MODULE: SECURITY STRATEGIES
By Koenraad van Brabant; Overseas Development Institute, Portland House, Stag Place, London SW1E 5DP, UK; +44-171-393-1674; fax: +44-171-393-1699; e-mail: k.brabant@odi.org.uk
GOAL: To provide the participants with an analytical framework about security strategies.
OBJECTIVES: This module will enable participants to
•	identify some direct and indirect factors that contribute to growing insecurity for aid agencies;
•	discuss the use of protective devices and procedures in the context of a broader framework on security strategies;
•	critically appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of their current approach to security management;
•	open a discussion within their agency on preferred security strategies;
•	more consciously manage a mix of security strategies;
•	more consciously relate their mix of security strategies to threat and risk assessment; and
•	identify some of the requirements in terms of the guidelines and competencies that each security strategy entails.

KEY LEARNING POINTS
a.	Increased insecurity results from changes in the operating environment and from lack of professionalism in security management.
b.	Hardening yourself as a potential target, with protective procedures and devices, is the most common security strategy.
c.	Protection is only one security strategy among others. The two others are acceptance and deterrence.
d.	Protection seeks to influence risk. Acceptance and deterrence seek to influence the threat.
e.	Many agencies have a groundless preference for one or other strategy. Security management means finding the most judicious mix of strategies for any given or changing context.
f.	The choice of security strategy, therefore, should be based on threat and risk assessments.
g.	Threatening the suspension or withdrawal of aid as a security strategy is only effective under certain conditions and when that threat is credible.
h.	Each security strategy requires specific guidelines from the organization and specific skills from staff.

SECURITY STRATEGIES
A. Vulnerability to violence
Although accurate statistics and analysis are not currently available, the overall impression is that an increasing number of aid personnel are killed or injured by acts of violence. In recent years, there have also been a number of cases in which aid personnel were deliberately targeted with violence.
Among the factors that may be seen as contributing to the risk of becoming injured or killed in acts of violence are
•	increased exposure to violence as more agencies work closer to the center of conflict;
•	a rise in criminality and banditry with the spread of small arms, a breakdown of law and order and limited economic opportunities;
•	the conscious manipulation of humanitarian needs and the presence and resources of humanitarian agencies as part of political and military strategies;
•	the incorporation of aid agency resources in the political economy of violent groups;
•	the loss of the perception that aid agencies are neutral, impartial and nonpolitical;
•	the perception that aid agencies are a "wealthy target"; and
•	the perception that aid agencies are a "soft target."

Aggravating this vulnerability to acts of violence are
•	the impunity with which perpetrators of violence can act;
•	the immediate and global feedback loop from "real time" reporting and satellite television from which violent groups know what an aid agency (or journalist) has just said about them;
•	aid agencies' resistance to taking security incidents seriously and treating them as a management problem;
•	the belief that risk is random and cannot be dealt with in a more professional and systematic way;
•	the lack of competency among operational aid personnel and aid agency management regarding risk management; and
•	the comparatively weak discipline of personnel in aid agencies.

Contributing to the ad hoc nature of agency managers' responses to the threat or occurrence of acts of violence are underdeveloped or poorly communicated/understood policy guidelines on issues that directly or indirectly relate to risk management. Insufficiencies may exist in
•	the articulation of the moral and operational principles of humanitarian agencies;
•	the operational guidelines, within multi-mandate agencies, on how to deal with the practical dilemmas of providing humanitarian assistance, offering protection, denouncing human rights violations, commenting on the causes and the conduct of war and engaging in conflict mediation;
•	the understanding of the nature and status of the agency emblem and the rules for its use;
•	the policy regarding the exchange of information and collaborative action with other agencies about risk management and security;
•	the extent of an agency's responsibilities regarding the safety and security of its international and national staff;
•	the focus and extent of authority to impose discipline regarding standard operating procedures;
•	the basic guidelines regarding the use of armed guards, or how to deal with acts of kidnapping; and
•	the re-deployment of personnel from one conflict zone to another conflict area.

