Intervention Seminar Athena 11

Optimization of civ-mil synergies in the field of Crisis Management

Brig General Marco Serronha, Deputy Commander KFOR

I will divide my speech in three parts, the first one is a small introduction to the subject, the second is an analysis of the reality in the cooperation between civilian and military organizations and the third some views on how to proceed in a pragmatic approach. Due to my position I will focus on NATO’s developments in comprehensive approach and civil-military cooperation.

When we talk about coordination is important, in my view, that the language and terminology are precise so that we know what we are talking about. In that sense it is important to address some concepts and definitions about Synergy, Comprehensive Approach and capabilities.

Some Concepts (what are talking about?)

Synergy is defined as the combined or cooperative action of two or more agents, groups or parts that together increase each other's effectiveness.

Dr Paul Newton

Synergy may be defined as two or more things functioning together to produce a result not independently obtainable. That is, if elements A and B are combined, the result is greater than the expected arithmetic sum A+B.

The term synergy comes from the Greek word syn-ergos, συνεργός, meaning "working together".

Wikipedia

Comprehensive Approach is defined (in NATO) as the synergy of all actors and actions of the international community through the coordination and de-conflicting of political, development, and security capabilities to face today’s challenges. This is a conceptual framework to describe civil military interaction. NATO uses the term to stress the need for the international community to improve co-operation and coordination of crisis management tools, assets and resources.

The Comprehensive Approach could be defined as the cross-governmental generation and application. This should includesecurity, government and development services, expertise, and structures/resources over time and distance.This should incorporate partnerships with host nations, allied, government, and institution partners (Chatham house OCA).

Comprehensive Approach and CIMIC should not be confused. There is some relationship between concepts but they are not the same. The Comprehensive Approach is a political civilian process, CIMIC is a military organization that facilitates cooperation between the military and civilians, especially at tactical level.

What is a Capability?

Capabilities are comprised of one or more of the following components: Doctrine, Organization, Education & Training, Materiel, Leadership Development, Personnel, Facilities and Interoperability

The reality

NATO’s experiences in missions and operations, especially Kosovo and Afghanistan, have demonstrated that in the framework of military operations, the relations between military forces and civilian authorities, populations, organizations and agencies are complex. It is recognized that peace, security, development and stability are more interconnected than ever placing a premium on close cooperation and coordination amongst international organizations playing their respective roles in crisis prevention and management. As military action alone is insufficient to prevent or resolve crises/conflicts, success in future operations will require enhanced interaction amongst NATO and non-NATO actors at all inlevels before and during NATO engagements. Consequently, Alliance’s heads of state and government agreed on the development of “pragmatic proposals […] to improve coherent application of NATO’s own crisis management instruments as well as practical cooperation at all levels with partners, the UN and other relevant international organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations and local actors in the planning and conduct of ongoing and future operations”.

The Problems

The issue of how to forge a fuller civil military partnership without compromising civilian control of security policy or undermining military effectiveness has emerged as a primary dilemma.

The lack of coherence and coordination among the diverse international and local actors in the international conflict management system has resulted, inter alia, in inter-agency rivalry, working at cross purposes, competition for funding, duplication of effort and sub-optimal economies of scale.

Efforts for enhanced Intergovernmental Organizations cooperation are not unique for Kosovo but elsewhere. Moreover these efforts are nowadays exceeding the realm of intergovernmental organizations and every day more and more academic community is dealing with this issue. Some incentives for participating in ensuring:

Efficiency (because is important joining and coordinating scarce resources);
Consistency (‘the one hand should know what the other is doing’);
Urgency (there is no great success in different missions around the world);
Security (failed/ weak states are becoming training ground for terrorists);
Politics (electorate in West are increasingly impatient for results); and
Legitimacy (more actors – moral and political legitimacy tend to increase).

The main challenges of Intergovernmental Organizations cooperation are:

Formalities (conflicting mandates, no MoUs);
Culture, mindset, prejudices (even between MoD and MFA);
Bureaucratic rigidity (despite wiliness, no flexibility to adjust plans and budget);
Culture of Coordination between civ and mil sides (inside IO – NATO, EU, UN)
Security (of the actors involved);
Funding (a zero-sum game, competing for founds);
Priorities (may share the vision, but not how to reach goals);
Resources (more funding goes to military, less for development);
Leadership (UN, or strongest actor, or main donor country);
Authority (more decentralized authority is needed); and
Local ownership (crucial).

Some of the dilemmas

Cooperation between IO´s faces some dilemmas.

First of all, there is a dilemma concerning the cooperation between international actors. UN, EU and NATO do not share the same interests. In fact they are often rivals in crisis management. Whereas the comprehensive approach concept is designed to facilitate coordination and links between international organizations. It seems that all the discussions taking place on the concept blurred in nature as everyone is trying to pull in his own direction, using it to increase his legitimacy or visibility, at the expense of others.

