Expeditionary Civilians: Creating a Viable Practice of Civilian Deployment Within the U.S. Interagency Community and Among Foreign Defense Organizations
Abstract
Civilians now routinely deploy to support military missions abroad. Internationally, defense departments have been drawing on internal civilian` capabilities to relieve pressure on the uniformed military, with some of these initiatives being formalized into organizational structures. There are several known challenges associated with deploying civilians to operational theaters. For instance, from where should the capability be drawn? How should deployable civilians be selected, prepared, and protected in theater? How can an organization best manage civilians while they are deployed, ensuring that they will have secure jobs upon their return? Moreover, from a recruitment standpoint, how can an organization ensure a steady pipeline of willing volunteers to deploy? How are civilians perceived by and how do they operate among their military colleagues? These are challenges that organizations attempting to deploy civilians will need to address. The RAND Corporation conducted a study for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) that constituted an end-to-end review of guidance across the civilian deployment process, with the ultimate aim of recommending guidelines for establishing and maintaining a civilian deployment capability for the future. The results of that study can be found in the companion report, Expeditionary Civilians: Creating a Viable Practice of Department of Defense Civilian Deployment, available at www.rand.org/t/RR975. As part of the research for that larger report, we investigated a number of deployment approaches taken by organizations analogous to DoD, both U.S. and foreign. This report presents the specific findings derived from that aspect of the larger research project. The research was conducted in 2014, and the findings were current as of mid-2015.From our comparative cases, we identified best practices and created a typology of four models of civilian deployment, highlighting the benefits and drawbacks of each.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2016
- Accession Number
- AD1013802
Entities
People
- Michael Schwille
- Molly Dunigan
- Susan S. Everingham
- Susanne Sondergaard
- Todd Nichols
Organizations
- RAND Corporation