Humanitarian Disaster Research Articles

Twenty-five years of the United Nations General Comment number 12 on the human right to adequate food – malnutrition continues to surge

The human right to adequate food is one of the most fundamental human rights crucial for the sustenance of the planet, and the prosperity of all people. It is firmly established in international human rights instruments and is clarified in the United Nations’ General Comment 12 (GC 12). However, deep vulnerabilities and deprivation of the right to adequate food in the form of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition have persisted in many parts of the world. The climate-induced disasters also continues to devastate many communities, thereby depriving them of their rights including adequate food. This commentary provides a broader perspective on the 25 years of the GC 12 to stimulate further debate and actions to entrench human rights, especially the right to adequate food, at the centre of the food systems transformation and overall sustainable development agenda. This year 2024, marks 25 years of the Global Compact 12 on the human right to adequate food. While it is an important opportunity to celebrate this great achievement of engraining this right into the wider sphere of global reference at the United Nations level, the domestication in countries into actions that concretely address the problem of hunger and malnutrition has been slow in many countries. The world is now faced with the grim realities of starving populations arising from unnecessary and unjust wars, and food continues to be used as a weapon of war against international law and human imagination. Worse still, in the current environment of climate change and its adverse effects on food systems, SDG2 (Zero hunger by 2030), seems unrealistic. Finally, it is no longer a question of providing carbohydrates, as the need to address quality, safety, nutrition and cultural acceptability is ever so pressing. Going forward, there is a need to accelerate advocacy efforts, research and policy formulation that fully operationalise GC 12 in country-level food systems and nutrition interventions. Realization of the right to adequate food benchmarks in GC 12 should certainly be the penultimate of such interventions as strategic food reserves, poverty and hunger reduction programmes, humanitarian disaster preparedness, contingency funding, social protection and child care among others.

ASEAN Regionalism in the Implementation of Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Management

Objective: This article analyzes how ASEAN countries utilize regional mechanisms in implementing humanitarian assistance and disaster management. Method: Using the qualitative method, this article shows that ASEAN regionalism in disaster management is quite effective. Secondary data is obtained through library research, utilizing various publications such as books, journals, documents, and the Internet. Results and conclusion: The research results show that ASEAN has made protecting society from natural disasters one of its goals since its formation. But the unequal capacities of ASEAN countries have driven different domestic levels of responses. ASEAN regional cooperation maximizes ASEAN’s capacity by unifying each country’s capabilities in ASEAN’s relations with the extra-regional powers. Even though it has the principle of non-intervention, the existence of the ASEAN Coordinating Centre on Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Center) has removed the obstacles for parties who wish to send out aid to disaster areas in ASEAN member states. Originality/value: ASEAN has produced various mechanisms for handling victims of natural disasters. In its development, the efforts to protect against natural disasters have become very important because they have become an aspect of non-traditional security. Therefore, what ASEAN faces is not only the natural disaster itself but also how to save its citizens from non-traditional security threats.

Conceptualising mass death through Palestinian texts amidst Gaza events 2023/24

ABSTRACT Following the Gaza events of 2023/24, this study examines how Palestinians understand mass death and mass destruction, exploring how can such a humanitarian catastrophe be framed within a coherent narrative. The focus is on the concept of sacrifice, analysed through a theoretical framework that distinguishes between meaningful sacrifices and absurd, meaningless deaths that categorises the victims as homo-sacer. Hence, this study aims to investigate the language and literature of the Palestinian people that regards to the 2023/24 Gaza events, and the way it re-conceptualises the mass death and destruction and its victims, between the concepts of sacrifice and homo-sacer. A sample of 120 literary and creative texts from the cultural magazine ‘Fusha for Palestinian Culture,’, 1 was examined using the methodology of thematic analysis. Four primary themes emerged from the texts: the active documentation, the speed and intensity of death and destruction, the form of death, namely handling of bodies and burial rituals, and lastly the implementation of myths from various traditions, including the duality of mythologising and demythologising Gaza and its inhabitants. I conclude that these four themes were elemental in the rhetoric process of sanctification of the mass and random death and destruction.

