Humanitarian Aid Armed Conflicts and Syria

Abstract
War and armed conflicts often create humanitarian crises and strain diplomatic relationships between countries. Diplomatic relations are an important topic to discuss due to the rise in social upheaval throughout the globe. Humanitarian missions give the army a chance to win the hearts and minds of the populace of countries impacted by United States and its various armed conflicts. These missions may also allow less fortunate countries a chance to build up their infrastructure, reducing potential future problems during natural disaster, while allowing American military a chance to employ sound military strategy and logistical might.
Introduction
Armed conflicts bring out the worst in people and promote negative situations for all sides involved. Therefore, it is important for nations to engage in humanitarian efforts to improve strained diplomatic relationships. These efforts, journalists show through the war on terror and how foreign aid and humanitarian effort serve as key aspects in countering ideological support for terrorist organizations. For example, the current situation in Syria led to the deaths of many innocent civilians. What should the United States (U.S.) do to help people like those in Syria during a severe and ongoing humanitarian crisis? Can the processes performed during these efforts lead to improvement within the United States military regarding future humanitarian missions and assistance in natural disasters? The answer is yes. Through the application of foreign aid through humanitarian missions, the United States army improves diplomatic relations with other countries and assist in developing the country’s military regarding natural disasters and aftermaths of armed conflicts.
Countries like Syria exist in Asia, a continent filled with diversity and variety of landscapes, faiths, and religions. The United States plays an active role in the ‘War on Terror’, creating a negative atmosphere for parties involved. Natural disasters also play a part in how dire the need of impoverished countries becomes regarding foreign aid. Therefore, developed countries like the United States takes an active role in promoting solutions to existing situations.
Military personnel then use these situations as training scenarios where new recruits may learn how to behave in specific instances. Humanitarian missions solve the problem of improving diplomatic relations with countries the United States engages within in armed conflicts as well as provide training opportunities for military personnel for emergencies. Such a varied and positive action leads to a multi-aspect solution serving both present needs and potential future instances. My contribution pertains to the research applied in examining how the humanitarian missions contribute to positive outcomes and application of these scenarios for military training.
The problem
Many identify the need for humanitarian missions in the ever-evolving world of global conflict. In a report written by Vince Crawley, Crawley understands the need for change regarding terrorism. Like those who believed the government can alleviate the misery from communism through humanitarian aid and action, the same goes for terrorism.
"Recognizing that communism thrives upon misery and discontent, the Army has always been ready to help unfortunate people improve their way of living."
— General Maxwell D. Taylor, U.S. Army chief of staff, speech in Detroit, Michigan, May 8, 1956
Trade the word "terrorism" for "communism" in the above quote, and Maxwell Taylor’s words remain as true today as they were half a century ago (Crawley, 2007, p. 1).
Terrorist acts as seen in Asia, specifically, Syria, have brought untold suffering to millions of people. Those in power within the United States must take action to alleviate the suffering of those in war-torn countries like Syria. In doing so, the conflicts within these countries lessens and officials will be better able to maintain peace.
According to the report, terrorism exists as a continuous problem suggesting traditional ways of handling conflicts to be ineffective (Crawley, 2007). Furthermore, should the U.S. military provide foreign aid via humanitarian missions, such actions may solve the ongoing problem the U.S. has with other countries regarding armed conflicts, communication, and coordination for natural disasters. Communication and coordination among foreign powers proves difficult due to differences in cultures, languages, and lack of training within military personnel (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2018). The U.S. military continuing their pursuit of humanitarian missions, allows development from training and real-world scenarios, generating momentum needed for solutions for multiple problems. On one hand, military test out military strategies for effectiveness, on the other, they help an impoverished country affected by American armed conflicts.
My idea
When thinking of the possible ways to improve upon the idea of carrying out humanitarian missions, Margesson’s report details what to consider regarding humanitarian assistance. “Factors that may impact decision-making include the type of humanitarian assistance required, the impact of conflict and refugee flows on stability in the region in question, and the role of neighboring countries in contributing to the relief effort” (Margesson, 2015, p. 1). Syria needs foreign aid. They have experienced recent problems costing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people during the Syrian Civil War (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2018). Adding its proximity to countries like Iraq, Turkey, and Israel, and potential obstacles solidify in terms of providing humanitarian aid through missions. Taking into account natural disasters like earthquakes, the solution becomes complicated.
The U.S. military must research in which areas countries like Syria feel the most impact. For example, the disasters befallen the country have led to a reduction in agriculture and rural livelihoods. “In 2005, 26 percent of the population was employed in agriculture with 38 percent of the poor involved in farming. It is no surprise that suffered a massive loss throughout the conflict” (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2018, p. 108). What many consider a devastating armed conflict, morphed into an ongoing agricultural and livestock problem. Should the U.S. military intervene and assist through humanitarian missions, they must take into consideration the agriculture and livestock industry in Syria, especially because many of the poor of the country work in that sector.
Similar to evidence-based practice in healthcare, humanitarian missions should be well thought out and researched. Simply delivering aid to workers or civilians will not be enough to quell the suffering in these war torn areas. Syria reminds the world what can and should be done concerning humanitarian crises. Taking such knowledge like the impact to the Syrian agriculture and livestock industry may shed light on the most effective solution the U.S. military should implement in these kinds of areas.

