National restrictions in multinational military operations: A conceptual framework

Recent scholarship in security studies has started to explore the causes and consequences of various forms of national restrictions in multinational military operations (MMOs). This article makes a conceptual contribution to this literature by developing a theoretical framework of national restrictions in MMOs that distinguishes between structural, procedural, and operational restrictions. I argue that these types of restrictions are governed by different causal mechanisms. Structural restrictions are relatively stable over time and effect deployment decisions irrespective of other factors. Procedural restrictions, on the other hand, can constitute veto points against deployment only in combination with distinct political preferences. Finally, operational restrictions directly affect the rules of engagement of troop contributing countries. The article illustrates the three types of restrictions and their interaction with empirical examples from a range of countries and sketches their impact on MMO deployment decisions and mandates.     

Less than Meets the Eye

Observers of United States (US) interventions have almost universally characterized the 1994 Haiti intervention as multilateral, a model for how international cooperation can achieve common security goals. A closer analysis of the intervention reveals that the planning and execution of the intervention were almost entirely unilateral and therefore cost the US few if any of the theoretical costs of coalition warfare, including interoperability and policy compromise. Mapped onto the unilateral strategy and operation of the intervention, however, was a multilateral diplomatic effort that secured United Nations Security Council authorization and provided a cover for an intervention that the US had already planned and intended to execute with or without that authorization. That the US sought a multilateral cover for an intervention that it could easily accomplish unilaterally shows the importance of two factors: A domestic audience that opposed unilateral peacekeeping but would accept using US resources as part of a broader multilateral operation, and a local population that would be more responsive to a multilateral coalition than a use of force that was perceived to be unilateral. The Haiti intervention shows that the determinants of success in operations other than war are as much political as military. When the US already has overwhelming military superiority vis-à-vis its adversary, building military coalitions becomes as much about enlisting political support as aggregating material capability.     

Conditional commitments: Why states use caveats to reserve their efforts in military coalition operations

Why do states make substantial military contributions to coalition operations, while at the same time apply reservations, or caveats, to how the coalition can use the military contributions? Caveats rose to prominence in defense and policy circles with NATO’s campaign in Afghanistan. In the scholarly security literature, the term remains a buzzword for all types of reserved efforts by states in coalition warfare, but there are few theoretical accounts addressing caveats. This article contributes to the knowledge gap on caveats through a comparative case study of Denmark’s, the Netherlands’, and Norway’s contributions to NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011. It demonstrates that caveats can occur through three different causal pathways: compromises from domestic bargaining, handling of alliance commitments, and implementation and civil–military relations. Insights into the complexity that causes caveats are highly relevant for both political and military decision-makers that are trying to coordinate states’ effort in coalition operations.     

Controlled warfare: how directed-energy weapons will enable the US Military to fight effectively in an urban environment while minimizing collateral damage

US military operations are increasingly conducted within urban environments and with these operations come the risk of increasing the number of civilian casualties and infrastructure damage. The use of non-lethal weaponry, such as directed-energy weapons, is one method for minimizing collateral damage. This method enables US military forces to effectively fight within urban environments through force escalation capabilities. Using a series of historical examples and future scenarios for urban warfare, this article highlights deficiencies affecting military capabilities in military urban operations, addresses the consequences of collateral damage, assesses the effectiveness of directed-energy weapons in military urban operations and encourages further funding, research and integration of non-lethal weaponry, such as directed-energy weapons, within the US military.     

More allies,weaker missions? How junior partners contribute to multinational military operations

There is a growing consensus that multinational military operations are often less effective than the theoretical sum of their constitutive parts. Multiple chains of command, restriction on intelligence sharing, and capability aggregation problems can reduce fighting power. However, partners may be necessary to provide legitimacy to an intervention. As such, most studies assume that the state leading a coalition (usually the United States) has to accept a degree of operational ineffectiveness in order to gain political benefits from the participation of junior partners to a multinational military operation. However, such analysis puts all junior partners under the same category, without taking into account the differentiated contributions of those junior partners based on their relative military power and international status. This article explores variation between the junior partners’ contributions and their impact on coalition political and military dynamics. It teases out the implications of adopting a fine-grained analysis of junior partners.     

Vicarious warfare: The counterproductive consequences of modern American military practice

This article examines contemporary modes of American warfare. It posits the concept of “vicarious warfare” as a means of capturing prominent patterns in warfighting approaches. Although rooted in long-standing traditions of military practice, vicarious warfare is sufficiently novel as to be identifiable as a distinct phenomenon. The precise manifestation or combination of vicarious methods vary according to the specific circumstances and political contexts prevailing in different theaters. However, America’s general preference is to fight its wars by delegating tasks to proxies and limiting exposure of its own military to danger. Where U.S. forces are employed directly, this takes place largely in the shadows. Such approaches have clear attractions, offer undoubted tactical advantages, and permit successive administrations to maintain a persistent tempo of operations that evades rigorous democratic scrutiny. Yet, prominent cases and numerous studies suggest that vicarious warfare has a high potential to generate counterproductive effects and significant strategic harm.     

