CIAO DATE: 2/99

Sharpening the Weapons of Peace: The Development of a Common Military Doctrine for Peace Support Operations

Lt. Col. Wilkinson

April 1998

The International Security Information Service

 

Executive Summary

During the Cold War, United Nations (UN) peacekeeping (PK) forces were often deployed in the aftermath of inter-state conflicts to monitor and facilitate peace agreements. Generally, judgements concerning the commitment of the parties to the peace process could be made with some certainty. Such operations were well within the capability of most European (often Nordic and conscript) forces. The Nordic nations were more involved in UN PK operations than members of the UN Security Council and consequently they made the most significant contribution to PK doctrine at this time, stressing that PK forces should be neutral and essentially passive observers.

With the end of the Cold War the nature of PK operations changed. Pressures increased for interventions into volatile, high-risk, intra-state and uncertain environments such as Cambodia, Somalia, Bosnia and Rwanda, in which a wide-spread humanitarian disaster might be either the cause or consequence of a conflict. There has been a dynamic development of PK doctrine in all states with experience of operating in these environments.

The consent of the parties has always been fundamental to the success of a PK operation. While this is still true, the difficulties associated with predicting the consent of the parties in volatile circumstances have demanded that PK forces be prepared to lose consent. One of the lessons of UNPROFOR in Bosnia, for example, was that any PK deployment should be prepared for a Peace Enforcement operation from the outset where it is uncertain if there is a peace to keep.

Peace Enforcement (PE) doctrine is concerned with the “grey area” between PK and war. The need for doctrinal development in this area was demonstrated by the failure of the UN Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM II). This operation moved from one of PK to one of war fighting — by-passing PE completely — making UNOSOM II party to the conflict and thus unable to conduct any further PK role.

A new doctrine of impartial PE has been designed around an international consensus to ensure that military forces do not become party to a conflict but use a combination of coercion and inducement to create the conditions in which other diplomatic and humanitarian agencies can build peace. This doctrine sanctions the impartial use of force, where actions will be taken against or in support of any party, depending on its compliance with the operational mandate and principles enshrined in international humanitarian law. Where forceful activities are driven purely by principled and clearly defined impartiality, the inevitable damage to consent is, at least, easier to rebuild. PE therefore requires considerable military control and restraint, where military commanders balance the short-term advantages gained from the use of enforcement techniques, with the requirements of the other civilian agencies involved.

Prevailing thinking is that the most cost-effective use of scarce resources can be achieved through the early development of a multi-agency strategy or mission plan to decide entry strategy, co-ordinate the incremental engagement of various agencies, and define lines of operation, objectives, main effort, exit strategies and co-ordination mechanisms. It is the responsibility of the head of mission (EU High Representative or UN Special Representative) to develop and co-ordinate the mission plan, although the military force commander will make a significant contribution.

While the new doctrinal consensus reflects the broader political, diplomatic and humanitarian context of Peace Support Operations (PSO), much that is stated on civil-military co-ordination remains an aspiration which is not yet reflected in current practice. Within operational theatres and at the tactical level, Civil-Military Co-ordination (CIMIC) techniques are relatively well advanced. Within certain nations and at the political strategic level, however, government ministries involved in the same PSO often do not plan and conduct operations jointly and consultations with non-governmental agencies is often non-existent.

Without policy direction to establish strategic and political consultation and co-ordination mechanisms within nations and NATO, it is unlikely that the international community will be able to intervene effectively to prevent the wide-spread violation of human rights and help create an environment in which the causes of conflict can be addressed by civilian agencies.

 
 
 

PART I: History of Peacekeeping Doctrine

During the Cold War

The formulation of military doctrine for operations involving troops on behalf of the United Nations (UN) has been through several recent stages of development. In the Cold War era, with the exception of the Korean War, UN forces were principally involved in what has become known as traditional peacekeeping operations. While not specifically mentioned in the UN Charter, peacekeeping operations, involving both military observers and peacekeeping forces, were deployed in the aftermath of inter-state conflicts to monitor and facilitate peace agreements. Generally speaking, the parties to the conflict were relatively responsible and judgements concerning their commitment to the peace process could be made with some certainty. While relatively benign, with the exceptions of the Lebanon and Congo, such operations were well within the capability of most European (often Nordic) conscript forces.

