Posted on Sep 7, 2017
The Army Reserve’s Troubling Little Secret: Cheap, Inadequate Training - Modern War Institute
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I could probably write a novel about this issue but this essentially sums up a major hurdle hindering the overall mission success of CA.
"This lengthy training pipeline equips civil affairs soldiers to meet the demands of often difficult missions—that is, unless you are one of the reservists who make up over 82 percent of America’s civil affairs personnel. In that case, you will still deploy to the same combat zone or crisis area and be expected to do the same job, but without nearly the same training."
"This lengthy training pipeline equips civil affairs soldiers to meet the demands of often difficult missions—that is, unless you are one of the reservists who make up over 82 percent of America’s civil affairs personnel. In that case, you will still deploy to the same combat zone or crisis area and be expected to do the same job, but without nearly the same training."
The Army Reserve’s Troubling Little Secret: Cheap, Inadequate Training - Modern War Institute
Posted from mwi.usma.edu
38A: Civil Affairs Officer
38B: Civil Affairs Specialist
Civil Affairs
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 1
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I am of the deeply held opinion that there is a difference in what a Reserve CA Soldier brings to the table vs an AC one. Their missions should reflect this.
What makes Reserve CA valuable is that they work and live in regular civil society, holding down jobs as city planners, lawyers, teachers, and the like. Bringing these skills to a conflict area or unstable region leverages that practical know-how on real-world problems.
This is something AC CA lacks.
Active duty CA on the other hand brings usually superior tactical acumen and general training. They are far better suited to FID/UW, SO Support, and Human Terrain mapping then Reserve Soldiers will ever be able to attain and maintain.
The mission sets should reflect this. However, what really happens is that there is only so much AC CA to go around, and much of it is constantly committed to SO support in current operations. So where they can't be everywhere, Reserve CA fills the gap, as capably as they can.
Likewise, certain elements (I see you, AFRICOM, SOUTHCOM) are very used to utilizing AC CA for roles that Reserve CA is actually better suited for.
If it were up to me, there would be a mission alignment by role, but that has not been the case as the mission has been bigger than the force pool can bear since 2003 or so. It has forced me to train my Soldiers to perform tasks outside our METL, knowing full well that they will not get the individual training to make them the force multipliers we otherwise could be.
For disaster response, HA, Stability Operations, and Government Assistance, Reserve CA does a superior job (when they don't do stupid things or get in trouble). For FID/UW, SO Support, and Immediate Response, AC CA is far better at it.
Just my two cents.
In any event, the mission will keep all of us CA types busy for as long and as often as we would possibly want. Plenty of mission should equal plenty of training dollars.
What makes Reserve CA valuable is that they work and live in regular civil society, holding down jobs as city planners, lawyers, teachers, and the like. Bringing these skills to a conflict area or unstable region leverages that practical know-how on real-world problems.
This is something AC CA lacks.
Active duty CA on the other hand brings usually superior tactical acumen and general training. They are far better suited to FID/UW, SO Support, and Human Terrain mapping then Reserve Soldiers will ever be able to attain and maintain.
The mission sets should reflect this. However, what really happens is that there is only so much AC CA to go around, and much of it is constantly committed to SO support in current operations. So where they can't be everywhere, Reserve CA fills the gap, as capably as they can.
Likewise, certain elements (I see you, AFRICOM, SOUTHCOM) are very used to utilizing AC CA for roles that Reserve CA is actually better suited for.
If it were up to me, there would be a mission alignment by role, but that has not been the case as the mission has been bigger than the force pool can bear since 2003 or so. It has forced me to train my Soldiers to perform tasks outside our METL, knowing full well that they will not get the individual training to make them the force multipliers we otherwise could be.
For disaster response, HA, Stability Operations, and Government Assistance, Reserve CA does a superior job (when they don't do stupid things or get in trouble). For FID/UW, SO Support, and Immediate Response, AC CA is far better at it.
Just my two cents.
In any event, the mission will keep all of us CA types busy for as long and as often as we would possibly want. Plenty of mission should equal plenty of training dollars.
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