For many Task Force missions, sustainability will also require an effort at complementarity. In other instances, repeated follow-up by the Task Force may foster durable success. This could include regular visits to past project sites. Although this may limit the total number of missions, it will improve the quality of those undertaken. Incorporating measures that ensure future sustainability should also create lasting, rather than ephemeral, good will toward the United States.

Comparative advantage. The military ought to choose projects in which it has a comparative advantage such as natural disaster relief, logistics, and operating in insecure environments. For example, the CJTF-HOA offered invaluable emergency assistance during floods that struck the region in August 2006. Seabees from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 5 aided the Ethiopian National Defense Force in building tent shelters for the displaced. NGOs, such as CARE and the International Rescue Committee, coordinated with the government and military to provide water treatment, medical care, food and other supplies. The Air Force delivered humanitarian assistance to Ethiopian flood victims and the crew of a C-130 Hercules aircraft moved nearly 100 tons of supplies into Gode, Ethiopia over a four-day period. The Task Force’s comparative advantage in airlift and logistics ensured a more timely delivery of assistance and allowed the Americans to cooperate with local government forces. The smooth operation of the flood relief project also demonstrated that during natural disasters, NGOs often welcome assistance and work cooperatively with military forces.

Relative neutrality. Many NGOs criticize military provision of humanitarian assistance because of its inherent lack of neutrality. Unlike humanitarian organizations, missions such as the CJTF-HOA do not engage in aid projects with the goal of maintaining neutrality. In fact, the opposite is usually true – the projects are explicitly designed to further political and military goals. Despite its critique of the military, even the NGO community is divided over whether neutrality should be valued as an end in itself, or whether it is useful merely as a means to provide aid successfully and safely. An examination of the goals and actions of the Task Force suggests that non-neutrality does not necessarily doom such military undertakings.

From a military perspective, the success of hearts and minds operations, such as the CJTF-HOA, depends on favorable perceptions by the targets of the assistance missions. These require the appearance of relative neutrality. That is to say, Task Force members should seem to focus more on humanitarian activity than counterterrorism intelligence gathering. Local residents should feel that the benefits of the American presence outweigh the potential negative aspects. Unfortunately for the hearts and minds operations in the Horn, the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in late 2006 made public the presence of US Special Operations forces in the region. The covert activity of Special Operations forces in close proximity to the CJTF-HOA will reinforce local suspicions that the Task Force harbors ulterior motives. The difficulty of separating militarized charity from more traditional counterterrorism activity is likely to significantly reduce the effectiveness of the CJTF-HOA. In light of US military cooperation with Ethiopia, it is probably too late to recreate a sense of relative neutrality for the CJTF-HOA. Its actions, however seemingly benign, are now likely to be met with suspicion and hostility.

The community of humanitarian organizations has spent many years learning from its mistakes and developing guidelines for aid practitioners. These lessons have been hard-won, often as a result of a tragic misuse of aid or the unforeseen negative results of humanitarian programs. In particular, the numerous killings of aid workers in Afghanistan by anti-government forces have revealed that neutrality is not always possible, even for aid organizations, and that sometimes the perception of neutrality matters more than the reality. It is unclear whether the military has drawn on this substantial experience in crafting its own programs. Despite the many differences in culture, goals, and organization between military and humanitarian agencies, the lessons of the “do no harm” ethic may prove valuable to the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa.