Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 7, Number 3 – November-December, 2011
A people in search of a nation in Tuwani, Palestine
THE United States of America has undoubtedly put more time and effort into solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than any other.
When Hilary Clinton became Secretary of State, she called for a “smart power” strategy in the Middle East. “We must use…the full range of tools at our disposal – diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal, and cultural – picking the right tool, or combination of tools, for each situation,” she said. “With smart power, diplomacy will be the vanguard of foreign policy.”
Diplomacy is definitely something America has utilized lately. Palestine’s U.N. statehood bid has led to global diplomacy on an enormous scale. From the personal to media and everything in between, the events of recent weeks and months have secured its place in political science courses taught in universities around the world.
Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 7, Number 3 – November-December, 2011
Afghan girls attend school for the first time
THE word “transition” often punctuates official and media reports about Afghanistan’s international partners that are preparing to draw down their military presence and transfer their security responsibilities to the government of Afghanistan. This process is currently underway and should be completed by the end of 2014. In order to ensure the irreversibility of this transitional period, it is imperative that democracy is institutionalized and the development of Afghanistan is promoted through education and not just military efforts alone.
At the time of publishing, the Afghan people feel that the international community is overly concerned with the military transition and is neglecting efforts to consolidate civilian sectors such as education that are critical to Afghanistan’s long-term security and development. Without a productive economy supported by an educated work force, Afghanistan is incapable of modernizing or maintaining a fully professional, volunteer military to defend the country. Shortchanging the development priorities of Afghanistan will not only undermine the current stabilization efforts, but will also erase the decade of progress made by Afghans and the international community in securing the country.
Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 7, Number 3 – November-December, 2011
A MANPAD in the hands of an insurgent
RECENT media reports coming out of Libya warn of thousands of shoulder-fired missiles missing from Moammar Qadaffi’s armories, which were overrun and looted during the popular uprising. An Associated Press report in June indicated that the United States is paying British and Swiss mine-clearing groups to find the missing antiaircraft missiles and keep them from falling into the hands of terrorist groups. The fear is that terrorists would use them against civilian airplanes. The report goes on to say that the Libyan military had amassed on the order of 20,000 Man Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS) before the rebels started their offensive in March.
Development began on shoulder-fired, infrared-guided weapons during the 1950s and 60s to provide military ground units with an effective anti-aircraft capability that they could carry on the battlefield. The objective was a light-weight, highly portable weapon that was easy to use and deadly to aircraft. What evolved were MANPADS, or shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missiles. They first appeared in military operations in Vietnam; different iterations include the U.S. red eye and the Soviet Strela (the Russian word for arrow). The latter is NATO-codenamed SA-7.
Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 7, Number 3 – November-December, 2011
A U.S. soldier meets with contractors from a private security company
IT is Friday afternoon at Dysnomia Industries headquarters. You are the only one left in the office after a very long week. Just as you are putting your laptop in your bag to head for the door, you get an urgent phone call from your Afghanistan in-country manager. He informs you that he has very strong reason to suspect one of the main subcontractors on your largest construction project is funneling money to the Taliban. He is in touch with government sources that confirm this with credible intelligence and is being directed to stop all payments to this organization immediately. This subcontractor provides 65 percent of your current local labor force. You are approximately half way through your project, moving into a critical phase over the next month. You fear your company is now significantly exposed – legally, financially, and politically.
Contracting in Contingency and Stability Operations Environments
Let’s leave Dysnomia for a few minutes and discuss contracting in the contingency and stability operations environment. Conflict, contracting, and the use of local and third country labor have gone hand-in-hand almost as long as the history of conflict itself. The Roman Empire in mid-fourth century BCE provides one example: The engineers of Rome built an unparalleled network of roads. As Rome’s legions expanded her boundaries, they used local labor from the newly acquired territory to build roads and improve infrastructure. Sometimes, work was done under agreement, other times it was forced.
Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 7, Number 2 – September-October, 2011
There is no mistaking the risk in this situation
THE security industry is moving towards placing greater importance on risk management, especially where it converges with security management. This reality will eventually affect all security professionals at all levels of an organization: it will change the way we think about our jobs and the way we communicate what we do for our organizations. In some cases, it will require that we acquire and apply new skills. To be successful, we will also need to find and employ better tools.
The View From The Top
ASIS International is the preeminent global association of security professionals. In April 2011, their CSO (Chief Security Officer) Roundtable published How Great Risks Lead to Great Deeds: A Benchmarking Survey and White Paper, which surveyed of 80 CSOs and 200 security professionals indicated 80 percent of those organizations have formalized their risk analysis processes. For instance, 50 percent of those participating in the survey stated they have a regulatory mandate to conduct enterprise risk management (ERM). ERM is a framework that includes the methods and processes that drive risk management for an entire organization, including managing risks and leveraging opportunities. Those “highest risks” within the organization often must be communicated to the Board, and likewise disclosed to stakeholders.
Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 7, Number 2 – September-October, 2011
United Nations disaster preparedness training in Haiti
IN a corporate sustainability context, risk management has a broad meaning. As a best business practice, it is imperative to corporate survival that we not only identify internal and external risks to our companies, but also devise strategies to mitigate and in some cases even eliminate risks that threaten our day-to-day operations and our companies’ continued existence. Clearly, when in the business of private security and contingency contracting, those operational risks are compounded with the need to protect human assets and our companies’ good names.
