Battlefield Negotiators-Tactical Level Conflict Resolution

Battlefield Negotiators-Tactical Level Conflict Resolution

John J. Houser

Military Operations that involve the authorized use of force are often described as a necessary evil, and the definition of success will dictate what methods are used to achieve it.  Viewing success as merely lethal action against the enemy presents an inaccurate measure for victory in military operations.  Military maneuver elements invest substantial training, equipment and operational focus to fight the enemy and secure territory, which reflects what leaders consider success.  However, the necessity to interact with local populations indicates that kinetic operations are only a portion of the full spectrum military continuum.  The heart of any conflict, particularly those against an insurgency or guerilla force, centers on the indigenous population. Thus, a more equitable focus to successfully interact with the local populations should be allocated. 

The measures for success significantly focuses on the battle damage assessment, which consists of enemy killed and captured equipment. While these benchmarks are an important aspect of conflict, they are not the only factor.  In 1962, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara summoned Major General Edward Lansdale, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, to review the criteria he planned to use to determine U.S. Force success in Vietnam.  The factors consisted of numbers of operations, enemy killed and weapons captured.  Upon review, Lansdale asserted the measures were meaningless unless the population’s emotions were taken into account.  Lansdale referred to the population feelings as the “X” factor, which McNamara almost immediately dismissed.1 The lack of focus on the population led to a prolonged conflict at the expense of tax payer dollars and American lives.  Nonetheless, the criteria that military leadership use has remained little changed.  If the number of enemy killed forms the basis for success, someone has to kill them. 

Military Historian S.L.A Marshall claimed that 75 percent of U.S. troops in actual combat during World War II never fired at the enemy for the purpose of killing, even though they were fired upon and would have been justified to return fire.2 Although Marshall’s claims and research methods were later criticized, they were implemented into modern military training.  The changes to military training consisted of: using man-shaped targets instead of bulls-eye targets in marksmanship practice and implementing training more realistic methodologies to resemble how Soldiers actually fight. In a sense, military training needed to reprogram the human instinct against killing their fellow man. 

By the time the United States become involved in the Vietnam War, 90 percent of U.S. soldiers would fire their weapons at other people.3 The increased probability that Soldiers would engage the enemy with greater lethality would therefore lead to greater success using traditional measures.  This was accomplished by enabling the Soldier to disassociate from killing even though in large part they felt it was an unnatural act. To further exacerbate the disassociation, the enemy often becomes dehumanized during training and through colloquial expressions. Ultimately, enemy fighters come from the society in which the U.S. Forces operate.  Thus, the probability increases that the U.S. Soldier could translate the same dehumanization of the enemy to the general foreign population as well.

U.S. Military technological advancements in communications, transportation and weaponry have enabled forces to seize initiative and dominate quicker than ever before. The previously mentioned traditional measures of success (numbers of operations, enemy killed and weapons captured) are gauges to determine whether operations have matured to Phase IV Stability or not. The military concentration on the ability to efficiently operate in phases II and III has resulted in a highly lethal force.  However, it creates an unbalanced emphasis given the duration and decentralized nature of Phase IV Stability Operations.   

Phase IV Stability Operations provide the opportunity for an insurgency to either gain or lose influence. Success within this phase can constitute a progression towards civil enabling, whereas a failure can result in a regression to the need to dominate.  Insurgents recognize that support of the population, whether by choice or force, is foundational.  Joint Publication 3-24, Counterinsurgency Operations (COIN ) also recognizes the importance of the population and states, “the Joint Force needs to adapt approaches based on the following considerations: 1) political control; 2) the population centric nature of COIN; 3) assessing relevant actors; and 4) understanding the Operating Environment.”  It also emphasizes that “understanding grievances is key to addressing root causes of insurgency and creating durable stability.”4 (JP 3-24) Essentially, the focus centers on understanding why actors conduct the actions they do.  This understanding equates to one of Sun Tzu’s tenants for military operations, “know your enemy as yourself.”5  

Understanding the enemy as “you” requires military forces to reexamine the dehumanizing qualities that have been psychologically instilled during training to kill in order to facilitate stability operations.  Understanding the population has the potential to create a climate in which an enemy cannot operate or an insurgency be initiated.  Political messaging will occur from both friendly and enemy sides throughout the duration of conflict, and the population serves as the target audience.    To combat enemy messaging, military forces merely recognizing the population underemphasizes their importance. The local people are the center of gravity and require special tactics.

