Conference: Modern Warfare’s Complexity and the Human Dimension
Conference
USF Patel Center for Global Solutions,
University of South Florida, Tampa, FL
February 18-19 2014
We are at a major inflection point after two wars, major upheaval and change in the Middle East, humanitarian challenges, new military technologies and changes in the character of conflict. The conference examines the increasingly important human, social and cultural dimension in contemporary and emerging warfare and conflict, while seeking to inform the debate about national strategy and military doctrine.
Understanding the human domain is a key consideration for policy and strategy as so many conflicts now arise not from encounters between state-sponsored militaries but rather from among groups more or less embedded within civilian populations. Contemporary conflict and warfare increasingly involves adversaries (insurgents, terrorists, criminal networks, piracy, and guerillas) who exploit specific human environments, such as ungoverned areas, tribal social structures and stressed urban environments. Moreover, in many areas of the world the role of tribal, sectarian, and ethnic factors are critically important for understanding leader and group dynamics, influence networks, and motivations. Planning can no longer marginalize the human dimension. Furthermore, humanitarian concerns—from human rights to refugees, reinforced by new social media—are key considerations for the United States and its closest allies. Beyond the military, other sectors from NGOs to the private sector, have risen in importance.
In the words of Gen. Flynn, who heads the Defense Intelligence Agency, the “perceptions of populations are increasingly the center of gravity of all conflicts. Thus, investments in sociocultural tradecraft contribute to preventing the onset of conflict, to effectively prosecuting conflict if it comes, and to ensuring attainment of political goals and sustainable peace after the end of conflict.” Our whole-of-government approach (which often can involve inter-state and international agencies as well) has to deal with whole-of-society interests, fears, concerns, and power structures. Good decisions required for advancing governance and development initiatives need fidelity on the human dimension because ethnic groups, tribes/sub-tribes, sectarian/religious leadership, political parties and patronage groupings shape the complexity and ambiguity of rural and urban decision-making and support systems.
This conference seeks to aid overcoming inadequate understanding of the human domain for military, civilian agency, NGO and international organization decision-making. We endeavor to examine conflict and the human dimension because we are not as good as we need to be in taking 'the human' into consideration as it impacts governance, politics, development, and security. A common critique of US efforts is US strategy and policy suffered from an inadequate understanding of the human domain’s implications for influence and engagement operations for pre-conflict, conflict and post-conflict. This shortfall equally impacts civil government agencies, NGOs, international organizations and the private sector.
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