CASE STUDY N O. 5

COMPLEX OPERATIONS CASE STUDIES SERIES

Military Provision of Humanitarian and 

Civic Assistance: A Day in the Life of a 

Civil Affairs Team in the Horn of Africa

Jessica Piombo

Naval Postgraduate School

KAREN GUTTIERI

SERIES EDITOR

Naval Postgraduate School
COMPLEX OPERATIONS CASE STUDIES SERIES

Complex operations encompass stability, security, transition and reconstruction, and counterinsurgency operations and operations consisting of

irregular warfare (United States Public Law No 417, 2008). Stability operations frameworks engage many disciplines to achieve their goals, including

establishment of safe and secure environments, the rule of law, social wellbeing, stable governance, and sustainable economy. A comprehensive

approach to complex operations involves many elements—governmental

and nongovernmental, public and private—of the international community

or a “whole of community” effort, as well as engagement by many different

components of government agencies, or a “whole of government” approach.

Taking note of these requirements, a number of studies called for incentives

to grow the field of capable scholars and practitioners, and the development

of resources for educators, students and practitioners. A 2008 United States

Institute of Peace study titled “Sharing the Space” specifically noted the

need for case studies and lessons. Gabriel Marcella and Stephen Fought

argued for a case-based approach to teaching complex operations in the

pages of Joint Forces Quarterly, noting “Case studies force students into the

problem; they put a face on history and bring life to theory.” We developed

this series of complex operations teaching case studies to address this need.

In this process, we aim to promote research and to strengthen relationships

among civilian and military researchers and practitioners. 

The Center for Complex Operations (CCO) emphasizes the importance of a whole of government approach to complex operations and provides a forum for a community of practice and plays a number of roles in the

production and distribution of learning about complex operations, including supporting the compilations of lessons and practices. 

Dr. Karen Guttieri at the Naval Postgraduate School provided the

research direction and overall leadership for this project.

Center for Complex Operations, National Defense University, Washington, DC 20319.

© 2010 by National Defense University. All rights reserved. Published 2010.

Note: The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. government or 

National Defense University. Material in this case study may be used with approriate citation.
1

CASE STUDY N O. 5

COMPLEX OPERATIONS CASE STUDIES SERIES

Military Provision of Humanitarian and 

Civic Assistance: A Day in the Life of a 

Civil Affairs Team in the Horn of Africa

Jessica Piombo

Naval Postgraduate School

“It’s the drug deal,” said Staff Sergeant Hicks.1 “We can’t buy them tools,

only pieces directly used in the project. We can’t leave anything behind once

we finish. So we buy paint. A lot of paint,” he smirks. 

We are sitting in a tea shop in Lamu, a town on a small, remote island off

Kenya’s northeastern coast and within a few hundred kilometers of the

Somali border. Hicks and his group of two other Civil Affairs soldiers look

like young American tourists, wearing the universal uniform of khaki pants,

t-shirts, and baseball caps.2 The three young men ferry from the mainland to

Lamu and begin to walk around. Instead of the camera of the tourist or the

gun of the soldier, however, they are armed with shovels and water pipe

fittings. 

It is June 2007, and Staff Sergeant Hicks is the noncommissioned officer

in charge of the Civil Affairs team located at the Manda Bay “contingency

operating location” of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa

(CJTF-HOA). His group is in charge of running the Humanitarian and

Civic Assistance program of the CJTF-HOA from as far north as Lamu to

the area south of Mombasa, an area known as the “Swahili Coast” of Kenya.

Another team was operating in Kenya’s northeast province, in the Somaliinhabited area near the border between Somalia and Kenya. 

Civil Affairs teams (CAT) like theirs have been sprinkled throughout

the Horn of Africa since 2003, operating according to guidelines established

by USCENTCOM (United States Central Command) and USAFRICOM

(United States Africa Command) (beginning in 2008). The CJTF-HOA

operates in the Comoros, Maldives, Mauritius, and Seychelles islands; on

the coast of Tanzania; in select parts of Uganda and Rwanda; and in Ethiopia when the political climate permits. The headquarters is located in Djibouti, and in that country Civil Affairs teams operate either from the base

camp at Camp Lemonier or, when the political situation is stable, from

apartments rented on the northern shores of the bay of Tadjoura. Most
2 Jessica Piombo
Military Provision of Humanitarian Civic Assistance 3

recently the teams have extended operations into the Rift Valley of Kenya

and northern Uganda (around Gulu and Lira).

