Guide to Nongovernmental Organizations for the Military

NGOs and military units have a special relationship in emergency settings. Unlike almost any other
actors in the field, both NGOs and militaries are almost fully operational. NGOs and the U.S. military are
now also familiar with one another. In major operations, NGOs and the military have worked together
and in coordination to maximize advantages, reduce confusion and parallel programs, and enhance
the ability of both entities to work more efficiency. This has led to more familiar understandings
between NGO and military sectors, but major technical gaps and large thematic differences still
exist between NGO and military methods of operating in emergency settings. This is not surprising,
but the relevance of attempting to understand these differences has never been more pertinent. In
Chris Seiple’s work, it is suggested that “old mindsets” of both the NGO and military communities are
“rarely appropriate” in today’s responses to humanitarian emergencies. 221 Both need to adopt new
methods of working together:
The NGOs, for example, must comprehend the crying need for a comprehensive and integrated
response, even if this sometimes requires subjugating their charter for the good of the overall
effort. On the other hand, a linear military mindset is also insufficient. With no two crises
exactly the same, the only way to address any given situation is to use a conceptual checklist
only as a reference point, and to be fully prepared to throw it away if it does not work.
Humanitarian intervention is not a matter of “X” amount of input, for “Y” amount of days, to
achieve the definable and finite “Z”. 222
When NGOs and U.S. military units have met in the field, the experiences have ranged from positive to
extremely difficult or frustrating for both sides. Military attitudes often hold that NGOs are whimsical,
small, and lacking of capacity to act in a cohesive or independent manner. NGOs look at the military
as cumbersome, risk-averse, and restricted by its geo-political policies or force protection needs.
When working within a humanitarian emergency, it often appears that the military and NGOs speak
different languages and have widely varying and potentially incompatible missions, capacities, and
knowledge. This is not necessarily true, and opinions are changing on both sides.
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resource: Relevant DOD Civil–Military Documents
• Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations,
“Instruction: Stability Operations, no. 3000.05” (September 2009)
www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/300005p.pdf
• Stability Operations. FM 3-07 (October 2008)
http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/repository/FM307/FM3-07.pdf
• Interagency, Intergovernmental Organization, and Nongovernmental Organization Coordination
During Joint Operations, vol. I, JP 3-08 (March 2006)
221 Ibid.
222 Ibid, p. 5.
A Guide to NGOs for the Military n Chapter 18. The Military 208