Multinational Military Operations Research Articles

Junior allies in wars of choice: Party politics and role conceptions in Danish and Romanian decisions on the Iraq War

Abstract When and how do party politics matter in junior allies’ decisions to engage in multinational military operations? Developing a new role theory model of party politics and multinational military operations, we put forward a two-level argument. First, we argue that the rationale for military action is defined in a contest between political parties with expectations of what constitutes the proper purpose (constitutive roles) and functions (functional roles) of the state. Second, we hold that material and ontological insecurities reduce political space for contestation and debate, but that junior allies tend to focus on role demands for ‘good states’ and ‘good allies’ rather than the nature and aim of the military operation. To unpack our argument, we analyse the debate among political parties in Romania and Denmark leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Concluding our analysis, we outline the implications for the changing security order and current debates in NATO member states on how to respond to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

A Legal Policy-Based Review of Interoperability of Rules of Engagement in Multinational Military Operations

A Legal Policy-Based Review of Interoperability of Rules of Engagement in Multinational Military Operations

Belgium: the reliable free rider

Belgium traditionally presents itself as a strong supporter of multilateral security cooperation and aims to be a reliable partner in the EU and NATO. Nevertheless, the uninterrupted decline of Belgium’s defence budget paints a different picture, that of a country that rides cheap on the defence efforts of its partners. Belgium does make equitable contributions to multinational military operations, but the lack of defence investments threatens to undercut its ability to continue to make substantial contributions to multilateral operations. This article builds on the literature on small states and military burden sharing to explain Belgium’s post-Cold War defence policy. More specifically, it argues that Belgium’s behaviour is anything but irrational, given that it allows to gain a high degree of security and influence at relatively low political and financial costs.

The strategic purpose of individual augmentee officers for junior partners in multinational military operations

ABSTRACTThis article examines the strategic purpose of Individual Augmentee Officers (IAOs) for junior partners in multinational military operations through an exploratory case study of Danish IAOs in Iraq and South Sudan between 2014 and 2017. IAOs are individual officers who are moved from their normal functions to be seconded to other units of the armed forces of their own or another country or an international institution. The study concludes that IAOs function as strategically important, yet not necessarily indispensable, supplements to military contingents in several ways: making tangible contributions to the overall mission (contributing), gaining access to information, knowledge, and experience (learning), and lobbying decision-making processes within mission headquarters (lobbying). The usefulness of IAOs depends on whether the junior partner has specific interests and a significant presence in the theatre and whether the mission is conducted as a UN mission, a NATO mission, or an ad hoc coalition.

Circumventing Obligations Through Multinational Military Operations: Legal Consequences for Troop Contributing States

SummaryIf member States decide to circumvent their international legal obligations by acting through a military operation led by an international organisation, the institutional veil of which provides a shield against their responsibility for possible wrong-doings, an accountability gap can be identified. The contribution explores one of the possibilities for addressing this gap, the prohibition of circumvention, as enshrined in Art. 61 DARIO. The provision stipulates the possibility to hold the troop contributing States accountable. However, arguably the problems with international organization’s accountability gap cannot be solved in most cases by holding the States responsible over the actions of the MMO. Problematic appears such solution against the necessity to satisfy the thresholds of intent to circumvent and causing the organization to act in certain way, as required by the principle enshrined in the Article 61 DARIO.

Poliheuristic Theory and Germany’s (Non-)Participation in Multinational Military Interventions. The Non-compensatory Principle, Coalition Politics and Political Survival

