after almost two lustres of intense editorial activitv, I leave the office of Chief of the Journalistic Centre of the Army and Chief Editor of "Rivista Militare". During these years, well aware of the serious risks that arise when decisions connected with Defence are taken without informing public opinion, I have become more and more convinced that the purpose of my work had to be the improvement of the relations between the militarv and the civilian world. It is often difficult to understand what to "invest in communication" means . Many have the reductive idea that "to communicate" means to inform, to propagandize, to develop public relations. All these activities are certainly useful and necessary but, by themselves, could prove insufficient and counterproductive. The image of chaos and absence of strong va.lues which, at times, is conveyed by society, is not the product of a standardization process but rather the result of the widespread desire to be visible and to count. In this scenario, therefore, a complex and many-sided organization, such as the military is, if it wants Lo legitimate itself, must learn more and more to find its place, and act in the information market in a competitive rnanne1.~ It must ask itself how it can be present and participate in what sociologists call "reality through the media". This means being capable of constructing one's own communication strategy. It means realizing that the military \,v orld communicates in any moment of its social life and that this communication, be it directed inside or outside, ·will be effective on]y if it succeeds in expressing the goals of the organization, so that they can be continuously redefined and negotiated. To achieve this, communication must not be seen as an additional problem, as a number of new specialisms to be added to the old ones, but as the interiorization by the individual members of the Armed Forces of a way of being and acting and, therefore, of skills and cultures capable of incrementing al l the available resources, guiding them towards shared objectives. This produces a culture which, in its turn, generates a coherence among the different forms and modalities of communication, which mutually reinforce each other. Our daily work went a long the lines of this conviction, in the effort to present our Readers with a product characterized not only by a pleasant format but especially by a careful selection of contents, in order to put our Periodical on the same level as the best expressions of the national press and to make it a reliable vehicle of the Army's thought and image among the Country's citizens. The manifold initiatives undertaken by "Rivista Militare" during these years among which I'd like to mention, besides the basic editions, the publication of "Rassegna Militare" (the Army Review), the English Edition of the "Rivista", the organization of prize-winning competitions and, above all, of courses and round tables - had precisely the purpose of starting a project of cultural pluralization. A project aimed at: • starling a process of interna l communications involving the best and most blooming intellectual resources of the Service in a lively and constructive exchange of opinions; • favouring interdisciplinary courses for professional qualification and retraining; • spmTing and encouraging strong intellectual tensions, and fruitful discussions of ideas;
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I • developing, especially among Lhe youngest, a more aware part1c1pation in the necessities of the organization, in citing them to exp ress a professional vitality and interpret, with a modern vision, the present and the changing future of the military Institution; • increasing the citizen's awareness that today the Army and, more generally, the Armed Forces, express themselves not only in terms of safeguard of the internal and international security, but also carry out a task of education and reinforcement of the national identity. It is certainly an ambitious programme, based on the firm belief that the moral courage of men can win only if it springs from deep ethical roots, upheld and forti fied by knowledge and culture. Obviously we did not expect conclusive results from our initiatives, since they could not be a point of arrival but rather a labourious stage in a long and complicated journey which reaches the future of our Institution. We only wanted to produce som e light electric shocks, launch some disrupting fragments, develop mech anisms of implosion of ideas and emotions, capable of rousing minds and hearts, especially those of the young Cadres, the dawn of our Army. "Tell me and I forget; teach me and I remember; involve me and l learn". This short epigram by Benjamin Franklin has always been our reference, in order to help the young to believe in the great pedagogic va lues that must sustain them in the rediscovery of the ethical conception of life and State, the patriotic spirit, the acceptance of labour as civi l commitment, discipline as adhesion, military life as a dimension of the spirit. The achievement of these noble goals was made possible also by the thoughts and ideas collected by "Rivista Militare" from the most distinguished "opinion makers" fro m the academic and cultural worl d: an initia tive that provided us \vith an anthology of reflections and appraisals on lhe Defence's strategic decisions and enabled us to establish a mutual relationship with the best "intelligentzia" of our Country. It is not necessary to produce balance sheets. The j udgement on the so undness of our decisions belongs to the Readers on ly and they - this I can say with absolute certainty - have always shown an active and empathic interest in our proposals. If anything goo d has been done, this depended mainly on the confidence that we felt coming fron1 our Readers during the performance o f our daily work. I n this respect, I must also point out the courageous fars ight edness of my Superiors, who succeeded each other in these ten years. They always supported and encouraged me , both in my ed itori a l work and in the manyfol d cult ural activities. My convinced and sincere appreciation and gratitude goes to my wonderful collaborators, both military and civilians. Everyone of them expressed enthusiasm a nd pro fess ionalism, with an i ntelligen t contribu tion of ideas, in the diffi cu lt m om ent w h en the S ervice went throu gh a severe pro cess of str uctu ra l, organizational and operational rationalization. I want to thank them warmly, particularly for their loyalty and their convinced sharing of the programmed objectives. To Colonel Giovanni Maria Giu seppe Tricarico, who succeeds me as Chief Editor. I express my best wishes of good and fruitful luck.
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Number Two 2002 .
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May - June July - August
The p roductio n of this magazine has been supervised by Omero Rampa Rivista Militare aims at broad ening and upd ating the technical and vocational training of Officers and NCOs. It is thus a means of p ropagating the military way of thinking and a forum of study and debate. Through the publ ication of articles of technical and scientific interest, Rivista Militare also aims at informing t he general pub lic on the Army and on m ilitary issues.
I Editorial The particular aptitude of the Italian
soldiers for human and social relations is an increasingly important element for tile success of tile peacesupport and humanitarian-aid op erations conduc ted wi thin the present international scenario.
FOUR-MONTHLY
PoJitics, Economics and Strategy 2 The Italian Army for World Peace (Roberto Speci{lfe)
6 The "need to know" in the Ne\.v Operational Scenario (Salvatore Farina and Pietro Serino)
Supplement to numbers 3 a nd 4 of Rivista Militare Italian Edit io n
16 The Art of Leadership
Editor in Chief: Giovanni CERBO
28 A Commander's Reflections
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2002
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38 A European Armv? (Pier Paolo Lunelli) 56 European Union. A Common Policy for Foreign Relations and Security. Inteniew With Professor Jalier Solana Madariaga (Omel/{I Rota)
62 The Europe of Security Intenriew With the Hon. Luigi Ramponi (Giovanni Cerbo)
68 The Italian Corps for NATO (Vincenzo Maugeri and Vi11ce11zo Pitagoraj 82 Italian Soldiers in Kabul (Giorgio Battisrij
90 Estonia. The New Army. Intcnriew With the Commander of the Defence Forces (Enrico !Vlap,na.110
96 The Rumanian Defence College (Giovanni Sulis)
Science, Technology and Training 103 The Completion Forces (Francesco Diella and Giuseppe Bongiovanni)
History 110 Int1atable Floats (Flavia Russo) 119 Sonunaire - Inhalt - Resumen
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THE ITALIAN ARMY FOR WORLD PEACE Lecture by the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army at the Forum on "Solidarity: the New Name of Peace" (Messina, January 24, 2002) With the beginning of the new Century, the studies and the interpretative debates on the no t a lways evolutionary c hanges occurred on the post-Cold War internati onal poli t ical scene have remarka bly increased. This phenomenon, growing on the political-cultural plane, has suddenly extended to the horizontal plane of global public opinion after the events of September 11, 2001, when the mass media recorded, in all Countries, a new and strong request for infonnation on the issues of peace, war, internal and internatio nal secur ity, employment of the Armed Forces for peace. The ensuing debate, for which public opinion still shows a lively interest, emphasizes especially three subjects, which I am going to take as guiding threads of my presentation . First: what kind of interpretative model can be taken as reference, in order to understand the international political scenario and to identify its trend ? Second: what can, and must, the inte.r national community do in order to prevent conflicts, guarantee the internal and regional security of the States and safegu ard the universally recognized rights, i.e. to maintain peace in the world ? The third su bject has a more d irect interest. What type of Armed Forces should be em ployed by the Countries which intend to assume this command responsibility and m ust, thereFore, share the operational costs of maintaining world peace? (For Italy, in substance, it is a matter of verifying Lhe congruence and sui tability of the nevv Army, in accordance with the international policy established. by the Government and the other political Institutions). As regards the firs t point, J believe Lhat, in the present period, characterized by changes, and by the acceleration of changes, there is a rather unstable international geo-political core whose surface is the basis of a still uncertain international policy that proceeds by little steps. Thus it is only possible to outline evolutionary trajectories and identify the most probable trends by using interpretative models. In any case, this operation cannot be avoided, because the con6guration of the longterm international scenario is a necessary prerequisite for planning a defence model. Among the various interpretative models, I would like to mention two of them, recently thoroughly covered by the media, wh ich represent, in the common opinion, two very antithetic a nd extreme theories. The model conceived by Samuel Huntington, on the clash of Civilizations, is perhaps the most discussed; the other, by Francis Fukuyama, theorizes the end of History. Personally I believe - and I a m goi ng to try proving it - tha t these two models are paradoxica lly cornplementary, even if ant ithetic. H unt in gto n, a Professor at H arvard's "Albert Weatherhead University", author of "The Clash of Civilizations and the e•.v World Order ", translated and published all over the world, an analytic 2
development of his famous article "A Clash of Civilizations?" of 1993, wants to provide an interpretative model "a lens through which to observe - as the Author writes - the new phase of world politics after the end of the cold ·war". • He then illustrates a th·esis, defi ned as "central", on what "global politics will probably be in the next few years. "The first source of conflicts in this world - Huntington says - will he neither essentially ideologic nor essentially economic. The great divisions within mankind and the predominant source of conflict 11vill have a cultural character. The Nation-Stcites will continue to be the most powerful protagonists in world affairs, but the main conflicts of global politics will take place among different nations and groups of civiliz~tions. The clash of civilizations will do,ninate over ·world politics. The faults between civilizations will be the frontlines of the future". Fukuyama, Professor of International Political Economy a t the "John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies" in Washington, is known for his theory on the end of History after tbe cold war. The scholar refers the term "History" .. ."to the progress of m.ankind, through the centuries, towards a modernity characterized by institutions such as liberal deinocracy and capitalism". Since more and more vast areas of the world aspire, and will aspire, to this modernity, "Histo,y tends to finish". "The Western institutions" - Fukuyama maintains - are like a scientific method which, although discovered in the -west, is universally applicable. There is a basic historical mechanism that encourages a long-term convergence beyond the cultural borders. It acts first, and with more strength, in the economic sector, then in the political field and finally, at long distance, in the cultural environment". The motors of this mechanism are the advanced technologies. "The semiconductors technologies or the bio111.edical sciences are the same for Muslims, Chinese or for Western people and the need to master them imposes the adoption o( particular economic institutions, such as a free market and the rule of law, which promote growth". Since these institutions thrive in individual freedom, "the economic development tends to generate a liberal democracy". As I mentioned before, I believe that these two complementary models are usefu l and sufficient to understand the trend of the world policy from which the possible miss ions of a Nation's or of an international Organization's foreign policy can be derived, and thence the model for the national Armed Forces. The demonstration of my id ea of complementarity is based on the two scholars' interpretation of the cmTent conflicl in Afghanistan according to their respective models. According to Huntington, the clash o!: civilizations started with Afghanistan, wbich is one aspect of the wider and more insidious Muslim conflict which has replaced the cold war. Huntington says that "the era of the Islamic ·wars begins in the 80s, when the cold war is about to end" and mentions the Iran-Iraq conflict, the invasion of Kuwait, the violence between the Muslims and lhe other ethnic groups in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kashmir, India, the Philippines, Indonesia, the Middle East, Sudan and Nigeria. The "International Institute of Strategic Studies" has pointed out that Muslims were involved in about 70% of the armed conflicts in progress in 2000, while they represent only 20% of the world population. The deep reasons for this diffused violence go back to the social, political and cultural reaction of the Muslim populations to modernization and globalization. Therefore, according to Huntington, the "new war", in all its interpretative and operational forms, is not "so new". _ This conflict, which will be immanent for a long time, will require a constant control by the international commu nity. It will be necessary to detect the symptoms of crises at their onset, act on all political, social, demographic, economic, migratory and culture levers, in order to prevent, in a global manner, the risk of the expansion of violence (according to Huntington, the clash of the Islamic world against the West) . Although with different diagnoses . Fukuyama prescribes the same therapy. For h im, the Muslim conflicts are an almost physiological response of these Countries to mod ernity and its organizational cornerstones: liberal democracy and capitalism. They are almost like "movements'' of adjustmenl to a slow p(ocess of international amalgamation which, in fact, "will d ismiss History" in the sense pointed ou t by the scholar. The new war, after September 11, "... is not a clash between equal and separate cultures which fight against each other, as was the case for the European Powers of the 19th Century. The clash consists in a succession of rearguard actions carried out by societies whose traditional existence is actually threatened by modernization .. . ". According to Fukuyama, the struggle that the West is co nducting today against international terror extends to the challenge of Islamic fundamentalism, whicb must be kept under control in all its hotbeds of tension, doing away with its feeding causes. In su bstance, the two interpretative models are oppo site as regard s the diagnosis but absolutely co mplementary i n the therapy they suggest. Fukuyama's march towards modernization or the opportuneness to slow down the conflicts in order to avert the clash of civilizations, upheld by Huntington, both require an increasing acknowledgement of the values of peace and human rights and, in addition, the will, i.e. the orientation of foreign policy, and the possibility - i.e. the availability of an Army readily and effectively employable in support of peace - of participating in the common security. In this cred ible and long-term scenario, suitable for the definition of missions and plans, it can be surmised that the concept of sovereignty yields some of its dominion to the solidarity elements
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characterized by the general interests of the international Community,and protection of human rights will be one of the most frequent cases. In short, the protection of human rights will be less and less under the exclusive sovereignty of the State. In consideration of the above, we can tack.le the second subject which refers to the future tasks of the international Community and to the in terests and responsibilities of the individual Nations. The Western Countries, bearers and nourishers of the modern ity model outlined by Fukuyama, as well as active and inflexible participants in the efforts for the maintenance of world peace, will, frequently and with increasing intensity, be called to carry out humanitarian interventions with their Armed Forces. This concept has deeply entered the mission and even more the reorganization of the international institutions operating in the Field of defence and security. Suffice it to thii'1k of the new activism of the UN , the evolution of NATO, the headway of the EU which has launched the project of a "Euroforce: the Rapid Reaction European Corps", OSCE, the pan-European Organization for Security and Cooperation, which includes among its tasks also peacekeeping and international security, as \veil as the various enlarged partnerships. St ill , there is the knotty problem of how to streamline the decision-making process. This knot will remain unsolved for a long time. The events of the last years, anyway, have shown that the real cataJyzer of the decision-making process is represented by the interventionist thrust of public opinion. Western societies, in particular, give the utmost importance to the formation of consens us. Public opinion's approval of humanitarian missions - ranging from peace-keeping to peace-enforcing - is also decisive for the functional legitimation of the Armed Forces. k The Army for peace can be well organized only if the political forces feel it is in the interest of the Country: the soldiers for peace can operate with motivation and s uccess only if they perceive the consent of society. An essential point is therefore the ethic, moral and legal legitimation of the humanitarian interventions and, in a wider sense, the so-called right of humanitarian interference. The ethic and moral legitimation of the so -called humanitarian interference is given by the acknowledgement of the fact that human rights, as an integral part of man's dignity, cannot be separated from the human person and have a universal value. John Paul II, in his message on the occasion of the World Peace Day of 2000, wrote that ".. . he who offends the human rights offends the human conscience as such, oflends mankind itself .. " and also "... the duty to
defend these rights transcends the geographic and political borders 11vithin which they are violated... " ".. . therefore the crimes against mankind cannot be considered as internal affairs of a Nation ... ". The prese}lt global era has delivered to the history of culture (philosophy of law, peace studies, war studies, etc.) the theme of the "reason for war" and with it the discussion on the usefulness of war and the just war, shifting the attention to the duty to guarantee the right to humanitarian assistance and to the just principle of preventing_and containing conflict situations. More and more the rights of men and peoples surpass and subordinate the principle of non-interference among States which, if interpreted in an absolute sense, is anachronistic and anti-historical. Exactly as anachronistic and anti-historical is the absolute concept of into lerability of mil i tary interventions. The pacifist culture, at this point, acknowledges the legitimacy of the interventions decided by the international Community for the purpose of stopping criminal events, provided that the methods employed are acceptable by common feelings and values. I conclude this second subject by quoting the words of two distinguished personalities: Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini and Admiral Guido Venturoni, pronounced at the forum on "W0ar and Peace in the 2ist Century" held in Rome in July 2000. Milan's Archbishop invited to acknowledge "the legitimacy and obligation, in certain clear-cut cases, of a
niore direct humanitarian inte1ference, envisaging the use ofweapons" . Admiral Venturoni, former Chief of Staff of Defence and my highly regarded teacher, affirmed that "what gives moral content to the role of today's military is not the means (war) but the further goal, i.e. the aspiration to peace". Admiral Venturoni's excellent declaration presents the right tone for introducing the third ¡ and last subject, the Army for Peace, a matter which is more directly within my province, closely connected with the two preceding topics and certainly consequential to them. I shall illustrate this theme trying to offer an interpretation of what is commonly defined as the surprising and positive phenomenon of the Italian Army's success in the recent peace-operations. This success is now widely acknowledged in the most prestigious circles and, initially, it surprised the international public opinion. . ¡ The main reason for this was an unfortunately very widespread aura of mistrust, feel not so much by our military tradition, less brilliant than that of some other Countries - suffice it to think of the initial ironies on our "Bersaglieri" in Beirut - or by the alienation of certain cultural environments, due to the well-known events of WWII and, in particular, to the criticized military leadership of that time. The initial distrust was also related to the image offered by the Italian Armed Forces in the last forty years. Conscription Armed Forces, quartered _in their barracks, continuously bombarded by stereotypes such as "army life, boring life" and "nonnismo" (harassment of recrnits by senior soldiers). Anned Forces which 4
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, belonged to a Country which had managed its defence in an opportunistic way "under NATO's umbrella" and even more the United States', without taking full care. of the financial burdens. In the 90s, very few would have bet on tl'ie efficiency of the Italian Army in the new peace missions, despite the fact that a farreaching and swift structtiral reform was under way. However, those who knew our Army well could have bet with confidence. I bet and I won. In order to begin, a mission nmst have political consent, but to be successful it must be supported by public opinion, which must legitimate and acknowledge the role carried out. Our Army has succeeded, and our politicians, well aware of the changed gee-political scenario, have understood the requests of international law, humanitarian law and the peoples' self-determination, and have therefore supported the out-of-area interventions . Furthermore, public opinion, by showing its consent, has supported, on all occasions, our participation in the various missions. The journey that led our Army to enjoy the widest appreciation for its work, was favoured by the nonintmsive approach of our soldiers and by their capability of positive interaction with the local populations. In this sense, the empathic characteristic of the Italian spirit emerged on all occasions. In 1992, precisely on the clay of departure of our contingent for "Operation Ibis" in Somalia, the Army presented the volume "Overseas", which highlighted the participation of the Service in the various peace missions - today's peacekeeping and peace-enforcing operations - , s ince Italy's unity. Well, froin the statistical research, carried out for the realization of this work, emerged a special Italian inclination for this type of interventions. In these missions, the Anglo-Saxon soldiers were proud of being bearers of the values of a superior civilization, the German mainly expressed the pride of belonging to a particular Corps, while our men were enthusiastic about their task and given to solidarizing with the local people. · The Italian servicemen, in various occasions, revealed very special talents and characteristics, including the capability of socializing, of entering into relations with others, of integrating within the operations without being "cumbersome"; on the contrary, they were a precious support in the little and great difficulties suffered by a population just out of a conflict or a humanitarian disaster. This "aptitude for communication" may be something genetic that we Italians have in our chromosomes; we place ourselves in the situations with the attitude of those who want to help, always considering the ways and feelings of peoples with traditions and customs different from our own. It was precisely this peculiarity of the Italians, together with their organizational imagination, the determinant factor of the successful completion of the missions, starting with Lebanon in 1992. In substance, it is a very special. attitude of the Italian soldiers, which falls within their culture, meant, in a Spenglerian sense, as a complex of values shared by the whole people. As a matter of fact, the real breeding ground of this peculiarity was operation "Vespri Siciliani", in which the whole Italian Army participated. Eventually, more than 150,000 servicemen, almost all conscripts, and all the Cadres, operated in an environment requiring the full solidarity of the entire community, in order to rebuild the authority of the State. The intense training activity, related also to the character of "public security agent" attributed to our military, enhanced by the full ,participation of the Sicilians, started a process of "primary training" which was passed on to the organizational learning of our Commands and Units. I am honoured for having been the Commander of the "Aosta" Brigade, the Major Unit which started operation "Vespri Siciliani" in July 1992 and, therefore, a direct witness of this process of organizational learning. · The experience of ''Vespri Siciliani" traced out the training furrow which made the various peace missions successful, even during the military reorganization, and without a clear defence model as a reference. To sum it all up, I mention the various missions: • under UN aegis: Lebanon (from 1979), Namibia (1989-1990), Somalia (1992-1 994), Mozambique (19931994) and the last one, just started, ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) in Afghanistan (from January 2002); • under NATO command: IFOR/SFOR, in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1998, "Joint Guarantor" in Macedonia (1998-1999), KFOR in Kosovo from 1999, Allied Harbour, in Albania (1999), "Task Force Essential Harvest", in Macedonia (2001); • multinational missions: Lebanon 1 and Lebanon 2 (1982-1984), "Airone" in Iraqi Kurdistan (1991), "Ippocampo" in Rwanda (1994) "Alba" in Albania (1997), "Stabilize" in East Timor (1999-2000); • national missions: "Pellicano" in Albania (1991 -1993). I wish to conclude my presentation by mentioning an aspect that I have very much at heart and is particularly connected with the subject of this Forum: solidarity as the new name of peace. In out-of-area missions we put into practice a concrete and constant synergy with the NGOs (nongovemmental organizations) which pursue the same objective: offering solidarity to the community. Safeguard of human life, food self-sufficiency, preservation of the environment, promotion of women and children are the concrete actions carried out by the NGOs. The Italian Army cooperates with these Organizations, looking for what unites people and discarding what divides them.
Lieutenant General Roberto Speciale 5
n the previous issue we examined th e aspects concer¡ning the planning o[ the land instrument, as regards the evolution o[ the scenar"io following lhe tragic events of September 2001. With a vievv to this , we pointed out the priority of con stituting a well-constructed pool o[ RISTA-EW capa bilities, in a position to help composing an information picture well-detai led and availab le, in lime for irnposing one's own initiative. The '' need to know" - being impossible to base one's own forecasts on the famil iarity of the doctrine and proceedings of a known a dversary - has become
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more and more manifest. The operating forces, in fact, have been engaged for rnore than a decade in operational theatres where indefiniteness is the a\,v kwarcl companion of a ll Commanders and where "knowing in advance" increasingly represents the only element that permits to achieve success. Hence the Army Staff's interest in starting a critical examination of the operational Forces' capabilities in this sector, pre paring a pro j ec L which, from the conceptual and organizationa l viewpoint, co uld optimiz.e the efficiency of what
is avai lable , out li ning the picture \Nithin which the Armed Force's potent iality co uld be increased . The project '' RIS TA-EW Capabililies Package", approved by the Army Chief of Staff in the sumrner of 2001 and entered in its realiza tion phase at the beginning of 2002, is part of th e wider process of reorgan ization of the Army and its operational component, which is the
obj ective of the project known as "Packages of Op e ration a l Capabilities of the Army" . This programm e, started in 1997 with tb e aim of preparing an ins tru ment suited to the ne,v missions en t r u s t e d to the Armed Forces , bas its strong poin ts in: • ca pabilit y planning, where determinant importance is given to th e definition of maximum. effort, in te rms of
scenarios, forces engaged and length of operations; • combat approach wh ic h, in acknow ledging the greater comp lexity of high-intensity symmetrical operations, envisages an instr um ent capab le of confronting the w id e ra nge of possible operations; • task organization, as organizational principle which pennits lo prepare packages of 7
forces suitable [or any situation, com.bining modules of vario us operationa l capabilities, quantitatively and qualitatively suited to the mission. The model that derives from the programme is that of a body of forces comparab.le to a single Corps, consisting of: • one national-framework Corps Command (l), in a position Lo operate also as Land -Heavy JTF HQ and integrated with in the structure of the NAT O Forces, \.Vith a C2S dedicated support; • three Division Hqs, one of which with a readiness of 180 days, in order to meet the needs connected ·w ith longterm CROs; • ten manoeuvre Brigades of various types, which include also the "Pozzuolo de! Friuli" Cavalr-y Brigade, charged with carrying out a reconnaissance activity by fighting (recce by force) which is outside the specialistic RISTA considered in the menLioned study; • combat-sup porL (CS) and logistic combat-support (CSS) units, assembled in homogeneous Brigades and Groups. The RISTA -EW specialistic suucturcs, which are the object of the plan we are dealing wit h, are placed in the sphere of combat support.
THE NEED The project therefore is aimed at develop i ng a specialistic RISTA-EW capability in order to answer the needs of a Corps engaged in traditional as well as cr isis-management operations, at tactical-operational level. Such capability, in order to meet the requ irement of maximum sinergy and efficiency of th e resources emp loyed in that sector, will 8
have to be integrated and in a position to supply the Commander, at any level, ·with a picture of the situation as complete as possible and in real time, which, by making use of th e ca pabil ities of the Command Staff (G2 branch), sho uld include the possible actions of the adversary (PAN) and the relevant evaluations. Jn short, th e "situatio na l awareness" ind ispensab le for acquiring a decision-making superiocily over the adversary, i mposing one's own initiative and achieving success. Therefore the RISTA -EW component \Vil! have to possess a twofold capability: • acquisition of information data; • processing of the said data by
the synergic employment of the potentialiti es of the Staffs of the special units and the of capabilities of the Commands' G2 branches. This twofold capability will have to be used without inten-uption, in all operational and environm ent cond itions and, above all, will have to be impervious to any countermeasure taken by the adversary. It is quite clear that, in the scenarios fo und in cns1smanagement military operations, marked by indeterminateness and lack of geometry, there is also an alteration in the
principles according to which the specialistic assets are employed and assigned to the Major Units, depriving of significance the schematic references connected \Vith predetermined distances, which were so clear to the operational planners of the co.Id war. Jn principle, in a scenario of the nevv kind, characterized by interruptions in the presence of forces on the ground, the RISTAEW units are called to create an indispensable connect.ion among the various format ions, b y provid ing an "information" cover of the empty spaces in the deployment of the Major Unit's
An American UA V Hunter taking off:
Commands, in favour of which they operate. (fig. l). This cover can be ensured by opera ting within the garrisoned areas, by using the range of the sensors, or by going physically inside th e non -garrisoned areas .
THE SITUATION The survey on the "RISTA-EW capabi lity packag e " was prornpted by the study of the situation, with reference to the Italian Army's, as well as that of the main allied Armies. The Italian situation appeared
XXX
multifaceted, being influenced by the previous organization, where the assets were integrated within each individual operational capability (consider in this regard the present Target Acquisition Group - GRACO - of the missile Brigade and the electronic-warfare battalions under the transmission Command of the Major Units, or to be constituted in case of emergency, such as some struc tures tasked with HUMINT,e.g. the UMis) and by the first measures aimed at obtaining a greater integration of the assets . This led to the concentration, under the former CIDE, of the assets charged with electronic-war surveillance in the CO.lVI and NON-COM sectors It was moreover noticed (and it is not by chance that, up to now, the RSTA acronvm has been used within the An~y) thaL there was a clear division of tasks among the specialistic assets - which are charged with
gathering information - and the Major Units' Commands, which are tasked with planning the research and processing of the information . This requires a high specialization and professional ism of the G2 Branch personnel, w hich is made difficult by the scarce training opportunities, owing to the shortage of RISTA -EW assets w ithin the Army Major Units . Various organizational models have been verified in the international sphere , which embody three different systems. The first, which we s hall call "shared", envisages the situation described for the Italian Army, where the RISTAE \N assets have a primary vocation, wh ich links them to a specific Branch Command. This situation is mainly found in Annies oriented towards traditional operations, such as the German Army. The second, which we s hall
cal l "concentrated", envisages the R l STA -EW assets concen trated within several specialistic units of different organizational level ("military intelligence" Brigade and battalion), subordinate to Major Units (Arrnv and Division). This s ituation is found in the US Army, which is characterized by a dimensio n unusual for any European Army, with the exception of the Russian Army. The third model, wJ1 ich we shall call "cen tralized " , envisages the whole RTSTA-EW assets assemb led in a specia li stic Major Unit, subordinate lo the Commander of Lhe Operational Forces, who employs it as a w hole or by packages, according to need. This situation is found in the French Army, which was the first to adopt the principle of Lask organizal.ion, The is reportedly being studied by otber European Armies, such as the British Army. 9
X
Fig. 2
I
~
Info Search Unit
R
s
In terms o.f effectiveness and of resources employed , the "third modelf' appears to be Lhe best suited to meet the requiremcnLs of the Italian Army wh ich - and this shou ld not be rorgotten - is also engaged in an impo ,· tant and unavoidable quantitative reduct ion, in th e context of the int egral pr·ofessional ization of the national military instrument.
TA
EW
•• transm.ission, in order· to forward the acquired data to the RISTA -E W Command which has ordered the mission (this, therefore, does nol concern the di[fusion, wh ich fo ll ows the processing and is a responsibility of the Major Unit Command to the advantage of which the specialistic asset operates) .
THE SOLUTION In view of what ·w e have just illus trated , it was decided to constitute a centrali zed pool of RISTA-EW resources (fig .2) consisting of: • one Command and Control capab ility, at Group level , e ntrusted vvith the functions of: •• p re pa ra tion of the spec ialistic assets; •• direction of ll1 e said assets, in case of employment in support of Lhe Corps level, also contributing (toge Lh er with the 1-Jq's G2 branch) to the preparation of the ,·esearch plan and to the processing of the gather-eel in formation; • several specialistic uni Ls, capable of coveri og the entire range or the informat ion activities. These unils will have to operate in the sectors of: •• r esearc h of info rmat ion data; 10
Some of Lhese units are charged with establishing an information tactical group (we are going to deal \,vith this unit in the following pages) and will l1ave Lo provide functi.ons of: • command, for the management of asseLs coming from var·io us special isLic un its; • p rocess ing of informat ion
data, ,vhich can be defined of 1st level (2), in order to distinguish it from t he function assigned Lo the Command's G2 Branch, in favou r· of which Lh e information taclical group operates; • logistic support. The ideal level of employment of an infonnation tactical group is in support of a Divis.ion Hg. Therefore, in order to solve the operational problem o.f the Army which, in long operations, envisages the employment of no more than one Division-level Hq (or, as an alternative, Corps leve l), it ·wil I be necessary to have the availability of at least 4 information tactical groups . ln this ·w ay it ,,vill be poss i ble to proceed to a cycle of employrnent which would envisage the altenHttion of the 4 groups in the operat ional theatre, or the simultaneous employment of 2 groups only in
Helicopter-borne "Creso" radar system.
the plrnse of uti lizaLion of the Corps Hq, accepting a mo ,·e frequent rotation of the assets. On the other hand, one cannot exclude in advance the employment or particular asseLs in support of Brig ades
Fig. 3
.
Info obj definition Search p lan/orde;rs Search & gathering 1 •1 level e laboration 2 nd level e laboration EVALUATION
Diffusion
INFORMATION COMMANDS
DECONFLICTING
I I
INFORMATION DATA
I I
UNITS
Specia ~
i . c ~,ensors
~ -= which,due Lo Lheir mission or to the general siluation, rnay require spec ial capabi liti es. Th is could b e the case of Brigades operating under the dire ct orders of a Corps Headquarters. The s olution is moreov er completed by the str ucture entrusted with the personnel's specializat ion, whic h will be characterized by a "jo int" conception as regards information courses and direction or activit ies, and will be integrated will1 the structure tasked with the operntional training of the speci alist uni ls . In short, the basic elements of the adopted solu lion are: • on the p r·ocedural plane, the interaction or the G2 branch o( the Major Unit Commands with the RISTA -EW groups groups/tactical Commands. • on the organizational plane, the group Command and the information tactical group, • on the training plane, the unitary direction.
THE INFORMATION CYCLE The management of the ever increas ing flO\v of in fomrntion that reaches a Command, necessary in m·der lo detect the more signir icant bits and arrange them in a system, thus achieving the inforrnation important for carry ing out one's mission and protecting the friendly forces, is implemenled through a group of act ivit ies, alrea dy codified, which define the informa tion cycle (3). From a doctrina l v ievvpoinl, the essential lines or this process are still fully valid. The innovation consists in the wish to increase the invo lvement or t he R I STA - EW assets into the cyc le itself so that, besides being protagonists of the gathering phase, they and their staffs may share in t he direction and processing phases. This n ee d arises rrnm the observation tbat, in the sectors of high specialistic and technical contents, only .h e who participates in their preparation
has a deep knowledge of t he potentialities and limi Ls of the assets and is in a position 1.0 r ully appreciate and uti lize the results. Jt is nol b y chance t hat anyone possessing the necessary resources employs as organ i;ational model the one in \.vhich each Commander has his ovvn RISTA-EW asset. In the operntional n,echanics pointed oul (fig.3) , the operationa l staff (S2iS3) of an information tactical g r oup working in s upport or a Division Command (i. e . the G2 / G3 branches of the R I STA - EW group Command opera 1. i ng in support of the Corps Command) wi ll he plac e d in a pos i tion physical ly contiguous to the G2 of the Major Unit, so as Lo: • part icipate in drawing the "research plan" by supplying advice on the acquisit ion capabilit ies of the dependent specia l isti c assets and the elements concern ing their cost/effective e mploymen l; • establish relations with the G3, 11
Launching of a Franco -German CL 289 Drone.
upon delegation from the G2, with Lhe purpose of "deconflicting" the employment o f one's o\vn asseLs (i.e . tendentially removing the "blue on blue" situations; • cornplete th e 1st level elaboraLion, supplying the G2 w ith the information useful for drawing the "inforrnation appraisal" • supply, on request, its cooperation in every phase of the information cycle . On the whole, it is a maLte.r of supplying the G2 with the indispensable spec ial istic advice, so that it may carry out its task by properl y using the potentialities of ever more complicaLed and dive ,·s if.ied systems. THE RISTA-EW GROUP COMMAND
The RISTA -EW Gr·oup Command, vvh i eh is being constituted using as a bas is the preexisting O Uice of the Commander of the IEW Group of th e IEW C4 Command at Anzio, will represent the cent.re of the system. It will be, in fact, responsible 12
for the personnel's specialization and for the preparation and employment of the assets. As concerns the specialization [unction, the Group Command, through Lhe subordinate "IEW qualifica tion centre" is a lready responsible for a part of th e training of the specialists who operate in this sector. This responsibility will have to include the indication of the o bjectives to be pursued by the RISTA-EW Training Group" at Montelibretti, which operates in the sector of procedural integration of the different assets. As an indication, considering that the studies on the matter are still unde r· way, a possible hypothesis for a solut ion would envisage, with the unitary direction of the group Command: • the JEW qualification Cent.re, res ponsible for training the staff at aJJ levels; • the RSTA uaining g r oup, responsible for traii'l ing the information tactical groups as a w 1101 e (Comm a n d and various components) . As regards th e preparation function, the Group Con:nnand
is charged with conferring and verifying the ability of every unit of the package (as regards both its subordinate units and, th r·ough suitable Command and Con t rol relations, those auached to other Commands for reasons of convenience). to develop and perform its RISTAE W funct ions. Moreover, the Group Command, also b y availing itself of the mentioned spec ialization centres , will be entrusted w ith the detection, verification and improvement of the operational. procedures ror the integration of the various systems . The Group Command is also entruste d with preparing the augmentees of the Command of the national -framework Rapid Reaction Corps .included in the p lanning Office of the said Command . I t is an organizational solution, employed also for other combat-support functions (4) which, on the one side, permits Lo train the personnel by making them I ive in the context of Lhe capability package and, on the other, facilitates the harmony between the staffs of Lhe Group and the Corps' Staff. Finally, as regards the em p loyment function, the Group Command will be able to operate: • as a unit, as specialist Comman d in su pport of the national framework Command of the Rap id Reaction Corps; • by teams, with the aim of strengthening with specialists the staffs of Lhe Division Hq or, exceptionally, those of the Brigade Headquarters. The maintained subordination to the C4 IEW Command, will ensure the necessary integration w ith the Communication
MODULES · · • ·
Fig. 4
Command Elaboration Support Transmission
· Search
support, indispensable bot h in the phase of data gathering and in that of diffu s ion of the information . Th is gives an examp le of concrete implementa tion of the concep t of C4ISR capa bi Ii ty, which can give the Commander all the necessary instru ments that enab le him to direct an operation, employing, after due consideration - that is, on the basis of a cornp lete, upda ted and true picture of the si tuation - the combat , com ba t -support and logistic -s uppo rt assets available to hin:1 . The RlS TA -EW G ro up Command wi 11 have lo be strengthened, particularly from the qua li t ative viewpo int, so t hat it may b e able to carry out the p lanned tas k s, devoting eq u a I attention and compete nce to the en tire range of the information [uncti-;ns . THE INFORMATION TACTICAL GROUP
As we have po in te d out, the information tactical Group ,vill
re present l.he typica l employment pawn of the RISTA-EW assets. It will be a multifunction formation consisting of: • a framev.:ork , supplied by one of Regiment-level units of the package, in c ludi ng modules for command f unctions, process ing and transmission of acquired information , logistic su pport; • research mod ules, of differe nt specialization and potentiality, g auged on t he envisa ge d mis s ion , suppli e d by the various units of the package and equ ipped with particular ele ments for comp leting the elaboration, suppor-t and Lransmission modules, if they are supplied by a d ifferent specialist unit. Therefore , in ord er to form tbe 4 inforrnation tac tica l groups deemed necessary for helping to solve the operational problem of the Army, it will be necessary to have 4 RISTA-EW Regiments, with a similar organizational struct ure, pa rticularly fo r what concerns the Regiment Hq an d the
logistic support company. These 4 Regiments wil l be: • the alrea d y constituted Surve illance and Target Acquisition 4 1st Reg iment; • Lhe preexisting Target Acqu isit ion 18S Lh Paratroop Regiment; • one Electronic Warfare Regi ment, to be constituted by t ransfor ming t he 33 r d "Falzarego" battalion; • one " R eece by Stealth" Regiment Lo be constituted by reconfiguring a Cavalry Regiment. Ot her u nits, which will be called to supply only research modu l es for comple tin g an d increasing the RISTA- EW capabilities o f Lhe tactical gro ups, wil I be: • the long-range recce company; • one flighl unit, equipped ,.vith helicopter-borne radars; • one unit of HUMINT s pecialists . The ,.vhole organization will have a modular structure, at a "4 basis", in order to permit to assemble all-inclusive tactica l 13
gr·o u ps (fig.4). This comp lex structure, in order t.o obtain results adequate to the drorL required of the Arrny in terms of human and financia l resources, vvi ll h ave to be tested thr-ough repea ted cycles o r increasing ly complex exerc ises , conducted under the con trol or the RSTA Training Group .