Stigmatisation as settler colonialism: designating humanitarian and civic society organisations in Palestine as security threats

ABSTRACT Since Hamas’s 7th October attacks on southern Israel, the Palestinian population living in the Gaza Strip has been subjected to an unprecedented level of destruction that has decimated every aspect of Palestinian life. The ongoing Israeli military invasion has been considered a ‘plausible case of genocide’, and the humanitarian catastrophe has been compounded by major restrictions on access to humanitarian aid. Accusations of supporting ‘terror’ have been levied against UNRWA, the major provider of humanitarian services in Gaza, leading to an initial suspension of donor support to the organisation by many western governments. In this article, we consider the Israeli government’s tactics used to delegitimise those involved in providing humanitarian and lifesaving support for the Palestinian population, concluding that the construction and dissemination of narratives that depict them as being ‘terroristic’ or having ‘terrorist’ connections is a sophisticated additional layer of the settler colonial logic of elimination and erasure.

The Impact of the Corona Pandemic on the Revenues and Expenditures of the Jordanian General Government and the Gross domestic Product

The research aimed to know The impact of the Corona pandemic on the revenues and expenditures of the Jordanian general government and the gross domestic product And reached the following results: The Corona Covid-19 pandemic is greater than being limited to a health crisis, it is a humanitarian disaster that led to changes and transformations that attacked the heart of societies and their economies, so it was imperative for countries to work on the continuity of economic activity and the preservation of the wheel of production in the country while limiting the spread of the disease. It led to a complete and total halt to any economic activity, which caused the cancellation of many capital expenditures scheduled in the context of strict measures, as the restrictions imposed on travel and trade resulted in a decrease in revenues and an increase in expenditures, and the Corona pandemic caused an increase in the deficit rate in the state's general budget, as a result of the large expenses incurred by the state, with a clear decrease in annual revenues, but the state was able in the years following the pandemic to reduce the deficit rate in the budget and cancel many capital expenditures and freeze the performance of some economic activities, which is considered a severe blow to the domestic product, considering that revenues and expenditures enable the state to play its role effectively, as the decrease in revenues and the increase in expenditures call for a review of the structure of government institutions and the duties assigned to them The services it provides, which calls for a mix of its services to ensure mitigation of the pandemic and any crisis that the country may be exposed to, which confirms the validity of the first hypothesis and in light of such crises, and practicing that pivotal role that links the actors in the economic sectors, which allows them to be stronger than before, which confirms the validity of the second hypothesis. They recommended the following: Establishing permanent centers for crisis and risk management at the state level and at the level of the various economic sectors, and activating coordination between them to deal with various crises and risks, and developing training programs for workers on how to deal with crises and how to deal with their effects, and appointing experts and specialists to monitor, analyze and prepare reports on the various crises that the various sectors are going through and building a comprehensive database to predict crises before they occur. 10- Strengthening relations between the various governmental, civil and economic sectors with the media institutions due to their importance in spreading awareness and participating in conferences and interviews that help spread knowledge, and the need to benefit from the experiences of other countries in how to overcome crises.

Distributed Ledger-Based Authentication and Authorization of IoT Devices in Federated Environments

One of the main security challenges when federating separate Internet of Things (IoT) administrative domains is effective Identity and Access Management, which is required to establish trust and secure communication between federated IoT devices. The primary goal of the work is to develop a “lightweight” protocol to enable authentication and authorization of IoT devices in federated environments and ensure the secure communication of IoT devices. We propose a novel Lightweight Authentication and Authorization Framework for Federated IoT (LAAFFI) which takes advantage of the unique fingerprint of IoT devices based on their configuration and additional hardware modules, such as Physical Unclonable Function, to provide flexible authentication and authorization based on Distributed Ledger technology. Moreover, LAAFFI supports IoT devices with limited computing resources and devices not equipped with secure storage space. We implemented a prototype of LAAFFI and evaluated its performance in the Hyperledger Fabric-based IoT framework. Three main metrics were evaluated: latency, throughput (number of operations or transactions per second), and network resource utilization rate (transmission overhead introduced by the LAAFFI protocol). The performance tests conducted confirmed the high efficiency and suitability of the protocol for federated IoT environments. Also, all LAAFFI components are scalable as confirmed by tests. We formally evaluated LAAFFI security using Verifpal as a formal verification tool. Based on the models developed for Verifpal, we validated their security properties, such as message secrecy, authenticity, and freshness. Our results show that the proposed solution can improve the security of federated IoT environments while providing zero-day interoperability and high scalability. Compared to existing solutions, LAAFFI is more efficient due to the use of symmetric cryptography and algorithms adapted for operations involving IoT devices. LAAFFI supports multiple authorization mechanisms, and since it also offers authentication and accountability, it meets the requirements of Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA). It uses Distributed Ledger (DL) and smart contracts to ensure that the request complies with the policies agreed between the organizations. LAAFFI offers authentication of devices belonging to a single organization and different organizations, with the assurance that the encryption key will be shared with another device only if the appropriate security policy is met. The proposed protocol is particularly useful for ensuring the security of federated IoT environments created ad hoc for special missions, e.g., operations conducted by NATO countries and disaster relief operations Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) involving military forces and civilian services, where immediate interoperability is required.

