They will also facilitate the evacuation of personnel in rapidly deployable and austere environments. SOF have highly specialized personnel with regional/cultural training and language skills. In terms of advantages, they only require a small logistics footprint and are capable of security and C2 without augmentation from outside. In terms of limitations, these small forces can support only small populations rather than the large scale relief effort. They will eventually need to rely upon the conventional forces for sustainment.
The Army MISO will disseminate civil action messages with PA system units, providing crowd control and sign and leaflet production. They have a rapid deployment capability and language skill sets. They will provide mobile, small units that can be easily embedded into a commander's battle space. In terms of limitations, they have limited manpower with very specific skill sets that do not allow for other taskings. These limited numbers of forces may need National Guard and Reserve augmentation. The civil affairs will coordinate with the local leaders and civilians in order to establish the critical life support and services and city planning/damage assessments of infrastructure.
Rapid deployment; language skills and a unique skill set that can be applied to the continuity of village/town/city government and utility services. Limited manpower and number of forces available for deployment; may need augmentation from Nation Guard and Reserve to round out reconstruction teams.
Army UAV units will provided aerial recon of the severally damaged areas. The are capable of showing real-time videos of remote areas that the ground troops cannot get into. In terms of limitations, they require operational airfields for support. Imagery/ISR Provides detailed images of affected areas; can use various sensors to detect environmental and IR compounds and elements. Detailed birds-eye view of the AOR; allows for comparison studies of before and after damage/terrain; provides commanders valuable information for C2. Not real time; coordination efforts must be synchronized across the services and communities and is not always available when needed due to earth orbit ellipses and cloud cover.
As mentioned above, reconnaissance will be important. Much of this can be done from space. The 1st Space Brigade will provide deployable imagery and space operations teams to support the humanitarian efforts with aerial intelligence. Rapidly deployable mobile teams will be deployed that can be embedded with deployed units to provide ground commanders with special imagery products, space weather reports and a method to request specific imagery products directly to AFSPACE.
References
U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Dept. Of Defense. (2009). Joint publication 3-29 foreign humanitarian assistance. Washington, D.C.: U.S.Dept. Of Defense.
"USAID to Provide Emergency Food Aid for Haiti Earthquake Victims." Usaid.gv. USAID, 13 January 2010.
Web. 14 Mar 2012. .