This article employs the poliheuristic theory of decision-making (PHT) to analyse German decisions to participate in, or abstain from, multinational military operations. PHT represents one of the leading theoretical efforts at bridging the cognitive-rationalist divide in foreign policy analysis. The theory posits a two-stage model of foreign policy-making: in the first stage, actors rely on a non-compensatory strategy as a cognitive shortcut to eliminate unacceptable alternatives and to reduce the choice set. In the second stage, actors switch to a compensatory mode of information-processing and select the alternative which maximises expected utility. While there is broad agreement that the non-compensatory dimension at the first stage of PHT concerns the domestic repercussions of foreign policy, it is less clear how this ‘domestic politics’ dimension should be operationalised. This article contributes to this debate by specifying the operationalisation of the non-compenstaory principle in the context of coalition foreign policy making in parliamentary democracies. Specifically, it suggests that the non-compensatory dimension in coalition foreign policy consists of the expected impact of foreign policy on coalition survival. Empirically, the article argues that PHT sheds important new light on arguably some of the most controversial military deployment decisions (Democratic Republic of Congo, Lebanon, Libya) of post-unification Germany.

Media Ownership and News Coverage of International Conflict

How do differences in ownership of media enterprises shape news coverage of international conflict? We examine this relationship using a new dataset of 591,532 articles on US-led multinational military operations in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, published by 2,505 newspapers in 116 countries. We find that ownership chains exert a homogenizing effect on the content of newspapers’ coverage of foreign policy, resulting in coverage across co-owned papers that is more similar in scope (what they cover), focus (how much “hard” relative to “soft” news they offer), and diversity (the breadth of topics they include in their coverage of a given issue) relative to coverage across papers that are not co-owned. However, we also find that competitive market pressures can mitigate these homogenizing effects, and incentivize co-owned outlets to differentiate their coverage. Restrictions on press freedom have the opposite impact, increasing the similarity of coverage within ownership chains.

The politics of multinational military operations

ABSTRACTToday, few countries fight alone; most fight as allies or partners in multilateral campaigns. The end of the Cold War opened a window of opportunity for multinational military operations (MMOs). These have seen varying degrees of participation, enthusiasm, and success. This special forum is devoted to the politics of multilateral warfare including their formation, maintenance, and durability. The introduction sketches past research and derives some key questions of continuing relevance. The contributions shed light on the domestic and international politics of MMOs, focusing on the implementation of national restrictions and their repercussions for MMOs, party politics of military intervention, the conditions under which states decide to defect from military operations, and the role of junior partners in MMOs. In sum, this forum offers a fresh look at the politics of MMOs, including conceptual contributions to the study of national restrictions, domestic constraints, and coalition warfare.

Conceptualizing caveats for political research: Defining and measuring national reservations on the use of force during multinational military operations

ABSTRACTThe upsurge in post-Cold War coalition operations has stimulated research on caveats: national reservations on the use of force in multinational military operations. However, because the concept of caveats has no agreed-upon definition, it is used inconsistently. This in turn impedes comparing research findings across academic and policy studies and therefore systematic research. This article is a contribution to the scholarly debate on how the analytical concept of caveats are to be delimited. Crucially, we argue that caveats result from some calculated political decision, and should not be confused with reserved behavior due to financial and technical limitations, or lack of coordination. We suggest that caveats are empirically observed and measured in two ways: First, we argue that coalition rules of engagement should be used as a yardstick for measuring direct reservations on the use of force. Second, we suggest reservations on task-assignment and geographical mobility should be used to register indirect reservations.

Ideology, ballots, and alliances: Canadian participation in multinational military operations

ABSTRACTThe decision to employ force abroad is often a contentious political decision, where partisanship plays a crucial role. Prior to military intervention, political parties usually make their ideologically distinctive preferences clear and seek to implement them once in power. What remains unclear, however, is how ideology affects the decision to use military force. This article contends that alliance and electoral calculations constrain the ability of political parties to implement their ideological preferences with regards to the use of force. It examines a “most likely” case for the partisan theory of military intervention, namely Canada’s refusal to take part in the invasion of Iraq and its decision to commit forces to the war against the Islamic State. It finds that only in combination with alliance and electoral calculations does executive ideology offer valuable insights into Canada’s military support to U.S.-led coalition operations, which contributes to our understanding of allied decision-making.

