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The “soldier-diplomat” in Afghanistan and Iraq

By Edward Burke

This report by Edward Burke, a researcher at FRIDE - a partner institution of our center - was published on October 5th, 2009. Below is the abstract from the report’s webpage:

The US and UK Armed Forces have learned the painful lessons of their limited engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq in the aftermath of the invasion of both countries and are now prepared to assume wide-ranging humanitarian and reconstruction tasks. ‘Stabilisation’ by the military is crucial to the successful prosecution of any counterinsurgency campaign but has led to an inevitable encroachment upon ‘civilian’ responsibilities, the militarisation of aid and the emergence of a more political military.

The repercussions for civil-military relations are profound and poorly understood. Drawing upon recent field research in Iraq, this FRIDE paper argues that, while the military is often better placed to provide immediate relief in the most insecure environments, civilian supervision over stability operations must be asserted at every level to reverse the ‘creeping militarisation’ of foreign policy. To undertake this complex task will require the emergence of a civilian doctrine and an unconventional diplomat.

For the whole report please follow this link to The “Soldier-Diplomat” in Afghanistan and Iraq

This page was published on Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 1:23 pm in the section Reports. You can follow any responses or comments to this page through its dedicated RSS 2.0 feed. You can link back to this page from your own site.