Military force and European strategy

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgements This essay was written in a personal capacity and does not reflect the views of the British government or the armed forces. An earlier version of this article was written as a background paper for the Study Group on European Security Capabilities, which was established by Javier Solana. See the Barcelona Report, A Human Security Doctrine for Europe: Report of the Study Group on European Security Capabilities, Barcelona, 15 September 2004, http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/Publications/HumanSecurityDoctrine.pdf. Notes 1. Council of the European Union, 'A Secure Europe in a Better World: European Security Strategy', Brussels, 12 December 2003, available at http://ue.eu.int/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf. 2. These encompass humanitarian intervention, peacekeeping and peace enforcement. 3. The term comes from the classic text by C. Caldwell, Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice (Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1996 [first published in 1896]); see also M. Boot, The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power (New York: Basic Books 2002). 4. The term was used in the 1960s and 1970s to deal with threats that were not nuclear. See R. Osgood, Limited War: The Challenge to American Strategy (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1957). 5. This term was fashionable in the 1980s. The classic text was F. Kitson, Low-intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency, Peacekeeping (London: Faber, 1971). 6. Quoted in B. Boëne and M. Martin, 'France: In the Throes of Epoch-making Change', in C. Moskos et al. (eds), The Post-Modern Military: Armed Forces After the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). 7. R. Smith, 'Wars in our Time – a Survey of Recent and Continuing Conflicts', World Defence Systems, vol. 4 (2004) pp. 120–22. 8. P. Pringle and P. Jacobson, Those are Real Bullets, Aren't They? (London: Fourth Estate, 2000). 9. F. Ní Aoláin, The Politics of Force: Conflict Management and State Violence in Northern Ireland (Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 2000). 10. For example, the procedures used to deal with captured insurgents represented considerable modification of normal law – the notorious 'Diplock Courts' did away with juries and allowed confessional-based evidence, which accounted for the majority of convictions. Also, the IRA always insisted that it was political and not criminal, and the hunger strikes of 1981, part of a campaign to achieve political status for prisoners, mobilised considerable political support for the IRA. 11. Ní Aoláin, The Politics of Force, p. 225. 12. F. Kitson, Bunch of Five (London: Faber, 1977). 13. Since soldiers are operating within the framework of law, they must, of course, respect disarmament law, especially the 1993 Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. 14. The incident took place in 1990. Private Clegg received a life sentence but was released on license (paroled) after two years. He was acquitted on re-trial in 1999 in the light of new evidence and in 2000 was also cleared of the charge of wounding the driver of the car. See Nicholas Watt, 'Paratrooper Lee Clegg Cleared of Last Charge over Death of Teenagers', The Guardian, 1 February 2000. 15. J. Riley (ed.), White Dragon – The Royal Welch Fusiliers in Bosnia (Wrexham: Royal Welch Fusiliers, 1995), p. 38. 16. In Northern Ireland during the 1980s and 1990s, a joint RUC and army committee system existed at the battalion/sub-division and brigade/divisional level. This aided coordination between the police and military at all levels. 17. See M. Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1957); C. Moskos, 'Towards a Post-modern Military: the United States as a Paradigm', in C. Moskos et al. (eds), The Post-Modern Military: Armed Forces After the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); C. Coker, Humane Warfare (London and New York: Routledge, 2001). Additional informationNotes on contributorsMary KaldorMary Kaldor is Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has written extensively on security issues, including New and Old Wars: Organised Violence in a Global Era (Polity 1999) and Global Civil Society: An Answer to War (Polity, 2003). She was convenor of the Study Group on Europe's Security Capabilities, which presented its report A Human Security Doctrine for Europe to Javier Solana in September 2004 in Barcelona.Andrew SalmonAndrew Salmon is a Brigadier in the Royal Marines whose career has involved numerous foreign missions in the Falklands, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Recently, he has been a special advisor to Javier Solana's Study Group on European Security, has published with Mary Kaldor, 'Principles for the Use of the Military in Law Enforcement Operations' and has lectured on Middle Eastern issues in the US.