Field Manual 3-07.31, Chapter VII focuses on Conflict Resolution.  It states there are three basic methods to reach an agreement: negotiation, mediation and arbitration and provides associated definitions.6  Specifically, “It [negotiation] is a central technique in conflict resolution. Service members will rarely negotiate a major agreement between belligerents, but they should have a basic understanding of the art of negotiation.”  Contact with the indigenous population becomes inevitable in any conflict.  Therefore, service members should not only understand cultural nuances, but also have an ability to conduct conflict negotiation at a tactical level. 

In Iraq and Afghanistan, once the U.S. military secured an area, they inherited the preexisting social issues of the area not just the real estate.  Per JP 5-0, “The joint force may be required to perform limited local governance.”7 However, it took authoritative regimes to maintain order between opposing sides of Islam in Iraq, and between opposing tribes in Afghanistan.  Absent these authoritarian structures, the indigenous populations fought shadow wars between themselves and against U.S. forces.  A lack of in depth understanding on the local population and a focus on kinetic targeting caused operations to stall in Phase IV arguably longer than required.  Furthermore, the focus on the more traditional measures for success meant information that could have assisted stability efforts was largely marginalized.

Information is a powerful tool, if effectively used. Conflict resolution relies on readily available information more easily obtained compared to kinetic targeting data.  However, “the tendency to overemphasize detailed information about the enemy at the expense of the political, economic, and cultural environment that supports it becomes even more pronounced at the brigade and Regional Command levels.”8 Military units operating at the Forward Operating Base are often aware of the enemy situation that they are surrounded by.  However, in a conflict where the enemy conceals itself within the population, detailed information about the populace becomes as equally vital.  Moreover, to effectively engage the local population’s leadership at key leader engagements, lower echelon military leaders require a more profound knowledge of the human terrain. 

David Smock characterizes the keys for success as: 1) all sides agreeing on a clear purpose; 2) religious faith comes with a dependence on a higher deity; 3) a desire to build a relationship with their neighbor; 4) all sides agree on the participants, and their ability to make decisions.9  The keys for success should be identified prior to the meeting to ensure the highest likelihood for a more positive outcome.  With any initial contact, the main goal is to secure a second meeting. Therefore, the initial meeting should have a minimal agenda in order to manage expectations.  Pre-identifying clear objectives and who can make decisions requires in depth knowledge of the local population. As previously mentioned, there tends to be overemphasis on identifying who to kill, rather than who can bring peace. Absent information related to who can bring peace and the inter-group dynamics of the area, the meeting could occur with a military host unaware that important people have been unintentionally omitted.

The second key to success, Abrahamic faiths come with a dependence on God, could be substituted based on the environment and local population’s religious foundations.10 However, a deity should at least some level be acknowledged as appropriate.  Nonetheless, the examples of Iraq and Afghanistan provide perfect examples of how finding a religious common ground between Abrahamic faiths could be implemented. The commonality of religion can be the backdrop to initiate the conversation, but the desire to build a relationship amongst neighbors presents an even more immediate invitation point.  The military unit and the local population in proximity to one another sets the stage for a conversation.  Although there may be a shared reluctance for the closeness, this becomes another point of commonality. This will assist to defeat the notion that Marc Gopin described as “othering”. “Othering” consists of, “not only excluding people, but also a way of rejecting certain types of behavior.”11