Hicks tells me about his group’s work as we sit in a steaming café at long

wooden tables, sipping chai and eating fried dough. The tea vendor’s long

stall is open on the sides, and outside the rain is pouring down. Everyone in

the group is soaked to the bone, for it is the beginning of the rainy season in

this remote area. As we huddle around the table, Hicks begins talking. 

The Civil Affairs team was in Lamu that day to check on the progress of

several ongoing efforts to refurbish schools and repair or upgrade water systems, projects that comprise the main focus of their efforts. Earlier that

morning we had visited the Wiyoni water project, an initiative to install over

four thousand feet of two-inch pipe to a community of 1,500 people on

Lamu Island that did not previously have access to municipal potable water.

In this small village, the issue is not an absolute lack of water: just beyond

the houses the beach begins, and across the bay is the mainland of Kenya. A

mere one hundred miles north or inland and the climate becomes semi-arid,

but in this humid area of mangrove swamps there is plenty of water. The

problem is that often the water is not potable, drinkable, and desalinized.

This is just one project of many. In Mpeketoni, a village on the mainland, the team was completing several projects. One initiative replaced more

than 195 sheets of tin roofing in a secondary school, while another painted a

hospital and installed privacy curtains in the patient wards. There were a

number of similar, small projects—painting schools, repairing chalkboards,

replacing tin sheeting. Larger projects focused on building better latrines for

schools, completely refurbishing the interiors and exteriors of schools, and

digging wells for human and animal consumption. 

Once this project is completed, Wiyoni’s women and children will no

longer have to walk to the neighborhood’s one spigot to fill buckets and

water jugs. Instead, the community will be able to run smaller water lines to

every street in the village. Just the day before, the women in the town had

grown impatient with the pace of the male workers, so they had banded

together and completed digging a two-hundred-meter trench into which the

new pipe had been laid. 

As Hicks and I were talking, I recalled a scene from earlier that morning

that demonstrated how valued some of these projects were by local communities. As we had tested the new central spigot, a woman asked me to take

her picture by the running water, so that I would have a record of what she

and her friends had done. For a woman in this region of Kenya to consent to

have her picture taken is unusual. For her to ask for her picture to be taken is

absolutely unheard of. This water project would change her life and that of

the other women in the village, and both her personal pride and the community’s feeling of ownership over this initiative to improve the water system

was clear. 

When he referred to paint, however, Hicks meant tools. According to

Hicks, the local people do not have enough money to buy the tools necessary to execute or maintain the project, so the Civil Affairs teams buys equip-
4 THE CREATION OF THE CJTF-HOA Jessica Piombo

ment and supplies on the local economy and invoices the expenses as paint.

But according to the regulations by which the Civil Affairs team delivers

civic assistance, it cannot leave any durable goods other than the actual project behind, and therefore the tools are supposed to leave with the Americans. If he follows the system’s rules, Hicks argues, the villagers will not be

able to fix the water system when it breaks. So Hicks leaves behind the tools

and submits an invoice that lists many liters of paint. 

THE CREATION OF THE CJTF-HOA

“The Marines Have Landed,” screams a headline in a newspaper. The article

describes a military vehicle racing over dusty dunes and roads, filled with

soldiers quickly and purposively heading out on an urgent mission. In the

next sentence, however, the tone quickly changes—the vehicle suddenly

stops in front of a school, and the soldiers get out of the vehicle carrying

shovels, building material, water, and food. The article describes how the

U.S. military has arrived to deliver humanitarian assistance and to “develop”

Africa. The accompanying picture shows a desolate region, sparsely settled,

with a few U.S. soldiers talking with poor Africans and holding children.

They are on a mission for the CJTF-HOA and are not waging war, but

peace.