Second, there is a neutrality and independence dilemma linked to the humanitarian workers, judges or academics (involved in the Human Terrain Teams). The humanitarian workers want assistance to be neutral and autonomous to the population, and the judges want to remain independent wherever they are sent. Due to the political and security challenges of comprehensive approach are often linked to commitments during conflicts which are outside of strict neutrality and independence. The development, security and governance objectives are not always easy to reconcile in the minds of military/humanitarian actors, judges or politicians interviewed. If development, good governance, becomes a political or security instrument, this creates difficulties for the foundation of the actions and their implementation on the ground as it goes beyond the framework of the principles that prevailed it. (e.g. mounting insecurity for humanitarian workers who are increasingly targeted in kidnappings or attacks).

A third dilemma is empowerment of the local actors, as international actors are still present in crisis management, even more so with the comprehensive approach which handles all dimensions of the situation in an integrated manner. A number of examples of crises where the comprehensive approach is applied,Afghanistan or Somalia, demonstrate it is difficult to hand over to local actors because of corruption, drug use, illiteracy, etc. Also, can be complex to rely on the establishment of a provisional central government in decentralized countries. Beyond this issue it is sometimes delicate to promote peace and human rights while relying on local representatives who are not necessarily the right people to guarantee enforcement. How is this possible to present without giving the impression of imposing practices, which are not local, and at the same time train the population? How can you be sure that the actions undertaken will allow an orderly and secure withdrawal of troops?

How to proceed?

Interaction within the engagement space[1] takes place over a wide spectrum. In accordance with Future Comprehensive Civil-Military Interaction Concept enhancing NATO’s ability to interact can be conducted through:

Promoting awareness of other players, based on principles of willingness and appropriate levels of mutual understanding.
Fostering de-confliction between actors, based on principles of information sharing, respect and transparency.
Bringing willing selected actors together to co-operate on managing potential or current crisis through common analysis, shared interests and objectives.
Achieving coherence on a case-by-case basis characterized by collaborative planning and concerted action initiated at the political-strategic level and commenced at all levels.

These four different states clearly delineate the quality of the relationship between NATO and the non-NATO actors engaged .

Relationships between actors may take place along different points across the spectrum of interaction, and will vary dependent on the type and stage of a crisis. The ways to develop enhanced interaction amongst NATO and non-NATO actors could be as follows:

Encourage comprehensive planning and close working-level relationships between Alliance forces and appropriate non-NATO actors prior to or at the onset of a crisis as well as during contingency planning through continued implementation of policy and doctrine.
Find commonality of purpose within an engagement space to promote comprehensive, unified efforts as different instruments are applied to the crisis.
Formalize civil-military interaction mechanisms at all levels with non-NATO actors and within NATO and create cooperative arrangements as appropriate facilitating the delineation of tasks and responsibilities.
Where appropriate, link interaction mechanisms with non-NATO actors to the NATO Crisis Response System and the Operational Planning Process.

We need some Practical solutions

The top down approach (at national and international levels) to find a solution to problems has shown to be a slow process that does not fit with the urgent needs on the ground. However, on the other side strategic and political ambiguity at top level guidance puts great emphasis on the individuals that lead the process at operational and tactical levels, where political space for initiative is needed. So an implementation of more practical approaches at tactical and operational levels are required for that purpose appropriate delegation of authority (and resources) is needed of the senior military and civilian officials in theatre. Integrate small and medium projects with direct impact in security and living condition of populations are an important step for reaching operational and strategic objectives. More training opportunities in civil-military cooperation are also needed, at all levels, in all organizations to have a more efficient articulation of military and civilian capabilities.

Sharing of information between military and civilian actors is one of the fundamentals to have common situational awareness of the engagement space in crisis management operations. And this includes a good knowledge of military and civilian capabilities available to better use them to achieve common objectives. Finding a way forward is having situational awareness to better reduce conflict in the use of means and capabilities in order to have a better level of cooperation in order to achieve coherence in all capabilities. We need doctrines and concepts, organizational changes and procedures, training and education opportunities and of course have the necessary capabilities.

Doctrine and concepts

NATO should continue to work with other international stakeholders in building common concepts and doctrines that better allow the understanding among them. Speaking the same language is mandatory to have common situational awareness and to better tackle the problems.

ACT is producing concepts in an attempt to provide solutions to the main problems in civil military cooperation. Future Comprehensive Civil-Military Interaction Concept’s aim is to enhance NATO’s ability to interact with other stakeholders. If validated (and/or approved) by NATO this concept will have implications to organization, procedures and capability development.

