Cooperative Competition

The ability to negotiate well is has become critically important in today's Air Force. Collaborative approaches to negotiations generally produce results superior to competitive approaches, and are receiving emphasis in Air Force professional education and deployment training. This relatively new focus, however, brings up an important issue. Will the emphasis on collaboration undermine the essential competitive martial spirit of the Air Force, or is some type of balance between competition and collaboration needed? This paper uses a problem/solution approach to research to explore this question. A study of published works demonstrates the need for both competition and collaboration in a military context, and also provides relevant case studies from negotiations in Iraq and Afghanistan.