THE HUMINT FUNCTION As we have m e ntioned, the function severa l Limes, more deta ils seem to be appropriate. This is a very ample secLOr that includes a wide range or activities and concerns responsibilities and competences o r many organizations. The H UMINT dealt \vith in the s Ludy on the specialisL ic RTSTAEW capabi li ty of the Army, is exclusivelv the fun ction ,, performed al tactical level, i.e. within the respons i biliLi es of a Corps Cornrnander, by operators be longing to unit s o f the Service, specialized in the direct acquisilion of information by entering i n.to uncontrolled terrilory o r obtaining it from human so u rces (refugees, HUM I NT
prisoners, one's ow n personnel who happ ene d to come into contact with the enerny) or also through Lh e examinati on of documents and mate ri als found Ot' captured, but a lways operating open ly, w ith one's own identity and uni.form.
THE SPECIALIZATION FUNCTION As we said, the trarnrng o( units and operaLors of the RISTA -EW sector will be carried out. under tl1e sole direction of the RJSTA -EW Command, which wi ll coord in ate all the avai lab le reso urces within th e Army and, particu lar ly, the activity or the RSTA training g roup. This body, in particular, wil l have lo transfer to the Cavalry School all th e tasks connected w ith the basic training of the Cavalry personnel and attend to the preparation or the informat ion tactical groups, whose complexity requires a special CenLre. A particular care \vitl be devoted to th e train ing of the s La ffs of the R lSTA - E W Comman d s (Group and Reginients) which , as we said,
Facing page US-made UAV Shadoiv.
wi ll be r·esponsib le for th e pbases of the informalion cycle as a who le, with spec ia l altention to the dra ft of th e research plan and the 1st level elaboration, whic h necessitates a speci fie lechnical know-how. On. the other han d, il will no t be possible to exclude a deep knowledge of the a ,·eas o f possible inLervention and o l the hostile, friendly an d neutral actor·s who live in these areas. Anothe r· cha ll enge is th e preparation of the operators in some intell igence functions, ·w hich d eserve great attenLion because of the im portance they have in the CRO scenar-ios.
CONCLUSIONS T he realization phase of Lh e project got started at the beginning of 2002. Th e o bj ective is to conc lud e the doctrinal, procedural and organizational st udi es by the end or th is ye,.\l". The executive provisions for the rea lization of the strucLtffes will continue unti l th e middle of 2003. At this point, l he RlSTA-E\1V project will only have completed the "draft", th e de finition of the organizati onal structures w ithin \,v hich t he operational capabilities will have to grow. This will he a long process that - based on the first verificatio ns on the ground and on the evolut ions concerning the forces - \,v iii sure ly need suitable correc t.ions to what was defined at the stud y s tage. For example, the necessity to equip the (u ture "average Brigades" with pre-esta bli s heel
An inhabited area visualised bv a Drone. · 14
informati on tactica l grou ps deserves further investigation. The awareness chat a complex capabili ty suc h as RISTA-E\A/ ca nn o t b e re c onfigured in a short time, on the one hand must give a greater impulse to the r eal izati o n of the project, and, on the other, should ma ke ev erybody co n sc iou s of the n ee d to firmly a bid e by the prin c ip les w h i ch a re at t h e
basis of the project, so tha t all that has been done should not be nullified. A RTSTA- E W capab ility is a primary require ment within the fram ework of the medium-term tasks that the Army has Lo carry out in Europe a nd insid e the All iance, and it is indispensable if one wants to express a Co rps -level Command and Con trol capabi lity adequ a te to the needs
ACRONYMS RISTA-EW:
Reconnaissance, Jntelligence, Smveillance, Ta rge l Acquisition, Electronic Warfare;
JTFHQ:
Joint Task Force Jleadquarlers Land-Heavy;
C2S:
Command & Control Support;
CROs:
Crisis Response Operations;
CS:
Combat Support;
CSS:
Combat Service Supporl;
HUMINT:
Human Intelligence;
UMI:
Mobile Uni ts for InteITogation of prisoners;
C4IEW:
Command & Control, Communication, Computer, Information, Elec tronic Warfare;
C4 ISR:
Coma.nd & Control, Communication, Compu ter, Information, Surveillance, Rec01111aissance;
G2:
Ground 2;
G3:
Ground 3
and in a position to work within the entire range of the missions th a L can b e e nvis aged in t.h e present a nd in the foreseeable ope rationa l sce narios . This is because Italy, a lso through its Armed Forces, ,.vishes Lo enter permanen tly the circle of Nations which decide the trends of Eu rope's a nd the West's Sec urity Policy.
D ''Colonel, Chief; Plans Office, Army General Sta.fr ,·,·: Lieulenanl Colonel, Section Chief; Plans Office, Arm y General Sta ff'
NOTES (l) Rapid Reaction Corps Command,
being cons titu ted at Solbiatc Olona. (2) Technical interpretation and assembling of the d ata acquired by sensors, preli minary to the 2 nd level · processing, pertaining to the G2 , vvh ich dra ft s t h e information appreciation and the PANs. (3) Su ccession or conceptual. orga n i zationa l and ex ec ut ive activities, through wh ic h th e informa tion necessary for planning and co nduc t in g the o perat io ns is acquired. It de,·clops according to a cyd ic tre nd a nd incl ud es t he fo ll owin g ph ases: d irection , gathering, processing and diffusion. (4) ln partic ul a r for Air Ca val ry (oriented towards the development of combat operati ons),land Artillery, A/A ArLillery and E ngincer·s.
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opportunities, integra te their background of knowledge and establish n e w syne rgies. Thus, there is a substantial increase in th e number of those who are ca ll ed upon lo take on a leadership role. No t only is leadership a functio n , but also a natural quality or a contingency-based commitment, usually taken by a person who feels that he is
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destined Lo assume command. This definition may not b e exhausti ve, but gives an idea of the rationale beh ind it. In fact , various elements should be taken into a cco unt to legit ima te a person's call to become a leader, such as a number of possible actions and reactions, a mix of colleclive and individual fa cro ,·s affecting Lhe situa tion in the field both internally and externally,
To better understand what qualities .are necessary to become a military leader, one should read Plutarch's Parallel Lives. This text, written two thousand years ago, narrates the deeds and the thoughts of ingenious Commanders who left an indelible mark on the history of m ¡ d. They were excellent warriors in wartime and enlightened leaders in peacetime, like Alexander and Caesar, law experts and champions of republican values, like Coriolanus and Cato Uticensis, who were endowed with all the exceptional qualities a leader should possess, such as st~~~~a, balance, poise, foresight and intelligence. These capabilities are of vital importance even in the present political and strategic scenario, where war is more likely to break out, being less lethal and global than in the past. In this framework, the art of leadership, which in ancient times was practised by few and godlike personalities, may become both a subject to be studied through the testimonies of an authentic military culture and a legacy for those who are called upon to be at the helm of participatory democracies in this post-modern era. personal ambitions, intentions and na tu ral or acquired cap abilities , coupled wil h ingenuity and craftsm a nship. Leadership is not a scie nce, but an art, as it aims at d irecting the actio n s of a great n umber of people in real time, a nd in the case of the military, of large gro up s under s tress or Lh rea l conditions. It is an art as it requi1¡es ta lents, purpos e and high -level capabi lities, with the aid 01 some good luck as well. Like a ll oth er c omp lex functio ns, lea dership requ i res th a t natural qu a litie s b e adeq u ate ly d eve lop ed through tra.ining and educatio n, to reach outstanding r esu lts. When these natural q u alit ies a r e poor, education and training become even more pivotal. I rrespective of personal capabilities, the art of leadership tra nslate s into ma kin g a synergctic effort to balance
Bust
of Alexander
the
G reat
(Capitoli11e Museum, Romej
17
different elements, in order to attain an established goal. This art should adapt to the reference scenario, to people's sociocultural, economic and technological development, and take into account the nature of the opponent. In actual fact, most changes have been brought about over time by the above-rnentioned facto1路s, as men have always felt the urge to better themselves, have new ideas and establish ne,v missions and goals. However, a change has occurred in the subtle 1路elation between civic virtues and vices in social behaviour, where virtues are on the wane and vices slowly but constantly on the rise. As a consequence, leaders are often called upon to operate in a hostile env ironment whece hurdles in the field are not placed by the enemy only. Before describing the historical development of the art of leadership, I feel it necessary to warn those who have in mind to exert their power. Everyone can exercise command, but only few with ease, consistency and authority, while most leaders will only keep their actions within acceptable standards. It should also be recalled that command may entail suffering, due to its inherent risks . In fact, it is possible to make a mistake and lose one's moral integrity, health and clarity of mind, together with social credibility, as a consequence of possible reactions from the public. This risk, which goes hand in hand with personal success and the attainment of an esta blishecl goal, can only be ru.led out through a proper leadership development and the awareness of one's own limits. These introductory remarks have already made it clear that the art of leadership is becoming more important today than in the past. This way, it is possible to extol leaders' inner talents, reduce the uncertainties of the 18
less talented and carry out actions consistent with the established political directives and the sensitiveness of society at large.
==== ====== ======
A REVIEW OF THE PAST
What are the main characteristics a good leader should possess even today, and in particular a commander, who has to exert his function in close contact with his subordinates, bear the brunt of possible errors and sometimes of their fatal implications? At present , a fault-finding approach may be adopted to evaluate the management function. Jn fact, faults defined as such by common sense may be helpful to identify the necessary characteristics of a leader. This analysis may be easily clone by our readers, who have a large experience in the sector, provided that present events are fairly interpreted, by separating leaders' inherent characteristics, limits, physical and mental capabilities from their mistakes. A short h.istoric overview now follows, which may be furthe r路 expanded, integrated and elaborated, if requ ired. Two types of approach rnay be adopted , either taking into account each country's most imporlant leaders or the collective will of its Government, people and Armed Forces, inspired by common views in the field of security. Thus, two kinds of analysis are possible: the study of the alliances and partnerships made by societies, nations and states .or that of the deeds of the most prominent figures in history. In our country, the issue of security has often been overlooked, to the point that military leaders had to compensate for politica l and social inadequacies, as is the case even today. The second option, even if not necessarily the best,
A;Josa.ic depicting Alexander the Great's victory over Darius !II during the batlle o(lssus in 333 B.C.
has therefore been adopted. In ancient times, men could display their natural qualities, though not fully developed, in a ver-y favourable environment, where all war-fighting techniques cou Id be adopted and a wide freedom of action was allowed. People and soldiers at war wer-e strong, tough and warlike, but ignorant and fearful enough to be easily subdued by more educated and trained leacle1路s . Plutarch's renowned Parallel Lives have been preliminarily taken into account, in an effort to
trace the origins of our founding fathers, see what changes have occurred since then, for better or worse, and indirectly reply to modern strategists and experts, who still compare the US to the Imperial Rome . This book is made up of 22 sections, each comparing the biographies of two Greek and Roman outstanding personalities. It has been considered for almost t\vO thousand years as an unparalle led best seller and a reference text for western culture. The success of the book is not only linked to its historical content. ln fact, it illustrates the lives of those heroes who changed the course of human histoi;. They were peacetime and
wartime leaders, like Alexander and Caesar, champions of duty, like Coriolanus , and of republican values, like Cato Uticensis and Brutus. They have often been referred to as models in the course of history, when tbe need was fe lt to update, confirm and restate values and trends. In this wake, we shall carry out a study focused on the lives of Alexander and Caesar, to highlight the main elements of the art of leadership practised by these two actors rank ing among the most charismatic leaders in the history of mankind. Alexander {Pella, Macedonia, 356 B.C, Babylon, 323 B.C) was a strenuous supporter of physical training and always prone to
risk-taking. He never compl ied with the limits imposed on military actions by the traditions of his time (night-day, religious holidays and so on) . He was an uncompromising man, who fought against all constraints, but let himself be guided by reason to resume his sense of duty. He often took rash decisions , not based on rational evaluations. He liked to be in convivial company, as an occasion to establish social relations, but ahvays lived a very frugal life. 1-1 e was very generous by nature, especia lly when he had large availability of resources. He donated his wealth graciously and succeeded in gaining people's gratitude. He took advantage of 19
Left. Bust of Pompey the Greal (Hadrian period).
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against him from town to town, after signing a peace agreement. Moreover, he hanged many philosophers, for insulting the Kings who had surrendered to him and stirring the populations not yet subjugated. Those cruel actions were probably aimed at eliminating ,once and for all, recurring and predictable dangers which would have made his conquest longer and more difficult. It was the only case in which he infringed the rules he always used to comply wilh.
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his reported divine ongrn to subdue others, though he was not particularly proud of it. Aristotle reca lled that he wanted to dislinguish himself for his knowledge rather than for his power. Tyreus, speaking to Darius, made the follow ing comment on him:" Alexander is as noble when winning as he is terrible when f1.ghting". During the battle against Darius's overwhelming forces , he replied to those who suggested him to engage the enemy at night to hide his numerical inferiority, by saying the celebrated sentence: "l do not steal victory" which summarized that great strategist's capabilities. He clearly wanted to convince Darius of his absolute superiority, putting an end to the conflict once and for all. He used to repeat to h is friends, weakened by wealth and luxury
20
Right. StaLUe of Julius Caesar wearing a 1-nilitary uni/cJrm (Trajan period).
:"Don't you know that the conquerors should not behave as the conquered?". On the occasion of a military action in pursuit o( the enemy, when water was in short supply, he refused i I: by saying: "If 1 am the only one who drinks, all the others will get discouraged". His soldiers, amazed by his self-restraint and generosity, asked him to confidently lead them; in fact, as long as they had such a leader, they would not feel weary, thirsty or even mortal. He always became bl.ind with rage, cruel and merciless, when he knew people were disparaging him, as he deemed that his reputation \vas more important than his power or even his O\vn life. Jn India, he committed a grievous crime by killing many mercenaries who kept on fighting
Caesar (Rome, 100/101 B.C. Rome , 44 B.C.) was very good natured and tempered, an aspect which misled his enemies; in fact, against all appearances, he had an indomitable and uncompromising spiril. He was great-hearted and so eager to be loved and respected thal he got deeper and deeper into debt. He always succeeded in establishing lhe right relations which would allow him to obtain new offices and titles. He established a special bond with the people. Many of his enemies were afraid of his special li nk with the populace, as it could trigger an uprising of the poor who placed aJl their hopes in Caesar. He gained his fame as a leader both because he did not accumulate wealth to live in luxury, but to reward his meritorious soldiers, and because he was alw.ays ready to face all risks and endure all hardships. Soldiers were not amazed by his love for risk, being well aware of Caesar's ambitions. They admired him for his endurance, notwithstanding his frail and delicate build, pale complexion
and epileptic fits. To counter his weaknesses Caesar lived a verv frugal and h'ard life • He was an unparalleled warrior and strategist, who fought in rough and hostile environments, conquered large stretches of land, defeated a great number of
enemies and came into contact with very different and foreign traditions. He was always kind and mercifu I towards the conquered populations, made large donations to his comradesin arms and fought an unprecedented number of battles.
Under his leadership, soldiers became dauntless and capable of overcoming all obstacles, to glorify Caesar more than Rome itself. He succeeded in spurring his officers' pride and enhancing their role in the presence of soldiers , thus compelling even those who were not very ambitious to commit themselves to the miss.ion. In peacetime, he sent his legionaries to settle in the colonies and provided them with large donations and resources, being aware that experienced warriors could not be easily reinstated into society in peacetime ,and could even be tempted to become revolutionaries. Caesar succeeded in building a bridge over the large river Rhine in less than ten days, to the amazement of the engineers of that time . He carried out very risky military actions commonly cons idered as follies. During his expedition against the Britons, he crossed the limits of the lands then known to wage war on an island ,.vhose dimensions and potentialities were st ill undiscovered. He was ahvays ready to run all risks to satisfy his ambition, being conscious of his valour and of that of his men. In fact, he ,.vas convinced that only the bold could attain glory and that wounds, harsh winters or obstacles on the ground could not stop him. Like Napoleon many centuries later, he thought be was the Man of Destiny, who could not be overwhelmed by anyone. Being an enl ightened strategist, he often turned the course of events to his advantage, by exploiting terrain features and adopting new warfighting techniques and means . He was particularly able to exploit all chances, manipulate human fee lings, deceit enemies and utterly galvanise his troops. Caesar was a great leader in wartime and an excellent manager in peacetime, who defused all tensions at town level 21
1\!Jiniature depictinf!, the lvlongolian conqueror Gengis Khan.
and settled all claims between debtors and creditors. Caesar's greed for povver and glory accounts for his rise and fall . He died four years after Pomp ey. He gained almost nothing from his search [or路 power, '\.Vhich brnught about civil war and gained him the hatred of his fellow citizens. His love for glory, a mix of ambition and honour, had dominated him since his eady yea r路s. Plutarch gave a negative interpretation of thaL feeling :Powe,; honour and glory, with the first contaminating the other two. The final outcome was the triumph of tyranny and the end of democracy. His demagogic policy, which
22
eventua ll y led to the establishment of tyranny, [olJowed three trends main ly. Firstly, he used all means to systemat ically bribe his people for electoral aims. Secondly, he resorted to the use of force. In fact, until defeating Pompey, Caesar benefited from a large popular support. BuL when public pressure alone was no longer capable of curbing the will of the Senate, Caesar brazenly had recourse to st ,-eet vi olence. Thirdly, he allied with the major opponents of the Senate. Behind the fa.cade of a demagogue, in turn charming and violenL, he was a cunning and subtle politician. Being a valian l leader and a sl1rewd corruptor~ he used to say: There is a iirne for waging war a.nd a tim.e for applying the law.
In Lhe "Li fe of Anthony", Plutarch defined Caesar as follows: Like Alexander and, before hirn, Cyrus, he had an insatiable lust for power and an insane desire to dorninate. One should not forget that during his entire life, Caesar had to confront his direct opponent, Pompey, he hirnself an extraordina ry military leader, extolled for his vali ant actions. That long-distance duel was so intense thaL the n-vo riva ls overlooked the anarchy that was spreading in Rorne and which led to civil ,,v ar. That conflict went on even after Lhe death of Pompey. Moreover, Caesa r wanted lo outdo himself and always tried to improve his p revious achievements. If a parallel is made between Alexa11d er and Caesar's lives, many common elements can be found. \Ve are faced with lwo very val uabl e leaders, driven by ambition to go beyond the lirn iLs of human capabilities. They were relentless, indomitab le and uncompromising warriors, endowed ,vith courageo us and extremely daring characters. They lived a very fr u ga l Ii fe, became role-models, were very generous and friend ly towards their men and had the charisma necessary Lo make the people and the military feel that they were at the centre of history. They were instinctive fighters, applied shrewd tactics and had a grand v1s1on and an enlightened strategy spanning over the long range. Al Lhe same lime, they were refined politicians, who were ,路eady to use a ll available tools, such as corrupting peop le , ,路esort ing to the use of force, and even trespassing the rules established by the ethics of the time. They were two extraordinary men, who exploited favourable conditions and exceptional occasions.
The ir fame i!:; considered to be well desen1ed even arter so many centu ries . But, as i l ofl en happe ns in his tory, th ere is the risk or id ea I is i n g I he most fam ous characters. ln fact, even major leaders, s uch as Alexande r and Caesar, were excee din g ly ambitious, greedy for power and perso nal glory, Lo th e po in t o r idolis ing th e ms e lves and resorting to tyranny. These flaws, proj ecte d externa ll y, usually trigger c ruel an d unfail' actions, sparking equally degenerated reactions, a fact modern leaders and societies s hould he aware of .Usuall y th e g reater th e lead e r, the wider the possibl e negative repercussions to atta in a major goal. Bul, as in the c ase of a corporate budget, there is always the hope that the [i nal seulemenl may be to the advantage of th e people, who ha ve pinned a ll the ir hopes in their leade1~ M a n y years la ter.in 15 13, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote Tire Pri nce, in w hich he gave a seemingly nega tive desc r iption of a leader a s a shrewd, c unning , dece it[ul and immoral person, in li ne ,vith the poi soned social scenario of tha l time. Moreove r, he stated th e pl'imacy of politics and considered military values as low prior ity. Many analysts have given bo th positive a nd neg ati ve interpre tation s of Mac hiavelli 's t h eories, which are tod ay ga1n1ng n ew ground . Th e quest io n of whether th is new consens us may be ascri bed Lo the m e l"its or Mac hi avell i or to the dec a y or our present refere nce scenario is sLill to be fu lly a nsvvered. Carl von Clausewitz wrote the Art of War in more recent times, in 1832 . Th e book sel a new balance be tween pol iti ca l and mi litary matters, reasserting the basic link between politics and warfare in a ce le brated phrase, where th e latter is considered as a spirit ual
activity and not on ly a s how of force. Clausewitz stat ed that a milita ry lea der should have Lhc fo l low in g qua li ti es: fo rtitud e, physical and intellecLual military capab ilities, stamina, knowledge, iniLi a tive, irnagination, fores ig ht, courage, boldnes s, Lena c i Ly, resolve and d ete rm inat ion , crea tiveness and shrewdness . M ac hia ve ll i and Claus ew it z sha,-e the same e vision, as both b e long t o the ca teg ory of di senc hante d Lhink e r¡s . Today, this same pat h is rol!owed bv General Ca rlo Jean, an en lig hten ed and impartial scho lar. H e is ca pabl e of identifying a nd describin g the co mplex links b etween the poli tical a nd rniJiLa l'y worlds, as wel l as the profil es of mod e rn leaders and the characteristics n ecess ary Lo exert the arL of leade rship in o ur times. Hi s essay Guerra, Strategia e
Ta 111erla11e, 'f'urkeston 's Nlon golian Kin!!, and leader of troops.
Sicurez. : a (Sa g i ttari, Laterza, 1997) , r ec ognis es tha t the qua liti es requ ir e d to ex e rl leadershi p a 1¡e more dema nding than in th e past, as both the r e[e r-cn ce s cen ario and the pe rsona l ca pabiliti es of most people have deteriorated. Today, a leader should possess a more ex te nsive fund of knowledge and sat isfy tw o pre con diti ons to gain initial credibility: gathering consensu s, up on which t o esta blish his po licy a nd stn1tegies, and being pragmat ic, LO obje ct ively eval uat e a ll th rea ls and rul e out wi s hful pac ifist temptations. further and d ive rse capa biliLi e s arc require d Lo mon it or prc senl ev ent s a nd draw up adequate plan s. A 23
XV Century French 1ninia1ure portraying 1he wedding of Philip 11 o( 1\llacedonia and Olympiade, Princess o(Epirus.
leader should be rational, keep his emotions under control, avoid inconsiderate reactions and manipulation attempts. He shou ld adopt a hands -on attitude , as regards political mil itary matters, to reconcile the co llective w ill of the Government, the people and the Armed Forces. In fact, the requirement is felt for an effective co-operation ber-ween political and mi litary leaders, based on common va lues and actions, to legitimate the Armed Forces in the eyes of society a t large. This implies the existence of hea lthy institutions and sound political and institutional values, as well as pub l ic 24
awareness of political and mi li tary requirements . Leaders and peop le should share a common security concept going beyond all parry lines. A leader shou ld always cecognize the supremacy of politics over the military, both before and during a conflict, as war is never the only possible answer. At the same time, as strategy is concerned, he should know that political issues are not to prevail over mi litary requirements. He should be therefore capable of reaching a compromise solution, through an exchange of information, knowledge and expertise. He should have a sense of identity, upon \.vhich to base his persona l act ion plan, assess reference values, as weU as his own possibilil ies and those o[ the reference scenario, so as to exploit all opportunities.
He shou Id have a deep knowledge of the d ifferent types and characteristics of possible opponents, who may be extremists at different levels o[ technologica l deve lopment and hackers . He sho u ld be a lso awace that tho u gh western societies present ly possess cutting edge techno logies, they have become more and more vulnerable . He should be ready to resort to the use of force in cold blood and with no political b ias, having a globa l and forwardlooking vision and bearing in mind that present wars are limited in time and scope. He should show reso lve and strategic insight; in fact, a war is a battle of wi lls and the stronger is the w inner. He should have understand hurnan values and feelings, as strategy and politics are not
science s bu L arts. Tn facl , a lead er is often called upon to identify and manage complex strat eg ies, h armoni z i1~g and maximisin g clifferen t components . He s hou ld skilfully link t actics, s trateg ies and political goals, as 'vvell as material, moral ;nd intellectual elem e nts, and balance risks, losses and profits. H e should also be awa re that the m e dia have al ways hcen considered a s preva i Ii ng ove r the military. He should adjust his conduct to th e situati on on the ground, as strategies a nd poli c ies can be bett er focused by interacting with an ad ve rsary. l n fact, actions, e ne .m i es and e nviro nmen ts are co nstantl y changing; therefore there is not an estab lish ed set of rules to abide by, bu t only historical records to refer to. Thi s is th e most important capabi lity a leader should bavc. As Napoleon used lo say, strategy is main ly based on practice . A han ds -on a pproa c h should be adopted when dealing with an adversary in an increas ing ly unpred ictabl e s c enario, wh e re ima g ination, resolve, foresi g ht and initiative play a key role. In fact, war fare has never been a si rnple action, whi c h could be gov e rned by rules or field manuals. To date, there a rc no p r e-establ ish ed formulas or solutions to ac hieve victory and here lies the secret of the a r t of strategy. In wa rtim e, a lead e r shou Id keep his po i se amon g ad vers ities , take on responsi bi lities, sejze the opportun ities a t hand, be se lfconfident an d darin g. Understanding the reality in the field and showing resolve are at the basis of a ll decision-1naking capabilities, both at tactical and s trateg ic level. T his concept was a l so s ubscribe d b y Mao Zc Don g, who thought that th e outcome of a war not o nly was
d eterm in e d by m a terial a nd spiritual factors, but also by a leader's corn mand capabilili es . As it can be easily understood, leader deve lopment is a cornplex process, requiring the study of op erationa l plans , as we ll as hun,a n, ma na ger ial and technological sciences. Moral valu es shoul d insp ire a ll pra c tica l an d con ceptual con ideratio ns . The staging of a wa r is also a spiritual issue. Mi lita ry valour sho~tld not be con fuse d with individual bravery. It is a we ll -established disci pi inc , based on e sprit de corps and se nse o r duty, whi c h turn s individual bravery into a co llective effort driving the entire military machin e ry. These qualities cannot be improv ised, bu t requ ire a cont inui ng educa tional process . An even more comp lex development should take place in the society where a leader is call e d u pon to op er ate and , from this poin t of vi ew, Italy has still a long way to go. \-Va rs are no longe r· fo ught to defend mere national po liti ca l inL ercs ts on lv, but also to safeguard m~tio n al j ustice id ea ls, re lig ious tenets an d development levels. Jn a world where war is mo1·e like ly to b e waged , being less dan gerous than in the past, the more developed and democratic socie ties, like Italy, are reluctant to go Lo vvar, usually de lay the ir inte rvention s and lack effect ive security policies. Th e mo s t dang e rous ri s k looming ah e a d is a possib le trade off bcrv,ieen security and threa t, w h ere barbarians acquire the technologies used by west e rn countries and the latter rediscover the uncivilised traditions of the form e r. 2002 . In h i Arte del Co111a11clo ( R izzol i, 2002), soc iolo gist Francesco Alberon i addre sses all pote nti al leaders, both civ il and mi l ita.-y. Also in this
context, th e impo rta nce of the above mentioned mora l , int e llectu a l and perso nal qu a lit ies is reaffirmed. The author gives in-dep th and wide - ranging historical int e rpretations . For insl ance, Al e xander a nd Ca es ar are no longer considered as tyrants, bei ng inspired by a grand and forward- looking vis ion. They had a dream, an ideal and a goal to achieve . ln fact, there is a great diffe rence be tween those who want Lo obt a in personal power and those who ca,-ry our changes to the adva ntage of the people. Alexander did not want Greece to dominate over As ia, but a i med at establish i ng a world -wid e empi r·c, whe re Greek and Asian peoples made u p a single political community. T he distinction between fanatics and innova tors lies in tb e fac t th a t the latter arc leaders that want to change things for the better. There arc severa l conceptual aspects that deserve a further ana lysis. For instance , t he concept o f leg i ti ma Le pO\ver en corn passes trad i t ion al, charismatic an d le gal componenLs . Therefore, prob lem s ma y ar ise w h e n leaders a ,-c unabl e to exert their p owe r propedy or ga the r· the necessary consensus . Lead ers a rc not required to take care of everything, keep eve rything and eve ryone under control; on the contrary, they should bear their goal in m ind, r em ind ea ch ec helon o f corn mand of th e ir· mi ss io n objectives a nd commitment to duty. Th ey should do so by setting an example, establishing strong moral Li es, common objectives and turning their subordina tes into true leaders . A lead er s h ou I cl hav e Lhe fol lowing v irtues: si nc crity, impartiality, stamina, m odesty, courage, ge nero s ity, justic e , to ge ther with c larit y of exp1·ession, order and simplicity.
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A Roman legionary fighting wi1h the head of a barbarian between his teeth.
He should also be faithful and determined, enthusiast and extremely energetic. II e should not be anxious and afraid of making a mistake, but should be able to manage internal rivalries and conflicts 路within his organisation, as well as to oppose the most unpredictable and insidious enemies. He should be creative and develop a strategic concept to identify the main issue at slake , allowing for the solution of all other problems . His reasoning should be li near, clear and factual lo always find the most simple and winning alternative. He should be able to lake into account minor changes, wl1ich may even lually bring about major revolutions. He should have Lbe natural qualities of a charismatic leader and gain the consensus, support and trust of his people. In fact, great leaders always have charismatic qualities.
26
A modern leader should be open to compelilion, accept the limits or his role and feel Lhe need lo continuously refocus his actions lo attain a futu1路e goal. As a consequence, he should restrain his self-esteem. Moreover, he should always respect the troops assigned lo him, the populations conquered, as well as his predecessors and follO\ver路s. He should be fair towards his suborclinaLes from the beginning, choose his co-operators based on their real qualities, and then work wilb them, love them as a fathe1; praising and punishing them as necessary, ensure a fa.ir personnel rotation and respect their young and naive enthusiasrn. Grear innovators have always based their decision-making process on the following rnilesLones: a preliminary comprehension of the spirit of their time; an insight into the situation in the field and an in-
depth analysis of the possible repercussions of their decisions, which are to be carefully implemented in alJ their phases and supported by general consensus. Leaders have both strong and weak points . Today, as in the past, they may be considered as positive or negative models, from the poin l of view of their efficiency or moral i ly, or from both. Power; especially if exened in a wide and discretionary ,vay over a long Lime, can sometirnes be administered very negatively. There is a long list of dubious leaders including narrow-minded bureaucrats and procrastinators, and people who can exploit and even destroy Lhe organisation under their command. They can also be greedy for personal pO\.ver, arrogant, over-confident, tyrannical, vio.lent, envious, overbearing, revengeful, wicked and corrupted. SOME SIDE-LINE CONSIDERATIONS
The mosl important difference between the present and the past lies in the management of power and in the synergy of efforts. Leadership, exerted by few and godlike characters in ancient times, has increasingly become a responsibility of the entire pol itical-mi litary world, which encompasses the whole political, i nslitutional and social apparatus and thus represents all citizens. As early as the n World War, great political actors played side by side with equally capable and determined military leaders, who shared a same moral and ethical vision and \.Vere strongly suppo1路ted by the people. From then onward, the decision making povver has been further
distributed and expanded, thanks to the notion of participatory democracy. As a copseguence, today there is the need for.a gr路eat number of leaders inspired by common ideals. Sharing command responsibilities is an important component in the civic and social development of each country. T h is way, individuals are trained to shoulder responsib il ities and better understand the problems of leaders at each level of command . At the same li1ne, there is a lack of coherent and effective decision-making structures, as compared to the past. In fact, today, the need (or knowledge, solidarity and determination has become more dramatic. The main problems affecting the international scenario heavily impact on the availabi Ii ty of enlightened leaders and hinder their actions . For instance, though there is an increasing need for security experts, military personnel is mainly mobilised. Proactive and open minded citizens are required, but their number is very limited. Security is an important factor, but awareness is first priority. Another main difference between the present and the past is the existence of a closekn it network of agreements, procedures, customs, treaties, limitations and restrictions bridging each country's freedom of action. The media, which have a say in all spheres of activity, further limit all decision-making powers. If this build-up had led to the cohabitation formula w ished for, the r路e would have been nothing to complain about. But, unfortunately, this is not the case. International relations have increasingly deteriorated and both action and 1路eaction capabilities have weakened even al conceptual level. There is a lack of global cohesion. Certainly nations cannot
refer to the UN as a reference model for their behaviours. The US, though strong, a.r\iculated, coherent and determined, is driven by a narrow national vision, which can be detrimental to its own interests and Lo those of other nations as well. Consequently, the US loo has to resort to quidpro-guo solutions to solve all emergency situations and delay problems over time, with possible negative repercussions. At present, the foresight, the global cohabitation vision and grand strategy of the past have been replaced by feudal rivalries and riots. Thus, the insignificant, costly and sectarian victories of today are only aimed at pleasing publ ic opinion, whose power is on the rise in a scenario where security is increasingly at risk. Theoretically, politics has a forward -looking and globalized vision, but practically it pu i--sues national, local and particular aims, trying to gain the necessary cross-party consensus. As things stand, no one has the courage of making a ground-breaking action, universaJs are crumbling and all concepts are constantly revised. As a consequence , exerting leadership has become an even more demanding task. Decisions are no more based on transparency, national cohesion and international synergy; now there are only short-range plans, with an increasingly limited (ocus and commitment. A third element of change from the past is that in Plutarch's times military values, fundam.enta l in gammg success, glory and political power, were constantly rewarded. The peacekeeping concept of that time largely coincided with the interests of the ruling class. The same approach was shared by Machiavelli's The Prince, then by Clausewitz's The Art of War and it was still common in the XX Century, until the nationalistic concepts foUov. ed by major European countries triggered World War One. 1
The establishment of the League of Nations and the entry of the United Stat es into the world scenario gave wav to a complex political,~economic and social revolution , \vhose repercussions arc felt to these days. This change, however, is midway; in fact, those who die for their countri es are still considered as more gallant and worthv of honour and glory than those \vho die in peaZekeeping missions or in conflicts abroad. The present scenario is marred by over-ambitious aims. vVe should resolutely follow the path lo democ.r-acy without hesitation, if we want to see better days. To properly exert the art of leadership in this transitional period of cultura l revolution, there is an increasing need for artistic qualities, such as insight, sensitiveness, creativity, fantasy, presence of mind and high direction capabilit ies. This is a reassuring conclusion, as commanders who exert leadership for their o\vn aims are not endowed with these qualities, which only belong to those ,,vho want to free human beings from their capital sins, being aware that, tbough hard and demanding, leadership is a great privilege. Meritocracy prevai ls in this sector. Today's successful leaders must be judged by their merits . Therefore, they can be mo r路e easily selected, trained and employed, based on global reference values . It would be extremely dangerous not to apply this rule of thumb. This way, m.ature societies can more easily choose their leaders \vhose tasks , on the contrary, are still very demanding . In fact., the path to success, once to glory, is still full of hurdles, cornpelling wou ld-be leaders, \vho believe they are the men of destiny, to undergo a first natural selection.
