Are troops best suited for post-combat civilian duties?

• Author: Rusling, Matthew
• Position: Hybrid Wars

* In today's wars, the Army needs more than just soldiers. To help rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army Reserve is using troops who were lawyers, accountants, teachers and soybean farmers in their civilian lives.

"You're still building schools and delivering babies even though there's a war going on," said Col. Margaret Bond, an Army Reserve lawyer and former Staff Judge Advocate for the 352nd Civil Affairs Command.

Conflict and post-conflict phases of war, which were once separate, are melding together, she said.

The Army once snubbed the business of nation-building. Reconstruction and economic development duties were considered the purview of the State Department or non-governmental aid organizations, known as NGOs.

Bond said current conflicts have demonstrated that the military is sometimes more capable of nation building than civilian NGOs, because it can negotiate dangerous areas where civilians can't go.

"In some circumstances, nation building is impeded unless soldiers are doing it," Bond said.

If insurgents, for example, cut a neighborhood's electricity by knocking down power lines, U.S. troops might bring in a generator, she said. Typically NGO workers would do that but only if they can be sure that they are not going to be fired on, she said. And unlike the military, civilian agencies are unable to deploy as rapidly to troubled regions.

Most NGOs don't have the means to quickly reach civilians trapped in war zones, she said. "Every day people have to have food, shelter and clothing ... They need hospitals, schools, transportation and economic interaction."

NGO supply lines are often fragile, unless they are using military transportation, Bond said. If an NGO uses its own transport and warehousing, for example, it often has to contract the hauling out to locals. Many are forced to pay bribes to get their goods through. But the amount of food, water, and medical supplies often dwindles down to little or nothing once it reaches its destination, she said. "All of these items are valuable on black markets," Bond said.

Tapping the military for humanitarian missions would ensure a faster response, Bond said. Troops could land in prison for refusing an order, whereas civilians have the right to decline tasks they deem too risky. Or they could be barred by their agencies from entering certain conflict zones considered too dangerous.

The U.S. Agency for international Development, the chief arm of the State Department in disseminating U.S...