Development of Military Doctrine: The Particular Case of Small States

Abstract

In this article, the development of the Norwegian Armed Forces' Joint Doctrine of 2007 is analysed in order to illustrate some distinct characteristics of the development of small state doctrines. First, small states have limited freedom and limited institutional capacity to realise their own ideas about the use of their military forces. Furthermore, their contribution of forces to multilateral military operations signals political support for an institution (NATO) or a cause, but they are too small to make a real difference to the military operation. Hence, the operational experiences of these forces differ from those of larger countries. The stakes are lower, and they are unlikely to suffer military defeat in a decisive way. They may suffer losses, but they will not lose a war. As a consequence, small state doctrines at the strategic level have become detached from the question of operational effectiveness and are instead utilised for the purpose of promoting political, legal and ethical messages to the military, to a domestic audience, and to international allies.

Key Words:

• Military Doctrine
• Small States
• RMA
• Norway

Notes

¹This bias towards the United States has a natural explanation, i.e. that much doctrinal innovation is American. Most notable in recent years have been the development of the so-called Information Technology Revolution in Military Affairs (IT-RMA). See Stephen Peter Rosen, ‘The Impact of the Office of Net Assessment on the American Military in the Matter of the Revolution in Military Affairs’, Journal of Strategic Studies 33/4 (Aug. 2010), 469–82; Dima Adamsky, ‘American Strategic Culture and the US Revolution in Military Affairs’, Defence and Security Studies, 2 (2008), 13–18. For a broader analysis of the impact of cultural factors on the course of military innovations, see Dima Adamsky, The Culture of Military Innovation: The Impact of Cultural Factors on the Revolution in Military Affairs in Russia, the US and Israel (Stanford UP 2010).

² Norwegian Armed Forces Joint Operational Doctrine (Oslo: Defence Staff 2007). The Joint Operational Doctrine 2007 was published both in Norwegian and English. The doctrines of 1995 and 2000 were both published in Norwegian only.

³ Strength and Relevance: Strategic Concept for the Norwegian Armed Forces (Oslo: Ministry of Defence 2004). Five years later this concept was revised and published again, confirming the determination of the Norwegian Government to maintain a written security policy doctrine on this level: Capable Force: Strategic Concept for the Norwegian Armed Forces (Oslo: Ministry of Defence 2009).

⁴In our context it is important to distinguish between defence plans and doctrines. Defence plans traditionally outline the forces required for the defence of a given area. During the Cold War NATO, and Norway as part of the Alliance, had defence plans as their focal point. ‘Doctrines’ in the present understanding of the word hardly existed at the strategic and the operational levels, and if so then only in a peripheral role. The Norwegian Defence Staff issued a National Defence Plan in 1949, but when Norway entered the Alliance's joint command and force structure in 1951 this national plan was replaced by NATO's defence plans. Until 1994, NATO's Northern Command (AFNORTH) maintained (i.e. wrote, revised and updated) the overall defence plan for the Northern Flank (including Norway). When AFNORTH was closed down in 1994, a vacuum developed regarding defence plans. However, in 1995 and 2000 Norway issued doctrines, which to some extent replaced the defence plans, even though the doctrines were very general and refrained from specifying how the defence of a specific area was to be conducted. Moreover, in December 2000 the Chief of Defence issued a Strategic Defence Plan, which was replaced by a Strategic Directive for Operations in April 2003 (updated and re-issued Dec. 2009). Both were classified. Compared to previous defence plans the latter ‘plans’ were detached from territorial defence. Instead they described procedures for the planning and conduct of operations at home and abroad (e.g. the organisation, deployment and withdrawal of a Norwegian unit in an international operation).

⁵Andras Løvold, ‘Småstatsproblematikken i internasjonal politikk’[Small State Challenges in International Relations], Internasjonal politikk, 1 (2004), 7–13.

