2015 Civil Affairs Symposium
“Civil Affairs: A Force for Engagement and Conflict Prevention” Civil Affairs (CA) has long been a major national strategic capability that helps transition from war to peace and from military to civilian lead and control after major conflict. Increasingly, however, CA is being required to engage partners to bring together whole-of-nation elements in: · emerging security cooperation and security assistance operations performed by General Purpose Forces under the Regionally Aligned Force concept; · “building partner capacity” missions, in cooperation with regional and multilateral organizations, partner nations, and possibly National Guard State Partnership Missions; and · Special Operations in “persistent engagement.”
In conjunction with Military Information Support and Information Operations (MISO/IO) as well as Foreign Area Officers (FAOs), CA comprises the only part of the Joint Force specifically suited for Peace & Stability Operations under Joint Stability Operations Doctrine and the U.S. Army Functional Concept for Engagement. Especially in Phase 0 (Shape and Influence), they can contribute to conflict analysis, including identifying sources of illicit power as well as the distribution and use of political and informal power, in order to mitigate the drivers of instability and not just threats. All this brings up two questions:
1. How as such does or should CA contribute to conflict prevention, in coordination with MISO/IO and FAOs as well as an array of government, non-government, and private sector civilian partners and regional and multilateral organizations?
2. What CA capabilities are required to support engagement in these ways?
The Civil Affairs Association and its partners are therefore reaching out to experienced civil military operators to contribute to that discussion by preparing a short Civil Affairs Issue Paper (10 pages, 12 font, 1.5 or double-spaced, or less) explaining their recommendations on some or all of the above questions, with additional consideration of Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership, Personnel, Facilities and Policy (DOTMLPF-P), as writers deem appropriate.
The Civil Affairs Association will publish the top five Issue Papers in the 2015-16 Civil Affairs Issue Papers at the Spring 2016 Roundtable. However, it will select the top three papers, likewise based on originality of thought, clarity of presentation, and feasibility of recommendations, for presentation and final voting by participants at the Civil Affairs Symposium in San Antonio, TX this fall.
First prize is a cash award of $500; second prize is $250; and third prize is $100. The deadline for submission of papers is Friday, 14 August 2015. Send the papers to Colonel (ret.) Christopher Holshek, Civil Issue Papers Editor, at Holshek@hotmail.com
Further information and updates, will be posted on The Civil Affairs Association website: http://www.civilaffairsassoc.org/
