National Stategies and Capabilities
for a Changing World

Panel 3: Coalitions and Alliances-The Future of Military Engagement

Moderator:

Dr. Jacquelyn K. Davis, President, National Security Planning Associates, and Executive Vice President, Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis

Panel Members:
Lt. General Peter Cosgrove, AC MC, Chief of Army, Australian Defence Force; Commander, International Force East Timor (INTERFET)

General Montgomery Meigs, USA, Commanding General, U.S. Army Europe

General (Retired) Klaus Naumann, former Chairman, NATO Military Committee

Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, Senior Advisor, Stanford-Harvard Preventive Defense Project; and Visiting Scholar, Center for International Security and Arms Control, Stanford University

Dr. Davis: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to panel three and consideration of coalitions and alliance planning in operational planning for U.S. military strategy. Over the last decade, and in particular since the dissolution of the Soviet empire, U.S. alliance relationships have changed. So much, in fact, that there is discussion in this country and abroad about the relevance of NATO in the new era and the importance of American security treaties with Japan and South Korea now that Russia is discussing the lost territories with Japan and on the Korean peninsula the process of reconciliation apparently has begun.
Other close U.S. alliance relationships including that with Australia in the Pacific, with Israel in the Middle East, and of a different nature, our special relationship with the United Kingdom beyond our NATO ties, have likewise been subjected to much scrutiny of late. Whether as a result of ongoing negotiations of status of forces agreements, access to training and logistical facilities, or even broad differences over policy questions.

Differences in threat perceptions and new opportunities for competition in the global economy are among the factors that are eroding consensus among allies on military operational issues. And in the case of Europe, for example, our contributing to the growth of support for the French desire to establish an EU defense capability outside of the NATO framework, or at least one that is beyond the operational control of SACEUR. However the ESDI, the European Security and Defense Initiative, or Defense Policy, evolves, and its relationship to NATO established, it is clear on both sides of the Atlantic that the Atlantic alliance of the new millennium is and will be a different animal than it was at its creation in 1949.
Likewise, U.S. alliance relationships in Asia, each borne of the Cold War and established on a bilateral and not a multilateral basis are also in a state of flux. As noted earlier, in Korea the reconciliation process apparently has begun. And if the end game is truly a unified peninsula, our mutual defense treaty is destined to change, as is the command structure that has governed operational planning since the Korean War.

So, too, the Japanese Security Treaty has undergone changes, most notably with respect to the defense guidelines governing the employment of Japan's self defense forces in the area surrounding the Japanese islands. And even our relationships with Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom which long have been regarded as special and central to U.S. operational planning have become looser. In some respects due to the disparity in capabilities, the lack of interoperability in force structure, and in some instances because of different philosophies over rules of engagement, command arrangements, and even the use of military forces as an instrument of policy.

To these concerns are added perennial questions about burden sharing and shared interests. Which when taken together are eroding support for specific alliance frameworks. And throw open to wider scrutiny the question of their relevance to 21st century security challenges some of which we discussed a moment ago in the previous panel.

Indeed, for example, missile defense issues already are controversial in NATO, and a protracted debate in the alliance as the next administration moves forward with consideration of deployment options may only serve to diminish support for NATO among some circles in the United States. That said, this panel has been designed to explore in greater depth issues pertaining to alliance and coalition planning. To paraphrase former British Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, Lord Palmerston, there are no permanent alliances, only permanent interests. This being so, can an alliance framework designed in a bipolar, Cold War era survive when there is no shared vision of a threat, or indeed of the preferred international systems structure? And what should be the role of alliances and coalitions in military operational planning? Should, for example, the East Timor operation be regarded as a template for U.S. intervention in small scale contingencies? Or are there new mission areas? For example, crisis or consequence management? Or counter-proliferation planning that should move to the forefront of alliance and coalition planning?
These and related questions will be examined by our panel members this afternoon. We are privileged to have with us such a distinguished panel. Our first speaker is a retired Bundeswer Inspector General and a former Chairman of NATO's military committee, General Klaus Naumann. Many of you will recall General Naumann's participation in last year's conference and his insightful analysis of lessons learned from NATO's intervention in Kosovo. This year, I suppose he may address issues such as ESDI and Europe's relationship to NATO in defense planning. General Naumann?

General Naumann: Well, thank you very much indeed, Jackie. It's indeed my pleasure to be back in Washington and to discuss with you issues of common interest. I will neither use slides nor PowerPoint, nor will I crack a series of jolly good jokes, but I will try to stick to my time limit.

We talk about alliances and coalitions. I think we should discuss the issue by looking at what these forms of international organizations are about to achieve. And that is military engagement and intervention. And it seems to me, if I look at the agenda, that those who drafted the agenda shared one conviction with me. And that is we're will in principle, presumably never again see interventions done by an individual nation. And I believe this is true for a couple of reasons.

First, if I look at the global scene, there's only one nation on this globe which could for the foreseeable future do interventions on its own and that is the United States of America. But whether the United States of America will have the political will to do this, or whether it will be politically advisable to the United States to act without allies can only be answered in light of the circumstances prevailing at the time of an intervention.

It seems to me that the ever-increasing reluctance here in the United States, which by the way is shared by your allies, to put a nation's citizens into harms way makes me believe that the hesitation to intervene will even go unless there is a clear and present danger for the national interests of that state. And this reluctance, which is known to our adversaries, weakens without any doubt deterrence.

If you look at the regional situation, it seems to be different at the first glance since there are numerous countries which could be seen as regional powers and which possess sufficient military capabilities to intervene within their respect region. Some of them are capable to act beyond their regions. But the intervention capability of these countries will be limited to rescue operations on which I will not dwell at all.

