ISSUE 136 : May/Jun - 1999 - Australian Defence Force Journal

26AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE JOURNAL NO. 136 MAY/JUNE 1999need UN intervention as a change manager and tomake the change management effective. Particularlyas the process of fragmentation will continue tounravel one social disaster after another.Military Community DevelopmentA Pathway to Peace“On the ground” tactical skilling in communitydevelopment (CD) for military units on a PKdeployment is a first step to clarifying and taking astage further the military activity which has oftenbeen loosely defined as a bolder peacekeeping or“hearts and minds” engagement. Traditionally this hasonly been employed with a security enhancingobjective, rather than with a PD mandate andcommitment. The British Army in Bosnia forexample employed “Hearts and Minds” to reactivatethe schools, however not as a military interest inrestoring education. It was a short term objective toremove the children from the streets, and improvelocal attitudes toward the military. Put into a biggerpicture it could also have been part of an overallstrategy and a first step toward PD.What it lacked was commitment to a full PDstrategy and possibly a short fall in the type of skillingthat an extended “Hearts and Minds” tactic needs.“Hearts and Minds” is not a military label for CD.Coined during the Vietnam War, at best, it is basic PRwith very limited CD.It can be argued that an extended and wellmanaged bolder peacekeeping “Hearts and Minds”tactic can lead to enhancing and prolonging a truceenvironment. In turn, particularly if there is aneffective marriage between PKs and HAs, such a“CD tactic” may well improve the chances ofdisarming and demobilising the militias that form as anatural part of the fragmentation process.From current research it appears that the overallpeace process would be assisted by commanders inthe field working with an effective “bridge”, aprofessional link, between the Peace Keepers, theHost Community and Humanitarian Aid/NonGovernment Organisations (NGO). Military basedCommunity Development deployed as a distinct unitto the main force but “in support of” shows promiseas that bridge. The model outlined in this articledescribes the skills and identified objectives ofMilitary based Community Development (MCD). Orin other words a distinct professional base to widerpeace keeping, peace making, or “Hearts and Minds”.Diplomatically it is also a process that can be usedas a first step, a diplomatic chip, to UN Intervention,and then withdrawn or substantially supported as thecase may be.The UN Charter to achieve inter alia,“international co-operation in solving internationalproblems of an economic, social, cultural, orhumanitarian character”, is essentially flawed in itsreliance more on ambiguous cooperation thantangible skill in developing practical solutions andresolving operational dichotomy. As a result, despiteall the best intentions, both PK and HA have foundthemselves constantly operating in a vacuum. Whilesensible efforts have been made to cooperate, strongreservations remain and will continue to divide NGOsand the military. It is a root cause of difficulty inpeacekeeping, and a reason why “peacedevelopment” is so hampered and has not progressed.PK and HA should not be confused with oneanother. This is very relevant in that to do so it cancreate a serious and often confusing overlap in PKdelivery. The reverse however is as equally relevantin that a separation between PK and HA creates avacuum of compromise. It is a classic “damned if youdo and damned if you don’t” scenario and one of theissues that has put PD in the too hard basket. Militarybased Community Development directly linked tocommand and control, however, offers a bridgingprocess that assesses, filters, distils and coordinatesthe opposing operational approaches to the sameproblem with a site specific objective.The above process addresses the difficultiescommanders in the field have had in relying onindeterminate intelligence gathering in theirinteraction with NGOs, and the social/culturalelements of the host community. MCD wouldtherefore compliment standard intelligence gatheringby putting a PD objective based focus to the data.A critique to this model maintains that the militarydo the same things as CD only it is called gatheringintelligence. To some degree this may be so, but theintelligence would lack a skilled focus and direction,and therefore unable to deliver tangible results in theCD target areas you want it to. The priority of militaryintelligence, is and always will be, security and notCD.PD maintains that the UN policy in giving HAresponsibility only to NGOs is antiquated. Past UNstrategy has been based on the “mindset” ofestablishing an ambiguous “cooperative strategy”between the NGOs and military tradition. It does notin any way address the reality of two opposingoperational approaches to the same problem. Thesolutions to this dilemma are left to the commandersin the field who often have to deal with not only athreat to security but a “snobbery” that occurs toward