Multinational Military Forces

Problems and Prospects

Roger Palin

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780367087166
• eBook ISBN: 9781136042324
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

First Published in 2005. Since the breaching of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent end of the Cold War, there has been a marked increase in attention paid to multinational military forces. Adelphi Paper 294 looks at the problems facing multinational forces and operations and the prospects for the future.

III. THE MILITARY DIMENSION: GENERIC ISSUES

Some of the problems endemic to mounting and conducting multinational military operations are generic in that they apply to all multinational ventures. Others are more specific to different types of military force, varying with its size and the required levels of multinational integration. All make the military commanders' task to meet the given objectives more difficult and can, at worst, vitiate success unless recognised and accounted for, preferably at the outset. For coalition forces the rudimentary ad hoc approach practised to date will not suffice for the future. More emphasis will need to be placed on pre-planning, preparation and readiness to internationally agreed standards and procedures. For alliance forces, as deepening levels of integration are sought to meet political and economic imperatives, and as the likelihood of them being used in support of UN coalition forces increases, specific steps will need to be taken to ensure that the multinational forces are effective military instruments and not predominantly political symbols.

From the military standpoint, the most immediate strategic issues that need to be decided at the outset of operation planning include the political objectives, and how these can be translated into achievable military objectives; the legal framework; the constitution and command of the force; and what rules of engagement will govern the operation, especially in the early stages. A fluid strategic situation does not alter these priorities, although it makes determining and articulating the objectives more difficult. The nature of the task is fundamental to resolving these issues, there being a vast difference between the requirements of a high-intensity operation such as Operation Desert Storm on the one hand, and a traditional peacekeeping mission, such as the UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus as it is conducted today, on the other. In between lies a miscellany of peace-support activities, from disaster relief and humanitarian concerns to peacemaking and peace-enforcement. Some, as for example in the former Yugoslavia where there is no recognised peace settlement to support, straddle the traditional dividing lines, thus complicating the decision-makers' task.

A feature of recent UN mandates is that they have expanded in scope to cover a wide range of political activities as well as military, from cease-fire monitoring and traditional truce observation to electoral support, human-rights monitoring and training, military demobilisation, de-mining, humanitarian support, and even limited nation rebuilding. These will affect the size, composition and organisation of both the civilian and military elements of the force. For the military commander the important issues are the clarity of the mandate and the operational guidance it gives, and the achievability of the objectives set. Similarly, the legal underpinnings need to be explicit so that the commander and troops are confident that the actions they take in pursuit of the objectives will have the backing of the international community.¹ A UN mandate is essential where enforcement action is planned, without which the legitimacy of the operation is questionable.

Force Size and Composition

A well-written mandate, embracing the political objectives and constraints and the military objectives and degrees of force that may be employed, will furnish clear guidance for conducting the operation, sizing the force, and drawing up initial plans. A troops-to-task assessment is essential for any military operation, with which the commander himself should ideally be closely involved. The size, composition and capability of a force will be critical to his ability to carry out his tasks and meet his objectives, but in multinational undertakings the decision to participate is a national prerogative, and the commander must make do with whatever the controlling authority has been able to arrange. Equipment compatibility and ethnic and racial make-up are also important issues. Balances need to be struck between international representation (expressing the will of the international community) and capability (especially if the operation is likely to involve more than straightforward peacekeeping); and between international and regional forces — it would be imprudent to commit forces of some nations to certain operations, for example, German troops to the former Yugoslavia, or Turkish troops to Croatia or Serbia.² A balance in the weight of national representation is also desirable: too preponderant a presence of one nation can be counter-productive, particularly where that nation has a strategic interest in the area of conflict; equally, too many nations can cause problems for the command-and-control arrangements.

For ad hoc coalitions, the issue is complicated by their variegated composition, with the true military capabilities of the constituent national units unknown to the commander initially and beyond his control. Variations occur not only in quality, but also in basic doctrine, ethos, ability to communicate and ability to sustain operations. Some will be experienced, well equipped and well trained; others will have reached only the most basic of standards; yet others will have poor, badly maintained equipment, without adequate engineering support. Some will be participating for political reasons or because their governments are pleased to find some opportunity for them to be employed for a time and to be paid for by another body. Some will be manned largely by conscripts, who may be inexperienced and unable to undertake more complicated military tasks, and who may be subject to legislative and political constraints.³

