Capabilities for War and Operations Other than War
A combat capability must remain the mainstay of a strong US defense. For distant threats to US survival there should be a reconstitution combat force made up of reserves trained by an active component cadre.
The readiness requirement for the reconstitution force can be as long as a year, but there must also be a quick response combat force for peacetime contingencies. This active component combat force can be at much reduced strength than during the Cold War.For peacetime miltary operations combat forces are seldom required nor desirable. To promote peace in dangerous but strategically important areas around the world the military must complement its combat forces with those that can be closely integrated with the political and economic elements of US foreign policy in conducting activities other than war.
Future military capabilities must increasingly rely on reservists, or civilian soldiers (citizen soldier implies that active component soldiers are not citizens). Civilian soldiers must be more than combat reserves; they must also be front line forces in the civil-military activities that will predominate in the future.
In the spring-loaded Cold War environment the reserve components were truly in reserve since only active component forces could meet the readiness requirements of the expected Soviet attack - the Fulda Gap scenario. In the new strategic environment there are no such readiness constraints; but budgetary constraints will ensure that civilian soldiers have extensive roles in operations other than war.
Army doctrine in FM 100-5 lists 13 activities as operations other than war, most of which are civil-military activities.7 Their inclusion in FM 100-5 represents a practical merger of special and conventional civil-military missions,8 as well as the new category of peace operations.9
The following outline of activities consolidates those 13 listed in FM 100-5 with analogous activities and missions from doctrine on special operations in low intensity conflict (LIC) and peace operations. Any doctrinal distinctions between these activities are outweighed by their common characteristics; they all share the requirements and principles of military legitimacy, which will be discussed in more detail in the following chapter.
As can be seen overleaf, all non-combat activities can be categorized as either humanitarian assistance or security assistance, as these terms are broadly defined, since peace operations involve some combination of these two basic categories of assistance. These non-combat activities can be provided at three levels: domestic, foreign national and international.
The following description of the activities of operations other than war begins with the umbrella concept of civil affairs, then domestic, foreign national, and international activities. Most activities can be considered civil affairs since their success depends upon public support, but they are not categorized as such. Special attention is given to operational law (OPLAW), since compliance with the rule of law is a prerequisite of military legitimacy. Civil affairs
Civil affairs, or CA, is not listed as an activity in FM 100-5, but is designated as one of ten special operations activities.10 CA is not limited to special operations; it refers to both the activities and the specialized military forces that interface with the civilian population in war and