A specialist engagement capability is crucial to implementing persistent engagement but to achieve this the MOD will need to review its selection, training and management policies.
The Integrated Review highlighted persistent engagement as one of the MOD’s principal tools to support the UK’s foreign policy and security objectives. The aim of this approach is to complement the traditional role of crisis response and warfighting by operating below the threshold of conflict to deter state competitors, prevent and resolve conflict, build stability, and pre-empt crises. Personnel employed in this network will conduct a range of unfamiliar, non-combat roles focused on conflict prevention and stabilization in weakened and failed regions alongside an array of partners.
As a first step, the MOD needs to design and develop a specialist engagement capability with individuals who are equipped with the KSE to operate in complex, politically-driven and unstable regions. They must be able to contribute effectively to pan-government initiatives to prevent conflict and build stability, and be equipped to support any transition to crisis response. They must possess the KSE to understand complex human terrain, identify the drivers of conflict, and design and execute measures that address the underlying causes of the conflict while working alongside diverse partners from government, the wider international community and in-country actors. To achieve this, the MOD must review and refresh its policies and processes for the selection, education, training, career management, incentivization and support of a new group of engagement specialists, with senior leadership driving through the programme and associated cultural change.
- Adapt the MOD’s personnel policies to support engagement specialists. The MOD, and the British Army as its land-based force, must:
- Develop a specialist capability for persistent engagement that can operate in weakened and failed regions in support of the UK’s trade, security and human security objectives. The recent invigoration of the defence attaché network through enhanced training and career management, combined with the creation of an Army Special Operations Brigade and Security Force Assistance Brigade, has started to address this issue. Momentum must now be maintained and attention and resources focused on energizing the MOD’s entire persistent engagement network.
- Develop a personnel recruitment mechanism that identifies and selects individuals based on their inherent aptitude, personal qualities and motivation for specialist engagement roles.
- Create sufficient mass and structure to ensure this approach is sustainable over time. Further work is required to map roles and units to this specialist engagement capability, with potential to develop graduated levels of specialist KSE among different cohorts of the engagement network.
- Introduce a new career structure with revised policies for personnel selection, development, management, incentivization and reward, which benefits both the individual and the organization. The ongoing review of the Army’s human resource system, Programme Castle, offers an opportunity for the MOD to test new initiatives.
- Invigorate the conceptual thinking developed in the 2017 MCDC handbook Understand to Prevent. This publication provides a baseline conceptual framework from which to develop and employ a new specialist engagement capability in support of both national and human security.
- Develop individuals with a sophisticated understanding of complex operating environments through knowledge and skills. Introduce a foundational education and training programme, which orientates individuals to their specialist engagement role and complements their core knowledge and skills in the mainstream discipline of combat and warfighting. Individuals must:
- Possess a grounding in social sciences as the basis for understanding human actions.
- Be versed in the human dimension in complex, conflict-prone environments. They must possess ‘causal literacy’ or a nuanced appreciation of the complex-adaptive political, economic and socio-cultural currents that drive attitudes and behaviours, while possessing an appreciation of the impact of global and transnational variables on contemporary conflicts.
- Possess language and cultural skills that can unlock effective engagement with, and understanding of, in-country partners and help build relationships, networks, understanding and trust. They must conduct periods of immersion in target regions.
- Be experts in the design and delivery of military capacity-building and security force assistance, from the tactical to strategic levels including the military contribution to SSR. They must be equipped with the tools, awareness, diplomacy, and humility to navigate this nuanced and politically-sensitive environment with confidence.
- Remain aware of advances in AI-enabled approaches that couple deep learning with big and thick data analytics in the quest for a more sophisticated, predictive understanding of human terrain. While this technology and supporting data remain immature in predicting human behaviour and currently cannot supplant human capability, it is developing rapidly and will become an increasingly important enabling capability in future years.
- Inculcate experience and practical wisdom in individuals over time. Engagement specialists must develop heightened levels of KSE through a rolling programme of professional development and management through their career:
- Stay abreast of developments in conflict studies as a way to ensure personnel can conduct conflict analysis and design and execute activity supporting stability and conflict prevention.
- Become experienced and confident at working with diverse partners across government in civil–military cross-functional teams and with international partners where the lingua franca is conflict resolution, peace and stability not warfighting.
- Design and nurture networks to leverage external knowledge across government, the private sector, academia, NGOs, retired military, and in-country experts. This will connect engagement specialists to external thematic and regional experts, develop individual competence, capture best practice, improve continuity, ensure coherence of delivery, and improve institutional memory.
Through persistent engagement, the MOD will play a vital role in denying opportunities to state competitors, supporting efforts to promote good governance and stability, addressing the root causes of conflict, and preventing conflict from escalating into violence in weakened and failed states. A new non-combat approach demands a specialist capability. Therefore, to optimize for persistent engagement, the MOD must enhance its existing engagement capability to make it fit for the complexities and uncertainties of the contemporary operating environment. Individuals and teams employed in the global network need tailored knowledge, skills and experience, beyond their warfighting foundation, to generate a more sophisticated understanding of target regions and the practical wisdom to inform the design and execution of the MOD’s activity in support of government foreign policy and security objectives.
