How can civilian and military practitioners work most effectively in shared, complex environments? This course will improve your understanding of and explore opportunities for overcoming the obstacles to effective civ-mil working relationships while strengthening your analytical communication and leadership skills to operate effectively in dynamic, fluid environments.

Course Background

Many courses exist that include aspects of civilian-military relations in complex environments, but most are designed for personnel in a specific organization and are focused primarily on bilateral, technical issues of interaction. While important, this limited scope is insufficient to improve external assistance to fragile and conflict affected states. This course will explore actions to maximize opportunities and reduce obstacles to improved relations, while providing practical skills to help practitioners translate better understanding and analysis into more effective engagement with multiple actors.

Purpose

The purpose of this course is to meet this challenge by working with practitioners to develop knowledge and skills to actively apply the core lessons from past experience and to develop practical ways to avoid repeating past mistakes.

Structure

The course is organized around four themes essential to improving effectiveness of multiple actors sharing complex and uncertain environments. They are: Operational Environment, Actors, Communication, and Leadership.

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

Analyze and comprehensively assess the operational environment as a whole;
Explore opportunities and address challenges to improve understanding and working relations among multiple actors—host country, external national and international—in a complex shared space
Strengthen analytical communication and leadership skills to operate effectively with uncertainty and ambiguity in dynamic, fluid environments;
Identify and cultivate the qualitative skills that contribute to successful relations

Course Requirements

Participants should be mid-career practitioners in government, non-governmental or international organizations. Interagency, non-governmental and multi-organizational experience as well as experience in fragile and/or conflict affected states is preferred.

Please note that signing up here is an indication of interest only and does not guarantee a place in the pilot course. To finalize your application, please email your resume or CV to Kelly Mader at kmader@usip.org. You will then be contacted by USIP regarding your application.

It is the responsibility of the participant to arrange and pay for lodging and travel to and from the USIP headquarters in Washington, DC, as USIP is not responsible for these arrangements or costs. Please note that all courses are conducted in English and we are unable to provide any translation services.

Dealing Effectively with Uncertainty: Civ-Mil Relations in Shared Spaces