The details
Aside from acknowledging the aspects of a country facing the greatest turmoil, the U.S. military must also understand the effects of armed conflicts and natural disasters on countries to determine proper strategies. For instance, one of the major consequences of disasters and armed conflicts is population displacement. “Population displacement is often a significant consequence in crises resulting from conflict. This may occur within the affected country or because people flee to countries in close proximity” (Margesson, 2015, p. 1). When population displacement occurs, the plight of the refugee or the internally displaced person (IDP) brings another complex layer to resolve. Simply giving food and water to an IDP only helps short-term. However, other methods to deal with psychological, economic damage help in the long term.
Because of the various scenarios existing within these complex issues, the definition the U.S. government gives to humanitarian assistance is a flexible one. “Congress broadly defines humanitarian activities in an effort to enable the U.S. response to be as flexible as possible to adapt to humanitarian needs. In practice, the provision of humanitarian assistance is typically case and time specific” (Margesson, 2015, p. 3). The U.S. military must maintain flexibility in mind when operating in humanitarian missions. If the goal is providing relief for people, thus improving diplomatic relation and improving the experience of American military personnel, flexibility should be implemented as part of any sound military strategy.
While armed conflicts often lead to displacement, so can natural disasters Syria has not experienced a major natural disaster in recent times, but other countries have. These natural disasters cost billions in damage and also lead to displacement.

Related work
Japan experienced a terrible earthquake in 2011 that resulted in thousands of lost lives and thousands of displaced people. “Three years after the catastrophe, 136,000 people from Fukushima prefecture are still displaced, and numerous disaster-related deaths have resulted from stress-related illnesses and suicide. Because of the nuclear meltdown, highly radioactive material continues to leak into the ocean” (Fukushima et al., 2015). The people affected by such a disaster is just one example of the increasing level of natural disasters occurring worldwide. Most recently, Typhoon Haiyan or as some named it, Yolanda, ripped through Samar and Leyte in the Philippines. The disaster caused 6,000 deaths (Fukushima et al., 2015). The Philippines has witnessed in 2009, Ketsana (Ondoy) another devastating typhoon and Bopha (Pablo) in 2012.
Such disasters prompted the United States military to intervene leading to discontent among the affected populations. “Disaster relief has also become part of the justification for increased US troop deployments in the Asia-Pacific region—even as the new military basing component of the “Pacific Pivot” has met with strong opposition in Okinawa, Japan and Jeju, South Korea” (Fukushima et al., 2015). Although the U.S. military may be stationed there to help in case of another natural disaster, not taking into consideration the feelings of the people affected leads to a decline in diplomatic relations. What seems like a positive move for the U.S. military, becomes a poor choice gauged from the negative reaction of the populace.
The United States needs to assess where the greatest need exists and see if their presence is wanted by the people they wish to help. In the case of Koreans and Japanese, they did not want American military bases set up. Considering so many people from the Fukushima disaster remain displaced or experienced death or illness from the aftermath, what positive effect does the military have in those areas?
Conclusions and further work
In conclusion, humanitarian missions provide the United States military a chance to aid foreign countries in dire need of assistance as well as promote better diplomatic relations following armed conflicts. The missions the military carry out turn into valuable learning scenarios for inexperienced personnel, serving as a multi-faceted solution to several problems. While continued effort must be made to improve foreign relations and help impoverished countries, humanitarian missions serve as a small step towards an overall positive outcome. When countries work together and learn to communicate effectively, such actions lead to better outcomes not just diplomatically, but related to natural disasters. Natural disasters are an ongoing problem that warrant further examination of possible solutions.
References
Crawley, V. (2007). Humanitarian missions as important as combat for U.S. military. U.S. Department of State.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2018). The impact of disasters and crises on agriculture and food security, 2017. Author.
Fukushima, A. I., Ginoza, A., Hase, M., Kirk, G., Lee, D., Shefler, T., & Foreign Policy in Focus. (2015, June 29). Disaster Militarism: Rethinking US relief in the Asia-Pacific. Retrieved from https://www.thenation.com/article/disaster-militarism-rethinking-us-relief-asia-pacific/
Margesson, R. (2015). International crises and disasters: U.S. humanitarian assistance response mechanisms (RL33769). Congressional Research Service.