. This may not be right, but it is the way it is for now and the way it will be despite several welcom… We could go back to the original Geroge W. Bush stance on this issue and say the ‘military [...]

By: Some Unspoken Truths about NATO | Kings of War

Some Unspoken Truths about NATO | Kings of War — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 12:51:16 +0000

[...] see NATO as able and willing to do their work for them, when push comes to shove. It is similar to the debate within the US military as to whether they should take over civilian tasks if their inter-agency partners are not there or [...]

By: Cain Marshall Pence

Cain Marshall Pence — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 16:07:01 +0000

Your insights are noted at Robert Swope’s D3 blog’s weekly roundup. You can read the Roundup at http://www.robertswope.com. Keep up the great work!

By: Starbuck

Starbuck — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 21:17:17 +0000

I remember reading a while back that the vast majority of US State Department personnel were unfit (medically, administratively, etc) to be deployed to Iraq anyway, further compounding the ineffectiveness of a largely-gutted department.

By: Robert Ooi

Robert Ooi — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:50:05 +0000

We’re glad that you’ve enjoyed our first issue of PRISM (sure to be a collectors item one day) I wanted to let you know that issue two came out today and is available at our website ccoportal.org.

By: Jack McDonald

Jack McDonald — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:48:19 +0000

In my mind, the problem is not so much the devotion of resources, but the fact that these civilian organisations falter “at the sharp end”. USAID could have its budget quadrupled, but if its employees are not allowed to bunk down with military types in their firebases, they will prove largely useless. The problem with civilian agencies is that they are largely unable to work in insecure environments where some people consider them to be belligerents, by and large, military forces are the only government agencies tasked to work in such a manner. Civilian agencies such as the FCO, state department and so on would be well advised to head off “mission creep” by the military by providing personnel with the training and willingness to work in such environments. That’s not to say that development experts should carry firearms, but maybe a few more of them should be willing and able to hunker down with soldiers in hostile environments for 6-12 month engagements.

By: David Ucko

David Ucko — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:42:01 +0000

Starbuck,
The call for a civilian surge resulted in more civilians being sent to Afghanistan, but the image of a ‘surge’ is, as you imply, somewhat misleading. Drawing again on the RAND publication I cite in the post, at the time of its publication the aggregate number of civilians in all PRTs in Afghanistan amounted only to 3-10% of a U.S. Army BCT…

What civilian agencies can do depends a lot on the permissiveness of the security environment, which is why ‘contested nation-building’ is the most difficult endeavour. Even in more permissive scenarios, it is true – as you note – that the military has greater deployability and resources to bring to bear. For an example of how a civilian capability for such scenarios might look, check out the RAND study I cite, chapters 1 and 2, which covers the proposed structure for civilian engagement, from the strategic to the tactical, and also lists the agencies and offices with skills and mandates relevant to stability operations.

By: Starbuck

Starbuck — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 13:25:11 +0000

I thought the US claimed it was embarking on a “civilian surge” last year in Afghanistan, brut it just never materialized.

To echo some of your earlier thoughts, the reason the US military features so prominently in disaster relief, nation building and other such endeavors is because no one else has the ability to move material, provide manpower, and provide organizational oversight (the big one) like the US military.

I wonder how the State Department or USAID would fare in the disaster relief role. How would an interagency approach work in these types of missions? What would a robust civilian advisory group do in nation-building? What capabilities would it actually provide?