Welcome to One CA Podcast. Today we have Norm Cotton, retired Colonel of the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) discusses his career in Civil Affairs and current work for the IDA on Department of Defense policy.
Recommended reading from Colonel Cotton includes: A Bell for Adano, by John Hersey, and Clausewitz Delusion: How the American Army Screwed up the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (A Way Forward), by Stephen L. Melton
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Transcript:
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we're getting back to, okay, now we're doing civil affairs engagement and we're not sending a company of civil affairs. We're sending a team or a couple of teams. Because that's all that an embassy, that a country team can absorb. They can't absorb more than about 10 or 12 military at one time in the country.
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Hi, and welcome to the 1CA Podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We're joined by Norm Cotton, a retired colonel from the United States Army, civil affairs officer, who's currently working for the Institute for Defense Analyses. Colonel Cotton, thank you for being on the 1CA Podcast. You're welcome. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. What have you been doing now at IDA, the Institute for Defense Analysis? Can you tell us what IDA is all about? Yeah, the Institute for Defense Analysis is one of the FFRDC's federally funded research and development centers and similar to RAND. RAND is something that's very similar to IDA. I'm in the Joint Advanced Warfighting Division where we do research projects that are joint focused. And so the National Guard Bureau and the Chief of the Guard Bureau is a member of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs now. And so typically, you know, on each year, he'll recommend a couple studies be done related to either Air National Guard or Army National Guard forces. And so I've been supporting some of those studies for the last year. And in the last six months, I've been working on some. projects with the Department of Homeland Security related to terrorism risk insurance analysis. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Is that related to your background or is this stretching? It's another growth opportunity for me. Okay.
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Okay.
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It's another growth
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All right. There is something called the Safety Act Program. Congress created this after 9 -11. They wanted industry to create more technology related to anti -terrorism. presumably make that technology, think of metal detectors, for example. The companies that would make metal detectors feared if there was another 9 -11 or a big terrorist event and they were held liable for their technology not working,
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The companies
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if there was another 9 -11 or a big terrorist event and they were held liable for their technology not working, then what you would have is companies that would normally make technology that would be very helpful. in combating terrorism and doing anti -terrorism. They would not make those products go to fear. No incentive to do it. No incentive. So to incentivize that, Congress created a program where they can have some liability protections. And so what we do is help the Department of Homeland Security identify the amount of insurance that they should carry and whether or not they should be designated as safety act certified. So that's kind of a stretch for me. It's new. I picked this up in the last six months. I'm still in training, actually, for it. So what I help with is the identifying whether or not there is a risk,
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to fear. No incentive to do
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a third -party liability risk, and then trying to determine whether or not the market, that they would still sell the equipment. uh, absent being designated, you know, and so looking at that criteria and then, and then insurance analysis related to that. So that's great. I guess it shows, uh, even if you didn't have formal education and finance or something that, uh, as a civil affairs officer, you're broad enough that IDA thinks you can take this on. And, um, from your military training, I'm sure it's applicable. Well, everything we do at IDA is all the research that we do, we do as a team. And each team that supports a particular topic is multidisciplinary.
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applicable.
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supports a particular topic is multidisciplinary. And so we'll oftentimes have people right out of college who have degrees in economics or science or whatever. And then we pair those with kind of senior people, me being one of the senior type folks. that has worked in the Pentagon, who's had joint experience. And so we tackle things as a team. Good. And that's the approach that we take to research is build a kind of a multidisciplinary team to look at topics.
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then we
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team to look at topics. Does it work?
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it work?
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I think it does. Yeah, I think it does. I think it's very helpful because a lot of the younger people that have degrees in science and technology, a lot of them are not in the military. And so we're doing studies for, you know. joint commands and joint entities. And so they don't really have a strong military background. And so we pair them up with people that are senior, military, retired. And that's a good approach. Okay. Can you tell us briefly about your background? How many years were you active duty? How many years reserve or AGR? What status were you in civil affairs? Yeah, my career kind of was broken up into kind of three. I guess I would say there were three distinct sections. The first seven years I was traditional reservist. I was initially enlisted in the Air National Guard. Then I went into the Army National Guard in Alabama, went through the officer candidate program. in the Alabama OCS program. I got my commission in 81, so I'm year group 81, field artillery. And then I spent about six years in field artillery total. Most of that was in the Army Reserve because I went to college in Missouri, transferred to an Army Reserve field artillery unit. And so that was like my first seven years. Finished up my college, did my advanced course in field artillery. I was in the process of applying to go into the Active Guard Reserve Program. So I went into the Active Guard Reserve Program in 88.
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went into
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went into the Active Guard Reserve Program in 88. So after seven years, I went into the Active Guard Reserve Program.
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in 88.
