Congress has played a key role in fostering the development of civilian capacity and capabilities to deal with conflicts overseas. "First generation" efforts were the establishment in 2004 of the former Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS). This office was the result of widespread concern that the U.S. government lacked appropriate civilian "tools" to help stem, stabilize, and otherwise address conflicts that were perceived as a threat to the United States after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11). Senator Richard G. Lugar and former Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. provided the impetus to establish it in permanent law. The 113 th Congress may wish to play a continuing role regarding civilian capacity and capabilities by examining "second generation" efforts, which include the State Department Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO). In November 2011, the Obama Administration announced its establishment of this bureau, which integrated S/CRS. CSO is intended to provide the institutional focus for policy and "operational solutions" to prevent, respond to, and stabilize crises. The evolution from S/CRS to CSO appears to have responded to changing perceptions of the security environment, S/CRS's perceived utility, and budget constraints. This report provides background on the origins and development of S/CRS and related capabilities. It also discusses four issues raised during the S/CRS years that may still be relevant for the CSO Bureau: perceptions of S/CRS's effectiveness, the appropriate size for Civilian Response Corps (CRC), flexible funding for stabilization operations, and funding for a reserve component. It does not cover events or perceptions since the formation of the CSO Bureau and will not be updated. For current information on CSO, see CRS Report R42775, In Brief: State Department Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO) , by [author name scrubbed]. Concerns about the need for the development of appropriate civilian capabilities to address conflict situations, particularly state-building tasks in post-conflict situations, began well over a decade before the creation of S/CRS. This concern grew from U.S. military operations in Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, and elsewhere, where military forces were tasked with a variety of state-building tasks, such as creating justice systems, assisting police, and promoting governance. With the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, consensus increased that the United States must develop adequate civilian organizational structures, procedures, and personnel to respond effectively to post-conflict and other "stabilization and reconstruction" (S&R) situations. The George W. Bush Administration launched several initiatives to do just that. The centerpiece of its efforts was the establishment of the S/CRS in the Office of the Secretary of State. Created in mid-2004, S/CRS was tasked with designing, and in some cases establishing, the new structures within the State Department and elsewhere that would allow civilian agencies to develop effective policies, processes, and personnel to build stable and democratic states. Among other tasks, S/CRS developed plans for the creation of a civilian "surge" capability that could respond rapidly to S&R emergencies. In the early months of the Obama Administration, Administration officials signaled their support for civilian S&R capabilities. In her January 2009 confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton mentioned the State Department's new S&R responsibilities, citing a department need to demonstrate competence and secure funding to carry them out. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, while serving in that position under former President George W. Bush, urged the development of civilian capabilities in major speeches. As Senator, Vice President Joseph Biden was the co-sponsor, with Senator Lugar, of legislation, first introduced in 2004, to create an office within the State Department that would coordinate U.S. government S&R operations and deploy civilian government employees and private citizens to carry out state-building activities in crises abroad. In its second session, the 110 th Congress enacted legislation that "operationalized" certain groups of personnel within the Department of State and other federal agencies for S&R efforts by authorizing the creation of federal civilian "response" units, as well as the creation of a volunteer S&R civilian reserve force, akin to the military reserve force. This legislation advanced the work of previous Congresses regarding Bush Administration initiatives to improve the conduct of (S&R) efforts. With the passage in September 2008 of Title XVI of the Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 ( S. 3001 / P.L. 110-417 , known as the Lugar-Biden bill after its sponsors), signed into law October 14, 2008, Congress established S/CRS as part of permanent law. This law formally "operationalized" certain units in civilian federal agencies, most particularly the State Department; it expanded the State Department's functions to include effecting change through the deployment of "on-the-ground" personnel and programs dedicated to promoting security and stability in transitions from conflict and post-conflict situations. This was accomplished by authorizing the creation of a two component "readiness response" corps consisting of a small active unit of federal employees drawn from several agencies and a federal standby unit, and a large civilian reserve corps, analogous to the military reserve. The State Department's December 2010 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Defense Review (QDDR), with its broad reform agenda for State Department and USAID structures and activities, addressed potential changes to S/CRS, the response corps, and the reserves. The QDDR proposed reorganizing the structures to enhance the State Department's ability to develop and implement policy to address crises, conflict, and stability, including endowing an expanded version of S/CRS's mandate and capabilities in a new Bureau for Conflict and Stabilization Operations. The Obama Administration put some of the QDDR proposals into action when it established the CSO Bureau. Former President George W. Bush's pledge, articulated in his February 2, 2005, State of the Union address, "to build and preserve a community of free and independent nations, with governments that answer to their citizens, and reflect their own cultures" cast the once-discredited concept of building or rebuilding government institutions, economies, and civic cultures in a new light. During the 1990s, many policymakers considered the establishment of new institutions in troubled countries to be an overly expensive, if not futile exercise. The use of U.S. military forces for such activities, particularly in the first half of the decade, was troubling to many Members. The Bush Administration, in response to concerns about the threats posed by weak and fragile states, reframed both U.S. security and international development policy and initiated dramatic corresponding changes in U.S. governmental structures and practices. These changes, the Bush Administration argued, would enable the United States to perform such tasks more efficiently and at a lesser cost, particularly in transitions from conflict and in post-conflict situations. A key component of these changes was the establishment and reinforcement of new civilian structures and forces, in particular S/CRS and the civilian response/reserve corps. The Bush Administration made these new civilian entities a prominent feature in two initiatives: the National Security Presidential Directive 44 (NSPD-44) of December 2005 on the management of interagency reconstruction and stabilization operations and the "transformational diplomacy" reorganization of State Department personnel and practices announced in January 2006. These initiatives were intended to enhance the United States' ability to function effectively on the world scene in the environment created by the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Soon after 9/11, many analysts began to predict that the greatest threats to U.S. security often would emerge within states that are either too weak to police their territory or lack the political will or capacity to do so. To respond to those threats with a new "whole-of-government" approach, in 2006 former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice outlined a new U.S. foreign policy strategy focusing on the "intersections of diplomacy, democracy promotion, economic reconstruction and military security" and involving extensive changes in government to carry that strategy out. State-building (or nation-building as it is often called) was at the center of this strategy. Both initiatives reinforced the important role that the Bush Administration gave S/CRS in policymaking and implementation dealing with conflict transitions and weak and fragile states. The creation of S/CRS in July 2004 responded to increasing calls for the improvement of U.S. civilian capabilities to plan and carry out post-conflict state-building operations. Several factors combined after 9/11 to lead many analysts to conclude that such operations were vital to U.S. security and that the United States must reorganize itself to conduct them effectively, in particular by creating new and improving existing civilian institutions to carry them out. Foremost among these factors, for many analysts, was the widespread perception after 9/11 that global instability directly threatened U.S. security and that U.S. interests would be served by transforming weak and failing states into stable, democratic ones. Related to this was the expectation that responding to the threat of instability will require the United States and the international community to intervene periodically in foreign conflicts with "peacekeeping" and "stabilization" forces at about the same intensive pace as it had done since the early 1990s. Because that pace stressed the U.S. military, many policymakers believed that the United States should create and enhance civilian capabilities to carry out the peacebuilding tasks that are widely viewed as necessary for stability and reconstruction in fragile, conflict-prone, and post-conflict states.