Conditional commitments: Why states use caveats to reserve their efforts in military coalition operations

Frost-Nielsen, Per Marius

doi:10.1080/13523260.2017.1300364

Cited by 18 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…The conceptual framework advanced in this article seeks to bring into dialogue and make a step towards unifying heretofore separate streams of the literature to improve our understanding of democracies' involvement in MMOs and democratic foreign and security policy, more generally. This includes studies on legislative accountability, parliamentary veto rights, and parliamentary war powers (Born & Hänggi, 2005;Dieterich et al, 2010Dieterich et al, , 2015Peters & Wagner, 2011;Wagner et al, 2010), constitutional and legal writings (Ku & Jacobson, 2003;Nolte, 2003), and works concerned with the actual conduct of democracies as coalition partners in MMOs (Auerswald & Saideman, 2014;Frost-Nielsen, 2017;Massie, 2016b;Schmitt, 2018;von Hlatky, 2013).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Operational restrictions, also referred to as national caveats, are provisions that directly affect the mandate or rules of engagement of a country's contingent of forces in MMOs. A central concern of political and military decision-makers is that caveats can pose a hindrance to the effectiveness of MMOs and might ultimately undermine operational goals, especially for coalitions of many different countries where each national contingent brings along its own reservations and rules of engagement (Auerswald & Saideman, 2014;Frost-Nielsen, 2017;Ringsmose, 2010;Saideman & Auerswald, 2012). Coordination problems of this kind already haunted NATO operations in Kosovo where influential member states disagreed about military strategy, starting with the question whether to consider a ground intervention, to the selection of targets for strike missions, and the proper timing of a bombing pause-all of which threatened to undermine the military effort (Clark, 2001).…”

Section: Operational Restrictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent scholarship in security studies has started to explore the causes and consequences of various forms of national restrictions on the use of force and participation in multinational military operations (MMOs). 2 Works in this vein have surveyed parliamentary accountability and parliamentary war powers (Born & Hänggi, 2005;Dieterich, Hummel, & Marschall, 2010;Wagner, Peters, & Glahn, 2010), constitutional and legal restrictions (Ku & Jacobson, 2003;Nolte, 2003), as well as national caveats in alliance and coalition operations (Auerswald & Saideman, 2014;Frost-Nielsen, 2017;Saideman & Auerswald, 2012). What is missing, however, is an integrated view of existing constraints and their impact upon security policy.…”

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confidence: 99%

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National restrictions in multinational military operations: A conceptual framework

Mello

2018

Contemporary Security Policy

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Recent scholarship in security studies has started to explore the causes and consequences of various forms of national restrictions in multinational military operations (MMOs). This article makes a conceptual contribution to this literature by developing a theoretical framework of national restrictions in MMOs that distinguishes between structural, procedural, and operational restrictions. I argue that these types of restrictions are governed by different causal mechanisms. Structural restrictions are relatively stable over time and effect deployment decisions irrespective of other factors. Procedural restrictions, on the other hand, can constitute veto points against deployment only in combination with distinct political preferences. Finally, operational restrictions directly affect the rules of engagement of troop contributing countries. The article illustrates the three types of restrictions and their interaction with empirical examples from a range of countries and sketches their impact on MMO deployment decisions and mandates. KEYWORDS Alliances; caveats; domestic politics; institutional constraints; parliamentary war powers; veto points During the Iraq War, Japan's conservative government under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi faced severe constitutional obstacles with its aim to make a military contribution to the U.S.-led invasion. In Afghanistan's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission, the German Bundeswehr operated under caveats that prohibited it from joining its coalition partners in the full range of operations by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). When chemical weapons were used in Syria in 2013, the British House of Commons effectively vetoed Prime Minister David Cameron's proposal for military action. These examples illustrate how national regulations and conventions can affect democratic decision-making on war involvement and the behavior of the armed forces in the field. 1

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Operational Restrictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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National restrictions in multinational military operations: A conceptual framework

Mello

2018

Contemporary Security Policy

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“…States, seeking to minimize their individual costs incurred during the pursuit of collective goods, strive to retain as much autonomy as possible. As a consequence, coalition members rarely accede to unity of command in a battle (Altfeld, 1984; Auerswald and Saideman, 2014; Bearce et al, 2006; Fonck et al, 2019; Frost-Nielsen, 2017; Mello and Saideman, 2019; Moller, 2016; Morrow, 1991, 2000; Saideman and Auerswald, 2012; Snyder, 1997; Weitsman, 2003b). Yet coalitions are effective in combat.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organizing for performance: coalition effectiveness on the battlefield

Zielinski

Grauer

2020

European Journal of International Relations

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States often fight side-by-side on the battlefield. As detailed in our new dataset, Belligerents in Battle, 178 of the 480 major land battles fought during interstate wars waged between 1900 and 2003 involved at least one multinational coalition. Though coalition partners fight battles together to increase their odds of securing specific objectives, they vary significantly in their capacity to do so. Why? Drawing on organization theory insights, we argue that coalitions’ variable battlefield effectiveness is a function of interactions between their command structures and the resources each partner brings to the fight. Coalitions adopting command structures tailored to simultaneously facilitate the efficient use of partners’ variably sized resource contributions and discourage free-riding, shirking, and other counterproductive actions will fight effectively; those that employ inappropriate command structures will not. Evidence from Anglo-French operations during World War I and Axis operations during World War II strongly supports our claim. For scholars, our argument and findings about the importance of military organizational dynamics for the operation and performance of coalitions raise important new questions and provide potential insights about coalition formation, duration, and termination. For practitioners, it is significant that, since 1990, 36 of 49 of major battles in interstate wars have involved at least one coalition and the majority of those coalitions have been, like the cases we study, ad hoc in nature. Understanding how command arrangements affect performance and getting organization right at the outset of wars is increasingly important.

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“… 7. There is a growing literature on the use of caveats in coalition warfare; see Saideman and Auerswald (2012), Frost-Nielsen (2017), Fermann (2018) and Mello (2019). Based on the extent of caveats they could weaken any command structure and increase the complexity of coalition command and reduce effectiveness.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Centralized command and coalition victory

Morey

2020

Conflict Management and Peace Science

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Building upon research that found that coalitions are more likely to win wars, recent work has sought to differentiate effective from ineffective coalitions. Much of this work focuses on characteristics of member states and not the coalition itself. This paper takes a first step in exploring how the structure of a coalition contributes to its performance. Specifically, coalitions vary in how much control members must transfer to the coalition. Some coalitions form weak command structures with states maintaining primary control while other coalitions form a strong centralized command. The impact of command structure on coalition performance is vital to understanding the success and failure of coalitions. Highly centralized command structures allow states to overcome the problems associated with coalition warfare and achieve victory. Empirical evidence supports this claim; the odds of victory increase as states surrender more control to the coalition. These findings provide direct advice to policy makers considering forming a coalition. The implications of this research extend to the alliance literature and the war bargaining literature, which tend to assume either that wars are dyadic or that states can seamlessly aggregate military capabilities.

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Conditional commitments: Why states use caveats to reserve their efforts in military coalition operations

Cited by 18 publications

References 25 publications

National restrictions in multinational military operations: A conceptual framework

National restrictions in multinational military operations: A conceptual framework

Organizing for performance: coalition effectiveness on the battlefield

Centralized command and coalition victory

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