⁶Kjell Inge Bjerga and Gullow Gjeseth, ‘Heimevernet og Hæren: Landforsvaret stykkevis og delt – eller helt?’[The Home Guard and the Army: a Divided or Unified Territorial Defence?], Oslo Files on Defence and Security, No. 2, (2010), 9.

⁷Ibid., 12–13.

⁸St.prp.nr. 45 (2000–2001), Omleggingen av Forsvaret i perioden 2002–2005[White Paper No. 45: The Transformation of the Armed Forces 2002–2005], 11–12.

⁹For more details, see Torunn Laugen Haaland, Small Forces with a Global Outreach; Role Perceptions in the Norwegian Armed Forces after the Cold War (Oslo: Unipub 2008).

¹⁰Ibid.

¹¹Ibid.

¹²Norwegian High Command, Forsvarssjefens grunnsyn for utvikling og bruk av norske militære styrker i fred, krise og krig[The Chief of Defence's Fundamental Views on the Development and Use of Norwegian Forces in Times of Peace, Crisis and War] (Oslo: Forsvarets overkommando 1995).

¹³Gen. Arne Solli (CHOD Norway Oct. 1994–April 1999), interview 12 Dec. 2009.

¹⁴ US Army Field Manual 100–5: AirLand Battle Doctrine (HQ, Dept. of the Army 1982); US Army Field Manual 100–5: AirLand Operations (HQ, Dept. of the Army 1993); Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York: Free Press 1991); Robert L. Leonhard (foreword by Col. J.R. McDonough), Fighting by Minutes: Time and Art of War (Westport, CT: Praeger 1994).

¹⁵Gullow Gjeseth, Hæren i omveltning 1990–2005[Transforming the Army 1990–2005] (Bergen: Vigmostad & Bjorke 2008), 73–83.

¹⁶Basil Liddell Hart, Strategy, 2nd rev. ed. (New York: Meridian 1991); Basil Liddell Hart, ‘Strategy: The Indirect Approach’, in Thomas G. Mahnken and Joseph Maiolo (eds.), Strategic Studies – a Reader (Oxon/New York: Routledge 2008). The writings of Liddell Hart were taught at the Norwegian Staff College at this time, and the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment used Liddell Hart's theories and other theories on manoeuvre warfare in their planning during the 1980s and 1990s. See Torgeir E. Sæveraas and Kjetil Henriksen, ‘Et militært universalmiddel? Amerikansk “Maneuver Warfare” og norsk doktrineutvikling’[A Military Wonder Medicine? American ‘Maneuver Warfare’ and Doctrine Development in Norway], Oslo Files on Defence and Security, 1 (2007), 109–24.

¹⁷Marcel de Haas, ‘Dutch Defence Doctrine’, The Officer Magazine 18/1 (Jan./Feb. 2006); Defence Doctrine (The Hague: Ministry of Defence 2005); British Defence Doctrine (London: UK Ministry of Defence 2001).

¹⁸ Forsvarets fellesoperative doktrine Del A: Grunnlag, Del B: Operasjoner[The Armed Forces' Joint Operational Doctrine, Part A: Fundamentals, Part B: Operations], (Oslo: Forsvarets overkommando 2000).

¹⁹ Forsvarets fellesoperative doktrine Del B: Operasjoner[The Armed Forces' Joint Operational Doctrine, Part B: Operations], (Oslo: Forsvarets overkommando 2000).

²⁰ Forsvarets doktrine for luftoperasjoner[The Armed Forces' Air Operations Doctrine], (Oslo: Forsvarets overkommando 2002); Forsvarets doktrine for sjøoperasjoner[Armed Forces' Naval Operations Doctrine], (Oslo: Forsvarets overkommando, 2002); Forsvarets doktrine for landoperasjoner[The Armed Forces Land Operations Doctrine], (Oslo: Forsvarets overkommando 2004). Unlike the Joint Operational Doctrine, the three service doctrines have not been revised and updated, and at the moment (2010) there are no plans for future revision.