B. Reducing vulnerability: hardening the target.
Currently, the most common response to perceived risk and threats is to try and "harden the target" by defensively reducing the vulnerability of the aid agency.
This is done through protective procedures and devices.
•	Protective devices include higher compound walls, bomb shelters, sandbagged windows and helmets or flak jackets, as well as the prominent display of the agency emblem. Radio communications are seen as an indirect protective device, in the sense that they allow contact and possibly a call for help in a time of danger.
•	Protective procedures include the observance of no-go zones and times (curfew), identity checks and bag and body searches of visitors, announcing or seeking clearance for movements in advance, avoiding routine movements and cash transports, ruling that no firearms are allowed in agency vehicles and compounds, driving in convoy and evacuation.

Hardening the target may be a necessary, but not sufficient, security strategy. It reflects a reactive and besieged mentality. It does not ask the question why the aid agency has become so "besieged" and whether the threat could be removed. It also hampers operational activities to the point that questions may have to be asked about the cost-effectiveness and impact of maintaining a presence in a dangerous area.
C. An analytical framework for security strategies
Graph 1 is a simple analytical tool that assists understanding of systematic, contextual combinations of security approaches.

The principle underlying this framework is simple. Analytically speaking, there are three major ways to reduce risks:
•	Reduce or remove the threat by gaining widespread acceptance for one's presence and work (ACCEPTANCE).
•	Reduce the risk, but not the threat, by making oneself less vulnerable with protective procedures and protective devices (PROTECTION).
•	Reduce the risk by containing and deterring the threat with a counterthreat. These may consist of legal, economic or political sanctions and/or armed action (DETERRENCE).
These constitute a range from "soft" to "tough" approaches.
The following approaches are not identical:
•	Removing or reducing a threat is a pro-active approach, while hardening yourself as a potential target or deterring threats are essentially reactive approaches.
•	Hardening yourself as a potential target reduces the risk, but does not affect the threat; gaining acceptance is a way of "softening" the threat, deterrence is a way of "containing" the threat.

The approaches outlined here are not exclusive. In practice, use a mix of these in a given context, or emphasize one more than other in different operational areas of a country. 
•	The choice to deter a threat is usually combined with protective measures to harden the target.
•	The attempt to gain acceptance and consent may have to be combined with protective measures where crime and banditry remain a real threat that the authorities and the population themselves do not, in general, control.
•	Measures to deter a threat may be combined with approaches to seek broader acceptance and consent for an agency’s presence and role, in an attempt to gain wider and popular support against those who threaten the agency with violence.

In the face of threat, retrenchment is, therefore, not automatically the only option. You may decide to suspend your work temporarily, to withdraw all but essential staff or to close a program and its support offices altogether. But you may also decide to reinforce your presence and to accelerate or reorient your program, in order to strengthen your capacity to gain acceptance and consent.
In the face of certain threats, more often after security incidents, agencies often tend to "threaten" the suspension and/or withdrawal of their aid programs. Although this is an attempt to deter threats with a "counter-threat," as a strategy it essentially plays on acceptance. It highlights the limits of the conditions that the aid agency finds acceptable to work in, and seeks to mobilize those in the surrounding environment whose acceptance it has obtained to constrain those that are threatening. As a security strategy, it only works under certain conditions:
•	There has to be a sufficiently influential section of the population and/or local authorities that, for reasons of self-interest or more general acceptance, can be mobilized on your behalf.
•	There has to be clear communications to establish the causal relationship between the threat or incident and the decision to suspend.
•	There has to be a common front so that agencies do not undercut each other's tactic of suspension.
•	There has to be the preparedness to maintain the suspension indefinitely, and not override it with internal agency pressures to resume activities and spending.
•	The conditions under which activities can resume have to be spelled out clearly (even if vagueness offers more room for face-saving over a policy-change even when no external improvements have taken place).
As security strategy, suspension and withdrawal depend very much on credibility. Counter-threats only have a deterring effect if they are perceived as credible. Diminished credibility quickly leads to diminished effectiveness.
E. The relevance of the analytical framework
It is possible to observe these approaches at different levels:
•	In international relations. For example, the US in recent decades has tended to preserve its national security through deterrence; Norway, by joining NATO, has adopted a strategy of protection; Sweden and Switzerland by contrast, have maintained stricter "neutrality," in a strategy seeking widespread acceptance.
•	At an individual level. Insecure individuals confronted with a group may adopt a strategy of bullying (deterrence), may try to avoid the group and escape notice (protection) or may try to get accepted by the group. This is referred to in the module on "Increasing Capacity for Crisis Management and NGO Security."
•	Many individuals tend to have a "natural" preference for one approach over another. With a bit of caricature, we could say that in the aid world, different agencies also tend to have a "preferred style" that comes most easily to them. The preferred strategy of the ICRC and a number of NGOs is to seek acceptance; that of the UN and a number of other NGOs to reduce their vulnerability (PROTECTION) and that of the military to seek deterrence.