Regional, as well as global, intervention will be seen by the outside world as aggression unless these operations were either legalized by United Nations Security Council resolution or by self-defense, or, as the last escape, if they could be seen as being legitimate. This issue of legality and legitimacy will reinforce the tendency to seek allies and consequently I tend to believe that most interventions or military engagements will be operations involving two or more nations. They will be conducted by either alliances or coalitions. But the difference between an alliance and a coalition is in my view whether the coalition is something like a sub-element of an alliance. An alliance is an international organization based on common objectives, convictions, and values established to achieve a specific aim. An alliance is based on its members commitment to act collectively to enter more or less binding obligations, at least morally if not legally binding to contribute to common operations and to comply with a treaty.
Whereas a coalition is always on a talk arrangement to achieve a one-time political objective. Alliances could look like NATO and feature things like common budgets and common integrated military command structure. By the way, one of the big strengths of our North Atlantic Alliance, they could have multinational forces, appropriate political and military consultation and decision-making voice. Coalitions will not possess something similar. They are much more loosely tied together. And one specific form could be a coalition of the willing. That is, a group of allies decided to act collectively in a specific case in a situation where an alliance as such is not able to achieve consensus.

Having set the scene so far, I should add that intervention and engagement, in my view, differ only in intensity. Intervention is, in my view, at the upper end of the spectrum, and it means enforcement operations. That is, military action against a post entry but without the consent of one or more country parties. Whereas engagement ranges at the lower end of the spectrum and it ranges from robust peacekeeping under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter to long term peacetime stationing of forces in foreign countries or to short term partnership for peace activities in a NATO case.

So my first conclusion from that is that most future military operations will presumably be operations conducted by two or more nations.

But then the next question is, is intervention a likely proposition in the situation we are facing? We have heard from the previous panel the threats and I will skip what I wrote down here in my text and add only a few remarks and ask the question, will there be many reasons to intervene? I'm afraid the answer is yes. And the reason for my unqualified yes are the ever-increasing numbers of causes for conflict, the absence of a functioning world order, and the ever-growing discrepancy between a small number of rich and powerful nations and a big number of poor and powerless.

It is a world in transformation and we will presumably see within the next two decades or so an ever-increasing number of intrastate conflicts, but we may also see interstate conflicts to which we are used. One reason for this thesis is that the number of 143 nationalities still living on the territories of two or more states suggest that independent movements and the desire to establish their own state will remain with us. The ever increasing population in underdeveloped countries, a young population without any hope for a bright future, the concomitant lack of natural resources to house, to feed, and to shelter them and the rapidly widening economic and social gaps between the haves and the have-nots will lead to violent conflict.

The easy access to weapons of all kinds including weapons of mass destruction and the growing risk of proliferation will increase the dangers. It was mentioned in the previous panel the risk of nuclear and chemical attacks. I would add that from my perspective, the greatest danger is that of the use of biological weapons. Though it was not mentioned, it is there.

In addition, we will see non-state actors acting covertly on behalf of state actors, or on their own account, using military means to include information operations, or state actors responding to Western superiority with a wide array of asymmetrical responses. This could mean that our strategy to preserve peace through deterrence could fail, since we simply may no longer be able to locate where the threat is coming from.

So in conclusion, we will be able to deter what you call in your American parlance the major theater war, but we will not be able to deter the asymmetrical threats. We will increasingly be confronted with transnational threats, and that will require transnational responses, i.e. coalition or alliance responses. In my view, there's little hope in this world in transformation that we could exploit our military superiority, and that is particularly true for the most powerful country in this world-the U.S.-to quell all conflicts. We will also be confronted with a phenomenon we have not yet seen in our history. We will be confronted with three forms of societal evolution on our globe: the pre-modern society, the modern society, and the post-modern society. With this difference in evolution, we will see the forms of conflict typical for each of these forms of societal evolution. This will mean that coalitions and their militaries must be prepared for an unprecedented range of missions ranging from what you in your American parlance you call distant engagement in the info-sphere to fighting tribal warriors man to man. Hence, the need for interoperability and the necessity to share risks, roles and burdens will be more crucial than ever.

In this world of transformation and disorder, the only instrument available to restore order, the United Nations, is incapable of doing so. There are many reasons for that, which we presumably should not discuss here, but one is the lack of political will on the part of the Permanent 5 (P-5) members to allow the UN to play is role as set out in the Charter. This means that, in the foreseeable future, for the United States and Europe in particular, the necessity to act, to intervene, together, will increase. Our nations will have the opportunity to keep risks at a distance if they act at the right time. Should they fail to do so, then the risks will come to harm them on their territories.

Such interventions will aim at enforcing peace first and then to create a secure environment in which peace-building efforts have to start as early as possible, to allow self-sustaining, secure environment, which will allow the forces to exit in time. Thus, intervention will transition to engagement. The intervention part of the business can best be done by alliances such as NATO. Ad hoc arrangements are less suited to succeed since they do not have the same C4 capacity, which is a key to success. That is one of the reasons why the Brahimi Report on Peace Operations stressed that enforcement operations should be entrusted to coalition of the willing.

Should coalitions or alliances decide to act, then the leaders of the nations involved must never forget the two ingredients for success:

• First, they need to define the political aim with utmost clarity and then allow their military to develop the proper strategy, decide on the operational concept, and to tailor necessary forces accordingly.
• Second, they must be prepared to see the intervention through, to maintain escalation dominance as appropriate, and to preserve uncertainty on the encountered risks in the opponent's mind.

A coalition that acts under these conditions will be able to maintain cohesion, which is the key to success in coalition operations. At the same time, cohesion is the Achilles heel of every alliance, which the opponent will aim at because he knows he can only win if the cohesion of an alliance falters.

Having seen in reality the consensus building process unfolding in NATO in a real crisis, I should add that the most important factor to achieve and to maintain consensus and cohesion is adequately answer the legal questions and, in doing so, close the gap between legality and legitimacy. Most allies will stick to their conviction that military operations against a sovereign state can only be legal in the case of self-defense or if mandated by the United Nations Security Council. Most of them will be willing to consider intervention as being legitimate if there were a blatant violation of human rights and the Security Council was unable to come to consensus. To convince states and their parliaments to intervene will require improved intelligence sharing, intense consultation, and compelling arguments.

The achievement of consensus would facilitate full transfer of authority to allied commanders, allowing for clarity of purpose and mission, a clear chain of command, and robust rules of engagement-not watered down, as General Meigs has noted, by amplified national instructions.

But ladies and gentlemen, we should not have any illusions on one issue. Coalition operations will most likely never achieve strategic surprise or apply overwhelming military force.

Nations that decide to participate in interventions should be aware that engagement of unknown duration will follow intervention. If nations are not prepared to shoulder that burden, they are better to refrain from participating in the intervention.

