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Conflict Prevention and Crisis Management

4 August 1999

For the past ten years, the US has been calling for European countries to acquire high-tech military equipment in order to fill the interoperability and technology gaps that are supposedly hindering greater European burden sharing in security operations. The Kosovo crisis has increased the intensity and frequency of such cries. Recently, US Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona stated that "allied armed forces are slipping from one to two generations behind American forces in critical new technologies." Such appeals are often echoed by Europeans anxious for greater independence from US policy on military issues. One would assume, then, that the initiative aimed at speeding up the creation of a pan-European defence policy, launched recently by the UK and Italy, would be music to everyone's ears.

There is no doubt on either side of the Atlantic that Europeans do indeed need to take on more responsibility for international and regional security, particularly in regions as close as Southeastern Europe. Taking on more responsibility, however, does not automatically require an increase in defence spending and the purchase of US military equipment. Continually demanding that Europeans buy and spend more ignores fundamental European choices in defence and security spending and fails to bring the Alliance any closer to effectively addressing intra-state conflicts like Kosovo. If the EU wants to get rid of its image as a military "dwarf," avoid large increases in defence spending, simultaneously put the brakes on US unilateralism, and attack the real threats to its security, it would be well advised to invest in the creation of civilian intervention units.

Kosovo has clearly demonstrated that precision-guided military assets are enormously blunt instruments for reducing ethnic tensions and encouraging the recognition of human rights. The variety of civil, social and military duties which KFOR has had thrust upon it since the end of the bombing is staggering and has left NATO looking unwieldy. NATO troops are experiencing great difficulty in stopping the looting and killings in Kosovo. In fact, ordinary Serbs and Roma are leaving Kosovo in droves, not simply because they perceive NATO and the returning Albanians as their enemies, but because they do not have confidence in NATO's ability to perform basic policing functions. This is not a new challenge for international peace-keepers, however, who have faced similar problems in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and many parts of sub-Saharan Africa in recent years. The international community has failed to grasp that many of these tasks are simply not suitable for a military force. Nor should the world expect professional soldiers to adopt new administrative and judicial roles whilst grappling with huge population flows, de-mining and aid distribution.

At the same time, ''softer'' security organisations like the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have also failed to adequately address the security needs in Kosovo. It deployed its Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) in response to UN Security Council Resolutions 1160 and 1199. The KVM's mandate, broader than that of the European Community Monitoring Mission (ECMM) in Bosnia, included supervising elections, verifying cease-fire obligations and providing unbiased information about the conflict in Kosovo. Its presence meant that better intelligence was available and that the Yugoslav authorities were made aware of the international community's commitment to engagement in the conflict. However, the slow and grudging manner in which OSCE member states made personnel available for the KVM undermined the latter message and meant that, by the beginning of 1999, a full three months after the second UNSC Resolution, only 600 monitors had been deployed from the 2000 originally envisaged. The unarmed, yet highly visible nature of the Mission did enjoy some success in halting fighting by its mere presence, but it was forced to withdraw when conditions in Kosovo moved from cease-fire to violence. Its intentions were good, and lessons learned from the KVM will be useful in years to come. However, future verifiers will have to be better trained, more swiftly deployed and better supported by participating governments.

Harnessing the EU's current momentum in defence to create civilian intervention units would fill the gap between the military might of NATO and experienced but ill- supported soft-security organisations like the OSCE. It would also allow European states to maintain what they have long believed to be the key security requirement for the 21^st century: bolstered non-military capabilities .

These units could shoulder the burdens of 'soft security' tasks, such as civil administration, policing and election supervision and enable military forces to concentrate on military tasks. With personnel trained in human rights monitoring, civil administration, policing, conflict resolution, election supervision, media monitoring and local languages, the units (from a corps of up to 15,000 people) could be placed on permanent standby for swift deployment whenever they might be required. Like their military counterparts in the Rapid Reaction Forces, their ability to be deployed 'in theatre' within a short time-frame would be an important part of their effectiveness and would reduce the risk of power vacuums. Some of these units could be recruited from existing EU police forces, including lightly armed forces such as the Italian carabinieri and the French CRS. And if the EU agreed to organise and finance the units, while granting the OSCE the responsibility of training them, both organisations could be significantly strengthened, hopefully creating the proper tools for a political settlement, implementation and final resolution of future crises.

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