Marine Corps Civil Affairs: Just a Name, Not a Capacity

Abstract

"Taking combat arms officers and calling them civil affairs is just a name, not a capacity."1 In November 2005, the Department of Defense (DoD) issued Directive 3000.05, Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations. The directive outlines stability operations as a core DoD mission and mandates the services allocate equal priority of "training, doctrine, organizations, education, exercises, material, leadership, personnel, facilities, and planning" to stability operations as it does to combat operations.2 While the Marine Corps has taken steps to meet the intent of this directive, adequately prioritizing the creation of a permanent civil affairs (CA) capability is not one of them. Failure to address this critical shortfall with anything less than creation of an active duty civil affairs (CA) primary military occupational specialty (MOS) jeopardizes mission accomplishment in current and future operating environments.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 20, 2009
Accession Number
ADA509951

Entities

People

  • Lauren K. Diana

Organizations

  • Marine Corps Combat Development Command

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Active Duty
  • Civil Affairs
  • Department Of Defense
  • Department Of State
  • Doctrine
  • Education
  • Enlisted Personnel
  • Marine Corps
  • Military Education
  • Military Operations
  • Military Organizations
  • Military Science
  • Personnel Management
  • Stability Operations
  • Training
  • United States
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Maritime Combat Support and Expeditionary Logistics.
  • Military Mobilization and Reserve Forces Studies.
  • Military and Counterinsurgency Studies.