I conclude that, most if not all, military interventions will be coalition operations and that those operations can best be executed by alliances. Consequently, NATO should be prepared for coalition warfare. The requires adoption of internal procedures and the capability of having sufficient forces ready to deploy at relatively short notice.

The Number One priority for NATO should be interoperability in the crucial C4 ISR area. We are confronted in NATO with a real separation of I should say two leagues of players. In the one league is the United States, and then we have the other league led by the United Kingdom, France, and German. I hope they're going to improve. The Europeans must do better, and it is in the U.S. interest that the Europeans do better. The prerequisite to improvement is to close or at least reduce the technological gap that exists between the U.S. and its allies. The one way to achieve this is for the U.S. to share C4 ISR technology and to seek co-development to the extent possible. As long as this gap exists, we cannot implement the revolution of military affairs. We will not be able to achieve dominant battlefield awareness, and we will not be able to exploit the qualitative edge. Such a situation is highly divisive.

The Europeans are willing to shoulder a large part of the burden and will continue to do so. What they hope for in return is for the U.S. to regard maintenance of NATO cohesion as a vital national interest warranting long term U.S. engagement, even when there may be no vital American national interests at stake. If the U.S. were willing to pay the price, then it would win allies more capable of acting together with the U.S., where common interests are at stake. The price the U.S. would have to pay is a small one. It is the commitment to remain engaged in Europe and to share some of its technology. I believe this is worth a special effort since it enhances the chance to preserve peace in a rather unquiet and sometimes unpleasant world.

Dr. Davis: Thank you very much, General Naumann, for your thoughtful and thought-provoking analysis. Our next speaker today will deliver an American perspective on coalition and alliance operational planning. As all of you can see, he's General Montgomery Meigs. Previously General Meigs was commanding general of SFOR, the Stabilization Force in Bosnia and Herzogovina. Currently, he commands U.S. Army Europe and the 6th Army. General Meigs, we're delighted to have you with us. Thank you.

General Meigs: It's a pleasure for me to be here and to be representing my boss, General Joe Ralston U.S. SACEUR here. As General Naumann has said, there's no way around it. The only way to do business in this strategic environment is going to be with multinational coalitions working at the behest of alliances. And I think Tom Friedman's comments on globalization and growing connectivity emphasizes that even more.

What, then, are the characteristics of successful multinational coalitions? And I will try to confine most of my remarks about the practice of running them. Let's leave aside for a moment the obvious technical logistical aspects of interoperability. Success of coalitions depends more fundamentally on alliance cohesion and singleness of strategic purpose in the face of national interests and the pressures they generate as the fortunes of the campaign develop. What then does the cohesion depend upon?

Well, not necessarily in priority, first off the character, personality and competence of the multinational commander as exemplified perhaps in Ike's memo to General Mountbatten in September of 1944 when Mountbatten was moving out to his new command in the Far East. Eisenhower wrote, "The unity of command lies in the earnest cooperation of the senior officers in the coalition. Patience, tolerance, frankness, absolute honesty in all dealings, particularly with all persons of the opposite nationality, and firmness are absolutely essential. Never permit any problem to be approached on your staff on the basis of national interest. The thing you must strive for is the utmost in mutual respect and confidence among the group of seniors making up the allied command."

Soldierly qualities should count as well. Interesting that Napoleon's historian would write of Marlborough, of his conduct at Ramillies, "Here we see how important it is for a soldier to be loved by the soldiers he leads. At the very sight of his danger," and at this point Marlborough had lead an attack and then was overrun by French cavalry, "At the very sight of the danger at which threatened their commander, his squadrons thought above all as making themselves his rampart. They returned of their own impulse to the charge, they hurled back the French who had penetrated their ranks, and the rescue of Marlborough was identified as a military success because of the "maison du wal," which is the equivalent of the household outfits the French army were broken.

Cohesion also depends fundamentally on the support of the command by the political leadership of the nations in a coalition and the nurturing of that relationship by both the commander and his political leadership. Think back now again to 1944. Churchill and Allen Brooke visited Eisenhower just before Overlord. And as Eisenhower reports, Churchill told him, "General, we came for one reason only. So that there may be no mistake concerning one important thing. If any British officer is in your command, he is there because you want him. There is no possibility of any British commander staying with you if you will express to us any dissatisfaction in any terms as you may see fit." That's pretty powerful stuff when you're the multinational commander, to have a Prime Minister come and tell you that about his officers.

It empowers you to assume risks in a way that one cannot otherwise do. The cohesion between political and military leader is a two way street. A number of exemplars come to mind. Grant and Lincoln, Eisenhower and Marshall, Stimson and Churchill, Abrams and Bunker. And some that were not so exemplary: MacArthur and Truman, Stillwell and Chiang Kai-Shek and Roosevelt. The operational commander often finds himself in the gray area of his instructions and must proceed in risky alternatives with the knowing forbearance of his political masters. That forbearance depends fundamentally on the confidence one has in that commander.

Another parameter of cohesion is singleness of strategic purpose, which derives from this relationship. In 1704 after two futile years of restriction imposed by the Dutch's estate general on his desire to create a decisive battle with the French, Marlborough confronted the estate's general with an ultimatum that if they failed to cooperate in his campaign plan, he would take the English part of the force and move it to the Moselle River. The only way that Marlborough could do that and get away with it was because of the relationship he had with Queen Anne and Godolphin and the confidence again that the estate's general had with him in the final analysis.

And to support what General Naumann has said, aim and end state are critical to the quality of the operational plan in terms of its intent, concept, validity, and clarity of the end state. And the operational excellence to the execution of that plan which depends upon the tactical excellence of units, the exercise of operational initiative, and collective will.

So if we're going to have successful coalitions, there's a couple of things we must get right. We've got to pick the right commanders. We have to allow them operational initiative and support them at the national level when things get tough. We have to insist on coherent role of an end states within a tightly derived campaign plan that offers a high probability of achieving those end states. Interoperability is not a trivial issue. Logistics, administration and intelligence will fall into place if we solve the human factors, however.

