This chapter argues that in order to protect local populations in contemporary missions, military forces must be flexible, that is able and willing to operate along a continuum ranging from high-intensive combat to community policing. There are two problems for achieving such flexibility. First, all organizations, including militaries, are specialized. In developed states of the ‘global north’, divisions of labor between military and police forces have evolved over the centuries and were particularly visible during the Cold War. Changing roles is difficult. Thus, many soldiers dislike murky stabilization and police tasks, where political objectives, civil-military divisions of labor, and the duration of deployment are ill-defined. To be sure, some soldiers are more flexible than others. Special military forces, military police, or gendarmeries find it easier to change roles; but even their flexibility has limitations. A second factor stymies flexibility: an increase in physical risk. For the societies, governments, and militaries of democracies, force protection is more important than protecting strangers. Soldiers who engage rioters and militias and live among the population to protect people against insurgents run higher immediate risks of death and injury than soldiers relying on aerial bombing and artillery.