Humanitarian Missions as Important as Combat for U.S. Military
06 March 2007
Worldwide basing allows rapid response in time of crisis
"Recognizing that communism thrives upon misery and discontent, the Army has always been ready to help unfortunate people improve their way of living."
-- General Maxwell D. Taylor, U.S. Army chief of staff, speech in Detroit, Michigan, May 8, 1956
Washington –- Trade the word “terrorism” for “communism” in the above quote, and Maxwell Taylor’s words remain as true today as they were half a century ago.
Even as U.S. forces battle in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, thousands of American troops continue to take part daily in humanitarian and peacekeeping work around the globe. Their goal is to help set the conditions for stability and economic prosperity in places of political turmoil or in the immediate aftermath of natural disasters.
“We live in a chaotic world. There is no higher calling for a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine than peace operations,” Admiral James Stavridis, chief of the U.S. Southern Command, said December 15, 2006, when speaking at the Inter-American Defense College in Washington. A veteran of peacekeeping missions in Haiti and Bosnia, Stavridis noted that humanitarian and peacekeeping missions allow nations to work together to provide regional and global stability. For example, he said, nations in Latin America and the Caribbean currently contribute 6,645 personnel to peace operations, including the Multinational Force and Observers on the Sinai Peninsula, which monitors the 1979 peace agreement between Egypt and Israel.
“We’re waging peace, and we’re waging it as hard as we can,” Marine Corps Major General Timothy Ghormley, former commander of U.S. forces in the Horn of Africa, told Pentagon reporters in September 2005 when describing ongoing humanitarian projects in the region. At a Pentagon news conference, Ghormley insisted that humanitarian work is just as important a weapon against terrorism as armed combat.
The topmost U.S. military officers agree. The National Military Strategic Plan for the war on terrorism, most recently updated February 1, 2006, lists humanitarian assistance as a key method for helping to establish conditions that counter ideological support for terrorism. The plan was developed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which includes President Bush’s most senior military advisers.
“The considerable capabilities of the armed forces of the United States to alleviate suffering in times of hardship provide opportunities to influence the way people perceive their situation and their environment,” says the Strategic Plan. “These efforts are often key to demonstrating benevolence and good will abroad, reinforcing support for local governments and mitigating problems that extremists exploit to gain support for their cause.”
The idea is not a new one. American troops have been undertaking humanitarian and peacekeeping projects for more than a century, from combating yellow fever in Central America to massive humanitarian and reconstruction efforts in the grim aftermath of World War II, to emergency rescue operations following the December 2004 South Asian tsunami and the October 2005 earthquake in and around Pakistan.
Local humanitarian missions are so common for the U.S. military that they often are viewed as routine occurrences by everyone but the communities involved. In a given year, U.S. troops undertake humanitarian projects in nearly 100 countries. (See related article.)
Recent U.S. military announcements include these among the latest missions:
• On March 5, a U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules cargo plane delivered another $30,000 of emergency relief supplies -– including water containers and pumps -– to flood-devastated eastern Bolivia, where 70,000 families have been affected by months of heavy rainfall. The United States has donated nearly $1 million in disaster assistance since Bolivia declared a national emergency.
• On February 26, U.S. military engineers in Assamo, Djibouti, a village near the Ethiopian border, surveyed a site for a new water well scheduled to be dug in April, part of an ongoing project to aid communities in the Horn of Africa region.
• For nine days in late February, a team of 20 Air Force medics provided health care for more than 6,500 people La Pita, El Sol and Santa Teresa, Nicaragua, while an Army veterinary team vaccinated more than 3,300 animals for farmers in 10 communities. Follow-on medical teams are working in Nicaragua through mid-March.
• On February 18, U.S. Marines and Navy construction crews completed a new elementary school for 100 children in General Santos City, the Philippines, as part of a 10-day visit called Project Kaibigan –- Tagalog for “friendship” –- in which more than 1,000 American military people helped build or renovate schools in three communities.
• In January, a U.S. military medical team spent three weeks in Choculeta, Honduras, where they saved the lives of four newborns, performed 167 major surgeries and conducted 500 medical exams at the regional Hospital Del Sur.
• In Afghanistan’s Khost province, many U.S. troops at Forward Operating Base Salerno spend their off-duty days volunteering to help treat patients at the base’s burn clinic. In the region’s harsh climate, hundreds of people are burned each year from exploding heaters in their homes. The U.S. military treats patients at its on-base clinic and has trained Afghan medical specialists to set up a burn clinic outside the military base.
Humanitarian work often is coordinated by U.S. regional commanders, whose network of military bases and professional relationships in key parts of the world allows rapid response during natural disasters or sudden conflict. (See related article.)
For example, one of the Defense Department’s motives for creating the new Africa Command (AFRICOM) is for better coordination of U.S. development and humanitarian assistance on a continent of growing strategic importance, military and State Department officials told reporters in mid-February. (See related article.)
In Latin America and the Caribbean, the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) is scheduled to conduct 61 medical exercises in 2007 in 14 partner nations, command officials said. In 2006, the command’s medical exercises provided health care for more than 270,000 people in the region. SOUTHCOM has helped build or upgrade three regional emergency operations centers and 13 disaster relief warehouses, and the command has positioned emergency relief supplies across the region. Eight additional emergency operations centers and seven additional warehouses are under construction. Joint Task Force Bravo (JTF-Bravo) in Honduras deployed nine helicopters and airlifted more than 45,000 kilograms of emergency food, water and medical supplies when Tropical Storm Gamma struck Honduras in November 2005, killing 34 people.
When Hurricane Stan struck Guatemala in September 2005, the United States was able to respond immediately because of the proximity of JTF-Bravo.
“The rapid response and immediate assistance underscored the value of forward-deployed forces,” General Bantz Craddock told Congress in March 2006. Craddock, who preceded Stavridis as SOUTHCOM chief, was delivering the command’s annual testimony to the House and Senate Armed Services committees.
“JTF-Bravo had helicopters on the ground within 24 hours of the Guatemalan request for assistance,” Craddock testified. Flying despite harsh weather conditions, the U.S. task force provided “over 650,000 pounds [more than 295,000 kilograms] of critically needed food, water and supplies to remote and isolated communities,” he said.
The effective response was possible, Craddock said, because flight crews regularly operate throughout the region and therefore know the terrain and local officials. “The familiarity of JTF-Bravo crews and support personnel with the topography, communications systems and movement corridors," he said, "[was] critical to mission success.”
For more information on U.S. policy, see Humanitarian Assistance and Refugees.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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