Security problems arise when preferred security strategies fail to match the threats in the environment. Although Sweden and Switzerland successfully managed to stay out of the great wars this century, Belgium, which had adopted a similar policy of "neutrality" at its creation in 1830, misread the importance of its strategic position in western Europe and was attacked by Germany in 1914. Since then it has changed its strategy to one of protection under an alliance umbrella. The ICRC may have misread the strength of its acceptance strategy in the Caucasus—six of its staff were assassinated in December 1996. The landing of US troops on the beaches of Mogadishu in late 1992 revealed the security strategy to be one of "deterrence." There was no systematic effort to cultivate acceptance and, over time, the Somali population, who had initially welcomed the intervention, turned against it.
These examples illustrate not only that security strategies need to be matched to the threats in the environment, but also how difficult this is in practice. The practical difficulty underlines once again the need for continued close monitoring of the situational development and of one's perceived position in it (see the module “Situation Awareness and Analysis”).
Most NGOs are accustomed to feeling accepted. They have difficulty acknowledging that, in certain circumstances, they have to do more to gain and maintain that acceptance, otherwise withdrawal or armed protection may be inevitable. The growing difficulties, in the broadest sense, stem from two sources: there is more controversy and suspicion about the motivations and real objectives of aid agencies, which may make it harder to obtain "political" and "social" consent, and, increasingly, risk and threats come from criminality, where acceptance and consent do not really apply.

Real life dilemmas.
Your agency has a policy that no arms can be carried in its vehicles, but it is late afternoon and you are returning to your field base in your agency vehicle. You have to drive through a 20 km stretch of rocky and overgrown gorge. Vehicles occasionally do get ambushed here by armed criminals. There is an army post at either end of the dangerous stretch. You talk to the commanding officer at the post before the gorge. He offers to give you two armed soldiers that you can leave at the post at the other end, but he has no other vehicle. It is too late for you to return, and there is no place to stay at the post. Do you stick to the agency policy and proceed without armed guards or do you take them with you in the agency vehicle? Will you discipline agency staff for having broken the policy if they do so or for putting themselves at risk if they don't?
F. Guidelines and competencies
The following are some of the guidelines and competencies that are required for the different approaches.
1. Acceptance
You need to obtain and maintain the acceptance and consent of authorities and the population at large for your presence and your work. To that effect you will have to be able to articulate your understanding of the ethics and principles that inform humanitarian action (HUMANITARIAN PRINCIPLES), and you will have to develop the skills and competence to negotiate (HUMANITARIAN DIPLOMACY) the overall respect for your work and the safety of your property and personnel (HUMANITARIAN SPACE).
You will have to do this in a language that is understandable, with arguments that are convincing. The way you design and implement your programs and the way in which you react to events will have to be consistent, and perceived as such, with the principles you have earlier evoked.
To help you do this, staff will need to be clear on
•	the ethical and operational principles that constitute humanitarian action;
•	the mandate of your agency and its mission in a particular context;
•	policy guidelines and operating procedures to provide guidance in dealing with the practical dilemmas that arise in the real world;
•	the rules that govern the use of the emblem/logo;
•	protocol for public statements; and
•	the relevance of statements and behavior off-duty and outside working hours for your overall image.

