State Department's Strike Force For Nation-Building

By Noah Shachtman
January 04, 2008 3:08:00 PM
Courtesy Of: Wired

The American military has shown that it can take over any third-world country it wants. But these "bullets and bombs represent [only] short-term tactical responses to a much larger strategic dilemma," Matt Armstrong writes in a fascinating Small Wars Journal essay.

In the end, societies need to be rebuilt -- or else the "grinding poverty and disillusionment" of the developing world will only create more "breeding grounds for extremists, terrorists, and insurgents to attack the national interests of the United States."

These kinds of nation-building efforts take years, of course. But there does exist a "'Golden Hour' when the major combat operations have subsided or stopped and when the people are most ready for change." The State Department is working on a solution for this Golden Hour. It's called he Civilian Reserve Corps, or CRC.

In the words of Ambassador Herbst, CRC will tap into a “wellspring” of adventurous spirits wanting to change the world for the better. They are trained as civilian teams and work alongside the military. They will have area expertise, including regional and language skills. Lost in the hullaballoo over CRC is that it is really a quick reaction force of only up to 125 people to bring much needed skills to bear in post-conflict situations for strategic success...

The President’s mention of CRC [during the 2007 State of the Union] caused some to fear this was a move to outsource more of America’s national power when the reality is the opposite: unlike contracted resources in use today, this in-sourcing makes the CRC directly integrated with and accountable directly within the USG [U.S. government] command and control. This corps is modeled after the military reserve system with four year “enlistments” and a to-be-determined number of weeks of training each year. Members will be deployable up to one year, but only up to 25% of the corps will be deployable at any given time.

Right now, it exists only on paper. But the eventual goal is to have 2,500 CRC members, ready to go at a moment's notice.