Richard Nicolas von Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan-Europe”: the relevance of a manifesto from a hundred years ago

This material evokes the main ideas of the „Pan-Europe” manifesto, launched in 1923 by Count Ruchard Nicolas von Coudenhove-Kalergi, in the context in which Europe was divided between Russian Bolshevism, Germany’s dissatisfaction with the Versailles order and new technologies which Western societies were beginning to enjoy. Through his project of pan-European unification, Kalergi aimed to protect from further humanitarian disasters. In order not to force integration processes, he spoke in favor of identifying an optimal relationship between national policies and integration policy at the European scale. Imagining the frontiers of Pan-Europe, his creed was: „Rather than a victorious war, some bad frontiers”. The Romanian Dniester, in Kalergi’s conception, fixed a hundred years ago the Eastern border of Pan-Europe as a space of freedom and democracy.

Defining performance and competency requirements for army responders to domestic flood response operations

Purpose The a priori identification and development of army personnel competencies are necessary to enable effective and efficient responses to rapidly changing climate conditions. Accordingly, this study aims to identify the performance requirements of a military flood responder and the competencies (knowledge, skills and abilities) required to perform it. Design/methodology/approach Using an abductive approach, the authors conducted both secondary and primary research to generate a validated framework of performance criteria and competencies for army personnel responding to floods. This literature review integrated both the peer-reviewed academic literature and public sector grey literature. Using the critical incident technique, the authors then conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 members of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) who had previously been tasked with flood response operations. Participants were asked about the tasks required while conducting flood response operations. Interview transcripts were then content analysed to identify themes regarding those tasks, and the competencies needed to perform those tasks were then extracted and contrasted with the literature review findings. Inter-rater reliability for the analysis was established via iterative discussion between the two co-authors. Findings The primary data reinforced and expanded the list of performance expectations that the authors deductively identified from the integrated literature review, adding granularity to each. It also identified competencies (including both hard and soft skills) and highlighted previously neglected contextual antecedents of military flood response effectiveness. Research limitations/implications though knowledge saturation was achieved from the 15 interviews conducted, further research with larger samples could more deeply ground the evidence discovered in this study. Nevertheless, the competencies identified in this paper could serve as a starting guide to staffing and/or training interventions targeted at improving these competencies for personnel responding to flood scenarios. Practical implications The theoretical findings also have immediate practical relevance to training for flood response operations. In particular, the subtle challenges in competency crossover from military operations to flood response operations may facilitate not only more efficient, targeted training (that could improve the effectiveness of army personnel involved in humanitarian roles), but could be applied to the selection of army personnel as well. This study may also help provincial/municipal operators and emergency planners by better communicating the strengths and limitations of army personnel in addressing civilian military cooperation for humanitarian operations. Thus, the findings of this research study represent an important first step in prompting attention to the strategic human resource planning studies required to make all responders more efficient and effective in their respective division of labour within the humanitarian domain. Social implications Peering a little beyond these research findings, human-induced climate change is expected to continue increasing the frequency of such events (IPCC, 2021), and a timely, national force is likely to be increasingly required for Canadians impacted by major disasters stemming from natural hazards when local resources become overwhelmed. Yet, there is some concern from the CAF that increasing responsiveness to disaster operations will affect their military readiness (Leuprecht and Kasurak, 2020). One can indeed envision a paradox whereby the CAF is both a “force of last resort” while increasingly becoming a “first choice for domestic disaster and emergency assistance”. The practical implications from this research also suggest that military personnel, while fully capable of successfully conducting flood response operations, may become overburdened and less able to adopt yet greater capacity and training for other additional humanitarian work. Nevertheless, the competencies highlighted by participants can help inform the next flood response operation in Canada. Originality/value Most literature in the field of emergency response focuses on cooperation between civilian and military resources and other strategic-level themes. The findings address critical granularity missing at the operational and tactical levels of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief research. The authors also draw implications beyond the military context, including for local/regional governmental players (operators and emergency planners) as well as for volunteers in flood response roles.

