Civil affairs: as demands for nation-building troops soar, leaders ponder reorganization.

Army and U.S. Special Operations Command officials are studying proposals to reorganize the small but highly in-demand civil affairs force.

Civil affairs troops, who specialize in nation building and civilian-military relations, possess skills that have become indispensable to U.S. commanders. In the Iraqi war zone, particularly, forces fight insurgents, and at the same time try to rebuild the economy and the infrastructure.

Civil affairs soldiers, who are trained on the intricacies of foreign cultures and institutions, currently are part of the Army Special Operations Command, under SOCOM. More than 90 percent of them are reservists.

About a year ago, concerned by the escalating violence in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asked Army and SOCOM officials to work out a plan to expand civil affairs skills throughout the Army.

In a series of memos, known inside the Pentagon as "snowflakes," Rumsfeld questioned whether civil affairs should remain under SOCOM, particularly at a time when special operations forces are directing their focus to hunting terrorists and uncovering weapons of mass destruction.

With 6,000 members, the civil affairs force has been part of SOCOM since 1992. Except for one unit, the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, all others are in the reserves. The Marine Corps has three civil affairs units.

According to current expansion plans, the 500-member 96th Civil Affairs Battalion gradually will increase by 400 more slots, and will become a brigade. Another 1,100 billets will be added to the reserves.

A reorganization of civil affairs could go in a number of different directions, officials told National Defense. One option is to maintain the status quo. Another is to shift the entire civil affairs force to the Army. A third alternative, one that has been gaining momentum, is to let SOCOM keep the 96th Brigade, which would focus on special-operations missions. The rest of the force would be part of the Army Reserve Command, and would be lined up with Army maneuver brigades.

Spokesmen for the Army and for the office of the secretary of defense declined to provide details of the reorganization plans, citing the "pre-decisional" nature of the discussions.

"Rather than directing that civil affairs be reorganized, the secretary of defense asked for a review of whether the U.S. Special Operations Command should be responsible for civil affairs organizations," a Defense Department spokesman told National Defense. "Accordingly, SOCOM has undertaken a review of civil affairs, which is ongoing. The review will include looking at how civil affairs units are assigned and trained."

The office of the assistant secretary of defense for special operations, sources said, is recommending that no changes be made until the completion of the Quadrennial Defense Review that is expected to wrap up by the end of the year.

As the debate unfolds, there is angst in the civil affairs community, noted retired brigadier general Jack Kern, who served as chief of the 352nd Civil Affairs Command. Among the reasons why officials should consider reorganizing civil affairs is that these units, for the most part, train and serve with the conventional Army more than with special operations, Kern said in an interview. Nonetheless, he added, "SOCOM took us under their wing and did great things for us ... But that does not mean we should stay there."

Meanwhile, one of the lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq is that the conventional Army doesn't integrate the civilian and military missions well, said Lt. Col. Christopher Holshek, a civil affairs officer who commanded the 402nd Battalion in Iraq last year.

"As a nation, we have accepted difficult stabilization and reconstruction challenges in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq," Holshek wrote in a study published by the National Defense University. "However, our response has been repeatedly to cobble together plans, people and resources ad hoc, allowing the good will of newly liberated populations to wither away before much more can be done to help them--and thus turning potential friends into real enemies."

Regardless of the outcome of the reorganization talks, there are other, more fundamental, issues that senior military leaders must confront, such as an overstretched and stressed civil affairs force, Holshek noted.

"The nation's ability to continue to deploy and rotate civil affairs forces is rapidly breaking down," he added. "Well over three-fourths of all deployable civil affairs personnel have been sent at least once to Iraq and Afghanistan. This does not include 500-600 more civil affairs soldiers who have deployed since 9/11 to nearly 20 other countries, such as Bosnia, Kosovo and Haiti."

Monetary incentives for new recruits are effective as a means to grow the force, but are not enough, Holshek said. "More needs to be done than incremental increases of CA personnel," he wrote.

A priority should be to define more precisely the roles and missions of civil affairs troops, and to beef up their training. "CA training and education needs to be upgraded. Training our allies to do more CA-type missions would also pay multiple dividends," he said. "Most importantly, overhauling the way CA is mobilized and employed, including with a new civil-military, interagency stability and reconstruction organization could ensure an effective national capability."

The Marine Corps, for its part, is broadening the scope of civil affairs, beyond traditional peacekeeping operations. "How can we help a country to prevent things from going south?" asked Lt. Gen. Jan Huly, deputy commandant for plans, programs and operations. The Corps plans to expand training in foreign languages and cultures not just for civil affairs units, but for all Marines, Huly told reporters.

Two major units make up the all-reserve Marine Corps civil affairs force: the 4th and the 3rd Civil Affairs Groups.

The Corps decided to expand the force just for the Iraqi conflict by creating a 5th Civil Affairs Group of nearly 200 Marines, who arrived in Iraq to support the I Marine Expeditionary Force.

"The Marine Corps created the 5th CAG for this deployment to ease the deployment cycles of the 3rd and 4th CAGs and to create additional civil affairs assets," said Capt. Julianne H. Sohn, the unit's spokesperson. The unit was established in late 2004 and shipped down to Camp Lejeune, N.C., for training from January until February 2005.

The six-week pre-deployment training included two weeks of civil affairs classes that were conducted by the 3rd CAG Mobile Training Team and augmented by interpreters from the I Marine Expeditionary Force, Sohn explained in an e-mail from Iraq.

"We covered everything from Marine Corps training, such as land navigation and convoy operations, to basic civil affairs and cultural awareness training ... During our civil affairs training, we also learned how to work with translators and also had some basic Arabic language classes."

The training concluded with a final field exercise at an urban site at Camp Lejeune. "We learned the basics of how to maintain internal security in a building, conduct meetings with Iraqi officials and do project assessments," said Sohn. Once this deployment ends in late October, the unit will retire its colors in Baltimore, Md.