International Security Assistance Research Articles

The Expanded Doctrine of Self-Defence & International Security Assistance - The Case of Afghanistan 2001 – 2020

The concept of self-defense in international law has been subject to discussion in recent years particularly in relation to its application on the fight against terrorism. The article re-considers such an application in the light of customary international law and via the use of the case of Afghanistan. More specifically the article aims at demonstrating how the Afghanistan mission informed the development of the classical concept of self-defense in the context of international security assistance. Via a historical presentation of the use of the concept of self-defense the work reveals key developments in the field.

Operaţiile informaţionale – răspunsul comunicaţional adecvat la ameninţările contemporane

From immemorial time, information has been an indispensable and decisive element in winning the war. Although the morphology of conflicts evolves according to military capabilities, technologies, procedures and combat techniques, as well as the space in which they take place, the communication architecture of the battlefield remains a constant presence. Contemporary conflict can be characterised by increasing hybridity and the increasing role of information, both in the physical space itself and in the virtual space. With the digitalisation of the information environment (it directly affects the operational environment), the information sphere has become not only a crucial element, but also the battlefield in which the war takes place. In modern warfare, many of the tactics and techniques used by the armed forces have the role of informing/influencing and not destroying. Taking into account the diversity of participants (combatants, non-combatants), we can assert that the civilian population plays a preferential role. Therefore, interaction with a state’s own population and the population in the area of responsibility is essential to ensure the support of participation in the conflict as well as the acceptance of forces in the field. Nowadays, information operations (INFO OPS) are considered a force multiplier in the whole spectrum of military operations, and through technology, actions can be initiated to influence the target audience. The aim of this article is to identify the role of information operations during NATO’s longest and most challenging mission: the International Security Assistance Force/ISAF, in Afghanistan.

Information Operations. The Adequate Communication Response to Contemporary Threats

From immemorial time, information has been an indispensable and decisive element in winning the war. Although the morphology of conflicts evolves according to military capabilities, technologies, procedures and combat techniques, as well as the space in which they take place, the communication architecture of the battlefield remains a constant presence. Contemporary conflict can be characterised by increasing hybridity and the increasing role of information, both in the physical space itself and in the virtual space. With the digitalisation of the information environment (it directly affects the operational environment), the information sphere has become not only a crucial element, but also the battlefield in which the war takes place. In modern warfare, many of the tactics and techniques used by the armed forces have the role of informing/influencing and not destroying. Taking into account the diversity of participants (combatants, non-combatants), we can assert that the civilian population plays a preferential role. Therefore, interaction with a state’s own population and the population in the area of responsibility is essential to ensure the support of participation in the conflict as well as the acceptance of forces in the field. Nowadays, information operations (INFO OPS) are considered a force multiplier in the whole spectrum of military operations, and through technology, actions can be initiated to influence the target audience. The aim of this article is to identify the role of information operations during NATO’s longest and most challenging mission: the International Security Assistance Force/ISAF, in Afghanistan.

Miasto i twierdza Ghazni – powiew bogatej historii, prozaiczna teraźniejszość

Afgańskie miasto Ghazni (Gazna, Gazni, Gaznin), pozostające obecnie stosunkowo niewielkim ośrodkiem na tranzytowej drodze między Kabulem a Kandaharem, skrywa niezwykle bogatą historię. Niegdyś, jako potężny ośrodek polityczny oraz kulturowy, odegrało niebagatelną rolę w historii islamu i jego transferu z Bliskiego Wschodu i Azji Środkowej do Azji Południowej. Ghazni jako miasto-twierdza to także istotne miejsce w kontekście budowania tożsamości afgańskiej i niezależności politycznej Afganistanu. Było symbolem tak zwycięstwa, jak i porażki wojsk brytyjskich w czasie pierwszej i drugiej wojny Afganistanu z Wielką Brytanią. W Polsce kojarzone jedynie z zakończoną w 2014 r. operacją ISAF (Międzynarodowe Siły Wsparcia Bezpieczeństwa) w Afganistanie, zasługuje niewątpliwie na bliższą uwagę tak w kontekście historycznym, jak i dziedzictwa kulturowego, którego jest udziałem. Artykuł ten ma za zadanie przybliżyć historię Ghazni i zwrócić uwagę na historyczną rolę tego ośrodka w transferze kulturowym i kształtowaniu się organizmów państwowych w Azji Środkowej i Południowej.