0 '' Majo r General (ret.) 27
by Antony C. Zinni *
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"We want the battlefield commander to be a model who acc_epts the profession of arrrz.'s as a calling. We want him to take care of our sons and daughters and treat their lives as something precious - putting them in harm's way only if it means something that truly counts. We'll expect him to stand up to civilian leadership before thinking of his own career. I hope that along the way we shall remember to show them our respect". These noble words were pronounced by the Commander-in-Chief of the Marine Corps at the end of his presentation at the U.S. Naval Institute, on leaving active duty after forty years in the Service. Those were highly pedagogical words, witness of an extraordinary experience which, especially today, can assist us in planning our future. We wish to propound to our readers these stimulating reflections, with the convinced awareness that from them we can take the faith, the courage and the strength to proceed on our way as citizens and soldiers of yesterday, today and tomorrow. In the hidden folds of the memoirs of the U.S. General - in whose veins runs the heritage of a millenary Italian culture - we can read an old but still valid admonishment, particularly addressed to the younger Cadres of our Service:"Ideas and values are like flowers: if they are not watered every day they risk wilting and withering".
joined the Marines in 1961, so it's been 39 years. M.y retirement elate is I September~ but I plan to slep down and go on terminal leave in July. I'd like to Lalk about who we were, the military generations who we nt through the past four decades, from the 1960s up lo lhe new millennium. If you looked at a snapshot taken when I first came into the service, all lhe generals looked the same - older white males ¡with Anglo -Saxon names and Southern drawls - despite the fact that the troops they led came from lots of different places. Let's just say that the generals didn't speak Philadelphia the way I speak Philadelphia. But things were changing in the 1960s. Marine Corps officers were still coming in from the service academies and military institutes, but more and more were coming in from Catholic colleges in the Northeast (like T did), from state co.lleges and universi ties around the nation, and from other schools wilh strong NRQTC units or other strong military lraditions. At the same time, \Ve \Vere seeing people coming up through Lhe enlisted ranks to become officers - not just the old mustangs or limited-duty officers with mid-grade terminal ranks, but quality people we would send to school as an investment in the future of the Corps. Back then, whatever our various backgrounds, we all came into lhe service with a code - something imprinted on each of us by family, school, or church. In my case, nuns and Augustinian priests had drilled one into my head. Those who had come fron, military schoo ls received the imprint from their officers. One way or anothe r¡, all of us were programmed to believe that what we were doing was not a job; nol even a profession; but a calling. For me, joining the :Marines was the closesl thing lo becoming a p1iest. Certainly, l took a vow of poverty when I joined the Corps, although
I
29
World War 11: the hiswrical picture of the ;\llari11es raising the Flag at Suribachi Hill, Two Jima .
1 stopped short of taking a vovv of celibacy. Lately, though, it seems as though we have been driven more and mor路e toward a "war-rior monk" ethic, and I just wish that we'd slart spending as much time on the warrior pmt as we seem to be spending on the monk part. Perhaps part of the move toward monkishness is prompted by the realization that the young people today don't seem to be coming into the service ,,v ith that code impr inted . It's not necessarily their fault, bu L the code is not Lb.ere. Until recently, our recru i t depots, officer candidate schools, and other institutions responsible ror socializing recruits and new officers have operated on the assumption that the code was
30
there, imprinted beforehand. So no\v we have to regroup. A lot of things affected my generat ion over the years. ln addition to having good genes and DNA, tl1os e who did well also seemed to have come from families that functioned normally, as opposed to the dysfunctional ones seen so often today. We also grew up in school systems that actually taught us something and imprinted us with that code, which helped move us along the path toward being useful citizens. And for most of us, our religious upbringing gave us an acceptance of a Higher Being in one fom1 or another, al the core of our beliefs. We also \Vere shaped by events. Some were our legacy; some were events we actually lived through.
One o r the biggest was World War 11, which has proved to be both a blessing and a curse to m y generation. The blessing was that it preserved our freedoms and our way of life and li~ed us out or a severe depression on a wave of prosperity and moved us into a role of world leadership. The curse is that it was the last Good Warw i th moral clarity, an easily identified and demonized enemy, unprecedented national unity in mobilization and rationing, pride in those who served in uniform shown by blue-star flags hung by the families of those who fought and gold-star flags by the families of those who died, and welcome路 home victory parades for those lucky enough to return home from overseas . Every war should be fought like that. Our family military tradition in America started with my father, who was dra~ed to fight in World War I - the Wm路 to End all Wars 路 shortly after he arrived here as an immigrant from Italy. He got here and he was drafted. When I looked into it, I found that 12% of America's infantrymen in 'World \i\Tar I were Italian immigranLs . And they were rewarded for their wartime service to their new homeland. My father loved the Army for the relatively short time he served in it - and along with his discharge papers he received his citizenship papers . He came out or the War as a full-fledged citizen of the Un ited S tates. Jus t imagine what that meant to him! During and after World War II, l learned a bout war at the knees of my uncles and cousins, who fought al the Battle of the Bulge in Europe and all over the Pacific-on the ground and in the air. A few years later, my older brother was dra1ted and fought in Korea. Their war stories were remarkable: somelimes gory and horrible, but
always positive in the end. It was like winning the Big Game again l your archrival - ahvay_i; clean and always good. . So this was my generat ion's legacy: World War II was the way you figh t a \var. And all throug hout our four decades of service, th is notion kepl getting rein forced . Former Secretary of Defense Cap Weinberger's ramous statement of doctrine is a recipe for re-fighting World War I I - not for fighting the o perations other than war (OOT\1\1) th aL we fac e today. In fact, if you read the Weinberger Doctrine and adhere to every one or its tenets, you will be able to fight no war other than World War IJ. I've been attending all the World War 11 5 0 th anniversary and folJow-up celebrations in Florida, where I live and work, and sometimes it is unnerving to face the old veterans who look at me and seem to be saying, "How in hell did you screw it up? We had iL right and we did it right and we fought and we understood and we did all th is .... " It's hard lo escape the reeling: God-l've let them down, because the second major event that. affected us was Lhe Vietnam Warour n ation's longes t an d leas t satisfactory. It was my secondlieut enan t exper ience, and T wondered at the time just what in hell our generals-my heroes who fought in World War II - thought they were doing. Those of us who ,.vere platoon commanders and company commanders foughl hard, but never could understand what our most sen ior leaders were doing. The tactics didn't make sense and the personnel policies one-y ea r indi vidual rotation s i11stead of unit rotations in and out of country - were ha1-d to comprehend. In time, we lost faith in our senior leadership. Today, of course, we arc seeing a stream of apologetic books by the policy makers of tha l e ra-as though saying mea culpa e nough will absolve them of the terrible
respons ibili ty they s t i 11 b ear. Beyond all his other sho1-tcom ings, 1'11 remember - as an infannyman - former Secreta ry of Defcnse Robert Strange McNamara for one indelible thing: He decided that all services shou ld have a common combat boot. Further, he decreed that Lo economize there \-vould be no half sizes. So I had to wear size 10 boots ins te ad of 9 1/2, m y r egular size. My feet are still screwed up t.o this day, thanks lo Ro bert Strange McNamara. J\nd that just ab o ut symbolizes lhe leadership we had back then. The third thing thal affected my genera l.ion was the Co ld War,.vhich actua lly wa s a 40-year attempt to re-fight World War II, if ever Lhe need a rose. Once again, we were energized to e ngage in global conflict against the evil Red Menace . Problem was that we neve r could fi gure just how this particular war \.Vould actu a lly start. After playing a bazillion war games at the Naval War College and other places, I s till could not come up with a logical or convincing way suc h a war would kick off. It was j ust Lo o hard to show why the Soviets would want to conquer a burning, devastated Euro pe, or how that could possibly benel'it the communists in any way. So we would just gloss
Korean War, Sep lem her 1950: 1\tlarines in action in the streets of Seoul.
over the way the mise rable \.var got started, jump into the middle of thi ngs, and play on. Deep down ins ide, l don't think m any o[ us rea lly believed it ever was going to happen. To he su re, there probably were some armor or annored cava lry folks with not much to do in Vietnam who sought to patrol the Czech borde r, in the belief that World War III would erupt there. Bu t that's not where my life was focused at the time. The Cold War was ever-present, and it was great for justifying programs, systems, and force structur¡e - but no one seriously beli eved that it would actually happen. Still, it drove thi ngs . It drove lhe way we L}1 o ught; it drove the way we organ ized an d equipped; and it drove the way \Ne developed our concepts of fig hting. Then suddenly, at the end o[ the 1980s, the Berlin Wall came down, the Evil E mpire collapsed, and we found ourse lves in the post-Cold War pe riod. Jt wou ld require a major adjustment l was serving in the European Command when the Wa ll came down so quickly and unexpectedly - and in turn we 31
drew clown too quickly, in the worst possible way. On the way down, we broke a lot of china, in the form of contracts with U.S. soldiers, sai lors, airmen, and Marines - and in particular the soldiers. We drew down our Army too far, almost ripping it apart in the process - ten divisions is just too low a [orce level - I'm here to teU you. In addition, we have let maiming levels sink w a y too lo'\-v, not understanding tl;at the post-Cold War would bring more chaos instead of a srn.ooth transition to world peace. Not full y understanding the Cold War force structure we were drawing down and the kind of s Lru cture we would need for the post-Cold War period, we have been drawing down to a mini-version of the Cold War force. Today's high-demand, low-de nsi Ly units are paying the price for those decisions. Let's admit it - we've scre\ved up again. The next in fluential event was Desert Storm, which, as far as I am concerned, was an aberration. It seemed to work out okay for us, bu t ultimately it may be an aberration, because it may have left the impression that the terrible mess that awaits us abroad- to be dealt with by peacekeeping or humanita rian operations- or coercive diplomacy, for some - can somehow be overcorne by good,
clean soldiering, jusL like in World WarII. In rea lity, though, the only reason Desert Storm worked was b ecause we managed to go u p against Lhe only jerk on the planet who actually was stupid e nough to confront us symmetrically - with less of everything, including the moral right to do what he did to Kuwait. In the high- and top-level war colleges we still fight this type o[ adversary, so we a lways ca n \Vin. I rebelled at this notion, thinking there would be novvhere out there sorneone so stupid to fight us that \vay. But then along came Saddam Hussein, and "good soldiering" was vindicated once again. Worse yet, the end of any conflict often brings into professional circles the heartfelt belief that "Now that the war is over~ we can get back to real soldie ring." So we merrily backtrack in that direction . Scary, isn't it? Still trying to fight our kind of war-be it World War II or Desert Storm-we igno r e the real warfig}1 ti ng requirements of today. We want to fight the Navy-Marine Corps Operational Maneuver from the Sea; we want to fight the Army-Ai r路 Force AirLand Battle. We want to find a real adversarial demon - a composite of Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini-so we can drive on to his capital city and
crush him there. Unconditional su1Tender. Then we'll put in place a Marshall Plan, embrace the longsu ffering v~mquished, and help them regain en try into the community of nations. Everybody wants to do that. As a retiring CinC , I would love to do thaL somewhere before J step down just find somebody for me! But it ain't gonna happen . Today, I am stuck with the likes of a wiser Saddam Hussein and a still-el usive Osama bin Laden - just a couple of those channe r路s out there who wiU no longer take us on in a symmetric force match-up. And we ' re going to be doing things like humanita,路ian operations, conseq uence management, peacekeeping, and peace enforcernent. 路 Somewhere along the line, we'l l have to respond to some kind of environmental disaster. And somewhere e lse along the line we may get stuck with putting a U.S. battalion in place on the Golan Heights , embedded in a weird, screwed-up chain of cornmand. And do you know what? We're going to bitch a nd rnoan about it. We're going to dust off the Weinberger Doc t r ine and the Powell Doctrine and throw them in th e face o r our civilian leadership. But at the same time, there's the President, thinking oul loud in a recent mee ting and saying, "v\Thy can't we ever drive a stake through the hearts of any of these guys? I look at Kirn Jung II; l look at Milosevic; I look at Saddam Hussein. Ever since the end of World War II, why haven't we been able to find a way to do this?" The answer, of course, is that you must have the political wiJJ and that means the will of the administration, the Congress, and the American people. All must be united in a d esire for action. Instead, however, we try to get results on the cheap. Ther-e arc
Vietnarn War, Ma rch 1966: Marines embarlcing on a CH 46 helicopter.
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Afgha.11.is1an, Operc11io 11 "I::nduring Preedom ": suspec1ed Al Qu aeda members caplured by Marines of' 11,e 26th MEU i11 1he He/111a1ul provi11ce.
congressmen today who want to fund the Iraqi Liberation Act, and let sorne silk-suited, Rolex-wearing guys in London gin up an expedition. ·we'll equip a thousand fighters and arm them with $97 million worth of AK-47s and insert them into Iraq. And what wi ll we have? A Bay Goats, most likely. That's what can happen when we do things on the cheap. But why can' t we muster the necessary poli tical will to do things right? It goes back to cost-benefit an alys is, especi ally in terms or potenlial casualties. Nobody in his right mind can justify the possible human cos t and the uncertain aftermath or strong m ilitary action . The born bings a t Beirut and the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arab ia and t he debac le in Mogadi s hu have affected us in bad ways making us gun-shy to an extreme degree. But every time I testify at co ngressional hearings, I try to make the point that Lhe1·e is no way lo guarantee 100% force protection while accomplishing the variety of missions we undertake out there. Somewh e re, som eli me, we are going to lose people again - to terrorist or other ac tions that ta ke advantage of our own less-thanperfect protective measures. For example, I have more than 600 sec urity-assis tance peop le working th roughout the Central Command's area of responsibility. Some of the d etachm ents a1·e quite sm a ll - in twos and threes. They live in hotels and tr-y to keep low profiles. Their mission is to work with host-country military organizations and try to improve them. They trnvel a lot. They get targeted; they gel stalked; they can get hit. H anyone really wants to take them out, they can and they will. And, you know, we are going Lo see it happen some day. The only
or
way to stop it from happening is to s hut down all our ac tivities overseas, if we want l 00% security for a ll our deployed peop le. Bu t 100% definitely seems to be what more and more people want these clays, as we send our people into operations other than ,var. These OOTW are our future, as far as I am concerned. But in a sense, it's going Lo be back to th e future , b ecause today's international landscape has some strong similarities to the Cari bbean region of th e 1920s and l 930sunstable countries being driven by uncaring dictators to the point of col lapse and total failur·c. We are going to sec more crippled states and failed states that look like Soma lia and A[gh anistan - and are just as dangerous. And more an d m ore U.S. military men and women are gong to be involved in vague, confusing mili tary actions - heavily overlaid w.ith political, humanitarian, and economic considera ti ons . And representing the United States-the Big Guy vvith the most formidable presence in th e area - they will have Lo d eal w ith each messy situation and pull everything
togethe1·. We're going to see more and more o r that. My generation has not been well prepared ror this future, because we resisted the idea. We even had an earli er Chairma n of the Join t Chiefs of S taff who said, "Real men don' t do OOTV\i. " That just a bout says il a ll. Any Army commander worth his salt wanted to take his unit to the Nati onal Training Center and any Marine commander would want to go to the Marine Air-Gro und Training Center for live-fire maneuvcr and combined-aims work rather than stav on their bases and confront a bu~ch or troops in civilian clothes, throwing water balloon s a nd playing the role or angry overseas mobs. lt just goes against the grain to have to train o ur peopl e that way.
Going beyond these events, what other things have affected my miliLary generati o n? There have been tren ds in la w and policy making that have had a profound effect. The ational Security Act of 1947, for example, set up the most d ysfunclional, w o rst organi zatio nal ap proach to m ilitary affairs I could possi bly 33
imagine. In a near-perfect example of the Law of Unintended Consequences it created a situation in which the biggest rival of any U.S. armed service is not a foreign adversary but another one of its sister US services. We teach otff ensigns and second lieutenants to recognize that sister service as the enemy. It wants our money; it wants our force strnctw·e; it wants our recruits. So we rope ourselves into a system where we fight each other for money, programs, and weapon systems . We try to o u t-doctrine each othe r·, by putting pedantic li ttle anal apertures to work in doctrine centers, trying to find ways to ace out the other services and become the dominant senrice in some way. These people come to me and the other CinCs and ask, "What's more important to you ai1: power or ground power?" Incredible! Just think about it. My Uncle Gu ido is a plumber. If I went to him and asked, "\.Yhat's more important to you-a \.\Tench or a screwdriver?" he'd think l 'd lost my marbles. Th e real way this stuff gets worked out is not in the doctrine centers but ou t in th e field. The joint commands and the component commanders can figure things out because vve're the warf.ighters. Vve have to work things out, so we actually do. We could not produce a join t fire support doctrine out of Washington or the doctrine centers to save our ass. But we CcUl produce one in the Central Command, or in the Pacific Cornrnand or European Command or any joint task force we create. They can produce one in a heartbeat-and they have. We can make a JFACC work. We c..:m make a land-com ponent command arrangement wod<. There will be no more occasions in the Central Command's area of operations where the Marines fight one 6ri·ound war and the Army fights a different ground ,var. There vvill be one ground war and a single land component conunander. 34
But we've been brutalized in the process. We've had to be pushed into cooperating with each other by legislation. And those of us who have seen the light and actually put on joint "purple" uniformswe've never· been welcomed back to our parent services. We have become the Bad Guys. The only thing we a:re trusted to do is to take your sons and daughters to war and figure out ways to bring them back sa(ely. Virulent inter-service rivalry still exists-and it's going to kill us if we don ' t find a better w a y to do business. Goldwater-Nichols is not the panacea everybody thinks it is. I'm here to tell you that it did not increase the powers of the CinCsno L one bit. A CinC s till owns nothing. l own no resources and no assigned forces . All 1 get is geography and responsibility. And the CinCs have to go up the chain of command through the Joint Chiefs of Staff. For more than a quarter-century, we have been operating with an All -Volunteer Force - and the American people tend to forget that, until the volunteers stop showing up and reenlisting. And that's what is wrong right now. But the troops are not getting out because they're deployed too long and too ofLen. I will bet anyone that the forward-deployed units the carrier b attle groups, the
Mmine expeditiona1·y units, Lhe air expeditionary forces and wings have the highest retention rates. So whaL does that say about the high operations tempo and personnel deployment rates? The people who deploy are not the ones getting oul. The guy getting out is Lhe guy who's left back home and has to pick up the slack with a workload that's been increased by a factor of eight or ten. "vVe were building an All-Volunteer Force with professionals, not mercenaries . The troops certainly don't mind a better paycheck, but they find it insulting that we seem to think that's all they want. Deep inside, there have been negative reactions to the recent pay raise. They see their benefits continuing to erode. Their families are telling them, "Look at what happe ns to your medical care when you retire. You can't even pick up a telephone and get through Lo someone who might see you." And despite a ll the smoke and mirrors around TriCare and Medicare and other programs - even if they do work - the percepLions are bad. 1o top things off, the quality of life back at the home base is terrible. We still have too much infrastructure eating up funds lhat should go toward irnproving the quality of life. But don't count on DoD and the politicians going through anothe r· base-closure drill 0 1· anything like it.
So this a ll-volunteer, highly professional force we built - lo give quality performance with quality support - has been allowed to erode. That came with the "peace divic.Jend. " The AII Vo.lunteer Force has become something else - something less attractive than opportunities on the outside, in many ways. The troops want to be caught up in a calling - but they're not. They are involved in a job. Over the past 40 years, we also have seen strange things happen with regard Lo the media. To be sure, there are no more Ern ie Pyles out the1¡e, but there's nothing inherently \vrong with the media, which has Lhe same percentages of good guys and bad guys as other fields. Bul technology has changed things . The media are on the battlefield; the media are in your headquarters; th e media ar¡e everywhere. And the media report everything - good things, warts, and all. And everyone knows that the warts tend to make better stories. As a
you arc a lieutenant or a captain and you see another officer get frie d, you reacl differe'i1tly. The message is clear: "Avoid the rnedia." Anc.J the message hardens into a Code: "They are the enemy. Don't be straight \.vith them." And that is bad. That is bad because ,ve I ive in the Information Age. Battlefield rcp011s are going to come back in real time, and they are going to be interpreted - ¡with all sorts of subtle shadings and nuances - by the reporters and their- news editors . And the relationship betv.:een lhc military and the 1nedia, \vhich shou ld be al its strongest right novv, has bottomed
CinC, I've probably been chewed out by seniors about five times and four of the five \Vere about something I'd said to the media. Al this stage of my life, it doesn ' t really bother me - because where in hell do I go Crom here? But if
out. AL has begun lo heal a little, but a lot more must be done. Vie need lo rebuild a sense of mutual trust. My uncles in World War ll generally experienced a friendly press - with Willie and Joe
Left. Operation ''Enduring Freedom": US soldiers protecting a hangar in a forward base. Below. OperMion "Enduring Freedom": a A-Jarine of the 26 th MEU, observing 1hrough night googles probable wrrorist hideouts in the Helmand province.
cartoons and Ernie Pyle stories thal was part of the war effort. G.J.. Joe was lionized and bad news was suppressed - if not by the military then by the media. The re lationship genernlly remained positive through the Korean Wai~ despite its ambiguities. But the relationship soured dur-ing and after Vietnam, for a number- of reasons - not the least of whicb was a mo unting dislrust of government by lhe media and the American people. My generation and those who have followed over the past 40 years are still dealing \.Vith social issues that swept across the nation in the 1960s and 1970s. The-racial and drug problems that peaked during the Vi etnam years and persisted well beyond them are largely behind us now - but they came close to destroying the military from within - something no enemy has ever accomplished on the field of battle. We still wrestle with problems associated with the massive in fusion of women into lhe ranks of the military, seeking a final adjus tment that meets the twin requirements of fa irness and cornmon sense. A final adjustment on the issue of gays in the military - lar-gely sidestepped up Lo now still lies ahead. Today, we ,Lre suffering through the agony of watching and waiting for our political masters and the American people to decide what the U.S. military should look like in the future. It is especially agonizing because the political leaders - and the population in general have very little association with the armed forces. Consequently, they have very little awareness of how we function. For example, they don'l understand the Uniform Code of Military Justice - the UCMJ. If you work for IBM and don't show up for work, you might get fired. If you are in the Marines and don't show up, you mighl get locked up. Further, the military doesn't hire the handicapped in the same 35
Operation "E nduring Fre edom.": physical training on the flight deck of aLIJD5.
percentages as IBM or other corporations - probably for good reason . The military is d iffe rent, but not enough Americans are aware of that. Over this 40 -year period, we have made some significant internal changes . Vve made a magnificent recovery from the Vietnam War; and my hat goes off to the Anny, because T think they led the way in making the needed transformations . In general, we have professionalized our noncommissioned office,· corps, but still not enough NCOs are doing the jobs tha t officers had ta ken away from them when I first came in. The rank structure is holding tbem back, despite the fact that their educational attainments bachelors, masters, and even doctoral degrees - have far outstripped the structure. Thi s
needs to be [ixed. The one thing thal makes us a standout among the world's militmy services is the quality of our NCOs. Don't ever believe it's the officers; it's the noncommissionecl officers. All or the events that have shaped us over the past 40 years have not been negative . Somewhere in the m id-1980s \Ve began lo experience a renaissance in the operational art. We actually started to take war fighting more seriously. Once again, I want to credit the Army for leading the charge, and the other services for following suit, in one way or another. Today, we see highly qua I ified, professionally competent, operationally sound officers and noncommissionecl officers as a result. There's also been a technological revolution- the Revo lution in
Military Affairs, which already has gone beyond the poinl most may think . Whenever I go to my command center in the basement of my Tampa headquarters, I can pull up a common operating picture - every ship and aircrafl (commercial, bad guy, good guy) in real Lime. With a six-hour delay - which I could crunch to two hours if I wanted to- I can get a complete ground picture. That's the good news. The bad news is that the White House and the Pentagon will probably be interested in the same picture, and migh t be tempted to ma ke decisions on their own, without input from the folks actually on the scene. That could b e disastrous, as history amp ly demonstrates. As we close out this 40 years of service, those of us who served must ask: 11 \:Vhat is our legacy?" My son is a newly commissioned second lieutenant of the Marines. What have we left for him to look forward to? We all know that burgeoning technology will \.viden h is horizons beyond anything we can imagine. [t also \.vill present new questions of ethics and morality that we barely have begun to faLhorn. But he also rnust live with an or·ganization that I have had to live with for 40 year·s. Napoleon could reappear today and recognize my Central Com man cl staff organization: J-1, administration stovepipe; J -2, intelligence stovepipe - you get the idea. This antiqualecl organization is oblivious to ,.vhat everyone else in the wor ld is doing: flattening organization struclu ,·e, wi th decenlrali1,ed operations and more Operation "E n.du.ring Freedom": an observer an.cl a sniper /i·om the 1011•1 Mountain Divis ion on duty near Bagram airporl.
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Opera tio n "Endu ri11g Freedom": Marines fi-0111 the 26 th MEU searching for "Al Quaeda" hideouts in the Helmand provi11ce.
direct commun ications. This must be fixed. My son will have to deal with the inevitable militm-y-civilian rirt and drift - wh ic h ¡will beco me more severe in the future. He a lso will have to deal with the remaining social issues . An d they w ill get tougher, within a national debate over why we still need a strong military. In addition to dealing \Nith these social issues - which will worsen to shape their potential }1eritage, my son 's generation must ultimate ly face the question of how muc h the military should be a refl ection of U.S. society. The people or America will get the military they want, in due course, but it is up to th e milita ry to advise them about the risks and consequences of their decisions. My son will face non-traditional missions in messy places that will make Somalia look like a picnic. He will sec a changed battlefield, with an accelerated tempo and greatly expanded .knowledge base. He \Nill witness a great drop in the sense of calling. People entering the military wiJl not be imprinted with his code . They w ill not be candidates for- priesthood; at best, they will be part-Lin1e lay ministers. On his watch, my son is likely to see a weapon of mass destruction (WMD ) e vent. Ano ther Pea d Harbor will occur in some city, somewhere in the world where America ns are gathered . When that nasty bug or gas or nuke is released it will forever cl1ange him and his institutions. At that point, all the lip service paid to dealing with su c h a n eventua lity will be revealed for what it is - lip service. And he will have to deaJ with it for reaJ. In its wake, l hope he gets lo deal wiLh yet anothe r GoldwaterNichols arrangement. What will we expect of hirn as a battlefield commander? Brains,
guts, a nd dete1111.ination - nolhing new here. But we wou ld ask for more Lhan ha ttlefield skill rrom our future commanders. We want charac ter, sens e o f mora l re sponsibi Ii ty, and an e thical standard that rises above those of all other pi-ofcssions. We want him to be a mod e l who accep ts the profession of arms as a calling. V./e wanl him to take care of our sons and daughters and treat their lives as something p r¡ccious - putting th em in harm 's way only if it means someth ing that truly counts. \t\le'll expect him to stand
up to c ivi lian leade rship befo re thinking oC his own career. And 1 hope that we would think e nough of him and his compatdots to sbo'W some respect for them a long the way.
D * General U. S. 1vlarine Corps (rel.) Address at the lJ.S. :--Java! lnsLitute l'vlarch 2000 "Proceedings, Vol. 126/7/1/1 69". Publishi ng authorized b y Web Magazine.
Gen. Anthony Zinni, U.S. Marine Corps (retired) holds a bachelor's degree in economics, a master of arts degree in international rela tions, and a master of arts in management and supenrision. Serving in Vietnam as a company commander in 1970, Zinni was wounded and evacuated. He then 'went on to hold a number of command and training positions within the .Marine Corps. from 1987 to 1989, Zinni served on Okinawa as the Regimental Commander of the 9th Marines and the Commanding Officer of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, which was l\vice deployed to the Philippines to conduct eme rgency secudty operations and disaster relief operations. Following Desert Storm, he served as the c hief of staff a nd deputy commanding general of combined task force Private Comfort, a Kurdish reUef effort in Turkey and Iraq. He also was the military coordinator for Operation Provide Hope, the relief effort for the fonner Soviet Union. During 1992-1993, he directed the Unified Task Force Somalia for Operation Restore Hope. Also in 1993, he wa,; the assistant to the U.S. Special Envoy to Somalia during operation Continue Hope. From 1992 to 1994, Gen. Zinni was deputy commanding general of the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Development Command at Quantico, Va. In early 1995, Zinni commanded the Combined Task force for Operation Unil'ed Shield, protecting the withdrawal of United Nations forces from Somalia. He joined tl1e U.S. Central Command in September 1996 as depu ty commander in chief. From 1994 to 1996, Zinni served as the Commanding General of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. General Zinni, former Commander in Chief of the U.S. Central Command, was named a distinguished senior adviser at CSIS. On behalf of President Bush, Gen. Zinni is negotiating the cease-Eire between Is1c1elis and Palestinians.
37
The war in Kosovo reemphasized the old debate on the future of European defence. The EU has emptied the responsibilities of the WEU and is constituting the so-called European Corps. The speed and scope of these reforms are astonishing and open a sequence of question marks. Will we have a European Army or a European defence? Why does the European Union want to conduct autonomous operations? Is it in a position to do that? How much will it cost? ¡What will change after the September 11 massacre at the World Trade Centre? We shall try to give an answer to these and other questions, with the growing awareness that now, as never before, the transatlantic link must be made stronger. 38
ATO has undergone an inc reasin g wear a nd Lea r since the fall of the Berlin Wall. In a bse nce of a c ommon threal, the centriFugal inte rests prevailed, materialized by autonomist Eu ropean am bitions, whic h started to take shape in 1993. But in the face of the events of Sept. 11 we see the outburst or a feeling or belonging to the Weste rn values that goes beyond rhetoric. Vl ith the unan imous invocation of Art.5 of th e Nonh Atlan ti c Treaty, the m e mbers of NATO wipe out old jealousies, age-old suspicious and ancient m istrusts. Neve r bdore has been so essential to s tren g then the tra nsatlantic link with no ambig uities, no t so much for a rhetoric solida rity, but becau se Europe and America must show their c ohesi on in a c orn m on battle. Neverthe less, a rtcr路 a rew months, the United States and Europe seem to be going different ways . Thi s articl e, centre d on th e emerging role of Europe in the sectors of common security and d efence , wi s h e s to po int out. som e key aspects and prospects of a process wh ich, since the twili g ht of t.h e 20 th Century, has und ergo ne an im press ing and incredible acceleration. It is our intentio n t o d iscu ss t he fi rs t European turning point of Sain tMalo and Helsin ki , focus ing on its effec ts o n the Union's decision-m aking s truc tur-es and then , success ively, we propose to analize the impl ications of the enlarge ment proces s of NATO and EU , examining Lhe issu es und er dis c u ssio n a nd ask ourse lves wheLher we s hall ever have a European Army. We shall conclude by m e ntioning a second turning po int, i.e. the conse quences o f the a ttack to the h ea rt of the Un ite d StaLe s carried o ut o n Sep tember 11 ,
N
a bl ack Tu esday in the h is tory of mankind .
FIRST TURNING POINT: HELSINKI, SAINT MALO, THE BALKANS
WHAT ROLE FOR EUROPE?
What is the international role of th e E urnpca n Uni on? O fficial sources (J) indicate that th e Eu ropean Community and its m em ber States provide more than half the amoun t. of fund s to i nt ernat iona l ai d for development, as well as over 50% of the worl d human ita r ian aid. They finance one third of the a id to the .Middle East (50% goes lo the Palestini a n territories), about 60% for Russia a nd the Republics of t he former Sov ie t Un io n , hesides 40% of the reconstruction efforts in Bos nia-He rzegovina. Sh orlly, thi s r e marka ble aid is going to be compl eted by a key political aspect: the capability of d ec iding a nd co ndu ct ing autonomous military actions. Already in 1948 the well-known political sc ien ti s t. Hans Mo rgenthau (2) l, acl pointed out tha t in foreign policy Lhe objectives must be supponed by mi] i t.ar路y stre ngt h, which .is an indi s pens ab le e leme nt. The Eu ropean initiative, started in 1993, fo ll ows p 1路ecise ly this tre nd.
At t h e Helsin ki s umm i L, in December 1999, the Eu ropea n lea ders made an irrevoca b le decision on the devclopme n l. of a common European policy in the field of security and defence (3) : to att rib ute a s trong r ole of lea ding ac tor to the EU, providing it with a credihle military force . This collective ex p rcssi o n of the w i 11 to consti tu tc an auto n omo us European capability could at last see the li gh t in 2003, after the J954 unsuccessful attempt of the European Community of Defence (sec box at p. 41). Two events led to th is dec is ion. The first originates in 1997 with th e "ch ang ing of' the guard " be tween Cons e r va tives and Labour in Lhe Unit ed Kingdom. Probably in order to compensate for the Br itish se lf-exc lu s ion ft'Om the participa tion in th e common c urrency project, Labour ite Tony Blair, d uring the Franco-British summit al Saint Ma lo can cell e d th e veto of the p1路cccding Co nservative Gove rnm e nts on matt ers of Eu ropean fore ig n poli cy an d
Jean Monnet and Robert Schumr111, first pro1110Ters oftlte European Unio11.
