Stabilization and Reconstruction Staffing - RAND Corporation

Process, Structure, and Management—What Can Be Done Today? 47Department’s, 1 consisting of 11,238 officers as of December 2005. 2 Atthat time, 7,431 were stationed at overseas posts (e.g., embassies andconsulates). In addition to FSOs, there are also approximately 8,000civil service employees at the Department of State, of which only eightwere assigned overseas, as well as foreign nationals that the Departmenthires at its overseas posts. USAID’s foreign service is approximatelyone-tenth the size.Department of Defense civilians can be assigned to positionsthat support long-term and short-term emergencies and combat operations.For positions that support combat operations, the authority isposition-based, according to United States Code, Title 10, Section1580, which grants the Secretary of Defense authority to designate as“Emergency-Essential” any DoD employee whose position has the followingattributes:• Provides immediate and continuing support for combat operationsor to support maintenance and repair of combat-essentialsystems of the armed forces.• Must be performed in a combat zone after the evacuation of nonessentialpersonnel from the zone in connection with a war, anational emergency declared by Congress or the President, or thecommencement of combat operations of the armed forces in thezone.• Is unsuitable for conversion to military because of the necessityfor duty to be performed without interruption.The number of emergency-essential positions is relatively small,and questions remain regarding the authority of DoD to assign a civiliannot in an emergency-essential position involuntarily to a combatarea or hardship tour, such as on a SSTR operation. Some in the DoDHR community believe the Department has the authority to assign1 The U.S. Agency for International Development and the Departments of Agricultureand Commerce have foreign services also, although significantly smaller than the StateDepartment’s.2 Phone conversation with a representative of the State Department’s Resource ManagementOrganization Analysis (RMOA) office.