Inappropriate Unions or Reasonable Alliances:

On Humanitarian Practitioners Working Closely With the Military

By Robert Swope

The post-9/11 era has seen numerous challenges to humanitarian actors

seeking to work in insecure and contested areas where military forces and
other armed groups are present. While in the past there have been
difficulties with perceptions regarding humanitarian neutrality and
independence in such places, these issues became more acute once largescale military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq commenced. For
understandable reasons, military forces engaged in security and nationbuilding type activities in conflict zones have tried to work with and help
enable non-governmental humanitarian organizations in order to more
quickly stabilize the operating environment and exit as soon as possible.
Similarly, NGOs engaged in humanitarian work have been attracted to such
places as they are where humanitarian needs exist and where donor money
is flowing in large amounts. This nexus of military and humanitarian actors
working in the same geographic areas or space brings up the question of
to what extent these organizations should work together, or even if they
should be doing so at all.
This paper argues that, as a general rule, humanitarian aid workers
should not work closely with military forces. There are two reasons for this:
1) it may actually make it more difficult to bring life-saving, emergency
assistance to those in need who live in contested spaces since humanitarian
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actors will be seen as tools, or as Colin Powell once remarked, force

multipliers, of opposing military forces or political interests, and will
therefore be denied access, and 2) by working closely with military forces the
humanitarian community will lose the perception of independence and
neutrality, which will have the long-term negative effect of reducing the
safety of humanitarian actors in the field. None of this is to say that
humanitarian actors should never work with the military. In certain
situations, usually natural disasters in uncontested spaces, humanitarian
practitioners should work with the military when doing so will better serve
those most in need. If the humanitarian imperative is to save lives and
alleviate suffering, and if this could be best accomplished in a given situation
by working closely with the military, then humanitarians have a responsibility
to do so despite the risks.
Of the three principles of humanitarianism (impartiality, neutrality, and
independence), the latter two are in particular danger whenever
organizations and individual workers work with, or are perceived to be
working with, military forces in the field. This is especially true in conflict
situations where the provision of aid can indirectly assist one side or the
other due to the fungability of money and the substitution factor, and
because it is often the case that donors to aid organizations usually come
from countries with an interest in the conflicts outcome and tie their aid to
specific objectives. However, in instances involving natural disasters in
states that are politically stable and lack the social cleavages found in
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countries with a history of inter-communal warfare, working with the military

may sometimes be the preferred option because of the resources military
forces bring to the table, particularly when it comes to the ability to quickly
transport in large amounts of supplies. In these situations close
humanitarian coordination with the military is relatively uncontroversial, and
should be engaged in if it will lead to an improved ability to alleviate
suffering by those in need.
An excellent example of humanitarians working with the military to
provide a greater level of humanitarian assistance than would have
otherwise been available is the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. In the immediate
aftermath, U.S. military air traffic controllers were given control of the
countrys airspace by the Haitian government in order to ensure the speedy
delivery of aid.1 Flights carrying supplies into the country had been
bottlenecked due to the collapse of the airports air traffic control tower and
the lack of a coordination mechanism between the various government relief
agencies and NGOs seeking to fly into the country. Though some
organizations such as MSF complained that they were not given priority and
that not all of their individual organizations flights were able to get in as fast
as they wanted, the traffic jam was quickly alleviated by U.S. Air Force traffic
controllers operating from a radio post on the ground.2 Without the military
providing this coordination assistance and working closely with humanitarian
actors to efficiently process through the numerous flights by various NGOs
and aid agencies, the humanitarian response would have been delayed. The
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congestion could also have resulted in accidents and fatalities, or perhaps

