INTRODUCTION
The general problem: the nature of tactical-level military negotiation
At the heart of this book is the contention that the nature of tactical-level military negotiation may be delineated by certain vital factors, all of which affect the decisionmaking process for the operational soldier in a negotiating scenario, and in a specific manner. In comparison with negotiation that is carried out in other contexts, it appears that a military negotiator may have a number of imperatives and demands made upon him or her that do not exist, at least to the same extent, in other negotiating situations.1 The complications that might arise for the serving soldier in modern operations (which increasingly demand the use of negotiation rather than force, at least as an initial response, in any encounter), might affect the scope for creative option making and cooperative interaction. The ability to negotiate effectively while under duress, physical threat and armed intervention suggests a mixture of skills and issues distinctive to the combative arena. It is these factors that need investigation.
In recent years the nature and role of serving military personnel, particularly as peacekeepers, has grown and developed on operations around the world, and the associated mandates and Rules of Engagement (ROEs) tend to stress the conciliatory approach whenever possible on operations, as will be seen. British military personnel, together with other national armed forces, are being instructed in negotiation techniques in both their basic training and pre-deployment phases. However, the contention in this book is that the nature of the negotiation situations in which the serving soldier finds him or herself are necessarily very different from other forms of negotiations, and in order to deal successfully with a military operational negotiation it may be necessary to bear certain discrete factors in mind, and to try to train for these eventualities also.
THE OPERATING CONTEXT AND NEW DEMANDS
To explain briefly at this introductory stage of the work, the core mission of an operation defines the context within which a soldier operates. This is the operating environment as defined by the strategic and political policy makers, which is then detailed in operational ROEs and SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) to be used at both the operational and tactical levels of command. Just as a commercial negotiator will have his corporate mission statement with its inherent business aims and objectives, the military can be said to have the equivalent. Deployment into an operational area will demand specific mission statements for the serving personnel, and will generate orders to be implemented at all command levels. To state the obvious, a soldier will carry out those orders whenever and wherever possible. If the mission demands that a military peacekeeping force use its armed might to support the distribution of humanitarian aid, then that will be the prime directive for the force.
History tends to ârememberâ the soldier who goes against the mission. Colonel Bob Stewartâs public outbursts over the massacre in Ahmici, Bosnia, were commendable in a moral sense; but he was acting against his military directives by working so directly with the worldâs media. Albeit for worthy personal reasons, he was going against the core UNPROFOR (UN Protection Force) mission objectiveâthat of military neutrality.2 Frustration and desperation might tempt a soldier to seek to defy the ROEs, but by doing so that soldier will then be acting as an individual, and not as a representative peacekeeper, for example. Such a response raises an issue concerning personality and decision making that might also prove to be a significant issue in military negotiation.
Acute consciousness of the all-pervading mission demands will dictate how a military negotiator is likely to respond in a tactical-level negotiation. At all stages of a negotiation the soldier will be aware of the mission brief, and the mission brief might result in inflexibility in ultimate decision making for that soldier. When another party is encountered, one of the first objectives will be to ascertain the extent to which that party is a threat to the mission. Soldiers are likely to ask themselves if their actions hinder the prosecution of orders. The answer to this question is likely to be âyesâ in most encounters; for example, people at a roadblock are unlikely to begin a negotiation in a highly cooperative manner, as will be shown. As a soldier explores the situation through conversation, information concerning the armed tactical stance of the other party will be sought constantly. Even though a soldier will engage in cooperative negotiation when it is deemed appropriate, it is likely that should that negotiation compromise the overall mission brief, other options may be exercised.
TIME, URGENCY AND EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
Linked to the conscious mission brief is the time factor, and the urgency to complete the mission brief. Orders are often given with time objectives linked to them; the achievement of a task within a specific time scale allows for smoother operability in the field. Yet one of the indisputable characteristics of negotiation per se is the recognition that âit takes as long as it takesâ. Because of the sheer diversity of factors at play within a negotiation, it can be very difficult to insist on a set time limit within which the negotiation is to come to a successful resolution. There are occasions when deadlines are set within a negotiation, or imposed from outside, and they can enhance the final decision-making process dramatically, but at the tactical level discussion can be more fluid, if not protracted. Delaying tactics are used frequently in military operational scenarios. As will be discussed later, one of the main reasons for setting up makeshift roadblocks in areas such as Bosnia in the 1990s, for example, was to delay the UN forces, rather than try to obtain anything from them. This happened because the other party knew how the military operated, and the UNPROFOR case study later in the book will explore this interaction. The negotiating counterparts will know that the soldier is likely to be limited, in a sense, by his mission brief, his ROEs, and the directed time within which those orders are to be achieved. It is an easy antagonistic ploy to frustrate the military through âwasting timeâ, as it may be perceived. For the military negotiator the added pressure of a consciousness of the time factor could be detrimental to the maintenance of a cooperative stance, as an over-eagerness to achieve the military objective might lead to a more aggressive approach to the other party, which can be effective on occasions.3 The main argument to be made concerning the element of time and stress is that an inability to control the mutability of a negotiation can worry and frustrate a soldier, especially if it takes a lengthy interaction to achieve a successful resolution. Basic military training and ethos imply a requirement to achieve any objective speedily and efficiently, and the vagueness and ambiguity in negotiation runs contrary to this desire. What has been happening in recent peacekeeping scenarios, for example, is that the tacticallevel soldiers have learned to adapt their skills rapidly, since the need to switch from being an armed peacekeeper to a cooperative negotiator can arise at any time, and at any moment in an operational situation. Soldiers are therefore widening the more traditional military skills base, as will be discussed.4
AN AGGRESSIVE CONTEXT
A military tactical-level negotiation in a peacekeeping or volatile context is laced with obvious aggressive intent, and this makes for a specific type of bargaining situation. The potential for armed response, by either side and at any point in a negotiation, can make for a dangerous and provocative negotiating situation. This is why peacekeepers are soldiers or police, rather than civilians who would be unused to such aggressive and dangerous contexts. That is not to say that military negotiators necessarily have to be tough and aggressive, but they do have to be aware of their driving concerns on operation, and the possibility of violence.
