Negotiation In The New Strategic Environment Lessons From Iraq

In stability, security, transition, and reconstruction (SSTR) operations like the U.S. mission in Iraq, negotiation is a common activity. The success or failure of the thousands of negotiations taking place daily between U.S. military officers and local civilian and military leaders in Iraq affects tactical and operational results and the U.S. military's ability to achieve American strategic objectives. By training its leaders, especially junior ones, to negotiate effectively, the U.S. military will be better prepared to succeed in the increasingly complex operations it is conducting--in Iraq as well as the ones it will face in the new strategic environment of the 21st century. This monograph analyzes the U.S. Army's current predeployment negotiation training and compares it with the negotiating experience of U.S. Army and Marine Corps officers deployed to Iraq. The author argues that successfully adapting to the nature of the contemporary operating environment requires changes that include increased training in negotiation. Based on interviews with U.S. officers, the author identifies three key elements of negotiation in SSTR operations and offers recommendations for U.S. soldiers to consider when negotiating with local Iraqi leaders; for U.S. military trainers to consider when reviewing their predeployment negotiation training curriculum; and for the Army and Marine Corps training and doctrine commands to consider when planning and structuring predeployment training.

In stability, security, transition, and reconstruction (SSTR) operations like the U.S. mission in Iraq, negotiation is a common activity. The success or failure of the thousands of negotiations taking place daily between U.S. military officers and local civilian and military leaders in Iraq affects tactical and operational results and the U.S. military's ability to achieve American strategic objectives. By training its leaders, especially junior ones, to negotiate effectively, the U.S. military will be better prepared to succeed in the increasingly complex operations it is conducting--in Iraq as well as the ones it will face in the new strategic environment of the 21st century. This monograph analyzes the U.S. Army's current predeployment negotiation training and compares it with the negotiating experience of U.S. Army and Marine Corps officers deployed to Iraq. The author argues that successfully adapting to the nature of the contemporary operating environment requires changes that include increased training in negotiation. Based on interviews with U.S. officers, the author identifies three key elements of negotiation in SSTR operations and offers recommendations for U.S. soldiers to consider when negotiating with local Iraqi leaders; for U.S. military trainers to consider when reviewing their predeployment negotiation training curriculum; and for the Army and Marine Corps training and doctrine commands to consider when planning and structuring predeployment training.

This comprehensive volume provides a thorough overview of 20th- and 21st-century military doctrines worldwide. Military Doctrine: A Reference Handbook takes a thorough look at 20th- and 21st-century military doctrines around the world. It excerpts relevant English-language scholarly and governmental literature to paint a picture of how military doctrine has developed in recent history, what military doctrines are currently operating on the world stage, and where military doctrine is heading in the near future. The book casts a wide net, scanning the relevant government documents, international agreements, monographs, journals, conference papers, and Internet resources to present a thorough overview of the importance of military doctrine in today's highly unstable world. Because military institutions are important formulators of national military doctrine and not merely implementers, this book examines the roles played by military organizations around the world. With the proliferation of independent military scholars and the widespread influence of their work in the Internet age, the book also scans the "gray" literature and describes its effects on military doctrine.

The counterinsurgency (COIN) paradigm dominates military and political conduct in contemporary Western strategic thought. It assumes future wars will unfold as "low intensity" conflicts within rather than between states, requiring specialized military training and techniques. COIN is understood as a logical, effective, and democratically palatable method for confronting insurgency—a discrete set of practices that, through the actions of knowledgeable soldiers and under the guidance of an expert elite, creates lasting results. Through an extensive investigation into COIN's theories, methods, and outcomes, this book undermines enduring claims about COIN's success while revealing its hidden meanings and effects. Interrogating the relationship between counterinsurgency and war, the authors question the supposed uniqueness of COIN's attributes and try to resolve the puzzle of its intellectual identity. Is COIN a strategy, a doctrine, a theory, a military practice, or something else? Their analysis ultimately exposes a critical paradox within COIN: while it ignores the vital political dimensions of war, it is nevertheless the product of a misplaced ideological faith in modernization.

Sacred Violence and Religious Violence examines the place that ideology or political religion plays in legitimizing violence to bring about a purer world. In particular, the book examines Islamism and the western secular, liberal democratic responses to it.

Warfare in the 21st century is far different than warfare throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Conventional warfare was about kinetic force and bending an adversary by might and strength. Skills valued were those related to mastery of weapons and placing ordnance on target. Courage and valor were defined by conflict, militaries were distinct from the population, and occupation was an enduring stage of war. Contemporary warfare, besides continuing to be an exercise in military strength, is composed of missions that depend on skills to forge interpersonal relationships and build sustainable partnerships with a host of actors that once had no voice or role in conflict’s duration or conclusion. Today, final victory does not conclude directly from conflict, in fact victory may be subsumed into the larger and more consuming equation of international stability. Twenty-first century warfare is about counterinsurgency and counter-terrorism through an array of strategies that foster collusion and collaboration not acquiescence.Cross-cultural competence (3C) is a suite of competencies and enablers that have been identified as critical to instill in expeditionary military and civilian personnel in the Department of Defense (DoD). Defined as a set of knowledge, skills, abilities and attitudes (KSAAs), 3C promotes effective interaction across cultural divides through exchanging ideas and meaning across cultures, facilitating effective cross-cultural interactions to develop and sustain relationships and providing a means to discern meaning from foreign and culturally different behavior. 3C permeates DoD policy, doctrine, strategy and operations and is now being institutionalized in DoD military and civilian education and training. Cross-Cultural Competence for a Twenty-First-Century Military: Culture, the Flipside of COIN is a volume edited by two acknowledged experts on 3C in military learning, policy and research and explores the value and necessity of 3C to developing 21st Century warfighters. This volume features chapters by the editors and a host of multidisciplinary experts that probes all aspects of 3C, from concept to application. The message carried throughout Cross-Cultural Competence for a 21st Century Military is that contemporary and future security endeavors will be successful because winning wars ultimately rest on developing and sustaining cross-cultural relationships as much as it does on weapons and force.