The Foreign Service Journal, January 2006

ly staffing a small Active Response Corps to furnish “first responders” to participate in operations to keep the peace and build stability in foreign countries. This will be supplemented by a Standby Response Corps that will deploy later in support of a focus country’s longer-term transition. According to Chris Hoh of S/CRS, an Active Response Corps of some 15 full-time positions will be established early in 2006, to be supplemented later that year by a Standby Response Corps with up to 100 members. The ARC may eventually reach 100 staff, and the SRC, 400 staff. There will be a retiree component of the SRC, and it appears there may be a back-fill requirement when active duty employees are called up for SRC deploy- ments. On a larger scale, S/CRS has commissioned a joint study with the U.S. Joint Forces Command examining whether and how to augment contracted capabilities with a civilian reserve system. S/CRS is also working closely with JFCOM to test multinational coordination for an integrated civilian-military response to complex crises. Already 39 countries, including Australia, Canada, vari- ous NATO members and five E.U. states, are working on this concept at JFCOM headquarters in Norfolk, Va. In Washington, S/CRS is building an interagency team from the department, USAID, OSD, DIA, Army Corps of Engineers, JFCOM and JCS. According to S/CRS brief- ing material, the U.S. should be prepared to address two or three significant reconstruction and stabilization oper- ations concurrently, and each may require five to 10 years to complete. Both the department and retirees should be able to benefit from this interest in building an integrated work- force community spanning each employee’s entire career, from entry on duty through post-retirement. As the RNet Web site states, the philosophy behind the network is simple: recognize the lifetime relationship between annuitants and the State Department. The department and our nation’s foreign policy can only be strengthened by this concept. n F O C U S 28 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 6