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Abstract
The last decade has witnessed a cascading proliferation of strategic concepts that emphasise the importance of civil–military cooperation, coordination, or integration for effectiveness in complex operations. These efforts nevertheless often lack an appreciation for why, where, and how such integration and coordination should take place to achieve the desired outcomes. This article introduces a new approach to civil–military coordination that incorporates the challenges and possibilities at both the national/strategic level and the tactical level in field of operations. By integrating and coordinating these efforts at the strategic level, this approach allows policymakers to achieve separation of actors and responsibilities in the field of operations. By doing so, the proposed approach seeks to answer more specific questions about when coordination is necessary for effectiveness, what its aims are, what actors need to be involved, and to what extent and at what level of command the actors need to be coordinated.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Lindsay Cohn, Chiara Ruffa, and Thomas Durrell-Young for the critical and very helpful comments on previous drafts of this article.
Notes
1. See CitationCordesman, The Iraq War; CitationBensahel ‘Mission not accomplished’; CitationDocherty, Desert of Death, 185–92.
2. CitationChisholm, Coordination Without Hierarchy.
3. See Cohen et al., ‘Principles’, 50.
4. CitationWeir, ‘Conflict and Compromise’, 45.
5. See Citationde Coning and Friis, ‘Coherence and Coordination’; CitationEgnell, Complex Peace Operations.
6. De Coning and Friis, ‘Coherence and Coordination’, 259.
7. CitationFishstein and Wilder, ‘Winning Hearts and Minds?’; de Coning and Friis, ‘Coherence and Coordination’.
8. CitationEgnell, ‘Winning Hearts and Minds’; Fishstein and Wilder, ‘Winning Hearts and Minds?’
9. CitationSmith, The Utility of Force, 6.
10. Weir, ‘Conflict and Compromise’, 20.
11. CitationICRC, ‘Code of Conduct’, 1.
12. CitationTerry, Condemned to Repeat, 26.
13. CitationWinslow, ‘Strange Bedfellows’, 113–28.
14. CitationWinslow, ‘Strange Bedfellows’, 116.
15. De Coning and Friis, ‘Coherence and Coordination’, 271.
16. Quinlan cited in CitationDandeker, ‘Military and Society’.
17. CitationNielsen, ‘Civil-Military Relations Theory’.
18. See Egnell, Complex Peace Operations.
19. Janowitz, The Professional Soldier, 420; CitationBland, ‘A Unified Theory’.
20. Janowitz, The Professional Soldier, 420.
21. CitationStrachan, ‘Making Strategy’; Brooks, Shaping Strategy.
22. CitationBrooks, Shaping Strategy, 23, 27.
23. CitationBrooks, Shaping Strategy, 269–70.
24. Egnell, Complex Peace Operations, 4.
25. Egnell, Complex Peace Operations, 4, 4.
26. Smith, Utility of Force, 291, 373.
27. CitationGrossman, ‘Future of Iraq’.
28. Cordesman, The Iraq War, 498.
29. CitationLugar and Biden, ‘Future of Iraq’, 10.
30. CitationWolfowitz, ‘Testimony on Iraq Reconstruction’.
31. Bensahel, ‘Mission Not Accomplished’, 455.
32. Egnell, Complex Peace Operations, 48.
33. CitationGorman and Krongard, ‘A Goldwater-Nichols Act’, 52.
34. CitationGorman and Krongard, ‘A Goldwater-Nichols Act’, 53–4.
35. CitationMarcella, ‘National Security and the Interagency Process’, 184.
36. CitationCrabb and Holt, Invitation to Struggle, 9.
37. CitationMurdock, Beyond Goldwater-Nichols, 61.
38. Cordesman, The Iraq War, 498.
39. CitationRicks, Fiasco, 109.
40. Bensahel, ‘Mission Not Accomplished’, 455–8; CitationBensahel et al., After Saddam, 234–5.
41. Bensahel, ‘Mission Not Accomplished’, 458.
42. CitationNash, ‘In the Wake of War’, 7.
43. CitationNATO, ‘(CIMIC) Doctrine’, 103.
44. CitationUS Joint Chiefs of Staff, ‘Joint Doctrine for Civil-Military Operations’, GL-6.
45. CitationBrigety, ‘From Three to One’.
46. Weir, ‘Conflict and Compromise’, 45; Rana, ‘Contemporary Challenges in the Civil-Military Relationship’, 586.
47. CitationKhambatta, ‘Humanitarian Space and Stability Operations’, 1; CitationLonergan, ‘Shrinking Humanitarian Space?’
48. Brigety, ‘From Three to One’.
49. CitationBBC News, ‘Attack rocks Red Cross’.
50. CitationMSF, ‘MSF Withdraws from Afghanistan’.
51. CitationMSF, ‘MSF Withdraws from Afghanistan’
52. CitationStoddard and Harmer, ‘Room to Manoeuvre’, 14.
53. CitationGuttieri, ‘Humanitarian Space’.
54. CitationEgnell, ‘Between Reluctance and Necessity’; and Brigety, ‘From Three to One’.
55. It should, however, be noted that while unity of command is foreign to most NGOs there are often well-established humanitarian coordination functions – often led by OCHA – in warzones and humanitarian emergencies. See for example, CitationEgeland et al., ‘To Stay and Deliver’.
56. It should be noted that humanitarian activities can also be interpreted as inherently political as they compete for resources within each state, they compete for constituency within each domestic society or even transnationally.
57. CitationHopkinson, Making of British Defence Policy, 24–5; Egnell, Complex Peace Operations, 112.