This volume provides materials for active learning about peacebuilding and conflict management in the context of complex stability operations. Today, America faces security challenges unlike any it has faced before, many of which requiring lengthy U.S. involvement in stability operations. These challenges are exceedingly dynamic and complex because of the ever changing mix and number of actors involved, the pace with which the strategic and operational environments change, and the constraints placed on response options. This volume presents a series of case studies to inspire active learning about peacebuilding and conflict management in the context of complex stability operations. The case studies highlight dilemmas pertaining to the story of the case (case dilemma) and to its larger policy implications (policy dilemma). The cases stimulate readers to "get inside the heads" of case protagonists with widely differing cultural backgrounds, professional experiences, and individual and organisational interests. Overall, Understanding Complex Military Operations challenges the reader to recognize the importance of specific national security related issues and their inherent dilemmas, deduce policy implications, and discern lessons that might apply to other – perhaps even non-security related – areas of public policy, administration, and management. This volume will be of much interest to students of conflict prevention, transitional justice, peacebuilding, security studies and professionals conducting field-based operations in potentially hazardous environments.

In U.S. Military Operations: Law, Policy, and Practice, a distinguished group of military experts comprehensively analyze how the law is applied during military operations on and off the battlefield. Subject matter experts offer a unique insiders perspective on how the law is actually implemented in a wide swath of military activities, such as how the law of war applies in the context of multi-state coalition forces, and whether non-governmental organizations involved in quasi-military operations are subject to the same law. The book goes on to consider whether U.S. Constitutional 4th Amendment protections apply to the military's cyber-defense measures, how the law guides targeting decisions, and whether United Nations mandates constitute binding rules of international humanitarian law. Other areas of focus include how the United States interacts with the International Committee of the Red Cross regarding its international legal obligations, and how courts should approach civil claims based on war-related torts. This book also answers questions regarding how the law of armed conflict applies to such extra-conflict acts as intercepting pirates and providing humanitarian relief to civilians in occupied territory.

Do existing measures of state fragility measure fragility accurately? Based on commonly used fragility measures, South Africa (SA) is classified as a relatively stable state, yet rising violent crime, high unemployment, endemic poverty, eroding public trust, identity group based preferential treatment policies, and the rapid rise of the private security sector are all indications that SA may be suffering from latent state fragility. Based on a comprehensive view of security, this study examines the extent to which measures of political legitimacy and good governance, effectiveness in the security system – especially with respect to the police system – and mounting economic challenges may be undermining the stability of SA in ways undetected by commonly used measures of state fragility. Using a mixed-methods approach based on quantitative secondary data analysis and semi-structured interviews with government officials, security practitioners, and leading experts in the field, this study finds that the combination of colonization, apartheid, liberation struggle, transition from autocracy to democracy, high levels of direct and structural violence, stagnating social, political, and economic developments make South Africa a latently fragile state. Conceptually, the results of this research call into question the validity of commonly used measures of state fragility and suggest the need for a more comprehensive approach to assessing state fragility. Practically, this study offers a number of concrete policy recommendations for how South Africa may address mounting levels of latent state fragility.

This book covers the design, evaluation, and learning for international interventions aiming to promote peace. More specifically, it reconceptualises this space by critically analysing mainstream approaches – presenting both conceptual and empirical content. This volume offers a variety of original and insightful contributions to the debates grappling with the adoption of complexity thinking. Insights from Complexity Thinking for Peacebuilding Practice and Evaluation addresses the core dilemma that practitioners have to confront: how to function in situations that are fast changing and complex, when equipped with tools designed for neither? How do we reconcile the tension between the use of linear causal logic and the dynamic political transitions that interventions are meant to assist? Readers will be given a rare opportunity to superimpose the latest conceptual innovations with the latest case study applications and from a diverse spectrum of organisational vantage points. This provides the myriad practitioners and consultants in this space with invaluable insights as to how to improve their trade craft, while ensuring policy makers and the accompanying research/academic industry have clearer guidance and innovative thinking. This edited volume provides critically innovative offerings for the audiences that make up this broad area’s practitioners, researchers/academics/educators, and consultants, as well as policy makers.

Lifelong learning has become essential not only for professionals, but also for those they serve. Continuing professional education (CPE), an umbrella term used to describe the continuum of formal, nonformal, and informal learning opportunities that enable practicing professionals to continue to learn and to maintain professional competence across their careers, is the focus of this collection. The volume explores, analyzes, questions, and critiques CPE trends and issues across a variety of contexts, and it highlights new thinking and developments to assist providers and practitioners to re-envision their roles and set new directions in the field of CPE. This collection is inspired by the early seminal works of Cyril Houle who advocated that educational researchers and providers of CPE should listen to the experience of professionals as a basis for supporting their professional learning. This is the 151st volume of the Jossey Bass series New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education. Noted for its depth of coverage, it explores issues of common interest to instructors, administrators, counselors, and policymakers in a broad range of education settings, such as colleges and universities, extension programs, businesses, libraries, and museums.

As the past two decades of war in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Darfur and the Congo have revealed, war in the twenty-first century looks nothing like the traditional state-to-state conflicts of World Wars I and II which defined the previous century. Resolving today’s conflicts - typically based on complex ethnic, religious, economic and political dynamics - requires far more than mere military strength and technology. The military officer of today must simultaneously be a warrior and diplomat, combatant and humanitarian worker, soldier and peacekeeper. But how can today’s militaries prepare their leaders for such multifaceted roles? Warriors or Peacekeepers seeks to provide answers to this question, comparing and contrasting research on the successes and failures of military cultural education and training programs in seven different countries on three continents (U.S., Canada, Argentina Norway, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands). This anthology consists of three main sections. The first addresses the theoretical issues of developing the warrior-peacekeeper: what constitutes cultural competence in the officer profession and the pedagogical challenges associated with developing such competence. The second compares teaching practices from various military educational institutions and provides insight into such issues as: how language training can build cultural awareness, helping officers navigate the ethical and moral challenges of dealing with gender in radically different cultures and the best didactic models to develop reflective skills in military leaders. The third section examines the structural and organizational conditions which historically have aided or impeded educational and organizational change in the military. This book will appeal to military academic communities, educational institutions, scholars in security studies, peacekeeping and conflict studies; and to decision-makers in governments and administration.