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1. REPORT DATE
AUG 2009 2' REPORT TYPE
3. DATES COVERED
00-00-2009 to 00-00-2009
4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE
Should Military Governance Guidance Return to its Roots? A Doctrinal
Comparison Between Field Manual 27-5 (1943) and Field Manual 3-05.40
(2006)
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6. AUTHOR(S)
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7. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION NAME(S) AND ADDRESS (ES)
U.S. Army War College, Center for Strategic Leadership, 650 Wright
Avenue, Carlisle, PA, 17013-5049
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REPORT NUMBER
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Standard Form 298 (Rev. 8-98)
Prescribed by ANSI Std Z39-18
Student Issue Pager
Center for Strategic Leadership,
U.S. Army War College
August 2009
Volume S02-09
Should Military Governance Guidance
Return to its Roots?
A Doctrinal Comparison Between Field Manual 27-5 ( 1 943 ) and Field
Manual 3-05.40 (2006)
By Colonel Hugh Vanroosen, United States Army
A comparison of the 1943 United States Army and Na vy Manual of Military Government and Civil Affairs with the
most recent (2006) United States Army Civil Affairs Field Manual reveals major changes in doctrine in the intervening
sixty three years. While to some degree changing national and international conditions make many of those changes
understandable, after reading the two manuals one can argue a need to recapture the military government’ essentials
found in the 1943 document.
The 1943 Manual of Military Government and Civil Affairs focused on the
authority, responsibility, scope, and organization for how U.S. forces were to
administer militarily-occupied territories. In contrast, the 2006 Civil Affairs
manual focuses more on tasks performed in support of existing indigenous
governments, in concert with other governmental and nongovernmental agencies.
The 1943 manual defined military government as “the supreme authority
exercised by an armed force over the lands, property and the inhabitants of
enemy territory, or allied or domestic territory recovered from enemy occupation,
or from rebels treated as belligerents.”1 The 2006 Civil Affairs manual does not
include the term military government,’ but does briefly discuss the concept
under the topic of civil administration in an occupied territory:
“establishment of a temporary government, as directed by the Secretary
of] Def[ense], to exercise executive, legislative, and judicial authority over
the populace of a territory that U.S. forces have taken from an enemy by
force of arms until an indigenous civil government can be established.”2
The 1943 manual defined civil affairs as:
1. U.S. War Department, United States Army and Navy Manual of Military Government and Civil Affairs, Field Manual 27-5 and OpNav
50E-3 (Washington, DC: U.S. War Department and U.S. Navy Department, December, 22, 1943), 1.
2. U.S. Department of the Army, Civil Affairs Operations, 3-17.
This and other CSL publications may be found on the USAWC/CSL web site at: http://www. csl. armv.mil
*******
The views expressed in this student academic paper are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Center for
Strategic Leadership, the U.S. Army War College, the Department of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
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United States
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Manual of
MILITARY GOVERNMENT
AND CIVIL AFFAIRS
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22 December, 1943
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Front Cover of the 1943 Army &
Navy doctrinal manual on “Military
Government and Civil Affairs”
“the activities of the [indigenous] government of the
occupied area and the inhabitants of such an area except
those of an organized military character,”3
and identified civil affairs officers as:
“military officers, who, under the military governor, are
engaged in the control of civilians.”4
The 2006 manual identifies civil affairs as the personnel who
assist a commander in conducting civil-military operations
(CMO), which are:
“the activities of a commander that establish, maintain,
influence, or exploit relations between military forces, governmental and nongovernmental civilian
organizations and authorities, and the civilian populace in a friendly, neutral, or hostile operational area in
order to facilitate military operations to consolidate and achieve U.S. objectives.”5
The 1943 Manual of Military Government and Civil Affairs outlined authorities for the theater commander (in
his role as military governor) that are no longer found in today s doctrine. For example, “The taking of hostages, the
imposition of collective fines, or the carrying out of reprisals” most probably constituted extraordinary measures for
U.S. commanders to consider even in 1943, but nonetheless were still allowable.6 None of these actions are politically
feasible or doctrinally recognized today. Censorship was another military technique in 1943 (seen as an excellent source
of intelligence on the civil populace of the occupied area) that
is politically uncomfortable now, and more a potential source
of enemy counter-propaganda. On the other hand, the 1943
manual recommended that “local laws, customs and institutions
be retained” and that “it is unwise to impose upon an occupied
territory the laws and customs of another people.”7 That wisdom
has been overturned in recent years in our policy to democratize
other nations? Other areas of difference between the 1943
and the 2006 manuals are in the stated supremacy of military
personnel over “civilian agencies of the United States and its
allies participating in the later phases of military government”
(directly opposite from current doctrine that recognizes a policy
of State Department supremacy),8 and in assigning explicit
responsibility for the tasks of securing banks, arts/monuments/
archives (in 2006 no longer doctrinally designated to civil
affairs).