And now a quick comment about NATO. In NATO, we have rehearsed, practiced means for resolving and sublimating difference that we know work and that satisfy the needs of governments. In the logistics field, we have the role of national specialization as a means of handling tough logistic issues. Unfortunately we don't use it enough. In terms of administration, we have a practice of national support elements which work exceptionally well. And in the area of intelligence, national intelligence support teams reporting through their national commanders to the overall coalition commander have proven to be a very sound way of crossing those barriers between national intelligence and what the joint coalition— What the combined coalition must have in order to make its critical decisions.

However, in the final analysis, the important seniors of coalitions are human, and they depend on assessments of risk to nations and governments and on nation's confidence in commanders in chief that one puts in command and on the operational excellence of those commands. Now, it seems to me that in this particular environment, NATO is critically important. We say there's no real proximate threat. However, we have been woefully inadequate at being able to predict what the next crisis is going to be. We say we have long-term interests that will in any event be threatened by those unpredictable crises. And in NATO, we have a validated consensus organization which has proven itself under pressure in combat.

A lot of value outcoming from that organization which is certainly— Ought to be put in the balance along with— Which on the other side includes burden sharing. Thank you.

Dr. Davis: Thank you very much, General Meigs. Our next speaker will present a slightly different perspective, I assume, because he is Chief of Army of the Australian Defense Force, Lt. General Peter Cosgrove. General Cosgrove previously served as the Commander of the International Force in East Timor. General Cosgrove?

General Cosgrove: Thank you. Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, could I begin by thanking General Shinseki for his kind invitation to attend the Fletcher Conference. In his written follow up to the invitation from the General, Dr. Pfaltzgraff made the point to me that this conference would be a timely and important one. As an Australian viewing the strategic environment in that region, I can only agree with that assessment. Many Europeans and Americans refer to our region as the Far East. But to Australians, the Far East is the Near North. And would not be unreasonable to say that there exists potential for coalition operations to be required in the region in the future.

And I realize for many of you my accent will create some difficulties. I will speak a little more slowly than is the norm for me, but I did spend a year at Quantico, so that— I speak fluent Marine, and some of you will therefore understand me quite well.
Today I'm going to propose a model for coalition operations which is based upon the Australian experience on recent regional deployments. I'm first going to provide you some background on our experience of coalition operations in terms of the Timor deployment. I'll then define to you our army model for operations prior to outlining a suggested model for coalition operations that might promote further discussion.

So over 12 months since we began our initial operations in East Timor, and the real trigger for our engagement was the independence referendum of August, 1999. During the period leading up to and after the referendum, Australia prepared forces to assist the Indonesians in evacuating United Nations and other authorized people from East Timor should the security situation require it. Now, within that operation we had several options. These ranged from a simple administrative air bridge requiring very little presence on the ground to a short duration deployment of ground elements set at much higher force levels in case we needed to go fetch people from outlying areas.

In the event the minimalist option was the one we executed. With our ground elements for the evacuation being confined to a small number of soldiers to give intimate security to aircraft on the ground in Dili and the other major town in East Timor, Baucau. Over about five days in a hectic and sometimes chaotic but ultimately very successful operation, we evacuated over 2,000 U.N. and East Timorese with the agreement and cooperation of Indonesia. Near the end of the first week of September, as the internal security and humanitarian situation in East Timor deteriorated, it became apparent that Indonesia would probably agree to an international intervention into East Timor, and that the U.N. would want Australia to play a major role. The ADF prepared plans to be the core of what was emerging as a U.N. mandated multinational force of unknown composition and of unknown structure with crucially the strength and the extent of the mandate also unknown.

I took the high end evacuation plan and modified it to require the insertion of a light infantry brigade through Dili and expanded it to include some more robust capabilities, and of course a logistics component. During this period, each commitment to join the coalition was a victory and a relief. As the combat troops of New Zealand, Britain, Thailand, and the Philippines were added to the list, the spirits of politicians and planners lifted.

However, the imperative for immediate action meant that Australians with some Kiwis, British and United States support, had the weight of operations ashore in East Timor for the critical first few weeks. Because our coalition partners needed more time to prepare for deployment.

Even as the coalition of the willing was being assembled, the U.N. Security Council was hammering out and issuing on the 15th of September, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1264. This mandate which established under Chapter 7 of the charter authorized all necessary steps to establish peace and security in East Timor. It gave that task to an unspecified number of member states acting in coalition under a lead nation. And it noted Indonesia's agreement to the resolution. The Secretary General separately invited and accepted Australia to act as the lead nation. INTERFET then, was the early entry force. In the coming months, it stabilized the security and humanitarian situation, it accepted reinforcement by viable coalition forces, and then handed over to the new construct, UNTAET in February of this year.

Now the slide you see at the moment depicts our army model. We currently have forces deployed on operations in East Timor and Bougainville. Behind this, the leading edge of our army is the ready deployment force. That comprises three formation level organizations, the first and third brigades and our special operations group. These are optimized for joint operations and war fighting in the North of Australia, and in the out and maritime approaches. Behind the RDF is the latent combat force. Those elements are at lower readiness, but able to be brought to high readiness within warning time. We have an integrated motorized brigade manned by part and full time soldiers included in this force, as well as another six reserve brigades.

The enabling forces here are our training and sustainment base. The key issue for us in this model is the critical dependence of the sharp edge of the force on the structures that sit behind it. We're prepared to say that if we don't have the capacity to generate and sustain capability, then a token presence in the front end does not constitute capability. This is an important consideration in what can be offered to coalitions as we must be able to sustain and maintain our commitment.

Now, in the next few slides, I like to suggest how the army model can be adapted for international approach to coalition operations. Shown here is the status quo. At the time when international security or humanitarian crisis develops, the world's nations have forces at different levels of readiness, modernization and preparedness. Historically, we've all noted that the raising of a formal United Nations force for crisis takes considerable time. And when launched prematurely, has often tempted mission failure.

Of course, warning times, levels and complexities of crisis will all vary. But a decision will be taken to act or not to act both nationally and internationally. The decision to engage or not to engage will be a national strategic matter based on national self interests.

Now, while many nations may be willing, the majority of those will not be capable. The categorization of willing and capable applies to very few, but it includes many of those countries represented in this room. The formation and the deployment of an early entry coalition is the area of greatest risk. Time is invariably of the essence, and there will be humanitarian and indeed international media pressure to act fast, as we've seen in recent times. This early entry coalition construct may be the subject of later discussion. However, I'm of the view that it must have the appropriate balance of technological edge in terms of surveillance, fire power, mobility, protection and sustainment, to stabilize the situation rather than to escalate it.