In this era, again with the 1950–53 Korean war being the one major exception, permanent members of the UN Security Council (P5) did not become directly involved in UN activities. This was for reasons of politically perceived partiality in the ongoing ideological struggle and because countering Warsaw Pact aggression in Europe dominated the military thinking and doctrine of the major European powers. Many of the European colonial powers (until the 1960s) were also engaged in countering insurgencies in their various dependencies. At this time, the involvement of troops from the permanent members of the UN Security Council in UN Peacekeeping operations (PKOs) in Africa and the Middle East was minimal. As a consequence it was the Nordic nations who made the most significant contribution to peacekeeping doctrine.

In 1992 (the same year as the UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali’s own treatment of the problem of peacemaking “Agenda for Peace”) Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland produced “Nordic UN Tactical Manuals, Volumes 1 and 2”. Volume 1 focused on principles, operational matters and issues such as civilian and humanitarian tasks while Volume 2 went into the detail of peacekeeping techniques. In many areas this manual was similar to that produced by the British Army in 1988, the Army Field Manual, Volume V, Part 1 “Peacekeeping Operations”. The only discernible doctrinal difference between the two manuals was the emphasis the Nordic Manual placed on neutrality while the British manual focused on impartiality. Given the British Army’s history of counter-insurgency operations, it is not surprising that the UK doctrine favoured a more pro-active approach than the Nordic preference for neutrality. These differences were, however, reconciled in later years in response to the different demands of peacekeeping in volatile intra-state environments.

 

Post-Cold War

With the demise of the Cold War, and the greater involvement of the major powers in UN operations, the development of doctrine for PK has been dynamic. In 1993 and 1994 the UK and US both developed their own peacekeeping manuals: the UK’s Army Field Manual (AFM) Volume V, Part 2, “Wider Peacekeeping” and the US’s FM 100–5 “Peace Operations”. Both took the basic peacekeeping philosophy in the Nordic Manuals and attempted to adapt it for full-time professional armies operating in more uncertain circumstances. “No use of force” thereby evolved into “minimum use of force” which was later modified to “minimum necessary use of force”, and the concept of neutrality shifted to one of impartiality. The key conceptual change being that neutrality suggests observation and passivity while impartiality requires principled judgements in relation to the mandate and endorses consequential impartial responses. These doctrinal developments were based on an ever widening international consensus as experiences and lessons learned were being shared by an increasing number of practitioners.

At the same time that nations were developing their new doctrine for Peace Support Operations (PSO) to meet the challenges of the new strategic environment of collapsed and collapsing states, NATO was addressing the same issues. In 1992, at the Athens Conference, NATO Ministers first tried to develop a strategic directive for PSO and in 1993 the Military Committee endorsed MC 327 “Military Planning for PSO”. MC 327 remained extant until 20 October 1997 when it was replaced by MC 327/1 “ Military Concept for PSO”. In the interim, NATO and SHAPE PSO doctrinal statements were tied to the original MC 327, which itself was tied to the Athens report.

These PSO doctrinal statements were, however, largely ignored by many nations who were busily developing their own wider, ad hoc, international consensus. NATO’s statements were seen to rely on outmoded concepts which were not sufficiently informed by current peacekeeping experiences. While nations were learning the hard lessons of UNPROFOR, NATO was not involved in ground operations and appeared to many to be trying to destabilise them by an inappropriate overlay of Peace Enforcement (PE) actions from the air. As a consequence, NATO was rarely included in the doctrinal debate and remained outside the developing doctrinal consensus until early 1997 when it. finally decided to update MC 327/1 and bring its PSO doctrine in line with that already developed by national militaries.

In 1996, due to its increasing role in Bosnia, Sweden decided to update its doctrine and bring it more into line with other participating nations. In 1997 they published their first joint manual with the UK, simply entitled “Peace Support Operations”. The Irish Army, with its long history of regular force peacekeeping and in particular the staff at the UN Training School, Ireland (UNTSI), were also actively, yet informally, engaged in the debate on doctrinal development.

Elsewhere, doctrinal consensus had been developing over the previous years within the FINABEL group of nations (France, Italy, Netherlands, Allemagne, Belgium, Espagne and Luxembourg, but now expanded to include Portugal and Greece). This forum proved to be a more amenable environment to exchange ideas and develop doctrinal consensus, perhaps because it is less institutionally tied to prescribed procedures. In 1995 and 1996, in a series of enlightened meetings, FINABEL developed its own doctrine for PSO in paper T25R. This was based upon the then current lessons of the major practitioners and the development of the paper itself greatly helped draw the burgeoning consensus tighter together.

