CIMIC and C2: Fit for the future?

“Today’s wars are not homogenous: the lived experience of combat is different between regions, parts of the fighting front, and on different days. War is dynamic. If there is one commonality between the various battlefields around the world (and across the domains), it’s the presence of civilians. It seems peculiar, then, that CIMIC can sit so low in priorities for military planning, exercises, education, and training. Indeed, it is only during military exercises that military forces experience an alien environment in which civilians are absent.”[1]

The context

In examining the future (whether in the guise of human security, military operations, civil emergencies, war, the national security environment, the utility operating concepts, et al), and based on the evidence offered by NATO policy documents[2], the future operating environment has some notable risks and undertones: the collapse of known structures [a high possibility], legitimacy of institutions undermined [highly likely], an era of simultaneous challenges where responders are overwhelmed (in scale and number of missions) [almost certain], and a lack of trust and breakdown of the relationship between the state and society [already being experienced to a small degree]. The shift in power from state institutions to commercial and private ownership is current trend and one likely to grow. This ‘complexity landscape’ is characterised by the dynamic destabilisation of societies and the international panorama as understood today. Adversaries (autocracies) will be behind much of this, exploiting open access into Western societies to sow disinformation, discord and dissatisfaction, alongside an ability to make long-term investment decisions that have increasingly monopolised control of scarce and vital raw materials, resources, and land.

Some of these factors are evident today: the diminishing respect for humans on the battlefield; the urbanization of conflict accentuating impacts on civil populations; the blurring of the civil military divide, and between military personnel and civilians are notable. The unpreparedness of CIMIC to meet these challenges is clear. Despite a Western philosophy of war that conceptualizes warfare as the battle for people, and the idea that Human Security now forms a foundational principal for the Alliance, discussions over civilians form a minute element of military planning, exercises, discussions, and education. This is likely to be exacerbated in the future where NATO operations are just as likely to require action and activity in a NATO member state (below or above Article 5 threshold), as they are to be expeditionary. Operating in a member state brings with it a different set of priorities and underpins the credibility of the Alliance with societies that impact on the political and military will to fight. The importance of getting CIMIC right cannot be understated.

There is a lack of evidence that the Alliances approach to CIMIC today would be good enough to meet these challenges. The response being advocated now by NATO involves a high degree of domestic resilience recapitalisation and a hardening of civil society. If conducted as outlined, such measures could mitigate some of the worst impacts of the approaching storm for host nations. That does not, however, mean that either the CIMIC community or, indeed, the military as a whole is ready or optimised for what is approaching. There is no compelling evidence that CIMIC is being looked at with the same fervour, energy, and ambition that is evident in the military desire for transformation of the combat arms. In short, CIMIC will not be ready for the future if a path of linear development continues: The result will be in the military – and the Alliance – failing in almost every mission as a result.

Themes

During a conflict (above or below an Article 5 Threshold), combat and fighting account for around 7% of activity: the military contribution to other 93% is delivered by CIMIC (depending on definitions). Thus, CIMIC is not a battle-winning capability; it is a war-winning one.[3] There are a number of themes emerged that are worthy of a short exploration; these maybe useful when thinking about how to develop and position CIMIC to make it future-resilient. Five areas of commonality are: People, technology, definitions, integration, and positioning.

People

CIMIC is a distinctly human endeavor. Where other NATO activities and engagements have been focused on lethality, survivability, maneuver, disruption, or activity, it is clear that people – their interactions, relationships, behaviors, language, and mindsets – are both the critical requirement, vulnerability, scarce resource, and foundational enabler for all CIMIC activity. The number of suitably qualified and experienced people in the community is small, boutique almost. Moreover, nations regard their CIMIC personnel in different ways: some held in high regard and having the ear of politicians and policy makers, other are ignored and sidelined.