The Texas Landscape: Accounting for Migrant Mortality and the Challenges of a Justice of the Peace Medicolegal System

Executive Summary This paper details the structural and resource challenges in Texas related to identifying migrant decedents, investigating their deaths, repatriating them, and adhering to legal and ethical requirements in addressing this humanitarian tragedy. While actors working on migrant decedent investigations in Arizona can map and provide accurate counts of migrant deaths, this is not yet possible for Texas cases. Texas’ mixed Medical Examiner/Justice of the Peace medicolegal system suffers from fragmentation across county jurisdictions, lack of resources, and minimal access to investigative tools for transnational families. These challenges produce a landscape where unidentified presumed migrants may structurally disappear (e.g., buried in temporarily marked graves as unidentified persons with no investigation or case tracking). The article highlights the work of Operation Identification (OpID), a humanitarian project formed to assist border counties with recovering, identifying, and repatriating migrant decedents. OpID’s extensive community outreach and collaboration with governmental and nongovernmental partners in the United States and Latin America have improved practices in some Texas counties. However, systemic change is still needed to address this humanitarian disaster. The article proposes that presumed migrant decedents be managed using a disaster victim identification (DVI) approach, which prioritizes identification, rather than how and why someone dies. It also proposes the establishment of regional Migrant Identification Centers (MICs) to streamline identification and repatriation efforts, while ensuring compliance with Texas law by Justices of the Peace (JPs). Centralization, the article argues, can lead to more accurate counts of migrant deaths and lay the groundwork for greater resources. The article also supports increased access to national databases including the National Combined DNA Indexing System (CODIS) and the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). It argues that transnational families of missing persons be afforded expanded access to investigative tools (e.g., NamUs)

Comparative Study of Categories Protected During Armed Conflict in Islamic Law and International Humanitarian Law

Islam has emerged in the Arabian Peninsula as a universal human religion that advocates virtue, humanity, and compassion. Isalm has established detailed rules for protecting civilians and civilian targets during armed conflicts. The Islamic Shari'a rules recommended compassion for enemies, not over-killing them, and refraining from any act contrary to the provisions of the Islamic Shari'a. Islamic Shari'a, through its sources, such as the Holy Quran and the Prophet's Sunna, has established rules protecting the victims of war to decide on humanitarian provisions that are already considered for all humanitarian principles relating to the protection of victims of armed conflict and civilians who are not involved in such conflicts, i.e., non-combatants in general. Since the end of the nineteenth century and during the twentieth century, after World and regional wars have caused terrible humanitarian disasters from killing, displacement, torture, and other inhumane treatment, the world's peoples and States have been alerted to the need to establish rules protecting specific groups during armed conflicts, culminating in the international conventions, most notably the Hague Conventions 1899-1907, the four Geneva Conven Conventions of 1949 and the two Protocols 1977 annexed to it. This paper addresses “the categories Protected during armed conflicts in the Islamic Shari'a and those protected in international humanitarian law by reviewing what has been recognized in the Islamic Shari'a for the protection of specific categories during armed conflict and what has been dealt with in the international conventions.

Factors Affecting Resistance to Organizational Change in the Ministry of Higher Education, Research, and Innovation, Oman

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented humanitarian, social, and health disaster. In its aftermath, countries and organizations are striving to transform and acquire 21st-century skills to adapt to the current era. Organizational change has thus become crucial not only for sustainable development but also to survive crises. Consequently, this study investigates the critical factors affecting employees’ resistance to organizational change in Oman's Ministry of Higher Education, Research, and Innovation (MOHERI). Using Lewin's Change Management Model as the theoretical framework, survey data was collected from 344 MOHERI employees and analyzed using structural equation modeling. The findings indicate that leadership and SMART quality service significantly influence resistance to change. Additionally, it is revealed that organizational practices play vital roles in shaping employees' attitudes toward change, whereas employees’ talent and knowledge moderate their resistance towards change. By providing empirical evidence on the elements that influence successful organizational transformation in Oman's public sector, this study provides policymakers, managers, and the Omani government with a better understanding of this phenomenon, enabling them to design more effective change strategies and policies. The study also adds value to the organizational change literature, offering directions for future research to focus on these crucial factors for successful change.