While T25R was institutionally tied to using the then endorsed NATO definitions for PSO, definitions with which the nations were becoming increasingly at odds, it did explore the changed strategic environment and draw a distinction between PSO and War Fighting. War fighting was seen as being based upon the defeat of a designated enemy, whereas PE was not. While PE might require the application of force, combat operations were conducted impartially against whosoever did not comply with the mandate and were designed to enforce compliance and not necessarily defeat the non-complying party. It also highlighted the multi-agency nature of PSO when it defined success in PSO as settlement, not victory, “though settlement is rarely achievable by military efforts alone”.

MC327/1 drew upon the new conceptual framework in T25R but was able to redefine the definitions to the general satisfaction of the nations. The most significant development in MC327/1 was an acknowledgement that military forces which are only capable of conducting peacekeeping tasks should not be deployed into a civil war zone and given peacekeeping tasks defined in terms of “the containment, moderation and or termination of hostilities between or within states”. It is now doctrinally acknowledged that in a conflict zone, where there may be little or no consent for the operation, such tasks can only be accomplished by a force configured for PE. However, having deterred or coerced any opposition, or having enforced peace, the PE force should lower its operational profile to that of a PK force as soon as judged operationally viable, but while retaining the ability to escalate as and when necessary.

As the nations were developing their PSO doctrines bi-laterally or collectively in FINABEL and NATO, the WEU was more focused on operational mission and planning profiles. At the NATO North Atlantic Council Meeting in Berlin in June 1996, the WEU agreed to examine and develop 20 hypothetical PSO mission planning profiles. These were to use assets and capabilities which were to be separable but not separate from NATO.

Concurrently, various academic theses have been devised in parallel with military developments which have made valuable contributions to the doctrinal debate. These have included, amongst others “second generation peacekeeping”, and “Chapter 6 * Operations”. These theses identified that the strategic environment had changed and that the challenges posed by intra-state, rather than inter-state crisis, were generally beyond the competence of traditional peacekeepers and peacekeeping doctrine, as it was then defined. Both were attempts to fill that doctrinal void or “grey area”, as it increasingly became known, between peacekeeping doctrine and more traditional war-fighting doctrines.

 
 
 

PART II: Doctrinal lessons learnt from recent peacekeeping operations

With the end of the Cold War the nature of PKOs changed. Operations increasingly involved interventions into volatile, high-risk, intra-state and uncertain environments — such as Cambodia, Somalia, Bosnia and Rwanda, in which a wide spread humanitarian disaster might be either the cause or consequence of conflict. While the causes of such disasters are complex and have their origins in a myriad of political, economic and cultural factors, their symptoms are generally defined in terms of human rights abuses or breaches of International Humanitarian Law. To redress the symptoms and address the causes of such a complex emergency involves the development of a composite response strategy and doctrine, involving many different military and civilian agencies. Hence the requirement to expose and discuss the new doctrine with a wide range of civilian agencies such as Save the Children, International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International etc. As a consequence, the new doctrine defines PSO as multi-functional operations, in acknowledgement that military forces will be but one of many deployed agencies and possibly the one which will be in the theatre for the shortest period of time.

 

Bosnia: Refining PK doctrine to create secure environments

While trying not to be overly Bosnia specific, there are key lessons that can be learned from the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR). It was in response to an urgent operational requirement to meet the doctrinal needs of UNPROFOR in the former Yugoslavia that the British Army produced Army Field Manual (AFM) “Wider Peace Keeping (WPK).” This manual was designed specifically to offer guidance to armed forces who were operating in Bosnia and who were attempting to keep the peace in the midst of a civil war when there was no peace to keep. In acknowledgement that it was overly Bosnia specific, and that doctrinal developments in PSO were likely to be dynamic, AFM “WPK” was issued as an interim edition only. The manual also acknowledged that it makes little sense to produce a purely national doctrine for what are self-evidently multinational operations which involve a wider group of civilian agencies as well as military forces. In many ways therefore the UK’s “WPK” set the scene for subsequent doctrinal developments.

Although widely criticised, UNPROFOR achieved as much as could reasonably be expected, given its limited resources and mandate. While it has been described in some fora as a failure (especially by those who did not participate in the operation), that is certainly not the tactical level view of practitioners. The tactical level view is that UNPROFOR’s perceived failures were not due to a lack of military or civilian competence in the field but resulted from insufficient political will and commitment from the international community. In the absence of any coherent policy there was no tactical alternative but to maintain the operation with the hope that there would eventually be some form of peace initiative at the political/strategic level. In the longer term, military actions are no substitute for political initiatives and UNPROFOR could only put off the inevitable day when an operational commander would have to force the issue at the political level. In mid-1995, UNPROFOR was eventually confronted by what Lieutenant General Rupert Smith, commander UN forces in Bosnia, described as “the fork in the road” — the choice of UNPROFOR either becoming incredible and untenable or switching to Peace Enforcement (PE). The decision to chose the enforcement route, in turn, provided fresh impetus to the political process.

