Nation Building and the Rule of Law: Lessons from the Civil Rights Movement

摘要

The Joint Operating Concept (JOC) for Military Support to Stabilization, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction Operations (SSTR) pointed out the need to work on six major mission elements (MMEs) concurrently. The military is comfortable with the security mission and most of the others, but not with promoting governance. Iraq has shown this can be even more challenging when armed ethnic groups are competing for power, yet history can teach operational commanders ways to understand ethnic tensions and to find workable solutions. These solutions are not foreign to our own history, and while many are not proud of the American Civil Rights Era, the movement was successful in bringing about phenomenal social change. This paper draws out numerous operational ideas from the Selma, Alabama voting rights campaign of the Civil Rights Movement that can be used today to assist with SSTR operations. This paper explains similarities and differences between Selma and Iraq and then draws conclusions about what operational commanders should do to achieve the six desired effects the SSTR JOC lists for the MME of establishing a representative, effective government, and the rule of law.