In July 2018, Iraqi counterterrorism troops deployed to face demonstrators in southern Iraq. By contrast, less than a year prior, Iraqi civil defense and Kurdish Peshmerga forces deployed to support affected civilian populations with aid distribution and search and rescue following a 7.2 magnitude earthquake near the northeastern town of Halabja. Each of these situations reflects common roles that military organizations play in civilian life outside of war. However, scholars are much more likely to focus on military organizations’ peacetime deployment of coercive capabilities—e.g., via election violence or protest suppression—than on these organizations’ use of logistical and technical competencies in life-threatening emergencies. Yet, due to their immense logistical capability, specialized skill sets, and responsive command structures, military actors are often called in to manage complex crises, particularly in Middle Eastern states where they may be the only government agencies with access to sufficient resources. How do governments conceptualize, anticipate, and prepare for emergencies? What are the political ramifications of military-civilian contact in non-conflict crisis settings? Little research has focused explicitly on the military aspect of emergency response and its political aftermath, particularly in the Middle East. However, the reality of climate change implies that both the frequency and scale of natural disasters such as storms, floods, and desertification will increase, necessitating recurrent military involvement in emergency preparation and response. Population growth in unstable settings such as earthquake-, landslide-, and fire-prone regions; mass domestic and cross-border migration; and the intersection of industrialization and lax regulation in many Global South countries suggest that states will increasingly rely upon military organizations’ specialized expertise and equipment to lead disaster response. This paper proposes a multi-level, cross-national, relational approach to understanding the connections between military organizations’ involvement in crisis response and political power. It proposes a comparison of military-based disaster response in Iraq/Iraqi Kurdistan, Qatar, and Algeria. Specifically, it examines how the varied roles that military organizations play in emergency response—e.g., coordinator, teacher, technician, delivery service—interact with other, non-military organizational roles—e.g., funder, supplier, clinician—to produce informal loci of institutional power. At the micro-level, it examines how civilians’ interactions with soldiers shape their views and behaviors towards the other. This project thus advances understanding of civil-military relations in the Middle East while elucidating the deep political implications of climate change for the region.