Tentative Guidelines for building partner armies post conflict
Hi all,
I've been working away on the PhD thesis and have developed a number of guidelines for creating or recreating indigenous armies in a post conflict, post intervention environment.
I'm not sure whether I've missed something obvious or whether I've got something wrong, so thoughts from older heads with more wisdom would be much appreciated.
Does this list sound right -
Preparatory considerations
The first area is preparatory considerations before the process gets underway.
*The first is the state of peace and war in the country, which will have a dominant effect on the environment in which reconstruction takes place.
*army reconstruction not just into a broader SSR programme, but within civil institutional redevelopment of a wider nature still.
*Third, national security and defence planning needs to be incorporated into wider national development documents.
*Fourth, the OECD guidelines on SSR and repeated experience indicates the need for an overall army strategic and budgeting plan. The South African example of making the responsibilities of the government to the armed forces clearly understood, including making available sufficient resources, is a good one to follow.
Army reconstruction process
*First, Southern African experience shows the need to set realistic, rather than unobtainable, transition goals within the armed forces.
*Second, if foreign models must be utilised, they should not conflict. Zimbabwe shows the difficulty of applying differing systems (British and North Korean) in the same army.
*Third. retraining the entire new force may not be necessary; officers and NCOs only may be sufficient.
*Fourth, the army itself when being reconstructed should be designed to be all-inclusive, to avoid factional dissatisfaction. As shown by the crisis in East Timor, internal tensions need to be carefully managed until they can be resolved.
*Fifth, the creation of a reserve force should be carefully considered. Such a force might employ those people who would benefit from having an occupation to avoid them causing trouble, but are unsuitable for the regular army.
*Sixth, after individual and unit training, major exercises need to be scheduled to maintain skills and keep soldiers busy.
*Seventh, logistics, administration and maintenance need particular attention. This applies doubly when a force is being transformed from a guerrilla into an institutionalised army.
*Eighth, automatic transferral of sophisticated bureaucratic procedures and computer/information systems should be resisted. Cf. 10 Division British advisors '..it is better that they be allowed to adopt the elements of our systems that suit their needs,' SWJ article on problems in Iraqi Army intelligence, and my personal experience in East Timor
*Given the need for large numbers of advisors in teams like ETTs and MiTTs, consideration needs to be given to ways to improve the prestige of advisor assignments.
*Care should be taken to restrain pressure for higher quantities of new army personnel over higher quality personnel.
*U.S. private contractors such as DynCorp, PAE and new Protection Strategies Inc. seem to be best suited to U.S. ‘train and equip’ type reconstruction efforts. Eg MPRI in Nigeria, yet, DynCorp in Liberia handled a complex programme well.
*U.S. legal restrictions which prohibit U.S. funds from being spent on non-U.S. equipment can hamper acquisition of cheaper, less sophisticated equipment. It also requires a potentially long supply line back to the United States.
Comments and violent disagreement very welcome.
Much of what you say is good common sense
Hi Colin--
Only a couple of bones to pick with you. First, it does not appear that you give enough attention to what mission(s) you are giving to the security forces in the context of the threat(s) they face. Panama and Haiti chose to have only police forces after inteventions. In Panama's case, however, the threat is larger than a police force alone can handle so there are some interesting adjustments that have been and are still being made ad hoc. So, a threat analysis coupled with a mission analysis is a critical early step.
Second, what is the military tradition of the country? If there is an indigenous military tradition, how does one best exploit it to meet the threat and achieve the objective? If there is no real threat, is not having a military a viable option given the indigenous military tradition? El Salvador is a good example of such a case. While there is no longer a real military threat, not having a military would violate Salvadoran tradition and national pride, etc. So, how do they make best use of that tradition without their military becoming a threat itself?
Third, I would take minor issue on the use of technology - especially computers. Again Salvador provides a useful example. One of the major problems through the whole war was that the ESAF had no personnel record management system. This had all sorts of major negative consequences. Toward the end, we put an advisor with the C1 (Pers & Admin) of the joint staff and developed a personnel records sytem. This became essential to the ESAF reserve system that grew out of the aftermath of the war and critical to the reserve call up during the Hurricane Mitch disaster.
Finally, I would take major issue on philosophical grounds with you on the use of PMCs. IMO there is far too much policy involved in developing a security force to entrust it to a private entity no matter how patriotic are its principals and staff. Organizing, training, equipping, and sustaining a security force is inherently a governmental activity and needs to be undertaken by the host and supporting governments. While there is a role for contractors, it is, IMO, small and entirely one of supporting the govts involved. It is, for example, fine for a contractor to provide the mess hall; it is not fine for the contractor to train the police or military. It is fine for the contractor to set up and maintain a computer system; it is not fine for the contractor to tell the govt what it should use the system for or to maintain its military/police personnel records.