One of the commander's early problems, therefore, will be to fashion an employment plan that takes these variables into account, sometimes based on only the most tentative knowledge. His flexibility will be hampered by the availability of combat and logistic support units, which not all nations provide in the required numbers because of their high cost and increasing scarcity as armed forces are pared down in size. The logistic capability of each national contingent will be critical, as this will dictate the unit's combat range, its sustainability, and its operating compatibility with units of other nations. Moreover, not all units will be versed in joint warfare, nor trained to operate with tactical air forces should this be necessary. There will also be constraints placed on the employment of some units by their political authorities, who, to avoid political embarrassment at home, may demand that their troops be deployed away from any likely action to avoid the possibility of casualties.⁴ These factors inhibit the commander's ability to devise an effective operational plan, especially one in which there is demonstrable equity of risk, which is important for maintaining both the morale of national contingents in the field and domestic support for a nation's continuing participation.

Early consideration needs to be given to the likely duration of the operation and thus to rotation of troops. This is particularly relevant where conscript soldiers are deployed, unless the national legislation is sufficiently flexible. The optimum time in theatre will depend on the nature of the operation, but six months is considered by most nations to be a reasonable planning assumption and allows for variation and extension should circumstances so dictate.⁵ Troop rotation should ideally be phased to avoid losing all theatre experience at the same time, although in reality the commander may have little control in this regard, as it is a national responsibility.

The commander also needs a reserve force that he can deploy according to the tactical situation. This unit is integral to any assembled force, and needs to be trained to a high standard over a wide range of military tasks so that it can adapt quickly to a variety of operational situations -it must be an experienced unit composed in the main of regulars. The reserve forces assume even greater importance if for any reason the governing mandate is amended or expanded during the course of the operation. Few nations are able to provide such formations, and often in UN missions no such force can be made available for financial reasons.⁶

Rules of Engagement

Determining rules of engagement (ROE) at the outset of an operation is always difficult, even in unilateral action involving the forces of a single nation. While ROE need to be designed to ensure troops in the field are given sufficient authority to safeguard themselves, they must also be framed so as to contain the conflict at as low a level as possible. The risk is that too aggressive an action or reaction may provoke escalation. This is a particularly delicate issue in peacekeeping missions, where too robust a response by the peacekeepers can lead to charges of partiality, thus undermining the forces' neutral status, or to the very escalation the troops are intended to prevent. The reverse can also apply: too little positive action can be exploited by the factions and the situation can deteriorate to the point where the peacekeepers' lives are put at risk. It is for this reason that such strict control over ROE is maintained by the political authorities, and why the interpretation of the ROE in force by the commander in the field can sometimes appear unnecessarily restrictive. The Rubicon between peacekeeping and peace-enforcement should be crossed only when all else has failed.⁷

The problems introduced by multinationality stem not only from the extra number of national authorities who must signify agreement to the proposed ROE, but also from the fact that each nation has a different ROE philosophy and interprets the relevant terms, such as ‘hostile act’ or ‘hostile intent’, in a different way. For some nations ROE are integral to crisis management, the objective being to avoid taking any action that might escalate the situation, and the firing of a weapon, even in self-defence, is very much an action of last resort. For others, conflict is a less complex affair and the threshold for aggressive reaction is much lower. Russian and US troops on the one hand, and Canadian and Irish troops on the other, faced with an identical situation and governed by identical ROE, would in all probability react in very different ways.⁸ This is not a question of being ‘trigger happy’, or excessively nervous in the face of danger, but is rather the result of training in a different military culture — for example, one that does not expect military men to react in too sophisticated a way when lives are at risk, or where the sole doctrine is winning at any cost. The latter is clearly not appropriate to peacekeeping missions. Similarly, at sea the initiative is generally accepted as lying with the attacker, so commanders not unnaturally demand greater freedom of action, even during conditions of crisis management before hostilities have broken out. The guiding premise at sea is that pre-emptive action must be taken, even in self-defence. In an international operation, various national interpretations of the ROE can be a practical constraint on the commander's allocation of tasks to different nations. Such differences also increase the likelihood of inadvertently crossing the peace-enforcement Rubicon.

Headquarters Organisation and Structure

A well-structured and staffed headquarters is essential to any military force. It is from the headquarters that an operation is conducted, courses of action considered, plans drawn up and directives, orders and instructions issued. There must be good communication within the headquarters and the technical means to communicate outside, as well as a basic understanding within about its function and how it needs to work. An ad hoc grouping of national representatives under an appointed UN commander is not a viable headquarters, and there are many examples of how such a rudimentary structure has impeded the success of UN operations.