This is a stylized description typical of many early accounts of the CJTFHOA shortly after its establishment in Djibouti in 2003. The CJTF-HOA

had actually been established the year before at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, when Marines had embarked on a twenty-eight-day training cruise

aboard the USS Mount Whitney. They arrived in the Horn of Africa in early

December and commenced an extended counterterrorism exercise in the

Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. 

The CJTF-HOA operated from the Mount Whitney until May 2003,

when the mission transitioned to a base in Djibouti City initially established

by the French Foreign Legion, Camp Lemonier. The fact that it was organized as a task force indicated that it was meant to be oriented toward a specific mission and of short duration, so for the first three years the core staff of

U.S. Marines rotated every six months. The mission was to capture terrorists

that the U.S. military planned to push out of the Middle East and into the

Horn of Africa. 

In 2006, the navy took over administration of the CJTF-HOA, and since

then subsequent core staffs have been comprised mostly of navy personnel

drawn from the active and reserve forces. Because the outfit is still a task

force, the tours of the core staff were extended to one year, which is the legal

limit for a task force administrative structure. The noncore staff rotates into

the CJTF-HOA for periods of three to nine months, with both Seabees

(naval construction units) and Civil Affairs teams on six-month rotations.

There are no permanent or long-term personnel.
Military Provision of Humanitarian Civic Assistance 5

CJTF-HOA MISSION AND OPERATING PROCEDURES

With the transition from marine to navy administration, the mission also

changed, evolving from the capture-kill of its early phase to one focused on

reconstruction and stabilization and most recently (2007 onwards) to

increasingly emphasize military exchanges and training events. From the

headquarters at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, the CJTF operates in over nine

countries in eastern Africa, depending on the state of internal affairs and the

relations between individual countries and the U.S. government.3

The basic model of operations is that the command and control element

stays at the base in Djibouti, and projects are carried out by groups of military members located within the various countries. These smaller groups are

most often composed of Civil Affairs teams and/or Seabee detachments,

based in outlying areas within the country in which they operate. Each

group is authorized to conduct projects in a specific area of the country, and

they vary in size from almost eighty people in Lamu, Kenya, to independent

Civil Affairs teams of five to eight people living in hotels or rented apartments in Uganda. 

A “country coordination element” oversees the work of the CJTF-HOA

within each country and is headed by an officer in charge at the 04–06 rank

(major/lieutenant commander to colonel/captain). The country coordination element functions as a liaison between the Civil Affairs and Seabee

teams operating at satellite locations and the U.S. embassy in each country;

assists with the approval process for large projects; and in some countries

also includes a dedicated Civil Affairs Liaison Officer. 

Most of the civil affairs and humanitarian assistance projects undertaken

by the CJTF-HOA are funded through an established set of Humanitarian

and Civic Assistance programs that have been setup by the U.S. Department

of Defense (DoD). The CJTF-HOA draws primarily on three particular

funding streams for their major projects: the Humanitarian Assistance

Other, Humanitarian and Civic Assistance, and Overseas Humanitarian

Disaster and Civic Assistance programs.4 All are carried out by the Civil

Affairs teams attached to the CJTF-HOA, the naval engineers (Seabees) at

the camp, or through local and international contractors. In late 2008, the

newly established Maritime Civil Affairs groups began to operate alongside

the U.S. Army civil affairs soldiers. 

Through these humanitarian assistance programs, the U.S. Department

of Defense hopes to utilize military assets to shape a country’s strategic environment, to help avert political and humanitarian crises, to promote democratic development and regional stability, to build local capacity, and to

enable countries to begin to recover from conflicts.5 All projects must

address some or all of these goals, and there are strict limits on what sorts of

projects can be undertaken, who should execute the program, and what the

objectives are (often they are security focused). 

In this vision, the Humanitarian and Civic Assistance program is first

and foremost meant to train U.S. military members through the provision of
6 CJTF-HOA MISSION AND OPERATING PROCEDURES Jessica Piombo

humanitarian assistance as an exercise. The program itself becomes the vehicle through which the U.S. military are trained, rather than a project pursued

solely for its own merits. 

