Deployments to non-combat environments to provide humanitarian assistance or disaster relief (HADR) are occurring more frequently for uniformed personnel in all the armed services.
The occurrence of natural disasters; cyclones, hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis, earthquakes and floods, coupled with the crisis of internally displaced persons and refugees fleeing war, persecution, disease, and famine, make humanitarian assistance and disaster relief deployments increasingly common.
Recent examples include the U.S. responses to Ebola in West Africa (Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Nigeria) and Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda in the Philippines. Natural disasters and humanitarian crises can be exacerbated by instability and conflict in fragile nations.
Inequalities of governance, demographics, energy, water, religion, corruption, disease, education, gender, and economics can add to the irreducible complexities of a natural or human catastrophe. Some foreign policy analysts attribute the current crisis in northeast Nigeria to poor governance, increasing poverty in some states, and intermittent drought that creates food insecurity.
The complex challenges of conducting a humanitarian assistance mission can be just as traumatic and life-threatening as going to combat. The 2010 earthquake in Haiti affected three million Haitians — an estimated 200,000 citizens were killed and 85,432 people are still considered homeless. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines left 6,300 people dead and 1,061 missing, and caused an estimated $2.86 billion in damages.
Most recently, President Obama designated a force of up to 4,000 U.S Army and National Guard personnel to deploy to West Africa in response to the Ebola crisis. Our uniformed personnel must meet these challenges with adaptive tactical and strategic planning, decision making skills and cross-cultural expertise.
Once the United States military is granted permission to enter a sovereign nation, the logistical, bureaucratic and cultural challenges must be faced. Some host nations do not have the infrastructure to support humanitarian aid/disaster relief; roads, telecommunications, electricity, health systems, water and irrigation systems.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reported there were approximately 164 medical doctors for 6 million Sierra Leone citizens before the Ebola outbreak; .022 per 1,000 citizens. Sadly, 8.2 percent of those doctors died after contracting Ebola from patients within 10 months of the outbreak.
Civil and military authorities providing relief often have different institutional cultures, leadership hierarchies, standard operating procedures and planning processes.
Non-government organizations (NGOs) can frustrate military partners because NGOs may not have the power to authorize a course of action. Militaries can be too aggressive for NGOs and might not demonstrate the desired cultural and social sensitivity to host nationals or civilian NGO representatives. Some uniformed personnel question humanitarian operations because they can require stabilizing a region or country that has deep-seeded problems; the military does not specialize in nation building.
Understanding the culture of the organizations you are partnering with is a critical first step to success. Host nation militaries, government ministries, and local manpower might hinder operations if you don’t have familiarity with how they function. Local nationals, who already have a unique social system, are now traumatized from whatever crisis destroyed their world; and they desperately want it back.
The entire family can, and should, prepare for challenging and dangerous non-combat missions by researching the area of operations just like you would any other deployment. Information about most countries is readily available on the internet.
The CIA Handbook, Department of State website, United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR, www.unhcr.org) United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (www.unocha.org) and Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders, www.msf.org), and the World Food Programme (www.wfp.org) are a few of the leading non-government organizations (NGOs) that the entire family can learn about using the internet.
Knowledge reduces uncertainties. Your individual and unit empathy, professionalism and situational awareness can lead to great partnerships and successes.
And reviewing information on the above and other websites about where you are going can help reduce fear and uncertainty and can help prepare your entire family for your upcoming deployment.