How and Why States Defect from Contemporary Military Coalitions

Kathleen J. McInnis

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9783319788333
• eBook ISBN: 9783319788340
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book identifies contemporary military coalition defections, builds a theoretical framework for understanding why coalition defection occurs and assesses its utility for both the scholarly and policy practitioner communities. Drawing upon the author's own experiences managing the Afghanistan coalition for the Pentagon, the volume builds a relevant policy and practical understanding of some of the key aspects of contemporary coalition warfare. Ultimately, it concludes that coalition defection is prompted by heightened perceptions of political and military risk. Yet the choice of how to defect— whether to completely withdraw forces or instead find another, less risky way to participate—is largely a function of international and alliance pressures to remain engaged.

© The Author(s) 2020

Kathleen J. McInnisHow and Why States Defect from Contemporary Military Coalitionshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78834-0_1

Begin Abstract

1. The Puzzle of Coalition “Defection”

Kathleen J. McInnis¹

(1)

Congressional Research Service, Washington, DC, USA

Kathleen J. McInnis

As discussed later, this book defines defection as “non-routine abrogation of responsibilities in order to minimize operational risk, undertaken at other coalition partner’s expense, significantly prior to mission conclusion.” As it will argue, there are any number of ways that states can minimize their operational risk while still appearing to remain fully engaged in a military coalition. As a result, the term “defection” is more appropriate to use than “withdrawal” or “exit,” as both imply a full removal of forces from a coalition, which is only one of many possible risk minimization strategies (and an infrequently employed strategy at that).

End Abstract

Introduction

Between 2007 and 2009, I served as a director for North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Operations in the US Office of the Secretary of Defence. The task of the team I was part of: to build, sustain, and maintain the NATO coalition performing stability and combat operations in Afghanistan. On a day-to-day basis, the job involved synchronizing the US approach to operations in Afghanistan with those of our allies and partners in the coalition. Harmonizing nations’ rules of engagement, building a long-term strategy for success in Afghanistan, and cajoling coalition partners to contribute additional troops to plug shortfalls in ISAF’s footprint were but a few of the tasks I undertook in that capacity. Coalition maintenance at the strategic and operational levels required constant, time-consuming effort—both at my level and at the most senior levels of the national security establishment of the US government.

Yet despite this time and attention, by 2010 the ISAF coalition began to demonstrate signs of fragmentation. Precisely as the United States was beginning to execute its own surge of forces into southern Afghanistan, both the Dutch and Canadian governments withdrew their troops from that part of the Afghan theatre.¹ Instead, each eventually chose to deploy much less operationally risky missions to train the Afghan security forces. Thus, while the overall composition of the Afghanistan-wide ISAF coalition appeared to remain constant (at least in terms of the number of national flags associated with the mission), in reality these withdrawals dealt an enormous strategic and operational blow to the US and NATO effort. As of writing, southern Afghanistan remains volatile; gains by the coalition and the Afghan government are fragile.

It can be reasonably argued that the reshuffling of the allied “force laydown” (a term used by the military to describe a military footprint on the ground) during this critical time in the campaign may be one reason for that fragility.² This is because attention of senior military and defence officials at that time was diverted away from defeating the Taliban and other opposition forces and instead focused on finding ways to plug newly emerging, critical gaps in troop levels. This exacerbated existing military shortfalls; ISAF had long experienced significant problems generating sufficient numbers of soldiers and capabilities to perform the mission. And although it is impossible to trace out the full impact of the Canadian and Dutch withdrawals from southern Afghanistan, it does appear that their decisions had some important, negative implications for the overall success of NATO’s ISAF operations, as well as their respective relations with the United States and NATO.

So, why did they do it? Why did Canada and the Netherlands risk their credibility with their key alliance partners and jeopardize their own progress on the ground by pulling out their forces significantly prior to ISAF’s conclusion in 2014? These are the questions that inspired this book, especially since I could never develop a coherent answer while working in government. At the time these events took place, we could only surmise that they “didn’t have the political will to stay,” before moving to the next crisis du jour. But “losing political will” is an enormous oversimplification. Why did these countries lose political will? Why did ISAF—the good war—become so controversial for some countries that they had to withdraw from the south? And, just as importantly, why did they eventually decide to stay engaged in ISAF at all, albeit to perform much less risky missions?

“Obvious” answers to the puzzle of coalition defection—that a nation bore too many casualties to stay engaged or that coalitions dissolve due to perceived campaign failures—fail to stand up to scrutiny upon closer examination. The Danish contingent in ISAF had some of the highest casualties per capita of all the coalition members³; yet they were still engaged in Afghanistan alongside their partners in Helmand province until near the conclusion of ISAF operations.⁴ The Dutch and Canadian decisions to depart from southern Afghanistan, by contrast, occurred when it was by no means clear that the coalition was losing and in a manner that resulted in considerable operational-level strain for the other coalition partners that remained on the ground.⁵

