Military Coordination Research Articles

The Bonds of Brotherhood: New Evidence on Sino-North Korean Exchanges, 1950–1954

Drawing on recently declassified documents from the archive of the Foreign Ministry of the People's Republic of China (PRC), this article looks at China's relationship with North Korea during and immediately after the Korean War. Although previous scholarship has touched on PRC-North Korean military ties during the war, this article is the first in-depth analysis of issues that are less well understood, notably China's efforts to cope with a huge influx of refugees from North Korea, the PRC's economic assistance during the war and in the early postwar reconstruction, and Chinese educational and ideological support for North Korean professionals and party cadres. The article shows that the extensive military coordination between Beijing and Pyongyang was only one way in which the war brought North Korea and the PRC into a closer relationship.

EU crisis management after the Lisbon Treaty: civil–military coordination and the future of the EU OHQ

The presented article focuses on key issues and developments in the European Union (EU)'s comprehensive crisis management planning, civil–military coordination and cooperation, as well as the future of the EU Operational Headquarters (OHQ). The article begins with a short overview of key changes in the EU's external action after the Lisbon Treaty, and focuses on the area of Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The impact of the European External Action Service on CSDP–CFSP cooperation in planning and on EU's crisis management is being examined. Further on, the article continues by addressing the issue area of EU crisis management. After the evolution of the concept and practice at the EU level is examined and different phases are discussed, the article analyses the main political, strategic and operational trends in this field. Indeed, this part reflects on the implications of the Lisbon Treaty for crisis management. What follows is an assessment of the civil–military coordination in the EU's crisis management structures. In order to contextualise the most recent transformations that are investigated at length, basic concepts and terms are outlined, and the evolution of civil–military coordination at the EU level is presented. The final substantive part tackles current and future EU OHQ options. After the necessary contextualisation, the characteristics and shortcomings of the three current options are analysed, and based on these limits, the case for the establishment of a permanent strategic planning and conduct structure in Brussels is put forward. Finally, concluding remarks and recommendations are attached.

The EU's security and defense policy (ESDP) and the challenges of civil–military coordination (CMCO): the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

The article assesses the role of the EU in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the ability of the EU to coordinate its different means and instruments with regard to the relationship between the European Commission and the Council. The article focuses on what is referred to as civil–military coordination (CMCO) in internal EU documents. The aim is to compare the four ESDP missions in DRC since 2003 with special regard to CMCO since the aim of the EU as a comprehensive security actor is to avoid artificial distinctions between military and civilian missions. Hence, the distinctiveness of ESDP derives precisely from its civil–military synergies, and a comparative perspective on CMCO could tell us more about how the EU has developed so as to become a comprehensive security actor in a country which is of importance for EU interests. The final part of the article assesses the impact on CMCO of the newly implemented Lisbon Treaty. A suitable institutional framework as devised for in the Treaty is essential so as to shape a framework that creates a timely as well as a comprehensive response to crises.

EU Civil–Military Cooperation and the Fight against Organised Crime: Lessons to be Learned from the Bosnian Example

Civil–military coordination between missions with the same top end of command and belonging to the same organization should increase the effectiveness of both missions even more than in a traditional interaction between military and civilian organizations. Nevertheless, the two EU missions in Bosnia, EUPM and EUFOR, which were both engaged in the fight against organized crime, had to undergo a difficult process until a decent level of cooperation was achieved. The article tries to describe the problems encountered and to address key factors, such as different concepts of operation, problems in the chain of command, a lack of accountability and—most importantly—the human factor, that hampered this cooperation.

Alliance Institutionalization and Alliance Performance

Military alliances are formed with varying degrees of institutionalization. While some alliances involve little initial investment or joint planning, others involve significant peacetime costs in establishing formal structures and engaging in military coordination. Several scholars have addressed the reasons states are willing to pay these governance costs in establishing cooperation—through controlling the risks of opportunism and coordinating policy more extensively, state leaders may be able to achieve higher benefits from cooperation. What has received less systematic empirical attention, however, is the comparative performance of highly institutionalized alliances. Are alliances that represent “deeper” cooperation more reliable than their less institutionalized counterparts? The newly expanded Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions (ATOP) dataset includes detailed information about the institutionalization of alliances formed between 1815 and 1989. Using these data, we evaluate the effects of institutionalization on alliance performance. Surprisingly, we find no evidence that alliances with higher levels of peacetime military coordination or more formal alliances are more reliable when invoked by war. We speculate about directions for future research that might help to explain these results.