39
security. The French and the British have many things in common when it comes to defence: they are the Union's only nuclear powers and E uropean pennanent members of the UN Security Counci l, they have the highest expenditure fo r· defence in relation to the GDP, and Armed Forces developed according to the philosophy of the Expeditionary Force abroad. Certain ly, Saint Malo has outlined a .new approach to European security. For the first time we lisLened to the French leir motiv: "the Union 1nust be capable of conducting autonomous actions in the field of defence ... the Union must be provided with appropriate struclures, decision-making and situation-analysis capacity, intelligence sources and capability to make strategic plans, 1,vithout unnecessa,y duplications". Great Britain, toning down its traditional alignment ·with the United States, opened a window on th e fu lure of European defence, while the French pressed foe even more radical solutions , with the intention of maintaining the independence from NATO, and therefore from the US, of the European resources and the decisionmaking structures. The second decisive event is the awareness, matured during the air operation "AJJied Forces" over Yugoslavia ( in March-June 1999), of the enormous technological gap between Europe and the US. The conflict in Kosovo brought once more to light the European shortcomings in crisis management, even in geographical areas close to the EU. On the land operations in Kosovo, a British commentator (4) observed that "the European forces must be able to deploy better equipped units with a 1nuch shorter warning and to support then1. for a longer period. It is not a ,natter of reproducing the hi-lech approach of the US. The "stand-of' bombings
40
fom high altitude are nol 1he best the actions undertaken by NATO". approach in civil or ethnic conflicts. The decisions reached in fl is more a question of readiness, Cologne were formalized at the rapid deploynienl, training and Helsinki summit six months later: sustainability. This implies a The Globa l European project, pa.infi,tl reorganization, according to an Ame1· ican professionalization and higher observer (6), shou ld consist of expenses for defence, particularly five points. First: modernize the for material, equipnwnt and Armed Forces since what is logistics". missing is not so much the ability Furthermore, the Balkan to make autonomous decisions, operations brought to light the but rather the military ability to American aversion for all -out act (7) (diplomacy backed by involvements and for risking force). Second: limit to the casualties in the Euro p ean minimum the cr·eation of new Theatre. Hence, the necessity to decision-making structures. have a common European Third : grant NATO Lhe first capability in cases where the US, military option and, at the same and therefore NATO, does not t ime, avoid that the Europ ean intend to participate in peace- intervent ion overlaps in areas support operations by decision of where NATO already operates. the US Congress (5). Fourth: consider some NATO The ascertainment of the fact assets available for use by the EU that Europe is unwilling to (8). Fifth: esLablish the necessary assume greater responsibilities liaisons between EU and NATO , implies that security must be to prevent different perceptions paid for with the US presence on by the two separte bureaucracies. European soil. For this reason , Sixth: stengtheo the cooperation the EU aims at establishing a through the integration of the more balanced relationship ·with defence industries . Seventh: the US, spurring cooperation but in vo lv e the non-EU allies without j eopardizing th e (Norway, Turkey, Poland, Czech transatlantic link. "We Europeans Republic and Hungary) in Lhe should not expect the US to creation of structures similar to inlervene in every crisis in our those of Partnership for Peace. backyard. The EU rnust be able to The European Summit in carry out sO1n.e tasks on its o-wn" Helsinki, only eight months after observed Tony Blair on thi s NATO's Washington meeting, subject in 1999. brought about a great deal o( During the NATO summit held changes, on the wave of the in Washington in April 1999, process of European integration. NATO acknowledged "the Union\ Suffice it to think that ten years determination to acquire the ago the debate about the common capability of conducting c urren cy was on "whether it autonomous actions and would take place". Today it is a approving mili1wy actions when reality, albeit in an unfavourable the Allia nce does not intend to situation. Only five years ago, corrun.it itself as a ivhole. Some many sneered at Lh e idea of a weeks later, in Cologne, the EU common security and defence declared that "the Union m.ust be policy. Now it is taking shape. The capable of conducl ing lessons learned from the \Var in autonom.ous defensive actions, Kosovo, therefore, have broken counting on credible military the old schemes which prevented forces, on the instruments to nwke the EU from guiding rnilitary theni intervene and on the operations. Besides having utterly willingness to do iL, in order to poliLical reasons, the cooperation respond LO international crises, in the fie ld of defence will do leaving nevertheless umprejudiced away with redundancies and lead
THE 1952 EUROPEAN DEFENCE COMMUNITY (CED): A LOST CHANCE? May 9, 1950: Robert Schuman, French Foreign Minister, proposes to the European Nations to put together their production of coal and steel, on the basis of a plan worked out by the French politician Jean Monnet. This proposal, already accepted by the German Chancellor, Conrad Adenauer, is favoured by the United States but not by the United Kingdom, because of its bonds with the Commonwealth. Nevertheless, the work continues until April 18, 1951, when the institutive Treaty of the European Community of Coal and Steel (CECA) is signed, together with various protocols on privileges and conventions with the European Council. The Schuman Plan is immediately followed by the Pleven Plan, also suggested by Jean Monnet. Paris must face the American pressures in favour of the rearmament of Germany and its p articipation in the defence of the free world - a real bugbear for the French and the British precisely when the US are involved in the Korean war. Only two years have elapsed since France, the United Kingdom and Benelux had signed the Brussels Treaty, stipulating their mutual assistance in case of reemergence of an aggressive German policy within the following 50 years. The spectre of German rearmament is, from the American viewpoint, a necessary evil for the defence of the European theatre from the new threat looming from the East. How can Germany participate in the effort of collective defence without the reconstruction of a German army, opposed by France? Monnet proposes to extend to the Anned Forces the mechanisms created for coal and steel: putting under a joint Command, with the same uniform, the soldiers of the European Nations joining a European community with defensive purposes. In September 1951 the Atlantic Council meets in Ottawa and approves the proposal to rearm Germany, called Pleven Plan, within the safeguarding structure of a European army. The European military integration is on the starting line on May 27, 1952 in Paris, with the signature of the institutive Treaty of the European Defence Community (CED), whose advocate is the Belgian politician Paul-Henry Spaak. Contracting Countries are France, Federal Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland. Modeled on the CECA Agreement, the CED Treaty envisages supernational bodies (Commission, Council of Ministers, Assembly and Court of Justice). On the military plane, the preferential link with the US remains intact, thanks to the decision to assign CED's Armed Forces to the Supreme NATO Commander in Europe (SACEUR). In 1953, during the Eisenhower administration, the US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, urges the European signatories to ratify the commitment assumed the previous year. Adenauer's Germany ratifies the Treaty, while in Italy its text is not submitted to Parliament by Defence Minister Pacciardi, awaiting for the French decisions. Precisely in view of the initiative of European military integration, Pacciardi puts off, among other things, the discussion of the laws on the status and promotions of officers and NCOs of the three Services, considering that the military were going to move under a supernational body, with a specific status and Ew¡opean salaries. In 1954 the French and British opposition to Dulles' pressures become relentless, not only at Government level but also in the national Parliaments. After a long discussion, on August 30 the Community of European defence is buried by the French National Assembly. Stalin's death, the attenuation of the Cold War, some contrasts with the Americans and fear of having to renotmce national sovereignty make the ratification of the Treaty unnecessary. The void created by the failure of CED is partially filled by the Paris Agreements of 1954, where Europe gives up the idea of developing an autonomous defence identity, but keeps the principle for the future. As a consequence of the failure of the "European Army" initiative, the German forces are integrated within NATO through the creation of a new Alliance, the Western European Union (WEU), which includes the signatories of the Brussels Treaty plus Italy and Germany. Eisenhower announces the signature of a unilateral peace treaty with Germany which, together with Italy, joins the Brussels Treaty. WEU, conceived as an anteroom for the successive admissioni of Federal Germany to NATO, the following year enters a state of "institutional lethargy" (see box at p. ). With CED's burial in August 1954, the European Defence becomes a sort of taboo until 1999, d espite a timid French attempt to revive it in 1962. In any case, today's concept of European d efence is very different from the one conceived by Monnet in the Pleven Plan. This is why we can say that the CED initiative was, and still is, the only attempt at shaping a "real" European Army. 41
Strutture oecisionali UE e NATO
Fig.
UNIONEEUROPEA
1
NATO Consiglio del Nord Atlantico
Consiglio
dell'Unione? Cowicil
IS
NAC
Sttiff In:ternaziona1e Comitato Politico e di Sicurezza ,___ ______, (pennan.ene) Comitati-es....ide_n__.__ __,, Militare EUM C (pennan.ene).__- ,- -
"adJtc"
I
•
Necessary
duplications
Stato Maggiore Militare ennan.ene)
_ E_U___.M __s__,•
structure
CoJnandante ...... 1 ..e
11
op~1i.ne
~~c~~J
Selected by the Council
Comando
-·-..,.-~
Selected among IT-UK-FR-GE structures
''
I
9Peratiw
OHQ
Interforze Comando delle furze
FHQ
sulcampo -
The EU decision-11wki11g structures at politico-military level reproduce those already en visaged in NATO (NACPSC, MC-EUMC, IMS- EUMS) . Al
strategic a.11d operational level duplica1io11s are not envisaged, bur an "ad-ho e'' corn 111a nd-and-co 11 t rol s1ruct11re is el/lployed 1vhen necessary.
Lo a bcLLer effi c ie ncy of both indusllies and forces. This could also be adva n tageou s for the US, in a framew ork of divi s ion of ta sks and respo nsibilities, especially after the events o f September 11. DECISION-MAKING STRUCTURES, FORCES AND ACTUAL CAPABILITIES
Although Lhere are still many questions on the concreLe implementation of a global 42
StatoM.aggiore Internazionale
Politico military level
Comitato Militare C2 Permanent structure
CoJnandantein Capo Forze NATOEuropa SACEUR
Strategic level
. Operational level
Vice Cte DSACEUR NATO Europa SMdi CJPS Pia.nifk.
FHQ
I
A'""~"'."'."""..,..,...-.-:J ...__ _ __,
project of European security and d e fe nce, a decision - makin g organ ization has bein g established and charged with the task of ali g ning th e milita ry in s trument Lo th e a lready acquired economic and financial capabilities. Moreover, three structures have been established al ins titut ional s Lructu r e governance level (Fig. l. ) The first struclure is the Policy and Secu riLy Commitl ee (PSC), which deals with every aspect of bot h the common foreign an d security poli cy (CFSP) and the com mon policy of European sccu r·ity and defence (CES DP). In ca:;e of cris is, the PSC would be entrusLe<l w it h the politicostrategic direction of th e opcrnt ion, under the authority of th e Europ ea n Coun c il. Th e second structure is the E uropean Military Committee, made up of
Comando
delle fo:n:e
sul campo
the defence Chiefs of Staff of the Union's member Na tions or the ir permanent represen tatives; its task is to advance proposals and recomme ndaLions to th e PSC, The thi r·cl structure is Lhe Military Staff (EUM S), which supports the E uropean Council and the PSC with its military expertise. The EUMS' task is early warning, situations as:;essment and strategic planning fo r the activi Lies of conflict prevention and crisis manage menL. Th e EUMS Chief of St aff (9) notes thaL these are basic strucLures, con s idering that the EU do cs not int e nd to cre ate ei t h er specific milit ary Commands or permanent Co mmand - and- Co ntrol structures similar to NATO's, As a matte r of fact, the EU has the intention to have recourse, on a case -by-case basis, to Lhe
fig. 2
The decisioll LO conduct "Petersbergtype" m.ission s was made by 1/;.e Defence lvfinisters of WEU in 1992. In 1999 this /imction passed from WEU tu EU.
national or rnultinational Commands of the members of the Alliance. Should the need arise to manage a crisis, an Operation Commander ,,.vill be appointed (OPCMDR, at NATO SACEUR level) and the Headquarters for the Operation (OHO) will be selected among the existing national structures (e.g. Italian COINT, British PJ.HQ, or similar French or German organizations which, however, will have to become multinationa l). At operational level, the headquarters of the intervention force (FHQ) cou ld be the Euro-
corps (Strasbourg), the Central Multinational Division (Reindhalen), EUROFOR (Florence), EUROMARFOR or other "double-hat" (NATO and EU) high-readiness headquarters no,.v being constituted. The enable these organi1.ations to operate, principles and procedures are being developed, in order to prepare and implement the .necessary decisions in case of c rises. This includes the interaction between the civ ilian and military components , e xerc-ises and plann ing policy. Considering the experience acquired by NATO and WEU, the plans will not he carried out in a vac uum, and cooperation between NATO and EU ,vill be essentia l. An initial capability in the p roce dural field was achieved in 2001, as vrns stated during the
European surnmit held in Laeken. As r egards the forces, the member States intend to achieve the so -called "Head Ii ne Goal!!, according to which, by the end of 2003, the EU should be able to deploy, up to 15 Brigades (50 60.000 men) for Petersberg missions (Fig.2) with a 60-day warning, guaranteeing their sustenance [or a year. This multiservice and autonomous Corps-level force, equipped with about 500 aircraft and 15 ships, will have its own intelligence, logistic and Command - and - Conlrol capabilities. In order to reach this objective approx 150,000 men will be needed for the necessary roLation, together with concrete procedures for 43
Turkey for EU's access to NATO assets. EU INITIATIVES IN COMPETITION WITH NATO
It isnecessary for NA.TO and EU to involve non-EU Nations in a bodv similar to "Partnership for Peace", i;1. order Lo give a u.nivocal response /0 inlernational crises.
consultations and cooperalion, as we ll as clear rules for a grea Ler "transparency". However after Septcm ber 11, the framework of the PeLersberg n,issio ns has been questioned. The su p porters of a reductive rev isio n , including t he Italian Defence Min ister An t onio Martino (10), prefer to limit 44
European · interventions to humanitarian missions , peacekeeping operations and crisis management. The reasons are ma inly pragmat ical. First o( a ll , the reso u rces for peace enfo rc ing operalions could be available, al best, between 2007 and 2015 . Secondly, NATO is better suited for more complex rnissions, since it has a Command-and -Control chain that works while, at the moment, Europe docs not have these capabilities. Lastly, there are still internal disputes to be settled s u ch as, for example , Greece's veto on t h e agreemen t with
Besides the autonomous development of the capability of conducting mi litary actions, the Union pursues another pivotal project: the enlargement to the East. Both will heavily bear upon the qual ity of the decision making process . The European institu l ions \Vere originally conceived for six nations, and no\v are labouriously ·working with fifteen members. It is true that the introduction of the prnccclure that permits to make decisions by a "qualified majority" , instead of unanirnously, could revitalize the prncess . In the long term, however, the enlargement to 2730 members will bring about a crisis in t he international working syslem . In substance, the enlargement of the EU to the East will require a thorough reform of the European institutions (Fig.3). How can we imagine a European Council \vi tl1 30 Heads of State and Government? Thirty Chairmanships? How long ,vill the sessions of the Council last? Days? Weeks? How is the compensation of interests going to be reacbed ·wi thin the present 30- member institutiona l structure? How will the decisions be taken, and bow will it be possible lo act thereafter? What can be done to prevent the Union from becoming inscrutable? How to prevent the compromises from becoming less and less understanda ble, to the point of losing Lhe citizens' consent? How ,vill it be possible to agree an a complex military action, when it was im p ossible to agree on a common position about th e d ispute b etween G reeks and Turks over an islet in the Aegean ( 1996) or on the interven lion in Albania, sucessively led by Italy
Fig. 3
BELGIUM DENMARK FRANCE GERMANY GREECE ITALY LUXEMBOURG HOLLAND PORTUGAL SPAIN UK AUSTRIA FINLAND SWEDEN
ICELAND NORWAY TURKEY CZECH REP. HUNGARY POLAND
BULGARIA ESTONIA LATVIA LITHUANIA RUMANIA SLOVAKIA SLOVENIA
ALBANIA ARMENIA AZERBAIJAN BELORUSSIA FYROM GEORGIA KAZAKHSTAN KIRGIZSTAN MOLDAVIA RUSSIAN FED SWITZERLAND TURKMENISTAN UKRAINE UZBEKISTAN CROATIA TAG IKl STAN
IRELAND MONACO SAN MARINO
HOLY SEE MALTA Above.
NATO, EU and WEU are not perfectly coincident "Chinese boxes ". This can cause differences when leaving 1he core and going to Lhe periphe·,y . lvfost contrasts could wke place be1ween NATO and LU.
OSCE BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA
preliminaries, the European security-and-defence policy is "a journey to a destination s t ill un known (11)". There are different perceptions among the va rious members, and iL is
CIPRO YUGOSLAV FED
necessary to unify them, build ing a net capable of toning clown the internal polarizati on s , transforming the EU into a factor of stabilization and a model fo r the new rnultipolar world. Suffice
Right. Seplember /9, 2000: meeLing between. the NATO NAC and the EU PSC. From left lo right: 1\!lichel Duclos , Lord Robertson and Javier Solana.
in 1997? lt will b e for the Convention of the Europe an Union to find the possible solution of some of these questions, as pointed out in the Laeken "D eclarat ion" , which started its work on February 28. The stakes are the reform of the Union's d ecis ion -making · procedures, in order lo avoid a paralysis in 2004, w hen 10 more Countries will join the EU . Undoubtedly,
with
these 45
THE WESTERN E UROPEAN UNION (WEU): A "SLEEPING BEAUTY" The first symptoms of a substantial divergence between the US and the Soviet Union starts to emerge already during the Yalta Conference and, in the successive years, they lead to a climate of tension, to bipolarism and the Cold War, of which the Berlin blockade , in June 1948, is a premonitory signal. Already in March of the same year, another important event takes place: Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France and the United Kingdom sign a treaty aimed, on the one hand, at strengthening the links among the signatories in the economic, social and cultural fields, in order to lay the foundations for the reconstruction of Europe's economy, ruined by WWII and, on the other, at cr eating the bases for mutual assistance against any armed aggression, within a legitimate collective defence. On the other side of the Atlantic, an occurrence worth mentioning is the adoption of the "Vandenberg Resolution" on the basis of which, in accordance with the Truman doctrine of 1947, the US can participate in agreements for the maintenance of peace through collective security measures. In 1950 the outbreak of the Korean War puts the Europeans up against the wall: it becomes necessary to establish a defence integrated within a European design based on the prin<;iples of the community of coal and steel (CECA) and with the essential contribution of Germany. This revolutionary project - born in 1952 and called European Defence Community (CED) - founders two years later, owing to the non-ratification by the French National Assembly (see box at p. ). On that occasion, a makeshift solution is found: it envisages the enlargement of the Brussels Treaty, to include Italy and Germany, with the constitution of the "Western E uropean Union" (WEU), an intergovernmental organization aimed at "promoting the union and encouraging the progressive integration of Europe". Although it deals with defence and security, this structure does not leave much space to the military, in that, on the one hand it is a cooperation arena among Foreign Ministries and, on the other, a multilateral organization without a supranational character. In any case, the responsibility for the collective defence had akeady been assumed by the Atlantic Alliance five years earlier, in 1949; therefore \\TEU enters a state of "institutional lethargy", becoming, as noted by Gen. Jean, "a sleeping beauty". The WEU reawakens in the mid-eighties as an organization for European security, and asserts itself in 1991, after the Maastricht Treaty, which includes in its agenda the Common E uropean Policy of Security and Defence. WEU not only tends to assume the configuration of NATO's European pillar, hut becomes a basis on which to develop the initiative of European Security and Defence Identity within NATO. In the attempt to achieve a pre-eminent role, WE U involves, with different forms of status, Greece, Norway, Turkey, Austria, Finland and Sweden, assuming also operational roles through the creation of a military component and the conduct of military operations in the Persian Gulf and the Balkans. With the revision of the Treaty, adopted in Amsterdam in 1997, the E U includes in its tasks the so-called "Petersberg missions", which had been conceived five years earlier within WEU. In 1998, during a meeting in Saint-Mal_o , the E U, for the first time in its history, assumes a role as a military power; this is the beginning of a new chapter of the E uropean security policy. T he Cologne summit, in June 1999, decides, among other things, that the E U must take the responsibility for Petersberg missions, taking them away from WEU. I n substance, the responsibility of crisis management and collective defence is going to be conducted separately by different organizations, with different members and on the basis of different Treaties. Contrary to what was envisaged by the Amsterdam T reaty, which entailed the full integration of WEU into the EU, the function of collective defence is no more assumed by the Union. WEU, anyway, ends its current operational activities (WEU missions in Albania and Croatia, transferred to the E U), while the institutional treaty for the safeguard of collective defence (Art.5) remains in force, together with NATO cooperation. On July 1, 2001, the WEU Headquarters moves to another infrastructure, and the Secretariat is reduced to a Council Section, an Administration Section, Archives and P ost Office. The Military Committee enters a state of "institutional lethargy", and so does the E urogroup. The Satellite Centre and the Study Institute for Security will still be subordinate to WEU, until equivalent agencies are created within the EU in 2002. WEU (1) remains "active in the follo""ring areas: supervision of the obligations of mutual assistance envisaged by Art.S, while t he military aspects connected with these commitments are still NATO responsibilities; cooperation in the armaments sector; activities as a forum for the governments and parliaments of the 28 WEU n ations on the issues of security and defence. After only 15 years from its last awakening, WEU is again "a sleep ing beauty". ( 1) The Future Role of WEU, Jim Marshall, Chairman of the Political Committee of the WEU Assembly, ¡on "Les Dossiers de L'Abecedaire", 2nd trimester 2001.
it to lhink of t he "Lug-of-wa r"
where, on the one s ide, Fran ce and Italy press the Union to take care of the Mediterranean issues and, on the other, Germany and Svved e n in s is t for a great e r
46
European interest in the Baltic. It supporting the European cause \vill be nece ss ary, t hen lo with in the WEU fram e work of coniu gale c on s ensus with European Sec urily and Defence effe c t iven ess, and diffe ren L Ide ntity (E SDI) - declaring its percep tions with unity of action. w illingn e ss to p r ovide NATO The U nit e d Sla t es has b e en assets for E u rnpean
i\llarch 26,2001. 1\!1ee1i11.g of 1he Chiefs of Swff of Defence.
"aulonomous" operations . BuL those \Vere only formal statements because no one, al that momenl, was willing to bet on lh e s uccess of the common currency (see box at p. 46). In 1999, facing the fail accompli, the US of Presic..lenL Clinton could not oppose it, and \vas obliged Lo take note o[ the emergence of a new actor on the internationa l scene. "America needs a s Lronger Europe", said the US Deputy Secretary of State in D ecernber 1999", adding ... '\.ve envisage a Europe capable of acting e(fectively through the Alliance, on its own i{ NATO were unwilling to be engaged".
or
Neverlheless , beh i ncl the official proclarnations , some basic diff e cences vve r·e taking shape . F irst or a ll, the US believed that a secur ity sys tem based on the EU would
guarantee a "back door" to NATO for lhe EU members not covered by Art.5 of lhe Treaty. Finland, Sweden and Austria, which are not NATO members, could 1xess the All iance through the EU , demandi ng perhaps the US mili 1.ary assistance , without having to pay the cost. A second \,vor ry was the c..langer· of seeing on organi1.ation (EU) inside another (NATO), with the consequent weaking of the US leadership. The British change of course in Saint Malo did not only shift the balances, but also cornpelled Was hin gton to accept, as an accomplished fact, t he existence or a European common policy of security and defence, a lbeit with some distinctions. The American concerns, pointed o ut by Madeleine Albright, are sumn1a ri1.ed in the well known "triple D" concept. ·washington wants neither t he transat lan tic divorce (no decoupli ng), nor the dup lication of e Cf orts and
capabilities (no duplication), and rules out the d isc ri mination of the Allies not members of the EU (no d iscrim ination). NATO, through Secretary Ge neral Lord Robertson, has later soft.ned that formula, und erlin ing the indivisibility of the transaUantic link, the need to strengthen the European capabilities and t he advisab il ity to involve all the a ll ies in the decis ions concerning the European policy (sec box al p . 48). This outline shows the conven ience of establishing a new balance of pO\.ver between EU and NATO, therefore between Europe and the US. Differently from WEU, which has ahvays been an unequal partner of NATO in the defe nce field , the EU \.vanls to play a more assertive role in the s phere of European security, p utt ing forward not only its mili Lary capabiliLi e s, bul also its economic and rinancial weight as well as its politica l instruments of institutional governance .
47
DEVELOPMENT STAGES OF THE EUROPEAN DIMENSION OF SECURITY AND DEFENCE 1992: the Foreign Ministers and the Ministers of Defence of WEU meet in Petersberg, near Bonn, with the purpose of implementing the d e cisions connected with the Maastricht Treaty of 1991. It is agreed to assign WEU an operational role, centred on the so-called "Petersberg missions": humanitarian aid, rescue of nationals abroad, peacekeeping, peace enforcing. The participating States pledge to assign forces which, when necessary, will be answerable to WEU(Forces Answerable to Western European Union FAWEU); 1993: the common foreign and security policy (PESC) is sanctioned by the Maastricht Treaty which came into force, after ratification, on November 1, 1993. The provisions on this specific sector are reviewed by the Amsterdam Treaty, signed on October 2, 1997 and come into force on May 1, 1999. Articles from 11 to 28 sp ecifically deal with PESC; 1998: at a Franco-British summit held in Saint-Malo, the following official declaration is formulated: the European Union must have the capability of conducting autonomous actions in response to crises. It must have moreover the support of a credible military force, the means to decide to employ it and the necessary readiness to implement it. To achieve this aim, the Union must have appropriate structures, capability of situation analysis, intelligence sources, capability of strategic planning, without creating unnecessary duplications of already existing structures. June 1999: the European Council adopts the first common strategy of the European Union towards Russia, and issues statements on Kosovo and on the reinforcement of the common European policy on security and defence. Javier Solana is appointed High Representative for PESC and Secretary General of the Council. It is reaffirmed that the Union must have a capability of autonomous actions supported by a credible military force, the instruments that allow to use this capability, as well as high-readiness forces for conducting "Petersberg-type missions". December 1999: the European Council meets in Helsinki, Finland. The member States resolve on achieving the so-called Headline Goal, according to which the EU, by the encl of 2003, will have to be able to deploy up to 15 Brigades (50-60,000 men) for "Petersberg-type" missions, on a 60-clay warning and ¡with a sustainability of one year. This Corps-level force must be autonomous, include intelligence, logistic and Command-and Control capabilities, besides having joint-service characteristics, with about SOO aircraft and 15 ships. The Council establishes a security/defence decision-making structure which includes a policy and security Committee, a Military Committee and a Military Staff. June 2001 : the European Council meets in Goteborg, Sweden; the member States take a series of decisions. First, they determine to hold a conference for the development of capabilities at the end of 2001. The Union members will have to undertake to fill the already ascertained shortages. Secondly, they de cide to consider the offers, in terms of capabilities, made by non-EU Nations and to fix the mechanisms for their evaluation. In the third p lace, they initiate procedures for the cooperation between NATO and EU in relation to the possibility of making use of assets and capabHities of the Atlantic Alliance. Last, an action plan is worked out in relation to the civilian aspects of crisis management (use of police forces and of a pool of on-call judges). At present, within the EU, there are activities aimed at ensuring the political control and the strategic management of the "Petersberg-type" operations directed by the Union, deciding on the realization of the operations with or without recourse to NATO assets and capabilities, as well as on the procedures for the participation in the operations of EU members, E uropean NATO-members and associated partners of WEU.
industrial basis of Euro pean defence. Number three on the one side concerns the relation between EU and NATO and, on th e other, the erosion of the UNRESOLVED ISSUES centrality of the latter. The duplication dilemma , Going back to the European ¡ according to the French, conceals capability of acting autonomously, Lhree questions the emergence of a new partner, are still pending. The first with which the US w ill have to concerns Lhe duplication of compete: the European Union. At capabiliti es and institutional infrastructural and decision slructures. The second refers to making level the duplication the costs involved in the appears to be modest: a Military implementat ion of a European Secretariat which res ponds Lo power projection for Petersberg- Javier Solana, a Policy and lype missions, and the input of Security Committee, a Military the strategic balance on Lhe Committe and a Staff consisting
Therefore , no more "Europe : economic giant, political dwarf and military ,.vorm" (12).
48
of 135 Officers. As regards forces and equipment , additional financial resources . are indispensable, in order to acquire 1st and 2nd class weapon systems made in Europe. Therefore, the need to avoid unnecessary dupl ication s, which was emphasized in Helsinki, does not conc ern the bodies that are essential for the inst itut ional governance, i.e . the abovementioned PSC, EUMS and EUMC. In this regard, il is interesting to note the point of vievv expressed by Stefano Silvestri , a well-known expert in military
strategy ( 13 ), on th e issu e of duplicalion or capabilities : he does not conside r it a nega Live faclor. On the contrary, he deems it useful in som e are.as, s'uch as strategic mobilily, in- r! ig h t r efu e lli ng and SEAD (14), in order to g uara nte e a c erta in redundancy. In principle, Dr. Silvestri proposes lhree "rules or behaviour", to avoid dangerous duplications of capabilities. First of a ll, s hun inveslmenL s in sectors where mater ia ls are ove rabundant co mpar¡ed lo the real need (e .g. tanks). Secon d, engage only in sectors connected with strateg ic inle lligence, force projeclability, sustainabilily and in te rop ernb il ity. Lasl, avo id creating new complex projects in competition with similar ones alre ady s tarlecl by NATO (e .g. ACCS, NAC.MO ( 15 ), e tc. ). As regards the second dilemma, i.e. cos ls, one must conside r thal in 2000 th e European defence budget was abou l 60-70% o[ the US budget. Wilh two million men and women in uniform, Europe h as di ffic ulti e s in pu tting toge ther 40 ,000 soldiers for a regional conflict, not to mention lh e facl tha t the E uro pean for ces,conce ived in the iron curtain ye ars , have a li rn i tcd strategic mobility. In short, as Lord R obertson said in I 999, "with a budget equal to 60% of the US; the Europeans express, in. terms o( capahilities, I 0% of the real capability of the United States". 1f one a dds Lhe increase in the US defence expe nditure as a consequence or the new war on ter rorism, th e asymme try c an only become more marked. What is the cost of acquiring th e capabilily of con du cting Petersberg-type missions? Can we afford it? Can th e European industry do it? Do we really want it? 1l is n o t ea sy to ma ke s ure estimates, s i nee there are so m a ny vari ab les . A German observer (16) reckoned that the
A plenary session of the f.;uropean Parliament.
creation of a globa l and a utonomous European capability of power projection wo uld cost between 290 lo 520 billion Euro depending on ,.v hether 1~t or 2 11cl c ategory weapon system s are selected. "Spreading" these costs over 15 years, a n d taking into account the savings de riving by syn ergy (work-s haring and standardization), the EU Natio ns should pay in addition from 17.5 to 32 billi on Euro. Tra nslate d into percentages, it wou ld be a matter of kee ping the defence bud ge t of the m e mbers Sta tes between 2.5 % and 3% o f th ei r GDP. In terms of budget we cou ld a fford it , co nsid erin g that we spend more than lhat just to buy alcoholic dr inks . If we al so consider the advantages deriving from a com m on m ark.et of arrnamenls, the operation \vou lei certain ly be worthwhile. Since the who le thin g w o uld b e managed by the EU, the a nnua l payment of 17.5- 32 billion Eu ro would be included in the budget managed by the European Commission, increasi ng il by 25 to 50%, thus making the defence
com po ne nt of the budget predominant vis- a- vis a ll the olher s (agricu lture, education, projects, etc.). Is the E uropean d efe nc e industry in a position to interact wit hin the process? A key event was the de c ision made at Farnborough in July 2000, where the Defence Ministers of France, I taly, United Kingdom, Germany, Spa in a nd Sweden si gne d a framewor k agreeme nt for the r eorganization of the European de fence indusLry. On this subject, Alessandro Corneli ( 17) observed l hat "the nz ilitary- indus trial complex must reconverl {ro1n Lhe logic of conscript ar111ies to that, of profess ion a.ls. Th e European conventional-war scenarios have vanished, and Europe's ind11sLries m ust change th eir resea rch projects, production lines and profit prospec ts . As the appropria ti ons dec rease, the national industries can survive 011ly if they accept LO bec om.e segments of a single production line. I nslead o( figliLing against each other on the IVO rld market 111ith more or less similar ,veapons syslem s, the Eu ropean induslries could keep a certain compeLitivity 011 the international 111arket through a high-qualiL_v production.. 49
A belier poli1ico -economic-m ilitarv coordination bet,.·veen NATO and EU ·would rnake the nasceni Eu ropean Armed Forces more vigorous.
Th eore rically, Europe cou ld pro pose t o itse lf the aim of rea ching the Am erican technological level in 20 years". The third dilemma concerns the aLten u ation of NATO's centrality in Europe. Tur·key and Norway, member·s of the Alliance and not of the EU, arc we ll a\vare of this and have openly expressed their wish to be involved in some \.Va y in the conslruc t ion of Ew:opean defence. Also the US is a\.varc of this, and has proposed to formalize the r e lations 50
between NATO and EU, despite Fra nce 's opposition. Paris, in fact, maintains that the forum for debating Lhe European defence issues is sti l I WEU to ,v hich Turke y, Norway and the US be long, a lbeit in differe nt forms. Fina ll y, a lso the Bri ti sh are conscious of the prob lem, and have pressed for the approval of a fon,wla, according to which NATO mainLains the right of first option on possible intervent ions. As regar·cls the pat"t ic ipatio n in E U-le d operations, procedures \Nill be e qual to those applied w ith in NATO. Considering that the decision will remain national, \.Ve could sec "by 15" decis ions (vv·ith cons lruc tive absLentions) w ith "by 12" participations, or
"b y 15" d ec is io ns and "b y 1 ') plus" partici pations, \Vith the contribution o r non-EU nat ions. The EU int en t ions are also welcomed by Russia, w hich. has a lways been against US s up remacy in Europe . I n Moscow's outlook, the EU is not pe rceived as an antagonist, nor is the WEU, to \.vhich the Bal ti c states are associated part ners . One can also add that Russia has neve r ham pet"ed the EU p lans, since it does not sec them a s a threat to its securiLy. In fact, the focus on the Petersberg missions have l aid the foundations of cooperatio n , such as th at of offering assets for strategic transport in case of need . All this, up to September I l. Before thaL bla ck Tuesday, it was believed that the Alliance wou ld lose its cenLral role on the stage of Eu r opean sec uri ty. All the indications were there . On the o ne s ide, the US con te s ted a Europe ·w hich had com rnenced to act i.n an autonomous way, especi all y in its relations with China, North Korea, the so-call ed "rogue sta Les" and Cuba. On the other, there was l b.e expectation of scenarios where Eurnpe would make d ecis ion s and co ndu c t a u t onomous actions, also independently of the US consenL, with the consequen.t break of the transaLlantic link and , therefore, the beginn ing of NATO's e nd, fo ll owed. by t he cre ation o f a "Cortress Europe" and a "fortress Ameri ca" . Bu t c on crete ly, and this should be underlined ·again, the possibility of launching an au Lonom ou s European operation appears re mote . For m any more years Eu r·ope will h a ve to d ep end on N ATO command structures, as well as on th e US lo gist ic and in formation structures . GIVING THE EU "ONE FACE AND ONE VOICE"
Focus ing on P e Le rs berg-type m issions, the EU has, in point of
fact, limited regional ambitions. The decision of elud ing Art .5, of the Brussels Treaty, keeping the WEU alive (see WEU box at p. 46 ) goes in thi s direcL ion. Nevertheless , different projects have en,erged. To ny Blair has said that the EU will operate "within Europe and at its periphery", Solana would like it to intervene in Africa and East Timor. Schroeder wishes it lo defen d \!Vestern interests and values all over Lhe world. Henry Kissinger observed that the EU cou ld be considered as such only if and when it had a "single telephone number. On the formal plane, it suffices to dial +32-2-285-500-00, the number of Solana 's situation ce ntre . At substantial leve l, Friedbert Pfluger (18), Chief of the Bundestag EU Committee, says that it is necessary to contact every rnern ber every tim.e in order to have a vague idea of what the Un ion thinks about Lhe US activities in Iraq, the dispute between China and the US, the situation in the .l\il.idclle East and even in the Balkans. When a Secretary General /High Representative was appointed for the first time, the EU was hoping to give "one face and one voice" to its common Policy of security and defence. But after Javier Solana's election in 1999, each foreign po ] icy representative seems to be speaking his own accou nl. There is no sign, therefore of the "single telephone number". Aher September 11, it would have b een logical to convene the European Heads of State and Government in order to agree on the support to be given to the US and the n entrust Javier Solana with the task or going to the US to present the E uropean offer. Nothing of this kinds w as done and each European counLry acted autonomously ( 19). Three months later, at the Laek en con[e,·ence in mid - December 2001, the Belgian Foreign Minister announced that a
crucial event in European history was taking place, i.e. the creation o[ a European peace keeping force for Afghanistan. This stalement angered lhe British, ·who had autonomously taken Lhe leadership of the inte rnational mission of security and assistance in Afghanistan for three monLhs. The fact is thal the Be lgian Prime M i nister, Guy VerhofsLaclt, President of Lh e European semester, was compelled to remove from the official docun:ients all the references to the collective EU action. Many races , many voices, many telephone numbers: this is the bitter realily or the European Un ion. NATO AND THE EU NATO and the EU have always acted in cooperation. Both a re strongly committed Lo their respective enlargement process, which nevertheless proceed s in parallel accord i ng to different logics and at a di fferent pace (20). NATO - which proceeded more rnpidly, since it is easier to enlarge a politico -military alliance than a European governmental system at multiple levels - after the first round of
1'rfay 9, 1950: Jn Lhe Quay d'Orsay's Clock Room., Roher! Schuman delivers the opening speech on ihe Economic Community of Coal a nd S1eel (CECA).
enlargen1ent is going through a period od co nsolidation and reflection, during which its members have to redefine th e internal balances . The enlargement or the EU is much more complex [0 1· several reasons: the convergence criLeria, comp licate decision-making procedures, the future o[ Lhe agricultural policy and of the s tructu ral runcls, mullipolar leadership, weakening of the Franco-German axis, which had a cooperative hegemony, the implications of the Schengen agreements for Poland, Hungary and the C1.ech Republic. The Un ion was and is working for the most complex project of its h istory, and Lhe connected polici es concern money, delegation of power and sovereignly. ln any case, both the projecL of European integraLion and the developme nt of autonomous capabilities in the de[ence sector, 51
The cooperation among the EU Armed Forces engaged in peace missions helps to strengthen the European ide11.1i1y of securily and defence.
as well as the enlargement of NATO, will go on, albeit ¡w ith lesser energy and probably some temporary stops. The transatlantic re lations 'Nill be somehow rebalanced, to take into account the emergence of the new European actor. AN AUTONOMOUS EUROPEAN PROJECT?
