Those factors might become an obstacle to interact with other people and groups in the area. ‘Human Environment’ is used in the PoC Concept to complement the term ‘Civil Environment’ . While both share many things in common, http://cmexho.ru/goroskap7.html CE is viewed as the civil component of the overall assessment of the Operational Environment or Engagement Space. As such, it only focuses on the civil dimension of the environment, to include civilian actors.
It is also necessary to define and analyse the concept of conflict, which is an inevitable aspect of human relationships. Conflict is the perception of incompatibility between the objectives or interests of two or more parties. Culture is also part of any social conflict because they happen within the framework of human relationships. LeBaron asserts that culture affects the way we define, generate, approach, and attempt to resolve conflict.
In recent decades, NATO had to shift its focus from preparing for a conventional war in Europe to crisis resolution missions (including humanitarian, peacekeeping, and peace-making tasks) in distant and culturally different locations. In such population-centric settings, military personnel need additional skills and specialized knowledge, and cultural training is essential. NATO must continue its efforts to operationalize culture to face emerging hybrid challenges. It should be noted that an important part of the knowledge and skills that soldiers need in a multicultural environment are affected by attitude. Those who show some vital characteristics for intercultural sensitivity should be selected and trained to be the «face» of the military operation and interact directly with the local population. UHE provides a ‘population-centric’ perspective that complements existing processes used to understand the operational environment.
- Consideration on how to establish standing procedures, specific monitoring, assessment, reporting and/or mitigation mechanisms with this interdependency in mind will aid identification of these factors.
- The example below is a simplified version of the dynamics of transnational terrorism (U.K. Stabilization Unit, 2017).
- While it is a composite of the conditions, circumstances, and influences that affect the employment of capabilities and the decisions of a commander, any one fundamental change will change the entire operational environment.
- This tool looks at all of these datasets in a specific area and uses the information to prepare for and execute an operation.
- For them, the trip to the well on the outskirts of the town was the only opportunity to socialize and enjoy a certain moment of freedom.
PoC is relevant to NATO’s Three Core Tasks – Collective Defence, Crisis Management, and Cooperative Security – and is applicable to all NATO and NATO-led operations and missions. Build gender equality and peace by ensuring that assistance in conflict and post-conflict situations does not rebuild a gender-discriminatory society that contains the seeds of future violence . Military personnel must be aware of different styles of communication. If they come from Western societies, they will be familiar with direct styles, frequent in low context societies.
Therefore, this task requires the use of both military and civilian capabilities to systematically search, identify, collect, process , and disseminate relevant operational information to decision makers. This could include a systems perspective, across the PMESII domains, focusing on potential adversaries, friendly and neutral actors; a threat assessment broadened to include population centric protection; or mission security threats and risk assessments. Understanding the crisis area is essential to inform decision-making in all phases of operations. Within crisis response operations, this also includes identifying the sources of instability and drivers of conflict. UHE is the necessary first step for the successful integration of PoC considerations into the planning and conduct of NATO and NATO-led operations, missions, and other mandated activities. Integrating gender into conflict analysis increases not only inclusiveness, but also the effectiveness of military operations.
Operational Environment Classifications
On the contrary, in high context societies , the indirect style is predominant. The participants in a conversation rely on non-verbal elements to determine the real meaning of the message. Identify the cultural patterns that have an impact on how the involved parties understand, approach, and manage the conflict. Collier developed a theory of cultural identity that illustrates how the various cultural identities of an individual are created .
It is at the core of NATO’s values and it is being expressed in and through its operations. Gaining an understanding of the increasing threat and the effects of armed conflict on civilians, together with the necessity to attain a PoC mind-set is essential . The personnel of a military operation must attain a high level of cultural competence.
Definition of the term ‘operational environment ‘ per official documentation of the United States Department of Defense.
It is crucial to assess how basic government functions and services can continue during emergencies and disasters or in the face of external attack of any nature. Resilience is the ability of a society to withstand and recover easily and quickly from such shocks and combines both civilian preparedness and military capability. The study of resilience will allow us to assess the capacity of a country to contribute to allied efforts in the continuity of the government, the continuity of essential services for the population, and civilian support for military operations. Socio-cultural factors will play a fundamental role in this analysis. Intercultural competence refers to the ability to “behave effectively and appropriately in intercultural interactions” .
In contrast, HE includes all aspects of the broader human domain focusing on how all humans interact with their environment, especially each other. Therefore, it includes non-civil aspects of the environment, such as the military and irregular armed groups. This distinction is necessary as Perpetrators of Violence can be both military and civilian. Additionally, HE emphasises a ‘population-centric’ perspective, while CE is often done from a ‘military-centric’ perspective .
This initial understanding of the crisis will also help identify knowledge gaps and, consequently, information, intelligence, and knowledge requirements. From a PoC perspective, the strategic appreciation of the crisis can help highlight any specific threats to civilians in the crisis area. To integrate a gender perspective into military operations, the commander’s support and the overall responsibility of all personnel should be clear. It is necessary to integrate the gender perspective into the main body of the planning document and it is vital to interpret the gender perspective from the top to any lower level, reviewing and re-evaluating existing plans with a gender perspective.
