Strategy is Not Complete Without You

I travelled in unmarked vehicles, always seated in the back behind darkened windows, with a hired driver and another man in the front seats.  I didn’t ask if they were armed and they didn’t tell me to put on a seatbelt.  We drove in very fast cars over long stretches past donkeys in empty fields along the highway paused in a mid-day trance.  

It was a curious time to be in Iraq.  It was just over a month since President Bush had declared the end of major combat operations from aboard an aircraft carrier off the coast of San Diego. It was after the Iraq Museum had been plundered for 36 hours by thieves and before Saddam Hussein was discovered hiding in a hole in Tikrit. There were palpable tensions as Shia, Sunni, Kurd, Christian, and other minorities adjusted their routines for the long fuel lines and checkpoints. There was also an unmistakable undercurrent of energy and before any hint of insurgency because no one knew what to expect. 

In the mornings before the heat forced everyone to slow down, Baghdad bustled with chaotic energy.  Thin policemen in ill-fitting uniforms stood in the middle of intersections, attempting to direct the traffic converging from all sides at once.  Across the city, every one of Sadaam Hussein’s portraits had been defaced, yet, a left or right eye could still be seen staring back at you.

In this window, you could travel “safely” from Erbil to Basra so long as you understood the first principle of safe travel for an unarmed aid worker:  Speed was your best defense against criminals (or former army or police who had dropped their uniforms but by no means their weapons or their knowledge).  

On one trip from Erbil to Baghdad, I crawled into the backseat on the passenger side and discovered the second principle of safe travel for the unarmed. My fellow aid worker leaned in to say goodbye. When he saw where I was seated, he pointed across the car. 

"Sit behind the driver. So he can sacrifice the right."  

 ~~

Welcome to a time and place where how you travel may be used as the frontline of your personal defense. Here are some of the key lessons planning for the tactic of a Vehicle Ramming Attack (VRA).

A hostile vehicle mitigation strategy starts with the decision that you’re going forward and you’re not stopping. 

Your life and this decision rest entirely with the hands, heart, and mindset of the driver.  You need the driver to have the skills and guts to know how to use the vehicle as a defensive weapon. Second, you need the driver to have the will to execute the manoeuvre. Third, the driver’s instinct for self-preservation must not be compromised. Hence, sit behind the driver, so he can sacrifice the right. 

A hostile vehicle mitigation strategy is not complete without you. 

When the odds are against your ability to defend yourself, your personal security is foremost in your hands. You need situational awareness to know the risks you are taking and the ability to identify a driver that has the requisite guts and skills you may need him to perform. 

Second, in every encounter you must never lose sight that there’s a price on your head. Operating unarmed heightens the importance of relationships. What are the steps you need to take so that the driver wants you alive more than the price point where he can be bought? (In a previous post, I wrote about how, operating as a foreigner who needed local cooperation, the burden of proof was on me to prove my trustworthiness.)

Thirdly, when you are a foreign outsider, don’t assume your knowledge and expertise is going to get you through every situation. There will be situations where you need to get behind and rely on others. 

As a leader or team player, it just takes a bit of creativity to see how these same lessons apply (albeit hopefully with less deadly consequences) in a business setting. A good leader knows the importance of asking yourself and your team:

1. Do we agree on the threat and our respective roles?

2. Each of us is expendable. Am I letting position or expertise make me a single point of failure? Am I letting a new hire take ownership of their role? 

3. Do we agree that success depends on both/all of us working together? 

To most, this will read as common sense and it is. The challenge for most teams is taking the time to check in and make sure we are fully committed. 

At this stage, we can all fall into the trap of outwardly agreeing to something: “Yes I’ve understood the case being made.” But that’s passive commitment. Actually, it’s careless commitment. 

If you’re not fully committed, your decisions will start to unravel.  That’s a dangerous game to play given the importance of the work you are doing and decisions you need to make. So what we are looking for is, “Yes, I am in. I understand the decision we’ve made and I’ll do everything I can to make that happen.” 

To illustrate this point, I turn to one of the greats of Scottish mountaineering and a personal hero, William H. Murray: 

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans. That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.

These weren’t just beautiful words for Murray. During the Second World War, he deployed with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders to fight in the North African campaigns. Murray was captured and held in prisoner-of-war camps in Italy and Germany. In captivity, Murray stayed connected to the mountains by writing about them. He wrote on toilet paper but his first ‘manuscript’ was discovered and destroyed by his captors. His response? To start over and write what was to become Mountaineering in Scotland, published in 1947.  

Threat mitigation on the frontline you face is not one-size-fits-all. It must be tailored to the specific physical constraints and functional demands of a given location and situation. If you would like a fresh pair of eyes and ears to help with situational awareness, get in touch. We’re here to help.