National restrictions in multinational military operations: A conceptual framework

ABSTRACTRecent scholarship in security studies has started to explore the causes and consequences of various forms of national restrictions in multinational military operations (MMOs). This article makes a conceptual contribution to this literature by developing a theoretical framework of national restrictions in MMOs that distinguishes between structural, procedural, and operational restrictions. I argue that these types of restrictions are governed by different causal mechanisms. Structural restrictions are relatively stable over time and effect deployment decisions irrespective of other factors. Procedural restrictions, on the other hand, can constitute veto points against deployment only in combination with distinct political preferences. Finally, operational restrictions directly affect the rules of engagement of troop contributing countries. The article illustrates the three types of restrictions and their interaction with empirical examples from a range of countries and sketches their impact on MMO deployment decisions and mandates.

Parliamentary involvement, party ideology and majority-opposition bargaining: Belgian participation in multinational military operations

ABSTRACTThis article examines the impact of parliamentary involvement in troop deployment decisions on restrictions on military mandates by examining the Belgian contribution to the 2011 Libya intervention and the coalition against the self-proclaimed Islamic State. More specifically, we analyse (1) the effect of party ideology on mandate preferences, and (2) the impact of bargaining between majority and opposition parties on the outcome of mandate negotiations. Our case study demonstrates that left-wing parties show a strong inclination toward imposing restrictions on the use of military force beyond humanitarian goals, while right-wing preferences tend to depend on the national interests at stake in the operation. With regard to majority-opposition bargaining, our study shows that the impact of opposition parties is dependent on the degree of contention between government and opposition parties, as well as on the extent to which the executive needs to seek support across its own majority.

More allies, weaker missions? How junior partners contribute to multinational military operations

ABSTRACTThere is a growing consensus that multinational military operations are often less effective than the theoretical sum of their constitutive parts. Multiple chains of command, restriction on intelligence sharing, and capability aggregation problems can reduce fighting power. However, partners may be necessary to provide legitimacy to an intervention. As such, most studies assume that the state leading a coalition (usually the United States) has to accept a degree of operational ineffectiveness in order to gain political benefits from the participation of junior partners to a multinational military operation. However, such analysis puts all junior partners under the same category, without taking into account the differentiated contributions of those junior partners based on their relative military power and international status. This article explores variation between the junior partners’ contributions and their impact on coalition political and military dynamics. It teases out the implications of adopting a fine-grained analysis of junior partners.

Accountability and Multinational Military Operations

Multinational military operations [MNMO] occur in different emanations: They might involve the concerted action of states – (ad hoc) ‘coalitions of the willing’ – participating in a joint military operation in which every state retains command over its troops (‘national command model’) or a ‘multinational integrated command’ is established or – in another variant – national contingents are subjected to the lead or domination of a specific state (‘framework nation’ or ‘lead nation’ model). Furthermore such coalitions may act with the authorization of an international organization [IO] or within its institutional setting under its lead or under the lead of one IO which might be in turn authorized by another IO. The plurality of actors involved and the intricate web of different spheres of authority and control characterizing MNMO pose considerable challenges in terms of ‘accountability’. This contribution is dedicated to their illustration and shall simultaneously critically reflect on the specific schemes international law offers to address the ‘pluriverse’ of ‘accountability problems’ arising when states and IO act together militarily. After sketching the conceptual contours of ‘accountability’ [I.] as well as the specific features of MNMO that account for the difficulties to hold relevant actors accountable [II.], this contribution will in its main part turn to rules on the ‘international legal responsibility’ of states and IO – a genuinely legal scheme which realizes – ‘accountability’ [III.] before closing with final observations [IV.].

Receiving States, Sending States and the Impact of Their Domestic Laws

The present paper explores the exercise of jurisdiction in the context of multinational military operations from the perspective of States that send their forces abroad and States that receive them within their territory. Sending States and receiving States may both claim to be competent under international law to regulate the conduct of military contingents in certain matters, based on the territorial principle and the organic jurisdiction principle, respectively. This overlap of competence may lead sending States and receiving States to exercise their authority in relation to the same subject matter. A number of principles, legal regimes and instruments are available in international law to resolve the problems that this concurrent exercise of jurisdiction presents. The paper reviews three of these: the reserved domain of domestic jurisdiction, the law of State and functional immunity and status of forces agreements.

