Author: Stanislava P. Mladenova PhD.
Reviewed by: Denton Knight
There are only two semi-legendary books in US Army Civil Affairs (CA) lore: A Bell for Adano, telling the story of one town’s CA governance during the reconstruction of post-war Italy, and Rob Schultheis’ Waging Peace recounting CA Hearts and Minds operations in early 2000s Iraq and Afghanistan. Accessible and short, both books recount the valiant efforts of CA teams on two ends of the conventional continuum – from military governance to counterinsurgency. However, they both occur during wartime and neither recount the distinct role of Civil Affairs Special Operations (SOF) in the ‘gray space.’ While a few academic books discuss CA (as found on this association’s reading list), those works tend to be written by insiders focused on broader security and strategy. A look inside the operational space of civil affairs can therefore be hard to find.
Stanislava Mladenova's new book, When Rambo Meets the Red Cross: Civil-Military Engagement in Fragile States helps fills that void. Approaching her analysis from a sociological framework, she offers grounded critique and analysis of SOF (with a focus on CA Teams) at the lowest levels as they interact with host nation communities and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Drawing from her background as a civilian professional operating within military spaces, she begins with a description of the expanding ‘gray spaces’ of political instability and human fragility and then highlights a convergence of humanitarian organizations turning to private security even as the military augments its ‘soft’ humanitarian capabilities.
Mladenova’s most revealing insights come from interviews discussing how humanitarian and military professionals view one another and function organizationally. While military types tend to be proud, secretive, and hierarchical, the expatriates working for international NGO can also be self-righteous and biased. She suavely points out the proverbial logs in both organization's eyes: the military struggles to even attempt outcome-based monitoring and evaluation, faces persistent limitations from short deployment cycles, and tends to prefer kinetic solutions and security concerns over softer approaches. On the other hand, NGOs often struggle with disorganization, a tendency to expand into the gray space without adequate security planning, and their efforts are inevitably shaped by donor funding cycles and externally sourced values or concerns. She convincingly argues that at the small-scale of SOF and NGOs, interpersonal relations shape the nature, efficacy, and politicization of projects. Practitioners will surely recognize her helpful categorization of loyalists “committed to the objective of their organization,” the converted who have transitioned between military and civilian or “no longer subscribe to the values of their organization,” and bridgebuilders who properly acknowledge the value of both civilian and military approaches.
Mladenova’s most interesting claim is that, in many of a recipient community's eyes, it may not matter whether a project is ran by an NGO or the military: either way, the implementors are simply seen as foreigners. For those recipients, what matters is not so much whom is giving the aid as whether that aid is effective and how the outsiders behave in their operations. For an international development and aid community that is worried about the increasing ‘securitization’ of aid and the blurring boundaries between crisis and business as usual, this may suggest that the politics of aid is less impactful than believed. Unfortunately, the evidence she offers for this claim strikes this reader as insufficient. Throughout the book, evidence mostly comes from military respondents (of 87 total interlocutors, 42 are U.S. military, 28 NGO workers, and only 16 host-nation recipients). Paradoxically, she includes U.S. Agency for International Development staff, direct government employees, within the category of NGO workers. Her claim that recipients do not distinguish between sources of assistance is problematically based upon the statement of only one NGO interviewee and a few secondary sources. It is plausible that end recipients might not discriminate between source; after all a malnourished child will hopefully not bite the hand that feeds it. Yet it seems unlikely that the military nature of a donor would not shape the reception of development assistance, particularly in those countries with hostility to US influence or international competitors, where CA teams are most likely to operate.
Despite aspiring to convince both humanitarian and military groups of the value of civil-military engagement in fragile states, Mladenova unfortunately only curates her argument for the security studies establishment. Development studies students and practitioners will quickly take issue with her cursory engagement with their fundamental concerns over the ‘securitization’ of international development assistance. The concern, as argued by Mark Duffield, is that the global war on terror has led to an increase in security sector assistance and military aid that enables the western world to regulate the lives and activities of the developing world. More tangibly, this securitization has at times supported authoritarian states in quelling domestic threats and undermined the efficacy and neutrality of aid. Mladenova’s project might be to argue these concerns are overblown. Or she might respond that at the margins, small-scale military assistance such as SOF and humanitarian aid can effectively partner within the overall context of increasing securitization. However, without explicitly contesting these points, she cedes the opportunity to seriously engage many on the critical side of the debate.
Nevertheless, Mladenova’s research and follow-on engagements (to include presenting at the recent Civil Affairs Association conference) will certainly accomplish her goal of convincing "colleagues to ask more questions." Based off her findings, CA professionals should consider how to improve information storage and dissemination; develop a clearer theory of change; introduce monitoring and assessment of security impacts; and expand beyond veteran-run NGO partners to work with more varied and local organizations in host countries. Future research should seek to illuminate the nature of these dynamics within the military’s recent focus on large scale combat operations. To those military leaders who may be ambivalent about the value of Civil Affairs, her argument makes a convincing case for the need to deepen civil engagement. Finally, as someone entering the CA Qualification Course next year, the book offers key insights into the personal dynamics and challenges I will soon face and is a tool I will keep by my side.
About the Author:
1LT Denton Knight is an infantry officer serving with 2-30 IN Battalion at Fort Johnson, Louisiana. He has been selected for Civil Affairs and looks forward to beginning the qualification course in 2025. He holds a Master’s degree in International Development from the University of Oxford as well as a B.Sc. in International Affairs from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Outside his military career, he worked for a year with a small community development organization in Central Asia and enjoys every form of exploration.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect any official policy or position of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, of any other U.S. government agency.
Reviewed Book:
Stanislava P. Mladenova. When Rambo Meets the Red Cross: Civil-Military Engagement in Fragile States. Lanham, MD. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2024. ISBN-13: 978-1538187715. pp. 230 pages.