Military negotiation could also be described as negotiating under duress, with an equivalent context being hostage negotiation, for example. Referring to the Iranian Embassy siege in London in 1980, the police negotiators, whilst not negotiating face to face with the hostage takers, were acutely conscious of the potential for those men to stop negotiating at any time and to choose to start shooting, which they did eventually.5 The unusual mixture of factors being postulated in this book might also be applied to the siege, where the mission was the safe retrieval of all hostages and the capture of the terrorists, and ideally to achieve this in as short a time span as possible (given the need to maintain the well-being of the hostages). Force was a conscious option for both sides to use at any time in the process. The terrorists could exhibit force by shooting hostages; the police could exercise the final resolution to the situation by calling in the SAS, or a similar organisation.6 Even while the members of the SAS were standing on the balconies ready to storm the building, the police negotiator was continuing to speak to the head terrorist on the telephone, discussing the details concerning a bus being driven up outside the building for the terrorist âgetawayâ. The negotiation only stopped when the terrorist heard the entry noises coming from above.
DECISION MAKING
As stated earlier, discrete factors delineate the decision-making process of the soldiernegotiator, and they will be seen to be crucial to the context within which soldiers operate. At times, they may limit the scope within a negotiation for flexibility in option creation, but they are there to maintain the security of the personnel involved and the validity of the operation itself. Peacekeepers around the world face life-and-death situations on a daily basis, and not all of these take place in battle, since just as many can be faced in a negotiation, a situation that always has the potential to flare into a firefight at any moment. It takes a skilled negotiator to remain creative in such a setting, and to make the correct decision under pressure.
Therefore, the factors shown in Figure 0.1 will be discussed, appraised and analysed in order to explain the context within which the military negotiator operates and seeks to reach resolution.
SUMMARY
This book thus seeks to analyse and assess the role and nature of âface-to-faceâ tactical negotiation skills as applied âon the groundâ by military personnel, or, as this task will also be described, âmicro negotiationâ. As Figure 0.1 suggests, it examines the hypothesis that there is a distinct military form of negotiation, adapted or otherwise, which is different in type from other forms of negotiation. It also explores the theoretical base for this type of military conflict resolution. Related to this discussion will be the requirement to assess the relationship with general negotiation theory and extant negotiation models, together with the links, or differences, in meaning and implementation, between other negotiating contexts and the military world.
To help to exemplify and explore the issues raised, there will be a detailed case study of tactical negotiation as displayed in Liberia in the 1990s, UNPROFOR in the early 1990s, and a comparative case study based upon operations in Sierra Leone in 2000. Analysis of these case studies aims to address the implication that military negotiation in the field had for operational effectiveness. It is hoped that from such a review it will be possible to make recommendations for future training and application of this skill.7
The final aim of this book is to attempt to construct a working model of military negotiation, using the suggested delineating factors, in order to assess and outline the elements present in a military micro negotiation, and to analyse the central dilemmas in any such conflict situation. To this end, the concluding section of the book is dedicated to the construction and testing of a speculative new model for military negotiation, entitled the âDIAMONDâ model. It is hoped that this model will provide new scope for pertinent military negotiation training, together with the recommendations made in the concluding comments.
Figure 0.1 Similarities and differences in emphasis of key factors in negotiation
NOTES
1. Wherever the generic term âheâ is used in the text it may be interpreted as applying equally to both genders.
2. United Nations Protection Force: this existed in Bosnia in 1992â95.
3. Studies have shown that integrative, âcooperativeâ, negotiation takes much more time, but tends to result in more mutually satisfactory outcomes (see Chapter 3 for detailed analysis and cited sources). However, it will be argued that the soldier is not always concerned with a mutually agreeable outcome; agreements need to satisfy ROEs and mandates.
4. This belief is echoed in the comments by Stephen Collett in his essay âHumanitarian Peacekeeping: Ethical Considerationsâ, in Alex Morrison (ed.), The New Peacekeeping Partnership (Canada: Canadian Peacekeeping Press, 1994) p. 164, where he states: Training is now seen as an increasingly important element for peacekeeping operations, especially training in negotiation and conflict resolution. This underscores the difference between a soldier just trained for soldiering and someone who is trained additionally for peacekeeping operations. A soldier is trained to go and do what he is told to do, but a peacekeeper cannot rely on that. If a peacekeeper meets a situation of violence with an armed potential opponent and fails to deal with it immediately, there is a probability of escalationâŚâ
5. The author has had conversations with the Metropolitan Police units involved in such work. For security reasons, personal details cannot be cited here.
6. Special Air Service.
7. The focus is mainly on the British Army ...
