219: Civil Affairs in Africa

Please welcome Lieutenant Nick Dubaz, the G39 Director of the Southern European Task Force, Africa. Nick oversees Civil Affairs teams working across the continent to help U.S. Embassies build positive relations with partner nations' people and leaders.

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Music: Special Thanks to the site "Relaxing jazz piano" for the sample from Warm March Jazz Music. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/m7WiikpM0J0?si=Ow6IiDktAqe6jykV

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Transcript:

00:00:03 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Welcome to the 1CA podcast. My name is John McElligott, your host for today's episode, and we are joined today by Lieutenant Colonel Nick Dubaz, who's serving as the G39 Director for the Southern European Task Force for Africa. He originally came into the military in 2006 as a military intelligence officer. He's gone on from there to be a signals intel platoon leader, eventually switching over to the civil affairs branch in 2009, where he went on through the CA qualification course and selection, then at Fort Bragg. and went on to serve in the 83rd CA Battalion. Colonel Dubaz deployed to Afghanistan, went in 2013 -2014, devising the Afghan National Army and provincial government in preparation for the 2014 Afghan presidential elections. After his team leader time, Colonel Dubaz served as the 83rd CA Battalion Civil Information Management and CA Plans Team Chief until November 2014. He's gone on to additional assignments, including time in Korea. Colonel Dubaz, welcome to the show.

00:01:03 NICK DUBAZ
It's great to be here. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about all the interesting things we're doing across the African continent with civil affairs. It's a pretty unique environment. I don't think we look anything like any other AOR out there, which is a testament to the unique environment of the African continent, as well as some of the new ways that we're trying to use civil affairs to adapt to changes in our mission, changes in our operational approach, and changes in the geopolitical environment on the continent.

00:01:30 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Exactly. And we want to get into that today. I wanted a preview for listeners that they may recall then Captain James Michigi had spoken with Lieutenant Colonel Al Augustine for an episode that we published in February 2021. And this was talking about operations in the African continent through CTAF -AF at the time. So this is really an update of what's happening. And we have Colonel Dubas in the seat today. So I'm not sure how much has changed since 2021, but I'm wondering if we can start, sir, by describing for listeners, the command relationship between CTAF -AF and UCOM and AFRICOM.

00:02:05 NICK DUBAZ
Yeah, certainly. I think, you know, back in the last podcast, CTAF was just in the early days of the process, what we call the merger, where was CTAF slash U .S. Army Africa was merging into... the now fully mature headquarters of U .S. Army, Europe, and Africa, as the Army Service Component Command up at Wiesbaden, with us as a subordinate, major subordinate command task force, given the responsibility and tasks delegated to us to manage operations for the Army across the African continent. That process has completed, while there are still some continuing... learning processes and growth that's happening between us and our higher headquarters at Eastbaden and UCR, that we have transformed completely into this new Army task force where we continue to respond to AFRICOM, but also have a four -star voice back in Washington, D .C. through UCR AFR as our higher headquarters, which has given us an opportunity to have a larger seat at the table among other ASCCs, whereas in the past we're... Just a two -star did not necessarily get the full attention that the four -star commands do back in the Beltway.

00:03:21 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
That's great to hear. And you're currently commanded by Major General Ganey, is that right?

00:03:26 NICK DUBAZ
That's right. I guess for about four months now, he's been in the seat as our new commanding general, having taken over from Major General, now retired, Todd Wasman, who really was the first commander of CTAF to be fully in the seat during this more mature... part of the merger process and then just moving forward with the new reality of the command, working for both UCRF and the Army channels and AFRICOM and joint channels. So Gerald Ganey now has the opportunity to take it to the next step of that maturation process and to continue to grow our command's relationships across the both. You know, continually changing environment in Europe and across the African continent with so many significant changes having happened during Gerald Osmond's term across the Sahel in Sudan, maturing relationships and changes in the geopolitical environment in southern Africa and continue to develop as new presidents come into the seats and look in different directions for their international relationships.

00:04:28 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot going on. As listeners would know, Africa is a massive continent. You have a wide variety of challenges when it comes to civil considerations. Even with the U .S. military, we've had a tenuous relationship with Niger recently, and there's some pushback that we're seeing with other countries and countries like France, for example. So from your perspective in G39, how do you narrow those priorities for civil considerations to what the commander and the command staff need to see for their operations?

00:04:58 NICK DUBAZ
Yeah, CTAF, much like the entire APRICOM enterprise, is in a situation where a posture -limited, resource -constrained theater. That's the mantra, the refrain that General Langley, the APRICOM commander, repeats when he does his testimony back on the hill. And that forces, requires us to take a partner -centric approach. one where it is partner -led and U .S. enabled. Well, with the entire AFRICOM community taking that partner -centric approach, we translate that directly into what we do for civil affairs as well, as a command that must execute our operations and really... make those operations enduring and successful through the success of our partners' ability to do it themselves. So that means that security cooperation is mission number one, building our partners' capacity. And that translated directly into what we've asked our civil affairs teams to increasingly do. across the continent, to partner in local context, in different ways, in different countries. It manifests uniquely across different partners' capabilities, needs, requirements, and maturity. But in general, most of our civil affairs teams on a day -to -day basis have a partner that they're working to build capacity, to train, to advise, to assist, to learn from as well. to help build their institutional and their operational capacity to execute their own civil military operations, both domestically where it's necessary because of an internal threat or challenge, or to expeditionarily be able to deploy to a peacekeeping mission across the many challenges that there are on the African continent and be able to execute those operations in the course of those peacekeeping missions that they're increasingly asked to do. And mission number one. building our partner's capacity.

