In the last decade we have seen a series of crises in which military intervention has played a major part. There appears to be an increasing willingness on the part of the developed world to use armed force if necessary to promote human rights, prevent crimes against humanity and for a range of international humanitarian needs. While all forms of diplomatic, political and economic pressure continue to be explored in any situation, the willingness of a number of key democratic states ultimately to use force for primarily humanitarian reasons is a recent phenomenon. The development runs in parallel with a greater willingness to hold despots accountable for their previous crimes against humanity, and to put in place systems to deter future leaders from such crimes.
This short paper looks only at the military aspects of such interventions by the international community. It assumes that the full range of diplomatic and economic levers will have been used ahead of any option to use force. Drawing on the experience of the last ten years, it is possible to see a consistent trend in the way the military are employed and make some deductions about how appropriately structured they are for such roles. The paper highlights the limitations of the developing international approach, and makes some recommendations for improving military capabilities in this area.
The fall of the Berlin Wall, the unification of Germany, the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, all changed the strategic landscape in Europe in little more than a 3 year period. NATO's purpose was suddenly in question as nations scrambled to cash in on the peace dividend. Yet in the event, the decade of the 90's has had more diverse military action by the Western nations, under various banners, than at any time previously. Kuwait, Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Haiti, Albania, Kosovo and East Timor have seen western military force deployed to less than benign environments. A new doctrine for peace support operations has replaced the manuals on flexible response in the military staff colleges of the Alliance.
This series of military experiences is sufficient now to have established a strong consensus on the new rationale for NATO, which was articulated in the Strategic Concept launched at the NATO summit in Washington in April 1999. The ever increasing data from real operations, rather than deterrence postures, has also highlighted the major shortcomings in the security capabilities available to the Alliance for these new tasks. The Gulf War, while not a NATO operation, was conducted by an ad hoc coalition drawn for the most part from NATO members. It was conducted using NATO procedures with forces drawn from NATO formations. It was a relatively clear cut case for the international community to react to aggression, and thus an almost ideal trial for the concept of enforcing international law. Iraq had clearly broken international law by invading Kuwait, and the UN could authorise military action to expel the invaders. Iraq had few friends among its neighbours; had an oppressive regime; and was remote to US and European publics.
The US led coalition was able to take its time in building up military presence in the surrounding area. The then novel doctrine of a prolonged air campaign was tested successfully. Lack of casualties to the allies made the 6 weeks of offensive air action acceptable to politicians and public. The early losses of UK Tornados had caused great concern, and it became clear to the military commanders that safety was to take priority over short term effectiveness. The much greater availability of precision guidance for bombs had also set a precedent in terms of what was acceptable collateral damage in this type of operation. The 4 days of ground war reinforced this new vision of war: ground forces sent in only when it was safe to secure the victory that had been won relatively bloodlessly from the air.
The key lesson from the Gulf War was that the US was both quantitatively and qualitatively in a different capability league from all the other nations involved. As the French discovered to their annoyance, if they could not operate to US/NATO procedures, then they were kept out of the action. In the air, it was a war of offensive air operations, and these had to be conducted from medium to high altitudes. Air defence fighters had little work to do. The European nations had invested heavily in fighters to protect themselves from the long range Russian bombers of the Cold War. For their offensive operations, they had depended on low flying tactics to improve their survivability against Warsaw Pact air defence systems, while accepting that there would be a significant attrition rate. In a third world war that was expected to last only 5 days before going nuclear, training and equipment were posited on achieving rapid results.
Somalia reinforced the perception internationally that the US was only prepared to remain engaged in humanitarian intervention operations if their troops were kept safe. The predominance of air power solutions to international crises was underlined by the continuing air operations over both Northern and Southern Iraq. Operation Provide Comfort had fairly successfully, through air operations, rescued the displaced Kurds who had fled from their homes in Northern Iraq. It was less clear that the results for the Marsh Arabs in the South were as positive.
The sequence of events in Bosnia reinforced the US view that offensive air power could provide the necessary coercion to bring recalcitrant leaders to the negotiating table. That the history of the region up to the Dayton accord is considerably more complex is unimportant. There is a widespread perception among American decision makers that the threat and application of air strikes was critical to obtaining Milosevic's agreement to the Dayton proposals. Again, in this short air campaign, the world expected precision attacks with no collateral damage and no losses to our own side. When an airman was lost over hostile territory, combat search and rescue effort became the over-riding priority.
Operation Alba, the response to the breakdown of law and order in Albania, showed that there were crises which required a European coalition of the willing response. In this case, it was clear that the mechanisms for putting together such a coalition were imperfect, and that a successful outcome was only possible because of the relatively benign environment.
