Quote Originally Posted by LawVol View Post
From what I'm seeing the military doesn't seem to want to put much resources into this aspect of small wars. Of course to do this, we'd need a new approach that values non-lethal power as much as lethal power and that just isn't as sexy as putting rounds down range.

If you can point me to any good website discussing approaches to distributing humanitarian aid (from food to schools to health care, etc.) especially those looking at military involvement, I'd certainly appreciate it.
-john
I don't think the military would need to value non-lethal power as much as lethal power - just value it more, as a contiguous part of overall military operations. Additionally, I think it would help if DOD accepted that the NGOs are never going to act the way that DOD seems to think they should/will. Accept the reality of the environment, and adapt accordingly (kind of like they should have done earlier in Iraq, at least at the senior levels).

There are a variety of good sources of relief and development thinking out there. You can check out the SPHERE standards (http://www.sphereproject.org/), they've been around for a while. InterAction (www.interaction.org) publishes its Monday Developments, which is both industry news/opportunities and more in-depth writing on program delivery and outcomes. There's also the European version of InterAction, the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (http://www.icva.ch/). I have found the Humanitarian Practice Network (http://www.odihpn.org/) to often contain a lot of useful information and articles - a lot of folks in our community seek to publish there. There are also many sector- or cluster-specific publications. The Humanitarian Mine Action (demining) community has the Journal of Mine Action published by James Madison University's Mine Action Information Center. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) regularly publishes results of public health surveys and other efforts from various crises. There's a periodical called Disasters out there, that we've even published in, but I can't find the link to it. Some of my guys feel its a pretty good publication.

Cheers,