What are Your Community’s Civil Vulnerabilities?

<p>Rick Morse is a School of Government faculty member.</p> <p>A few months ago Tyler Mulligan and I had the opportunity to work with Bravo Company of the 98th Civil Affairs Battalion of the U.S. Army, stationed at Ft. Bragg. They asked for our help in developing their analytical skill-set in preparation for a deployment to Latin America. It was a learning experience for all involved. While I think what we shared with them will be useful, I also came away with some insights about community development that I’ll share here in this blog post. I also came away from the experience with a great deal of respect and admiration for these soldiers and the work they do. </p> <p>When I was first approached by Company Commander Major Lewis about working with them my first reaction was “why us?” This was the Army and whatever work they do is overseas. Our expertise here is North Carolina communities and governance. But as I learned about what Civil Affairs (CA) does all around the world, I came to think of them as kind of like the Peace Corps in Army fatigues. They engage in community development all across the world, and in particular engage local governments and other governance institutions to help mitigate what they call “civil vulnerabilities.” So in a real sense they are community developers. And as the CA arm of the Army expands, they are finding that they need to develop a broader set of analytical tools to help understand communities and the nature of their [...]</p>