The 1999 Kosovo air campaign brought together all the political and military lessons that had been learned thus far in the post Cold War operations. The US had expended a good deal of research on improving its precision weapons. Nevertheless, the use of laser designation remained a significant constraint if the target was obscured by weather. The two other precision systems (GPS navigation and TERCOM ground mapping) were available both in bombs and cruise missiles, but were significantly more expensive and limited to fixed targets. They required access to US national data. Nevertheless, this mix of weaponry allowed the campaign to be planned on a requirement for no casualties to NATO forces, and minimal collateral damage. These constraints undoubtedly prolonged the air campaign, but given that the required outcome was ultimately achieved, we can expect future operations to have similar assumptions about the requirement for very low numbers of casualties, and a dependence on high technology
The contributions from the 14 NATO nations which took part were varied, but all were overshadowed by the US. For example, the UK carried out 1618 of the total of 38,004 NATO sorties flown, or just over 4%. 102 of these sorties were the Sea Harriers doing little more than defending the small anti-submarine warfare carrier that they are deployed on. 324 were air-to-air refuelling aircraft mainly supporting the Tornados that operated from their bases in Germany. The UK E3-D airborne early warning aircraft clocked up 184 sorties. The sorties which mattered were those carrying out offensive attacks, and here the total UK effort was in the range 4% to 10% depending on the method of calculation (the lower figure reflects munitions and the higher missions flown), and we know that in many of these cases it was not possible to release weapons. From 1008 RAF bombing sorties just 1011 weapons were released. Of these three quarters were non-precision weapons. The French did slightly better with 12% of the bombing sorties, but again only dropped 1132 bombs. The story is similar for the other non-US NATO air forces. The US provided 70% of the total aircraft and 80% of the total weapons delivered. Europe was shown to be good at providing political support for the operation, but poorly equipped to contribute to an offensive air campaign in an effective way.
Once the NATO bombing was officially suspended on 10 June 1999, the focus moved rapidly to the NATO ground force negotiations and entry into Kosovo. The NATO force had been forming up under the auspices of the Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) HQ which is a British led NATO formation. The UK had provided the largest numbers of troops for KFOR and was able to have 5000 in Kosovo by 13 June. Nevertheless differences in view emerged between the British KFOR commander, General Sir Michael Jackson, and the US SACEUR, General Wesley Clark, both over the timing of US ground force entry and reaction to the Russian move to Pristina airport. The realities of the small size of UK defence forces soon became evident. On 6 July, the UK Defence Secretary, George Robertson, announced that a draw down of British forces would start. This was well before KFOR had built up to its full establishment. Subsequently, Bernard Kouchner, the UN administrator for Kosovo, has repeatedly complained that he cannot maintain the rule of law if the international community fails to deliver on its promise of 6000 policeman. He has also complained of lack of financial support for the work of administering the province, just as Carl Bildt had done in similar circumstances in Bosnia.
No sooner was the Kosovo air operation than a new humanitarian crisis started building in East Timor. Although the Indonesian government was seen as probably complicit in the ethnic cleansing by militias in the province, they distanced themselves from what was happening. An air campaign by the international community was not an option under these circumstances. What was required was a UN armed ground force to provide security and re-establish the rule of law. This was a potentially hostile environment with armed militias roaming the countryside, and an unpredictable Indonesian military. In this case, Australia took the lead in providing the ground forces with a range of nations (including Europe) providing force contributions. The United States provided some support in the rear.
This evolving picture of the last ten years suggests that there is a new willingness amongst the international community to do something about humanitarian crises and crimes against humanity. This willingness extends to distant places and to issues which are not directly related to the national interests of the contributing powers. The only formal military alliance which can provide the necessary capabilities is NATO, but operations are not necessarily under NATO auspices. The United States as the pre-eminent military power can provide military capabilities that are unavailable elsewhere. However, the US appears less and less willing to put its military personnel at risk when its direct national interests are not threatened. It is therefore developing a doctrine which depends on the use of precision air power from a safe distance. This is not always appropriate or efficient for particular crises. Attempts to provide a perfect level of protection for US ground peacekeeping forces makes it more difficult for them to operate with the civil communities that they are trying to help.
Military capabilities continue to be necessary to underpin the humanitarian aims of the international community. The essential components are reasonably well defined:
a. A capability for an air offensive using precision weapons, including the necessary reconnaissance, intelligence, defensive and support elements.
b. A large well armed and mobile ground force with its supporting logistics, transport and communications.
c. A ground force which is able to assist the civil authorities in law and order, rebuilding society, and refugee relief.
Operations will invariably be as coalitions of States. This raises questions of interoperability, common doctrine and burden sharing.
At present, two regions of the world bear most of the load for intervention on behalf of the international community: North America and Europe. They have different and unbalanced capabilities although each spends very large amounts of money on armed forces. They promote their interoperability and common doctrine through NATO, and therefore NATO must remain as a key organisation. The Europeans need to do better in terms of the provision of appropriate air power; and the United States needs to think more about the way in which it fields its ground forces in these circumstances.
There is also much work to be done by all contributors on developing an appropriate capability for the third requirement above (assisting the civil authorities). For many operations an armed international police force may be more appropriate than infantry. Indeed, greater benefits would be gained by the United Nations trying to field such a force rather than a rapid deployment military capability.
Finally, the burden for providing such global capabilities must be equitably shared by nations. It is important to ensure that such operations do not come to be seen as a form of US/Europe imperialism. This will mean helping other regions of the world to develop appropriate capabilities to be able to support intervention in humanitarian crises. East Timor has shown that this can be done.
Tim Garden
London, 25 November 1999