The Relation Cultural Awareness – Tactical Multinational Military Structures’ Effectiveness

Abstract Addressing the problem of tactical multinational military structures’ effectiveness is not new, this becoming an important concern of military specialists once with the participation of national contingents to different multinational missions. Today, recent hybrid threats generate the necessity for it to be analyzed and stressed more, because the interoperability level of NATO’s multinational military structures must ensure a common, timely, coordinated and effective response. The analyses of multinational military structures’ effectiveness from the perspective of cultural diversity have highlighted not only the positive aspects but also the negative ones. Lessons learned from numerous multinational military operations have demonstrated the fact that the reduction and elimination of negative manifestations of cultural diversity, both in static military structures (multinational commandment) and multinational maneuver structures depend largely on the cultural awareness’ level of military personnel. In this regard, the proper understanding of cultural awareness’ concept and its role in achieving the effectiveness of tactical multinational military structures and also the definition of the relationship between these two variables become significant milestones that will be addressed in this article

Cultural Interoperability – Prerequisite for the Response to Hybrid Threats

Abstract Nowadays, in addition to the already known challenges, the hybrid threats require new responses, which had a timely appearance (adapting the existing military capabilities, the establishment of new military structures, at division and brigade level, their training etc.) and which involve an unconditional cooperation between NATO Member States and between them and their partners. From the perspective of the military response, creating multinational military structures based on different national contingents raises a number of questions on how they succeed to act coherently, in a coordinated and integrated manner. In this respect, the role of interoperability in general, and of cultural interoperability at the level of NATO military structures, in particular, has significantly increased, becoming a necessity for the development of multinational military operations as a joint response to the hybrid threats.

Niemcy w polityce globalnej (Biała Księga)

The aim of this article is to analyse the global and European foreign, security and defence policies of the Federal Republic of Germany and their implications for the broad international environment of Germany. Special attention is paid to the issues of Germany’s emancipation in the international order after the end of the East-West conflict, when it became clear that the regional conflicts and their transnational impact gained a new and multidimensional character for the German security policy. Given this evolution of the international system, Germany has gradually changed its former foreign and security policies. The state currently intends to take greater responsibility for international politics, which translates into a simultaneous increase in its political and economic power in the international arena. This new global role of the Federal Republic of Germany is manifested by the so-called White Paper on German Security Policy and the Future of the Bundeswehr approved on 13 July 2016. This document presents primarily the hierarchy of threats in today’s world, their definitions and attempts to neutralize them in compliance with German interests. Instruments to ensure a smooth achievement of this goal include the modernization of the German armed forces, the creation of intervention troops and their participation in multinational military operations conducted by NATO and the European Union.

Factors associated with substance use among Spanish military personnel involved in "Bosnia-Herzegovina".

The use of both legal and illegal drugs has rarely been investigated among the Spanish military population involved in multinational military operations. The aim of the current study was to examine the consumption of drugs by Spanish military personnel in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the variables associated with such substance use. A total of 605 military personnel participated in the cross-sectional study. The participants' mean age was 25.9 years (SD = 5.9), and 93.9% of the sample was male. The majority of the participants were enlisted personnel (83.5%). The most widely used drugs were tobacco (54.2%), and alcohol (39.9%). With respect to illegal drugs, the results showed that the drug with the highest prevalence of "use at some point during a lifetime" was cannabis (36.2%), followed by cocaine (14.9%) and amphetamines (12.1%). The most important variable associated with a decrease in the consumption of illegal drugs was social support. Conversely, participants with friends who have used illegal drugs had an increased likelihood of drug consumption. Given that the use of drugs can adversely affect soldiers' performance, preventive measures should be applied in multinational military operations.

Legal Issues of Multinational Military Operations: An Alliance Perspective

Legal Issues of Multinational Military Operations: An Alliance Perspective