Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) is the relationship between militaries and humanitarians. This book demonstrates the wide variety of national approaches to CIMIC activities, introducing some theoretical and ethical considerations into a field that has largely been bereft of this type of debate.

Peacekeeping in the late 1990s is a complex and diverse task, in which civilian and military personnel are working together to a greater degree than ever before. However, when an international body such as the UN takes strategic decisions, it does so with inadequate input from the military; in the field, there are clashes of culture, confusion over command and control arrangements and insufficient operational coordination. These issues also affect regional organisations such as NATO. The awkward management of operations and their uneven level of achievement have contributed to a decline in the number of UN peacekeeping operations since 1994. This paper argues that the balance between civilian and military expertise and advice at all levels of a peacekeeping mission – strategic, tactical and operational – needs to be reappraised. At the strategic level: * mandates must be clear, and must respond both to the needs of the situation and to the resources available * there must be regular dialogue between all the principal players, military and civilian; the military-staff capacity at UN headquarters should be made more effective, and should be responsible to the Security Council * major troop-contributing countries should be systematically involved in determining mandates, as well as in reviewing operational plans * senior military officers from all large troop-contributing countries should be based at a mission’s field headquarters. At the operational level: * the office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General – the head of a UN peacekeeping mission – should be strengthened. In non-UN operations, the authority of the High Representative needs to be increased * a cadre of civilian officials with peacekeeping experience needs to be developed; standard operating procedures for the civilian head of a mission to follow when dealing with the military need to be developed * greater emphasis should be placed on the ‘softer’ aspects of military science – managing resources, civilian control and human rights * the reluctance of civilians and non-governmental organisations to engage with the military should be addressed. Much experience has been gained from the peacekeeping operations of the 1990s, but both military and civilian participants must make considerably more progress before they can be said to have forged a partnership that makes them an effective intervention force

Civil-military cooperation has always been a key factor in both peace and conflict situations, and is vital in today's political climate. This indispensable volume analyzes the various types of civil-military cooperation across different settings and contexts, to include humanitarian operations such as emergency relief following tsunami, earthquakes and refugee crises, as well as stability and reconstruction operations such as those in Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The book contains contributions from both senior academics and practitioners such as military officers and humanitarian personnel and discusses the benefits and logistics of civil-military cooperation. It closes with recommendations that will be of value to both academics and practitioners, making it a must read for anyone interested or involved in these operations.

This book explores contemporary civil-military relations in the United States. Much of the canonical literature on civil-military relations was either written during or references the Cold War, while other major research focuses on the post-Cold War era, or the first decade of the twenty-first century. A great deal has changed since then. This book considers the implications for civil-military relations of many of these changes. Specifically, it focuses on factors such as breakdowns in democratic and civil-military norms and conventions; intensifying partisanship and deepening political divisions in American society; as well as new technology and the evolving character of armed conflict. Chapters are organized around the principal actors in civil-military relations, and the book includes sections on the military, civilian leadership, and the public. It explores the roles and obligations of each. The book also examines how changes in contemporary armed conflict influence civil-military relations. Chapters in this section examine the cyber domain, grey zone operations, asymmetric warfare and emerging technology. The book thus brings the study of civil-military relations into the contemporary era, in which new geopolitical realities and the changing character of armed conflict combine with domestic political tensions to test, if not potentially redefine, those relations.

The topic of civil-military relations has high significance for academics, for policy makers, for military commanders, and for serious students of public policy in democratic and other societies. The post-Cold War and post-9-11 worlds have thrown up traditional as well as new challenges to the effective management of armed forces and defense establishments. Further, the present century has seen a rising arc in the use of armed violence on the part of non-state actors, including terrorists, to considerable political effect. Civil-military relations in the United States, and their implications for US and allied security policies, is the focus of most discussions in this volume, but other contributions emphasize the comparative and cross-national dimensions of the relationship between the use or threat of force and public policy. Authors contributing to this study examine a wide range of issues, including: the contrast between theory and practice in civil-military relations; the role perceptions of military professionals across generations; the character of civil-military relations in authoritarian or other democratically-challenged political systems; the usefulness of business models in military management; the attributes of civil-military relations during unconventional conflicts; the experience of the all-volunteer force and its meaning for US civil-military relations; and other topics. Contributors include civilian academic and policy analysts as well as military officers with considerable academic expertise and experience with the subject matter at hand.

