“Civil Affairs” has recently been elevated to a branch of the U.S. Army by order of Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey on January 12, 2007.
The role of civil affairs is to support “the interaction of military forces with the civilian populace [in or around the battlefield] to facilitate military operations and consolidate operational objectives.”
According to an Army manual on civil affairs operations (pdf), “A supportive civilian population can provide resources and information that facilitate friendly operations. It can also provide a positive climate for the military and diplomatic activity a nation pursues to achieve foreign policy objectives.”
Conversely, “A hostile civilian population threatens the immediate operations of deployed friendly forces and can often undermine public support at home for the policy objectives of the United States and its allies. When executed properly, civil-military operations can reduce friction between the civilian population and the military force.”
The Army manual has not been approved for public release, but a copy was obtained by Secrecy News.
See “Civil Affairs Operations,” U.S. Army Field Manual FM 3-05.40, September 2006 (184 pages, 4 MB PDF).
To increase the real and perceived benefit of research funding, funding agencies should develop challenge goals for their extramural research programs focused on the impact portion of their mission.
Without trusted mechanisms to ensure privacy while enabling secure data access, essential R&D stalls, educational innovation stalls, and U.S. global competitiveness suffers.
Satellite imagery has long served as a tool for observing on-the-ground activity worldwide, and offers especially valuable insights into the operation, development, and physical features related to nuclear technology.
This year’s Red Sky Summit was an opportunity to further consider what the role of fire tech can and should be – and how public policy can support its development, scaling, and application.