Measured against the two truisms that you cannot keep the peace unless there is a peace to keep and that you cannot fight wars from white painted vehicles, and with the benefit of hindsight, it is now generally acknowledged that UNPROFOR was under-resourced, in terms of equipment and Rules of Engagement (ROE), for its mission in the prevailing circumstances at the time in Bosnia. With that in mind, it became necessary to re-evaluate the doctrine represented in AFM “WPK”. In the manual, the term “wider peacekeeping” was defined as “the wider aspects of peacekeeping operations carried out with the general consent of the parties but in an environment that may be highly volatile”. The view now is that this definition stretched traditional peacekeeping doctrine just too far and that PK forces which rely on consent should not be deployed into a civil war involving widespread human rights abuses. The curtailment of these abuses may risk a general loss of consent which is beyond the ability of the peacekeepers to manage and is therefore likely to risk the failure of the mission.

These were the circumstances in which UNPROFOR found itself operating and which came to a head in mid-1995. The lesson is that the restriction of human rights abuses, the creation of “safe areas” and other tasks requiring enforcement can only be accomplished, and should only be attempted, by a force capable of over-matching whatever level of opposition it may be offered. This became a recurring lesson in the conduct of operations in intra-state, failing or failed states where the parties may be ill-disciplined, motivated by power and greed and indistinguishable from the rest of the population. In these circumstances, any predictions of the “in-theatre” levels of consent or other conditions may be so problematic as to be worthless. In which case, the judicious course of action would be to deploy with the necessary force levels to achieve the mission irrespective of any opposition. That is to deploy prepared for PE from the outset.

Having generally acknowledged the inadequacies of “WPK” and the other national doctrines of its era, further development commenced with a re-evaluation of all previous UN PK and enforcement operations (as then defined) such as the Korean and Gulf Wars, those “small wars” in which many states had been involved in colonial withdrawal and other national experiences such as that of the British Army in support to the civil power in Northern Ireland. The fundamental question that needed to be answered was what was so different about modern operations in complex emergencies —so called “grey zones”— that merited a new doctrine? The answer to that question, and to why neither doctrines for PK nor “war fighting” operations were appropriate, was found in a close examination of the desired end-state of these various operations. Inevitably the end-state focused on security issues, the creation of conditions in which civilian agencies could redress the causes of the complex emergency and the creation of a self-sustaining peace, rather than the defeat of a designated enemy. Military actions needed to be designed to create a secure environment and conditions in which others can build a comprehensive and a self-sustaining peace, rather than a superficial termination of conflict by military force. This suggested that what was needed was a doctrine to identify and define a new approach or approaches to PSO, which, whilst based on combat capability relative to any potential opposition, endorsed the judicious and impartial use of force where this was compatible with the long term requirements of peace-building.

 

Somalia: Refining Peace Enforcement (PE) doctrine

In the immediate development of military doctrine after the Cold War, there was a general assumption that PE was synonymous with war and therefore war-fighting doctrine was sufficient for its execution. For example, the 1991 Gulf War was widely described as a PE operation. In 1993 in Somalia, when the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM II) decided to escalate and target President Aideed, the operation moved from one of PK to war-fighting — by-passing PE completely — and thereby made UNOSOM II a party to the conflict. This experience demonstrated the need to define the grey area between peacekeeping and war so as to offer policy-makers a wider range of more appropriate options. The new doctrine of impartial PE is designed to ensure that military forces do not become a party to a conflict but use a combination of coercion and inducement to create the conditions in which other diplomatic and humanitarian agencies can build peace.

The lessons of UNOSOM II have been learnt and applied, especially in US military doctrine . US policy impositions, however, with a fixation on the need to minimise casualties and mission creep, have inhibited the application of that doctrine and the conduct of operations. A policy of no casualties and no mission creep can only serve to hinder the conduct of military operations and impede the achievement of the mission. In the longer term, a policy of no risk taking and no initiative can only detract from the military’s functional efficacy.