So much for my opinions.;)
Cheers
JohnT
Thanks for your thoughts John
John,
Thanks for your input. Of course, as the British would put it 'selection and maintenance of the aim' should be right up front. I should have seen that, despite all the reading of the OECD Security Sector Reform handbook I've been doing.
A modern bureaucratised army does definitely need a personnel system. But when, for example in Afghanistan, half the officers are illiterate, not even to mention computer-illiterate, does this need to be computerised? As New Zealanders, we ran our bit of the First and Second World Wars, along with everybody else, on physical files, and secretaries. What do you think about not loading indigenous armies initially upfront with computerised bureaucratic systems - they could always be introduced later on.
Thanks for your thoughts about PMCs. I tend to agree, and so says one important interlocutor who was personally involved in Liberia with DynCorp. For the moment, barring any other evidence, I think I will write that U.S. PMCs should be limited to training and equipping forces - thus DynCorp's and PAE's role in Liberia was an inappropriate extension of PMCs' role.
Cheers
Colin
'C' codes for joint staffs?
One other minor question. I'm intrigued at the Salvadorian use of 'C' for a joint staff post. Was there a reason why 'J' was not used?
Thanks again
"C" stands for "conjunto" -
Joint, in Spanish. ;) I think you are right about using the old M1A1 paper files with literate secretaries. My point was simply not to reject computerization (or other technology) out of hand. The problem, most often, runs the other way - technology is the solution so we have to have the very latest, forgetting, of course, how long we did without it and how well. As the "unsung hero donkey" thread keeps pointing out, there are many very useful adaptations of old "technology." Last, while I would rather do without PMCs for most things, it can't happen overnight. We need their capabilities and will continue to need them for a while even if we decide that certain functions need to be returned to the govt.
Cheers
JohnT
Sad but very, very true...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dayuhan
...Americans, alas, have a well-earned reputation for being very easy to manipulate, and much of the time when we think we are the ones doing the shaping we are actually being worked...whatever they want to hear, parrot their own words back at them, make them think we're adopting their ideas, show 'em just enough leg to keep the goodies flowing, and take 'em for every damn thing they've got while doing exactly what we want to do.
We don't play this game very well, and we get worked a lot.
Amen. In WW II we got worked some but also did some decent (or indecently successful, viewpoint dependent) working. However, I cannot think of an international affair since with a major US commitment where we did not get taken to a considerable extent that generally made our effort far less valuable than it could or should have been. Not one.
Every nation, every nationality with whom I've worked has produced people who noted our propensity to get suckered. Every one.
I was afraid that was where you were heading
Dayuhan, IMO the issue is not whether or why the outcome of the conflict was successful but whether a solid advisor relationship can contribute to a successful outcome. From my reading of Magsaysay, I would not use the word maleable to describe him - nor does Lansdale paint such a picture. But clearly, Diem with whom Lansdale also worked was not a maleable character yet Lansdale was able to build a successful advisor relationship with him. Note that the long term outcome of Diem's tenure was not a success but that was due to factors well beyond Lansdale's control.
But, again, I don't want to make this thread a defense of Lansdale. Rather, I would make it a defense of the way he did the advising business (according to his writing and that of others who knew him and worked for him - Rufus Phillips in particular). The essence of what Lansdale says is that the advisor needs to treat the people he is advising with respect. Building a relationship is a two way street - as I've suggested in other posts. Furthermore, advising is like leadership, an art. Indeed, it is a special kind of leadership where the leader/advisor has no power, only the ability to convince his partner that what he believes is the right thing to do is right for the partner because it is in his interest. (See Richard Neustadt, Presidential Power). While the US military insists that leadership can be taught, what can be taught are leadership techniques. Likewise, advising techniques (writ very large) can be taught but putting it together on the ground is always an art - and arts are based on natural talent which can't be taught. Talent can be developed but if you don't have it, you can't learn it. So, it is with advising. I taught in the old FAO course and I well recall a number of students who really had no talent for relating to foreign cultures. Most, found out quickly enough and moved on to other kinds of military careers but with an "appreciation" of the difficulty of dealing with a foreign culture (and advising counterparts). At least one went on to a successful career in the FAO field but one in which he was able to avoid any real interaction with counterparts. In his penultimate assignment, his lack of empathy for foreign cultures caught up with him and made him much less successful than he could/should have been in dealing with his American colleagues in an organization populated by FAOs.
Backto the source of all this: I hope that these discussions are helpful to Colin in addressing the problem he originally posed.
Cheers
JohnT
Colin, what is your criteria for non-Western?