On this subject, Alessandro Con1eli (2.1) maintains that the US should be considered the "stone guest" of the prncess of European integration, since, on the one hand, it is impossible to imagine a Europe withoul systematic relations with the US at all levels while, on the other, no argument on the integrated
52
future of Europe can he considered complete if the Americans are not among the participants in the process. The present Minister of Defence of Italy (22) echoed these words two years ago, when be declared to "Foreign Affairs" that it was time to give a strong boost to the EU -US relations, tasking perhaps a group of '\vise men" to draw an instilulional outline of the vital relations with the main ally, which is also the recipent of the largest portion of the European foreign investiments. According to the Hon. Martino, the risk of: social and political decoupling must be avoided at all costs, to ward off the dangers of a protectionist spiral and cornmercial conflicts that could also assume a political character. Adrian Price (23) \Nidered this prospect by saying that it is necessary to negotiate a vision accepted within OSCE, and proposed, as a starting point, the
platform of the "Model for European Security in the 21 st Century", agreed upon in Istanbul in November 1999. A EUROPEAN ARl\llY?
Will we have a European Army? If the dreams of Robert Schuman, Altiero Spinelli, Jacques Delors and Joschka Fischer, (i.e. the transition from Union of States to a complete "parliamentarization" of a European Federation) were to come true, we propably would. This wou ld entai l a European Parliament, a European Government, a constitutional Treaty and, therefore, a European army based on the CED model of 1952. But Fischer's idea lism clashes with the pragmatism of Giuliano Amato (2 4), who observes that "the EU is a daring join! venture among partners: a Union which proceeds by successive advances and adaptations, combining
integration and cooperation, common st ru ctures and classic intergovernmen1al compromises, standards Lo be reached, authority o f arbit ra ti o n and 111u tu al monitoring". Jacqu es Chirac, President of the French Republic, reaffir ms this thesis. Two years ago, in an official declaration, he imagined the fu ture of the Union as "a Europe of StaLes rather than the United States of Europe". As long as the E uropean project remains a "joint venture", albeit wi th more a nd more "Brusse lized" decis io ns, there will be no room for a "European Ar my" such as the one prefigured in CED (see box at p . 4J) . On the other hand, this was remarked al the Gotebo,¡g sum mit (25), where it \Vas said that "the European determ inatio n of developing an autonom ous capability of action ... does not imply the constitution of a Europea¡n Army. Th e alloLment of the 1\tlember States' military resources for these operations will remain a tipically national decision". T here fore , ra ther t h an a "European Army" we cou Id a fford a "Eu ropean defence" wi th in son,e fifte en years. At political level, in any case, the "decis ion-m aking" qu es tion w ill have to be solved, and numerous variables are at play. First of all, it is necessry to take into accounl the neutra list inclinations of Austria, Sweden and Fin land, Denm a rk's un wi llin gn ess a nd France's nationa l pride. Secondly, it is necessary to compe nsate the Union's prior ities, making the c ilizens "d igest" the increase in th e defe nce expenditure (u p lo 2.5-3% of the GDP), which would go to the det ri me nt of i nstru c tio n, educa tio n, p ub lic he alth, pensions and i n frast ruc ture. Third ly, it is essential to solve Lhe problem of the p ol itical co n trol of the military force, since it would be unthinkab le to depend on the op in ion s o f all na t ion al parliaments for every decision .
ACRONYMS ACCS: Air Command and Control System CED: Com unita E uropea di Di fesa CESDP: Common European Security and Defense Policy CFSP: Common Foreign Security Policy ESDI: European Security and Defence Identity EUMC: European Milita,y Committee EUMS: European Military Staff FHQ: Force Headquarters NAC: North Atlantic Council N ACMO NATO: Air Command and Control System Management
Organization NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization OHQ: Operational Headquarters OPCMDR: Operational Commander OSCE: Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe PSC: Political Secw iLy Council SACEUR: Supreme Allied Commander Europe S EAD: Suppression Enemy Air Defence UE: Unione Europea UE O: Unione Europea Occidentale 0
REPE RCUSSIONS OF S E PTEMBER 11
The economic consequ ences of September 11 cannot be foreseen yet, because whole areas of Lhe world cou ld be dragged in an extremely dangerous "domino e ffe cl" . Th e risk o f r ecession , already around the corner before th a t b la c k Tuesday, could still app ear w ith a ll its v irulen ce, since the economy of the world is goin g t h ro ugh a difficu It moment. In Europe the stabilily pact, which should have made the E uro fly high at th e beginning of 2002, is now at risk. Japan has been going thro ugh a ten-year crisis, with a growth close to zero, while the internal con sum pti o n in the US, i ts traditional commercial partner, is decreas ing . The US locomotive, w h ic h had been re du c ing its speed for some time, is now s lo w ly recovering its pace . In Latin America, with the collapse of Argentina and the troubles in Ven ez u e la a nd Co lom b ia, the project of a free-trade area which was almost in the finishing straight - is now vanishing.
A key as pect em e rging from Sep tembe r 1 .1 is the grow ing technological gap between Europe a nd th e Un ited S lates. The US mi Ii tary technology, tested in Afghanistan, belongs to a generation which is ten years ahead of Europe's . This adds to the already eviden t worry about Lhe growing Amer ican unilateralism and the consequent loss of powe r by th e Euro pean partners, a loss which will last u ntil Eu rope acqui res a unite d polilical action a nd an effective and cohesive military force. Thes e s ubj ects en l iven ed th e recenl conference held in Mu n ich, t o Lh e po in t that Ri chard Ped e, securi ty adviser Lo President Bush , said that "the US has never been so determined even to act alone, if necessary, tu defend itself from terroris111". On th e sam e occas ion a nd in this regard, Lord Roberlson u nd erline d the need for the Europeans to im prove Lhei r military capabilities if they want to operate sid e by side wilh the US and influence its deci sions. In 2003, according to Blomberg, Lhe European members of NATO 53
· w i ll spend 140 billion dollars , and th e U ni ted States 379 bill ion. With one billion dollars a d ay, the highest increase in the last 20 year·s, lhe US will devote to defence more than the total spent by the 15 Countries thal follow. T hi s asymmetry will further wi d en th e technol ogical gap between the two sides of the Atlantic to the po i nt that, as a Ge rman official remarked, "in a short time we shall not he able to com.municate w i th the Americans, let alo ne fight together". Minister Antonio Martino (26) rec en tly observed tha t the challenge cons ists p recise ly in re ducin g the unbalanc e of capabilities b etween Americans and Europeans. Since E u ro p e and the US share a common destiny, any discussion o n lh e Europea·n will to act autonomously appears insign ificant : the s tre ngth - and therefore the credibility - of Eu rope can on ly be achieved th rough the implementation of balanced relations with the US on t h e pl ane of ex pressible capabilities. Lor d Robe rtson, in his turn (27) , on the one hand asked Europ e a s trong er finan cial effort in order to help the Europeans overcome th e condition of military p ygmies and, on the othe r-, cal led upon the US Lo drop its restrictions on tech nology tran sfe i-s and i nduslrial cooperation, in order to facilitate the mode rni za tion pr·ocess i n the fie ld o f E uropean defence . lnaction in th ese sectors would have devastating effects on the a l l ies ' i ntero pe r abili ty and inevitably ·widen the tec hnolog ical gap between the two shores of the Atlant ic . FUTURE PROSPECTS
The Euro is a reality unde r every body's eyes. It is the result of t he political renounciation of an essen li al compo nent of the national sovereignt y of the
54
The lrnlian 1\rmed Forces a.re employed in peacekeeping operations in a number o(unstahle areas.
States: the power to coi n money. On the ground of common fore i gn polic y ( PESC) an d fo r e ign and sec u rity p olicy (PESD) the time is not ripe for th e confe r ment to a supernational body of s uch an important part of the sovereignty still jealously guarded by each Nat ion. Th e l esson s learned from t h e "Enduring Freedom" coa lit ion against international terror and the internat ion a l force or assistance and se c urity in Afghanistan revea le d a b itter reality: Europe d oes not have yet "one face, one voice, on e telephone n umb er" . To und e r s tand the nevv b a s i c trend s, we shall have to wait for the e le ction in France (Spring) and Germany (Autumn) , and for t he proposals which \Viii be p ut r o n ,v a rcl n ex t year at the European Conven tion. Waiting ror better Limes , the rapidintervention Europea n force cou Icl b ecome "pa rtially" operational in 2003 , and be employed in p eacekeep i ng or humanitarian missions b y mandate o r th e UN Security Council . NATO w ill take care of the rest.
D '~ Colonel, Chief; Plans Division, Joint Operational Com.m.and
NOTES (I) "Th e EU Cou nci l a nd the common security policy" . Internet: www. europa-eu .int. (2) ''Politics Among Nations", Hans lVlorgcnthau. 1948. (3) "Europe's New Defence Ambitions: Jrn plicalions for NATO, US and Russ ia" . P e ter Va n Ha rn, "The Marsh a ll Center for Security Studies, Pap er 200 1. Tt is a reference text for studies".
(4) "Lessons Learned fro m the NATO Experience in the Balkans". Sir John Goul den, lecture given in Mi lan o n Ap ril 2, 200 I . (5) "Their Own Armv' Mak ing th e Europ e an Defe n ce \,York", PT1 ili p Gordon, "Foreign Affairs", Aug us t 2000, p. 114. (6) Ibid. (7) It must be said that in 2000 the US devo ted lo defence 285 bi llion do llars (3 .2% GDP) and the E u ropea n s 165 b .i !J .i on d ollars (2 .1 <'/o) . Wit h un e nrnp loy rnn ct at 10%, the Europeans have d ifferent national priori ties. (8) An important point is t h e E u ropean shorta ge of assets s uch as a irlift, cru ise a nd PCM, w hic h are US rather than NATO assets. (9) Ra ine r Schwinh, "The l'vlilitary Dime ns ion o r the ESDP: ln Lcntio;.1 and Reali ty", o n ''Abecedaire"; J un e 200 1, p.:i3. (10) "Why I'm End ing Conscririio n",
Daily Telegraph, Feb. 22, 2002 by ivlanino: Jl n l ia n Minister Exp la ins Jli s Pla11 f"or a Smaller but More Efficient Defence Force to J ohn K ecga n, Dcf"ence Ed itor. ( 11 ) "European TntcgraL ion and Defencec : The Chimatc Challe nge"? Jolvo n How o nh , ln::; Lir ut e f"or Str~ tcgic Studi es W EU, Paris, May 2000, p.97. (12) Slogan co ined b.v Gen . Luigi Cali g.,ris. (13) On "European Defe nce; Makin g TL Work", ed ited by Fran cois H e is bou rg , lns i.it ute [or Strategic Sucl ics WEU, Paris, Sept. 2000, p. 48. (14) S uppress ion F:nem y Air Defence. (1 5 ) Air Command a nd Control System (ACCS), a complex control syst e m of NAT O a ir o pcr-al io ns . ACJ\llO s Lan ds for N ATO A ir Command and Control Sy stem Min . Anto n io
Management Organization . (16) " ll ow much d oc s t he EU Mi lit a ry Cap abili ty Cos t" :> Conn:rsation with P rofessor Se idc lman, Fra nk furt Univer:; itv . O beram m erga1 1, Marc h I , 200 1. (1 7) "Europe, Military Integ ra tion and the US"; Alessandro Corneli, " Forei gn Affairs", no . 123, Oc tober 2000, p.7 84. ( 18) "Crit ical Comments on ElJ's Foreign Policy"; Friedbert Pfluge r, Chairrn a n o[ l he EU Co mmi t lee in the Bundestag, on "/\heceda ire " , Junc 2001, p.53 . ( 19) Tt.il ian P r ime M in is tc ,- Si lvio Berl u.sconi, Lo the Jo int Com rn i ttees of Parliament, Feb.5. (20) "The Antin ornies of European Sec u rity: Du a l E n large me nt an d R eshaping t hc Europea n O r<ler, Adrian P rice, "Strategic S tudies", Summe r 200 I, i,. 138. (21) "Europe.:, Militar.v lntcgra t io n and the C'S", Alessandro Corneli. "
foreign Affain,, no. 123, October 2000, p.784. ( 22) "Wh i c h E urop e?" J\nt o nio .'vlartino "F oreien Affairs "no.123, October 2000, p.708. (23) Sec note 20. (2 4 ) "F ischer, Europe and the Instruments of its Di fficult .Journe_v", Giulia no Am a Lo, "Fore ign Affairs", no. l 27, July 2000. P.4 7 1. (2 5 ) " Presid ency R epo 1¡1 LO the Got.ehorg European Council on E u rope a n S e c ur ii.y and Defe n ce Polic v", Press R e lease 110. 9526/ i/OI, Brussels, Ju ne 11, 2001, i,ara 11. (26) '' lnl.ernati o nal Tc 1Torisrn: The European I mpacl ", Minister Anton io Mar¡tino, 38 th Con fercncc o n Sect.Lrity Pol icy, M u nich, r eb 2, 2002. (27) Lord Robenson, NATO Secreta ry Ge ne ral, "Speec h al the 38 t h M uni c h Con f" e r e n cc o n Securil_\' Policy", Feb 3, 2002 .
55
al @@(j§JllJ@(J!J fiJ@fJO@rJ fft(!)tf] f}([)fl&O~(f) ffs&a(JJU0@(1J3 dJfiJŽ t&@f!!JffJOlfPJ At present the centrality of the security policy has become central within the general framework of foreign policy. From this point of view, military strategy enhances its function as an instrument no more esclusively in the service of national interests but as a factor of support to continental security. A special structure has been created through the Maastricht and Amsterdam treaties in order to start a process of foreign and security policy known as PESC. Unfortunately we cannot avoid noticing unilateral behaviours that conflict with this common line. In this regard, we should like to have your comments. Through the various instruments adopted after Amsterdam and
56
Maaslricht, Lhc EU panners have d ec ided to strengthen a
"common" poli cy of security a nd defence, not a "s ingle" policy. Therefore P ESC is only a co mm on policy o f security and defence. If we had a sing le defence policy we should create a European Arm y. And thi s is not the case. The member Countries have decided that they will act
together when the common Eu ropea n values and interests are al stake. This does not prevent any state frnm ac ting alone if it perceives a threat to its esclusivcly national interests. It is true that in a globalized world and \.Vithin Llie framework of the European integration the area of
exclusively nat ional interests tends to shrink a great deal. PESC is also a process aimed a t constantly drawing toge ther the interests of the fore ign and 57
lzalian and Spanis h s ervicemen i.n Albania.
securi ly policies of the Partners . It is a long-term enlerprise, and one of Lhe toughest challenges in the context of the enlargement of the Un ion. Italy is increasingly becoming the frontier Country of Europe and has to keep watch not only on its security but also on that of the rest of the Continent. It is not by chance that Italy is considered one of the possible launching pads of the West to\.vards the Euro-Asian and Euro-African critical areas. It is a delicate role that implies a step forward also in the military and industrial sectors; a role that cannot be confronted without an adequate support by the Union. What is the attention given by the EU to the Italian geo-political situation? Italy is one of the found ing States of the European Union. As suc h, il has always played a leading role in the European construction and has al I the qualifications [or¡ asserting its function of fron t ier CounL ry before Cont inental and Mediterranean Europe. Along t.be years, and together with other Countries, it has also effectively endeavoure d to obtain tha t Europe would devote the attention and the resources inclispensa b le to main la i n systematic relat ions with those areas , which are part of our strategic environment . Such policies are in the interest of a ll EU Partners . The pr-oblems of those regions affect all Countries and not only those geographically close to lhem. In vievv of this, you are correct ly emphas.izing the importance of the security and industrial policies. Both develop in their particular context which, nevertheless, in both cases, is disting ui shed by the sea l of
58
Above. An Italian - Greek check.point in Albania.
Righl. A Spanish service,n.e n surveillance dutv.
of the
FMP on
increased sol idarity among the member Countries. The recent initiatives aimed at building a common European policy of security and defence not separate from NATO are giving rise to a lively discussion. There have been worries that this could lead to a separation of the European security from that of the non-EU Allies. Don't you think that, in the field of defence and security, Europe has a pressing need to increase its military capabilities in order to avoid being confined in the future to a useful, but limited, reactive role?
I have no doubts as to the need for the EU lo improve its capability or military action. This is of capiLal importance for a credi ble and effect ive foreign and security 59
Left. A German infantryman. Right. Ttalian, British and Gerrnan servicemen
employed by NATO in a peace mission in the Jimner Yugoslavia.
of several Countries and for the establishment of a more integrated and competitive industrial basis. To tell the truth, up to now, the results have been rather disappointing. In the light of the tragic September 11 and the Afghan conflict, can one foresee a relaunching of the industrial s e ctor of European defence?
policy. Considering its economic, financial and dip lomat ic i m porlance a t world level, the European Union must be able to assume greater responsibilities in the security sector. The cornmon policy o( secmity and defence has precisely this purpose. It is an open project which involves all E uropean Countries - be they candidates lo E U partnership or Euro pean Allies that are no t members or the Union - because the security of our Continent is 60
indivisible. This is what is firmly stated in the decisions of t he European Council and Lhis is what is occw-ling in reality. The new geo-strategic order has implied, among other things, a shrinking in the armament market and a reduction in the budget of Defence. As a consequence, there have been plans for a close cooperation both for developing programmes involving the common interests
After the end of the Cold War it was normal to decide to cut the budget of defence . But this has nol made the world more secure. The number of open confl icts has increased during the last decade. 'vVe must re-examine the question of the r esources for security. The development of a rea l and competitive ind ust rial and technological basis is part of this task. The nature of the th r¡eats to security has changed and so has the range of inst r um e nts necessary to counter them. In the vvorld, and in the solution o f crises, the socio-economic dimension has assumed greater impor¡ta nce. Nevertheless, we still need the military instrument because, when \Ve are faced by possible rogueries and acts of force, tb e threal of m akin g reco urse to a c redib le force remains an extreme deterrent and remedy. The events of Septe mber 11 have revealed new and exceptional challenges. In th is regard, the den:iocratically elected governments must pay attention to the wis hes and priorities expressed by public opinion, but they must also assume a leading role in explaining the real price to be paid in order to protect our societies and to preserve their security, d emo cracy and prosperity.
In your opinion, is a war no more among States, like the one we are fighting now, likely to remain an anomaly or could it become the kind of conflict most common in the future? The kind of war we will fighl in t he future will be different, because of two essential faclors: the nature of the act.ors involved in the conflict and the technological advances. On the scene of anned conflicts, the crises of the last decade have introduced nongovernmental bodies and also individuals, or groups of individuals, pursuing objectives differenl from the trad itional aims of the wars among Nations. The consequent asymmetry of warfare requires new answers. The revolulion in milit,uy technologies has produced new types of mililary resources which wi II change the future wars. Undoubtedly some systems bave
been conceived in order Lo respond more effective ly to the asymmetry of warfare. But T believe tbat conflicts and wars among States will not disappear, for a ser ies of reasons which generally concern the nature of international relations and certain local conditions of instability or rivalry. To settle conflicts, the European Union has developed an
alternative to force: cooperation and integration. This is why the foremost priority of our common foreign policy is to contribute to peace and cooperation among Nations and prornote the European model of integration.
D ;, Journalist, Contributor to ÂŤ La StarnpaÂť
Javier Solana Madariaga, a scientist gone over to politics and diplomacy, is the author of about thirty publications on the physics of solids and for some years has taught this subject at Madrid "Complutense" University. He is a member of the Spanish section of the "Club of Rome" and has been elected to Parliament in 1977. He has been a Minister in every government from 1982 to 1995. In 1995, Professor Solana was appointed NATO Secretary General and held this office until 1999. In the autumn of three years ago he was appointed Secretary General of the Council, High Representative of the European Union for the common foreign and security policy and Secretary General of the Western European Union. 61
or the first time in its history, with the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 the European Community affirmed its will to gradually establish a common defence policy. What has been clone since then?
F
T he Maastric hL Treaty not on ly introd uced the concep L of E uropean common defence, but .started a lso a common policy for fore ign affai r s and .sec u rity (PESC) and a E u ropean policy for defence and securi ty (PESD) . Certainly many steps fo rward h ave been made . The most
managernent bodies, such as the Politic.al Committee, the Military Committee and the European Mil itary Staff. After that, the individual Countries proceeded to decide on the size of their participation in the common effort. In t h is connection, Italy's contribution ,,v ill be equal Lo that of France, Germany and the United Kingdom. I am convinced that, by the end of 2003, this instrument will he fully operational, and capable of carry ing out autonomous operat ions of peacekeeping and peace-enforcing. Certainly, if this Maj or¡ Unit had already b een operational, Europe could have employed it in Afghanistan in support of peace, securily and President Karzai's policy. Within this framework, what are the prospects for the development of a European Security and Defence Identity?
interesting was that made in Helsinki al the end of 1999 when it was decided that, for Peters berg missions, the European Union would constitute a military operational instcument of 60,000 men with air and naval supporLs and, at the same time, establish some
Consistently ,,v ith ,vhat I j ust said, the very fact that a E uropean force is established, capable o r performing Petersberg tasks in a framework of full autonomy, means that this European Idenlity has already a concrete value. Certainly there are favourable
conditions for the development of a common policy in the field or security, but we still have a long way to go. The "landing p lace" could be the constitution of a European Army, within the general context of the Atlantic Alliance. But, in order to reach t h is target, it is necessary to achieve the appropriate synergies also in other connected sectors. Industrial cooperation is one of the most important: the operational effectiveness of the m ilitary instrument proceeds at the same rate of the development and updat ing of weapons systems. I am sure that \Ve a ,¡e on the right path, as shO\vn by the agreemen ls signed by Italy, Germany, Spain, S¡weden and the UK for promoting the integration o[ lhc European industries. What could Italy's role be in the perspective of a closer interconnection among WEU, EU and NATO?
First o r all it must be said that \I\IEU is progressively disappearing.
As regards NATO, it must be clearly noted that the All iance is a fundamental structure of Western security and defence. Italy's rnle will not be different 63
from the one played so far, approved by the Helsinki Resolution, Ou r Country undertook to give a contribution equal to that provided by the other main European Count6es - Germany, France and the UK both as regards the strengthening of the Atlantic pillar and the realization of European Securi ty an.cl Defence Identity. Let's not forget that the first plan of const ituting a European Defence Community (CED) was prepared by De Gasperi, together with Adenauer an Schum an . It was a very brilliant plan, which still retains its valid ity and deserves a high consideration. Our course, therefore, goes in this direction, and \ Ne are sure that we shall effective ly contribute to the construction of a common European defence, in close interconnection with the other side of the Atlantic. In an nternational scenario where organized crime plays an ever more destabilizing role, the activity of the multinational contingents engaged in Peace Support Operations becomes increasingly difficult. In this regard, also in the light of the experience made in the Balkans, how could the role of the Italian Army evolve?
To tell the tru Lh, organized crime is a subject by itself, even if there is a close interaction between crime . and other subversive activities. But I do not think that the fight against crime could fall within the responsibility of the Armed Forces which , as in other circumstances, can only be called to give their contribution to the Police Fo rces . In this regard, the activities carried out lately by the Army for the control of the national territory are very significant.
64
l Ii ke to mention "Vespri Siciliani", "Forza P aris" and many other operations. But I also believe that we should not go further than this kind of cooperation, even w hi.le carrying out peacekeeping missions. The problems related to the fig hL against crime are a p rimary responsibility of th e intelligence organizations.
Do you think that an enlargement tout-court of the Atlantic Alliance to the Countries of South East Europe could imply a weakening of NATO's politico-military cohesion, particularly in view of a presumably long fight against international terrodsm?
I don't think so. After the encl of the bipolar era, the fall of the
Above.
ltalia,z servicemen 011 surveillance duty in Lhe ce111re Kabul.
or
Left. patrol outside Barracks 57, in 1he 0111skir1s o( Kabu l. An l1alia11
Berlin \!\tall and Lhe di ssolu lion of the vVarsaw Pact, we legitimalely asked ourselves: does this Alliance, wh ich was born LO oppose the expansionist a in-1s of the Comm unist bloc, still have a reason to exist? Little by littl e we becam e aw a r·e of th e fact t h at, particula rly in the new politicoSlrategic scen ari o, whe re the great cha ll e nges are represented by asymmetr ic threa ts, th e Alliance is a sure defence ro 1· Western civi lizati on and the on ly fa1·-reaching instrument
cap ab le of intervening in support of the UN deci s ions, as i n fact happ ene d in seve ral c i1·c umstances . Vis-a -vis new threals, it was necessary to Cine! new strategies. As a consequence, th e n ew "strateg ic concep t" considers NATO not only a d efens ive pi llar, but als o a deci sive factor for the security of larger an d la rger geograp hical areas. In view of this, the enlargement lo the East cannot but strengthen th e sec urity p1·oject. Bu L the enlargement musl not be con s idere d just a mere coop ta tion. The Countries wishing Lo JOll1 the Atlantic Alliance "m ust have the ir papers in o rder". If they a rc to be ac cepted, th ey must not on ly guara nt ee go o d standards of efficiency and op erat ional capab ility on the
military plane , bu t a lso give a co ncret e de m onsLra t ion o r democracy and res pect of human rights . If il is so, then the enlargeme nt wi ll repres e nt a sure fa c tor o r reinforcement: as the number of the joining Nations grows, so grows the stabilily of the world's politico-stra tegic bala nces. Enlargement mea ns a lso to faci litate the relations with the Co unlri es wh ich are at the borders of lh e NATO organ ization. Thi s is especi a lly true for Ru ss ia, wh ich today begins to seriously consi der the possi b il i Ly no t on ly of b e in g involved in the present change, hut even lo become the 20 th fu llOedged member of the Alliance. A lot ha s been written on th e enlargcmen l issue but, I believe, in an inappropriate manner. The idea of establishing a European
65
Corps has i mrne<liately caused the fear that the initiative would bring NATO's inlernal cohesion into question. I've neve1· shared these fears . A united Europe cannot but make the Atlanlic Alliance even more so.lid. The Italian Anny is becoming more flexible, adaptable and projectable, proving to be an e ffective factor of cooperation in foreib>n and security relations. How can this trend be strengthened?
The trend can he ,·e inforced through a sound capitalization of the effort that the Country is making for i Ls defence. An Italian foreign policy projected towards the realization of the European political uni on, with equal rights and titles, requires a greater financial. effort. Macroscopic differences, such as the present ones, between the percentage of the GDP devoled to defence by our Country and the defence budget of the other major European Nations, are not acceptable anymo,·e. In this way, we disregard the commitment made with the Helsinki Resolution. Everybody knows, but is good to underline it, Italy, in percentage terms, spends for defence one third, two thi rds and one half of the amounts invested, respectively, by the British, the Germans and the French. On the contrary, if \Ve compare the Ilalian appropriations for· soc ial security, education, agriculture and other sectors with those of the other Counlries, we realize t hat the gap is be low one or two t hirti eths or downright nonexistent. So, what could be th e conclusion? H we proclaim out· w ill to contrihute to a European
66
Defence Identity, albeit limited to Petersberg missions; ir we want to participate v.1ith equal dignity in the realization of a comrnon foreign and security policy, ·with the European Arm y as the fundamental pillar; if we say that we \Vant all these things, then we are compelled - compatibly with the national economic situalion to make a grea ter effort for defence. Otherwise, we will continue to "carry coals to Newcastle". The value of a military instrument is not expressed only in the specific sector of security and defence policy and through the struggle against international terrorim. The Armed Forces are also a non secondary element through which the Country can exercise its influence and overall weight in international relations. Don't you think that today the Armed Forces could be an extraordinary factor of foreign policy?
Certainly, but not for a "gunboat policy", as was the case in the past. Today all the Countries in the wor ld converge in the fight against te rror, which is only possib le with two fundamenta l instruments . The first. is a coercive factor, which is expressed through the emp loy ment of the Armed Forces, indispensable [or peace enforcement or peacekeeping. The second instrument is the effort that lhe most advanced nations must make in order to eliminate the onset and growth or extremist movemen 1.s and to remove lheir religious fundamentalism, ideologic extrem ism, etc. This is \.vhat we have been doing and will continue to do with the operations in support of peace.
Terriwrial cor11rol is on e of the tas ks en/rusted to our co111inge n1 in Afghanis/an.
What is the net result, up to now, of our participation in peace operations?
Despite th e fin anc ial difficulties, the results achieved so far by our Armed Fm·ces have been very brilliant, thanks to the ha,·d work and professionalisru of our soldiers, who have been capab le of performing honourabl y in a ll types of emp loyment. All Italians must be grateful to them, for their dignified and efficient response to the s umm ons of the international community. Th is is witnessed
.
:--------------------1 b y tJ, e apreciation of th e Countries i n favour of wh ich we intervene a nd the considerat io n of their po litical an d reli gious leaders. I n con c lusion , lo give a pertin e n t answer to your q uestion, J w is h to confirm tha t, a lb eit w i th an e c onom icall y anaemic De fence, ou r personne l have given exce ll ent proofs of e ffi ci ency in all i n te rnation a l contexts. Unfortunately, d espite th ese g ratifying s u ccess, there w a s no t, in ter ms o f politi ca l returns, an adequate politi cal recognitio n as regards politic al re la tions .
n
'' Brigadier General, Ediror in Chief, Rivista Militare
'
....
-
Li e ut e na nt G e n e r a l (ret. ) Lu ig i Ram poni is a "Bei-sag lieri" Offi cer, a pil o t and a paratroop er. Afte r allend in g the St al'f course, he remained at the War College as a lecturer. Gen . Ra mponi co mmanded the l ~t Bersaglieri Regi men t , th e 8 th "Garibaldi" Brigade and the Military Regio n of Sardin ia . H e ca1.Tied out im po rtant m a nagerial tas ks within tl, e Central Organization of Defe nce , and held the office of President of t he Armed Forces' H ig h Council. As Militarv attache at t he It alian En1basS)' in \i\lashingto n, he wa s awarded the "Legion of Meritd e g ree O ff icer" for hi s wise diplomatic action ai med a t safeg uardin g the national interests and at keeping special relaLio ns o f frien dship with the Authoriti es of the Allied Nati on. H e has b ee n Co mm a n din g Ge neral of th e "Gua rdia di Fi nanza" and Director of SISMI, the .Military Security Senrice. Gen . R amponi is d eco rated w ith the Go ld M e dal fo r Air Na vigation, the "Mauriziana" Meda] and the K ni g ht Grand Cross, Order of' Merit of the Republic of lraly. El ec te d S ena tor with "All ean1.a Na ziona le " for the 12 1 h Le g islature , he has been Vi ce-Presid ent of the Anti -Mafi a Commiuee, member of the S ecuri ty Depa r¡tment of "Alleanza Naziona le", an d M embe r of th e AN Nat ion al Po li ti cal Exec utive. At present, Lieut . Gen. Luig i Ramponi is the Chairman o f th e House Defence Committee.
67
68
The following article is a continuation of the one presented with the last issue and points out the necessity to constitute two fully operational and highly projectable Division Headquarters. It describes their possible organization, distribution of responsibilities and tacticallogistic support. The capability of preparing and employing effective and credible Command-and-Control structures represents the real qualitative leap of our Service. n plan ning the forces to be assigned to NAT O, Ita ly, some tim e ago, undertook to pro vide a Division that was mea n L to be a ttached to the Britis h Rapid R eaction Corps (ARRC) in Germany. In 1995, after th e conclusion of the pre ventive accords with the Alli ed Nations, the S taff of the y·d I talian Division was established in Milan. Th is Command wou ld b e completed only in case of em ployment, using th e resources of the Projeclion Forces Command (FOP). Jn periods of operalional inact ivity, the activation Staff was located within th e FOP Command. T his solution, owing to the lack of perma nent resour-
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ces for tbe specifi c requirement, did not achieve the desired resu lts: in substance, the Headquarters of the y ·d ltalian Division never "LOok off". Th e HRL (F) Proj ec t, a lso im pl e mente d tbrough the transformation of the FOP Comm and into a Rapid Reaction Corps Hq, implies the n eed to find new so lut ions, aimed at fulfilling the earlier commitment undertaken with the ARRC. Funhcrmore, the HRF(L) proj ect brings in a new require ment: to supply th e nevv Corps with a Division. The Italian commitment meets the a bsolutely necessary operatio nal needs of the Corps. As a ma tte r o f fac t, the subordination bond of the forces assigned by the contribut ing Nations is Lhc o perational control (OP CO N) w hich , in pra c tice, makes it impossible for t h e Commander to as sign the mission to t he fo r·ces received. Thi s l imitation reduces the freedom of action of the Corps Commander a nd is incompatible with the need to have on hand a "rcserve"(l) without the previous a pp roval of the missio n by the contributing ations. The Italian proposal to ass ign a n OPCOM Division to the new Corps falls within th is context, safeguardin g th e Corps
J
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.69
COMPLEX OF RESOURCES TO BE PREPARED
X
<1.:~:J~ 1111
t=+-=-~
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l,~-~~JJ 1111 PERMANENT UNITS OF THE CORPS HQ 0 CS& css HOS IN SUPPORT TO THE RAPID REACTION CORPS Fig. l Comm and er w ho , even if destined lo ope rat e in pennanently rnulli nation al environments, will at any rate "wear'' an Italian uniforn;. The international comm itment s mentioned above imply the operational requirement of establishing two fully operational and highly projectable Division Headquarters. The Project also involved the Headquarters and units of tactical and logistic support (CS and CSS). Therefore, lhe CS and CSS Com rnands, with th e excl u sion of th e Air Cavalry Command, are an integral part of the "HRF(L) resotffce package" (Fig.1), wit h lhe a ddition of the "Friuli " Air Mobile Brigade, whose prior lask is the conduct of deep operations. Besid es, the CS Comman ds must provide rein forcements to the HRF(L), in order to move from a situation of peace lo one of war or crisis. The CS and CSS Comrnands of the land operational forces (F OTER) are organ i 1.ed as follows:
.1\.n MG 421.59 defending a sensitive point.
70
• Arti ll ery Group Command, located in PorLogruaro, suppo r ted by an "ad ho e" Command Team , in cluded in the unit in garrison, associated with· the "Vol Lu r n o" 3 rd Artillei-y (JVILRS) Regiment; • A/A Artillery Group, located in Padua, s upported by a speci fic Headquarters Comrnand; • Engineer Gro up Command, located in Udine, supported by an "ad hoe" Command Team, attac hed to the Unit in garriso n, associated with th e
y·d Sapper Regiment; • InformaLion and Ele c tron ic Warfare (IEW) Group, included in the C41 E \.V Command, al Am.io; • Air Cavalry Command, located in Viterbo; • Logis ti c Br-- igacle Command , localed in Treviso.
The re s ponse to the ne-.v r·equirements connec.led ,vith the HRF(L) consists in the operationa l reorgan ii.al.ion of t h ese I lead quarters, t urnin g lhem into CS/CSS Brigade Hqs, capable of exercizing their Command and Control over the suborclinaLe units in operations as well as managing lhe in garr iso n preparation of the su bordinate formations .