Space,the New Domain: Space Operations and Chinese Military Reforms

ABSTRACT

The Chinese military has embarked on a series of organizational and doctrinal reforms intended to better enable it to fight modern war. Prominent among these reforms is the growing emphasis on space to enable long-range precisions strikes and on counterspace to deny space capabilities to an adversary. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has officially designated space as a new domain and established an organization to command space forces. With this increased focus on space, the PLA may begin to develop a doctrine to govern the use of space in military operations. The higher priority given to space, especially space control, by the PLA coincides with similar actions by the US military, increasing the possibility of warfare in space and the risks of escalation.     

Self-Defense Militias,Death Squads,and State Outsourcing of Violence in India and Turkey

What explains the variation in states’ nonstate partners in civil warfare? States often use nonstate actors to do what their regular military forces cannot do well – navigate the local population. Some of their nonstate partners are ordinary civilians, while others are battle-hardened fighters with a rebellious or criminal past. The choice of proxy carries serious implications for the patterns and effects of violence during civil war, human rights, and international security. This article is the first to disaggregate the nonstate counterinsurgents and offer an explanation for why and how states use each type. It brings together the politics of collaboration with the politics of exploitation. The article shows that the state’s use of nonstate proxies is shaped by the supply of willing collaborators, the state’s ability to exercise control over them, and the trade-offs underlying the use of the different types of nonstate actors. The empirical evidence used to support this argument comes from a novel, comparative study of Turkey’s counterinsurgency campaign against Kurdish separatists and India’s counterinsurgency against Kashmiri separatists. The original data were collected through fieldwork in the disputed territories of each country.     

Currency Warfare and Just War: The Ethics of Targeting Currencies in War

ABSTRACT

Is Currency Warfare defined as, the use of monetary or military force directed against an enemy’s monetary power as part of a military campaign, a just way to fight a war? This article explores the ethics of waging currency warfare against the Just War Tradition’s principles of jus in bello (just conduct in war) and its criteria of discrimination and proportionality. The central argument is that currency warfare is inherently indiscriminate but may be proportionate when policy makers consider the nature of the threat confronted and the targeted currency's level of internationalization, that is, to what degree it is used in foreign transactions or used as a foreign currency reserve. I evaluate this argument against historical cases during the Second World War (1939–1945), the Gulf War (1990–1991), subsequent operations against Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s, and the ongoing campaign against ISIS.     

Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the Rhodesian Front regime propaganda warfare strategy during Zimbabwe’s war of liberation. It uses the case of the Chilonga area of Chiredzi located in the south-east of Zimbabwe to demonstrate that propaganda warfare was introduced as a measure to counter guerrilla infiltration and civilian cooperation with them. Drawing on ideas of military anthropology vis-à-vis the importance of cultural awareness in counterinsurgency, the paper argues that the efforts of the Rhodesian Front regime to use propaganda were fruitless. This is because they mostly ignored the culture of the Shangani, local people. Despite that, there were other reasons for the failure of the Rhodesian Front’s propaganda strategy, including the lack of conformity between politics and military action.     

网络战对作战的影响及对策

网络战作为一种新的作战形式引入作战领域,越来越受到各国重视,并已成为世界各国争相研究和重点建设的作战样式。文章从网络战的特点入手,针对网络战对作战影响进行了探讨,并从构建网络体系、研发武器装备、重视人才培养和加强训练演练四个方面阐述了强化军队网络战的对策措施。     

关于战略级推演模拟型作战实验的思考

摘要：在划分作战实验类别的基础上,界定了战略级推演模拟型作战实验的基本概念;从国家战略目标确立、国际局势把握、联合作战指挥人才培养的角度,阐述了战略级推演模拟型作战实验的作用及意义;从以军事战略方针为指导、与军队建设和军事作战协调发展、以作战实验机构为依托、以作战实验技术手段为支撑的角度,分析了战略级推演模拟型作战实验的基本要求;从功能结构、逻辑概念结构、运行模式的角度,进行了战略级推演模拟型作战实验室的初步设计。研究结果可为推动作战实验的创新发展提供理论参考。     

United States defence contractors and the future of military operations

ABSTRACT

The United States’ global strategic outlook has shifted markedly since the end of major combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the United States’ strategic posture shifts, the nature of military operations is simultaneously changing rapidly. Many analysts predict that cyber-operations, autonomous weapons systems, artificial intelligence, and clandestine special forces operations will be central features in future conflicts. Although often overlooked by scholars and policy analysts, defence contractors are integral to the development and implementation of these emerging categories of warfare. This inquiry examines the evolving nature of the American defence industry and the roles corporations play in current theatres of conflict. Surprisingly, rather than becoming less reliant on defence contractors after their much-maligned performance in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, American military and intelligence agencies have become more dependent on the private sector as technology becomes increasingly central to warfare.     

