5 tips to negotiate with arms carriers

As a humanitarian working in conflict zones, your ability to negotiate with arms carriers is crucial.

Navigating these complex environments, establishing trust, and ensuring safe passage are vital to the success of humanitarian operations, including aid distribution and reaching affected populations.

However, these negotiations are often challenging given the complexity of contexts, potential risks, and conflicting interests and motives of the parties involved.

Whether you’re dealing with state military forces, non-state armed groups, or local militias, the presence of weapons can heighten tensions between humanitarian actors and those controlling access to vulnerable populations.

At the Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation (CCHN), we have gathered insights from experienced negotiators and distilled them into practical strategies.

Here are five tips to help you negotiate and engage effectively with arms carriers.

1. Conduct thorough assessments

Before, during, and after any engagement with arms carriers, it’s essential to conduct a comprehensive assessment.

Focus on understanding your counterpart’s:

Motivation and ideology
Influences
Command and discipline structure
Support relationships
Relationship with the population

Use these factors as a foundation for planning, conducting, and reviewing your negotiation strategy.

While such assessments might based on assumptions some cases, make sure to test, validate, and confirm them using facts and search.

2. Understand the arms carrier’s organisational structure

Identify the type of organisation you’re dealing with to better gauge power dynamics and sources of influence.

This understanding helps you tailor your approach effectively.

Arms carriers typically fall into four categories:

Each structure presents unique challenges and opportunities. By understanding the organisational structure, you can better anticipate decision-making processes, chains of command, and points of influence, allowing for a more tailored negotiation strategy.

3. Prepare meticulously

Military counterparts often make decisions using the OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, act).

Familiarising yourself with this process can help you adapt your negotiation strategy effectively:

Observe (prepare): Gather all relevant information.
Orient (research): Conduct a thorough actor mapping.
Decide (rehearse): Practice your approach, including with interpreters if needed.
Act (conduct): Execute your strategy.

Showing that you understand these details can influence your counterpart and build rapport, leading to better negotiation outcomes.

4. Leverage emotions strategically

Emotions play a significant role in negotiations. Understanding and leveraging them can greatly impact the outcome of your interactions.

Negotiating with arms carriers can be intimidating, and fear can cause cognitive freezing, making it difficult to be open to new ideas.

As a negotiator, it’s important to manage emotions effectively:

Recognise how different emotions affect behaviour.
Understand how to regulate and leverage emotions during negotiations.
Use positive emotions like empathy and hope to foster cooperation and encourage concessions.
Be cautious with emotions like pride, which can lead to increased aggression.

If you encounter apparent indifference, don’t assume it’s a neutral stance. True indifference would mean the counterpart wouldn’t engage at all and, therefore, would not even show up to a negotiation. Instead, ask yourself what the counterpart truly wants and cares about.

By managing emotions strategically, you can create a more conducive environment for successful negotiations.

5. Look beyond titles and labels

While it’s important to research your interlocutor’s rank and background, don’t get too focused on labels like “armed groups.”

Instead, focus on understanding the individual and their motivations, regardless of their specific designation.

Remember…

Negotiating with arms carriers requires a nuanced approach and a deep understanding of the dynamics at play.

By conducting thorough assessments, understanding organisational structures, preparing meticulously, leveraging emotions strategically, and looking beyond titles, you can improve your chances of successful engagements and foster more effective dialogues.

These strategies not only enhance the likelihood of securing safe access for aid distribution and other humanitarian operations but also help build trust and cooperation in complex environments.

In a world where humanitarian needs often intersect with armed conflict, your ability to negotiate with arms carriers is essential for achieving meaningful outcomes.

Good luck!

* The International Committee of the Red Cross defines arms carriers as:

– military and armed forces, paramilitaries and mercenaries under the control or command of one or more States and whose primary function is combat, including those acting under an international mandate;

– police and security forces, whose primary function is law enforcement, including those acting under an international mandate;

– armed groups, paramilitaries and mercenaries not under the control or command of one or more States (non-State armed groups), such as armed opposition groups/insurgents, pro-government groups, territorial gangs, communal groups, criminal groups and private military and security companies contracted by States (as long as they carry weapons), as well as any other organized group carrying weapons that may be used in an armed confrontation.

Source: Background report: National societies preparing for and responding to armed conflict and other situations of violence (consulted: 23 August 2024)