THE DIVISION HEADQUARTERS Organizational model In ord e r· to meet the Division Headquarters' operal.ional requirement, the solution adopted was based on the reorg ani za Li on of the In termediate Opernlional Commands (COINT). Tb.is setup envisaged a Di vision Hq "separated" from COINT but
orga ni zed with in its con1pas s (Fig.2). In pa11icular, the organizational mo del e n visages three .b asic compone nLs: • C OI NT Co mmand e r, responsible for the preparation and full up keep of the s ubo rdinate units and Comma nds; • Coordination S taff, tasked with the implementation of a ll the Staff ac tivities concern ing the prepara tion o f uni ts a nd Commands, the relations with COMFO T ER and the other Area Com m ands and th e mana geme nt of th e coo p eratio n with the othe r Institutions; • Divisi on Hq, respo nsible fo r p lanning and conducting the operations. The main characteristic of th is structure is the cons titution of the Planning Div Hq , w ith no subo rdin ate forces during periods of operation a l inactivity. Sharing of responsibilities At first sight, the o rganization of COINT i n thr·ee components co uld g ive rise to do ubts an d perplexities about the sharing of respo ns ib ilities, particularly be tween the Coordinat ion S taff and the Division Hq, a lso because th is orga n ization imp li es the adoption of mental schemes new fo r our Army. The organization of the new structure is based on the fo llowing c riteria: • The COINT Commander, as mentione d bef'o r e, is res p on s ible for th e perform a nce of !he assigned Lask, which is essentia lly to prepa re an d m ai ntain the read in ess and o perat ional capability levels of the Divis io n H q and subord inate Brigades. In the performance of this task, he a vai ls .h i m self of the Coordina ting Staff, which is in contact both with the Division Hq and the Brigades;
THE INTERMEDIATE OPERATIONAL HQ
Fig. 2
COMMANDER COMMANDER
111 PI
X
XX DIVISION COMMANDER I
Ill
Ill PERS
AOOI COCIM
P.P.8.
• Th e Di vision Comander is responsible for preparing and m a intaining the readiness and capability levels of the Division Hq . l n view o f thi s, he takes care of the individua l training and amalgamation of the Staff; • Upo n reception of a n order requ iring th e employme nL of a Di vision, th e Divis ion H q concerned begins to develop its pla nning and implements - also in connec ti o n with Lhe Brigades/Units whose allocation is planned (2) the arrangements envisaged in view o r the specific mission. Jn this phase, according to doctrine (3), COMFOTER acls as a "Mou nting Hq" (4) of the Major Unit. This procedure ca n also be adopted for the exerc ises in wh ich the Division Hq participates; • upon Transfer of Authority: •• the Divi s ion Coma ncler beco m es subordinate (FULLCOM/OPCO M/OPCO N) Lo a Corps Commander o r to a Fo r ce/Com po nent Commander; •• the Commanders of the assigned Brigades/Units arc transfe r re d und e r the Div ision Com ma nder (FULLCO M/OPCO M/OPCO I'\). Therefo1-e, the Divis ion
CHIEF
b ecomes a tac tical-l eve l "complex Major Unit", made u p of a variable number of Bri ga de s and rna noeuvre , corn bat support and log is tic suppon units(S). In shor t, COINTs w ill continue to exist, and \viii be respon s ible for the logis tic -administrati ve management and training of the s ubord ina te uni ls and Com man ds . Th e p res e nt Brigades w ill remain under the ir comma nd, wi lh the co -located men ti on e d Divis io n Head qu a rters . The latt er, together w ith the ARRC, are the real operation al instruments of the Army, a nd a re tasked with drafting the plans connected with the emp loyment opti ons, organiz ing co mpl ex training ac tivit ies an d w i II finall y be proj ect ed in Th ea Lre for the conduct of complex o perati o ns, assu ming Command/Control of the forces assigned to them . Division Headquarters to be cons tituted The Army, in orde r to meel iLs internationa l comm itme nts, will have to ensure the availability of: • two high -readin ess Division 71
Rangers of the 9111 Regimen 1.
1-Iqs, lo be assigned to the new ARRC at Solbiate Olona and to the one in Germany; • a third Division Hq , with a lesser degree of readiness ( 180 days), in a position to guarantee the in-Theatre rotation, in case of protracted employment, of one of the two abovementioned high-readiness Division Hqs. As a consequence, the I st and 2 nd Defence ForcesCOmmands (FODs) will produce the high readiness Divis ion Hqs, while the Alpine Troop Command will se t up the Div Hq w ith a lower level of reacli ness. In particular, the I ~L and 2 nd FO D Divisions, will be attached, respectively, to the Corps Hq at So l biate Olona and to the ARRC in Germany. The Co ordinating Staff
The Coordinating Slaff carries o u t the functions of a COINT 72
Staff in its capacity as preparation and rnanagement Command. Be.sides, it serves as a reserve of resources, in that it is a ready and spendable reservoir oC reinforcements for the Division. The Coordinating Staff is organized as fo llows: • Coore! inating General , res ponsib le, by authority of the COJNT Commander, for the COINT's routine adm i n islration; • Personnel Office, dealing with personnel issues (employment, legal-administrat ive aspects, t ransfer requests, personal records, status and promotions , awards and decorations, completion measures), legal advice/mi litary law, accidents and Military Representation of the whole COINT, including the Div Hq; • Security and .MP Office, as a directing body of the Military Police and security service within the COINT. Among other things, il supervises the sector's training and Lhe
technical-proressional updating of the Cadres; • Training and CIMIC Office for the JS 1 and the 2 nd FOO, as directing body and Staff for "training" functions and cooperation activities with other Institutions . It is tasked with: •• programming, coordination and contro l of training (exercise docurnen ls, training cl irectives and programmes, management of tra in i ng areas and rnnges), planning of COLll"Ses and a ir-cooperation activities; •• drawing up d irectives for the cooperation with other Institutions, and contacts 'With the appropriate civil ian authorities. Within the COTN T of the Alpine Troops, CIMIC is replaced by the rnoun tai n rneteorologic fu nction; • Logistic Office, d irecting body of the "preparation" and "in -
garriso n" logi st ics . It controls and coordinates all the activities of Tra nsport an d Materi a ls, H ea lth . a nd Vete rin ary Medicine a11 d Quartermaster Services, as well as the activities connected with Lhe management of Lhe infrastructure. • Pla ns, Programming and Budget Section, which : •• advises the Coordinating Gen era l and e very sec to r manager on the e mployment of the assigned funds; •• plans and conducts, on the basis of Lhc directives issued by the Coordina ting Genera l, and wit h the approval of the Coord inating Staff and Lhe var io us Branches of the Divis ion Hg, th e sharing out of fun ds lo the various bud ge t i tern s, the formulation of the employment p lans for the allocations and con trol on the employment of funds. A particu larly deli cate aspect is the one relevant to the direct connection between COINTS and Prefects . The re ference norms ass ign the exclu s iv e respons ibility for civil defence to the Minister of the Interior, who avails himse l f of his representatives, Prefects included, who arc responsible for public security at provincial level. The Prefec ts must also involve the COINTS respons ible fo r a particular territory. The direct connection between Prefects and COINTs could presen t so me diffi c ulties, a nd e ven satura te the COI NT's capabil ities (CIMJC Office of the Staff and possibly, Lhe malle r being ope rational, the GS of the Div is ion Hq), espec ia lly in the initial phases of analysis of the situation a nd assessment of Lhe threat to the nati onal territory, which Prefects carry out on I.he ir own initi ative at the beginning of cris es t hat could ha ve an
im pact on the rnetr opo l itan terri Lory. In order to a void the in co nveni e nce and assist the Prefects in the ir initial decisionmaking process: • th e Recruitment and Completion Force (RFC) Corn mand ers carry o ut an advisory function for the p rovi ncial Authori t ies (6) w it hin th e llimits of t heir autonomous ins Li Lu tional activit ies of e va lua tion and pl a nning; • the operational responsibility r e mains with in the COINTs , w h ich implement the
A "Ce11tauro" hec1vy armoured car.
p la nning/d irectiv es/orders issued by COM FO TE R in accordance vvith the d ec isions made within the n a tio nal d e cision - ma kin g process. The Division Headquarters T he structure of th e Div Hq conlains all the comp o nents necessary for performin g the task and , therefore, does not need reinforcements. T he conceptual b asis of the
organizat io n is th e "Command an d Contro l" , Ed. 1999 publication. Th e o rganizati o n into Bran c hes, from Gl to G6, closely mirro rs the functi onal organi1.a tion of a Major Unit Command Post, as outlined by the Pu blication, which can be co nsult e d for furt her inforn1ation. Briefly, in opera tion, the Div Hq can constitute, two Command Posts (Ma in and Su bs t i tut e) capable of: •plann ing, coordinating a nd syncronizing all the operational functi o ns conn ected with the Fulfilmen t of the miss ion; • avoidin g to assem bl e a ll functional areas in a single physical stn.1cture;
• assigning the development of the decision-maki ng activity to a sp ec ial bod y (Decision Centre); • preserving the one ness of the Command and Control functi on; • e nsuri ng the contin uity or the Com mand an d Con tro l functions in case of neutra li zation or tra nsfer of the Command Post. 1n part icular circu mstances if a Main CP and a Rear CP musl be
73
Fig. 3
THE COMMAND AND TACTICAL SUPPORT UNIT II
Hq
I
Log Spt Hq
Services
COMPONENTS:
C:J LOG & TAC C:J SERVICES
SPT HQ
realized in accordance with the crilerion of modularity, Lhe Main and Rear CPs can respectively assume the functions of: · • Main, wh ich assemb les the cells in charge of the funcLions connected with the development of the tactica l n1anoeuvre; • Rear, which assembles the cells in char·ge of the logistic manoeuvre and the personnel and aclministralion management. As a consequence, the Main and Substitute CPs, in order to be capable of replacing each other, have a specular structure as regards the Funclional Areas but keep different physical and organizational structures. Tactical and logistic support The Lactical and logistic support to COlNT is supplied by the Command and Tactical support Unit, a battalion -level formaLion tasked with: • logistic and sccurily supporl to the Division H q; • realization and management of the Headquarters' communication syslem (7); • upkeep of the infrastructure 74
and support to the functioning of the COINT's Coord1naLion Staff. The Support Unit, permanently subordinate to the Division Commander; is organized in two separate functional cornponenls: • logistic Command/Support and Communications, formed by the modules [or the support, security and management of the communication system of Lhe projected Div Hq; • services, tasked with the ingarrison support to the Coordination Staff. The projection o[ lhe Division, enLails the constitution of a "Battalion Detachment". This formation includes a Command Centre and a Service Cornpany,which will also comprise the C4 module responsible for the managernenL of the infrastructural systems of commun icaLions and informaLion (C4 "perm". plat.) . CS AND CSS COMMANDS Organizational model Within lhe revision of the FOTER's structure, ai rned at acquirin g the capabilities
envisaged by the Army Operational Concept, a study has been developed for transforming lh e Group Commands in to CS/CSS Brigade Headquarters, divided in two sections: one for the in-garris on preparation of the subordinate units (a function which must be assur·ed with cont inuity, also in case of e1nployrnent of the projeclable part) a nd lhe other tasked with the establishment of the Peculiar Commands in operations, or with the spec ialisl ic reinforcements of othe r· Commands engaged in operations. The organizational models of the study can be called "separate. Su·ucture model" (Fig. 4) , in that it makes a c lear distinction belween the two sec Lions. The ma i-keclly operational characterization of the HRF(L) project: • does not exclude lhe need to r:neet the doub le "simultaneous" requirement or preparation and projection; • caUs for a close coordination vvithin the CS Co.m.mands in operations; • increases the working load of the CS Command; • has changed Lhe decision made eadier for the CS Commands and adopted inst ead the "predetermined fracture" model (Fig.5). The selection o[ lhis model, ali-eady ado pted for the manoeuvre Brigade-Headquarters responds also to the stanclardizati on requirement with in Lhe similar organizational structures of Lh e Service, perrnitling to adopt doctrine and procedures already developed and tes Led for the manoeuvre Brigades . For the CSS Brigade, on the conlrary, the separateslructure model ·was adopted. Later we shall discuss the essentia l organizational elements of each individual body.
The Logistic Brigade Headquarters
SEPARATE-STRUCTURE ORGANIZATION MODEL
The Projection Logistic Brigade Hq . is FOTE R's on ly CS S Con1mand, and a lso the sole CS/CSS Command adopting the separate structure . This deci sion derives fro m Lhe Command's heavic1· b urden, in terms of work and functions. In fact, the Projection Logistic Brigad e Hq ., bes ides guaranteeing the fun ctions of ingarrison generic and speci ric preparaLion (for one or mo1-e adhe rence support. groups (GSA) in favo ur of Lh e s ubordin a le un its, will have to ass ure both the "Supporting" Command funct ion or the Corps and play the in -theatre Nati onal Logis l ic Command ro l e (in case of deployment of the R eaction Corps; if a lesser contingent Divis ion or Bri ga de is deployed, Lile onlv deployed GS/\ will operate also as in -Theatre National Logistic Command). The CS S Com mand 's organi za Liona l s tru cture en visages two Deputy Commanders; one "support" (Colo ne l) and one "ope rati ons" (Brigadi er General), respons ible for the rwo "rnacrofunctions". For the performance of his tasks
1 - -- - t- --t-i Sp t Coy
~ Spt
I
I
II
EJ D
I
II SecOff L
I
PROJ ECTION COMPON ENT
ARTILLERY, A/A ARTILLERY AND ENGINEERS BRIGADE HEADQUARTERS
X
Ill TAC& LOG SPTCOY
I
HF.ADQUART£RS
I
DCDR
II CHIEF OF STAFF
ORG TNG INFO
IN-GARRI SON CO;\IPQNE~T
C4
LOG
ROJECT ED COMPONE T
X
111
COMMANDER
DCDR
II CHIEF OF STAFF
STAFF
Fig. S
B
II Ops & Plans
Off
Fig. 4
each Deput~' Commander avails h imself of a Staff; .in particular, th e Deputy Co mman der fo r O perations makes use o f the Operations and Plans Office vvhich, in case of projection, tran s fcr·s th e trainin g Office und er the Deputy Com ma nder for Support. Fi nally, we underline that the na me "Brigad e" , a pp are ntly in contrasL with the Commander's rank (Major Genera l) was adopted in order lo stress the organ iza tion a l leve l of the prnjected Headquarters, as well as to maintain the level of cei·tain allowances for the personnel of
COMMANDER
II
I
the subordinate Manoeuvre and transport Regiments . The Brigade Headquarters (Artillery, AJA Artillery, E ngineers) The planned reorganization envisages the CS Commands as B1·igade Headquarters with co m p let e fun ctio ns . In pa rticular, the orga nizat ional stn1cture: • adopts the "Brigade" denomination (ins tead of "Gro u p") w hich, by ana logy witb what was done for I h e Logistic Brigade, entitles its personn el Lo an "ope rntion ale rnployme nt a llowan ce" ident ical to tha t or Lhe other units; • includes two "prede termin ed fracture" structures, ca pable of car ry in g out two "macrofu nctions": "in-garrison preparation" and "in-operations specialislic Brigade"; • envisages the fi gure of Chief of Staff (a Lieutenant Colonel on Staff duty) and organizes the Peculiar Com man d like th ose of the m a noeuvre Brigades; • provides for the orga nizations of the Offices in such a way as to make then1 qualitatively and qu antit a ti vely ca pa bl e, of carrying o ut all Brigade-level Staff functions. At any rate, the 75
Fig. 6
THE INFORMATION PROCESS
X
XXX
IHRF I
~
RISTA
0
>
~ --R_F_11_c _c_1R _/_P_IR_ _
<
0
ELABORATION
I
C
DIFFUSION
0
0i
0 R
D E R
T
s
I
0 N
LEGEND:
RFI: REQUEST FOR INFORMATION CCIR: COMMANDER CRITICAL INTELLIGENCE REQUIREMENTS
ID
l~,~~~JJ
PIA: PRIMARY INTELLIGENCE REQUIREMENT
strength of a CS Command is about 50 % of a man oe uvre Brigade; • includes all person ne l earm ark ed for lhe rein force ment of the HRF(L) H q. within th e Plans Seclion of the Operations Office, \vhich is also a "flyw heel" of skille d human resource s, a t the Commander's disp osal w hen n ol em pl oyed by the HRF(L) ; • lists the "jo b d escripti ons" dovn1 to S ec tion- Chief level; later, al so those of the Pl ans Sections will b e worked ou L wit hin th e HRF(L) Project. The RISTA EW Group Hq As regards the RISTA E\1\1 co mpo nent, consider in g i ls present inclusion in the C4-IEW Co mm and , it \,Vas deci d ed to re organi1. e the IEW G roup Command, training it into ISTAR EW Group Command, in order to have on hand the human and organizational resources suitable fo r: • consti tu ting, in operations only, the RISTA EW Group Command;
Riflemen training in a swampy area.
76
• sett ing up intelligence and counterintelligence acti vi lies based on Lhe requests made by Lhe Corps Hq. (1); • organizi ng the search (2) and collection ( 3) o f intelli gence data , based on the requests made by the Corps Hq.; • processing (4) and releasing (5) intelligence data in favou r of the Corps Hq. and its Ita lian Units. The constitution of the RlSTA EW Gro up is a fir st step to wa rds the acquisition of a real capabil ity in lhe specific sec tor and , in the short term, can meet the ob lig ation a ssume d w i th in the HRF ( L) projec t.
• rein forci ng th e P r ojec tion Corps in the G2 sector.
The Airmobile Brigade
In s ubs tance, the permanen t structure of the RISTA EW refers only to Lhe "operntions/Intelligence" branch, \vhile fo r lbe other b ranches the structure wi ll be completed , only in case of employmenl, with personnel from the C4IEW Command. In o p era t ions, the Group includes only nat ional RISTA and E\,V units, either subordinate or attached, and is suitable for:
The acquisition of a Brigade-level air mobile capability derives from the Service's need to s pli t the ai rm ob i.le uni ts between the "combat" and "s upport" m acroareas. In partic ular, the "Fr iuli" B rigade H q. has been selected for the "combat" area, with the same organ ization as tl1e other manoeuvre B1igades of the Army. 'Within the HRF(L) project it is en v isaged th at, in cas e of
employment, the "Friuli" Airmobile Brigade be assigned to the HRF, in order to, give the Corps the airrnobile capa.bility necessary for in-depth operations. Fu rthennore the "Friuli", like the CS Commands, must be in a position to provide the HRF( L) with the necessary reinforcemenls for its transition from PE to WE/CE. In the specific sector, the Arn1y doctrine is represented by the Pubblication "The Operations of the A.irmobile Un its ", which envisages a Command-ancl control chain organized as follows: • Airrnobile Force Commander, coincident with the Air Brigade Commander, responsible for the detai led plans and execution of the operation. The Commander of the airmobile force is normally entrusted with the OPCON, and he exercises it over all the forces under his command in the speci fie operation; • Commander of the helicopter component coincident with lhe Commanders of the attack or transport helicopter regiments, depending on whether- the operation is airmechanized or airmobile. He is subordinate to the Commander of the airmobile force. He also provides specific advice on Lhe employment of helicopters and, therefore: •• participates in the planning and drawing up of orders; •• provides the operation Commander with advice on the poss ib ilities of employment or helicopters; •• submits to the Commander of the operation the specific logistic 1·equirements of the helicopter units; •• supervises the connection and liaisons that the helicopter units must set up with: ••• the operation Commander and the units of the land component;
THE C2 CHAIN IN AIRMbBILE OPERATIONS
Fig. 7
COMMANDER JOINT FORCES
OTHER COMMANDERS
COMANDER MAJOR UNIT OR LAND COMP
OTHER FORCES (')
COMMANDER AIRMOBILE FORCE/BOE
+-(D-+
COMMANDER AIR COMP
AIR FORCES
r - - - --{ 2 >--- - - ,
COMMANDER HEICOPTER COMPONENT
COMMANDER LAND COMPONENT
•
rn LEGEND:
<D
OPCOM
(D OPCotl
<D
TACOU
@
TACON, limited to some
© Coordination
phases of ol)ffiltioo
(!)
TACOWfor JMTop
••• Lhe A/A units and the Agencies responsible for airspace control and air-tactical surveillance, for the aspects closely connected with the conduct phase. Th e Airrnobile Force Commander entrusts the Commander of the helicopter component with the TACON, to be exercised in general over all the helicopter units engaged in Lhe operation. In case of emp loyment oC Attack Helicopters within a .IAAT tactical air support, the helicopter component Commander nornially becomes responsible ror the operation. He
(D Suuport
\') If the Bde Cdr is also the Cdr for in-depth or JAAR ops
must therefore have al his disposal the equipment (usually he] icopters) and the commun ication systems which enable him to personally control the action and keep in contact with the SAOC team of the land artillery, the Commander of the EA units and the FACs. • Commander of the land component: coincides with the Commander of the land unit attached to the airmobile force, and is directly subordinate to the Commander of the airmobi le force. He is responsible for carry.ing out the "land" phase of the opera.L ion and for other possible tasks assigned to him . • Commanders of the a ir cavalry units (Corps). 77
THE AIRMOBILE-BRIGADE HQ X Cdr's Sec
Commander
Ill Deputy Commander
Chief of Staff
MP
Personnel Office
Logistic Office
C4 Office
AIRMOBILE OPS AIR FORCES LIAISON METEOROLOGY
Fig. 8 Furthermore, the Headquaners "flight safety" under the direct must h a ve the expe nise co ntrol of th e Brig a de ne c essary for Corn man d an d Com mander; Control of all compon enLs • keep the responsibili ty for land con ducli.ng in-dept h operations and a ir fire, eng ineers , EW, ( RISTA , la nd an d air fi 1-e , etc .; engineers, EW, etc.). • mainta in the o,-ganization of a In acco rdance with the above m anoeuvre-Brigade Hq. als o co n ceplu al elements, th e as rega rds th e constitu tion of organiz ati on ado pt ed for Lhe th e Co m mand Post in Airm ob ile Brigade 1-Tq . (Fi g .8) opera tions; can: • envisage, like the manoeuvre • assi g n the fu n clion of Brigades, the constitution of a n he l i copter - co rn p on e n L in-gan-ison Detachm ent in case Commander (8) lo the Brigade of emplo yment of the Majo r De puty Commander, rath e r Unit; tha n to one of the • in clu de , I i ke the CS Comrnande,-s of the Air Cavalry Co mm a nds , all personne l Regiments; des tined to reinforce the • lake as b asic refenc e the HRF (L) within th e Pl ans organi1.aLion of a m anoeuvreSect ion of th e O perations Brigade Hq ., with the addi tion Office. of particular function s such as "airmob ile o p erat io ns" , The adoptio n of the ahovesaid "conneclion with ai r fo rces" organization gives the Army the and "meteorology" within the C2 cap a bility necessary fo r Op s, Tn g, In fo O ffice , and co n ducting airmobile
78
o pcralio ns, keeping at the .same time the capability of e mpl oying t he Brig ad e lfq . as Headq u arte ,-s of a n isolate d land contingent. This gives the "Fri uli" Br igade a un ique versatil ity within t he Service. O n the other hand, still under considera t ion are the issues connected w ith the employment of the S O ATCC ( Ta ctical Sigh ting Command and Control Subsys te m) which , integrated with the C2 SI AC CO N .system ,vill g ive the Brigade Hq. Lhc a u to ma ted cap a bili ties indispensab le for the exe rci se of Co mma nd and Con lro l in an a irmobilc operation. Mo1-eover, the organiza tion of lhe Co mmand Pos t s in Op eraL io n ·will ha ve t o he [urther developed , wiLh p a rticular refere nce to t he constitution o f a h eli cop te rbo rne TAC CP, in order to give the h e] ico p ter-compo nent Command er, or t he Airmobilc Force Commander, the possibility of effecti ve ly c ont ro ll ing Lhe dev e lopm e n t of the act io n , k eeping i n c ont ac t ·wit h the S AO C Lea rn of the land art i llery, the Comm an der of th e A llac k H eli co p ter and for ward airc ontrol un it. The Air Cavalry Group The Ai r Cavalr y G rou p Com mand , result in g from the reorganization of the Air Cavalry Com mand, heads the "support" area. The re for e it doc s no L comprise any structure destined to p roj ecti o n, incl usive of t he pe rs on ne l d estine d to the reinforce the HRF(L). Actu ally, the latter is concentrated \Vithin the Headquar te rs of t he Ainnobile Brigade. The problems connected wit h this new configuratio ns are still be ing s tudied, considering thaL these m eas ures are closely co n nec ted 'W ith the de ci sio n a bout the Command to ·which the
functions previou s ly performed by the Air-Cavalry Inspector will have to be entrusted. These functions no\N fall within the sphere o f the Air Cavalry Command. Another ele rnent of the study w i ll b e tbe and reorga.n i7.ation subordination of the Ai r¡ Cavalry Training Centre. Particular organizational decisions
We have already mentioned the presence of the Plans Sections within t he CS Co mmands and the "Fr iuli" Bri gade Hq .: they so lve the problem o( th e reinforcements to the Corps Hq., and are a flywheel of quali fied human i-esources for the whole Army. But the personnel destined
to the re inforcem ent of th e HF R( L) Co mmand , envisaged w ithin the CS Commands/ "Friuli" Hg. does not completely me et the need of augmentees necessary to bring the Corps Hq. to t he CE/WE leve ls. The remaining personne l will have to be found within other structures of the Service (J.FS,ISPEL,etc.) through the designation of personnel already in service \.vith those bodies or their subordinate units. In this way it is possible to meet the sp ec ific requ irement without additional burdens. Besides, the CS Command are characterized by their peculiar¡ functions, con nected with their special equipnient (A/A system, combat he licopters , etc .). In order to b et ter g uarantee Ll1 e "logis tic" managemme.nL of these
riflemen squad on a \IM-90 protecting a logislic cornpound.
11
materials the Logistic Office of the A/A Artillery Brigade, the Air Cavalry Group Command and the "Friul i" Hq. h ave their own "Special ivlaterial Section" . F inally, it must be underline d that the present reorganizat ion process considers these Commands responsible for some highly specialized sectors. In fact, within the Pla ns Sections as well as in th e Special Ma terial Sections the re are personnel who, ovving to their training and their assign ment, have a great deal or experience in the field o( the Army's most sophisticated systems.
79
Fig. 9 THE TACTICAL AND LOGISTIC SUPPORT COMPANY
Commander
Hqs Platton
Svc Platoon
Hence the advisa b ility of establishing a link between the CS/CSS and the respective Branch Schools. This liaison, typically "cultural", could take place through the "ad hoe" employment of the specific personnel, forming a "virtuous circle" which woild prevent the dispers ion of the experiences acquired, and multiply their spinoffs within the ServiceNevertheless, when necessary, it will always be possible to entrust the CS/CSS Commands with the executive activities needed to ca1Ty oul the theoretical projects assigned to the School Commandants (Branch Deputy Inspectors). Tactical and Logistic Support
The need to exert the C2 (·unction on Lhe subordinate units entailed the necessity to provide Lhe CS/CSS Commands wit h a specific support-instrument. During the study phase, in line with the need to establish "real" Brigade Headquarters, it was deemed necessary to proceed to the establisment of Command and Tactical Support Units .identical, or at least very similar, to the corresponding formations envisaged for the manoeuvre Brigades. This possibility is certainly suitable for solving the problems connected with the support to the CS/CSS
80
In-garrison Unit
Cornmancls, but is not achievable at the moment, considering that the Army does not have on hand the necessary human resources. Besides, taking into accoun t that the CS/CSS Commands will have to operate within the corps Hq., the decision to establish "heavy" support organizations could be excessive and cause the overloading of the C2 structures of the Corps as a whole. In view of this, it was decided to adopt a "light" model, envisaging: • for the Artillery, A/A Artillery, Engineers and CSS Commands:
formation of TacLical an d Logistic Support Companies (Fig. 9) divided in lo two sections, one for the in-gan-ison support and Lbe olher for the support in operations; •for · Lhe RIST.A EW Grnu p Command and Air Cavalry : eslablishmenl of a Tactical ai; cl Logistic Platoon, res pectively destined Lo the support of the RISTA EW Group in operations, and of the Ai r Cavalry Group in garrison. The Airmobile Brigade, on the contrary, has a Tactical an d Logistic Support Unit identical to that of the manoeuvre Brigades, owing to the Brigade's double capability (airmobilc and land) and to its possibility o f operating independently of the Corps Headquarters (deep operations) At present, there are no signal units particularly tasked with connecting CS/CSS Commands and subordinate units. This task is carried out by the Signal Regiment of the Corps, which is A checlcpoint in Kosovo.
ACRONYMS ARRC - ACE RAPID REACTION CORPS; FOP - PROJECTION FORCES; HRF(L) -HIGH READINESS FORCE (LAND); C.A. - ARMY CORPS; OPCON - OPERATIONA CONTROL; OPCOM - OPERATIONAL COMMAND; TACON - TACTICAL CONTROL; FULLCOM - FULL COMMAND; CS - COMBAT SERVICES; CSS - COMBAT SERVICES SUPPORT; SM - STAFF; PM - MILITARY POLICE; RFC - RECRUITMENT & COMPLETION FORCES; CIS - COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATIONS SYSTEMS; Ca. SM - CHIEF OF STAFF; RISTA - RECCE, INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, TARGET ACQUISITION; EW - ELECTRONIC WARFARE; EA - ATTACK HELICOPTER; FAC - FORWARD AIR CONTROL/CONTROLLER; SAOC - SURVEILLANCE, TARGET, ACQUISITION, TACTICAL LINK; IFS - TRAINING & SPECIALIZATION INSPECTORATE; ISPEL - ARMY LOGISTIC INSPECTORATE; F.A. - SERVICE (Army, Navy, Air Force, Carabinieri); C2 - COMMAND & CONTROL PC - COMMAND POST
also organized for the C4 support o[ the Command Posts of the CS/CSS and its units. As a whole, the decision on the support to the C2 fun ction of the CS/CSS Commands w ill have to be examined and p ossib ly pe r-fccted a fter the valida t ion process carried out by the Corps Hq. As a matter of fact, only after a cycle of exercises on the ground it w ill be poss ible to procee d to a full ass essm e nt of the requirements an d find out possi bl e or ga nizat ional redunda ncies . CONCLUSIONS
Th e capab ility of prepa ring an d ernploying effe ctive and credible Command and Con trol structures is a real step forward in the qua ! i ty of the Army. In this co ntext, the re introdu ction o[ the d ivis ional level as Plann ing Command ,viii have
important spi n -offs on t h e instrument's readiness, an d so wi ll the establishment of the Ra pid Rea ctio n Co rps at So lbiate. It is therefore indispensable Lh at the Di visi on Hgs b e perceived as the "rnison d'etre" of th e ir Inter.m ed iate Operational Commands, in that they are their rea l o peration al express ion. The efficiency of the Division Hqs will be r e peated ly and care fully scrutinized by NATO and EU, i.e. b y the fi n al " users " of the ca pab iliti es they are a ble to express. T he reorganization of the CS/CS S Commands is the consequence of the operational u p g r a ding of the CS/CSS Commands, which makes them comparab le to manoeuvreBrigade H eadquarters w ith full fun ct ions. At the e nd o f the process, the CS/CSS Commands will be capable of exercising th e
C2 fun ction on t he ir unit s in o perations guarantee ing, at the sa me time, t he cont i nu os manageme nt, preparation , and mai n ten a nce at the hi ghes t operation al - readiness !eve.I , of the in-garrison units. Furthe rmore, the inclusion of the "Pl a ns S ection " in t heir organi zatio n on the one hand s olves t he pro blem of re inforcements for the Corps Hq. a nd, on the oth er, makes a reservoir of qual ifie d hu man resources availab le to the whole Army.
0 ,·, Lieutenant Colonel, Force Organization Office, Army General Staff ·:.-;, Captain, Force Organization Office, Army General Staff
NOTES (1) Complex of "free" forces, to which
the Comma nder mus t be in a position to assign m issions with Cu ll a utonom y and d ec is ion-m aking power. (2) T hese Brigade/Units could also belong to the FOTER supports or to a COlNT d iffere nl from that of the Division Headquarters. (3) P ublication "Command and Control - Ed.1999", par 7 .e. (4) Mou nting: all pre parati ons relevant to the area st:lected for a n o peration. They include the assembly in the area, t h e preparation and maintenance w ith in the area, the movement to the loading points and the subsequent e mbarkat ion on s hips , boats or aircraft { AAP6 Ed .95). (S) See "Military Nomenclator /\rmv - Ed. 1998". (6) On the o ther hand, th is function is already included in the in-garrison responsibilities. (7) The communication system of the Division as a Maj o r Unit w ill be rea lized b y a proj ec tio n Si gna lregiment. (8) The doctrine describes him as a "s pecialistic" adviser to the Brigade Commander entrusted with plann ing tasks. Therefore it seems appropria te to "raise" his position a bove the Air Cavalry Regimen t-Commanders.
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After the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the initiative of deploying a peacekeeping mission to Afghanistan has he.en taken at international level. The aim was that 路of assisting interim institutions in Kabul and create the legal framework necessary to establish a multi-ethnic reconciliation government. Our Armed Forces take part in the multinational force, made up of troops from 18 nations, with a joint contingent of 360 men, (326 from the Army and 35 from the Carabinieri ), which deployed in Kabul between January 15 and February 15 of this year. The Italian soldiers have once more proved to be efficient, professional, sympathetic and have gained the gratitude and appreciation of the local populations. ORIGIN OF THE MISSION The !11ter11atio11al Security Ass is t a n ce Force (JSA F) wa s establi s hed by Sec uritv Council R esolutio n no . 1386, dated December 20,2001, based o n the Bonn ag r eem e nls (1) of Decen1ber 5, 200 I. An intern at ional force was thererore deployed to Kab ul and ne ighborin g areas lo a ssist the Interim Authority in stabilizing the Afghan capital and creating the lega l fram ework necessary to establ is h a rnulti -el hn ic reconciliation governm e nt. The a im was that o r guarank e ing the p eace ful an d d emocratic co habitat ion of different eth nic groups in a country pl agued by decades or war. The m ission is part o f the initiati ves taken after the tragic events of Septe mber 1 I , 200.1, w hich spu rred the US to lead an international coalition again st world-wide terrorism . The role of Lead Nation in Lb e ISAF m iss ion has been in itiallv assigned to the United Kingdom, while Tu rkey w ill probably take over in June 2002. The multinational contingent is ma de up or more than 4,600 troops f'ro m 18 countries (2) and is ba sed on a Di vis ional Command (UK), a multinational Brigade Command (in iti a lly UK, presenll y GE) , 2 Battl e Groups (led by the UK and GE
resp ective ly), plu s combat s uppo rt and co mb at service suppo1-t assets. Majo r Gen e ra l John Mc Co ll (UK) is the contingent Commander. lSA F rea che d its initi al operational capability on .Janua ry
the Ta lib an regim e and t)Je en s uing esta blishm e nt of a tran s itional government led by Amid Karzai. Given th e d is tance from port facilities and the poor conditions of Lhe road network, Lroops were m ainly depl oyed by airlift , an
16, 2002 , and bec ame fully o p erational on Februa ry 18, 2002, when th e force inflow to the theatre was completed. Th e mission carried o u l bv ISAF is di ffe re nt from that o路r Opera Lion Endu rin g Freedom. The latte 1路 was the air -land battle waged by the US in Afghanistan to support th e North Alliance, toge ther with the multination a l force. lt ended with the demise of
A
IW1f!.er
with $0 11/e Afghan children.
operation whic.:b was particularly dif'ficult , as only one suitable airport was initially available (Bag rarn). On ly at a later stage, the Kabul Inte rnational Airport, dul y repaired , was em pl o_ ed . Moreover, airlift opera tions were som e times affected by adve t路se weal her conditions, taking a lso
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0
Map of Kabul.
i nto account t hal airc r aft approach and landing p roc edures we re carr ied out lhrough visual obsenration, as no instrumental a s sistan ce w as available.
THE AREA OF OPERATIONS ISAF Area of Operations (AO) and Area of Responsibility (AoR), spanning o ver approx . 1, 390 Km 2 , overlap with the Kab u lBagram area and include t he road network linking th ese two towns. It is a low fl at area, 60 krn lo ng and 25 to 6 Km large , ·whose elevation ranges from 1800 m in the Southern sector (Kabul) to 1500 in t he Northern se ctor (Bagram). The latter is closed up w ithin an intricate ar ray of
84
narrow valleys and mountains, which can reach an altitude of 4600 m . Kabul a nd Bagram are 60 km apart. Off-track movements are not allowed, given the presen ce of scattered m ines . There is a continental-type climate, very hot a nd drv in summer and cold in winter.- Terrain fea tures include b arren mountains, desert -like slretches of land and green a nd c ulti vated va ll eys , whose characteristics vary a t different altitudes . In the Kabu l plateau (1 ,76 5 m) temperatures reach 40°C in the shade during summer and - 20°C d uring winter. It snows fr o m mid-Decem be r to early l\ilarch (snow level can reach 2 m). Rain fall averages 500 m m per ye ar an d the most rainy mon lhs are March and April. The temperatures rapidly shift from 20°c in lale March lo 30°C in late
May. In June there are mosquitos and dust ·winds.
