Interim CA Conference Report: “Campaigning and Civil Affairs”

The Civil Affairs Association has posted its report from the 8-9 December Civil Affairs Conference at Ft. Liberty, NC.

The report captures the rich discussion among the more than 100 participants in all—from the three workshops run by the Civil Affairs proponent, the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade (Special Operations) (Airborne), and the U.S. Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) 38G Military Government Specialist Program on the first day—to the keynote presentation by Brig. Gen. Kelly M. Dickerson, Deputy Chief of Staff, G3/5/7, Office of the Chief of Army Reserve, an open discussion on “Finding a Corps-Wide Narrative on the Civil Affairs Value Proposition, and finally the presentation of this year’s Civil Affairs Issue Papers.

Among the Conference’s major findings:

• Civil affairs capabilities and civil affairs operations (CAO) are integral to campaigning.

• The theater-strategic and operational levels are critical for integration of CA forces.

• Campaigning at joint command and country team levels is inherently an interagency undertaking.

• Campaigning is not only the best way for GCCs and Army Service Component Commands (ASCCs) to leverage CA but also the best way for CA to support and integrate with these commands.

• Multicomponent CA and multidisciplinary information-related force teaming is the way forward to successful integration of CA forces in strategic competition, integrated deterrence, and campaigning as well as large-scale combat operations (LSCO).

• Army 38G Military Government Specialists are ideally suited for employment in campaigning.

• The need for dedicated maritime CA has once again become more obvious.

• There was universal consensus that the extended CA Corps needs to create an identifiable 21st century strategic narrative for CA.

The entire report is downloadable from the Association website, here.

The final version of this Report will appear in the 2023-24 Civil Affairs Issue Papers (Vol. 10), out in early March online and later that month in print. The next event, the online CA Roundtable, will be in April 2024—date to be announced soon.

To read the Eunomia Journal articles cited in the Report and more, see the Civil Affairs Association website and remember to subscribe or update your member profile—and consider joining the Association!