²¹ Norwegian Armed Forces Joint Operational Doctrine (Oslo: Forsvarsstaben 2007), 3.

²²John Gooch, ‘Military Doctrine and Military History’, in John Gooch (ed.), The Origins of Contemporary Doctrine, Strategic and Combat Studies Institute Occasional Paper, No. 30 (Camberley, UK: Sept. 1997), 5–6; J.F.C. Fuller, A Military History of the Western World, Vol. 3 (New York: DaCapo Press 1956).

²³Barry Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1984), 44–5; Jack Snyder, The Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decision-Making and the Disaster of 1914 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1984), 104, 213.

²⁴Theo Farrell and Terry Terriff (eds.), The Sources of Military Change. Culture, Politics, Technology (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2002).

²⁵Olof Kronvall, ‘Finally Eating Soup with a Knife? A Historical Perspective on the US Army's 2006 Counterinsurgency Doctrine’, Oslo Files on Defence and Security, No. 5 (2007), 10–13.

²⁶Emily O. Goldman, ‘The Spread of Western Military Models to Ottoman Turkey and Meiji Japan’, in Farrell and Terriff, The Sources of Military Change.

²⁷David H. Ucko, The New Counterinsurgency Era. Transforming the US Military for Modern Wars (Washington DC: Georgetown UP 2009); Theo Farrell, ‘Improving in War: Military Adaptation and the British in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2006–2009’, Journal of Strategic Studies 33/4 (Aug. 2010), 567–94; Stephen Biddle, ‘Iraq, Afghanistan, and American Military Transformation’, in John Baylis, Eliot Cohen, Colin Gray and James Wirtz (eds.), Strategy in the Contemporary World, 2nd ed. (Oxford/New York: OUP 2007), 275, 291–2, David E. Johnson, Learning Large Lessons: The Evolving Roles of Ground Power and Air Power in the Post-Cold War Era (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation 2007).

²⁸A new department had been established at the Staff College in the late 1990s for the sole purpose of doctrinal production, ‘The Dept. of Military Force’, and the 2000 doctrine was written in this department.

²⁹The Ministry of Defence was by that time organised more like the British MoD. In a Norwegian context this was a completely new way of organising the Central Organisation of Defence. It was called ‘Integrated Strategic Leadership’.

³⁰ Strength and Relevance: Strategic Concept for the Norwegian Armed Forces (Oslo: Ministry of Defence 2004). See also footnote 3 in this article.

³¹St.prp.nr. 42 (2003–2004), Den videre modernisering av Forsvaret i perioden 2005–2008[White Paper No. 42; Further Modernization of the Armed Forces in the Period 2005–2008], para. 5.3.1. In Autumn 2004, the Ministry of Defence ordered doctrine revision in its letter of intent to the Chief of Defence, and by that the Chief of Defence had political backing for the doctrine revision.

³²St.prp.nr 42 (2003–2004), Den videre modernisering av Forsvaret i perioden 2005–2008[White Paper No. 42; Further Modernization of the Armed Forces in the Period 2005–2008]. It must be noted that the MoD's reference to ‘lessons learned’ probably reflected an ambition to involve the Armed Forces' ‘Centre for Military Experience’ in doctrinal development. As we shall see, this was not realised. The same can be said about the reference to ‘CDE’ (i.e. the Norwegian Battle Lab and Experimentation – NOBLE). On the contrary, ‘defence technology’ (i.e. the Defence Research Establishment) was involved to some extent.

³³MoD Archives 2004: Letter of 6 Oct. 2004 (2004/069403-001/FST/31) from CHOD to the Defence Staff and the Norwegian Defence University College.