You will also need the following particular competencies:
•	A developed general awareness of your position in the broader arena.
•	An understanding of socio-cultural differences.
•	Negotiation skills.
•	Communication skills.

Technical approaches to removing particular types of threats are disarming, mine clearance and the removal of unexploded ordnance. As most agencies do not typically engage in such programs, and should not do so without advanced expertise, they are not considered here.
2. Protection
If you use protective procedures and protective devices, you have to make certain that you can properly handle the devices and that the procedures are clear and properly understood by all concerned.
From the moment that an agency adopts a protection strategy, it will need additional budgetary resources. It will also need to be more explicitly attentive to stress management. This is because while, on the one hand, a strategy may increase the sense of personal security, it also imposes restrictions on the staff’s freedom of movement.
•	You will have to be clear on authority and discipline regarding the observance of security procedures.
•	You will need to be able to choose, install, maintain and use radio equipment.
•	You will need to be able to consider site selection from a security point of view.
•	You may need mine awareness and skill in how to extract yourself from a minefield.

3. Deterrence
There are basically two major options: either the agency develops its own deterring capacity or it requests others with that capacity, such as the police or UN troops, to deploy their capacity on the agency's behalf.
When considering deterrence, you will have to clarify your position and thinking on
•	the relationship between humanitarian action and force;
•	the use of armed protection; and
•	the extent of the agency's liability if harm comes from its use of force.

You will need competencies in
•	understanding how the military and the police function;
•	effectively liaising with the police and/or the military;
•	the basics of handling firearms; and
•	drawing up and communicating clear rules of engagement.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS
softening a threat	pro-actively reducing a threat by addressing the cause of the threat
hardening a target	protectively reducing the risk of harm from a threat, with protective devices and/or protective procedures
deterring a threat	containing a threat through the use of a credible counter-threat
humanitarian space	the relative freedom and security with which non-combatants and aid agencies can move and operate in a conflict-affected environment
humanitarian diplomacy	the negotiation by an aid agency for humanitarian space for non-combatants and aid agencies
At a level beyond that of the field, other deterring mechanisms available to political actors are political pressures (incentives and disincentives), economic incentives and disincentives (sanctions) and legal disincentives (prosecution). These are beyond the scope of this training course.
"Acceptance" is further developed in the modules "Acceptance and Reciprocity" and "Increasing Capacity for Crisis Management and NGO Security." The module "Armed Protection" elaborates on that subject. "Protection" is dealt with piecemeal in the modules on "Vehicle Safety," "Site Selection and Site Protection," "Telecommunications" and "Cash Management," Evacuation is covered under protection.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
De Courten, J. (1997) Towards a More Secure Environment. ICRC, Geneva
Dind, Ph. (1998) "Security and Humanitarian Space. The ICRC perspective." in Humanitares Volkerrecht 1:9-13, German Red Cross, Institute for International Humanitarian Law, Bochum
Dworken, J. (1998) Where there is no data. Patterns, trends and unanswered questions concerning relief worker security problems. CNA, Virginia
Van Brabant, K. (1998a) "Security and Humanitarian Space. Perspective of an aid agency." in Humanitares Volkerrecht 1:14-24, German Red Cross, Institute for International Humanitarian Law, Bochum
Van Brabant, K. (1998b) "Cool Ground for Aid Workers. Towards better security management in aid agencies." in Disasters 22(2)109-125, London