text: Chapter 1
  Civil Affairs Branch Overview
  …you will take every step in your power to preserve tranquility and order in the city and
  give security to individuals of every class and description-restraining as far as possible,
  till the restoration of civil government, every species of persecution, insult, or abuse, either
  from the soldiery to the inhabitants or among each other.
  General George Washington
  19 June 1778
  United States (U.S.) forces operate in all domains. The diversity of populations makes
  the land domain most complex because of its intricate design, which includes cultures,
  ethnicities, religion, and varied political settings. This complex design is described as
  the civil component of the operational environment (OE). Civil Affairs (CA) forces are
  the Army capability responsible for the analysis and evaluation and integration of all
  civil considerations.
  War is, and has always been, fought among populations. As such, no military efforts can
  be divorced from those populations and the effects on those populations. From the early
  days of U.S. military operations—beginning with the American Revolution and continuing
  to present day—U.S. Soldiers have been charged with understanding, assisting, or
  providing governance over indigenous populations and institutions (IPI) in peacetime, war,
  and post-conflict environments. Following World War II, the U.S. military established
  military governments in Korea, Japan, and Germany. More recently, CA forces supported
  civil administrations in Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria by conducting a broad range
  of Civil Affairs operations (CAO), supporting the Department of Defense (DOD) mission,
  and meeting DOD component responsibilities to the civilian sector.
  This chapter highlights the policy and directive authorities for CA. This chapter also
  introduces new taxonomy to describe the role, core competencies, missions,
  characteristics, and principles of the CA branch.
  ROLE
  1-1. The role of CA is to engage and leverage the civil component of the OE while enhancing, enabling, or
  providing governance. CA forces accomplish this through the execution of the CA core competencies
  throughout the range of military operations and across the competition continuum. These CA missions are
  designed to provide and enable commanders with the capabilities to find, disrupt, and defeat threats within
  the civil component. Threats in the civil component could be ineffective government, infrastructure
  degradation, criminal threats, asymmetric threats, and other factors that lead to unstable environments.
  Through CAO, CA forces enable mission command, increase situational understanding, preserve combat
  power, and consolidate gains in support of the strategic objective of establishing a secure and stable OE that
  is consistent with U.S. interests. CA forces are specifically organized, trained, and resourced to address the
  civil environment and to integrate civil knowledge, resources, and considerations into decision making during
  activities that span the competition continuum.