I fully understand that the answer is arbitrary but for sake of argument, the late Samuel Huntington posited the following civilizations:
Islamic
Sinic
India
African
Latin American
Western
If memory serves, I have probably missed one or misstated but the general idea is there. I tend to think that Huntington was wrong in detail about his cultures/civilizations but his arbitrary list is as good as any. If he is right - or we simply use his list - then none of the cultures except the Western can possibly succeed in taking good advice. If he is wrong and Latin American culture/civilization is simply a Western variant (as I believe) then why have they been so unsuccessful in learning the Western way of war? Or have they?
Cheers
JohnT
Reactions to a few points...
I'm mostly an Asia guy, so we're coming from all over. That's not necessarily a bad thing, if we're looking for large-scale trends.
Quote:
Kenneth Pollack's book proves that Iraq has a history of very poor tactical performance.
Iraq is not alone in this. I suspect that in many cases the cause of consistent poor performance is the selection of military leaders on the basis of personal loyalty to the national leadership, rather than on the basis of competence. When leaders view their own military force as the primary threat to their position, as is often (and often justifiably) the case, this is a natural evolution. In many cases it works adequately, as long as the military in question is only expected to impose internal security against fragmented opposition. Once that military comes up against a capable foreign antagonist or a competent insurgency, it collapses like a watermelon hit by an SUV.
It's easy for the Western adviser to look at this type of military and see exactly what needs to be done to make it effective. The national leadership, on the other hand, is likely to be less concerned with effectiveness than with preserving personal loyalty and personal control. The national leadership may see this as a necessity for its own survival, and may actively seek to undermine reforms that could promote effectiveness but reduce personal loyalty. Just an example of how an adviser's perception of need can vary from the host country counterpart's perception.
Americans in particular often base assessments of efficiency, effectiveness, capability on different criteria than those applied byt local counterparts. All of these are simply measures of the degree to which a system accomplishes its purpose. If we assume that the purpose is "national development" or "national security", a system may seem inefficient. If we understand that the actual purpose of the system is to preserve the wealth and position of the governing elite, everything changes. The point, simply, is that we cannot assume a common purpose... and when divergence of purpose becomes extreme, it may be better just to walk away.
Quote:
What can we do about it now? This is not about armies, it's about the political evolution of the state - statebuilding. One has to improve the nature of the state before we can improve the army.
I've done this rant before, but I think it's relevant.
We can't build states. Nobody can, because states aren't built, states grow. The difference may be semantic, but it's significant: when we speak of "state-building" we slant ourselves toward an engineering proceess, one that only requires the right plans, tools, and execution. That's not realistic, and I think if we draw our metaphors from agriculture rather than engineering, and think of cultivating rather than building, we emerge with a more accurate perspective on what we're trying to do.
We also have to accept that the process by which states grow is often very messy. The US fought one of history's bloodiest civil wars and carried out one of history's great genocides on its way to nationhood. The ever so civilized western Europeans... well, we all know what they went through on the way to where they are. Why should we expect today's emrging nations to sort out their external and internal problems in an orderly and peaceful fashion when we couldn't do it ourselves? We may at times be able to mitigate the mess and prevent it from overflowing... but we're deceiving ourselves if we think we can make state-growing anything but an uncertain and sloppy process.
Rambing off topic, time to stop!
What do we mean by advice?
Dayuhan, I hear what you are saying and all too often you are right. But what I mean by advice - and this is the way I practiced it as a civilian USG type, soldier, and free lance researcher - is that my advice to my counterparts was just my best guess as to what would work to achieve their goals. I never claimed to have a monopoly on truth and I always listened to their views. Sometimes their views would come out on top; sometimes mine; most often some amalgam of both brought out by mutually respectful discussion during which there was quite a bit of disagreement. My experience was that this worked and whenever I saw this approach tried, the outcome tended to be good. What didn't work was a "my way or the highway" approach. that only pissed the counterpart off. The other thing that never worked was not listening to one's counterpart's analysis of a problem and assuming that you (your guys) understood the problem. Mostly, they (and you) didn't. That is often the source of your observation that the counterpart will simply agree with you in public while continuing to do the thing his own way - which rarely advances a solution to the still incorrectly defined problem. One of the reasons for our continuing to make this kind of mistake is the relatively short term assignment policy. A one year tour is simply too short to get a solid grounding in all the situational and personality quirks. Two years would be much better with, generally, return to the same area after going home for "reblueing." Still, as with all such generalizations, this won't work all the time and needs to be modified to fit circumstances.
Cheers
JohnT
Have we missed the known long term relationships?
Colin,
I have read through the thread, but have we not missed those countries where post-conflict and post-intervention there has been a long term relationship between the West (generally) and the national military?
A few examples come to mind: RoK and Taiwan (with the USA); Kenya, Oman and Malaysia (with the UK). Some of these relationships have lasted, others like Taiwan have been ceased.