 
 
 

PART III: Elements of current PK doctrine

It is now widely agreed in most military doctrines for PSO that military activities are designed to create the conditions in which diplomatic and aid agencies can more effectively address the symptoms and underlying causes of the conflict and that these conditions are best achieved by employing a combination of coercion and inducements — a “stick and carrot approach”. To do this effectively requires considerable military control and restraint, and co-ordination with the civilian agencies who need to tell the military force those conditions which need to be created. This clearly justifies a comprehensive doctrine distinct from war-fighting, while acknowledging that the ability to escalate and use combat remains a prerequisite of PE planning. The latest UK, US, French, Swedish, NATO and FINABEL doctrines all start by defining a conceptual framework for PSO which makes the distinction between PSO and other more war-like operations, also conducted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, before offering guidance for the conduct of PSO. As such, PE doctrine fills the gap or the “grey area” between PK and war.

 

Consent of the Parties

As in the case of previous peacekeeping studies, PSO considerations were inevitably drawn to the fundamentals of consent, impartiality and their relationship with the application of force. First, as stated with such clarity in AFM “WPK”, peacekeeping is dependent on the consent of the parties, and the promotion of co-operation and consent is fundamental for success. That view is still extant. However, the general view that there is a “rubicon” of consent — as described in AFM “WPK” — is only perceived as being relevant from the perspective of a lightly-armed PK force. For a combat-capable PSO force, such as I/SFOR, consent is an important consideration but not as a “rubicon” which cannot be easily and frequently re-crossed. From a broader PSO force perspective, there is no “rubicon” of consent. Indeed, the very ambition of a combat-capable PE force should be to lower its operational profile to that of peacekeeping as soon as is appropriate, while retaining its ability to escalate as and when required. These were the very conditions that IFOR found on deployment to Bosnia in 1995/6. For such a force, a general loss of consent may be viewed as a tactical reverse, but it should not threaten the existence of the mission. However, if the conduct of all PSO is designed to create a self-sustaining peace the promotion of co-operation and consent must remain a long term requirement.

 

Impartiality

The second most significant consideration concerned whether or not a PE force should be impartial. This was not difficult to determine as the long-term requirement to build consent demands an impartial approach to the conduct of operations. However, even if all PSO force actions are in support of an impartial mandate and conducted impartially, will they be perceived that way and does it matter if they are not?

Impartiality is not neutrality, which suggests observation and passivity. Impartiality requires a set of principles, generally enshrined in international humanitarian law and/or the force’s operational mandate, against which the actions of the belligerent parties can be judged and acted upon. Actions will be taken against or in support of any party, depending on its compliance or non-compliance with the mandate and not because of who it is. Inevitably, positive actions, whether the delivery of aid or the use of force, whether conducted impartially or not, will have consequences which penalise or favour one party more than another. PSO activities will ,therefore, probably be seen as partial by one or more of the parties at some stage of the operation and the force will be accused of being so. So long as PSO force activities are driven purely by principled and clearly defined impartiality, such accusations can be refuted and the subsequent damage to consent eventually rebuilt.

The only PE operation thus far in which force has been used impartially, rather than merely threatened, (as in the case of I/SFOR) was the French ‘Operation Turquoise’ in Rwanda. While French actions were accused of partiality at the strategic level, the operation was conducted impartially at the tactical level and tactically the operation was a success. While French experiences and lessons learnt have been remarkably similar to those of the British and they shared a considerable common understanding of the tactical requirements for success, it was not until late 1997 that their respective doctrines were aligned. This was not a conceptual misunderstanding but one of language and terminology. What the UK and the other NATO nations define as PE, the French call ‘Restauration de la Paix’, while the French categorise limited war (Gulf War) as ‘Imposition de la Paix’.

 

Peace Enforcement

Having restricted PK doctrine to operations where there is a peace to keep, and having identified that PE is different from war in certain respects, it is now possible to define PE and offer guidance for its conduct. The current doctrinal approach for PE is designed to offer commanders the maximum flexibility in the conduct of operations. The doctrine offers a wide range of enforcement and consent-promoting techniques. It suggests the use of enforcement where there is opposition and the use of consent-promoting techniques to maintain consent where it already exists or to build consent where it is uncertain. As such, the conduct of operations will rely heavily on information operations and other techniques designed to persuade the warring, or former warring factions, that their best interests lie in peace rather than a return to conflict. When, and if, one of the warring parties fails to comply with the mandate and it becomes necessary for the PSO to use force, the aim would be to re-enforce the peace rather than the physical defeat of the non-complying faction. Thus, the underlying concept is to apply the most appropriate technique to grasp and maintain the initiative in order to expand areas of consent at the expense of areas of opposition. This aims to create greater operational space in which other civilian agencies can function.