THE AIM OF THE MISSION ISAF is ai me d at support ing inlerim political institutions in Afghanis ta n (IA - lnl erim Aut horit y), c reating t he c on di ti o ns necessary lo reintegrate the country into the in t ern a ti o nal co rn mu n i ty, based on the ter ms established by the Bon n agreements . T he F orce is tasked to : -assi st th e inter im authori t ies in keeping a safe environment in Kabu l and ne ig hbo ri ng areas; -conduct patrol operations in the AO; -support the Afgha n government in the reconstruction of the country (also in t he humanitarian sector); -co-operate wit h local
a uthori ties in the establis.h ment of new secu rity struclures, the Arm ed Forces i ncl u ded, and organize training a ctivilies; . The m ission en lails the same risks as those of all "crisis mana geme nt" o p e rnti o ns , bu L lhese risks are worse ned by an unstable situation, the presence o f m ines and u nexplo d ed ordnance and a dverse weathe r cond itions. The main malters of concern are: -a cli mate of hidden te nsion , linked to the presence of Taleban elements a nd Al Qaeda operatives in the Kabu l area, who are not easily ide ntifiable amo ng th e local population; -war operations ca rried out in several Afghan region s again st the last pockets of resistance US, during Operation Enduring from the Taleban a nd former Al Freedom, Qaeda members, who we re not -loca l int e r-e thni c strives, mopped up by pro-govern me n t a im ed a t contro lling t he m ai n and Coalition forces led by the provinces o[ the nation.
THE 1-IlSIORY Afghanistan connects the Mediterranean -Iranian M_iddle East to the Indian subcontinent and is an important strategic linchpin at the intersection of the main trade routes (''the silk road") and axes of expansion. In the III Centu11' B.C., following in the footsteps of the Persian Kings Cyrus and Darius (VI-V Cent ury B.C.), Alexander crossed the country to reach the Turanian steppes (Turkestan), India and China. He founded many poleis, such as Heral, Qandahar, Alexandria ad Caucasum (Kabul/Bagram). In 300 B.C. the Indian Ma urya d ynasties occ upied the Hellenic towns in Afghanistan, paving the way fo1¡ a cultural Buddhist coloni7.ation, whose expansion was halted by the onset of Sunnite Islam in the year 650 A.C. In 1219 Gengis Khan's Tartar hordes, coming from the Chinese-Mongolian highlands, invaded the region; later on, in the 1370-1384 pe riod, Ta merlane's Turkish tribes arrived from Samarkand. In 1504 the Sultan of the Great Mog ul (great empire) launched several war campaigns l.o conquer the region. Thus, the refined Indian-Muslim culture was contaminated by the Afghan tribal traditions, as a conseque nce of the constant invasions of predators from the Hindu Kush mountains. During the XVT Century the Pashtun mountain ethnic group conso lidated its feudal power. The l 709 Loya Jirga ("Grand National Assembly" in the Pashtu language) put an end to the Persian Safavid dynasty and in 1747 the tribal federation set up a dynastic state led by Ahmed Shah. In the XIX Century this melting pot of ancient cultures and trade cross-roads was involved in the Russian-British dispute over Central and Eastern Asia. To halt Russian expansion a nd control Eastem trade routes (East India Company), the British tried to conquer the region -l s t and 2nd Afghan wars in 1839-42 and 187879- by exploiting dynastic strives. They left the COlmtry in 1879 upon signing the Treaty of Kabul. But the region was still kept under a de-facto British protectorate. The Northern borders ¡were agreed with Russia, while the Durand line, running along the Suleiman mountains on the border with Pakistan, marked the separation from the British Empire of India. Afghanistan is a buffer nation, difficult to understa nd, being both xenophobic and impenetrable. Jt was officially recogni:o~d in 1907 and became independent in 1919. In 1933, nineteen year old Mohan1med Zahir Shah ascended to the throne to replace his father Nadir, who had been murdered a fter reigning four years only.
An Italian. patrol on vigilance duly in a Kabul street.
ISA F contingents' R ules o[ Engagement (ROE) (3) follow Lhe principles set by Ch a pter VII of the United Nations Charter (use of force to impleme n t a mandate). Th e tro ops e ng age d in the ISAF mission s h ould m a ke an effor t to reco ncil e the ir ROE witb social, religious and local traditi ons and customs, act impa rti ally towa rds all ethn ic gro u ps , b e poli te in Lh e performance of the ir duties and observe private property rights. THE ITALIAN CONTINGENT
The deployment of the Itali an contingent, 360 strong and equipped with over 200 vehic les and other means, took place b etwee n Ja nuary 15 an d Februa ry 22 , 2002, and required 25 a irlift m issions carried out by C 130s, 16 by Ilius hin 76s and 15 by An tonov 124s (p ersonn e l in flow to the th ea tre was completed on February 4). Th e fir s t nati ona l t eam , compnsmg the de sign a te d commander of ITALFOR, atTived
85
in the t hea tre as early as Deceniber 30, 2001 , to establish func tio nal relations ,.vith Lhe Mu ltin at ion a l Force HQ an d create the p reco nd ilions necessa ry for the arrival of the first echelon. I TA LF OR is mad e u p of different tactical, logislic an d speci ali zed a sse ts and comprises: -o ne Regiment-level contingenl
HQ -o ne Deputy Commander fo r Lhe Army ele m ents and one Commander for the Carabinieri unil; -o ne Com p any-level un i l Lasked w ith the security of the IS AF conting ent (Force P rolect ion - Co v / FPC) d ra,.v n from the 19 th "Gu ide" Ca valry Reg iment. This Company also comprises one Platoon fro m the "Tus can ia " 1st Paratroo p Carabinieri Regimenl; -on e Carab inic ri u ni t, ma de up of a M P tea m and t he above - menti oned Carab inieri Platoon; -o ne E ngineer Company from the 10 th Comba t Eng ine er Regiment, wh ich in cludes two E xplosive Ordna nce Di sposal (EOD) teams; -on e C4 Company rrom t he 11 th Signal Regiment;
-one Company-level Co mbat Service Support Group, m ade up of modules from the l st and 6 t h Mane u ver Re gime nts, 10 t h Tra ns p ort Regimenl, ".A riele" Log isti c Ba ttali on , as well as fro m the Field Vehicle U nit of the .Ad mi nist rati on an d Quartermaster Sc hool; -o ne Nuclea r, Biolo gica l , Chemical (NBC) P latoon fro m the 7 t h NBC Regiment; -one operational de lach me nt fro m t he 9 t h "Col Mos chin " Assault Paratroop Regiment.
Left. "Barracks 57", where pa rl of o u r co11tingent is quartered..
86
TTALFOR is deployed in lhree d ifferen t locations "v ithi n th e Kabul a rea: -the contingenL HQ is based wil h in the Itali a n Emhassy compound; -the Fo r-ce Proteclion Com pany is quartered in an infrastructure placed within lhe Force HQ area, called "Fort Italy"; -corn bat suppon and co mbat service support assets are s helte1¡ed in barrac ks former ly used bv th e S oviets i n th e Easter~ ou Lski rt s of Kab ul. These fac ilities, called "Barracks 57" a lso host elements of the Br it ish, Gree k and Sp a nish contingents.
ITALFOR TASKS T he "Fo rce Protect io n" Co mp a n y (F PC) e nsure s t h e Left. Italian soldiers co11trolli11g a key area of' 1he city . Belov,1 • Deconf(ll11inatio11 o{an NBC operator.
secur ity of the 1SAF HQ compound in Kabul, called the Military Spo rts Club (4) , th rough a static and d y n am ic clefcnce stru ct ure, lasked with deterre nce and reaction missions in ll1e case of hostile actions. The unit must a lso: - set up a Lask force, up to Platoon level, to carry out escon mi ss ions throug hout the lSAF Area of Operations; - per for m pa lro l ,1 ct iv i Lies (mounted or dis mounted) in the Arca of Responsib ili ty (AoR); - prnvidc rese rve forces 1.0 the uni ts already ope ra ting in Lhe AoR of the FCP; - sel up a task f'orce, a l Platoon leve l, to operate in the Ao R as a Quick Reaction Force ( QRF). The AoR of the FCP covers the cent re of the town and includes several sens itive targets, like the hou s es of Afghan gove rnm e nt authoriti es, the reside nce of the former King Zahir Shah, the embassy of the Unites States, as \\'Cll as the h ouses of NGOs' representa tives. FPC personnel ca rry o ut dismounted and mounted patrol mi s sio ns rnu nd- the-cl oc k, ensuring direct and in di rec t sec urity to dip lomati c miss ions in Kabul and Lhe Afg hani s tan I nterim Governmenl. In fact, t h ey are a uth or is ed to r eact a ga.inst threats and a ttack s of different kind and, ac the same time, represent a n extraordinary d eterr ence e leme nL to p eo ple hostile to JSAF. The Engineer Company is ta ilored Lo provide di rect support to the Ita lian co ntingent and Lo the ISAF mul tinat ional force. Il is tasked w.i th: - carrying out works lo protect ma jor multinati ona l Co mm a nd P osts (ISAF l!Q, Engineer multina tional group, etc.) - improving livi ng co nditions of the different com ponen ls of lhc JLalian co nt inge nt qu a rtered at different cantonments;
87
THE ETHNIC GROUPS Few countlies in the world include such a large nun1ber of different ethnic groups as Afghanistan. The Pashtun group is the largest (39% of the population). The present Prime Minister Karzai and former King Zahir Shah belong to this group. Pashtuns are settled in the Southern and Eastern provinces of Afghanistan and in Western Pakistan. Most of the Taleban fighters are from the Pashtun ethnic group. The Tajikis form the second largest group (25% of the whole population). The majority of the rebels of the Northern Alliance, who live in the North-Eastern pati of the country, belong to this group. They are of Persian origin and make up the elite educated in the francophone high schools of the capital. The most impmtant Tajiki enclave is represented by the Panshiri ethnic group, from the name of the Pai1jshir valley on the Southern slopes of the Hindu Kush The Hazaras, forming a minority ethnic group, live in the central mountainous regions (approx 1.3 million people). They are SMites, like the Iranians and the Iraqis, ai1d are hated and persecuted by the Sunnite majority of the population. The entire Islamic world which includes 1.3 billion people, is divided between Sunnites (83%) ai1d Shiites (l6%). The other minority ethnic groups - Uzheks, Baluchis, A.imak , Pamiris, Kirghiz , Tmkmen, Nuristanis - form the remaining 36% of the whole population. This multiethnic variety can be an inexhaustible resource for the country, if properly managed and finalized. The collapse of the Taleban regin1e has revitalized inner conflicts for power among the different factions under old and new "warlords". In fact, they all ainl at gaining control over important areas of the country, like the opium poppy plat1tations in the North-Eastern plains and in the Southern pre-desert region, the natural gas and oil fields in the No1thern areas bordering on Uzbekistai1 and Turkmenistan, as well as the emerald veins in the Hindu Kush valleys.
- improving road trnfficabilily throughout the AoR; - carrying out spec ial i1. ed maintenanc e \.VOrks at public infraslructure sites (orphanages, police stations, etc) , to support local authori ti es wit hin Lhe framework of CIMIC cooperalion; - enhancing the multinational force security by clearing lSAF areas of interest from un exp loded ordnance and p roviding immediate intervention units, to rapidly respond to accidents due to the discov ery of regular (mines, ammuni tion, elc) or improvised exp losive devices (explosive traps, etc). The C4 Company manages all secure and insecure commu nica t ion services. In pa1¡ticu lar, it ensures strategic, satellite and rad io links with the mother country, as well as
A patrol from the "Guide" Cavalry Regim.enf checking a streeL in the Italian seclor of Kabul.
88
tactical operational links belween th e conLingent HQ and its subordinate units within Lhe area of operations. T he NBC Platoon carries out
chemica l and radiological detection activities , in cooperation with a similar unit from the UniLed Kingdom, wilhin all areas, structures and buildings of mi Ii Lary interest, w i lh p articu lar attention to cantonments and all areas und er the control of ISA F personnel. Th e Platoon also provides support to medical un iLs during the disinfestation and sanitation of national cantonmenls. Today, Lhe presence of a NBC Platoon is considered as normal in every national cont inge n l operating abroad, mainly as a precau Lio nary step to detect any possible enviro n mental contamination caused by ¡wars and industrial activili es within war-stricken areas. FINAL REMARKS
T h e rnission of the Italian Armed Forces in Afghanistan has undoubtedly been a demanding comm'itmenl. In fact, Ita ly had to project and Lhen support its forces, in a
THE WARS July 17, 1973: putsch by Gen. Sardar Muhammad Daoud who ousted King Zahir Shah and proclaimed himself President of the Republic. In April 1978, he was killed by a group of conspirators from the Army and from the pro-soviet "DemocraUc Party of the Afghan People" (OPAP), which supported the coup. July, 1978: Hafizullah Amin, an ethnic Pashtun, was the new Prime Minister. Indiscriminate repression of the Is lamic opposition. A Khomeini-type political development in Afghanistan was feared by the USSR. December 24, 1979: Operation "Storm 333". The 40th Army Corps of the Red Army e ntered the cotmtry, based on a request for help by the Democratic Party of the Afghan People. The Soviets instated Babrak Karma! who was replaced in 1986 by Mohammed Najibullah, a Pashttm and former chief of tl1e intelligence services. 1980-88 War against the USSR. Casualties amounted to hundreds of thousands (15,000 w ere So\iiets) and displaced people to millions. Febmary, 15, 1989: the last Soviet wuts le ft the country. April 16, 1992: t he Tajik.i Moujahidin ousted Najibullah; Rabbani was the new President and Massoud the new Minister for Defense. An ethnic Pashttm, Gulbuddi.n Hikmetyar, is the leader of the resistance groups against the Moujahidin. September 27, 1996: the Islanuc regime of the Taleban, students of the Koran in the madrassas (Koran schools), was instated in Kabul under the Mullah Omar. Najibullah was hanged in a public square. 1996-200 1: The Moujahidin of the Northern Alliance, mainly Tajikis, fought against the Taleban ruling over 80% of the country. Osama Bin Laden, friend of Mullah Omar, set up the Al Quaeda organization and annow1ced the Jihad against Americans, Jews and Clnis tians. September 9, 2001: Massoud, the "Lion of Panjshir'' and leader of the rebels, was kill ed .. November, 2002: After the September 11 attacks, a US- Jed international coalition law1ched Operation End11ring Freedon1.: a global war on tenmism. November 13, 2001: The Northern Alliance entered Kabul, the Taleban disbanded. The PashLuns, Tajikis, Haz.aras and othe1· tribes took control of different sectors of the capital and of the country. December 22, 2001: following the Bonn Agree ments, the Interim Authority was instated at tl1e Government of the country under Prime Minister Karzai. January, 2002: ISAF deployed in the Kabul-Bagram Area.
theatre or o perations over 5,000 km di stant from the moth e r country, on ly by air lift. Four months after the beginn ing of the ISJ\F m ission, 55 fli ghts by C 130, J 5 fli ghts by Iliushin 76 and 15 flights by Antonov 124 were carried out. All th is call ed for a careful plan ning in the organization of the units and their capabilities, to tailor the flight schedule to Lhe requirements of Lhe forces which were enter ing the a 1·ea of the mission. In this area a conflict is still go ing on few k ilometers from Kab ul ( LO e radica le th e last g rnups of res istance of the Taleban an d Al Qaeda), there are harsh clim a tic con diti ons a nd no loc al r eso u r ce s to e mp l o y for init ia l s upp orl purposes. \l\'orks aimed at improving the
li ving co nd itions in n a tiona l b ases have b ee n carr ie d out over the entire period of our stay. Laundry, mess ing and baking servi ces hav e h ad a positive im pact on th e mornle o[ the troops and are going on regularly. Personne l are folly aware or the impo rtance or the mission a nd its inh erent risks and carry o ut all operational and lo gist ical operational act n '1t1es very prorcssi onally, receiv ing the appreciation of the other natio nal contingents and th e ISAF Command . Al so lo cal peo pl e dee ply app r e c iate the efforts ma d e every day by the Italian soldie1-s to help restore the capital town and prov id e reli ef to a popu la lion sL1· icke n by ma n y years of war. As regards the relati ons hip
between d iffere n t c ivilizaLi ons and social habits, our personne l, effeclively p1·e-trained on Afghan religion and tradi lions, have a lways shown respect for rites a nd traditi ons . Th ey have pa id attention not to offend local religious reelings with direct or in direct behaviours, wh ich are co mmon ly acce pt e d in ou r soc iety but arc forbidden by the lslamic law ( drinking alcohol in tl-ie pre senc e of l oca l peopl e, ea ting rorbiclde n food like pork, etc.) Relations with the local population can be considered as fully satisfactory, being a imed a t providin g a d ecisive, thou g h small-scale, contribution to the reconstruction or the Afghan sociely. Our perso nnel, at a ll eche lons of command, have proved to be mat ure en ough Lo effect ively operate everywhere in the wodd a nd in a ny so c ia l-c ultura l framework. C ,·, Brigadier General, former Co111111a11der, Jtalia11 Co11Li11ge11t in Kabul
NOTES
(I) After the co ll a r,se of the Taleban reg ime, n:pre1,en ta Lives of th e Afg h t,n e thnic gro ups met in Bonn, under the U.\l aeg is , and asked for assistance in setting the precondit ions for a the lo ng-term pol iti ca l sta bi lit y, in ord er l.o reinLegrate the counLry with in th e inte rnatio nal communitv. On th a t occasion, ( he decision was taken to se nd a mu ltinati onal for ce to Kab u l. (2) FR, GR. NO, NZ,SP, Sv\f, GE, NL, DK, UK, RO, TlJ, IT, AU, FIN . Bl.i, CZ, PO .
(3) ROE (Rules of engagement) are directi ves concerni ng m ili tary fo ,·ces, perso nn e l inc lud ed , w hich define c ircumstan ces, conditions a nd modalities Lo reson to the use of force (or Lo actions which can be considered as thr eatening o r le thally dangerous) (4) Facilit y previously used as Officers' Club in Kabul.
89
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...___ 90
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,
We conclude our tour of the Baltic area interviewing the Commander of the Defence Forces of Estonia. Vice Admiral Tarmo Kouts gives us a precise picture of the difficult work being carried out for the structural and operational reorganization of the national military instrument, ten years after the Country regained its independence. Estonia has been a member of "Partnership for Peace" for some time and wishes to join the EU and NATO. Admiral, Estonia regained its independence 10 years ago. What were your first steps to wards the instit ution of national Defence Forces?
Already before th e liberation from the Soviel occupation, in 1990, hundreds of patriots had reconstituted the Defen ce League, a voluntary military organization. Its main task was to patrol and watch the occupation Army: The defence [orces have be en recreated starting from this organization . The League and its special Corps are .now more than 14,000 strong. First of all we rees labii shed the General Staff, followed by the General St aff Guard s Company. There were several problems w ith armaments and Ji ving standard s, but they were not insuperable, and training was successful.Al any rate, we had lo s tart from scra tch. We had no plans, no documents and not enough qualified personnel. AL the begi nning we established three infantry battali ons: "Kalev" in the north, "Viru" in the northcast and "Kuperjano v" in the 91
BTR 60 annoured vehicle.
sou th. But o ur firs t objective ,.v as the u nion of all defence forces w i t hi n a s i ngle and w o rkin g system. This is, in fact, the most im p ortant fact o r in c a se of mobilization. The majo ri ty of the battalio ns wer e named afte r units which ex isted before the Sovie t occu pation of 1940-41. Actually the Eston ia n Repu blic was firs t established in 1918, and almos t all. batta li ons were cons t ituted during the Independence War of 1918-20. Ten years are a short time for developing a defence force. What objectives have been achieved so far, and w hat are your programmes for the future?
As I said , we st art e d reconstn.1ct.i ng our Armed Forces fro m scra tch . As of to d ay, we have rather good arrnaments and
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a conscription system that works. T he num b er of hi ghly t rained Officers is growing from yea,- to ye ar. Also, we sta rted a goo d milita ry coo peration \.vith many countries. Na turally, we shall continue on this course. E stonia ,vill continue to b e present in the UN - led peacekeeping operations and in the UN o b server miss i ons in Lebanon . We w ill main tain tl1e co n scrip ti on syst em an d t h e reservist Army, bu t will have to make some reform s . The General St a ff and those of the three Services will be a ssembled in a single Staff. Seven battalion-level " Re c ruit Training Centres" ,,vill operate regularly in peacetime. B y t he e nd of 20 06, several territorial -defence units will be esta blish ed on t h e basis of th e Defence League, together with a "Sp ecial Di strict for No rthern D efe nce" , pro t ec te d by a reservist Brigade. The Navy will continue its i:ninec leari ng activity, and the Air Force will go
on with the development of th e surveillance of the airspace a nd the defence o f s trateg ic objectives . What were the steps taken by the Defence Forces in order to join the EU and NATO? \\That is your opinion about "Partnership for Peace"?
Every institu t ion o f ou r government pursues its specific objectives with the aim o f preparing Estonia to be come a mem ber o f the EU. We have already sub mitted our p roposals to the Union on 29 chapters o ut of 31 . As a m em ber o f MA P (M e mbership Ac ti on Plan) we quali fy fo r NATO memb ership. Also we a vail o u rselves o f tbe ANP (Ann ual Nati onal Plan), a le a d ing p roje c t in t he prep aration fo r mem be rshi p. Furthermo re, Es tonia La l<es a n active part in peace operations. Righ t now, one of o ur com panies is in Bo s nia a nd Ko s ovo . A
military poli ce team is part of the Tta lian - led "Special l\tlu Iti nation a l Un.i L" oj KFOR: We also have a military ob~eve r in Lebanon. The pfp rrogramme has been very u se ru I. Cooperation helps us to irnprove our defence capabilities and to harmonize the m with the NATO norms and procedures, especially ,vith the introduction of the "Partn e rship Objectives" . At the be ginnin g of 2000, Estonia agreed with NATO on 62 o bjectives ; most of then, were r¡elated to MAP, therefore closely co nn ecte d with the .M AP/AN P objecti ves . The Defence Forces have actively participated in many Peace Support Operations. Can you te ll u s what were the lessons learned?
Th e "Pe ace Operations Centre" was est a bi ish ed in 1994, wit h the aim of training our units a ncl supportin g the cooperation among Baltic states w ithi n BALTB AT (Balt ic Battalion). Last year we cons tituted E STBAT, to support our growing partic ipation in peace operations. The employment of our troops in international contingents is not a political measure only, but also a good opportun ity to evaluate the in teroperability of the uni ts and their training level. Be tween 1995 and 2001, mo,¡e than 700 servicemen (77 of the m Officers , a bout 15% of tho se on a c tive duty) have taken part in m ulti na tion a l operations. l beli eve tha L the ex peri e nce gained by them concerns main ly the acquisition of the know ledge of internationa l procedures a nd th e cap abilities n ecessary in order Lo \-v ork togethe r \-Vith our partne rs . What are the base s of your milit a ry re gulations and
procedures? What model did you follow?
Training with mortars.
T he Defen ce Forces arc the bearers of the traditi ons of the Armed Forces constituted before Lhe Soviet occupation o f 1940. In 199 1 we have taken almost all our norms from those r<:!gulations, adapting them to the present time. Of course, we have c hanged many rules in order to update them, but the basic ones remained. Many procedures also come from regulations in force w ithin NATO a nd the Finnis h Army.
T he Estonian Defence F orces arc ba se d on conscription. Do you also have a pro fe ssion al Army and reservis t units ? Why did you take that decision? Are there changes in vie w? What are the duties performed b y women within the military?
Our Defen ce Forces are basically reserve forces. Military se rvic e is comp ul sory for a ll male cit izens physicallv an d 93
Tactic al Co mm and- Post during o winter exercis e. The Fr it z!Passp,r helmets have just been acquired by the Esto nian 1lnny.
activities of bilateral cooperation. B u t the logistic areas are included in this cooperation as well. Regional cooperation is very important for the defence of the Nation. What kind of collaboration is under way with the other Baltic States?
111entally healthy, between 18 and 27 years of age. Tl1e duty lasts from eight to e leven months, according to th e speciality. Thereafter the rec ruits are assigned to the reserve of the ir unit. The reserve force is the most profitable system for a small country like Estonia . The cost of the Arm ed Forces based on conscription is lovver, the refore ma inta in i ng th e defen ce capability is easier. The professional serv iceme n are task ed wi th the training of recruits, ma i nt e nance of t he o p era liona l capability in peacetim e and deve lopment o f the cooperation objectives within
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NATO . Women work in the same positions as men and many o f them are Office rs and NCOs. How do you cooperate with the NATO and PfP Countries? Estonia has en re ,-eel in lo bi l a t eral cooperation agreements w it h 14 NAT O Countries, a n d bilateral or trilateral accords with 6 partner Nations o f the Alliance. The bilat era l agreements a im at pre paring ou r Country for its fu ture NATO membership . Training and instruction are the preponderant part of the general
Estonia is carrying out four cooperation program mes with Latvia and Lithuania: • BALTBAT (Baltic Battalion) was created as a catalyst to improve the technical level as well as to show the Balcan countries' will and capabil ity to cooperate, boLh among themselves and in mu ltinational e nv ironm e nts. Some BALTBAT uni ts participate in th e IFO R/SFOR operations in Bosnia Herzegovina. At the same lime, th e b attalion supports the national De fence Forces, contri b uting to their development. • BALTRO N (Baltic Nava l Squadron) conrr-ib u ted to the de ve.lopment of our Navy. Its main task is m in ec lea r i ng. There are tens of thousands of mines in the Baltic, a heritage fr·om the first and second worldwars. BALTRON's objective is to find and destroy them, in order to clear the routes. • BALTNET: its o bj ective is to improve international cooperati on between civilian and military a uthorities in the field or aeronautics, increasing the operational efficiency of the three Nations. The project is a combination of the efforts of many Countries for developing the surveillance of the air space an d traffic in Central and E astern Europe.
Servicem en of 1he Estonian Na1iona / Guard
011
/rainin g in a swa mpy
area.
• BALTDEFCOL (Baltic Defen ce Colleg e) is Lhc fir s t joi nL m i I itary i nsti tulion for high stud ies, and a ims at c reating a common cu l t ure for th e Office rs of the three Sen;ices. Th e Co llege organi,.es an annua l Staff Course fo r Office rs from the Ba ltic States. ln th e future t here w ill be courses for civilian e mployees as well.
The Sovie t Army left many structures in the Baltic Countrie s. Do you use them, and how? When Lhey withdrew, Lh e Sovie L destroye d most base s on our
terri to1-y, and many buildin gs were in very bad condit ion s. How ever, m any stru ct ures were reutilized and lhe majority of our
Vice Admiral Tarmo Kouts was born in the island of Sarena, Estonia, on November 27, 1954. A graduate from the Naval Department of the Maritime College in Tallin, in 1985 he attended the Navigation Course at Kaliningrad Teclmical Institute. From 1973 to 1990 he served, as Captain and Instructor, on several ships of the Estonian Naval Company. From 1990 to 1993 he was the Commandant of the Military Academy, where he introduced university-level studies in Estonian. In 1993 he was appointed Director General of the Border Guard, becoming an advocate of its rapid development. In a short time, the Guard earned international consideration as an efficient, reliable and skilled professional stn1cture. In 1999 Adm. Kouts attended a special course at the Finnish National Academy. On September 21, 2000 the Parliament of the Estonian Republic appointed him Commander of the Defence Forces. On February 20, 2002 h e was promoted to the rank of Vice Admiral. Vice Admiral Tarmo Kouts holds the following decorations and awards: • Order of the Eagle Cross, 2nd class; • Order of Merit of the Defence Forces; • White Cross of the Defence League, 3rd class; • Cross of Merit of the Border Guard, 1st class; • Cross of Merit of the Border Guard of Finland; • Cross of Merit of the Border Guard of Latvia.
ba tta lion s are now occupy ing those buildings and using those firing ran ges . An example is Lhe airpo rt bui .l L by th e Sovi ets at Amari, now us e d b y our Defe nce Forces as a n air base . Th e huge pro ble m that sL ill remains to be tack le d is h ow to dis pose of the immense am o unt of Lrash l e ft behind by the Red Army.
Are military traditions strong in your Country? Does civil society support the Defence Forces? The c itizens of Eslon ia have great confide nce in the Defence Forces . Accordin g Lo th e las t survey, 74 % of the male po pu lation wo ul d resist and proLect the ir Counlry in case of externa l atta ck . Th e D efe nce Forces are one of the institutions mos t respected by lhc citiz e ns (59 % ), aft e r the Pres iden t of th e R e public (67%) and lhe B o rder Guard (67%) . Six ci tize ns ou t of Le n ar e in favour of Estonia join in g NATO.
D '' Journalist 95
he National Defcnse Co llege is a post-graduate institu le a imed a l specia lizing top managers, both mili Lary and civil , belonging to all organizations dealin g with Rumania's nat ional defense and securi ty is su es or, more gener a lly, ·with th ose of South -Easle rn Europe.The College tra in ing syllabus focuses on the following ta rge Ls: • developing students' capabil ities to analyze events connected with national defense and security issues, and refi ne their ability to id entify and manage crisis situatio ns in a complex geopolitical and geostralegic scenario; • practicing the managerial skills necessary to carry ou l managers' demanding duties within those organizalions and ins tit u tion s deali ng with security and dcfense issues ancJ connected malters; • consolidali ng civic aware ness and a sen se of respo nsib ili ty towa rds the d emocra t ic organization of the Rumanian socie ty and its integraLion into the E uropean and Euro-Atlantic security arch itecture; • informing students on the practical implementalion of the national secur ity strategy , as slate d by t he Gov ern ment's While Paper on Defcnse.
T
The College a lso sponsors the fo llowing ac ti vities: • enhancing the relations among civil and military h igh-ranking
officials, in order to promote a mutual understanding and better face na tional secu rity and clefense issues; • se lling up an effective system to achieve the goals set by t he reor·ganization of the m ilitary in Rumania; • taking par t in the Pa rtnership for Peace program (PfP ) and establishing ties wilh similar orga n i,.at ions belongi ng to NATO mem bers or co-operation partners. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The national defens e an d security sector has been deeply affected by the changes occurred in Ru man ia follow in g th e December 1989 Revolution . T he concep t of national security and dcfe nse has b een t h orough ly re vi ew e d , thanks to th e implementation of the pr in c ip le of civil control over the Armed Forces, wh ic h was unknown in the form er Soviet E mpire b ut widely applied by a ll democratic countries. The need ,.vas therefore felt to se l u p a leg al frame work an d p repa re t h e to o ls a nd s kill e d managers necessary lo ensure Lhe effectiveness of the system . Jn such a context, Lhc Na tional Defense College was eslablished on February 1, 1992 within the Academy of H igh Military S tudies. The fi rs t course, h eld on a n exper imental basis and a ttended by 22 m ilitary and civil students,
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Th e "Ce rcul J\1J ili tar Na tio na l" i n Bucharest.
proved the e ffec tiveness of the selected training syllabus. As a consequence, the College was give n an autonom ous status by Government decree no.438 of Augu st 5, 1992 , a nd w as pu t under the d irect aulhority of the Minister of National Defense. The establishmen t of the new College w as looked u p on by socie ty as a f urlher and fu ndamental step towards th e integration of military institu t ions into the social and political fr am ew ork of a constitutional state. The Coll e ge h as rapi dly established Lies with cultural and sci en tifi c in stitution s, both govern men tal and non governmental, based at home and abroad. lo particula1~ it was the first S c hool of th is k ind to be est ab lis he d in S o uth-East ern Europe, after the demise of the Co mmun.is t era . Toda y its activitie s are constantly monitored by the most i m porta nt po litical groups wanting to keep abreast in the sector of security and defense; in fac t, the su bjects dealt with by the College are cons idered as first priori ty issues fo r all electoral manifes tos an d for the developmenl of political concepts. 98
The National College Fow1dation was set up in 1993 by Lhe professors a nd stu dents of t he College, with a view to updaLing and refining the knowledge in the fie ld of na tional defcnse and security, a s ,vel I a s sp arking a pu blic debate and disseminating such interesting cultural wealth. At present, the Foundation is one of the most 1·enowned and prestigio us non goverm11ental organizations in Rumania. It sp onsors severa l cultural and scientific act ivi lies a nd p ublishes an interes ting magazine dealing with geopoliLical and geostrategical issues. In short, over this last decade of activities, the College has been a venue fo r dia lo gue an d co opera t ion among th e Arm e d Forces, S ta te insti t ut ions, po liti cal pa rti es a nd ci vi l o r·ganizations . It has proved to be a structure tai lored to face major long-term issues. This capabili ty, coup led with ad- hoe polit ical o ptio ns, w ill allow the young democracy of Rumania to m ove ahead in the third millenni um.
Advisory Corn mi llee is the coll ective body respo nsibl e for setting gen e ral p rinciples and overa ll guidelines su pervi sing educational activi ties. As a rule, it meets at the beginning of eac h c ourse and is made up of represenlatives of the Ministries or Defense, Foreign Affa irs, Education and Scientific Research, as vvell as o[ the whol e Parli amentary Com m illee fo r defense, publi c order and national securily. At p,-e s enl, the Dean of the College is Colonel Miha i Vasile Ozunu , a University professor (even if an officer with the rank of Major General should cover thi s positio n, b ased on th e College organizational diagram), who is supported by two Assistanls, both w ith academic qua li fic ation s, belonging to the milita ry and civil world respectively. The College comprises: • the Faculty of National Defcnse and Security, which car-ries out education al tasks only in this particular sector; • the Administration, Pu bli c Relations and Training Section, tas ke d with su pp ort in g educat io na l activi t ies and international relations. Logistic-administrative matters are a respo nsi bi lity of the Academy o[ High Military Studies, w ilhin whose in frast r·uclure the College is placed. This organization wi ll change w ith t he estab lishmen t of a Military University, scheduled for 2003. lt will group all educational inslitutions, mainly the Military Academies of Lhe three Services and the College as well, which is at the top of this edu ca tio nal system .