Information and psychological operations – an element of hybrid warfare

After the Second World War, the nature of interstate confrontation has changed: the basis was not military means, but information and psychological operations. This is the so-called hybrid war, which does not require a declaration, but it can turn prosperous states into the arena of armed struggle, bringing them to the brink of humanitarian disaster or civil war.

The International Law Dilemma of Autonomous Weapon System

This paper aims to highlight the potential for serious humanitarian disasters caused by the rapid development of autonomous weapons systems, as they are currently unable to fully grasp the ability to analyze their targets and clearly distinguish between combatants and military targets due to current technological limitations. There is also controversy over whether autonomous weapons systems are combatants, and there is a certain degree of regulatory deficiencies in the field of international law. Existing international treaties are unable to perfectly regulate autonomous weapons systems and punish unlawful behavior. The paper mainly uses the method of analyzing specific problems based on legal principles and draws conclusions by referring to some cases. The conclusion of this paper is that the international community needs to establish a new, targeted international legal treaty, establish a more reasonable and realistic international soft law, establish and improve a broader international exchange system, and encourage countries to work together to solve this problem.

Contact Groups as Diplomatic Intervention Tools in Civil Wars: US Diplomacy

Summary American diplomacy employs contact groups to secure the United States’ national interests and fulfil its role as a superpower in several regions worldwide. This article explores three examples of contact groups formed by US diplomacy to intervene in the civil wars in Libya, Syria and Yemen. It tracks the groups’ formation process, meetings’ content and the US assessment of their influence on American interests and the course of the conflicts. The article concludes that the formation process was developed under sensitive compromises among the stakeholders of each conflict and led to the exclusion of some essential actors. The contact groups were influential at the tactical level and impacted the course of the conflicts in the short term, preventing humanitarian disasters, taking de-escalation steps and securing American interests, but they failed to achieve successful settlements.

Telaah Kritis Aksiologi Sains Modern Persepektif Naquid Al-Attas dan Implementasinya Dalam Komunikasi Ilmiah

The modern scientific revolution, which Thomas Kuhn said was caused by a shift in the scientific paradigm, brought major changes totechnological developments, especially in the 20th century. Apart from modern science bringing many benefits to humans, it turns out toobrings extraordinary side effects, including continuous natural damage and humanitarian disaster, as also statedby Naquib Al-Attas. The scientific challenges brought by Western culture have resulted in the development of modern science which is full of Western view of reality and truth. One of the elements of Western civilization is tragedy that shows the search the truth and nature and purpose of life are endless, so he is always in search, but never achieves what he wantssearching for. This perspective also influenced the development of modern science. This article attempts to explicitly highlight the effects aside from modern science, as well as Naquib Al-Attas's view of modern science from its axiological side. Method usedis an in-depth literature review. From this article it can be stated with certainty that the treasures of Islamic scholarship have providedfoundation for the development of knowledge, especially science. This is proven in the history of Islamic civilization, how the ulama and Muslim scientists provide clear signs in the development of science. One important aspect that needs to be considered is maqashid syari'ah for the development of science. The way of looking at nature as an object and humans as a subject must be referred to to the Islamic perspective of viewing reality and truth. Besides that, the paradigm of scientific development and progress Modernism must refer to a paradigm based on an Islamic worldview which emphasizes that development and progress are necessary focused on one constant thing, namely the purpose and meaning of human life as caliph on Earth. This frame of mind can become a reference for the scientific community to be able to truly play the role of caliph on Earth, so that they can prevent further natural damage and human disasters.

THE VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT IN UKRAINE AND GERMANY IN THE LATE 20TH AND EARLY 21ST CENTURIES: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

The full-scale invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine in 2022 and the temporary occupation of a part of its territory made the issue of developing means of overcoming large-scale humanitarian disasters and ensuring the stability and security of the population of the European continent relevant for the world public. The authors of the proposed study consider the volunteer movement as a powerful tool of self-organization of society, capable of strengthening state structures in order to overcome crisis phenomena in the areas of ensuring the country’s defence capability, health protection of its population, and providing humanitarian aid to migrants.