Whatever the construct, it must be supported by appropriate political and diplomatic liaison between countries to insure correct understanding of national intent, objectives, and end states. Follow on forces made up of the capable— I should say made up of the willing but not as capable provide the expansion, round out rotation and replacement forces for the early entry force if required. Most importantly, the follow on forces use the framework, infrastructure and procedures already established by the early entry forces. The management of the build up of appropriate replacement forces is a complex and very specialized business. This stage of the operation will also present an opportunity for the lead or advance party elements of a United Nations transition force to enter the crisis area.

Early entry forces must plan to exit once their agreed end state is met. I believe this end state might be when the crisis has been reduced perhaps just to a state of tension. And government or non-government organizations are able to operate with a reduced security force presence. It's at this point that I see the handoff to a UN. transition force comprised essentially of those who were previously willing but unable to provide forces except for late reinforcement of the early entry force.

The early entry coalition should leave behind as small as possible contingent for any long term commitment. It should return to its national boundaries and reconstitute for the next early entry operation. So the challenge for those countries that maintain forces for rapid response (and to name a few: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, in a smaller sense and localized for the region, Australia and New Zealand) is to develop an international framework for the execution of an early entry coalition operations. We have a collective opportunity to be proactive and to establish standard procedures for such a model that actually paves the way for the United Nations and may result in more success for a U.N. mission.

Clearly such cooperation must be mandated at the political strategic level. But as the people responsible for the execution of complex operations, perhaps the first steps on this journey for international security should be taken by ourselves. Thank you.

Dr. Davis: Thank you very much, Lt. General Cosgrove. And finally this afternoon, we welcome Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall. Dr. Sherwood-Randall is a former DASD, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia. At present, she is at Stanford, where she is Senior Advisor of the Harvard-Stanford Preventive Defense Project and Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation where she works with, I'm sure among others, our friends Ash Carter and General Shalikashvili. So Elizabeth, we're delighted to have you with us.

Dr. Sherwood-Randall: Thank you, Dr. Davis. Good afternoon. It is an honor to speak on this distinguished panel and in front of such a distinguished audience with so many of our senior military leaders and representatives of foreign militaries. I'd like to thank General Shinseki and Dr. Pfaltzgraff for inviting me to join you today.

I'd like first to sketch out the reasons that this panel is important, and then make some recommendations for action for the next administration. A critical leadership challenge for the Department of Defense is the management of its international relations — its ties to allies, partners, international organizations, and non-governmental groups. Paradoxically, although the U.S. has unparalleled military muscle, it is increasingly inhibited from acting alone. For planning purposes, as both Generals Naumann and Meigs have said, U.S. civilian and military leaders must assume that most if not all future operations will involve non-U.S. forces and in many cases non-military entities.

This is the reason that this panel is so important as we think about national strategic capabilities in a changing world. The Pentagon must keep multinational operations in mind as it plans, marshals resources, develops doctrine and trains for all possible contingencies, including combat, peacekeeping, and humanitarian relief. I would call this task the management of the Pentagon's international relations. And let me emphasize this is not about diplomacy. This is about ensuring that our military can get its job done, given the real world conditions under which it is asked to operate.

Let me briefly describe the changes in the international environment that make the status quo obsolete and that require the Department of Defense leadership to be innovative in the management of the Pentagon's international relations. First, the Cold War is over, but the U.S. military is in more demand to do more than ever. Second, multinational operations are politically preferable, but often militarily inefficient. Third, the pace of technological change is creating an expanding chasm between U.S. war- fighting capabilities and those of other militaries. Fourth, peacekeeping and humanitarian operations will consume too many military resources unless we build up the capacities of others to organize and perform these missions. Fifth, DOD still does not have standing mechanisms for interface with international and non-governmental organizations. And sixth, though officially mandated, the shaping mission is neither institutionalized nor adequately funded.

In a longer article on this topic that has just been published as part of a new book edited by Ash Carter and John White called, "Keeping the Edge: Managing Defense for the Future," I present several case studies that illustrate these points. Given our time constraints today, I will only reference them briefly, but if this topic is of interest to you, you might want to take a look at the book, which is on display outside the doors here.

Two recent U.S. military engagements demonstrate the challenges in vivid terms: Kosovo and Sierra Leone. Their lessons can help us figure out what kinds of actions we need to take now to improve coalition and alliance capabilities in the future. As you know, the U.S. participated in and indeed led, for all intents and purposes, a NATO campaign to liberate Kosovo. In the after-action analysis, it became clear to us that there was significant inefficiency in allied operations. The bottom line is that even our principal allies could not keep up with the U.S. military, especially in three critical areas: secure communications, intelligence cycle time, and compatible equipment.

The lessons of Kosovo are that we need to make it a first order defense priority to ensure that fighting in coalitions is a net benefit to the U.S. military, not a drag on our system. This is because our politics requires us to fight in coalitions, but our capabilities are making it increasingly hard for us to do so. The biggest challenge, and here I'd like to associate myself with what General Naumann said, is to close the growing technology gap between the U.S. and its allies. Even the technology gap that exists with our closest allies such as the British.

So let me make a series of recommendations for how this can be done. First, I think we should establish a Combined Joint Task Force within NATO that develops a model for an enhanced alliance command, control, and communications capability. That means we don't have to bring the entire alliance up to this standard immediately, which is an unrealistic task. But we should model this in a CJTF to show what can be done and then to inspire the rest of the alliance to follow along.

Second, we should require the U.S. systems of systems architecture that is now being built to accommodate allied plug-ins. Third, we should encourage the European Security and Defense Identity to enhance military capability and especially command, control and communications compatibility among European nations. And I would emphasize I believe in ESDI but only if ESDI is a serious effort to raise the standards in Europe, to reduce redundancy, and to make a more significant contribution to join operations.

We should encourage transnational defense industrial linkages with NATO countries and other major military allies to enhance interoperability. Fifth, we should build basic command control and communications compatibility with partners. Here what I refer to are those who are coalition partners, not permanent allies of ours — countries that we anticipate that we may need to deploy with in the future in contingencies such as peacekeeping.