damage to the landing strip, which would have harmed the relief effort.
Beyond this initial response the U.S. and other militaries, including United
Nations forces, would go on to provide immediate water, food, and medical
assistance in coordination with humanitarian actors who were able to share
information as to where the needs existed. This highlights yet another
benefit of working with the military in humanitarian situations, namely, its
ability to quickly provide assistance due to a large, standby workforce that is
part of a highly mobile, organized and trained unit with access to significant
stockpiles of supplies.
The Haiti case is a clear example of where humanitarians and military forces
can work closely for the greater benefit of those in need. The challenges,
however, lie in more complex situations, the most difficult of which is when
there exists conflict with a multiplicity of actors, many of whom are criminal
gangs or armed political groups operating without adherence to the
international norms that state militaries generally follow, and which have
little regard for humanitarian actors or the so-called humanitarian space.
As noted in Holshek, in some of these situations, the armed political groups
or criminal gangs want humanitarian actors to fail as it means either the
deterioration of legitimacy for the government battling an insurgency
because it cannot ensure a basic level of security and assistance to its
people; the exhaustion of foreign military forces who suffer increased
operational costs in addition to a loss of legitimacy, thereby possibly leading
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to a quicker exit; or because these groups profit off the instability and lack of
security.3 In such cases humanitarian actors are unsafe regardless of
whether or not they are perceived to be aligned with military forces. When
this occurs, humanitarian actors may want to consider working with military
forces to achieve greater employee security and access to areas that would
otherwise be to unsafe to travel to, or simply leave the country, as MSF did in
Afghanistan when it could not guarantee the safety of its personnel. Besides
Afghanistan, Iraq is another example of where not all combatants were
willing to allow access or forego harm to humanitarians for the simple reason
that any improvement of the situation was one step toward foreign
intervention forces and the national government gaining more legitimacy
and succeeding.
However, in situations where armed groups are willing to respect the
humanitarian space, it become incredibly important for humanitarian actors
to not be perceived as working with militaries, as this will lead to the belief
that they are there to help attain military objectives. When this becomes the
case, humanitarian workers lose access and are placed in greater danger
since they may easily be considered the aforementioned force multipliers,
and therefore, tools of opposing military forces. In these contexts, it is
critical that humanitarians stick to their principles of neutrality,
independence, and impartiality, and are perceived as doing so by the
population and armed groups. These are clear cases of when the
humanitarians should not work closely with any military because doing so
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impedes access and places them in danger. In these cases NGOs may be
able to operate more freely and be safer by not working with the military at
all, and can easily justify their decision not to do so. The problem is that
some humanitarian actors, particularly those from the nation of intervening
forces, will work with the military. This can have a negative spillover effect of
tainting other NGOs. It is important that in these situations then for all NGOs
to not work too closely and to work discreetly while maintaining the bedrock
principles of humanitarianism.
This paper has looked at the issues surrounding the contexts in which
humanitarian actors should or should not work with military forces and has
argued that they should not work closely with them due to the negative
impact it would have on gaining access to the needy and on their own safety.
It recognizes, however, that there may be situations where it is in the best
interests of victims for them to do so. It also acknowledges that in some
situations it may not matter whether or not humanitarians work with military
forces, and that they will be denied access and become targets simply
because any assistance negatively impacts the objectives of criminal or
armed political groups. Finally, it acknowledges that in some conflict settings
NGOs may want to work with the military, but that in doing so they should be
discreet and maintain their principals of neutrality and independence.

Endnotes

1 Quinn, Andrew, and John Crawley. U.S. takes control of Haiti airport ot speed aid. Reuters,
January, 15, 2010. http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/01/16/quake-haiti-flightsidUSN1513622820100116 (accessed: June 24, 2012).

2 Boadle, Anthony. U.S. military says Haiti airport jam easing. Reuters, January 17, 2010.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/01/18/us-quake-haiti-airport-idUSTRE60H00020100118
(accessed: June 24, 2012).

3 Holshek, Christopher, Looking Beyond the Latest and Greatest in The Pulse of Humanitarian
Assistance (Kevin Cahill, ed.) Fordham University Press: New York, 2007. pps 103-131.