During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to create a 25,000-strong Civilian Assistance Corps to organize "civilians with special skill-sets (be they doctors, lawyers, engineers, city planners, agriculture specialists, police, etc.) and a sense of service, to be trained and organized to help their nation when it needs them."

The idea is modeled after existing groups in Virginia and California and would "provide each federal agency a pool of volunteer experts willing to deploy in crises. They would be pretrained and screened for deployment to supplement departments' expeditionary teams." The civilians might carry out any number of tasks, from restoring electricity to creating banking systems, freeing up military personnel to undertake other duties.

The White House says that efforts to create the corps are under way, but tangible progress must await the completion of two major policy reviews. One is a presidential study directive on global development policy led by national security adviser Jim Jones and National Economic Council chairman Larry Summers. The other is a Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review -- a blueprint for U.S. diplomatic and development efforts -- being conducted by the State Department.

The corps could still be years away, but the work being done under these two policy reviews earns this promise a rating of In the Works.