³⁴The quadrennial defence reviews, or ‘long term plans’ as they were called, were drawn up within a complex ‘web’ of political, military and other players. The Defence Research Establishment (i.e. the ‘Norwegian RAND’) contributed with so-called Defence Analysis, assessments based on quantitative methods. Moreover, from 1985The Chief of Defence's Long Term Defence Study was published for the first time and subsequently repeated in 1991, 1996, 2000, 2003 and 2007. Together with the Defence Analysis from the Defence Research Establishment, the CHOD's Defence Study became the most important input in the Ministry of Defence's process of compiling the long-term plan. The final document was then presented to Parliament by the Ministry as a White Paper. After Parliament had discussed the White Paper and made the final changes, it was sent back to the Ministry, which then had to implement the final version. This implementation was carried out by means of a letter of intent from the Ministry of Defence to the Chief of Defence.

³⁵ Forsvarets fellesoperative doktrine, Del A: Grunnlag[The Armed Forces' Joint Operational Doctrine, Part A: Fundamentals], (Oslo: Forsvarets overkommando), 3.

³⁶MoD Archives 2004: Letter 6 Oct. 2004 (2004/069403-001/FST/31) from CHOD to the Defence Staff and the Norwegian Defence University College.

³⁷Olav Riste, Norway's Foreign Relations (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget 2005), 254–6. Norway wants to share its values and ideas with other countries, based on the conviction that Norway can make a valuable contribution to international development, an aspiration which is perhaps not all that uncommon in small states.

³⁸MoD Archives 2004: Letter from CHOD to the Defence Staff and the Norwegian Defence University College dated 6 Oct. (2004/069403-001/FST/31); Norwegian Defence University College, the Dept. of Military Force, Archive: Records from Meetings in the Doctrine Forum 2004–2005.

³⁹ Joint Vision 2010: America's Military: Preparing for Tomorrow (Washington DC, Pentagon: Chairman of the JCS, 5126 Joint Staff 1996). Updated and reissued May 2000, introducing the idea of ‘full-spectrum dominance’, see also: Barry R. Posen, ‘Command of the Commons: The Military Foundation of US Hegemony’, International Security 28/1 (Summer 2003), 5–46.

⁴⁰Effects Based Approach to Operations (EBAO) is NATO's further development of the original American concept of Effects Based Operations (EBO). The United Kingdom has been the driving force behind the concept of EBAO. The European EBAO variant embodies a broader and more generally based approach than the original American concept with its strong emphasis on technology and airpower. Hence, the concept of EBAO can be seen as a military interpretation of the comprehensive approach, closely linked to how the UN and the EU have been working to implement various versions of this approach.

⁴¹MoD Archives 2004: Letter from CHOD to the Defence Staff and the Norwegian Defence University College dated 6 Oct. 2004 (2004/069403-001/FST/31).

⁴² Allied Joint Publications (AJPs) and NATO Bi-SC: Guidelines for Operational Planning (Brussels: NATO Doctrine and Publication Hierarchy); JDP 01: Joint Operations (London: UK Ministry of Defence 2004); The UK High Level Operational Concept (London: UK Ministry of Defence 2003); British Defence Doctrine (London: UK Ministry of Defence 2001).

⁴³Bjerga and Gjeseth, ‘Heimevernet og Hæren: Landforsvaret stykkevis og delt – eller helt?’[The Home Guard and the Army: a Divided or Unified Territorial Defence?], 56–7.

⁴⁴MoD Archive 2004: Letter from CHOD to the Defence Staff and the Norwegian Defence University College dated 6 Oct. 2004 (2004/069403-001/FST/31).

⁴⁵Lt. Col. Harald Håvoll (Head of the Dept. of Military Force at the Staff College 2000–2005), interview 9 Dec. 2009.

⁴⁶The new Integrated Strategic Leadership of the Ministry of Defence (from 2003) implied that approximately 50 per cent of the high-level leaders within the Ministry were officers.

⁴⁷Some of the original members of the Editorial Board left during the writing process because they were posted to other parts of the military organisation. They were replaced by other officers, but at no point did any naval officers join the board. However, two of the original members, both Air Force officers, including the Head of the Dept. of Military Force at the Command and Staff College, stayed on the Editorial Board until it was replaced by a smaller Writing Committee in autumn 2005.