From a civilian perspective, NATO CIMIC personnel are uniformly well regarded. Their ability to walk a fine line between military and civil demands, talk two very different languages, and retain a set of relationships across decades is highly respected. The depth of relationships built during a career matter in the civil world more than in a military one: they will enable co-operation and deconfliction when organizational and institutional policies do not. The failure to maintain, retain, value and reward this cadre is worrying.

Technology

There is a popular contemporary phenomenon that sees technology as a panacea for all problems, military, commercial and civil.[4]Technology must play a part in how CIMIC is recapitalized and reinvigorated. The technical requirements are relatively simple (for example, the exchange of data about transport infrastructure), but the difficulty is in achieving political and bureaucratic agreement in sharing the information. Technology does not prevent civil harm; it does not build relationships or engender trust. It does make the execution of CIMIC missions timelier and more effective. Commonality of systems between civil and military agencies might be easier to achieve thanis imagined. States operating Systematic’s Sitaware system can exchange resilience and response data, overlays, and response options seamlessly already.

Definitions

Civil Military Co-ordination is a catch all for interactions between the military and civilian agencies. How much CMI, CA, and Resilience form parts of CIMIC depends on many factors. During the post-Cold War period, CIMIC was a term that become synonymous with humanitarian aid and disaster relief; usually happening overseas, often on a different continent. A CIMIC-informed military audience (a rare occurrence), might describe wider interactions beyond HADR[5]; the liaison missions between international institutions, aid organizations, national resilience bodies, police forces, diasporas, private security organizations, commercial organizations, national agencies, local government institutions. NATO doctrine has extensive lists of what is included in CIMIC and what is not. Various national doctrines and policies differ in their own interpretations. Thus, definitions can get in the way of understanding CIMIC: indeed, the lived experience of what is included – and excluded – from CIMIC differs remarkably between states, geography, cultures, governance structure, national and international boundaries, and over time. There is a temptation to over define CIMIC to gain clarity but rarely does this assist CIMIC personnel (or civilians) achieve better outcomes. There is a divide between national, domestic, international, regional and supranational CIMIC approaches based on governance, permissions and human factors. An in-depth knowledge is required to negotiate the minefield that results. The reality of CIMIC is agnostic of policy positions in many respects; too much debate on definitions hampers effective CIMIC personnel and processes from delivering results.

Integration

NATO’s current central concept is Multi-Domain Operations. Core to this is a requirement to synchronize all activity, across all domains, to maximize the effects that the military can achieve. It is assumed that this synchronization can amplify scarce resources and deliver more impressive results – in time and space, and in the cognitive domain. Whilst little evidence exists to support such a theory, NATO CIMIC personnel must work within the constraints of this operating concept. Despite this requirement, the CIMIC community will be tested to attempt to synchronize civil actors with military operations. Civil activity will rarely fall under the tight command arrangements that military commanders prefer; missions sets and activity will often differ between institutions and organizations and are unlikely to dovetail with military desires. Yet the desired outcomes of CIMIC activity is likely to align well with the broad ambition of civil agencies: synchronization is unlikely to be achieved and harmonization will be difficult, but continuing co-ordination, deconfliction, and co-operation are likely to be welcomed. Commanders will need an in depth understanding of CIMIC, personalities, relationships, and desires, if wanting to achieve better alignment with civil actors. This will require senior leaders to invest considerable time in areas that few have experience in or feel comfortable with. Their ambition must also be realistic. CIMIC will not work within the confines of MDO alone: a greater investment of time, intellectual effort, and resource will be needed if the military are not to disenfranchise the civil community (and societies at large).

To be successful, military commanders at all levels will need to recognise the mandates and the roles played by different civil agencies, and be prepared to adapt to the operational and governance structures of them rather than expecting civilians to conform to military processes. That cannot begin during an emergency or conflict. Like their CIMIC personnel, commanders will need to work hard during peacetime to build relationships and demonstrate good will. A start point might be in a being more positive about the position of neutral actors, whose mandates require them not to align with one belligerent.[6] The demonisation of actors holding mandates that require them to maintain neutrality in any conflict will undermine relationships with civil actors in the future.