THE ORGANIZATION TRAINING SYLLABUS As s tated above, the Coliege is under the direct authority of the M inis ter of Defense, whi le the
In o rde r to reach Lhe established educational goals, t he
Monumental swirca.se at the emrance o{the" Cercul lvlili1ar".
training syllabus comprises the following subjecls: • core subjects (36% of the hours available) :- international security system; •• general problems affecli ng in Lemational security; •• internal ional secur· ity institutions; •• geopolilics and geostralegy; •• national security strategy; • • conflict prevention and crisis management; • specialized subjecls (60% of the hours avai lable): •• major subjects (56%); ••• national s ecurity management; ••• present problems in the field of national security and public order; ••• national defense policy and managen1 e nt of defense resources; ••• Rumanian military strategy; ••• educational trips. •• elective subjects (4%) : ••• partnership and international military co-operation; ••• Armed Forces and society; • subsidiary subjects (4%) : •• international humanitarian law; •• human rights; •• main aspects of the history of the holocaust. At the encl of the course, lasting six months, students have to write a thesis ,,v hose subject is chosen with the ass istance of the professor chairing the course on national security and defense. During the first ten courses, he ld until the e nd of 200 I, the training program \.vas constant.ly updated, \.vith lhe aim of: • balancing the number of courses and hours of study devoted to security and defense
problems respectively; • initiating new courses reflecting the most recent outcomes in the field of national and international security, as well as the main political changes and the progress made in the reorganization of military institutions; • adapting the lectures on interna tional security to lhe programs chosen by the most important foreign institutions, and tailoring the courses to particular national problems. E ducational trips are to be dealt with separately. Students receive a detailed briefing before setting out for a journey, ·which may Lake place in Rumania or abroad , depending on the resources
available . The aim is that of directly questioning local political administrative authorities about regional problems, focusing on national security and defense issues. Students may gain access to institutional sources, come into co ntact with high -ranking officials at the top of each sector and il lustrate the information acquired during the deba tes/cliscussions usually held after each trip. The issues under study are wide ranging and comprise political, economic, lega l, commerc ial, sociological and military matters; the work program is also varied, including meetings with local authorities, as well as visils to large i nclustrial groups,
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The ,Honastery of Suceviz,a (UNESCO palrimony) .
regul atio ns a re combined with the rules governing military training and ethics, su c h as di sci pline, in depth study and accuracy. EVALUATION SYSTEM
businesses, natural preserves, mili tary bases, training a nd exercise areas for special troops, etc. In some t owns, round t ables and debates are organized, with the support of local authorities, to discu s s present ma tters of concern, in the field of defense and security. The most important representat ives at the h e ad of several sectors (en ergy, en vironmental protect io n, defense and securi ty, e tc.) are usually invited to take part in the discussions. On such occasions, some students ma ke a short presentation of the thesis they are writi ng for thei r final examination . The de ba te and comments stemming from these discussions are benefic ial to both sides. During the past ten sessions, the College has organized many educational trips bo th in Rum ania and a bro a d, to vis it similar institutions linked by cooperation ties. TEACHING METHODS Teaching metho ds an d techniques encourage studen ts Lo actively participate in the lessons and develop stra tegi c concep ts , 100
w hich are both independent and 01iginal. The professors usu ally carry out their activities with the support of external co-operators and try to reconcile training programs with the systems employed or, from another point of view, traditional and new methods . Training is mainly carried o ut through the co-operation w ith associate professor s, b ut a proac t ive and p ar ticipato ry teaching method has prevaile d over t i rn e, based on lectures followed by debates, Debates can a lso be held within working g roups t o ana lyze particular p rob lems, followed by plenary sessions. Students may work individually and do research for their fina l thesis, or further analyze the subjects dealt with in some seminars. To this aim, they can ava il t hemsel ve s o f ve ry effective s tructures, s uch as the Library of t he Academy of High Military Studies, have access to Internet, etc. The College tiies to achieve the best resul ts in tra in ing its civil an d mili ta ry students, by exp lo iting trainees' cap abilities and hi gh-level sk ills in some particu l a r secto rs. Ac ad emic fre ed o m and Unive rsi ty
Th e eva lu at ion sys tem takes into ac cou nt the act ive participati on of the students. At the end of the first session, in March , students will take part in a series of open-door debates and briefly illustrate the subject they w ill dis c uss during t he round-ta bles held al Lerritorial level. At a later stage, they will fu rt her exp an d Lheir work to include all suggestions a nd o bservations in the thesis they will disc uss dur ing t he final examination, p 1-ior the awarding of diplomas. To this en d , pro fes sors m eet regularly with their s tude nts to assist th em in w riting their theses, some of which have been highly appreci ated, al scientific level, during the past sessions of the College. A proficie ncy report is drawn up for each student, \vith a final evalua tion of his \vork, to be fo rwar ded to his parent civil or military institution. COURSE ATTENDEES Atte ndees o f both sexe s are selected based on their qualities, experi ence and capab ili ty of reaching top -level positions within the institutio n to w hich they belo ng . T he College gives t hem t he o pportuni ty to follo\.v post-graduate: education courses in the field of national defense and securi ty. Tn particular, military personnel should have the rank of Colonel 0 1- G e nera l, cover to p -level positions a nd have ou ts tanding personal records.
The she-wolf; svrnbul of Latinity, in Bucharest's Roman Square.
From a tecbnical point of view, the selection process includes two stages . The various institutions operating in the national security and defense sectors (Parliament, Office of the P r esident ,Governmen L, Ministries, In fo rma tion Services, other public authorities at central level, etc.) initially communicate the names o[ thei ,- candidates, based on the numbers o[ positions available. Then, candidates are se lected through an interview aimed al assessing Lbeir capabilities and knov. ledge in the security and clefense sector. Those who are accepted for admission are split up into four groups, whose com posi tion changes at the end or each training cycle, to allow for rotating trainees in the various assignments and encouraging in Lerpersonal relations, whic h are key to their future institutional tasks. Groups meet regularly every day under the direction of a group leader, selected by students on a rotational basis. The rat io between civ.il and military personne l has changed over Lhe years, to the advantage of the former. Moreover, consider ing that nat ional security and defense problems involve a ll branches of society, st udents representing social institutions and attending the Co llege courses have been highly diversified. In fact, besides military and civ il attendees serving in administrations cooperating with the defense sector; such as health, transports, communications etc, the College includes personnel belonging to the Department of Education, the clergy, lab or unions, nongovernmental organizations, and press and television media. As regards s tudent numbers, the 11 th session, which is presently underway, is made up
t
1
G of 80 attendees, 60% o[ whom belong to the civil world and 11 are women. As regards student quality, there are four deputy ministers (or State Secretaries), seven memb e rs of Parliament , one representative of the Orthodox Church and a mem b er of the Royal Family (Prince Hohenzollern -Veringen Duda Raclu), legal experts, university professors, diplomats, entrepreneurs , trade -union officials, journalists, manager. Among n1il i tar路y personnel belonging to the Armed Forces and Police Forces (Police, Gendar路merie and Financial Police) , there are also three Officers from Italy, Germany and the US. Most of those ,vho auenclecl the College presently cover very irnportant positions in the Government, Parliament, Office
of the President of the Republic, as well as in the Ministries of Defense, Inte r路ior, Justice and in the Special Intelligence Services. To date, 420 s t udents have passed the courses - 22 coming from abroad - and the number of those who wish to enroll is increasing year after year: 1n fact, being a member of this College is considered as a credential for the introduction inlo the civil and military e lite of the Rumanian St.ate. In order to meet all requirements, since the year 2000 the number of attendees has been increased from the initial 22 of the firsl experimental session to the present 80. TEACHING STAFF
Notwithstanding the limited number路 of professors, all teaching goals are fully achieved, 101
thanks lo the support of associate pro[essors and, in particular, of experts and public officials . These personalities are invited lo hold high - level lectures, in line with their very important positions w ithin public institutions or private organizations. Thus, in turn, the podium will be given to members o[ Parliament and Government, lega l experts, generals, researchers, diplomats, industrialists, managers of large State enter·prises, foreign speakers, etc. Lectures are a lways followed by free and high-level debates, given the prominent rnles covered by the attendees. In short, the prestige of the College constantly attracts r·enovvned personalities even among lecturers. INTERNATIONAL ACTIVITY
The international activity of the College is in line with Romania's Ministry of Defense strategy as regards international military relations, as well as with the b i lateral plans of rnilitary co operation and the guidelines of the Directorate for the Euro Atlantic I n legration of the Ministry of Defense. In particular~ the international aclivily is carried oul by the College through:
• lect ures given by foreign speakers; • official visits to similar training institutions abroad; • educational trips to Rumania organized by similar fo r·eign institutions for their students; • participation in international seminars and lectures \vithin the PfP initiative. All these activities, \vhich could be illustrated by further examples, show the willingness, openness and readiness of the College to co -operate at an international level, to bring Rumania into line with the standards envisaged for the integration into the European and Euro-Atlantic structw·es. CONCLUSIONS
The National Defense College is well-knovm and appreciated internationally. The resources invested in education and training programs have yielded a wide range of long -lasting effects, with posit ive repercussions on national secur ity and defense issues as well. So much so that, in Ruman ia, university level military institutions have become symbols of reform and integration into the European and Euro-Atlantic security selup. The College wi ll continue to train managers and leaders as in the past, mainly in the national security and defense sector lo meet Rumania's requirements. The pos itive .results obtained are also to be ascribed to the efforts made by the college staff, who have committed themselves to this difficult mission. Notwithstanding the limited financial resources available, the Rumanian Armed Forces are among the m.ost modern armies in the world, as regards
Rumanian helicop1e1 pilot ready io take-off
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A Rumania.,1 radio opera/or.
personnel training and education. Rumania is making every effort to play a stabilizing role in the area. It suppons NATO's values and interests in South-Eastern Europe, by taking part in some Alliance-sponsored missions and maj or co-operation activities, both mil.itary and civil, in the region. Prague 2002 is an opportunity not to be missed. According to recent polls, in Rumania 80% of the people are in (avor of NATO membership. As a consequence, the Rumanian An11.ed Forces, together with other institutions operating in the defense and security sector, do their best to ensure that the ir country is fully prepared to enter the Alliance, when its application for membership is final ly approved. Today, Rumania has no a lternative but join the area of the Euro -Atlantic values, consolidate its in stil u tional government, enforce human rights and promote democratic principles. C ,·, Brigadier General, Italian Representative, Rumenian General Staff
FORCES (Part 2) This article wraps up our overview of Build-up Forces, an emerging issue which will play an important role in the future of our Service. The aim is that of giving increased visibility to a new legal person, the reservist, who will be increasingly pivotal in the Army professionalization process.
LEGAL STATUS OF RECALLED OFFICERS, NCOs AND ENLISTED PERSONNEL
The term "status", as used in this article, refers to all rankrelated rights and respons i bi Ii ties . Upon being appointed to their ranks, Officers, NCOs and enlisted personnel acquire legal status which lasts until they are divested of their ranks . lt must be pointed out that military personnel do not lose they ranks when discharged. Ad -hoe law provisions, which will be deta iled below for all categories of military personnel, ser the
conditions under which personnel may lose their ranks . In fact , military rnembers , ,,vhether in service or retired, may lose their ranks based on their engagement conditions. The following laws govern the legal status of recalled personnel.: • Officers: Government Decree no.215 o f May 8, 2001;
• NCOs: Law no.599 of July 31, 1954;
• Enlisted personnel: Decree Law no.451 of December- 28, 2001, turned into Law no.15 of February 27, 2002. l n general, t bese ru les establish that, when recalled lo serve in Build-up Forces: • Officers and NCOs have the
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same legal status as regular forces; • Enlisted personnel, who served as draftees or as one year vo lu nteers, have the same legal status as short Lerm volunteers . Personne l of the Build -up Forces, \,v ho hav e been equalized to Lhose on active service, are not automatically included into permanent rolls, ·wh i c.h can only be accessed thro u gh publ ic competition. However, they are gran reel s pecial opportunities/incentives to en Ler Lhe permanent force, such as reserved quotas in the n u mber of positions allocated through compeLition, higher age limits and maintenance of the same rank held u p on enrol li ng in the permanent force. Officers
The status of Officer is genera ll y governed by Law no .113 of April I 0, 1954 . In particular, Part 1 specifics that an office r·, upon being appointed to his rank, acquires "the stat u s of officer, which lasts until he is divested of it" . Moreover, the above mentioned law establishes that Officers: • are officially commissioned by Presidential Decree (Article 4);
• lose their ranks for the following reasons (Article 70): •• vo lunt ary discharge. Hov.iever, it is to be recalled that this option is not possible when Build-up Forces are set up on an emergency; •• mandatory discharge, in the case of disqualification/ debarment from p ublic offices, absence without leave , activities incompatible with th e status of officer, .M inisterial order; •• striking off the rolls, in the 104
case of loss or citizenship; enrolment -with any rankin an Armed Force/Armed Corps different from the parent organization; enrolment - with a rank b elow officer - in the parent organization and unauthorized enro lment in the Arm ed Forces of foreign countries; •• dism issal in the case of oath breaking or breach es of d iscipl ine, following a decision by a Disciplin e Council; •• indictment when the military penal legislation envisages dismissal as ancillary punishment or in the case of willful offence . Based on Lh e special engagement conditions established between the Defense Administration and military personnel, Officers' careers are split up as follows : • regular officers who signed an open term contrac t witl1 the Defense Admin istration; • discharged officers who are no longer under a regular long t erm contract but have to perform tours of duty as established by the law. The officers of Build -up Forces belong to this category; • fully discharged officers who are not obliged to perform service dut ies but maintain their ranks and the privilege of wearing their uniforms. I t is importanL to stress that those recalled sign a fixed term contract on a voluntary basis, wh ich can be immediately terminated upon request. This relationship is established when personnel are re-engaged after a f irst or a second ca ll -u p or fo llowing a direct appointment to the rank of officer, based on the "Marconi Law" on Selected Reserve. Following Article 25 of
Government Dec ree no . 2 15 of May 8, 2001, this recall period may not last more than one year and be extended only once, upon request. Each year the Minister of Defense issues an ad-hoe Minist er ia l O rder to estab li sh the terms of the recall period and iLs possible max imum extension (one year), as well as the physical and vocaL io n al requirements necessary to per-form the duties assigned. At the end of the recall period, Officers be longing to Bui ld-up Forces are discharged .
.:· With reference to the abovcmenlioned Governmen t Decree, a distinction must be made between Officers be longing to Build-up Forces and the new categories of "Fixe d - Te rm Officers'' and "A uxiliary O fficers " , as provided for by Articles 21 and 23. In part icu lar, "Fi xed -Tenn Officers", belonging to all Services, are recru ited through public competition for one year and a half, inc lud ing Lhe training period . On the contrary, "Auxiliary
Offic ers " make up a larger category and include citizens, both rnalc and female, who have been recruited as: • Non regular Officers on active duty; • Non cegular PiloL Officers; • Fixed Term Officers or R e engaged Officers ; • Officers be longing to Bu ild -up Forces. To sum up, reserv ists belong to the \vider category of Auxi li ary Offic ers , just lik e Fixed Term Officers.
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Italian patrol fi-om the JS/\.F Conligent in Kabul.
Non-commissioned officers As in the case of Officers, the status of N on -comm issioned Officer is governed by the law. In particular, reference is made Lo Law no.599 of July 31, 1954 and to Government Dec ree no . 196 of May 12, 1995, w hich define the stat u s of Non commissioned Officer and its und er lyi ng cond i tions (from 105
Lhe attainment Lo the loss of rank) . Moreover, GoverT1ment Decree no .196/95 establishes that ranks are appointed in com pl iance with Recruitment and Promotion laws. A Ministeria l Order is required in the case o[ serge an ts an d a M.inisterial Decree in all other cases . More precisely, personnel may lose their ranks for th e follow ing r-easons : • loss of citizens hip; • unauthorized service in the Armed Forces of foreign countries or in an Armed Fo rce/Armed Co rvs different from the parent organization; • di squ alification/ debarment from publ ic offices; • absence \Vitho ut leave; • dismissa l in the case of oath breaking or breaches of discipline, fo.llowing a decision by a Discipline Council; • indictmen t when the military pena l legislation envisages dism issal as anc i l lary punishment or in th e case of willful offence. As in t he case of Officers, NCO s' careers can be split up into t h e following "sub ca tc go r-i es" based on the engagement conditions established with the Anny: • NCOs, voluntarily engaged or r e-engaged, who are o bliged to serve for a fixed term , wh ose length is established by Recruitment Laws ; • Regular NCOs who have signed an open term contract with the Defcnse Administration; • Discharged N COs: this category in clud es NCOs belonging to Build-up Forces. T he y have no emp lo yment re la tionship but, in p eacet i me , are stat u torily obliged to pe r form service duties up to the age of 45-50, depending on the rank covered; • Fully d ischarged NCOs, w ho are not obliged to per form
106
service duties but ma in ta in their ranks and th e p r·ivilege of \vearing their uniforms and arc subject to th e Ja\v provisions co ncerning rank and disc ipline matters . Law no. 599/1954, Article 47, sets the lega l gro u nds for the reca ll o f NCOs, who can be
mandato r il.y or volu ntar il y reen listed by Presidential Decree an d M i nisterial Decree respectively, as provided for by the Lavv. Also Law no. 15 of Febr uary 27, 2002, ArLicle 10, restates the leg itimacy of th e recall system, whicl1 inc ludes all catego ri es of mil iLary personnel.
until the end of t he year in which a citizen turns 45.In fact, he is liab le to perform service duties within the Defense Administration, both during his active and Lernporary d ischarge periods. A dist inct ion must be made be tween temporary discharge and fina l di scharge. In fact, un l ike final discharge, ternporn r·y discharge envisages the liability to perform military tas ks even after the end of active duty. Accordingly, the Army enlisted members who have been temporari ly discharged can be re-engaged based on the fo ll owing criteria: year-group, year-gro u p q u otas, paren t branch, corps, specialization, assignment or Mi l itary District. A Presidential Decree is necessary to recall Build -up Forces on an emergency. Hovvever, while the offi c i a I publica t ion of said decree is still pending and u pon receiving a call-u p card, personne l must report to the military authority wi Lb in the established time limit . As regards voluntary Build-up Forces, the Minister of oerense may r·ecal l trnops, su bject to the previous endorsemen L of the Min ister of Economics, \,v ithout a Presidential Decree. Discipline rules for reservists
Enlisted personnel Law no .9 5 8 of December 24, 198 6, Article 1, establ is hes that "all citizens and other e ligib le categories are obliged to per form their military dulies, as established by ll1e exis t ing laws" . In particular, aU rnale citizens
are subj ect to conscr i ption , even though they have acquired citizenship a fter the ca ll- up of their year-group (Presidential Decree no.237 or February 14, 1964)
Those who have been declared physically and psychologically fit are enro ll ed in the Armed Forces . This condition lasts
The follovving rules apply in ge neral to Officers, Non Commissioned Ofricers and Other ranks . As a matter of (act the official ru l es for mi litary discip l ine apply lo tbe m ili tar·y as a whole. In par t icu lar, said ru l es are based on: • the "Princi p les for Mili La r·y Discipline" - Law no . 382 of July 11, 1978 - which app ly Lo all military when they are: •• on duty •• w it hi n mi li t ary areas or 107
wher·e lbey carry out their duty •• wearing u niforrns •• among military personnel • "Rules for Mi li Lary Discipline" - Presidential Decree no . 545 of July 18, 1986 - which apply ... "in due course of the law to all citizens w ho a r·e part of the Armed Forces as volunteers or conscripts", then to all ranks of the Build-up forces.
Promotion to higher ranks Officers, Non Comiss .ion ed Officers and Other ranks discharged to the reserve are promoted to higher ranks on the basis of different procedures . By law no. 1137 of November 12, 1955 as amended by Decree Law no. 490 of Decernber 30, 1997 reserve officers may be promoled up lo lbe rank of Lieutenant Colonel by seniority when: • in general, they arc part of the Build -up forces • they have taken part in a 5 day update course al Arms Schools or Logistic Corps • they have been recalled lo lhe Build-up forces for as long as 3 months (al.so three one month periods a s stated by Decree Law no. 490 or December 30, 1997, art. 31). Officers who had commanded units before they were disch arged to the reserve are not called for update courses . Reservists arc selected for promotion by Headqu arte ,·s, I nspec to rates and Army Sta ff with the following procedure: • on the basis of the Build-up forces p lanning the Army Staff notifies how many officers are to be promoled lo the l1ighe 1· ranks (in 2001 there were 41 of them) • the Inspectorate for Recruitment of Bu ild- up forces personnel proposes a number of officers to the 108
Army Staff which select those who will be promoted to the higher rank. Ins pectorate for Training - responsible for organizing u pdate courses is a l so involved in t h is process • Headquarters in charge of recruitment for Build -up forces and Military Districts recall the .selected officers w h o are finally promo ted to the higher rank by Direclorate for Military Personnel. In 200 1 the Inspectorate for Recruitment of Build -up forces had proposed to promote as many as 88 officers among whom the Army Staff selected : • 22 Infantry officers • 2 Cavalry officers • 7 Artillery officers • 5 Engineer officers • 3 officers of Logistic Corps • 1 Medical officer Th e above mentioned 40 officers officers were selected : • by seniority (priority to long service) • by age (priori ty to o lder ones) • and according to their merits The rules and the procedures (ollowed for promoting reserve Non Commissioned O fficers and Other ranks arc bei ng reviewed and a djusted to the demanding requirements of a professional Army.
of December 28, 2001, art. 10 - Law no . 15 of February 27, 2002.) Recalled reservisls ,vho work as civil servan ts are granted by law (Decree by the Office of the President of t he Cabinet of August 29, 1997) at least the same salary they have as civil .servants.
THE RESERVISTS' RIGHTS Recalled reservists and vacant positions This issue must be considered from differenL po.in ls of view because on the one hand recalled reservists are given temporary jobs by the Armed Forces, but on lhe olher hand w h en th ey go go back to the reserve they also go back to their positions . By law no . 370 of May 3, 1955, art . 1 ... "when civil servants are recalled for any reasons they will go back to their positions upon discbarge. And the tim e spen t in the Armed Forces shall be considered as civil service" . It is ,vorth noting that upon discharge recalled civil servants m ust go back to their positions within 5, 8 or 15 clays, depending on how long lhey were recalled for (respectively one-month, one- to six-months or mo ,·e than six-months).
Salary Recalled reservists are given a sa lary d epen d ing o n t h eir respective ranks as if they were on active service. In particular: • Officers' and Non Commissioned Officers' salary de pends on their rank and on how long they had served before they were discharged to the reserve • Conner conscrip ts ' and one.vear volunteers' salarv. d epends on their rank and equals the short term vo lunteers's one (Decree Law
On the contrary, private employees applying for Buildup fo ,·ces must nego tiate their a bs ence from work with their respec ti ve emp loyers. By lavv they will have to be paid lheir full or par-t ial salary. Moreover recall time and absence frorn work wi ll not affect th eir career.
Public examinations and benefits for draft By Presidential Decree no .
Jtalian-Brilish patrol ji,om JSA F on sunieillance duly.
23 7 of February 14, 1964 and Governmental Decree no. 215 of May 8, 2001, art. 26 - the latler only referred to officers -during public examinations at all levels recall periods are considered as civil service. Officers wi th the rank of captain from lhe Build -u p [orces arc granted by Decree Law no 215 of 2001, art. 20 the possibility to becorne professional officers of special staff through public examination when they meet update requirements and are less than 40 years old. Moreover, officers who served
with merit a re reserved up lo 80% of lhe available positions during public examinations aimed at en rolling regular staff officers.
CONCLUSIONS We have made a picture of lhe Build-up forces to describe how we shifted from the mobilization pattern to the volunteer-based Build - up forces, and also to cnphasise an organization which is becoming ever more important to today's and tomo rrow's professional Army. It was an effort la.king reorgani zation process which can be made better, help reshaping the reservists' employment and increas ing the
number of reservists app ly ing for Build - up forces, in particular of enlisted personnel. \A/e can do lhat but we need exact rules and enthusiasms \vhile bearing in mind that good working Build-up forces are made up of good working headquarters, Military Dislxicts, etc., as it generally happens in the Armed Forces. We p aved the way to a successful future. Now we only need to keep up or commitment and good will.
D :, Lieurenant Colonel, Force Organization Office, Army General Staff ,.,,., Lieutenant Colonel, Force Organization Office, Army General Staff 109
INFlATABlE FlOATS by Flavio Russo
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For thousands of years the goatskin water-hag was an important part oI the equipment of bygone armies. Every soldier was equipped with one. He inflated it every time he had to cross a river or stream and deflated it, filling it with water, when he had to store an abundant water-supply for moving long distances on foot. Numerous Assyrian and ancient Egyptian bas-reliefs have handed down to us portrayals of pontoons which are actually forerunners of modern ferryboats. This is further proof that military culture anticipated progress in the journey through man's history. lmosl fifty years ago a famous ethnologist, unwil ti ngly an d prophetically ironic, pointed out tha t there was not a more p ralical means that could be uti l ized by masses of people, either migrants or at war, to cross rivers or streams, than a n inflated float , that is a leather bag filled with air. Comparing throngs of wretched refugees t rudging a l ong to modern armies marching proud ly may seem incongruous, but on ly as a first impression . HO\vever, a
A
river obstructing the way is enough to give both aggregales a simi lar human identity, levelled by th e same problem: how to reach the ot her side . Discontinuous land, in corn mon wi lh narrO\v straits significantly called channels, turn into the most cl assical obstacle to freedom of movemenl, whether it be civilian oc military. I t is certain ly no accident that stretches or wa ter, artific ially re p rod uc ed around fortifications by flood i ng ditches , have been used as obstacles for little over five thousand years , \,v ith very little changes . Day aft er day, the drama unfolds in a repetitive sequence on the TV news : a wavering beam of I ight pierces the dark n ess of sea and sky and picks oul a speeding rnbber boat crammed with wretche d people . Besides the arching waves raised by the prow and the wake left by the propeller, lhe on ly ,.vhil.ish blobs are t he terrified faces of lhe illegal irnmigrants, who are, however, also fasc inated and awed ,vhen that example of technolog ica l civilization bursts into their
Men intent on inflating leather bags befo re crossing a ri ver in Mesopotamia.
l .l ]
Bas -re lief o f the IX cen tury B.C. figuring raiders and archers besieging a fortress surrou nded by water.
archaic lives. Distressed by the vio lent pitching of t he rubber bo at, by th e splas h es of icy water and b y the fe ar of bein g caught, it does not occur to any of th em t hat t hi s improvised and r isky way of crossing \,vater bega n many thousa nds of years ago, right in the lands they are fleeing from !
The r e is do c u m e n t a ry evidence that armies have used flo ats to cross 1ivers or narrow stra its si n ce t he seco n d m illen ni um B.C., a lt ho ugh the practice a ctually b e ga n lo ng, long before. And never, a s in this c as e, h as t ech no l ogica l prog res s change d so little the way fl oats are used, leaving the ba s ic criteria unchange d. Certa inly the ancient goatskin ba g, t h e gh irb a , has by n o w given \.v ay to inflata b le rubber cylind ers, h ence t h e na me
. .. . .
t
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l
•
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ru bber boat or rubber raft, but th e idea of fl oating, held up by a b ig ai r b ubb le , is a t least antedil uvian or, to be generous, diluvian . The Bib le says th a t th e rn yt hi c al p a triarch, t os se d ab o ut for months in th e
Raft o n inflated leather bags, used t ra nsp ort h uge bo u lders: a seco n d f igure is clearly visi ble, swimmi11g with the aid o f his own leather bag. lO
Anonymous, IV centwy A.D. A bridge o{ leather bags. The four rrworings on the river ba11./cs, with the ropes to {ix them, can be clearly seen. The two big bellows on each side show that it was necessary to inflate the leather bags consumtly.
creature reported by history to make use of an inflated float, nor ,.vould ]1 e have been al all interested in it. Obvious ly, the actual event must have been s li ght ly less fanciful though not so
catastrophic, as it can substantially be set in the same places and similar circumstances. In fact, it is easy to imagine that the t\.vO important rivers in .M esopotamia overflowed , as they did recurrently, dragging along
crowded and evil -s1nelling floating crate an d unable Lo know the weather forecast from any bulletin, had the bright idea to launch b is own scout in the air. .At the end o( the day, the scout had not returned and this was interpreted negatively: ,vater still covered the earth's sur(ace and ,.vas seething with rotting carcasses which the black bird had alighted on Lo feast, certainly tired of its daily ration of corn. It wa s an archipelago of disgusting, bloated dead bodies capable, however, of holding up and, as in Ll1is case, feeding live bodies. Noah could not have known that his crO\.v was the first living
Francesco Di Giorgio J\,1artini :A m1litaiy bridge on big leather bags.
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Crossing the Vo l1urno River ivith i n flarn ble boats u nder German morlar /1re on the night of / 41h-J 51h October, 1943. Frorn The Sphere, 6th No vember, 1943.
numerous carcasses of animals swept away by the raging waters. It is a lso easy to imagine that, while trying lo remove some of the carcasses caught up along the river ban k and enormo usly bl oate d as they d ecom po sed, their extraordinary capacity to floa t was empirically ascertained, far greater than th at of living ani mals. However, there is no reason why we should not believe th at t he experience just recounted is further confirmation of another one, much earlier in time a nd better known, which co mes up every time a goatskin ba g is fill ed with wa ter. For thousands of years th is particular co ntaine r has bee n in a way end em ic amo ng no mads in general a nd Middle Eastern peoples in particular, for a great
Hi malayan region : hi_~ caltle-hide leather bags, used by t wo men at a time to cross a river.
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nu m ber of unde ni able advantages. E arthen ware con taine r-s are n ot the ideal thing for ethn ic g rou ps that have to ro am
co ns ta n lly with their flo cks. Terra-cotta amp ho ras, jars and any kind of pot, j ust to men tion the ma in types, a re lo o h eavy and cumbersome and above al l lo o fragile for tho se who cont inually have to move t heir household goods to fo llow the an im als. The re fore it is no wonder th at, un i ike sedentary socie ties, pastoral ones did nol need pottery and consequently no handicrafts originated and, in the long r un, no towns. As fa r as co ntain ers were co nce rned , the bes t solution arose from the very cause of the problem: in fact it \.vas the sheep an d goats them selves t hal provided a capaci ous amp hora for ¡w a le r with their skin , in Arabic ghirba . These noma ds may have got the idea from the anatomy of the an imals th ey fed on and soon realized t hat a sheepskin , or beller goatskin w hich was more insulated by its long hair,
appropriately tanned and sewn up, became an absolutely watertight container. Where there was no lack of water, it gave rise to an extremely popular musical instrument called bagpipe by the scholarly and "z.arnpogna." by boors . On the contrary, where drought prevaile d, satisfying one's t hroat was preferable to pleasing one's ear and the capacious bladder was (illed with water which kept quite cool despite the scorching heat, or at least seemed to do so. lt is possible to know al once how much water is left in leather water-bags . They fit perfectly over a horse's back or even on a man's, and enable one to drink even whi le going at a gallop or through a sallet. They are ideal con tai ncrs, to the
extent that they have not needed any improvement over the more than ten thousand years of use. The inseparable companions of shepherds, wayfarers,
merchants and brigands, they arc only a little refractory, almost reluctant when it comes to entering water to be filled. A small amount of air left inside is enough to keep them a Cloat and not eve n the weight of a person on them does the trick. lt takes a trernendous effort to sink them righ t in t he natural element that requires a tremendous effort not to sink in! One does not have to be particularly brilliant to realize that this considerable tendency to float gives an extremely effective helping hand not to drown. Thus it is a container with a double use, bu t both equally fundamenta l, firstly to allow one to drink enough to keep alive, secondly not to drink enough to die! When it is full it ensures survival on land a long way from water and when it is empty, surv ival on water a long way from land . Once again the goatskin water-bag is confirmed as the perfect viaticurn for those who have to face the dangers of travelling lon g distances in desert regions . Very soon the goatskin ¡waterbag, owing to its two hmctions, became a constant for the
Sudan: girls with goatskin leather bags used as floats to cross a river. 115
with straps used for the packanimals, and furthermore each one will be anchored to the river-b ed by means of a i-ope with a rock for ballast. At this point 1'11 n1oor the row of leather bags on both sides of the river and spread a layer of dry branches and eanh on them, thus forming a pa thway. You won't drovvn because each bag can suppoi-t two men without sinking" .. . On that particular occasion the bridge was not constructed, since a large contingent of the enemy cavalry had stopped on the other side of the river ready to go into action. However, this ingenious invention was not forgotten and was repeatedly put to use by armies, both as an
Left. A Sherman tank climbing up the bank 0{1he Volturno after fording. Below. A bridge on floats constructed across the Volw.rno on the ni[!,hl of 14th October. 32-lon Sherman tanks could not pass over il due to its limiled carrying capacity. Frorn The Sphere, 13th Novernher, I 943.
equipment of each individual in bygone armies. Consequently, every so.ldier always carried one with him, emptying and inflating it when he had to cross a river or stream and deflating and filling it with water straight after. To get baggage waggons across a river, early attempts were made by attaching goatskin ba gs and barrels directly to the waggon, then it was considered more practical lo construct special rafts, placing numerous goatskin bags lied together under the planking. Many Assyrian and Egyptian bas -reliefs shovv us such rafts , which are the immediate forerunners of real bridge s on infla ted floats . Xenophon, who lived between the end of the V century and the 116
first half of the IV century B.C., was the first lo refer to such a bridge being bui.ll, in his Anabasis. Thus, while he was in a meeting with his staff to work out how to cross the river Tigris, a humble soldier from Rhodes demanded a hearing and then sa id:"0 Sirs, I can help you cross the 1¡iver, four thousand hopLites at a time: however you must let me have what I ask [or and pay me a talent". Having gained the attention of the Commander and the astounded officers, th e soldier \vent on, "J need two thousand l eather water-bags. As there are a lot of donkeys, oxen, sheep and goats around here, we only need lo slaughter and skin them, then inflate thei r hides. The leather bags will then be tied together
individual float and as a raft and espec ially as a bridge for attacks . Suetonius, for examp le, stated that Caesar's legions moved with such incredible speed because they used leather bags to cross rivers. On the other hand, Caesar himself mentioned Lhal leaLher bags were part of the Lusitanians' equi p rnenl. As for Pli ny, he affirmed that Arab warriors used them and Livy that Spanish ¡warriors did so, too. By the Lime tl1e Empire rose, infla t ed floats ,vere b eing employed sysLemalically. As for bridges, this is how an unknown writer of the TV century A.D. described t hem : "To p revent rivers from being an obstacle along the route the army has to take, as often happens, necessity, which is the mother of invent ion , devised a remedy which costs little, is extremely praclical and \,vh ich is prepared in the follovving way. Calf skins are tanned Arab -style . In fact there is widespread use among Arabs of a special technique for treating skins, as they draw water from wel ls wit h leath er buckets . Therefore leather bags
three and a half fee t long can be made out of skins lik~ these by sewing them up carefully, so that when they are inflated, there arc no bulges and they are uniformly flat. The bags are lied to each other with t hongs attached to their lower sides, while hooks on one side of the upper part are fastened lo r ings . This is how all the elements linked together lake the fo n n of a bridge. Owing to the strong current, the consLruction reaches the other side more easily .if it is ob liqu e with respect to the river. Once iron poles have been fixed on t he two river banks and strong ropes passed under the bags themselves in the central part to sup po rt the we ight of t h ose passing over them and along the sides to keep the bridge stable, this structure is ready in a short Lime for people to cross the river. Hand-operated ballistae are placed on each side of the river to prevent an enemy attack from stopp ing those working on the bridge." Incidentally, it is worLh noting that there arc large bellows beside the leather bags i n the accompanying
figure, as in a ll s imilar ones that follovv. The idea is almost loo explicit, meaning that only purnping air continuously can counterba la nce inevitable leakages, quite often caused by enemy arrows. T he id ea of a bridge for military attacks constructed on inflated floats does not fade out with the Empire but continues a ll through the Middle Ages into modern times, as some maslel'ly drawings by Francesco Di Giorgio Ma rtini prove. Bes ides, the same idea to employ inflated leather bags as floats can be found in almost all civilizations and ages, an d in every corner of the earth. Even the -hordes of M.ongo ls mad e use of them to cross the Danube in 1241 and plunder Eastern E u rope. Strangely enough there is no trace o f a similar use of lea ther b ags in pre Columbian America, although somet h ing else extremely interesting in this regard has been fo und in some Peruvian coastal areas. From th e XVI century on, lo cal fi s hermen made large inflated floats, cylindrical and
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egg-shaped, by sewing several seal-skins together. Joining two of them by their tips formed the prow of a boat whose sides were obtained by binding other cy li nders to th e opposite free ends. Planking la y on top of the two par allel rows and acted as a deck for this unusual cra[L. A thi ck layer of grease smeared along th e seams and jo i nls followed by the application of a special paint ensured that the flo a ts were a bsol u tely waterproof. Taking such prudent care must have b ee n b ecaus e the boat was used for sea-sailing , the perfect forerunner al.so fro m this aspect of the future rubber boat, as it anticipates its basic features. In fact the former became obsolete at the same time the latter appeared o n the scene. The most recent mod ificaUon
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of the floating bridge cam e to Ita ly from the New World: an eight -t on model constr uct ed over the Volturno R iver near Trifli s co during the night of 13th Octo b e r, 1943 by the B Company o f the 10th Batta! ion Engi neer Co rps of the yd Division or the 5th U .S. Anny. Pinpointed w ithin a few hours by the German artillery, ma ny floats were ripped by shrapnel and, just as in t he p a st, compressors lrnd to work continuously lo try and make up for air leakages . However, the bridge survived only for e ight hours. Ano ther bridge, this tim e a thirty-ton one, was constructed close by du r ing the following night. The B Cornpany of the 16th Armoured E ngin eer Battalion put it up in just six hours und er the short -l ived
Afi.er 14 1ninutes, the last panel is inserted at the centre and the bridge is completed.
protection of darkness a nd smokescreens: it remained intact after dawn thanks t o a clear air superiority. Sin ce that day pontoons and inflatable boats, as \.vell as being a basic military resource, have been employed in civil defe nce bo t h when major natural calamities occur and as suppo1¡t during local di s ast ers. In particular, the inflatabl e boat has become ext raordina rily popular as a plea.sure craft in t he las t few decades , and .... for illegal immigration! D
'' Historian and ¡writer
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