NATO’s at war, with caveats
Those who have followed the NATO operation in Afghanistan are familiar with the concept of "national caveats"–those restrictions that contributing countries place on how their forces can be used. Politcally, the practice has distinct advantages. It allows for the widest possible participation, which in theory boosts the legitimacy of the action. From a military standpoint, ...
Those who have followed the NATO operation in Afghanistan are familiar with the concept of "national caveats"--those restrictions that contributing countries place on how their forces can be used. Politcally, the practice has distinct advantages. It allows for the widest possible participation, which in theory boosts the legitimacy of the action.
Those who have followed the NATO operation in Afghanistan are familiar with the concept of "national caveats"–those restrictions that contributing countries place on how their forces can be used. Politcally, the practice has distinct advantages. It allows for the widest possible participation, which in theory boosts the legitimacy of the action.
From a military standpoint, too, caveats can make sense as a force multiplier. The NATO force in Afghanistan would never have German troops without caveats on their ability to engage in combat. Having those troops allows NATO to move other, less constrained troops from relatively stable areas to more unstable areas (this naturally creates resentment on the part of states taking significant casualties, but thus far the alliance has endured those tensions).
Today’s Washington Post story on NATO’s Libya operation notes that the practice of imposing national caveats is pervasive in the Libya operation:
Seventeen nations, with about 175 planes, have been officially participating in the NATO campaign since the United States stepped back March 31. Of those, only France and Britain are allowing their aircraft to fly without restrictions on their use, noted Jean-Pierre Maulny, a defense expert at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations in Paris. Of the other nations’ aircraft, some have been barred from bombing, others from hitting vehicles and others from flying attack missions at all, according to reports from Brussels.
I wonder whether having highly constrained air and naval assets in this kind of operation is worth the command-and-control complications they bring.
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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