8.1.4 Military and civil logistic support of humanitarian relief operations

AbstractAs a result of a higher frequency of crisis situations, and due to the fact that societies become more and more vulnerable, the expenditures for humanitarian relief operations are growing. The currently available knowledge concerning humanitarian relief operations and relief logistics can be used more effective. Much knowledge is available in the humanitarian relief society and in military organizations involved in relief operations in crisis situations. The current base of knowledge is not interrelated or evaluated enough in respect to relief system effectiveness. If knowledge concerning humanitarian relief operations would be reengineered following a systems engineering, system logistics, and a more coordinative approach, humanitarian relief operations might be more effective for the same or even less money. One solutions that could benefit from integrated civil and military relief logistics knowledge and coordination of civil and military relief operations is the establishment of several relief‐hubs for one the Netherlands might prove a good location.

The New Strategic Environment

CHALLENGES TO THE FRENCH FRAMEWORK The Soviet revolution of 1989, the reunification of Germany, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Gulf War all led to a serious alteration of the reality upon which the Gaullist synthesis was built. Not surprisingly, reality has changed more rapidly than recognition that the Gaullist assumptions and approaches do not fit easily into the new post Cold War world. The unification of Germany happened more quickly than most observers expected. With the emergence of the new Germany, the French had to adjust their policy and sort out their instincts toward the building of a common policy with the new Germany. For the French, the Germans are central to the formers defining of their own role within Europe. The French must deal with a new Germany. Would the new Germany be a partner with France as the old West Germany had been? Was there a psychology of national renewal that would lead to German national egoism and an inability to Work psychologically with the other Europeans? Or would the new Germany define its role in a more adversarial manner? Would it seek to become an overtly national competitor with France? Would such nationalism, torpedo the West European construction process? Soon after the new Germany emerged, the Soviet Union collapsed. There was a close connection between the two processes. The Soviet Union was an empire directed from Moscow. With the collapse of communism in Germany, the weakness of the Soviet system became exposed. Gorbachev assumed that Soviet communism could be reformed from within. He miscalculated. Soviet communism rested upon the maintenance of empire. Its collapse was linked to the pulling apart of the empire by the elimination of Berlin as the Western capital of Soviet communism. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a new Germany reopened the European question. Eastern Europe disappeared; Central Europe reemerged. How would the new states of Central Europe and the former Soviet Union relate to West European and Atlantic Institutions? With the collapse of the Soviet Union what would be the role of the United States in Europe writ large? Rather than assuming that the task was to counterbalance the United States within the Western Alliance, how could France be certain the United States would remain constructively engaged in European affairs? As the United States embraced the new opportunities in the wake of the Revolution of 1989, the French administration worried that the Americans might leave Europe too quickly, and thereby undercut the European construction process. The United States is perceived as critical to nurturing further success in the European development process, but French policy has frequently been at odds over how best to deal with the United States and Europe simultaneously. The Soviet upheaval challenged both France's transatlantic relationship and the approach to the West European construction process. How would France deal with the new Germany, cope with the Americans redefining themselves and address the challenges posed by the new states of Central Europe and the former Soviet Union? The classic Gaullist approach has provided no easy answers to such core questions. No factor has been of greater significance in pushing the French over the barrier to discuss the necessity for change than the Gulf War. The United States led a Western and Arab coalition in the war against Iraq. This military coordination was central to success in the Gulf War and showed the importance of having exercised forces in common within the Alliance. The performance of new technologies and the new concepts of the American forces (notably air-land battle) brought home to French officials and the public that the old style of warfare was pass& It is not enough to have tanks, airplanes, and isolated pieces of military equipment; modem, warfare is integrated and systems-oriented. …