00:06:48 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
That makes sense. So I work at the higher headquarters now at U .S. Army Europe and Africa, and the G3 civil affairs division is heavily focused on, as you say, in Europe, working with the CIMIC partners. Is there an equivalent like that in African nations? Do they have their equivalency of civil affairs or CIMIC forces with whom you work directly?

00:07:09 NICK DUBAZ
There are a few that have a limited summit capacity, but by and large, we're building from scratch. We're either helping, as it is in Cote d 'Ivoire, build entire institutional capacity to conduct civil military operations by developing alongside their forces the doctrine necessary for them to understand how to integrate civil military operations. into the wider scope of things that the armed forces of Cote d 'Ivoire is asked to do, both in their borders and expeditionarily, building the curriculum to train that in the military academy from the very lowest level all the way up to their war college curriculum, and then helping to build the actual unit that will, as a part of their engineer battalion, go and advise and assist. the units of the Cote d 'Ivoire military, where their missions are executed both inside the borders in a way to help understand civil considerations and apply the mode of thinking through civil military operations to that, what is being done by the infantry, by the reconnaissance units, and by the engineer battalion to address the security challenges faced by Cote d 'Ivoire.

00:08:18 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
That's really cool to hear. I actually was a Peace Corps volunteer in Cote d 'Ivoire at one point. Very, really cool to hear that you guys are going there and how you're helping out. And that leads me into this next question about the operations that G39 and civil affairs teams are conducting outside of Cote d 'Ivoire. Can you talk about some of the other hotspots where you're sending teams and the task and purpose that they have?

00:08:39 NICK DUBAZ
Sure. We are among all the geographic combatant commands. The continent with the most civil affairs currently far deployed. We have a civil affairs battalion headquarters that, alongside the G39 civil affairs branch, helps us plan and execute these civil affairs operations across the continent. We have two organic civil affairs companies that deploy on a rotational basis, one focused on North and West Africa and another focused on East and South Africa, though we don't necessarily hold static boundaries depending on the need for the mission. And then on any given day, we have five or six persistently deployed teams, depending on the operational environment that we are facing. We have a team in Djibouti that focuses on support to the Combined Joint Task Force, Part of Africa. We have a team in Kenya that also supports the Manda Bay posture location. And then we have three teams currently that are executing partnered security cooperation. So two in West Africa, one in Incotibar. previously mentioned, and another in Ghana doing something very similar. And then in Tunisia, our last persistently deployed team that is conducting similar but slightly different mode of security cooperation partnered with our Security Forces Systems Brigade and their operations to build capacity within Tunisian armed forces. And then the remainder of our balance of 10 civil affairs teams. is episodically engaged across the continent, doing anywhere from one to six weeks partner -focused activities. This year we'll do upwards of 12 additional countries of engagement, including Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi, and a number of other countries on an episodic basis, with some of these missions potentially transitioning to persistent, depending on viability of the partner and the request of both the country team. our assessment, the prioritization of these partners within our capacity to support.

00:10:40 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
That makes sense. I would imagine that this requires a lot of interagency coordination and working with the country teams in those countries to coordinate the efforts. I also want to ask, since this is the OneCA podcast, what is the enforcement function that you have to bring active and reserve component CA teams together so that they can coordinate better? In general, we prefer that given 53 countries in the AFRICOM AOR,

00:11:02 NICK DUBAZ
given 53 countries in the AFRICOM AOR, as well as just the scope of the problems across the continent, we want to make sure that our active teams and our reserve teams, just given the different nature of the missions and requirements between our command and Special Operations Command Africa, that we're in a complementary capacity where our operational approach complements their mission, but we try not to be in the same countries and try not to duplicate our efforts. So most of that coordination happens at the headquarters level here directly, but also through our J56 civil affairs branch colleagues who do a great job keeping us all synchronized and coordinated as a team. At the country team level, our teams are largely, with the exception of those East African missions, which are more tactical in nature, are on a near daily basis in the embassy. working alongside the SDO DAB, OSC, and other interagency partners. And where that brings us in contact with other U .S. military elements, that's our mechanism for deconfliction and collaboration. And I think it worked pretty well, given most of these places. Our team is, at least until recently, the one U .S. military element besides those who are permanently assigned to the embassy in the entire country. It's quite a big responsibility that we're asking our teams to take on. And they, by and large, rise to the occasion and integrate.

00:12:27 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
That's wonderful. Yeah, talk about the only one afraid you have to be able to take care of yourselves. A couple of last questions that I have for you here, sir. What is next for civil affairs in Africa? Where do you see the mission going in 2025?