Another set of civic assistance projects is funded through the operating

funds of the base camp in Djibouti, and these are called “minimal expenditure” or “de minimus” projects. These projects are smaller and less regulated

than the official humanitarian assistance programs, as they are financed

through Camp Lemonier’s operations and management budget. This budget provides a pool of discretionary funds that the commander of CJTFHOA makes available to Civil Affairs teams for use in quick impact, low-cost

projects that a team can complete on the spot. Once the funds are spent, the

team has to send back statements that invoice the expenses and report the

projects. 

Until 2008, there was not much more oversight than this reporting of

expenses and ongoing projects. After 2008, a new requirement stipulated

that the team leader could only take out funds to cover specific projects

rather than a lump sum to cover all potential projects. There is no other

reporting requirement or approval process for these small projects; they are

exempt from the more detailed project nomination and approval system

that is mandated for the projects financed by the official humanitarian assistance programs. 

Prioritizing Human Security

The primary mission of the CJTF-HOA has been and continues to be to

counter terrorism. In a classic counterinsurgency strategy, the camp promotes development and goodwill as a way to combat terrorism. CJTF-HOA

activities are conducted on a project basis within each country and, regardless of their funding source, all the humanitarian and civic assistance projects

fall within three broad categories: water, schools, and health clinics. There

are also civic action projects to deliver medical, dental, or veterinary care in

short-duration events and, increasingly, projects in theater security cooperation or military-military assistance and training. Through these activities, the

CJTF-HOA aims to advance four official goals: (1) to prevent conflict, (2)

to promote stability, (3) to protect coalition partners’ interests and, therefore, (4) to help to prevail against extremism. These are called “the four Ps.”

The four Ps are enacted through a “3-D” construct—an integration of development, defense, and diplomacy, which enables a “whole of government”

approach to the CJTF-HOA’s operations that involves other agencies. 

Unofficially, these projects are supposed to provide access for the U.S.

military, should they need to engage in more aggressive activities in the

region, and to open up areas for U.S. influence more broadly. The CJTF

itself does not expect its actions alone to create these ends nor does it know

how to evaluate its successes, but it generally sees itself as contributing to an

overall U.S. government effort. 
Military Provision of Humanitarian Civic Assistance 7

As with the United States Africa Command, for the CJTF-HOA, defense

has been broadly construed in human security terms. In this conception,

security includes not only the traditional concepts of state-centric national

security conceived of in military terms (arms rivalries, strategic alliances,

and defense and military training) but also dimensions of human security:

individual security and human rights, economic prosperity, societal reconstruction and stabilization, regional organization development, and capacity

building for states and their institutions.6

The rationale for prioritizing human security above traditional, interstate security is that in Africa, the root causes of political instability, military

coups, and vulnerability to transnational threats can be located in poverty

and inequality, poor governance, weak states, and vulnerable populations.

As USAFRICOM itself has described it, addressing African insecurity not

only necessitated a broader view of what makes for a stable environment but

also a new approach to the tools and resources employed to create desired

ends. 

The designers of U.S. Africa Command clearly understood the relationships

between security, development, diplomacy and prosperity in Africa. As a result,

U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, reflects a much more integrated staff

structure, one that includes significant management and staff representation by

the Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID),

and other U.S. government agencies involved in Africa. The command also will

seek to incorporate partner nations and humanitarian organizations, from

Africa and elsewhere, to work alongside the U.S. staff on common approaches

to shared interests.7

In this vision, tackling the problems of insecurity in Africa demands

more than just a focus on interstate rivalries and security issues as traditionally conceived. The Civil Affairs projects are just one weapon in this arsenal. 

THE VIEW FROM BELOW: 

EXPEDIENCY VERSUS COORDINATION

Back at the steamy eatery, Hicks explains the logic of how he does his job.

“We have to be creative when executing projects,” Hicks says, noting that

technically, projects have to be run through an approval process that takes at

a minimum six months.8 His entire tour with the CJTF-HOA is six months.

