In terms of major programs, about 60 percent will be tied to MILCON through the next decade, Wadhwa added. Roughly a quarter will be O&M related, and the balance will be focused on FMS and other miscellaneous programs. He said the AFRICOM workload is expected to grow from its current $10 million per year, but at the moment, it’s unclear how significant the expansion will be moving forward.

“Before the Landstuhl replacement hospital project, the largest EUD project was Efficient Basing Grafenwoehr, an eight-year, $750 million initiative to consolidate six battalion-sized units in support of Army and U.S. Army Europe transformation,” he said.

Wadhwa said EUD also has completed most of the Air Force’s transformation work in Europe, including a major project at Ramstein Air Base, headquarters of U.S. Air Forces in Europe.

USACE’s Pacific Ocean Division has districts in Japan and Korea that administer the military construction and host-nation programs in those countries, but the location of the district that manages the humanitarian assistance projects on the Asia mainland could seem surprising to outsiders: its Alaska District.

USACE work for EUCOM or AFRICOM that is not funded through MILCON is handled by the International Engineering Center-Europe District, headed by Wayne Uhl. Those may be in direct support of the CCMDs or non-DoD-funded efforts – typically from the departments of State or Homeland Security – that nonetheless have value to the CCMDs by improving U.S.-host nation relations.

“For example, we are doing an administrative facility in collaboration with Bulgaria to fight terrorism and narcotics,” Uhl said. “We also handle anything associated with theater security cooperation objectives for both CCMDs, such as humanitarian assistance projects. As a gift from the American people, DoD also builds schools, clinics, sometimes orphanages, and water wells, to show good will toward a country and improve relations.

“I would say 70 percent of EUD’s work is in support of our two CCMDs and the rest for other agencies, including USAID [the U.S. Agency for International Development]. We also are doing work for the Millennium Challenge Corporation [MCC] in Ghana and Zambia. The latter is quite large – a significant upgrade to the water supply and drainage systems for the Zambian capital. Our responsibility is the design work; the actual construction will be done by contractors selected by MCC.”

MCC is an independent U.S. foreign aid agency created by Congress in January 2004, with a primary mission to help lead the fight against global poverty. Since then, it has approved more than $8.4 billion in compact and threshold programs in 38 countries, from Albania to Zambia. Determined by the host nations, those projects range from agriculture and irrigation to access to health care and education to anticorruption initiatives.

The drawdown of combat operations in Afghanistan, a smaller U.S. military – and so a smaller global footprint – increased efforts in Africa and a general DoD refocus to the Asia-Pacific region will affect the Europe District, Uhl predicted, but probably more in terms of the type of work USACE does for the CCMDs than the volume.

“While Europe is concerned about a U.S. pivot to the Pacific, Europe will remain extremely important; that is where we have the most allies with values similar to the U.S., so work in EUCOM probably will increase or decrease on its own merits,” he said. “The end of combat operations in Afghanistan, however, may help our efforts in AFRICOM, enabling us to apply more assets to the mission there.

“I think Africa will be the growth area for the Europe District in the foreseeable future. Those who think strategically will want us to be proactive in preventing anti-American organizations from gaining in Africa. So building facilities for military-to-military efforts are important. Countries such as Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Ghana always have been and will continue to be important in that respect.”

USACE will continue to provide all necessary resources to warfighters in Southwest Asia and to CENTCOM in general, which he calls “the most volatile and unstable region in the world,” said Maj. Gen. Kendall P. Cox, the USACE deputy commanding general for military and international operations.

Another relatively new CCMD that draws on USACE for support is Northern Command (NORTHCOM), established in October 2002 to provide command and control of DoD homeland defense efforts and to coordinate defense support of civil authorities. NORTHCOM’s AOR encompasses the continental United States, Alaska, Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands as well as air, land, and sea approaches to them.

NORTHCOM is unique among the CCMDs because of the U.S. Posse Comitatus Act, which states military forces can provide civil support within the United States, but cannot become directly involved in law enforcement. Civil support generally operates through established joint task forces subordinate to the command and only come into play when an emergency exceeds the capabilities of local, state, and federal agencies.

“We have a subordinate command that is in direct support of NORTHCOM and assists in requirements generation. The preponderance of that support is directly linked to response to natural disasters or other impacts here at home and also with respect to Canada and Mexico,” Cox explained. “A lot of the work we do in support of NORTHCOM probably doesn’t come from NORTHCOM as a Title 10 requirement, but from our intra-government relations with DoE [Department of Energy] and other agencies to which we provide support that ultimately supports our national interests and NORTHCOM.”

Title 10 of the U.S. Code outlines the role of the nation’s armed forces and provides the legal basis for the roles, missions, and organization of DoD and each of the four uniformed services.