J.E. Dyer: Rules of Engagement ... From Bosnia to Afghanistan
[J.E. Dyer is a retired Naval intelligence officer living in Southern California. She is a regular contirbutor to CONTENTIONS and also writes at The Optimistic Conservative blog.]
A career military officer is typically less inclined than civilians to offer sweeping criticism of the rules of engagement (ROE) adopted for an operation. This is due to an ingrained understanding of the basic purpose of ROE, which is to enable our side to retain initiative and operational discretion. ROE exist to discourage situations created by the enemy from spiraling out of control, while allowing commanders the optimum latitude for what U.S. ROE call the “right and obligation of self defense.”
Experienced officers thus recognize that ROE are both necessary and inherently restrictive. The quality of restrictiveness is not a bad thing, per se. What it may be, however, is a bellwether of incoherence in our strategy or operational objectives. ROE don’t win or lose wars by themselves, but when they’re unworkable, they are a sign of vulnerability in other areas, like the operational conditions we accept or our overarching concept for a campaign.
This week’s commemoration of the terrible massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica, in July 1995, is a timely reminder of the cost exacted by incoherent strategy, ill-defined objectives, and combat conditions unwisely tolerated. To a disquieting degree, the outlines of the untenable UN situation in Srebrenica have been emerging in Afghanistan, most visibly through the prism of ROE.
A 2002 report issued by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, on the Dutch military’s failures (while operating under UN constraints) in the Srebrenica tragedy, offers valuable lessons about objectives and ROE for Afghanistan in 2010. The same primary issues have recurred in both conflicts. In each case, the definition of why collateral damage to civilians must be avoided, and what it means to do so, has amounted to a paralyzing constraint on operations. Moreover, the hallmark of UN-NATO cooperation in Bosnia was a coalition approach in which the tactical military objective defaulted to the goal consistent with the least political unity and urgency: pure defense. Offensive, transformative action stood little chance of being justified or given unified approval.
That changed abruptly after the grisly fall of Srebrenica; the NATO ground offensive and air-strike campaign of late August and September 1995 were major departures from the previous posture of the UN peacekeeping force. By taking out the Bosnian Serbs’ military capacity, they set the conditions for the Dayton Accords. But the original set-up for Srebrenica was a combination of adopting purely defensive political goals, favoring the minimization of collateral damage over military effectiveness, and reserving tactical decisions -- e.g., about close air support and artillery use -- for higher echelons, because of their assumed political import. The first two factors ceded the initiative to the attacking enemy, and the third bogged down defensive execution inexcusably, as reported by desperate NATO units that waited hours for close air support while the UN Special Representative for the Balkans deliberated on its tactical advisability.
It is disturbing to see a similar pattern emerging in the NATO effort in Afghanistan...
Read entire article at Commentary
A career military officer is typically less inclined than civilians to offer sweeping criticism of the rules of engagement (ROE) adopted for an operation. This is due to an ingrained understanding of the basic purpose of ROE, which is to enable our side to retain initiative and operational discretion. ROE exist to discourage situations created by the enemy from spiraling out of control, while allowing commanders the optimum latitude for what U.S. ROE call the “right and obligation of self defense.”
Experienced officers thus recognize that ROE are both necessary and inherently restrictive. The quality of restrictiveness is not a bad thing, per se. What it may be, however, is a bellwether of incoherence in our strategy or operational objectives. ROE don’t win or lose wars by themselves, but when they’re unworkable, they are a sign of vulnerability in other areas, like the operational conditions we accept or our overarching concept for a campaign.
This week’s commemoration of the terrible massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica, in July 1995, is a timely reminder of the cost exacted by incoherent strategy, ill-defined objectives, and combat conditions unwisely tolerated. To a disquieting degree, the outlines of the untenable UN situation in Srebrenica have been emerging in Afghanistan, most visibly through the prism of ROE.
A 2002 report issued by the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, on the Dutch military’s failures (while operating under UN constraints) in the Srebrenica tragedy, offers valuable lessons about objectives and ROE for Afghanistan in 2010. The same primary issues have recurred in both conflicts. In each case, the definition of why collateral damage to civilians must be avoided, and what it means to do so, has amounted to a paralyzing constraint on operations. Moreover, the hallmark of UN-NATO cooperation in Bosnia was a coalition approach in which the tactical military objective defaulted to the goal consistent with the least political unity and urgency: pure defense. Offensive, transformative action stood little chance of being justified or given unified approval.
That changed abruptly after the grisly fall of Srebrenica; the NATO ground offensive and air-strike campaign of late August and September 1995 were major departures from the previous posture of the UN peacekeeping force. By taking out the Bosnian Serbs’ military capacity, they set the conditions for the Dayton Accords. But the original set-up for Srebrenica was a combination of adopting purely defensive political goals, favoring the minimization of collateral damage over military effectiveness, and reserving tactical decisions -- e.g., about close air support and artillery use -- for higher echelons, because of their assumed political import. The first two factors ceded the initiative to the attacking enemy, and the third bogged down defensive execution inexcusably, as reported by desperate NATO units that waited hours for close air support while the UN Special Representative for the Balkans deliberated on its tactical advisability.
It is disturbing to see a similar pattern emerging in the NATO effort in Afghanistan...