Hicks’ demeanor is typical of the senior noncommissioned officers in the

Civil Affairs community in the Horn of Africa: He is slightly jaded about

what he can hope to accomplish and yet still enthusiastically pursues projects. 

To Hicks, the headquarters in Djibouti exists to create paperwork and

issue instructions that obstruct his ability to do good work. To those in the

headquarters, the nominations process is there to foster coordination
8 THE VIEW FROM BELOW: EXPEDIENCY VERSUS COORDINATION Jessica Piombo

between the CJTF-HOA’s efforts and those of the State Department and

USAID. The process of nomination and approval requires that State and

USAID be consulted by the Civil Affairs teams and, where possible, CJTFHOA projects should be coordinated with other ongoing efforts. This

should avoid duplication and enable synergies that could magnify the effects

of otherwise small projects. 

Hicks needs to nominate for approval any projects that cost above a certain threshold. This includes most well-drilling initiatives; major school

refurbishment efforts; and medical, veterinary, or dental civic action programs. The projects are the elements of the official Humanitarian and Civic

Assistance programs discussed above. Humanitarian and civic assistance is

one of the mainstays of the CJTF-HOA activities, both in terms of budget

and numbers of activities.9

Any project that draws on the Overseas Humanitarian Disaster and

Civic Assistance or Humanitarian and Civic Assistance programs for funding requires approval by three separate authorities—by the civil-military

operations shop at the headquarters in Djibouti, by the Humanitarian Assistance branch of USAFRICOM,10 and by the U.S. embassy in each country.

The purpose of this review is to ensure that the nominated project meets the

goals of the humanitarian assistance program and that it is coordinated with

the U.S. embassy and its programs and goals. 

To Hicks, however, this process means that he has to complete a lot of

paperwork and to spend a lot of time waiting around to see if a project will

be approved. He also has to liaise with the villages repeatedly during this

nomination process. Any project he nominates will be executed by a completely different Civil Affairs team, and the villagers will have to wait a long

time for the improvements to begin. Hicks sees this as a tradeoff between

expediency and effectiveness, on the one hand, and the rules that foster

coordination, on the other. 

He also says that the approval process can create actively negative consequences. If the project does not gain approval, he argues, it creates ill will.

Because he has to meet with the village leaders throughout the process to

gain their “buy in” for a project, they will have come to expect a project.

Even if all the CJTF-HOA officials have been careful not to make any promises or indications that a project will happen, the villagers believe that all the

talk will lead somewhere, and they will have waited patiently for a project. So

in the end, if a nomination does not pass the triple approval process, all the

CJTF-HOA has done, Hicks argues, is to raise hopes and expectations that

are not fulfilled and that then create frustration, mistrust, and anger. 

Hicks wants to do good for Africans, to get out there and to help people

in a real way without making them wait through endless consultations for a

project that may never actually happen. In order to deliver real results, therefore, Hicks and his team focus on small projects that cost less than $2,500,

financed from the operations and management fund of the camp in Djibouti—the minimal expenditure projects. Instead of large, officially funded

and approved humanitarian assistance projects, the team drives around and
Military Provision of Humanitarian Civic Assistance 9

looks for small projects that can be completed quickly and cheaply, often

relying on locals for labor and supplies. These minimum expenditure projects have to be reported to the headquarters but do not require approval.11

Minimal expenditure projects also potentially build more local ownership and involvement than the larger Overseas Humanitarian and Civic

Assistance projects: They would not be possible to complete within the

$2,500 limit unless the locals contribute, and the locals will not help unless

they want the program. So the minimal expenditure projects have become

locally driven and owned, more by virtue of necessity than planning, but the

result obtains nonetheless. This is how Hicks and his team navigate through

the restrictions and rules put in place by the military’s humanitarian assistance and civic assistance programs so that they can do their jobs. 

THE VIEW FROM ABOVE: “THE GOOD IDEA FAIRIES”

Commander Mayer rolls her eyes, sighs, and slumps back in her desk chair. I

had just asked her about how Civil Affairs teams operate within the countries, specifically the way that they finance projects through the operating

funds of the base. 