Although the practice of putting civilian contractors in theater in support of military operations is as old as our nation, the explosive growth of our industry is a recent phenomenon. Many of the companies working in contingency and peacekeeping operations have been in existence for less than ten years. However, while our industry is fairly young – at least in its current iteration – the leadership of these companies is made up of seasoned business professionals and former military leaders.
Those of us from the business side have had risk management drilled into us from the early stages of our education and business careers. Those of us from the military side – especially military leadership – have received extensive training and education regarding the importance of risk mitigation. If you have a military background, you may remember the big push for Operational Risk Management (ORM) analysis in every aspect of operational planning and the importance of risk mitigation, which always included a thorough training of personnel. As our profession functions in operational risk environments, it is no wonder that the Journal of International Peace Operations highlighted risk management in its July-August 2010 issue. All three risk management articles in that issue mentioned training of employees as a critical factor in managing risk, whether as the PSC or the government agency employing the PSC.
Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 7, Number 2 – September-October, 2011
Switching station viewed from Kajaki Dam
THE U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced in mid-July that their technicians had successfully installed switching equipment at Kajaki Dam. The primary switch center increases the reliability and capacity of the South Eastern Electrical Power System, which covers Helmand and Kandahar – two of the hottest conflict zones in Afghanistan. This was a benchmark in the Afghan and U.S. governments’ plan to bolster Afghanistan’s energy grid and one of many similar investments in the power sector because of its importance to successful stability operations.
Launched in 2006, the Afghanistan Infrastructure and Rehabilitation Program (IRP) aims to help the war-torn country develop a sustainable society. Funded by USAID, IRP focuses on the availability of power and transportation infrastructure. Examples of progress include the Afghanistan Energy Assistance Project, Afghanistan Clean Energy Project, Kabul Electricity Service Improvement Project and many others; a host of them implemented by Louis Berger Group/Black & Veatch (LBG/B&V), the joint venture charged with implementing IRP.
Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 7, Number 2 – September-October, 2011
US Army soldier rests momentarily while on patrol
THERE is no question that the Afghan people are having to face a set of complex challenges in their country, but as in every country ordinary citizens may often be overly worried about these challenges, or even panicked. In Afghanistan’s complex environment—where more than forty nations are working to build peace—public perception can easily be misled by the frequent sensational media reports, which often fail to explain to the public, in rational terms, the sequence or cause of events that may not even be related to one another at all. This lack of objective information can provoke unnecessary concern among ordinary people and it certainly bolsters the enemy’s terrorizing propaganda, turning the public against their government and its allies.
Indeed, for an ordinary Afghan, it is difficult to comprehend and not worry about the recent killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, followed by the U.S. announcement of troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, which has coincided with the escalation of insurgent activity including complex suicide attacks and targeted killings of prominent Afghans. The concern created by these separately evolving events can further be compounded by the financial problems of the Kabul Bank, as well as judicial efforts to reinstate some of the previously disqualified winning candidates into the Afghan parliament.
Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 7, Number 1 – July-August, 2011
Disaster relief efforts in Haiti
OVER the past decade there have been a number of natural disasters of catastrophic proportions, including Hurricane Katrina, the Indian Ocean tsunami, last year’s earthquake in Haiti, and this year’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The Disasters Emergency Committee, a United Kingdom-based consortium of international NGOs, has warned that the world should expect three to five big urban disasters in the next ten years.
First responders to these disasters have been local and national governments. These responders are on site and in a position to move quickly to save lives. Military forces indigenous to the affected area or from other nations providing assistance often play a key role as well. Following the immediate life-saving response, contractors can also play an important role. As an operation transitions from life saving to recovery and then to rebuilding, contractors can provide tools and abilities that host governments in both developed and less developed countries, as well as NGOs, are not likely to have, such as site clearance, utilities restoration, the repair of existing facilities and new construction.
While in developed countries host governments generally fund the humanitarian response, supplemented by private charitable giving, less developed countries largely depend on the international donor community, characterized by multiple funding streams for multiple purposes. There was an outpouring of charitable donations following the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Haiti earthquake, funneled through a multitude of organizations. While some NGOs backed by this type of funding have at least a limited capability to perform, they must also hire others, whether local day laborers or companies, to provide the needed response.
Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 7, Number 1 – July-August, 2011
MENTIONING private security contractors to anyone not affiliated with the industry almost immediately generates images of machine guns, armored vehicles, bullet-proof vests and macho behavior reminiscent of stereotypical mercenaries. Following the Abu-Ghraib prison scandal in 2004 and the Nisour Square shootings in 2007, when 17 Iraqi civilians were killed by Blackwater security guards in a firefight in the heart of Baghdad City, the media and a number of sensationalistic best-sellers have portrayed the industry and those working for it as thrill-seekers, primarily interested in making a quick buck and generally indifferent to human needs.
However, much of the “evidence” presented in these stories is purely anecdotal and lacks any kind of systematic or scientific empirical analysis. What, apart from these subjective accounts, do we really know about the motives of the men and women working in the peace and stability industry? Are the incidents that grab media attention indicative of the shortfalls of a rapidly growing industry? Are they, in fact, evidence confirming the picture portrayed in the media of security contractors as ‘gun-slinging cowboys’? Or are they unavoidable side-effects of working in a combat zone? Who are these individuals, volunteering to risk their lives, so the common assumption goes, for a pay check? What really drives them? What are their ideals and motivations?
