Calls for -- and promises of -- a Civilian Response Corps spring eternal, but the reality seems to hover just beyond the horizon of realistic expectation. Today The Washington Post reported movement toward that horizon, noting that "President Bush's fiscal 2009 budget proposal allocates funds to expand what until now has been little more than a pilot project... The 2009 budget calls for $248 million for the program, up from $7.2 million in the 2007." That is indeed an exponential increase and reason to believe that the U.S. may begin recruiting civilian capacity to deal with the manifold challenges of our stability and reconstruction operations in a serious way.

The Post mentions another reason to believe this civilian capacity will become a reality at last: as we noted in November, Defense Secretary Robert Gates resisted the temptation to leave it all to the military. Instead, he recognized and specifically called for more civilian response capacity. Reports the Post:

"We must focus our energies beyond the guns and steel of the military," Gates said in a November speech. "Based on my experience serving seven presidents, as a former director of CIA and now as secretary of defense, I am here to make the case for strengthening our capacity to use 'soft power' and for better integrating it with 'hard power.' "

Gates acknowledged that arguing for more funds for another agency is considered "blasphemy" at the Pentagon. "It is certainly not an easy sell politically," he said.

The U.S. is fortunate to have a seasoned leader at the Pentagon, someone willing to learn from the failures of the CPA in Iraq. But let's not be shy to point out the research and advocacy that pushed the necessity and refined the structure of the proposed Civilian Response Corps to begin with.

At the risk of creating an Oscar speech, which inevitably run too long but still leave important people out, there are key some key players who deserve honorable mention. Tory Holt at the Stimson Center, Tammy Schultz and others at the Center for New American Security, Stewart Patrick at the Center for Global Development, Lorelei Kelly at The White House Project, Lisa Schirch at the 3D Security Initiative, collaborative efforts like the Alliance for Peacebuilding and the Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping, and the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign each played a critical role in pushing this idea forward to its present, near-realized state.

Our own David Devlin-Foltz had occasion to speak to the Conflict Prevention and Resolution Forum earlier this week, urging others to learn more about the emerging, and increasingly sophisticated, effort to advance peacebuilding as part of comprehensive, smart power approaches to U.S. foreign policy.