IFOR’s original concept of operations conformed entirely to this doctrinal model. While there was a peace to keep (Dayton), the history of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia and the painful experiences of UNPROFOR dictated that IFOR should deploy prepared for PE. But having deployed for the worst case scenario, the level of compliance by the former warring factions with the terms of the military Annex of Dayton were such that NATO military commanders were able very quickly to lower their operational profiles to that more akin to PK. They thereby switched some of their assets to consent promoting techniques in support of peace building activities, while retaining the ability to escalate should that be necessary.

 

Compatibility with peace-building

PSO doctrine requires that military commanders balance the short-term advantages which may be gained from the use of enforcement techniques, with the requirements of the other diplomatic and aid agencies involved, and the long term demands of peace. In addition, they must ensure that military efforts to build consent are co-ordinated into a wider multi-agency “hearts and minds” strategy. Military actions are designed to conclude conflict by conciliation rather than a short-term and superficial termination of the conflict by force. Assisting the Host Nation to establish a stable and self-sustaining peace, rather than military victory, is the ultimate measure of success in PSO. Military forces may need to conduct combat operations to enforce compliance, but the use of force will be constrained by the long-term requirement to rebuild consent and peace-building in general. The new doctrine acknowledges that while peace-building activities will be supported by information operations and Civil Military Co-operation (CIMIC) projects, the prime responsibility for peace-building rests with other civilian agencies.

 

Mission strategy: a product of civil-military co-operation

Prevailing thinking is that the most cost-effective use of scarce resources can be achieved by the early development of a multi-agency strategy or mission plan. This should draw together the activities of the various agencies involved so as to achieve both unity of purpose and effort. This plan will need to develop an entry strategy to co-ordinate the incremental engagement of various agencies into the mission and to define lines of operation, objectives, main effort, exit strategies and co-ordination mechanisms.

It may well be that the main effort does not lie with the military. In the conduct of PSO, military forces must be prepared to be placed in support of a civilian agency or a political ‘supremo’ (who may be referred to as the Head of Mission or possibly High Representative). It is the responsibility of this Head of Mission to develop and co-ordinate the mission plan, not the military force commander, although the commander will make a significant input into its development.

In the context of a UN mandated operation the political ‘supremo’ would be a Special Representative of the UN Secretary General (SRSG) while for an OSCE mandated operation it would be an EU High Representative. There is not, however, an agreed institutionalised relationship to co-ordinate the involvement of NATO and the UN at either the strategic or operational levels. The process which became known in Bosnia as the ‘dual key’ process between the UN and NATO was considered highly unsatisfactory. And, of course, the involvement of nations in NATO Non-Article V operations, be that PSO or otherwise, rests with the nations. Such matters are currently being considered and discussed as part of the ongoing NATO strategic review.

 
 
 

Conclusion

The international consensus which is now represented in many newly published national doctrines is not, however, conclusive. This must remain a dynamic doctrinal area because the doctrine that has been developed, in particular for PE, is mainly predictive and, apart from ‘Operation Turquoise’, has yet to stand the test of operational reality.

While the new doctrinal consensus reflects the broader political, diplomatic and humanitarian context of PSO, much that is stated on civil-military co-ordination remains an aspiration, not yet reflected in current practice. Within operational theatres and at the tactical level, Civil-Military Co-ordination (CIMIC) doctrine and techniques are relatively well advanced. However, within certain nations, at the political strategic level, government ministries involved in the same PSO often do not plan and conduct operations jointly and consultation with non-governmental agencies may be non-existent. While NATO doctrine defines success in terms of creating conditions in which other civilian, government and non-governmental agencies can more ably redress the causes of the crisis, there is often no mechanism for consultation with these agencies and, therefore, no reliable means of discovering which conditions need to be created.

Thus, while PK doctrine now acknowledges the need for close co-operation with civilian agencies to determine the conditions for settlement and the strategy to achieve these conditions, these requirements are frustrated by insufficient consultation during policy formulation. Without policy direction to establish strategic and political consultation and co-ordination mechanisms within the nations and NATO, it is unlikely that the international community will make best use of scarce resources, crisis will only be partially addressed, and effective intervention to prevent the widespread violation of human rights will remain little more than political rhetoric.