The role of Air Force civil engineers in counterinsurgency operations

Air & Space Power Journal, Summer, 2008 by Kendall Brown

CEs have recent experience doing this work in the horn of Africa. In 2004 the 823rd RED HORSE Squadron participated in Combined Joint task Force--horn of Africa, providing humanitarian assistance and contingency construction projects in Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya. (16) The RED HORSE team repaired roads and bridges, built a 1,000-square-foot clinic and a 3,000-square-foot school house, and renovated Ethiopian military billeting. (17) Capt Javier Velazquez, leader for the school project in Jijiga, Ethiopia, succinctly explained the importance of these operations: "When we first arrived, the people acted like, 'What are you doing here?' By the time we finished, people would rush out of their homes to wave at our convoys, realizing that we were there to help." (18)

An innovative role for Air Force CEs may exist in the "dominate" phase of the joint campaign plan. In an effects-based-operations planning/targeting approach, the desired effects may require destroying infrastructure (airfields, roads, bridges, power distribution, water, etc.) in regions held by the insurgency. As part of the planning process, we should assess the long-term effects of attacking that infrastructure. Part of that assessment should determine whether we need to reconstitute the system during stability operations. A possible slogan for such a concept--If you decide to break it, plan to fix it--exemplifies the synergism and parallelism between the "dominate" and "stabilize" phases.

If we make a reconstitution-planning process integral to the targeting process, we can restore infrastructure in a timely manner, enabling a quicker transition from conducting stability operations to enabling civil authority. In an extreme example, upon approval of the air tasking order (ATO) to destroy an infrastructure system, we can submit a work request to begin planning for the Army Corps of Engineers or Air Force CEs to rebuild it. Using only the level of force necessary to achieve the desired effects will help preclude a more difficult reconstitution. Implementing such an approach would not be difficult. Leaders of the RED HORSE or Prime BEEF deployment teams could participate in the ATO planning cycle to evaluate the longer-term effect of striking buildings, roads, bridges, water supply and distribution systems, electrical supply and distribution systems, fuel supply and distribution systems, and so forth. The air and space operations center's planning cell, in conjunction with the host nation, nongovernmental organizations, and political analysts, can identify the COIN effects if we rapidly restore that system. By tracking and prioritizing the target list, along with conducting poststrike battle damage assessment to evaluate the exact damage, we can initiate planning to avoid significant delays in reestablishing services.

CE officers would require supplemental training if we want them to interact with the flight-operations community and the ATO process. (19) CE forces have the technical knowledge to perform this role, but they would also need the cultural and COIN-specific attitude in order to actually perform it. CEs and other general-purpose support forces would supplement the ATO planning cell. Such support would probably require augmenting the typical CE deployment team with one to three fieldgrade officers and four to six senior noncommissioned officers. Actual implementation of the reconstitution effort may or may not lie within the capability and capacity of the deployed engineering team; therefore, we may need a combatant-commander-level team to manage the reconstitution project list and conduct the planning. In many cases, the preferable method will involve utilizing the local population, either under direct contracting or as hired labor under the direction of US forces or contractor advisers.