Can we bring any clarity to the space (spatial or temporal) where the military and humanitarianism overlap? It is not a new mandate for the military to engage in combat operations, interpositional activities, as well as assisting with the delivery of humanitarian aid while intervening in armed conflicts, but what do the other stakeholders think? A common argument put forward by humanitarian practitioners is that military forces reduce humanitarian space, interfering with their post-conflict area of expertise. Then what do the recipients of aid think?

12-14 September, 2006, the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre (PPC), Humber International Development Institute (HIDI), and Foreign Affairs Canada jointly hosted a two-day consultation on Three Block Wars (3BW) and Humanitarianism at the Delta Hotel in Ottawa, Canada with the aim to clarify and deepen understanding around the above question. As a Rapporteur, I was in the fortunate position to be a fly on the wall for the lively discussions between Military Personnel, Military Academics, Academics, Humanitarian Practitioners, and Government Representatives. Participants were a fitting representation of the Canadian foreign policy approach of “3-D”defence, diplomacy, and development.

The consultation opened with a public lecture, “Helping Hands and Loaded Arms”, with two keynote speakers, one a member of the Canadian Forces  and the other representing CARE Canada. The speeches ignited tensions that were revisited throughout the following two-days of private consultations. Not necessarily representing the opinions among the participants, the lecture pitted military strategy against overwhelming presentmindedness, in other words, the inability to understand how actions can cause problems in the near future. The resulting contention did manage to generate media interest (the articles are available at: http://www.peaceoperations.org/en/index.asp). Some important questions addressed in my opinion were: can humanitarian space be created, will warring parties respect humanitarian space, and how are international conventions being interpreted?

The dialogue opened the following morning; Day One was a discussion of theory and policy to frame the issues and identify emerging trends. The participants quickly discarded the 3BW framework that depicts combat fighting on a scale of three city blocks: combat fighting occurs on one city block, the separation of warring factions happens on another, and humanitarian aid is delivered on the third, but the discussion did not suffer. The simplistic framework does not represent current situations; for example, in Afghanistan and Iraq major combat operations have ended, the military are conducting stability and reconstruction operations, so what are the new challenges? How do we define new? What will change?

Day Two was structured to be a discussion of policy and practice and to identify operational implications. If a soldier is now charged with establishing governance, reconstruction, and economic development what is the role of humanitarian actors? There is a clear clash of mandates, missions and principles between military forces and humanitarian agencies, so how do you balance the inevitable increase in cooperation between the two? How do we understand humanitarian space? How do we navigate the humanitarian space? What are the implications associated with merging political, military and humanitarian objectives? What are the options for the international community? I found it striking to learn what guidelines/tools already exist and just lay idle. We do have a wealth of knowledge and good intentions, but are we trying to be preventive or responsive?

For further information from the consultation: a post-event report will be available in November 2006 on the PPC website http://www.peaceoperations.org/, and key papers submitted by participants will be compiled into a peer-edited book, jointly published by HIDI and the PPC in 2007.

Further reading:

Krulak, C. (1999). ‘The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War’, Marines Magazine. January.