“They’re not supposed to do that,” she says. “Minimal expenditure projects are only supposed to happen when a team, en route to another project,

sees something that they can address quickly—a school that could use a coat

of paint, a roof that needs repair, etc. They are not supposed to drive around

looking for these projects. That is an abuse of the program.” 

Commander Mayer is in charge of the J5 Effects Analysis division of the

Civil Military Operations Center at the headquarters in Djibouti. Unlike the

humid and lush environment of Manda Bay, Camp Lemonier is arid: a khaki

and grey city of gravel, dust, air-conditioned office buildings, trailers, tents,

and housing units (the last two are a mixture of tents and container units). It

is always hot, and once a week the camp burns its garbage, creating even

more heat and unpleasant smells. On “Manic Monday,” everyone takes their

mefloquine tablets to ward off malaria. 

Like all those stationed at Camp Lemonier, Mayer wears utilities to

work, and her armored vest and gas mask rest on a cross holder next to her

desk. She rarely wears either, but they are a required part of the CJTF-HOA

uniform. The only time she can wear civilian clothes is to the gym or when

she is off base on liberty. When Mayer and others in the center travel to visit

project sites, they proceed in a multicar convoy with GPS (global positioning system) trackers, bring their meals with them, often include a force protection element, and have to call in at predetermined times to check in with

the base. Mayer, like most others at the camp, remains within the compound

most of the time, because to go into Djibouti City requires several layers of

paperwork, permission, and security procedures. 

Commander Mayer’s desk is one of about ten in a large “tent”—a canvas

superstructure attached to a concrete base, which is cooled through intense
10 THE VIEW FROM ABOVE: “THE GOOD IDEA FAIRIES” Jessica Piombo

air conditioning, and with a computer and Internet connection at every

workstation. Her desk is a chaotic assortment of papers, pictures from

orphanages, and books that have been donated to a library in Uganda that

are awaiting transportation. From this station, Mayer runs the shop that

evaluates all potential projects and approves or denies them based on their

anticipated effects.

Officers at Camp Lemonier unsurprisingly take a broader view of the

activities of the CJTF-HOA and become frustrated with the teams operating

downrange. Mayer explains that the CJTF-HOA is trying to move away

from just doing projects wherever they can to conducting projects with

more strategic objectives in mind. Her frustration with what she calls “the

good idea fairies” is obvious. Primarily composed of individuals in Civil

Affairs teams downrange, the good idea fairies see a multitude of potential

projects that they can do, and they want to do all of them. 

The problem is that only some will have a higher-order strategic impact.

Mayer’s position is that the DoD is not the Department of State or the

Agency for International Development. These organizations have different

operating constraints, opportunities, and capabilities, and the projects that

the Civil Affairs teams pursue should always reflect DoD’s posture. The

CJTF-HOA has to get access to new areas, or else the effort and resources

put into a project are wasted. 

“When teams go out looking for minimal expenditure projects, simply to

‘do good’ for Africa, they undermine the entire strategic posture of the

CJTF-HOA,” Mayer says. 

Mayer complains that she and her staff spend a lot of time filtering out

the projects that are interesting from a humanitarian standpoint but that do

not advance the military objective. When talking about these projects, she

exhibits the resignation of a parent whose child repeatedly refuses to follow

a well-known rule. The use of operation and management funds for minimal

expenditure projects is only authorized for problems that the teams notice

when traveling to conduct an official humanitarian assistance project, not

something that they should seek out. Along with this, Mayer and her team

worry that if the Civil Affairs teams and country coordination elements

coordinate too much with USAID, they run the risk that they will wind up

doing USAID’s work rather than pursuing the military’s objectives.12

The CJTF-HOA is not there to develop these countries, the Civil Military Operations Center officers argued. True, the CJTF-HOA is supposed

to help stabilize the countries but, more importantly, they are there to pursue explicit strategic imperatives. The three Ds each have a distinct role:

development, defense, and diplomacy. While they can coordinate, defense

should not be subservient to diplomacy. This is why projects are not conducted countrywide but within a targeted area of each country’s area of

responsibility. 

