Army Reserve May Take Over Civil Affairs

[USMCRET6391]

InsideDefense.com NewsStand | Jen DiMascio | March 01, 2006

As the Army and the Pentagon are considering a plan to transfer control of civil affairs and psychological operations soldiers from U.S. Special Operations Command to the Army Reserve, the chief of the inactive-duty force is proposing a new way to train them.

Lt. Gen. James Helmly was in the spotlight in early 2005, when he called attention to the level of strain facing the Reserve because of deployments in Iraq -- one that his volunteer force still faces, he told Inside the Army in a Feb. 17 interview at the Association of the U.S. Army conference here.

Calling attention to that problem is one of the ways Helmly said he is working to update Defense Department policies.

Another way is working to bring soldiers in civil affairs and psychological operations who report to SOCOM back into the Reserve, which funds them.

Civil affairs and psychological operations lend themselves to the Reserve, an inactive-duty force, Helmly said. “It relies on civilian acquired skills -- not military unique skills. It's civilian skills practiced in a military environment, and so it is a capability [that] needs to be stronger for this century in an age of stability and reconstruction operations than perhaps the last century,” he said.

To enhance those civilian skills, Helmly said he is pitching a warrant officer program in civil affairs to the Pentagon and the Army. That program would move the service's top noncommissioned officers into a “technical expert corps, which is a traditional niche of the warrant officer corps and civil affairs,” Helmly said.

In addition, he wants to establish a training program for those soldiers modeled on training-with-industry efforts used by senior leaders in logistics, management and acquisition.

In the case of civil affairs, Helmly would like to match soldiers from the rank of major to colonel with a position in civil government.

“Our skilled civil affairs professionals can gain an advanced certification by spending six months, lets say, at our expense, with a transportation department of a major state or urban area -- or a public safety department at a state or local government level -- and acquire an advanced knowledge of modern techniques in civil government and civil support measures,” he said. “In turn, we would expect the department would support us in changing some of the personnel policies that would require that member then to stay in a civil affairs unit for a three- to four-year period, rather than moving out.”

Making his plans come to fruition should not be difficult, Helmly said, adding that he didn't think any statutes would need to be changed. His plan also will require generating the backing to develop a warrant officer corps.

But building the capability will not require much equipment, nor will it call for massive collective training.

“You're operating in four-man, six-man teams,” Helmly said, adding that because the size of brigades remains small for civil affairs, post-mobilization training time is short.

“Our intent is to make civil affairs not only larger but much more ready and robust as it comes back under the command of the Army Reserve,” he said.

Proposing changes to Pentagon policy is Helmly's way of doing business.

“I've spent my entire three and a half years in this position attacking 20th century Industrial Age practices and policies that govern the organization, manning, training use of the reserve components,” he said.

He drew the ire of Pentagon officials when The Baltimore Sun reported early in 2005 that Helmly referred to the Reserve as a “broken force.”

But Helmly is still trying to change institutional policies in the Pentagon and in Congress to give the Reserve greater flexibility in how it calls up soldiers.

One main problem for Helmly is that under the law governing partial mobilization, a soldier can only be mobilized for deployment for 24 months.

“That was fine for a Korea or a World War II. It doesn't work anymore if you have a long war,” he said. “We need a more flexible authority.”

The numbers presented by the Defense Department present a rosier picture of the Reserve's numbers than Helmly feels is accurate.

“It's very frustrating to me that the numbers that are portrayed at the DOD level would have one believe we have literally thousands of people with [mobilization] time left. But that's just the way we count things,” he said.

It doesn't account for thousands of soldiers who are being trained or who have been declared fit for duty but not for deployment.

“It's not all as apparent as the top of that table. You start looking underneath the table, and you find this tremendous cobweb of bureaucratic things that don't relate to current-day reality,” he said.

But Congress has not indicated it will entertain the possibility of a change to the partial mobilization rule, he said.

Since the “broken force” comment circulated, Helmly has toned down the rhetoric but does not consider the issue resolved.

“We are stressed, stretched,” he said. “But you know, let's put it in personal terms: We were a couch potato for a long time, one weekend a month, two weeks in the summer. So when suddenly . . . somebody walks in your house, throws the couch out and says, ‘Get outside, you're now going on a 10-mile run.' Well guess what? It isn't going to be pretty. So you're getting in shape while you're running. As an institution we're having to getting in shape as we're running.”

[Grimmy]

Personally, I view any "push down" of active capability to reserve as a mistake.

Our reserve forces should be just that, reserve. They should not be "cheaper than active but full time" they should be for when the active is fully committed and some holes need patching.

Civil Affairs units have been a mainstay in many theaters recently, above and beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. These should all be active duty units. Any unit that's been called up since 9/11 should be replaced with an active duty unit in the standing force. We need more active duty units, not more units that should be active duty only, being pushed down into the reserve cause it's cheaper than payin for full time Soldiers.

The reserve should be cut roughly in half and used exclusivly and only as emergency (as in invasion of the US or full total global war) reinforcements.
The active duty military should be increased to be able to do the job necessary.