Damming the Palestinian Spring: Security Sector Reform and Entrenched Repression

As a wave of protests swept through the Arab world in 2010–11—toppling regimes that had long seemed invulnerable to popular mobilization—the relative stability of the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) largely escaped international attention. In a marked break with the unrest and massive, sustained popular mobilizations of the past, no significant opposition surfaced to challenge the status quo in the oPt even though dissatisfaction with the status quo runs high in the territories. To explain this marked break with very recent history, it is necessary to examine how the Oslo process has produced an internationally backed authoritarian regime in the West Bank. This article uses the dynamics of Security Sector Reform (SSR) in the oPt to explore the conceptual and theoretical parameters of SSR and how programmes of international development and security assistance function to perpetuate rather than weaken authoritarian retrenchment in recipient states. It examines how SSR in the oPt created a socio-political paradox on the ground that diverges substantially from conventional understandings of security and statehood, producing a conflicted authoritarian system of governance in the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority and entrenching rather than challenging or tempering the paradigm of Israeli occupation.

Deployment-related mental health support: comparative analysis of NATO and allied ISAF partners

BackgroundFor years there has been a tremendous gap in our understanding of the mental health effects of deployment and the efforts by military forces at trying to minimize or mitigate these. Many military forces have recently systematized the mental support that is provided to support operational deployments. However, the rationale for doing so and the consequential allocation of resources are felt to vary considerably across North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) International Security Assistance (ISAF) partners. This review aims to compare the organization and practice of mental support by five partnering countries in the recent deployment in Afghanistan in order to identify and compare the key methods and structures for delivering mental health support, describe bottlenecks and illustrate new developments.MethodInformation was collected through document analysis and semi-structured interviews with key military mental healthcare stakeholders. The review resulted from close collaboration between key military mental healthcare professionals within the Australian Defense Forces (ADF), Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), United Kingdom Armed Forces (UK), Netherlands Armed Forces (NLD), and the United States Army (US). Key stakeholders were interviewed about the mental health support provided during a serviceperson's military career. The main items discussed were training, prevention, early identification, intervention, and aftercare in the field of mental health.ResultsAll forces reported that much attention was paid to mental health during the individual's military career, including deployment. In doing so there was much overlap between the rationale and applied methods. The main method of providing support was through training and education. The educative focus was to strengthen the mental resilience of individual soldiers while providing a range of mental healthcare services. All forces had abandoned standard psychological debriefing after critical incidents. Instead, by default, mental healthcare professionals acted to support the leader and peer led “after action” reviews. All countries provided professional mental support close to the front line, aimed at early detection and early return to normal activities within the unit. All countries deployed a mental health support team that consisted of a range of mental health staff including psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, mental health nurses, and chaplains. There was no overall consensus in the allocation of mental health disciplines in theatre. All countries (except the US) provided troops with a third location decompression (TLD) stop after deployment, which aimed to recognize what the deployed units had been through and to prepare them for transition home. The US conducted in-garrison ‘decompression’, or ‘reintegration training’ in the US, with a similiar focus to TLD. All had a reasonably comparable infrastructure in the field of mental healthcare. Shared bottlenecks across countries included perceived stigma and barriers to care around mental health problems as well as the need for improving the awareness and recognition of mental health problems among service members. among service personnel as well as the need for improving the awareness and recognition of symptoms as being indicative of a mental health problems among servicemembers.ConclusionThis analysis demonstrated that in all five partners state-of-the-art preventative mental healthcare was included in the last deployment in Afghanistan, including a positive approach towards strengthening the mental resilience, a focus on self-regulatory skills and self-empowerment, and several initiatives that were well-integrated in a military context. These initiatives were partly/completely implemented by the military/colleagues/supervisors and applicable during several phases of the deployment cycle. Important new developments in operational mental health support are recognition of the role of social leadership and enhancement of operational peer support. This requires awareness of mental problems that will contribute to reduction of the barriers to care in case of problems. Finally, comparing mental health support services across countries can contribute to optimal preparation for the challenges of military deployment.

Military Medicine Needs Reliable Clinical Signs and Tests to Guide Prognosis and Management

