ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with civil-military cooperation during stability operations and reconstruction. It suggests that civil-military cooperation in the conditions is or at least ought to be different from those in situations of open conflict or situations of emergencies caused by natural disasters in peace time. Although very thorny in practice, civil-military relationships during open conflict are also more or less clear while civilians work according to a humanitarian rationale and assistance from military in the humanitarian operations are regulated by the Military and Civil Defence Unit (MCDU) guidelines from 2003. The chapter elaborates on the rationale of reconstruction and the disconnection to most empirical situations and explores what this means for the possibilities of standardizing civil-military relationships in reconstruction processes. A simple general guideline for civil-military cooperation in reconstruction is needed, that can act as the basis for localized, negotiated and smart standards that allow actors the flexibility required in the fluidity of reconstruction.
