Coping with Diversity: Military and Civilian Actors in MOOTW

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Notes

1. For sample characteristics see Appendix 1.

2. Vladimir Rukavishnikov, Stress Factors, Stress Management and Job Satisfaction in MOOTW, in G. Caforio (ed.), The Flexible Officer, Latina, 2002, pp. 107–127.

3. Notwithstanding the fact that the discriminatory power of the country variable is rather good (squared ki value 40,224 with a significance of ,000), it seems highly improbable that the simple nationality could be the reason for this distribution. A possible explanation could be the mission mix, since Russian and Southafrican officers have been deployed mainly (or in large majorities) in constabulary type operations, which often means dealing with public order problems, and in humanitarian missions. On the other side, officers from Italy, France and Bulgaria have experienced mainly, if not only, Peace Support Operations, where contacts with civilians, though existing, can be of a different nature and they do not necessarily include reciprocal conflictual positions. This explanation does not fit for Sweden and Hungary, where the high intensity of difficulties claimed comes from officers mainly deployed in PSO as well, and the same could be said for Poland and the USA. As we shall see further on, for these last cases Lenght of Deployment and Variety of Mission Experience could be a better explanation.

4. Of course the recurrency of these actors is highly dependent on the type of mission performed and the place of deployment, and this topic is linked to what has been said before about the distribution of difficulties according to country.

5. For this part see Marina Nuciari, Officers Education for MOOTW. A Comparative Research on Military and Civilian Agencies Problematic Relationships, in G. Caforio (ed.), The Flexible Officer, cited, pp. 61-88.

6. See, just for a highly incomplete reference, the great number of works by Segal et al., since the early 1980s up to the present, but also Moskos’ reflections on the constabulary ethic in 1975 and his research on ‘Peace Soldiers’ in 1976; the research on Operation Restore Hope in Somalia by Laura Miller and Moskos in 1995; see also T. Ammendola et al., 1999, on the Italian mission in Bosnia.

7. Marina Nuciari, Officers Education for MOOTW. A Comparative Research on Military and Civilian Agencies Problematic Relationships, in G. Caforio (ed.), The Flexible Officer, cited, p. 64.

8. Note: in the three-types typology, warriors are those selecting four or five items from the ‘warrior list’ and ‘NO’ in the last cell; peacekeepers are those selecting four or five items from the ‘peacekeeper list’ and ‘YES’ in the last cell. The third type, ‘Flexible’, is formed by those selecting three items in the one and two items in the other list (and the opposite) and Yes or No in the last cell.

9. We refer here to the large body of organisational literature on the subject of knowledge management, which can be epithomised by the work of Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995.

10. As noted by many observers, and by Moskos in particular, ‘… it is customary to view NGOs and the military as somehow at odds one another in terms of staff recruitment and organisational styles … The rigidly hierarchical approach to decision making that is the hallmark of the military may not be possible or desirable in humanitarian crises where their help is needed. This contrast is sharpened by the strong national loyalty of military personnel as opposed to the more typical international orientation of NGO staff. And, of course, military efforts may be at odds with NGO objectives and vice versa’ (Moskos, 2000, p. 33; cf. also Benthall, 1994; Minear, Larry & Weiss, 1995).

11. The rather low values of significance for squared X nonetheless induces some caution in regarding this result as totally satisfying.