And sixth, we should set in advance the information security standards needed to enhance coalition war-fighting capabilities as this proved to be a significant problem in Kosovo.

The second case I want to refer to is illustrative of the lessons of peacekeeping operations over the last decade. Over the course of the past year, the United Nations has deployed more than 12,000 peacekeeping troops to Sierra Leone. These have no common denominator, no training together, or experience operating together. And it's no surprise the place has been an utter mess. Five hundred peacekeepers were seized and held hostage in June. The British later came in to try to help stabilize the situation and train the ragtag force, and finally the United States, which had been quite resistant to becoming involved in this, has sent a team to train and equip West African troops out of frustration that the situation does not improve.
I think the lesson of Sierra Leone and many other peacekeeping experiences led by the U.N. over the last decade is that we need to strengthen others so that we can reduce the burden to ourselves. And we need to organize better to facilitate cooperation with others when that cooperation is necessary.

Let me suggest three things that need to be done. First, we should devote more political and financial capital to enhancing the U.N. and other regional security organizations. As you know, this is politically unpopular in the United States, and that's why I say we need to devote not only financial capital but political capital to strengthening the United Nations.

Second, we should promote the establishment of an effective U.N. policing force to fill the gap between when our militaries have done their job and when civilian institutions are not ready to keep peace in any one of the circumstances to which we have to deploy our forces, where there is civil unrest, ethnic violence, and the like.

And third, we should prepare from the start for interaction with international and non-governmental organizations. An interesting anecdote is that when the U.S. military got on the ground in Bosnia, it found 530 NGOs already operating there on the ground. But we don't have the mechanisms for interface with those organizations in the planning and preparation stage. We need to develop them.

Let me close by making one final recommendation for enhancing the effectiveness of U.S. involvement in alliance and coalition operations. We have a tool at our disposal that is underutilized. It is the military-to-military cooperation programs that contribute to the fulfillment of the "shaping" mission. Military-to-military cooperation with potential partners should be used to prepare for future war-fighting, peacekeeping, and humanitarian action. We've seen the results of the mil to mil effort most dramatically in the former Yugoslavia, where several years of U.S.-Russian peacekeeping training led to the deployment of Russian troops in a NATO-lead operation in Bosnia and subsequently in Kosovo. These programs need to be fully institutionalized in the planning, programming and budgeting system, and fully funded.

As you know, the Pentagon must manage far broader roles and far more complex international relationships for the U.S. military than ever before. Both demand innovative leadership, imaginative policies, and inventive organization. To summarize the points I've made here today. First we need to develop a coherent and sustainable plan for connecting America's likely partners to the U.S. military information architecture of the future.

Second, we need to enhance overall international capacity, but reduce the U.S. burden in conducting peacekeeping and humanitarian missions. And the Department of Defense needs to strengthen other participants at the same time that it increases its capacity to cooperate more efficiently with them. And third, the Department should use military-to-military cooperation to test and improve the interface between U.S. forces and potential coalition partners of the future. Thank you.

Dr. Davis: Thank you very much, Dr. Sherwood-Randall especially for providing us with some very specific recommendations which I hope will be the subject of our discussion as we open our period of questions and answers now to the audience. Who would like to have the first question? Questions? Yes, right there. Would you please identify yourself?

Audience:Noboru Yamaguchi from the Embassy of Japan. I would like to ask a question about General Cosgrove's experience in East Timor. I suspect that there are a number of countries and I suspect that you faced the serious challenge in terms of interoperability. I wonder if you found any serious problems in terms of interoperability during your experience in East Timor. And what are the remedies for those problems? And if you have any suggestions for the future operation in Asia possibly, I'd like to hear them. Thank you very much.

Dr. Davis: General Cosgrove?

General Cosgrove: Yes, thanks very much, General. I guess one of the biggest problems for Australian leadership of the INTERFET operation was by and large inexperience at— Pervasive inexperience at coalition operations. We didn't have a NATO background before we began And we therefore were relying on decades of bilateral regional engagement. And we indeed absorbed into the coalition in the end some partners with whom even bilateral relationships had been tenuous, to say the least, across the decades of their membership in the United Nations.

That said, we did come from a base of I guess the strategic position where for many years we have been engaging on a frequent basis bilaterally with our partners. I guess the issue we came to terms with immediately was one I think common to all coalition operations, which was a keen appreciation of the fundamental national interests engaged by each coalition partner. That became crucial to understanding why they were there, what they were prepared to do, whether they were prepared to operate to the full extent of the mandate under Security Council Resolution 1264, or whether there were restrictions within that. Once that matter was understood, it then became relatively easy to start tasking of those components and it then became a matter of tending the coalition on every possible moment.

I found as commander that the operational decisions were relatively easy, but brokering those decisions into reasonable tasks in a way which was consistent with the national interests and restrictions of the coalition partners was the tough part. The more robust missions came the way of those who were on the ground first. These were, and I should say fortunately, those countries with which we had a very considerable previous relationship, and I refer to, in the army to army sense, the ABCA countries plus New Zealand. And that provided almost a default setting of interoperability and I guess a shared multi-culture.

For the Asia Pacific region, I can only suggest that these sorts of seminars and discussions, are very good ways to continue to explore what I would call classic and cultural differences in a military approach to peace support operations. And that understanding which I heard the speakers on my right referring to in terms of the selection of commanders and the crucial job of a commander to insure unity with the force. If you get that part right, then you've got a good chance of success.

Dr. Davis: Thank you very much. Next question? Yes, over here on the end? I'm sorry, I can't see who you are from here.

Audience: Good afternoon. My name is Dave Crocker. I'm with SACLANT, NATO headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia. Comment— First of all, we do have a combined joint task force that is doctrinally mature exercised through a U.S. naval vessel for a deployed NATO headquarters capability. NATO does promote and strongly encourage ESDI. We have an accepted concept, development and experimentation process although not strongly supported by many of our allies.

