United States Department of Defense, and associated, civil affairs are civil-military operations (CMO) use of military force to control areas seized from the enemy (or a third party), minimize insurgency or civil interference with military operations, and maximize civil support for military operations. CMO is conducted in conjunction with combat operations during wartime and becomes a central part of a military campaign in counter-insurgencies. CMO operations have been in frequent use since 1775 by the United States Army, as well as more recently by the Navy and Marine Corps.
Early history
They became major activities for the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Civil-military operations conducted by the U.S. Army were common in the colonial era in dealing with hostile Indians. During that war, all sides employed civil affairs in every colony/state. Military authorities managed activities that civilians had managed prior to the war. The invasion of Canada in 1775 was an early example, The American invaders won considerable support from the locals, but failed to capture Quebec City and were forced to retreat in disarray.
In the U.S.-Mexican War, Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott could be considered the "Father of Civil Affairs." He displayed a deep respect for the Mexican people and their culture. Scott enjoyed great success in keeping civilian problems from interfering with military operations by issuing General Order No. 20 and ensuring the Provost Marshals office enforced it. The United States Army considers this to be where Civil Affairs (CA) originated.
Civil War and reconstruction
The Army had large-scale CMO roles during the American Civil War, and for much of the Reconstruction Era until the last units were withdrawn in 1877.
1877–1934
At the end of the 19th century, and well into the 20th U.S. Army and Marine Corps were involved in numerous military interventions in several of the Caribbean and Latin American nations before and after World War I. After the Spanish–American War ended in 1898, Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood restored order in Cuba with CA forces. The Army returned to Cuba in 1905, again in 1912, and starting in 1917, was there for a period of many years. The Marine Corps was called upon to protect American interests by military intervention in the Dominican Republic (1916–1924), Haiti (1915–1934), and Nicaragua (1926–1934). The Army was also called to Panama in 1903 to ensure the birth of that nation when it broke away from Colombia to become independent.
According to the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center & School located at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, at worst, the CMO performance was highhanded and overbearing, while at best, the Army and Marine Corps restored more stable economic and political situations in those areas.
Showing "Uncle Sam with a schoolbook in one hand and a Krag rifle in the other" best summarized the civil-military policy in the Philippines, which was also acquired by the United States as a result of the Spanish–American War. While Cuba became independent in 1902, the Philippines was granted the status of a territory, with the promise of independence. It became independent in 1946. The payoff of an enlightened military government policy was the Filipinos were the only Pacific colonized peoples to resist the Japanese on any scale.
World War I
World War I saw few, if any, civil affairs activities; however, during post-Armistice weeks, the U.S. Army administered the government of an overseas enemy population in the German Rhineland and in Luxembourg where no stable government existed after Germany's defeat and exit of the region. The army's Polar Bear Expedition occupied Arkhangelsk on the shore of the White Sea through the winter of 1918–1919 in a failed attempt to establish a stable anti-Bolshevik government in northern Europe. The American Expeditionary Force Siberia occupation of Vladivostok from 1918 to 1920 was similarly unsuccessful in stabilizing an anti-Bolshevik government on the Pacific coast. Between World War I and World War II, the U.S. Army was involved in a surprising number of civic action projects such as the Civilian Conservation Corps.
"The American army of occupation lacked both training and organization to guide the destinies of the nearly one million civilians whom the fortunes of war had placed under its temporary sovereignty", stated Col. Irwin L. Hunt, Officer in Charge of Civil Affairs, Third Army, in his report on U.S. military government in Germany after World War I.