There are several important steps for selecting the right individuals for persistent engagement, generating specialist KSE over time, supporting them as a distinct group, and connecting them to sources of expertise and knowledge.
Step 1: Select and invest in the right people
Engagement is different to warfighting and so logic dictates that the individual qualities that are best suited to one differ from the other. Although not mutually exclusive, in broad terms combat requires organized violence to be waged while engagement requires violence to be prevented. Engagement in complex human terrain demands skills in dialogue and negotiation, patience, flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity and a capacity to deal with complexity, a passion for sustainable development and security, empathy and inter-personal skills, and linguistic and cultural agility – skills that are not necessarily essential in combat situations. This does not mean that people who are more suited to engagement roles are ill-suited to combat and vice versa. Nor does it mean that individuals who lack innate abilities are untrainable and cannot develop appropriate skills over time. Rather, it means that some people start their professional life with the advantage of a natural aptitude for engagement above their peers, on which specialist expertise can be more easily built over time. There is therefore logic to employing a more scientific system to identify and select these people in order to invest in them as specialists, however, such a system is missing.
Currently, the MOD and the British Army in particular, as the largest supplier of individuals, have no mechanism for objectively measuring the innate ability and aptitude of individuals for specialist roles. The British Army’s Programme Castle – the ongoing overhaul of the British Army’s human resource system – is investigating mechanisms to assess an individual’s motivations, interests, and aptitude for specific roles as a way for both the organization and the individual to better understand their optimum employment, and it should be advanced as a priority.
Step 2: Develop specialist knowledge through foundational education and training
The conceptual basis of the career, education and training model remains rooted in combat and warfighting given it is rightly classified as the most demanding task and the unique contribution of any military force. This should not change, yet a combat-oriented education and training programme cannot optimally prepare individuals for engagement roles in complex human environments. A supplementary education system is needed to develop specialist knowledge and skills that build on an individual’s core foundation in combat soldiering and warfighting. This should be applied to different cohorts of engagement practitioners in a graduated way based on their level and type of engagement activity, with a core focus on:
1. The human dimension85 – the crucible of conflict
Traditional state-centric approaches to conflict do not adequately interpret the human context that forms a complex tapestry of multiple actors with shifting or ambiguous allegiances. The roots of conflict lie in human nature, therefore it follows that a conflict can only be understood and addressed – prevented, managed, won or lost – by having sufficient understanding and influence over the cognitive dimension of the human terrain i.e. the political, social, cultural, physical, informational and psychological elements of human nature. John Galtung’s work on conflict theory, summarized succinctly in the Understand to Prevent handbook, is helpful in categorizing conflict and violence in this respect.
2. Social sciences – the key to deciphering conflicts
Social sciences enable the interpretation of human behaviour and act as a lens to bring coherence and understanding to complex human-related issues. The MOD’s engagement specialists must be able to look through such a lens to conceptualize, analyse and understand networks of in-country actors and audiences as well as interpret their perceptions, decision-making and behaviours. This can help generate a baseline of understanding in a region or locale (in terms of what is ‘normal’ and what is not) before any escalation to violent conflict or crisis situation. Some commentators liken this to a ‘social radar’.
A foundation in social science will enable individuals to ask focused questions that address the causes rather than merely the symptoms of a conflict; to understand the political dimension and support politically-led solutions; to act as a socio-cultural data collection asset ‘in the field’ in support of specialist intelligence capabilities; to interpret and interrogate social science data more effectively; to speak in the same language as partners from across government, academia, NGOs, and allies; and to be champions of social science techniques that the uninitiated in the military may otherwise dismiss as irrelevant.
3. Contemporary conflict models and frameworks – tools for application in the field
Familiarity with conflict models and frameworks developed by academia and field practitioners will help identify hidden and counterintuitive dynamics in conflict environments in weakened and failed states. Furthermore, it will make engagement activity more targeted and effective and, if necessary, initiate the transition to crisis response. For example, Stathis Kalyvas, a contemporary political scientist and conflict theorist, has published influential research on the causes and dynamics of violence in civil wars. He highlights the importance of considering local micro factors as the drivers of violent conflict as much as central macro factors. Cleveland et al. argue that the ‘human domain’ is defined by networks that shape the character of war. Careful mapping of these complex-adaptive systems is essential for true understanding of local dynamics, which in turn drives the generation of friendly networks to enable cooperation, influence and disruption of state competitors.
