2009 Year in Review
The last five years, S/CRS has developed an effective and proven cadre of tools, equipment, and expertise, created the Civilian Response Corps, and deployed these experts all over the world to address and prevent conflict. Text» PDF»
Winter 2009/2010 Civilian Response Newsletter
The latest editions features articles such as:
“We must use what has been called smart power; the full range of tools at our disposal – diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal, and cultural – picking the right tool, or combination of tools, for each situation.” – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
In a rapidly and continuously changing global environment, failing and post-conflict states pose one of the greatest national and international security challenges of our time. Struggling states have become breeding grounds for terrorist activity, violent crime, trafficking, and humanitarian catastrophes, which all possess the significant potential to spread and destabilize entire regions of the globe.
In the past, the global community – the United States government included – addressed these reconstruction and stability issues in an ad hoc fashion: recreating and refashioning the necessary tools, strategies, and relationships anew with each crisis. In recognition of this inefficiency, the U.S. government identified the urgent need for a set of formalized, collaborative, and institutionalized foreign policy tools which could adequately address the diverse stabilization needs of the global community by culling together the government’s wide-range of expertise.
In 2004, the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) became the embodiment of this effort and the operational component of the State Department’s formalized reconstruction and stabilization (R&S) activities. S/CRS is charged by Congress and the Secretary of State with building and maintaining an expeditionary, innovative, and interagency civilian capability to plan, manage, and conduct U.S. stabilization operations on behalf of the Secretary of State and Chiefs of Mission overseas.
Today, powered by our partnership with eight different agencies, S/CRS has become the embodiment of Secretary Clinton’s concept of smart power to enhance our nation's institutional capacity to respond to crises involving failing, failed, and post-conflict states and complex emergencies.
You can also find information on S/CRS, the Civilian Response Corps, and reconstruction and stabilization issues at our sister website, www.crs.state.gov.
