The Center for Low Intensity Conflict closes after 10 years
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. (AFNS) -- The Center for Low Intensity Conflict, an organization that has been a trail blazer for a decade for the Army and Air Force for low intensity conflict and military operations other than war, closed shop June 28.
The center was established here by the chiefs of staff of the Air Force and Army in March 1986. Its original mission was to enhance understanding of, and Air Force and Army preparation for, low intensity conflict in its various forms.
Over the years, as theories were refined by the increasing tempo of operations, the mission expanded to include what has become known as military operations other than war, according to Horace Hunter, CLIC deputy.
CLIC is being deactivated because the services have incorporated MOOTW analysis and planning into their respective operations activities. A low intensity conflict cell will remain at the Air Force Doctrine Center at Langley AFB. Seven former CLIC personnel will transfer to that operation.
For a comparatively small organization of 25 people, CLIC has made its mark not only on Air Force and Army doctrine, but in international circles and among other U.S. federal agencies.
"When the late Gen. Maxwell Thurman took charge of U.S. Southern Command, Quarry Heights, Panama, in 1989, he tasked CLIC to help develop a peacetime strategy for the command," Hunter said. "As a result of that, we got involved in SOUTHCOM concerns about counterdrug operations. We then began to do some work with the Drug Enforcement Agency, and other law enforcement agencies, to improve their ability to fight the drug war.
"Such work consisted primarily of teaching mostly street police from several different agencies to work together as a team. They're very good and very sharp with what they did, but they had never had to choose long range objectives and allocate assets and coordinate the activities of large and diverse organizations," Hunter said.
Success with DEA led to assisting the Border Patrol and Immigration Service. "We facilitated the development of their national and regional strategies," Hunter said. "One of the last projects that we did was a relook at the national strategy developed by the Border Patrol two years ago.
CLIC has hosted conferences on operations other than war at Langley AFB, and participated in other national and international gatherings on the same subject.
Teams from CLIC have accompanied several major American military deployments overseas to assist and gather information. They have also done analyses for the Air Force and Army staffs on situations such as Somalia and the Iraqi treatment of Kurds and the marsh Arabs in southern Iraq.
Hunter said the center has worked with both services at the staff college and war college levels to provide panelists and lecturers, and to update their curriculum on OOTW.
The center recently began a major program for the Air Force to create education and training beginning with entry-level officers and enlisted airmen and progressing to the war college level. Part of that effort included producing a primer on OOTW to be distributed to airmen entering the Air Force. That project will be completed by the Air Force Doctrine Center. (Courtesy of TRADOC News Service)