⁴⁸Lt. Col. Harald Håvoll (Head of the Dept. of Military Force at the Staff College 2000–2005), interview 9 Dec. 2009.

⁴⁹Ibid.

⁵⁰One of the authors of this article, Kjell Inge Bjerga, was the civilian member of the new Writing Committee. The other member was Lt. Col. Magnus Eriksson, who had become a member of the Editorial Board in the spring of 2005 (before the disintegration). The Lieutenant Colonel had, of course, military education and experience, but had not participated in real operations. In 2006 the new Head of the Dept. of Military Force at the Command and Staff College, Lt. Col. Professor John Andreas Olsen, also got involved in the writing. Olsen is an international expert in the field of American Airpower and Effects Based Operations. See John Andreas Olsen, Strategic Air Power in Desert Storm (London: Frank Cass 2003); John Andreas Olsen, John Warden and the Renaissance of American Air Power (Washington DC: Potomac Books 2007).

⁵¹Norwegian Defence University College, the Dept. of Military Force, Archive: Catalogue with Inputs from the 2006 Remit, dated November 2006.

⁵²On top of the document hierarchy making up the chain of command was the Chief of Defence's Strategic Directive for Operations, issued April 2003 (classified, see footnote 4), updated and re-issued 15 Dec. 2009.

⁵³Norwegian Defence University College, the Dept. of Military Force, Archive: Letter from the Logistics Organisation (FLO), dated October 2006. Quotation translated from Norwegian.

⁵⁴Norwegian Defence University College, the Dept. of Military Force, Archive: Letter from the Intelligence Service, Sept. 2006. Quotation translated from Norwegian.

⁵⁵Norwegian Defence University College, the Dept. of Military Force, Archive: Letter from the Medical Service, dated Oct. 2006. Quotation translated from Norwegian.

⁵⁶Norwegian Defence University College, the Dept. of Military Force, Archive: Letter from the Air Force Academy, dated 31 Aug. 2006.

⁵⁷Norwegian Defence University College, the Dept. of Military Force, Archive: Letter from the Air Force Staff, dated 2 Oct. 2006.

⁵⁸Ibid.

⁵⁹Norwegian Defence University College, the Dept. of Military Force, Archive: Letter from the Army's Transformation and Doctrine Command, dated Sept. 2006.

⁶⁰This view reflected a deeply rooted cultural difference between the Army on the one hand and the Navy and Air Force on the other. While the Army has been promoting joint operations and jointness between the single services in general since World War II, the Navy and Air Force have remained much more sceptical towards the idea of jointness as such. The main reason for this has been institutional interests: Joint staffs have historically been dominated by the Army because of the fundamental asymmetry in numbers between the Army and the two others. See Kjell Inge Bjerga, Enhet som våpen[Unity as a Weapon], (Bergen: Eide 2002), 14. For a broad discussion of diverging cultures within a military, see: Elisabeth Kier, Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrines between the Wars (Princeton UP 1997), 19.

⁶¹Norwegian Defence University College, the Dept. of Military Force, Archive: Letter from the Naval War College, dated Sept. 2006.

⁶²Odd Arne Nissestad, Leadership Development: An Empirical Study of Effectiveness of the Leadership Development Program at The Royal Norwegian Naval Academy and its Impact on Preparing Officers to Execute Leadership in Today's Conflicts and the Conflicts in the Years Ahead (Bergen: NHH 2007).

⁶³Norwegian Defence University College, the Dept. of Military Force, Archive: Letter from the Dept. of Joint Operations, dated 29 Sept. 2006.

⁶⁴Hew Strachan, ‘Norwegian Armed Forces Joint Operational Doctrine’, Norsk Militært Tidsskrift No. 4 (2009), 47.