Similarly, the argument that “they didn’t have the political will to stay”—a refrain I heard all too often at the Pentagon—is an inherently unsatisfying explanation. Why did their political will dissipate over the course of a few years? And which actors are we describing when we talk about political will? The public? Elites? As Sarah Kreps argues, elite consensus—or, the overall endorsement of an operation by key political parties—in the capitals of coalition participants tends to translate into national decisions to “buck” public opinion and join, or remain engaged, in military coalitions.⁶ Indeed, this played out in South Korea when its leaders chose to participate in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) despite considerable public opposition (protests against the deployments were widespread). South Korea deployed 700 troops to Iraq and eventually increased force levels into the thousands.⁷ Yet, at times, even elites are unable to withstand the crescendo of mounting opposition. As a result, states do withdraw from military coalitions significantly prior to mission conclusion, although their reasons for doing so, and the process by which they take such decisions, are presently unclear. Even South Korea eventually withdrew its contingent from Iraq in 2008; from the perspective of the United States, this withdrawal was significantly prior to the mission’s official conclusion in 2010. What combination of domestic and international political pressures led the South Koreans to reverse their participation decisions? All this suggests that there are deeper issues at play that deserve academic scrutiny. As a former practitioner that worked on coalition maintenance and sustainment, getting to the bottom of why these countries departed Afghanistan in the manner and timeframes that they did became an important intellectual puzzle to unpack.

Indeed, beyond my own intellectual curiosity, understanding why heavily invested states would choose to withdraw their coalition contributions—described in this book as “defection”—is critically important, both to the discipline of security studies and the policy practice of coalition management. This is because coalitions are the vehicle of choice for most major nations when contemplating the use of force. The logic of combining forces in pursuit of common military objectives is pervasive; so pervasive, in fact, that acting as part of coalitions is becoming a key planning assumption for many Ministries of Defence (MOD) around the globe. The United Kingdom’s 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review notes the MOD will act in ways that “strengthen mutual dependence with key allies and partners who are willing and able to act, not least to make our collective resources go further and allow nations to focus on their comparative advantages.”⁸ Likewise, the 2015 US National Security Strategy notes, “Alliances are force multipliers: through multinational cooperation and coordination, the sum of our actions is always greater than if we act alone.”⁹ The 2017 National Security Strategy makes a similar assertion: “[a]llies and partners magnify our power. We expect them to shoulder a fair share of the burden of responsibility to protect against common threats.”¹⁰

The notion that the optimal way to pursue military objectives is through combining forces with other nations is reflected in the international relations (IR) literature as well. The “capability aggregation model” remains a dominant, and relatively unchallenged, assumption underpinning most theories of alliance formation.¹¹

All of this is curious, as the idea that acting through coalitions is “always greater” is, historically speaking, inaccurate.¹² It is, at best, a dubious proposition that combining military forces always leads to better outcomes than going it alone. Napoleon famously noted, “if I must make war, I prefer it to be against a coalition.”¹³ With good reason; the fault lines between the different participating nations can be easy to exploit. Military coalitions are notoriously difficult to manage and military effectiveness is often de-prioritized in favour of military expediency.¹⁴ They are almost always unwieldy, fraught with bickering among allies, and rarely have meaningful unity of command down to the tactical level. Indeed, Dwight D. Eisenhower, one of the most successful coalition leaders in modern history, argued:

History testifies to the ineptitude of coalitions in waging war. Allied failures have been so numerous and their inexcusable blunders so common that professional soldiers had long discounted the possibility of effective allied action unless available resources were so great as to assure victory by inundation. Even Napoleon’s reputation as a brilliant military leader suffered when students in staff colleges came to realize that he always fought against coalitions—and therefore against divided counsels and diverse political, economic, and military interests.¹⁵

The very nations that seek partners for multinational operations are often quick to complain about their non-compatriots.¹⁶ Political-military centrifugal forces constantly threaten to tear coalitions apart. If key nations, therefore, are choosing to operate through coalitions, understanding those centrifugal forces—and when they jeopardize the viability of the coalition itself—is extremely important. Yet the phenomenon of coalition defection—and collapse—remains a nearly unexplored avenue of research in academic literature.

Of course, as with just about any complex social science phenomenon, once I began researching, it quickly became clear exactly how enormous an undertaking that developing and testing an explanation for military coalition defection would be. In the first instance, the extant literature on defection from military coalitions is surprisingly thin, especially given the enormous political and strategic consequences for both defecting parties and those who remain engaged in a coalition.¹⁷ Upon reflection, however, the lack of literature on the subject makes sense; in order to bolster international legitimacy for a multinational military operation and underscore solidarity among partners, coalition leaders and participants often go to considerable lengths to mask the fact that a defection is, indeed, occurring.

As evidence, one need look no further than the example of the British in OIF. In September 2007, as the United States was executing its “surge,” the United Kingdom chose to terminate its combat operations in Basra, Iraq. Rather than redeploy its forces to Baghdad where the United States sought reinforcements,¹⁸ the United Kingdom decided to send those troops to Afghanistan.¹⁹ At the time, the action was described as “pre-planned and organized”; the remaining 4000-odd UK soldiers in Iraq would play a training and over-watch role while garrisoned at the Basra airport.²⁰

Behind closed doors and (mostly) out of public view, tensions and frustrations between the two parties to the “special relationship” ran high.²¹ Noted one Financial Times article: “British diplomats say their main concern has been that US forces would have had to ‘backfill’ in southern Iraq as British forces left, a development they would consider a huge ‘...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. The Puzzle of Coalition “Defection”
• 2. Understanding Contemporary Military Coalitions and Coalition Defection
• 3. Canada in Afghanistan
• 4. The Netherlands in Afghanistan
• 5. Further Applying the Theoretical Framework
• 6. Implications, Reflections, Areas for Further Research
• Back Matter