Nicholas Krohley, meanwhile, highlights the importance of focusing resources at the tactical, local level to map societal ecosystems, generate understanding and identify contextual nuance. Individuals and local networks, he stresses, should not be regarded as isolated 2D entities, but instead as part of holistic social, economic and political systems akin to a tree with deep roots. Only by taking a 3D view can actors and their networks be viewed in the right context and activity be targeted against them effectively. Camilla Molyneux has recently stressed the importance of addressing the local drivers of violence by supporting, learning from, and building local community responses. Yet, despite this array of advanced contemporary thinking and experience, it is not uncommon for new international initiatives to duplicate or contradict existing approaches in-country through ignorance of their existence. Mapping the socio-political environment prior to starting any new activity is a critical first step to gaining true understanding.
The aim must be to progress individuals towards a state of ‘causal literacy’ or a nuanced appreciation for the complex-adaptive political, economic and socio-cultural currents that drive human attitudes and behaviours, which ultimately drive conflict.
Such a specialist education programme would create individual experts for employment in persistent engagement roles who are grounded in the human dimension of conflict and in social sciences and versed in historical and contemporary conflict thinking. It would provide a comprehensive and uniform theoretical grounding. It could be delivered as a foundational training programme on an individual’s entry to the specialist engagement capability field and act as a complement and counter-balance to an individual’s experiences in the discipline of combat and warfighting.
The aim must be to progress individuals towards a state of ‘causal literacy’ or a nuanced appreciation for the complex-adaptive political, economic and socio-cultural currents that drive human attitudes and behaviours, which ultimately drive conflict. Professor Celestino Perez’s military education programme for the US Army along these lines is instructive. His course aims to generate a cohort of individuals with causal literacy as a complement to the traditional Western military education grounded in warfare.
Step 3: Develop practical skills and experience
1. Understanding through language and culture
A body of academic and practical literature exists that emphasizes the importance of language and cultural awareness to national security and international engagement. The better an individual’s grasp of language and culture, the better their relationships, levels of trust and mutual understanding with partners, which in turn results in enhanced insights and decision-making. If progress in the human terrain moves only at the ‘speed of trust’, then proficiency in language and cultural competence must be a priority. In 2009 President Obama talked of military strength being measured not only by weapons but by languages spoken and cultures understood. And the chief of staff of the US Army, General Ray Odierno, noted in 2012, ‘we have learned many lessons over the last 10 years, but one of the most compelling is that – whether you are working among citizens of a country, or working with their government or Armed Forces – nothing is as important to your long-term success as understanding the prevailing culture and values’.
The UK’s Defence College of Languages and Culture (DCLC) was formed in 2014 and the MOD overhauled its language policy in 2016. A core group of engagement personnel – defence attachés and their support staff – receive extensive language training at DCLC and some culture-specific training. Loan service personnel and some others deploying to operational theatres receive language familiarization training. However, this leaves a large group of personnel employed in engagement roles who receive little or no language and cultural training beyond the most basic and short mandatory pre-deployment training.
While it would be optimal to train all engagement personnel in high-level language skills and culture, the current high turnover and low return rate for personnel in engagement roles means there is a cost–benefit equation to consider. In the current model it would be impractical from a resource perspective to train everyone fully (although the advent of online learning via videoconferencing ushered in by the coronavirus pandemic offers fresh possibilities), so alternative models deserve investigation.
An alternative, more cost-effective and practical approach would be to invest language resources in a specialist cohort of individuals over time, say a period of 10 to 15 years. Classroom-based learning to reach language expertise and transferable intercultural competence would be complemented by periods of immersion in target regions akin to district officers from the era of British Empire, as advocated by commentators such as of Rory Stewart.
2. Familiarity with partners, their techniques and new developments across government
The work undertaken by the MOD’s engagement personnel falls within, and is driven by, policies, strategies and processes that are owned by or jointly owned with other government departments rather than solely by the MOD. Furthermore, engagement roles are by definition focused on conflict prevention and stabilization tasks at the extremities of the traditional conflict curve rather than on a crisis itself. Defence personnel must therefore be trained and confident to work effectively in cross-functional teams in which the lingua franca is politics, conflict, peacebuilding and development not just crisis and combat. They must be able to converse freely in non-military, cross-departmental dialects and participate with confidence in cross-government processes such as the Joint Analysis of Conflict and Stability (JACS) and the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF). Recent progress has been made by the MOD, including publication of the human security policy (JSP 1325), but the MOD’s engagement specialists need to be taken further to deepen their relationships and understanding of partners, and stay abreast of the latest developments in UK and international policy and the processes employed by the FCDO and the Stabilisation Unit. The list of required knowledge is long and includes: human security; the role of gender in conflict; climate change and security; elite bargains grounded in political dynamics in-country; conflict sensitivity and conflict assessments; integrating military activity into a theory of change; and designing and applying measurements of effect. In turn defence personnel must educate partners. Familiarity can be developed over time through a programme of formal education, practical experience and cross-departmental exchanges.