Evolution des structures politiques de l'Europe : un point de vue polonais

The Evolving Political Architecture of Europe : a View from Poland, by Wojtek Lamentowicz The paper explores four policy options of the East-Central European states as for as the future of the Warsaw Pact is concerned and concludes that there is no real opportunity for revival of the Soviet dominated military and political coordination in Central Europe. The author argues that Central European governments — ie. Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Hungary — are highly interested in extended responsibility for NATO. Old and new missions of NATO are being discussed and the sequence of reasons for the extended responsibility is being presented : bad experience with the WTO, preventing security strategies from being re-nationalized, non military threats to stability, preventing the security vacuum and unpredictable futures, eliminating barriers which separate Central Europe from the West, assurance of being on the same side as Germany, opportunity to reform NATO by preparing for the bilateral security agreements betgween NATO and Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

MILITARY-MEDIA RELATIONS COME OF AGE

Abstract : We have now run the gamut-from a hasty, makeshift pool, organized to cover the latter part of the Grenada rescue operation; through training deployments and the activation of the DoD national media pool for the first transit of reflagged Kuwaiti tankers; to the first employment of the DoD media pool during hostile action by U.S. forces, a thoroughly planned contingency that involved public affairs from the beginning as an integral part of the operation. Regional pool activities ceased in the Gulf in July of last year. In its place, a program of unilateral embarkations began to accommodate the many requests received from news organizations asking for the opportunity to send representatives to ships in the Persian Gulf. Of course, the Department of Defense and U.S. Central Command retain the option of reactivating the pool, should that become necessary. The military's planning, coordination, and execution of the media pool deployments to cover operations in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere have set the standard for future media pool operations. The evolution of pool deployments to cover both ground-based force deployments during training and contingency operations and sea-based deployments in the Persian Gulf involving all services has clearly addressed the Sidle Panel's statement of principle -- news media [should] cover US military operations to the maximum degree possible consistent with mission security and the safety of US forces.

The United Nations and Human Rights, 1945-1985

Between 1945 and 1985 there has been a marked change in the treatment of human rights at the United Nations. On the foundation of a few vague references to human rights in the UN Charter there has evolved an International Bill of Rights indicating numerous obligations of increasing salience. This core of global rules has been supplemented by a series of particular human rights instruments, some with special control mechanisms. Once the subject of human rights seemed idealistic and abstract, but by the 1980s there was growing attention through an increasing array of UN organs to specific countries and patterns of behavior such as torture and people who have disappeared. The subject of humans rights has not faded away like that of military coordination under the Security Council nor has it remained on the back burner like the Trusteeship Council. Rather it has emerged more and more as one of the subjects to which member states give great attention, if not always for the same reasons. Considerable debate exists at the United Nations over the significance of this change in the treatment of human rights. Clearly, the institutional and procedural changes in the field of human rights have been striking. It also seems clear that there is some legal significance to these changes. At least it now can be said that states have accepted a number of new legal obligations and that numerous cases exist which can be used as precedent should actors choose to do so in pursuit of human rights values. Ambivalence begins to set in when one tackles the subject of the practical significance of these changes for the condition of human rights beyond UN meeting rooms. There is considerable disagreement

U.S. Decision Making in the Jordan Crisis: Correcting the Record

The of September 1970 is one of the most frequently mentioned, but least studied, episodes in the recent history of United States Middle East policy. The crisis has become a minor condensation symbol, not unlike better known incidents such as Munich and Prague Spring.' While Munich stands for the tragedy of appeasement and Prague Spring for the fleeting exception of political reform in Eastern Europe that proves the rule of Soviet repression, the Jordan Crisis has come to represent the supposedly positive value of close U.S.-Israeli political and military coordination in the face of Soviet-Arab ties and Soviet ambitions in the Middle East. Most important international crises are ultimately raised from their historical contexts and simplified into lessons or illustrations of one kind or another. But the is unusual because it was seen as quintessentially lessonbearing from the very beginning indeed, even before it was over. This was a consequence of three factors: first, the was the climactic, largely unexpected, denouement of the Nixon administration's first major foreign policy