Positioning: CIMIC as a special capability?

Special Operations Forces (SOF) have historically had elements of the CIMIC mission at their heart: key leader engagement, understanding the civilian space, providing targeted and limited assistance and aid to critical communities are all classic CIMIC activities. Many of these SOF operations have been hugely successful. Yet the crossover of expertise, processes, systems, and knowledge between CIMIC and the SOF communities is rarely experienced. Whilst SOF forces undertaking such missions are empowered and resourced in a special way, core military CIMIC personnel and functions are not. Indeed, SOFs ability to work outside some of the key military mandates (whether regarding core concepts, boundaries of time and space, conducting authorized activity below thresholds of conflict, or working without an end state), has underwritten some of their most important and successful missions.

When SOF conduct CIMIC missions, their unique permissions enable a more favorable environment in which they can deliver success to the commander. Exceptionally within the military system, SOF are able to diverge from core military activity in a number of key areas.

• The focus on continuing engagement (rather than a specific end state) enables productive long-term relationships to be built on the basis of trust not opportunity.
• There is an acknowledgement of SOFs inability to synchronize during missions. Deconfliction and ‘coupling’[7] are used instead.
• SOF generally work outside of the constraints imposed by the Peace/Crisis/War dichotomy. The investment of scarce resource in SOF missions before and between these silos is acknowledged and appreciated: these missions are not subject to the same commercial scrutiny (including investment appraisal decisions) as elsewhere.
• There is less of a focus on pace during SOF missions centered around CIMIC activity. There is an understanding that better, more enduring relationships and solutions in such missions depend on the speed of human understanding (negotiation, cognition, trust, and respect with partners), not military desire for acting at an undefined ‘speed of relevance’.

If such factors were applied to the broader NATO CIMIC community, greater success might be delivered in the future. In many ways, the intellectual brigading of CIMIC under SOF auspices would enable a disproportionate benefit to any military campaign. It might actually be a more realistic approach for the future challenges.

What does good look like?

Against all expectations the current era – and the predicted future one – state security continues to trump considerations for human security. Many governments across the Alliance are well aware of the risks and challenges of the future, and of the importance of CIMIC. There are varying degrees of national resilience and preparedness for these challenges between member states, yet across the NATO CIMIC community, the entire venture is under-resourced, poorly understood, lacks senior advocates, and has often become an afterthought in military operations. It is not well positioned for the future, nor is there evidence that either NATO organisation (ACT or ACO) has a clear vision about what it wants in the future from this facet of military capability.

Accepting the above, one might wonder what good enough might look like for CIMIC in the future? There is a revealing Finnish view: an understanding of CIMIC by everyone in the military (from the commander to the corporal), enabling an empowered, enlarged, resourced, and supported CIMIC staff to do the detail alongside civil partners, but not hamstrung by military process.

[1] Statement made by contributor during the conference.

[2] NATO ACT Strategic Foresight Analysis, 2023. https://www.act.nato.int/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/SFA2023_rev2.pdf accessed 10 October 2024.

[3] The conference was not in agreement about whether commanders understood these factors, the latent power, and possibility offered by CIMIC activities. There is certainly an absence of public comments by military personnel about CIMIC matters outside of Scandinavian and Baltic states.

[4] Technological determinism is well understood and researched. See, Colin S. Gray, Weapons Don’t Make War: Policy, Strategy and Military Technology (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993), and Robert A. Johnson, “Predicting Future War,” Parameters 44, No. 1 (2014).

[5] AJP-3.4.3 October 2015.

[6] The ICRC, for example, are required to maintain relations with all states, no matter their political leaning, in order to retain access. That access will be even more essential in periods of conflict (and will benefit the military, for example in access to POWs, and lists of KIA in occupied territory).

[7] Coupling is the idea of providing linkage between warfare activities that are needed for to meet the task and/or mission. Instead of simply connecting everything because it’s possible, the Corps doctrine advocates for an approach that provides the means for synch on a case-by-case basis. See USMC MCDP5.