3. Expertise in partner capacity-building
Building capability and capacity in partner nations’ security forces – also known as security force assistance – is a principal activity in the MOD’s international engagement and an important tool to support the UK’s efforts to promote stability and prevent violent conflict in weakened and failed states. Security force assistance aims to create more reliable, effective, transparent, affordable and accountable security institutions in unstable regions and create more effective military partners.
A RAND report in 2014 found that institutional capacity-building is ‘a necessary first step to providing the institutional foundations for stability’. Despite the recent setbacks in Afghanistan, institutional capacity-building continues to drive global security organizations including the UN, African Union, EU, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), NATO and Western governments to recognize the security benefits of military capacity-building activities including SSR at the state institutional level.
The rewards are considerable if this approach is done well as seen in post-conflict Sierra Leone and South Africa for example. However, it is not a panacea and it remains a broad-ranging, politically sensitive, and complex activity full of pitfalls for inexperienced practitioners especially those with scant knowledge of their region and its political context. The risks of damaging rights and exacerbating conflict through poor security force assistance remain very real.
At the macro level, the dynamics underlying the political marketplace must be understood and addressed first. Success requires the active involvement of pro-reform local coalitions from across civil society to act as a counterbalance to political and business elites and security services. Furthermore, the correct balance must be found between short-term ‘train and equip’ programmes building tactical capability and long-term institutional development programmes that establish strategic and operational capacity. The recent, well-documented imbalance towards the former is in some ways explicable by its comparative ease, fewer resources, shorter time frame, and lower risk compared to the latter. However, short-term ‘train and equip’ increases the risk that the dynamics of the political context are missed or ignored and the structural roots of conflicts are not addressed with potential negative impacts on human security and stability. The result can be the creation of security forces that are expensive to construct but lack resilience and institutional depth under pressure due to their inherent poor governance, integrity and administrative systems.
Results of capacity-building initiatives have been mixed, the obstacles to success are many and complex, and criticism of past initiatives has been justifiably vocal in some quarters. The consequences of getting it wrong are manifold including misinterpreting the country’s political economy and a partner’s true incentives; supporting predatory partners who exacerbate the conflict; misaligning objectives with partners leading to misunderstanding and ultimately failure; poor ownership of the process by partner nations’ political and military leaders; template ‘one-size-fits-all’ solutions that fail to address local issues; and attempts to recreate partner forces in the image of Western forces (a pitfall described as ‘isomorphic mimicry’) – all of which can exacerbate violence and undermine human security, leading to potential programmatic and reputational risk for the UK. It is essential that those conducting this activity possess the correct KSE to do it effectively and sensitively, while being supported by an appropriate political strategy and safeguards.
Results of capacity-building initiatives have been mixed, the obstacles to success are many and complex, and criticism of past initiatives has been justifiably vocal in some quarters.
The British Army possesses dedicated capacity-building expertise in the 77th Brigade. However, its small size and limited resources mean it lacks the ability to be engaged permanently in all capacity-building programmes and thus it is forced to provide an analytics and advisory service from the UK. The new UK Security Force Assistance Brigade and Army Special Operations Brigade will strengthen this effort. They will engage persistently with international partners and build capacity as a task within persistent engagement. However, as highlighted above, its focus so far has tended towards building short-term military capability at the tactical and operational levels rather than the more nuanced and enduring task of building long-term institutional capacity at the operational and strategic levels. This needs to be rectified if unintended and potentially undesirable outcomes are to be avoided.
Beyond the need for a clear strategy based on an improved theory of change, UK MOD requires its engagement specialists to be competent in security force assistance including SSR and capacity-building techniques from the tactical to the strategic levels. Through education, training and experience, they need to understand:
- SSR and capacity-building techniques, policies and doctrine and the doctrinal and procedural differences between partners and allies.
- The success criteria for capacity-building including: an understanding of the political context; partners with the leadership style, political will, legitimacy and capacity to conduct change; matching the objectives of the UK with partners; incorporating civic actors including women into the process to promote relationships with the security sector; ensuring local ownership where possible; having a clear vision and strategy for the long-term; designing incentivization methods; and, grounding the programme in a set of expectations that account for the inherently complex realities of security provision in fragile states.