And there's an effort, at least by I think most of the countries, to soften the— Through defense trade initiatives to soften some of the exporting issues and licensing issues to allow us to share more information. I would contend when you have multinational companies like BAE and Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, it's already being done anyway. The issue really comes down to the fact that if the technology gap is going to really be narrowed, that it's going to be a political will issue. And I would like to hear maybe Dr. Sherwood-Randall and maybe General Naumann talk about the issue of political will to use the tools that we already have to narrow the technology gap. We talked about Internet capabilities and the sharing of globalization and the information is not confined to any one set of borders. So how do we promote political will among the allies to narrow the technology gap?

Dr. Davis: General Naumann first?

General Naumann: Well, my outlook is not as optimistic as yours, I should say, on the technology gap. We have seen the one or the other— I should say insular approach to find solutions, but in the reality, I think the capabilities of the United States of America to achieve dominant battlefield awareness, to integrate the resource of this dominant battlefield awareness into precision strike are so superior to all of the European allies that I think it's absolutely justified to talk of two different leagues. And I do not see at this moment any tangible step forward to close this gap in a way which matters.

Of course there are lots of nice declarations. I've heard them in my NATO days every year. And I have to tell you I got fed up with it. Since it's just paper, and nothing happens in reality. To give you one example, these SACLANT as well as SACEUR are talking since ten years about the need of an alliance ground surveying system. And where is it? It doesn't exist. We have an American trace stars capability which is the only system which really works. And the Europeans, they're not able to make up their mind to go for an AVEX-type solution of an alliance ground surveillance system. So it is, I think, to a large degree, a question of political will and behind this political will on the side of the Europeans is of course industrial competition. Do not hide the fact that we are allies but at the same time we are industrial and economic competitors and we have to find a way to reconcile it. For that reason, I'm arguing again for a preparedness to share technology. This is true for both sides. There are products in the European side which are better than American products, but we never succeed at— To convince our American allies to buy European and we have increasingly a problem to convince our parliamentarians over in Europe to buy American. It's a two way street and we have to find a way. And you have your majors sitting in this case not in the Pentagon but in the State Department on export control, and we have our major sitting elsewhere and plucking international alliance corporations.
And we have to find a way to break this mold and to really set an example that we can do it. And ladies and gentlemen, I can only say the commercial issue is C4 ISR. That is the point where we need to have interoperability between the Europeans and the Americans. Otherwise, we will lose the qualitative edge which we could enjoy. And for that reason, I think let's stop to talk about hypothetical things. Do something which really matters. And I believe the best example would presumably be to go for something like an AVEX component force for an alliance council.

It's just another thing which also where you and Americans enjoy a unique advantage, is electronic warfare. In the alliance in Kosovo, your prowlers were the only— The only capability which really mattered. But if the Europeans are talking about the Helsinki enforce code, and have the ambitious idea to do an intervention, which is part of the Petersburg ... (inaudible) then they need such a capability. So is the will to share the technology. Very sensitive area. And is will on the side of the Europeans to procure such a capability. We have to put it on the test if we want to keep this alliance together.

Dr. Davis: Dr. Sherwood-Randall, before you answer the political side of that question that was addressed to you, I wonder if General Meigs from an operational perspective wishes to jump in?

General Meigs: Let me pick up on what General Cosgrove said for just a second and bring it over. There are a number of things that get in the way of units working smoothly together. One is the degree to which they're more or less capable. Another one has to do with something General Naumann talked about obliquely, and that is the differences in the way ROEs are interpreted and the amplifying national instructions. And the commander has to understand what these differences are. As General Cosgrove pointed out, in order to tailor the missions, he gives those units. Otherwise, you'll put them in a situation where they really can't do their business.

One of the things that hasn't been mentioned here is that an aspect of the information age is that many of the equipmental boundaries or differences between forces, especially in the C4 ISR area, can be solved if there's agreement on the protocols in the software, in the communications links between command and control systems. And if in NATO we could agree on the protocols for moving that information around electronically, which is clearly no a technological problem because it's done on the Internet all the time, we would then be able to finesse having everybody use the same equipment.

And one of the things I was going to suggest to you offline, Dr. Sherwood-Randall, is this issue of a negotiated, ironclad sort of protocols between nations in a coalition, or in an alliance, because you have to do it ahead of time. On how you are going to move the situational awareness around. That's one heck of a lot easier than making sure people use the same systems, because that way everybody's industry can participate.

Dr. Davis: Dr. Sherwood-Randall?

Dr. Sherwood-Randall: The former chairman of NATO's Military Committee has said everything I would liked to have said, but far more eloquently. So I would just add one point, which is that when I started working on these questions, I went to talk to the people who actually build these systems to ask them if the problem was technology. Is there some reason we can't make this work? And the answer is it's absolutely not a technology problem. It is a political problem and it's a financial problem. And this needs to be raised to a much higher level so that the political leverage and the financial backing for this happens. This isn't something that the techno-nerds are going to resolve. This is going to have to be something that our leadership decides matters. And that we make a priority.

Dr. Davis: So perhaps the new President, whoever he may be, will continue to support the commission that was just created on defense technology transfer and trade issues. And explore our system in terms of the ability to collaborate with allies and appoint a new commission when he is sworn in after January 20, assuming this mess is finished by then. Next question? Yes, in the back of the room?

Audience: Thank you. I'm Major Key, an Army Fellow with the RAND Corporation. And I'd like to ask the panel— The panel indicated the importance of cohesion of leadership. Choosing the right leader was a critical element. The fundamental basis of alliances and coalitions, it seems to me, comes down to people. And is there a need to address on the American side how we work internationally? How officers interoperate, interrelate? And perhaps there's a training issue that might facilitate that down the road more so since— We look at commanders, we think generals, but I would offer also would be platoon leader and work our way up. Perhaps trade ... (inaudible) role or other military institutions that could assist in this. But that alliance piece of the officer, NCO, that at ground roots level, is critical. And I just ask the panel to comment on that, please.

Dr. Davis: General Meigs, should the FAO program be given greater priority in Army thinking?

General Meigs: You hit a bulls eye because especially in our country, we haven't learned to think inside the other guy's mind. And we don't do that enough in the way we develop our officers. Now, the engagement arena provides a terrific opportunity for us to exploit in which to develop young leaders who have dealt with other armies in the field under pressure. So that is a major plus for something that is often represented as a distraction and that takes away from the real business of— The real business of war fighting, with which I don't necessarily agree.

