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Author: seeprogress Added: Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:55:04 -0800 Duration: 463http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/06/sustainable_security2.html "Humanity as a Weapon of War" is a new report from the Center for American Progress that looks at the U.S. military's emerging trend of using humanitarian assistance to achieve strategic objectives. It examines the U.S. Defense Department's efforts to counter threats such as extremism, poor governance and human suffering by aiding indigenous populations, and considers the use of development activities performed by civilian agencies to achieve the same goal. Based on original research conducted on the ground in East Africa and at US military commands around the world, this report argues that the military's efforts to achieve security through development can only be successful if they are rooted in a global strategy that puts development priorities, or "human security," first.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/06/sustainable_security2.html The increasing involvement of the U.S. armed forces in addressing the basic human needs of civilians abroad represents one of the most profound changes in U.S. strategic thought and practice in at least a generation. The Pentagon is recognizing that conventional kinetic military operations, which utilize armed force through direct action to kill or capture the enemy, have limited utility in countering the threats posed by militant extremism. Therefore, they are searching for and finding non-kinetic options other than the use of force to tackle the non-violent components of pressing security problems, both in and out of warzones. This may seem like an appropriate approach to America s new security challenges in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but it is not without controversy. The increasing involvement of the U.S. military in civilian assistance activities has launched a contentious debate about the role of the military in global development, and the relevance of global development to American national security. Non-governmental organizations argue that the militarization of development assistance threatens to undermine the moral imperatives of poverty reduction, the neutral provision of emergency relief, and the security of civilian aid workers in the field. Non-military government agencies, most prominently the U.S. State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, have demonstrated a complex ambivalence about the subject. Even as their bureaucracies have changed to accommodate the military s growing role in providing assistance, some rank-and-file staff at USAID have argued that the military s programs do not constitute real development work, while a vocal minority of foreign service officers in the State Department have protested their deployment to promote political reconciliation in active warzones as hazardous assignments inappropriate for professional diplomats. Although the Pentagon is not of one mind on this issue, many Defense Department officials argue that these criticisms from NGOs and other parts of the government are overblown, and that these non-kinetic operations have the dual benefit of helping people in need while serving American interests, which is something that both the military, other government agencies, and the NGO community should welcome. The Pentagon has called on the State Department and the USAID to undertake more activities in direct support of American national security objectives, even as these agencies counter that their ability is constrained by years of chronic under-funding and staff reductions

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/06/sustainable_security2.html "Humanity as a Weapon of War" is a new report from the Center for American Progress that looks at the U.S. military's emerging trend of using humanitarian assistance to achieve strategic objectives. It examines the U.S. Defense Department's efforts to counter threats such as extremism, poor governance and human suffering by aiding indigenous populations, and considers the use of development activities performed by civilian agencies to achieve the same goal. Based on original research conducted on the ground in East Africa and at US military commands around the world, this report argues that the military's efforts to achieve security through development can only be successful if they are rooted in a global strategy that puts development priorities, or "human security," first.