When project nominations are reviewed, therefore, Mayer and her team

look for the military objectives of the project, not the larger developmental

issues. In Djibouti, for example, the planners vet the projects by asking
Military Provision of Humanitarian Civic Assistance 11

whether they will curb weapons proliferation, illegal immigration (from

Ethiopia to Yemen), drug trafficking, and human trafficking. Projects in Djibouti need to disrupt these situations in order to make it through the nominations process. 

DEVELOPMENT FOR SECURITY?

Mayer and her colleagues agree that their projects have to coordinate with

those run by the ambassadors and USAID but do not want the diplomacy or

developmental goals to overshadow the military aspect. In the programs that

she and her team manage, while Humanitarian and Civic Assistance projects

may seem to be developmentally focused because of their involvement in

the communities and their goals to “strengthen” local societies, this is not

the main objective of the programs. This distinction, however, is not so clear

to those on the ground—neither the Africans who benefit from the programs nor the other U.S. government agencies operating in similar arenas. 

The projects on which Hicks works have raised significant controversy,

generating a number of questions about what impact groups like Hicks’

Civil Affairs team can have on a broader level and whether using military

assets for “development lite” projects is appropriate. The CJTF-HOA’s

activities feed into a larger debate that the creation of USAFRICOM ignited

in 2007. 

The nongovernmental organization (NGO) community has long worried about the impacts of the activities of the CJTF-HOA (and subsequently

USAFRICOM) precisely because of the logic that Mayer articulated.

Mayer’s assertion that the “good idea fairies” must not hijack the military

objectives of the Humanitarian and Civic Assistance program is precisely the

outcome and orientation feared by NGOs and others opposed to military

involvement in humanitarian and civic assistance. As TransAfrica Forum, a

Washington-based think tank NGO has argued, 

[t]his new era of U.S. diplomacy and aid is seeped in an emerging military doctrine, strategy and organization. A ‘Phase Zero’ approach, in which the military

operates as both peacekeeper and development organization is changing the

scale and nature of U.S. military engagement on the Continent in ways that

worries [sic] African governments and civil society alike. The 2007 strategic

plan for the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID) focuses on

migration, conflict prevention, counterterrorism, the global war of [sic] terror,

[and] security sector reform instead [of] on the traditional purview and work

areas of USAID, which were far closer to health clinic construction, microeconomic enterprise, and well-building. AFRICOM, if any lessons have been

learned from U.S. Southern Command and the impacts of the military carrying

out humanitarian assistance work in Colombia, will, without a doubt, result in

the militarization of development and diplomacy on the African continent.13
12 ENDNOTES Jessica Piombo

Others, such as the NGO umbrella organization InterAction, fear that

military involvement in humanitarian and civic assistance projects jeopardizes the safety of NGO workers. “We don’t want the military wearing civilian clothes when they conduct these projects,” said the director of

Humanitarian Policy and Practice. “If they wear civilian clothes, then people

on the ground cannot tell who is military and who is an NGO worker. When

that happens, NGO workers become the targets of anti-American and antimilitary attacks, as we’ve seen in Iraq. Last year we won an agreement from

the CJTF-HOA that their troops would never conduct any activities unless

they were in uniform, to prevent confusion with NGO workers.”

Back in Lamu, Hicks looks up from the trench he is digging, rain pouring

off his baseball cap. “This pipeline is going to change their lives in that settlement, as long as they can keep it working. After we finish this, we’re heading

over to the hardware store to buy some paint.”

ENDNOTES

1. Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees. All quotes

come from interviews and discussions with people at the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn

of Africa (CJTF-HOA) and the United States Africa Command (USAFRICOM).

2. Civil Affairs teams often are composed of a commanding officer (usually at the

major/lieutenant commander level), a senior enlisted person (the staff sergeant), a medical

corpsman, and a few others. In a combat environment, the teams will also include force

protection elements. This particular team was usually composed of five people and traveled

without force protection; on that day, only three people were there with me in Lamu. 

3. In 2008, the CJTF-HOA operated in Comoros, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya,

Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Tanzania, Uganda, and Yemen. In the past, it has also

operated in Sudan and Eritrea. In May-June 2008, it withdrew operations from Yemen. 