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Active Guard Reserve Program. And I was in recruiting, and then I went to the U .S. Army Reserve Command. And while I was at the Army Reserve Command as just an operations, battle captain kind of thing, the Army Reserve around that time, this would be in the early 90s, reached an off -site agreement with the National Guard, and it was called the off -site agreement, which is the National Guard would be predominantly combat arms division below, and then the Army Reserve would focus on combat support, combat service support, predominantly, you know, Corps level and above. And so the Army Reserve got out of the combat arms business pretty much. I mean, there's some exceptions. That's a more recent development. Well, it was the early 90s. When they made the decision after the Cold War ended to downsize the military, they basically reduced the military by about 30%. And it was kind of like a salami slice. Everybody took a cut. But the Guard and Reserve, you know,
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Reserve got
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early 90s. When they made the decision after
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know, didn't want to be in competition. So they said, okay, you focus on combat arms. We'll focus on combat service support. And so when that decision happened, you know, I was a young captain. I was like, well, I'm field artillery and I'm AGR now and I need a career. I need something, you know, more viable. And so I started looking into civil affairs and started a process to get qualified in civil affairs. Do you know if you found it or someone found you? Actually, someone that I was working with at the U .S. Army Reserve Command had been. A civil affairs officer on active duty with the first group, first SF group in Okinawa.
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Okay. And he said,
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And he said, hey, Norm, you should think about being civil affairs. And that's honestly, that's the first I'd ever heard of it.
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Right. And so as I began looking,
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And so as I began looking, I said, yeah, that looks like something I'd really enjoy doing. And so I started the process of that. Meanwhile, after four and a half years at the Army Reserve Command and working. budgeting and programming and the POM and all of that, the Army Reserve was looking to send people from the U .S. Army Reserve Command who had experience at kind of a high level there, send them to the Pentagon to work at OCAR. And so that's what happened to me. I got sent to OCAR and working in the programming, the PA &E office, working training programs, and then I went into the operations office working oversight of training resources and funds, basically Pentagon. Army, Pentagon work. And I basically kind of gave up on going to civil affairs. I was like, you know, it's not going to happen kind of thing. I couldn't get to it. I finished the phase one, which was, you know, the books that you do. And my boss, who loved to play golf, he played golf on Saturdays, and he often needed a foursome, you know. And I would be the guy he would call. If you couldn't find the fourth guy, kind of thing. You're like, Norm, we need a fourth guy. Anything for the team, sure. We know you'll lose. I'm a young major, and he's the colonel. If he invites me to play golf with him on Saturday, I'll go. So one Saturday I was doing that. I was basically the fourth guy filling in to play in this foursome. And one of the guys that we were playing with had just came back from Bosnia.
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for the team, sure. We know you'll lose. I'm
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of the guys that we were playing with had just came back from Bosnia. This would have been like 96, 97. And civil affairs colonel. And I regret that I can't remember his name, but he was, you know, talking to me. And, you know, we're in, you know, putting or whatever. And he mentioned that he was civil affairs. And I said, well, I tried to be civil affairs, but, you know, it didn't work out. And he goes, and so I told him my story. He says, listen, call this guy, Bragg. Call him tomorrow. You know, I called him on Monday. And tell him he finished with phase one. And my time had lapsed. It had been like an extra year. And he said, call him and see if you can still get back into the pipeline. Right. And sure enough, I did. And he required, you know, a piece of paper saying why, whatever. So I asked for the waiver. And within like a day, I got it back and said, yeah, you're back in. You know, when you want to go to the residence course. And so the same boss that I had played golf with invited me to play golf.
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saying why, whatever.
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He called out to St. Louis to the Army Reserve Personnel Center out there. And told him, listen, I got a major here. He wants to go to the civil affairs course. There's one starting in like two weeks, you know, get him in that course kind of thing. And so he did. He got me in the door. And that was Colonel Terry Lurge. So I owe something to him for that. So he got me into the course. And that was, I think, 97. I went to that. And I just absolutely loved it. It was just like, this is a good fit for you.
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he did. He
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he got me into the
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this is a good fit for you. Good fit.
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fit. This is what I want to do. This is what I want to do the rest of my career.
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fit.
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And so it took about another year for me to get out of OCAR and get to a civil affairs unit. And so that was the 354. So the first part of my career was the seven years I was a traditional reservist. The middle part was that time from when I came on the AGR program in like 88. Until like 97, I got CA qualified. I was basically just doing staff work, you know, at Army Reserve Command and at OCAR. And then I went to the 354th. And from the rest of that time,
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you know,
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354th. And from the rest of that time,
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rest of that
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pretty much the rest of my career from 99 until basically I retired, I was involved in some way in civil affairs, you know, either in a reserve unit or... Or your civilian job at a policy level.
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your civilian job
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It's CA type work. You've been around the Washington, D .C. area for quite a while now. Yeah, I wasn't really in a civilian capacity. I was Active Guard Reserve. I was a staff officer. As most Active Guard Reserve people are, they end up doing a lot of staff work. That's why they exist. So I was at the 354th CA Brigade, and then I went to the Special Ops Command in Europe, SOC here, which at that time... This is 2004 to 2005 and 2006 time. Special Ops Command Europe had both Africa and Europe as their area. And so I was a civil affairs, head civil affairs guy there and followed Hugh Van Roozen. Hugh Van Roozen had been in the position before I got there. So I followed him there. And then after that time there, I went to... OSD policy to work in ASD SOLIC as a civil affairs policy person.
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Okay. So I wanted to follow up on som