Examples of Operating Environment in a sentence
Identify the local cultural elements, practices, and structures that have been affected by the conflict and can be useful for its resolution (local assemblies, elders’ councils, etc.) . PMESII ViewA system-of-systems perspective of the OE offers a picture of the most significant relationships and interdependencies among the main the elements of the relevant systems and subsystems. Businesses that know their operational environment will be revealed certain strengths and weaknesses about their operation. For example, a shipping company that knows its services require a robust infrastructure so it will close attention to its internal, such as warehouse distribution, and external infrastructure, such as the use of trucking on highways. The timing and duration of activities within an operational environment are critical to the operation. What’s interesting is that while time is a constant, the way it’s seen isn’t.
All human beings use non-verbal communication to convey a message and share their mood and emotions with their interlocutor . Non-verbal language incorporates verbal expressions, movements of parts of the body, postures, gestures, and other facilitating and regulating elements of the conversation. All over the world, the role of religion in social relationships has been on the rise in recent decades.
Cross believes that by being more exposed to cultural differences and gaining more awareness and sensitivity about them, people advance on the long road to cultural awareness. Cultural competence refers to the ability to behave appropriately and effectively in each cultural context. It is achieved when the most advanced levels of intercultural sensitivity are reached. All the majority religions of the world contain values and traditions to justify violence and war, but also valuable resources to promote the non-violent resolution of conflicts and peace. Religious communities are well-structured organizations, which can communicate effectively and efficiently. Religious leaders can provide ethical and moral insights that motivate their parishioners to act.
Nevertheless, it also offers a deep source of understanding, reconciliation, and human solidarity that transcends secular divisions. Soldiers need to become familiar with traditional methods of conflict resolution. Knowledge of local traditions in the OE can be an extremely useful resource to achieve the objectives pursued by the military operation, since a “local” and “bottom-up” approach is usually quite well received and respected. Traditional conflict resolution methods include storytelling, proverbs, fables, folk tales, rituals, ceremonies, gods, and the spirits of ancestors, elders, and women.
Operating Environment definition
The Allied Command Operations Comprehensive Operations Planning Directive states that it is critical to understand the effects created by the action of each actor of the OE when discerning the best way to exercise influence over them. It is necessary to make a classification of allied, adversary and neutral actors . Operating Environmentmeans the hardware, programming languages, software, including, but not limited to, operating system software, the system architecture and firmware necessary for the System to operate in accordance with its specifications. The time from concept to market, the timing of sales, the right time to begin a marketing campaign. In business, you can think of the competitors and suppliers and see how they create an interesting parallel to military forces in a country.
In this variable, they look at the total political power within the OE. That means the official overarching government, any smaller governments like states or territories, and then recognized groups of influence that can include terrorists, cartels, influential families, and even individuals. In places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, the inclusion of female soldiers was vital to fulfil intelligence gaps and to gather vital information and intelligence from women in the AoO.
Some characteristics are vital to the cross-cultural sensitivity of military personnel and must be learned and practiced. It is essential to include cultural awareness training in the curricula of all military education institutions. The factor analysis provides a strategic-level appreciation of the crisis, with the identification of the problem, main actors, key factors, including strategic environment and PMESII factors, as well as potential threats and risks.
A variety of phenomena, including demographic changes, urbanization, migration, and globalization, indicate that religion will help shape the dynamics and policies of existing and emerging great powers. The transformative effect of globalization on religion will also play a key role in the evolution of global terrorism, religious conflict, and other threats to international security. This is a simplistic example, but imagine that Troop B will invade Country A. By using PMESII-PT, the people planning this invasion operation will know the country’s climate, terrain, political environment, religious and cultural leanings, etc.
Interpreters are frequently a compulsory support to face this problem. Furthermore, if professionally trained, briefed, and assessed, they can be a priceless assistant, because their knowledge not only about the language but also of the local culture. However, military personnel must be aware about the subculture, religion, language, etc. of the interpreter.
They tend to have a high degree of credibility and moral authority and first-hand information about the origin and development of the conflict, from the point of view of each of the parties involved. Religious communities and leaders are essential actors in any AoO to engage and influence to reach military objectives. Religion is an important pillar in the cultural identity of each of the communities that are involved in a conflict. Religion plays an important role in building the world and can be a reason for cultural and spiritual exchange, a source of mutual respect and solidarity. However, it can also be a factor of division and a generator element of a retrograde and radical conception of the events that happen on the local and international scene. Religion can shape exclusive and excluding identities, pushing passionate convictions in support of destructive political programs.
The population of a certain AoO is the set of the local human groups. They have different levels of influence and power and are motivated by certain social, political, cultural, and economic factors. The success of the military operation can largely depend on the ability to improve the conditions of the local population, knowing and respecting their needs, opinions, and perceptions and meeting their expectations (Moore et al., 2014). Cultural awareness and understanding are necessary but insufficient components to achieve the cultural capacity that a military organization needs to meet current and future security challenges.
It looks beyond governmental and military perspectives that are focused on parties to the conflict/crisis as it complements the picture by adding a civilian angle to these views using the MH, FABN and C-SASE lenses. This is essential, as the Military is traditionally particularly good at assessing the ‘red’ picture, and the ‘blue’ picture , which is insufficient in current OE. This requires also gaining an understanding of the ‘green’ picture .
In general, identity can be defined as the perception that individuals have about themselves in relation to the world around them. Cultural identity refers to identity shared by a group or culture, which generally includes common history, religion, language, values, beliefs, and behaviours. Identity also defines the belonging of an individual to a group or cultural system. Culture creates the identity of a group and helps to maintain it.