Organization and procedures

NATO, at top level, built the CrisisManagementFusionCenter in at headquarters to better cope with the needs of information sharing and situational awareness in a crisis. Another example is the Civil-military Fusion centre designed to address the information management problems by conducting Information and Knowledge Management by operating a web tool that allows information sharing and interaction between various stakeholders, interested in a particular crisis that allows Civil-military overview.

At lower levels tactical experience and exercises have led to several lessons learned and/or proposals like the following ones:

Command and Control in Stability and Reconstruction(or Hybrid) Operations: NATO strategic commands must apply a model of effective and flexible command and control which is able to reach out to key civilian partners (member and partner nations, international organizations (IOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs))

Harmonize Headquarter Practices and SOPs: On the basis of the experience, experiments and lessons learned SHAPE should take the lead in determining how HRF (L) headquarters’ practices and Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) should be harmonized. This should apply also to tactical composite HQ in missions and operations.

Subject Matter Experts: NATO Subject Matter Experts (SME) are needed both at the centre and within operational headquarters. NATO needs to build civilian capabilities within its structures with seconded/civilian experts at SHAPE, Joint Force (JF) and High-Readiness Force (HRF) levels and in theatre HQs. This will require systematic access at short-notice to relevant expertise.

Civilian Advisory Cluster: An effective Command Group would ideally include a Stratcom Advisor who would be a civilian from outside the formal structure in support of the Public Affairs Office (PAO). S/he would also work in conjunction with the Political Advisor and Cultural Advisor and with a Commander’s Initiative Group (CIG) as part of a civilian cluster designed to test all planning assumptions, and be able toreach out to external expertise and influence

Training and Education

Training and exercising is a good mechanism of confidence building because training stimulates and develops mutual understanding between people and organizations. Training and exercises allow the refinement of procedures through the lessons learned mechanisms and is a good tool to improve local stakeholders’ capacity.

NATO has issued the Strategic Guidance for CA Training emphasizing the need for a CA training “top-down” approach to merge with the existing “bottom-up” approach.

Implementation of CA in training should be considered along the following steps:

Dialogue: Establish a permanent dialogue between non-military and military actors, closely resembling the reality encountered in an operational environment.

Interaction: Create an environment where non-military and military actors interact as they do in theatre.

Participation: Establish comprehensive training events that incorporate non-military actors’ inputs at the exercise design and planning phases.

Integration: Conduct comprehensive training events in which each participating organization has decision-making authorities during the design, planning, conduct and lessons learned processes.

Capability building

As I already told an important aspect of the NATO´s Future Comprehensive Civil-Military Interaction Concept, particularly for nations, is its implication for the development of capabilities[2]. It is expected that it will impact the development of associated capabilities as follows:

Civil-military interaction will be elevated to the status of a critical enabler for all military missions and operations wherein all doctrine must consider and anticipate the implications of interaction with non-NATO actors across all domains;
Institutionalizing interaction will require broad policy and doctrine for NATO internal civil-military interaction that encompasses the various instruments of the Alliance such as linking NATO Civil Emergency Planning policy with NATO military doctrine;
Current organizational practices will be enhanced to achieve an overarching alignment of tasks, responsibilities, and structures within NATO;
Education and training will require the consideration of involvement of non-NATO actors relevant to the Alliance’s efforts. Wherever possible non-NATO subject matter experts should participate, contributes to education and training, based on relevant, well-developed training modules;
Materiel that enables interaction and that is interoperable with relevant non-NATO actors will need to be developed and/or procured;
Senior level political military consultation, planning and decision making will facilitate broader interaction;
Permanent access to a wider array of non-military expertise will be necessary;
Enhanced information centres, possibly based on existing Alliance structures and arrangements, need to be developed as knowledge hubs in support of comprehensive civil-military interaction;
The requirement for increased information sharing at all levels may necessitate revision of current security arrangements, data protocols and Standard Operating Procedures.

EU is also working in capability development and it is important that both NATO and EU have synergies in this area.

Drawing some conclusions we could say that is no miracle solution or silver bullet to have effectiveness in the Comprehensive approach for the time being due to present obstacles and constraints. The real truthis that Crisis Management is not a priority in a nation’s foreign policy. But we need to be pragmatic in finding solutions, especially in the tactical level, that allows the commanders and senior civilian officials in theatre to work together. Also, we need a top down approach to better manage the problems, creating organizational changes for instance, because this cooperation is essential to better management on the ground. And cooperation is needed from the outset of an operations even before a crisis occurs. Only addressing the root causes of the problem we can find cooperative solutions using different capabilities in synergy. Until we can get there we have to rely on the goodwill and experience of the stakeholders (military and civilians) at operational and tactical levels. This is good but in some cases maybe not be enough.

[1]The Engagement Space is that part of the strategic environment in which the Alliance decides to engage.

[2]Capabilities are comprised of one or more of the following components: Doctrine, Organization, Education & Training, Materiel, Leadership Development, Personnel, Facilities and Interoperability.