The latest volume of “Civil Affairs Issue Papers”—a joint effort between the Civil Affairs Association and the Association of the U.S. Army—is now available.

The eighth edition of the series contains a report from the 2021 Civil Affairs Symposium and five authored papers on topics such as great-power competition, innovation and civil-military operations and relations.

Serving as the Civil Affairs Association’s “professional development capstone,” the series of papers serves to “deepen and broaden formal institutional processes for civil affairs force development” on topics such as policy, doctrine, organization, training, material, leadership and education.

Presented at the Civil Affairs Association’s annual symposium, the five papers were selected for publication by AUSA, and the authors of the top three papers were given cash prizes ranging from $250 to $1,000.

The winner was “Civil Affairs and Great-Power Competition: Civil-Military Networking in the Gray Zone,” by Sgt. 1st Class Nicholas Kempenich Jr. In second place was “Innovation as a Weapon System: Cultivating Global Entrepreneur and Venture Capitalist Partnerships,” by Maj. Giancarlo Newsome, Col. Bradford Hughes and Lt. Col. Tyson Voelkel.

“Maximum Support, Flexible Footprint: Civilian Applied Research Laboratories to Support the 38G Program” by Hayden Bassett and Navy Reserve Lt. Kate Harrell was the third-place winner.

Additional papers include “Individualism versus Collectivism: Civil Affairs and the Clash of National Strategic Cultures,” by Col. Marco Bongioanni, and “Back to Basics: Civil Affairs in a Global Civil-Military Network,” by Maj. Jim Munene and Staff Sgt. Courtney Mulhern.

Read the full report and papers here.