During missions abroad, military physicians face very special circumstances to provide care for wounded and ill comrades. These circumstances are defined by the need to provide the best possible, state-of-the-art care, which is undoubtedly the main goal of their duty. However, the clinical setting situated in or near the combat zone has several limitations, all of which must to be taken into account. This is especially relevant to military medicine as working with notoriously scarce resources has always been one of the main challenges since its beginnings. However, this burden is not unique to military physicians. Limited resources, especially in developing countries and rural areas, affect medical personnel around the world in various manners. The diagnostic possibilities in a military medical facility are limited. For example, the German role 3 field hospital in Mazar-e-Sharif, International SecurityAssistance Force (ISAF), is comparably well equipped with 1 computed tomography unit in addition to standard X-ray devices. However, when it comes to soft-tissue diagnostics, the borders of radiological capabilities are quickly reached. Magnetic resonance imaging as the accepted gold standard for most of these entities (e.g., muscle trauma) is not available. This limitation also affects the local population, which is a major stakeholder for the mission’s success and in many cases dependent on the care of ISAF-medical facilities. In smaller combat care units, such as forward surgical teams or airborne rescue stations, the situation is sharpened because these facilities are even less equipped attributable to tactical demands. German patrols in the deep hinterlands, e.g., in ISAF Observation Post North, are mostly covered by an embedded emergency physician. This physician is responsible for the provision of combat care as well as the provision of care to the local population in areas that are sometimes unattended by a modern physician for decades. Thus, the physical examination skills of the modern military physician must be broad and well trained. This means that the military medical community is desperately in need of reliable and accurate clinical signs and tests, which can compensate the aforementioned limitations to the highest possible degree. However, it is not enough to introduce and train a variety of clinical tests and signs. To provide the best possible care for military personnel and the local population, tests and signs have to be evidence-based and should be developed and validated with a data-driven and statistically sound, highquality approach.Well-designed diagnostic studies are needed to validate the current set of clinical tests and signs and to further develop and introduce new tests. Surprisingly, the manner of carrying out these studies is still a matter of controversy. In 2003, Bossuyt et al introduced a set of well-chosen approaches, which are summarized as the “STAndards for the Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies” (STARD)-guidelines. These guidelines provide useful advice for the analysis and publication of data, but the biostatistical “tool-box” is not clearly outlined. This is perhaps one of the reasons why a recent investigation revealed no changes in the reporting of diagnostic accuracy studies since the introduction of the STARD-guidelines. Hess et al recently published a recommended summary focusing primarily on biostatistical methods. The authors presented strategies to determine the sample size or study population that are necessary for critical prospective power (more than 90%) and presented methods for the evaluation of new diagnostic tests in the absence of a gold standard. Taken together, the main key factors which have to be considered before starting a diagnostic study are as follows:

Regeneration of War-Torn Societies: Global Issues

REGENERATION OF WAR-TORN SOCIETIESGlobal issuesEdited by Michael PughHoundsmill & London: Macmillan and St Martin's, 2000, xvi, 249pp, US$65.00, ISBN 0-312-23113-XHow societies move from protracted civil war to enduring peace has become the principal theme of a rich and rapidly growing literature. Frequently referred to as peacebuilding, the process is described in this edited collection as the 'regeneration of war-torn societies,' a term the editor prefers because it suggests a self-sustaining, rather than an imposed, process that generates change rather than a restoration of the status quo ante.By exploring various dimensions of regeneration - human security, demilitarization, the rule of law as an instrument to provide justice, civil society and social programmes, and childhood initiatives - and four cases - social development in Travnik, Bosnia, national reconciliation and international law in Transcaucasia, accommodation and reconstruction in Liberia, and the transition to peace in Eritrea - the contributors provide important insights into the peacebuilding process.The findings are interesting and valuable. Perhaps the most forceful view is that for regeneration to be effective, it must 'be imbedded in local communities' (p 129); peacebuilding, as another author notes, is 'the responsibility of the conflict protagonists themselves, who can at best be supported by the assistance of external actors' (p 23). Many contributors point out that the involvement of the international community may be ineffective, even counterproductive, if it is not attached 'to local norms and hegemonic relationships at the grassroots level' (p 4). In social welfare, for example, Pugh notes that international actors tend to focus on 'hard' and visible reconstruction programmes instead of on 'long-term civil society and social programmes that incorporate mechanisms of community participation and a culture of accountability' (p 128). Instead of fostering a rule of law that is 'firmly anchored in the society and enjoys both political commitment and public trust,' Rama Mani maintains that the international community is apt to promote judicial institutions that subordinate the quest for justice to the search for stability and order (p 101). Annika Hansen argues that international security assistance is not likely to enhance security in a former theatre of conflict without a parallel, domestic political process that supports reform. …

Information and Documentation for Development in Southern Africa: A Southern African Technical and Scientific Information and Documentation Network

What follows is a summary of a document dated Dec. 1st 1978, by Francis A. Kornegay, Jr., Associate Editor, African Bibliographic Centre, Washington DC. The report gives a summary of Mr. Kornegay's recent acquisitions trip and a limited survey of documentation activities on Southern Africa.The International Security Assistance and Arms Control Act of 1977 authorized the preparation of a “Systematic and Comprehensive study of the development requirements of Southern Africa” and therefore a continuous flow of data on the various sections of the economies of the states of Southern Africa would be needed. The Act called for the “Organizing of a central repository of information and talent that could be drawn from other countries and organizations”.

United States: International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976

United States: International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976