Preferences on funding humanitarian aid and disaster management under climatic losses and damages: A multinational Delphi panel

Preferences on funding humanitarian aid and disaster management under climatic losses and damages: A multinational Delphi panel

Ethical Discourse of Responsibility in The Covid19 Pandemic Humanitarian Disaster

This article aims to elaborate on how Emmanuel Levinas' discourse on the ethics of responsibility applies to the humanitarian crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Levinas offers a concrete ethical concept for addressing humanitarian issues, distinguishing himself from earlier ethical philosophy experts. The research method employed is qualitative, utilizing a literature review approach. The findings and discussion reveal that Levinas' perspective on the ethics of responsibility emphasizes concrete responsibility in encounters with the 'Face of the Other'. Furthermore, responsibility represents a form of human identity from a humanitarian perspective when facing the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Levinas, unconditional responsibility is not something we receive or a rule we agree to bind ourselves to, but rather something that exists before we make any decisions. Unconsciously, we already have unlimited responsibility towards others. The conclusion drawn is that adhering to health protocols is a concrete manifestation of Levinas' ethics of responsibility in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it is oriented towards the safety of others. Levinas' ethics of responsibility is asymmetrical. The ethical discourse on responsibility discussed in this study is limited to the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, thus it has limitations in broader explanations. Although Levinas' grand ideas may not suffice to solve all the ethical issues we face, their strength lies in reminding us of the inherent nature of ethical demands that should underpin all moral theories. Levinas invites us to reconsider the essence of ethical responsibility, which transcends formal rules and agreements, towards a deeper understanding of our relationships with others

Coordination and Disaster Response: A Humanitarian Organizational Network perspective in Uganda

This paper examined the relationship between humanitarian organizational network, coordination and disaster response in Uganda. Contextually, most research in the area of disaster management rotates around the entire disaster management process/stages. There is inadequate research that tends to study a single stage in the disaster management cycle especially the response stage. Additionally, there are limited studies that have been conducted in developing countries like Uganda, most studies have been and continue to be conducted in highly disaster-prepared, coordinated and developed states. The study used a cross-sectional survey design in which quantitative methods were applied. Findings indicate that coordination positively influenced disaster response. Based on the literature and findings, the study concludes that disaster response is dependent on coordination. The study recommends that responding organizations should establish clear communication channels, build trust and social capital, and ensure that there is learning and adaptation to complex disaster environments. This will lead to better coordination within the humanitarian organizational networks and in turn successful disaster response operations.

Experiences of Deployed Physicians in Support of Operation Allies Refuge/Operation Allies Welcome: Lessons to Inform Improvements in Training.

Stability operations, including humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions, are key functions of U.S. Military medicine and the Military Medical Humanitarian Assistance Course (MMHAC) is a 2-day course widely used to prepare military medical personnel for such missions. It focuses on caring for those most vulnerable in the wake of disasters, particularly children. The large-scale humanitarian deployment of military medical providers in support of Operation Allies Welcome/Operation Allies Refuge (OAW/OAR) presents an opportunity to evaluate the preparedness of these providers to care for the needs of the Afghan travelers, so we explored the experiences of military medical providers deployed in support of OAW/OAR to inform improvements in the MMHAC. We conducted a qualitative study of military medical providers who were deployed in support of OAW/OAR using a series of three virtual focus groups. Focus group questions were structured around the main topics covered in the MMHAC (patient care, ethical considerations, logistical concerns, and preventive and public health) and explicitly asked about adaptive leadership challenges faced and strategies used to overcome them. We analyzed transcripts using inductive thematic analysis within a constructivist paradigm, with adaptive leadership as a sensitizing concept. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Uniformed Services University. We constructed 4 themes from participant responses, each addressing challenges that medical providers faced during their mission: (1) Medical providers navigated tension between medical and public health priorities and military mission priorities; (2) Chronic and complex care needs posed unique challenges for medical personnel; (3) Challenges in patient care were compounded by logistical and system-based barriers; and (4) Cultural barriers led to ethical dilemmas that physicians felt inadequately prepared to handle, most notably with respect to gender-related concerns. Within each theme, participants described which aspects of MMHAC training were most helpful and which areas were inadequate. Physicians found the OAR/OAW mission meaningful but also identified challenges related to medical care provision, public health, logistics, and ethical dilemmas that hindered their ability to carry out their medical mission. Lessons learned from OAW/OAR highlight several areas in which the MMHAC training could be augmented and improved to further mitigate these challenges.