In its early days, UN headquarters in Zagreb lacked structure and common working procedures, numbers were excessive and unwieldy, the quality of staff officers was low, and all this was pervaded by a language problem. In establishing a headquarters for Bosnia-Herzegovina Command, the problems were overcome, in part at least, by importing the core of a professional headquarters from NATO's Northern Army Group, which provided a nucleus of experienced staff officers used to working together to agreed procedures and schedules, trained to make and communicate decisions, and using a common language.⁹ This core of staff officers helped to create a better-structured and more productive headquarters — it was noticeable that on its departure after its six months in theatre the old problems returned, including vastly increased numbers.¹⁰ The UN could usefully develop its own model based on the Bosnia-Herzegovina experience, by establishing a cadre of key staff officers within its headquarters in New York, for example, who could form the core of a theatre headquarters to be deployed at short notice. These would be replaced in New York by staff officers seconded from member-nations.

Although participating nations are keen to be represented at the headquarters, the quality of the staff officers, their experience and ability to communicate will vary enormously. The problem is not helped by the UN policy of apportioning the number of staff posts in the field headquarters strictly in accordance with the size of the national contributions to the UN force in the field, and by the Secretariat in New York's insistence on allocating the key posts in the theatre headquarters and changing them annually. This practice takes no account of quality, makes no provision for continuity of experience, and renders it diplomatically difficult for the force commander to move an officer from such a post if found unsuitable for any reason. However, improvements could be achieved at little cost. For example, the UN could sponsor basic staff training courses to be held in national staff colleges; it should revise and publish more widely its staff procedures; and it should introduce a requirement that participating nations appoint to the headquarters only staff officers who meet the published standards. Ideally, also, the force commander should be granted more authority to establish headquarters best suited to his particular needs, relying on his judgement to achieve a reasonable balance in international representation.

Another consideration is the multifaceted nature of many UN operations, which embrace a number of functions that are clearly not appropriate tasks for the military — although there may be a security dimension requiring some military presence. These different agencies are controlled by and report to different UN departments, some of which are located in different countries, and there appears to be little formalised structure to coordinate activities.¹¹ At theatre level there is a need to clarify the relationships and improve mutual understanding between the military and the civilian agencies, which might best be achieved by expanding the UNHQ template to embrace all UN agencies involved in an operation. This should include machinery for orchestrating the potential contribution of the non-governmental organisations (there are over 150 operating in the former Yugoslavia, for example), which tend to operate autonomously outside the UN system and sometimes in conflict with UN plans. While this may be no more than an irritant during straightforward peacekeeping missions, the risks to both the safety of the non-governmental organisation personnel and the effective implementation of the UN plan are increased markedly in more complex missions and in circumstances where enforcement action may be required.¹² The key is to structure the theatre headquarters in a way that enables a campaign plan to be determined, within which all agencies can be tasked to work towards the common objective in accordance with an agreed set of priorities. This requires all UN-mandated functions to come under one commander, the special representative of the UN Secretary-General, and for there to be a formally recognised locus for nongovernmental organisations.¹³

In operations of high intensity the same principles of organisation apply, except that all functions must come under the military commander who becomes the commander-in-chief. Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf War was a good example of how a well-structured headquarters, well trained and exercised in peacetime, and working to a commander considerate of different national sensitivities, can overcome the problems inherent in a variegated coalition of nations even where only a low level of command authority has been transferred. Time was available to establish the necessary machinery and develop the ethos of consensus, and much advantage derived from the part played by the lead nation, in this case the US. On the other hand, the lead-nation model suffers from a potential lack of access to the headquarters for a number of participating nations, which can lead to friction within the coalition. The establishment of consultative groups or officially designated National Military Representatives is essential to maintain cohesion.

In an alliance these problems should not apply, since an integrated headquarters is a normally accepted part of the overall force structure, albeit to varying degrees. Common procedures and practices can be established relatively easily, working in the official languages. The staff can focus on the multinational task, with minimum distraction from parent nations,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Glossary
• Introduction
• I. The Political Context
• II. Command and Control
• III. The Military Dimension: Generic Issues
• IV. The Military Dimension: Specific Aspects
• Conclusion
• Notes