- The need to balance initiatives aimed at building hard military capability in the short-term (people, guns, tanks and rockets) with building institutional capacity in the long-term (governance, integrity, accountability, sustainability, resilience, doctrine, administrative procedures).
Step 4: Leverage technology to warn and predict violent conflict
Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly enabling deep learning and ‘big and thick’ data analytics, which provide opportunities to leverage social sciences in the quest for a more sophisticated, predictive understanding of the human dimension in conflict environments. The US military is investing in multiple technological research projects to create a ‘social radar’ capable of forecasting and detecting political instability in foreign lands. The UK also recognizes that deep learning and predictive modelling of social behaviour are key technical opportunities in the next 20 years with potential to satisfy some of the challenges in achieving a nuanced understanding of operating environments.
However, this technology remains immature and it is currently unrealistic toexpect deep learning to provide a complete picture of complex human terrains or even to provide legitimate insights given the uncertain nature of open, complex-adaptive systems in fragile regions with a myriad of qualitative variables. In the next decade humans will remain the principal element in generating a sophisticated understanding of complex human environments – the expertise of the area scholar and the in-country observer steeped in situational knowledge will be difficult to beat. Yet, over time, advances in technology mean that humans will be increasingly supported by deep learning capabilities. As a result, the MOD must start now to investigate appropriate training and education for engagement specialists in order to be in a position to equip them with the knowledge and skills to fully exploit new technology when it matures.
Step 5: Expand reach through ‘knowledge networks’
The UK armed forces contains organic specialist organizations to generate intelligence and understanding including Defence Intelligence, the Specialist Group Military Intelligence, 77th Brigade, and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group. However, they are necessarily focused on supporting current operations in priority over longer-term non-operational engagement and stability activities.
The good news is that, outside of defence, knowledge and expertise exists in abundance among partners across government, academia, think-tanks, NGOs and retired military personnel. Access to and collaboration with external experts will help generate a sophisticated understanding of a region or thematic issue. However, currently there is no mechanism to convene a network and the approach to network-generation is informal, ad hoc and relies on the initiative of individuals.
The MOD has an opportunity to develop ‘knowledge networks’ that leverage external expertise to gain access to thematic and regional knowledge. Such networks would be convened by the MOD but otherwise they would be informal, flat and decentralized, enabled by videoconferencing technology, and driven by the principle of information-pull rather than information-push. The true power of the network would lie in its potential to grow organically driven by the needs of its users. Undoubtedly there would be technical, security and administrative issues in establishing and managing such a network. However, the long-term advantages of shared understanding, collaborative thinking, and collective knowledge would outweigh any issues in the setting up.
This concept could be extended to consider specific in-country issues through a ‘reach back’ process. A group of experts and practitioners with regional and thematic experience would convene and include trusted representation from the specific country or region in question in order to ensure full consideration is given to the in-country dimension. The MCDC Understand to Prevent handbook expanded this idea as a ‘Comprehensive Contact Team’, which it defined as a forum to ensure coordination between all legitimate parties and agencies – political, diplomatic, economic, military, non-governmental organizations, civil society and business – in the search of bespoke solutions to specific in-country issues.
Step 6: Sustain this specialist capability over time
The MOD’s engagement specialists must be developed in a way that builds on and complements their core grounding in combat by giving them KSE to function effectively in specialist engagement roles. From early-to-mid career onwards, selected individuals should progress through a tailored career management system and career structure that builds specialist KSE progressively and coherently. This must give them opportunities to apply theoretical knowledge in field settings and build experience and practical wisdom over time. Individual careers must be managed in a manner that is satisfactory to both the individual (in terms of variety, opportunity, expertise, incentivization) and to the organization (in terms of capability management, institutional expertise, collective performance). Individuals should be employed for longer periods and repeatedly in the same region as a way to deepen expertise and to build continuity, familiarity and trust with their network and in-country partners while improving institutional memory and expertise. Periods employed in-country will be interspersed with periods spent in policy posts in the UK relevant to that region or thematic area. In the long term, individuals should have access to a rolling programme of continuous professional development and remain incentivized through recognition and reward for development of their specialist KSE that is on a par with their peers in mainstream employment. Finally, this group of engagement specialists must grow over time to become sufficiently broad and deep in structure and mass to offer varied opportunities to individuals employed within it while sustaining and advancing an individual’s career and interest level.