00:12:41 NICK DUBAZ
Certainly, I think we want to do is continue this process of adapting civil affairs to a partner -centric approach. And we've always been a branch that is capable of, it really should be the premier branch that is interacting with both foreign partners and doing so at a really high level and capacity for cultural understanding, language capacity, and adapting to local realities. both a mill -to -mill and, of course, our brother of similar relationships. But the challenge of building a real capacity, building a partner that has the ability to stand on their own and to then maintain that capacity to train themselves, to grow their own schoolhouse, to grow their own force, and to institutionalize that, that's really where we want to go. So we have certain authorities that must be attained. That's our 333, 322, and other security cooperation authorities, some of which come in the Title 22 programs as well from the State Department, that enable us to build those capacities on an enduring level. So we want to continue to... grow our mission beyond where some locations we are still in the assessment and relationship building phases. We want to mature that to where we have these enduring programs that have a five -year vision of transitioning these missions to full capacity among our partners to be able to self -sustain their civil military operations force going into the future. That's our number one goal is making our partners stand on their own where it makes sense for them to do so. And continuing to mature our footprint, make sure that we're in the right places, that our strategies from the national level to AFRICOM to the CTAF campaign score plan adapted to land forces specifically tells us to go.

00:14:38 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Is there an element there of the Global Fragility Act and the support that you have to provide to that effort?

00:14:45 NICK DUBAZ
Absolutely, 100%. We have the... Countries of coastal West Africa, Libya, and Mozambique are all Global Vigility Act strategy, prevent conflict, and promote stability. And we see civil affairs as CTAF's premier contribution to the DoD effort that is a part of the whole 3D approach. Higher headquarters at AFRICOM, the J56 team. At the staff level, they take their role of being integrators of the DoD into the GFA very seriously and do a great job of helping us maintain awareness. And then at the country level, we have excellent relationships with the country coordinators that straddle the line between USAID and DOS and help us pick up. where their missions and their programs may not necessarily be able to completely cover the full spectrum of things that are necessary to address the security challenges to help us bring a comprehensive approach to these countries. So we see GFA as a growth area for us to better support across the full range of countries in coastal West Africa, Mozambique, and Libya in the future, but also... bringing additional new and unique ways to enclose any gaps that our RUSAID and DOS partners may have in their programming.

00:16:03 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Absolutely. And for all the listeners, you're in Caserma del Din, Vicenza, Italy, where CTFF is headquartered. So what's it like? Is there a pitch to the listeners, any CA operators, reservists out there, if they want to try to get on a team? It sounds like you've got a lot going on. and as you mentioned, a resource -constrained environment. Are you looking for people to join the mission, and how could they do so?

00:16:29 NICK DUBAZ
Absolutely. I really appreciate you queuing up this particular question, because it's something that's very much at the front of my mind. Over the next seven months or so, I have eight ADOS positions for civil affairs within my division, and pretty much all, except for one person, be rotating out. So I am very much interested in hiring and bringing people who are ready to work at the two -star level and able to think across continents and integrate civil affairs in the very many unique, diverse things that CTAF is doing across the continent, as well as be prepared to respond to crises as they occur. We're trained and certified to be a JTF headquarters when necessary for the command and also to help. mentor and provide mission command oversight to our civil affairs battalion. And then for those who are in TP units out there in the 352KCOM, which is our supporting civil affairs command, or those who are elsewhere who are interested in getting on a deployment, I think this is among the premier reserve civil affairs deployments available in the world. You're not going to find a mission that asks more of a team to be the only U .S. military element in an entire country like Mozambique. other than those small members of the country team that largely stay in Puto, and that are asking you to be mobile and able to represent the United States across that country, conduct civil reconnaissance, build partner capacity through security cooperation, build civil networks, and help report back and deepen the understanding of the United States in many of these countries which have a very limited footprint and limited ability for us to reach and understand beyond the capital. The more talent that we can bring to that deploying battalion headquarters, those two company headquarters, their teams, and our functional specialist team that helps round out our capability, because it's a complex mission, it's challenging, it requires a lot of intellectual adaptability, as well as just good tactical skills to do this mission safely. So we want to bring the absolute best force possible, and I couldn't recommend it more highly as a civil affairs mission. So anybody really wants to get that experience and contribute to a really challenging but rewarding mission.

00:18:46 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Great sales pitch. Sir, someone who started out as a part of the Tulane Green Wave, now serving as the G39 Director for Southern European Task Force for Africa. Lieutenant Colonel Nick Dubaz, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for being on the show.

00:19:00 NICK DUBAZ
My pleasure. And I hope opportunity for anyone to reach out to me. I'm in the global for the Army. So if anyone has any additional questions, wants to talk more, hear more about what we're doing or... possibly join our team. You'll find me in the global. I'm the only Dubaz out there, and I look forward to hearing from you, and I look forward to seeing your applications on turret duty as well.

00:19:18 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Awesome, sir. Thank you so much for your time. It's a pleasure to connect with you. Be safe out there, and best wishes for the mission. I appreciate the opportunity, and take care.