Master's Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject Politics - Topic: International relations, grade: 65/B, Dublin City University (School of Law and Government), language: English, abstract: The following thesis will offer a comprehensive outlook at civil-military cooperation. The first two chapters look at civil-military cooperation in general and demonstrate ways to analyse the concept of civil-military cooperation with approaches of civil-military relations and inter-organizational relations. The third and fourth chapter will look at the institutional theory and its explanatory framework for analysing civil-military cooperation. The analysis of civil-military cooperation in the institutional framework will occur with the method of the policy cycle and looks at the NATO CIMIC Framework and its implementation in the cases of Afghanistan and Kosovo. Since the end of the cold war, the number of conflicts and humanitarian crises increased and the efforts of the international community in crisis management occur in highly complex situations in which sole military or humanitarian efforts cannot provide a solution to the situation. Civil-Military cooperation has become the catchphrase when talking about how to manage and solve complex crises. There are two different understandings of the term civil-military cooperation. In its basic form, it describes ‘the interaction between civilian humanitarian actors and international forces during complex emergencies’. The second understanding was developed by the military and referred ‘to the liaison and coordination processes and mechanisms that are established to facilitate relations between military forces and civilian agencies’ ‘in order to achieve military objectives’. Both definitions are broad and allow every organization to develop their understanding of civil-military cooperation. The most known concept is CIMIC by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). However, other organization, like the United Nations (UN) or the European Union (EU), as well as humanitarian actors, have their understanding of civil-military cooperation. The interesting question is not how each organization understands civil-military cooperation, but how an organization formulate and implement the concept of civil-military cooperation as part of its institutional framework. Civil-military cooperation is used as a tool in crisis management, not by civilian organization, but by military one’s. [...]

This book examines military and civilian actors in international interventions and offers a new analytical framework to apply on such interventions. While it is frequently claimed that success in international interventions hinges largely on military–civilian coherence, cooperation has proven challenging to achieve in practice. This book examines why this is the case, by analysing various approaches employed by military and civilian actors and discussing the different relationships between the intervening actors and those upon whom they have intervened. The work analyses different military concepts, such as peacekeeping and counterinsurgency, and the often-troubled relationship between the humanitarian and military intervening actors. It presents a new analytical framework to examine these relationships based on identification theory, which illuminates how the interveners represent those they have been deployed to engage, as well as their own identity and role. As such the book offers an enhanced understanding of the challenges related to civil-military cooperation in international interventions, as well as a theoretical contribution to the study of interventions, more generally. This book will be of much interest to students of international interventions, military studies, peacekeeping, security studies and International Relations.

This book investigates the challenges related to civil-military cooperation (CIMIC) and offers a new perspective by examining the social role of NATO CIMIC soldiers. The intertwining of the civilian and military spheres has become a significant part of the contemporary security environment. However, the relationship between the military and civilian actors is often troubled, filled with misunderstandings and rivalry. In their duty to provide a link between the military and diverse civilian environment, soldiers involved in CIMIC are exposed to varied, often-conflicted expectations that make up their social role and put stress on their performance and the effectiveness of CIMIC. By drawing on analysis of NATO CIMIC documents and a series of interviews with CIMIC soldiers, the author is able to, first, identify the elements of the CIMIC role and, second, diagnose the inherent role conflict and describe methods of dealing with it. Looking at civil-military cooperation through this lens reveals new layers of challenges that impact its effectiveness and a better way to understand the complexity of civil-military interaction. This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, military sociology, peacekeeping, security studies, and international relations, as well as military practitioners.

This book explores the impact of different civil-military structures on operational effectiveness in complex peace operations. Recent operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia are examples of grand failures to enforce peace and to promote democracy and development through international interventions. A missing variable in analyses of these conflicts hitherto has been the nature of the civil-military interface and its impact. The principal argument of this book is that the civil-military interface should ideally be integrated within the interagency arena as well as within the defence ministry. Such integration has the potential to provide joint civil-military planning and comprehensive approaches to operations. It also creates mutual trust and understanding amongst officers and civil servants from different departments, agencies and units, and thereby, a co-operative interagency culture. For the civil-military interface to function effectively within the chain of command during operations, a co-operative culture of trust is essential. Crucially, structurally and culturally integrated civil-military structures are likely to provide a more balanced view of the functional imperative of the armed forces. The results are armed forces fit for whatever purpose the political leadership decides for them - including complex peace support operations. Empirically, the book applies the theoretical framework to a comparative study of US and British patterns of civil-military relations, their strategic cultures and their operations in Iraq. This book will be of much interest to students of peace operations, civil-military relations, humanitarian intervention, and security studies/IR in general. Robert Egnell is a lecturer in War Studies at the Swedish National Defence College and a senior researcher at the Swedish Defence Research Agency. He was awarded the 2008 Kenneth N. Waltz Dissertation Prize for the best thesis in the field of international security.