The basic elements of the 1943 doctrine were that “military
necessity is the primary underlying principle for the conduct of
military government,” that the exercise of military government
must be in accordance with the Hague Convention, and that
the Theater Commander is designated as military governor, but
3. Ibid.
4. U.S. War Department, United States Army and Navy Manual of Military Government and Civil Affairs, 1.
3. U.S. Department of the Army, Civil Affairs Operations, Field Manual 3-05.40 (Washington, DC: U.S Department of the Army, Septem¬
ber, 29, 2006), 1-1.
6. U.S. War Department, United States Army and Navy Manual of Military Government and Civil Affairs, 7.
7. Ibid, 8.
8. Ibid, 32.
ARTICLE III
Censorship
7. All correspondence, personal papers and documents and
all communications by telephone, teletype, telegraph and radio
(when these services are restored) must conform with the detailed
censorship regulations and must only be transmitted through
authorized channels. Correspondence carried by civilian travel¬
lers is equally subject to censorship.
8. The effective regulations as from the date of this law are
the “ Censorship Regulations for the Civill\n Population
of Germany Under tiie Jurisdiction of the Military
Government ” copies of wliich will be displayed in so far as
possible in every post office and which will be published in the
Military Government Gazette. These regulations may be
extended and amended from time to time.
0. All officials and employees of the Reichspost will take all
practicable steps to ensure that Censorship requirements are
fully met and that there is no evasion of censorship.
ARTICLE IV
Penalties
10. Any person violating any provision of this Law shall,
upon conviction by Military Government Court, be liable to any
lawful punishment, including death, as the Court may determine.
ARTICLE V
Effective Date
11. This Law shall become effective upon the date of its first
promulgation.
BY ORDER OF MILITARY GOVERNMENT.
Censorship guidance extract from “Handbook for
Military Government in Germany: Prior to Defeat or
Surrender”published in December 1944
A Civil Affairs officer pays civilian workers in the liberated
Philippines during World War II
2
may delegate the title and authority.9 The 2006 manual defines the
core tasks of civil affairs as: population and resources control; foreign
humanitarian assistance; civil information management; nation
assistance; and, support to civil administration. Beyond the brief
paragraph on civil administration, the 2006 manual does not provide
any direct guidance on how the military is to exercise its responsibilities
to reestablish a viable government in accordance with international
law. Furthermore, current training of civil affairs personnel completely
ignores this function. Beyond the 2006 Civil Affairs manual, the most
recent stability operations doctrine indirectly addresses the requirement
to conduct military government (without naming it as such):
“Stability operations are usually conducted to support a host-
nation government. However, stability operations may also
support the efforts of a transitional civil or military authority
when no legitimate government exists.”10
A Civil Affairs team with a Manet painting
recovered from Merkers Mine in occupied
Germany
but does not provide significant guidance on the execution of that military authority.
Nation-states continue to practice war against other nation-states in
places such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, and Kashmir, as well as increas¬
ingly against non-state actors. When the U.S. military is directed to inter¬
vene at the nation-state level to effect regime change, the requirement to
conduct military government has remained. Leaving this function up to bri¬
gade combat team commanders to reinvent, without doctrine and training,
invites inconsistency and a lack of connection to U.S. policy. The inevita¬
ble requirement for conducting military government and the discomfort of
the U.S. government with that
requirement have remained
constant throughout U.S.
military history. Current civil
affairs doctrine principally
reflects that political concern.
As a result, the military is
faced with having to exercise
de facto military government
without appropriate authority
or training. Recent stability
operations doctrine and the
initiation of a State Department Civilian Reserve Corps only partially
address the issue of how to properly control occupied territories, at least
during and immediately after armed conflict. The next iteration of civil
affairs doctrine should directly recognize the need for temporary military
government, and establish a baseline against which the military can train,
organize and equip to meet the need.
“As long as military operations continue, some degree of control [over
the civilian population and resources! will be necessary.”11
9. U.S. Department of the Army, Civil Affairs Operations, 1-3.
10. U.S. Department of the Army, Stability Operations, Field Manual 3-07 (Washington, DC: U.S Department of the Army, October, 6,
2008), 2-2.
1 l.U.S. War Department, United States Army and Navy Manual of Military Government and Civil Affairs, 4.
Front Cover of the most current U.S. Army
“Stability Operations” doctrinal manual
Front Cover of the most current U.S. Army
“Stability Operations” doctrinal manual
3