Photo Caption for Above: Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni (center) with Maj. Gen. Darrell Guthrie and Association President retired Col. Joe Kirlin (right) and retired CA Cols. Christopher Holshek and Michael Hess (left).
Among the points of convergence at the Civil Affairs Roundtable at the National Guard Armory in Washington, D.C. was the clear need for the Civil Affairs Regiment to stay ahead of – rather than keep up with – the power curve. For the nearly 100 attending the April 2nd annual meeting on civil affairs policy matters, this was a logical result to the “Optimizing Civil Affairs” discussion among operational shareholders at last fall’s Civil Affairs Centennial Symposium at Ft. Bragg, NC reflected in the 2018-19 Civil Affairs Issue Papers published as the Roundtable began.
The imperatives for a more anticipatory than adaptive approach to CA force development involve keeping up with the pace of change in the strategic ecosystem – as retired Marine General Anthony Zinni emphasized in his keynote speech. While the Regiment senses opportunities to gain more strategic application in support of stabilization at Joint, interagency, and multinational levels, however, there is also the challenge of meeting changing demands from the Army’s evolving strategic land power role in an emerging era of great power competition.
To learn more, read the 2019 Civil Affairs Roundtable Report