The ambivalent coalition: doing the least one can do against the Islamic state

The effort to degrade and defeat the Islamic State is like many other multilateral military efforts – characterized by widely varying contributions to the effort. This article seeks to understand the patterns of contributions. Three sets of explanations are applied: the lessons of Afghanistan and Libya, variations in how potential contributors feel the threat posed by the Islamic State, and domestic political dynamics. While there may be some political processes that overlap with the big lessons and with the threat of the Islamic State, the patterns of contributions thus far suggest that the key drivers of reactions to the Islamic State are the desire not to repeat Afghanistan combined with some impetus provided by Islamic State attacks in the various homelands. The conclusion suggests some policy implications as well as some ideas for future research.     

A study of peacekeeping,peace-enforcement and private military companies in Sierra Leone

The four military interventions into the conflict in Sierra Leone between 1995 and 2000 met with varying degrees of success. One of the more effective ones was launched by a private military company (PMC) early in the conflict. In the following paper a comparison is made between different aspects of the PMC intervention and the interventions by national military and by multilateral forces from regional and international organisations. The findings are that the interventions of the PMC and national forces were more successful due to their clear peace-enforcing mandate, unitary structure, elite counterinsurgency training, intelligence-gathering capabilities, relationship with the public, incentive to win as efficiently as possible and role as a force multiplier for local forces. The failure of multilateral peacekeeping forces in peace-enforcing roles suggests that small contingents of elite special forces, whether donated unilaterally by governments or hired in a competitive PMC market, are not only likely to be more effective in bringing violent conflict to a halt, but could at the same time be helpful in building the capacity, loyalty and professionalism of local militaries.     

The strategic purpose of individual augmentee officers for junior partners in multinational military operations

ABSTRACT

This article examines the strategic purpose of Individual Augmentee Officers (IAOs) for junior partners in multinational military operations through an exploratory case study of Danish IAOs in Iraq and South Sudan between 2014 and 2017. IAOs are individual officers who are moved from their normal functions to be seconded to other units of the armed forces of their own or another country or an international institution. The study concludes that IAOs function as strategically important, yet not necessarily indispensable, supplements to military contingents in several ways: making tangible contributions to the overall mission (contributing), gaining access to information, knowledge, and experience (learning), and lobbying decision-making processes within mission headquarters (lobbying). The usefulness of IAOs depends on whether the junior partner has specific interests and a significant presence in the theatre and whether the mission is conducted as a UN mission, a NATO mission, or an ad hoc coalition.     

信息心理战理论模型以及量化模型探讨

军事理论的研究在心理战方面已经取得了一些成果,但在量化分析方面显示不足。从信息心理战基本作用原理入手,利用数学建模的思想,构建基本信息传播扩散原理模型并且设置合理参数模拟动态过程,从而获得军事行动中心理战的心理攻击信息内部传播动态数学模型,对于未来信息化战争量化分析以及效能分析有一定参考价值。     

Coordination as showcasing: the establishment of Norway’s Afghanistan Forum

In complex operations such as the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, where multiple government ministries are involved in putting together a state’s contributions, the use of national-level coordination bodies has become more widespread. Research has taken for granted that the rationale behind these bodies reflects their declared aim – enhanced coordination as a means to improve mission effectiveness. However, they appear to have had modest effect on coordination. That notwithstanding, they seem to remain popular. This prompts us to ask why such bodies are actually established. This article – based on in-depth interviews and archival records – critically explores the establishment of Norway’s ad hoc, inter-ministerial, political-level Afghanistan Forum. Distinguishing between a structural-instrumental, a cultural-institutional and an environmental perspective from organizational theory to structure the analysis, this article shows that the declared purpose of the forum, inter-ministerial coordination, proved less important than showcasing coordination efforts and keeping the coalition together. In addition, national traditions in handling coordination challenges in the central government apparatus and powerful international reforms helped bring the forum about. This has implications for research on the rationale and effectiveness of these bodies, and also for understanding their policy relevance.     

强军新时代军队作战数据建设

在信息化战争时代,作战数据已成为战争的重要资源和有效武器,夺取"数据主动权"已成为新一轮军事竞争的重要内容。针对现阶段军队作战数据资源建设中存在的现实问题,基于对作战数据定义和本质内涵的认识与思考,从组织领导、岗位设计、业务定位、责任划分、管理模式、模型体系、协作共享、人才培养等方面,提出了强军新时代加速推进我军作战数据正规化、标准化、实用化建设与发展的几点建议。     

军事指挥类期刊对军事学术研究的透视

军事指挥类期刊主要依靠各级军事指挥员,服务于部队全面建设。在军事学术研究队伍不断发展壮大的今天,军事指挥类期刊为部队“能打仗、打胜仗”军事理论研究服务,但军事学术研究存在着研究群体优势和合成作战理论优势发挥不够的问题。因而,要高度重视军事学术研究人才培养,加大经费投入,强化军兵种之间合成作战理论研究的力度。