Winning trust and confidence: A grounded theory model for the use of confidence-building measures in the joint operational environment

The United States asks its military service members to do much more than fight the nation's wars; it asks them to build trust with numerous stakeholders in complex and dynamic environment. The literature indicates that parties in conflict situations can employ confidence-building measures to move incrementally closer toward conflict resolution. This study applied a qualitative grounded theory methodology to investigate confidence-building from the experiences of service members recently deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq and created a theoretical model that future service members could apply in similar circumstances. The Operational Leadership Experiences Database contains interviews of service members (N = 2,515) with experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. The researcher conducted an analysis of these interviews (N = 67) to create a theoretical model, triangulated this model with findings from relevant literature, and then further validated this theoretical model through interviews with subject matter experts ( N = 10). The findings indicate that though understanding context and applying physical, communication, and relationship confidence-building measures over time, service members can build trust with key stakeholders. The potential implications of this research are that service members in Afghanistan can directly apply these lessons through 2014 and have a valid model to build relationships when deployed to other conflict environments in the future.;Key Words: Confidence-building Measures, Confidence, Trust, Conflict Resolution, Iraq, Afghanistan, Joint Operational Environment.