4. These are the three main programs in the “official” civic and humanitarian

assistance program that the CJTF-HOA draws on most often. The remaining two

humanitarian assistance programs are Humanitarian Demining Assistance and

Humanitarian Assistance Program Excess Property. The Overseas Humanitarian Disaster

and Civil Assistance projects are funded directly through regional combatant commanders

to enable them to respond to disasters and promote postconflict reconstruction through

“unobtrusive, low-cost, but highly efficacious” projects (Armed Forces Journal, http://

www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/04/2587549, accessed January 29, 2008). The other

humanitarian assistance programs are administered and overseen by the Defense Security

Cooperation Agency, and information about them can be accessed at www.dsca.mil.

USAFRICOM has developed an internal document describing these programs, their

statutory authorities and funding cycles, and instructing how each should be utilized—

“FY08–Humanitarian Assistance Program Standard Operating Procedures,” which is

accessible through https://www.ohasis.org [Note: you need a login ID and password to

access this site]. 

There are also two U.S. government/DoD programs designed for natural

disaster response—the Foreign Humanitarian Disaster Response program and the

Commanders Emergency Relief Funds. Government and economic reconstruction efforts

are funded separately; these are the 1206, 1207, and 1210 programs that finance the

provincial reconstruction teams in Afghanistan and Iraq. Each of these programs has
Military Provision of Humanitarian Civic Assistance 13

distinct goals, requirements, and funding streams. 

5. AFRICOM, “FY-08 Humanitarian Assistance Program SOP,” available at

https://www.ohasis.org, accessed January 15, 2009. 

6. The classic definition for “human security” can be found in the 1994 United

Nations Development Program (UNDP) report. According to the UNDP, the concept of

global security should be broadened to include aspects of environmental security, food

security, health security, environmental security, personal security, community security,

and political security. See http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr1994/, accessed

September 21, 2009. 

7. Available at http://www.africom.mil/AboutAFRICOM.asp, last accessed May

14, 2010. 

8. This is Hicks’ experience; most CJTF-HOA and USAFRICOM humanitarian

assistance officials reject Hicks’ assertion that the approval process is that lengthy. See the

next section for more detail.

9. In 2008, the CJTF-HOA insisted that theater security cooperation and military

training were the core functions of the organization, but this was not reflected in their

operating posture, budgetary expenditures, or the press releases that publicized their events

(three quarters of which reported on humanitarian assistance and civic action projects).

For an example of this last aspect, see the “Suggested Readings” for a list of press releases

on these projects, along with sample articles describing typical events.

10. Until the fall of 2007, U.S. Central Command was the approving geographic

combatant command.

11. In 2007, these projects were called de minimus projects. Now that the CJTFHOA has transitioned to USAFRICOM, they are called “minimal expenditure” projects,

and the ceiling ranges between $2,500 (the old USCENTCOM limit) and $10,000 (the

former U.S. European Command limit). 

12. Interestingly, this language changed in late 2008, early 2009. By these later

dates, the headquarters staff was enthusiastic about coordinating with the embassy staff,

arguing that all aspects of the U.S. government had the same goals in mind, just different

tools to get there. Therefore, coordination with State and USAID was a requirement for all

Overseas Humanitarian Disaster and Civic Assistance projects. These anticoordination

sentiments had been replaced with an endorsement of the “whole of government”

approach. Minimal expenditure projects were still a concern, however, because they

bypassed these coordination mechanisms. 

13. TransAfrica Forum, “AFRICOM: The Militarization of U.S. Diplomacy and

Foreign Aid,” Foreign Policy Brief (June 2008), available at http://www.transafricaforum.org/files/AFRICOMThe%20Militarization%20of%20US%20Diplomacy%20and%

20Foreign%20Aid.pdf, accessed April 10, 2010. 
Center for Complex Operations

National Defense University

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Washington, DC 20319

Telephone

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Web Site

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Dr. Karen Guttieri

Naval Postgraduate School

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Monterey, CA 93943

Contact Information

831-656-2294

guttieri@nps.edu
Center for Complex Operations

National Defense University