The other thing is we have to look very closely at what we want out of senior leaders and build those developmental opportunities into the educational programs that lead to those positions. And that may mean duties with other armies. It could mean exposure, more types of exposure in international headquarters than we do now. And clearly those are opportunities we could take advantage of for that.

There is, however, because of our experience in the Balkans and having young captains with three and four tours in the Balkans now, a growing degree of scar tissue that's going to be a very positive asset when those young officers become Lieutenant Colonels, Colonels and Generals, because they will carry that experience forward into that period in their careers.

Dr. Davis: Before I ask our panelists if they have concluding comments, we have time for perhaps one or two more questions. Any? Yes, over here?

Audience: Fred Hill, Foreign Service Institute. I'd like to ask a quick question for General Cosgrove. With your experience in East Timor, is the possible breakup of Indonesia or independence movements that lead to a partial breakup a major concern of Australia's, and do you view military to military contacts with the Indonesian Army as a major preventative step? Or do you have other suggestions for preventative steps?

General Cosgrove: Thank you. Yes, I'd have to say that events in Indonesia, are a daily preoccupation on the part of political and strategic leadership in Australia. And I say that because we obviously wish that very great country well in some very significant challenges. And we see that the very nature of the country, such a large country spread out over many thousands of islands comprising a lot of sub-cultures which are themselves quite discreet, creates special challenges, especially given what we all see to be a difficult economic position at the moment.

And Australia, just as its been said, wants to do whatever it can to assist in the region. This is an area where we would like to lead with anything other than military engagement, although that military engagement has, and will have in the future, special uses. But this is an area where whatever it is we can do for the State of Indonesia to assist for them to resolve their internal pressures at the moment, would be time, effort and money well spent.

The military relationship we had with Indonesia over many years since the problems of confrontation had a payoff in East Timor. And that payoff was in one of mutual respect and mutual familiarity which allowed us to know individuals within TNI and for those same individuals to know the Australian Defense Force probably better than they knew some of the other coalition partners. And to have a keen view of operational capability and to know the Australian character more broadly than just knowing individuals.

Our military relationship in the future will be to assist TNI in its day to day challenges, and in the evident reform movement within TNI to the degree that the Indonesians see it as being necessary. And what legalities that relationship will have, that engagement will have, is a moot point because it's a bilateral issue and one which after the damage, the undoubted damage that's been done to the military to military relationship needs to be redefined. But it will be along that line of some level of engagement is not only necessary, but very desirable on their part.

Dr. Davis: Might also raise the point in the U.S. of the IMET program and how important a tool that is for the United States and our military in particular. Final question? Well, since there's no burning final question, I will now turn to our panelists for their last word. We'll start in reverse order with Dr. Sherwood-Randall first.

Dr. Sherwood-Randall: I just would make two closing remarks. I think leadership really matters when you're talking about doing something as hard as what we've talked about here, especially with respect to the closure of the growing gap between our country's military and others. And it's going to require the kind of leadership that is courageous and asks people to do difficult things, marshals resources, and expects of our closest counterparts the same leadership and rigor.

I'd like to make one contribution to what General Meigs said as well about the issue of rewarding those who are involved in our engagement strategy. And I say this as somebody who has been on the Policy side at the Pentagon. This does need to be rewarded professionally by our military. The Army is the leading case because it's really the only case of an organized program to train foreign area officers. The Air Force has taken small steps in that direction. This is something hugely important for the future if we take seriously the "shaping" agenda, the engagement strategy. And it's going to need to be something that people see benefits them professionally. Or they will not choose to pursue this career in the military and we will not have the kind of quality officers at senior levels that we need.

Dr. Davis: Thank you very much. Lt. General Cosgrove?

General Cosgrove: Yes, thanks. I'd like to just pick up in closing on the issue of the technology gap that— I mean, we'll all say that our soldiers, as excellent as it is possible for human beings to achieve, it's really the way that they are empowered by technology. And I just want to add a rider, which is to say that there are many military requirements which would drive us to the high end where it is the technology that makes a difference.

There are, however, a strata, a civil strata of military conflicts, peace support operations being a fairly wide area where indeed in which it's possible for lighter forces which are less technologically adept to still have a very great influence. That said, there is no gap that, to pick up on the comment by my colleagues on the right, that situational awareness is all. And if there's one area of the technology bus that a small defense force like mine is looking to continually improve, it's in the area of situational awareness. And in this regard, we're delighted with the fact that with the transformation of the U.S. Army project being well under way, it will provide formations that are light but powerful and which we can observe and hopefully in a technological sense emulate in these areas. And we're delighted with that development.

Dr. Davis: Thank you very much. General Meigs?

General Meigs: Just to go back to Dr. Sherwood-Randall's point for just a second, some time ago, actually about six months ago, I had a little informal dinner with the company commanders of two of the battalions in Kosovo. Eight captains, and they pointed out to me in the process of the dinner that they had been with me in the same division when I was a division commander two years prior. And I said to them, "That can't be. You know, you're all on a three-year tour in Europe." And they said, "Oh, yes, sir. But it takes four years to get through company command."

And then they started bouncing the ball back between the two battalions as to which battalion's group of captains had the most tours, short tours in the Balkans in that four year period. And when we got done with the tally, we had eight officers with 23 six-month tours in Macedonia, Kosovo, or Bosnia. None of whom, by the way, are FAO Officers. But who have that skill to go forward. All of whom, by the way, who are staying in the United States Army, to have careers in the Army, of whom you can be very proud.

Dr. Davis: Thank you very much, General. General Naumann?

General Naumann: There's only two points, very briefly. I think presumably the biggest challenge we have ahead of us as an alliance is indeed this question of maintaining interoperability. And I would like simply add one observation to the issues we discussed. I believe 50 percent of the technology we will use in 25 years time, has not been invented at this point in time we are speaking here. And that indicates what is ahead of us.

And the second point is, I think we should never have been negligent about the relationship between the nations on both sides of the Atlantic. At the end of the day, always people who matter. And we have to make sure that we achieve as much exchange as possible, as much contact as possible so that we can avoid all the problems we may see between the nations of the political field. And if people have the will to stick together, then this alliance will stay forever.

Dr. Davis: I think that was a very wonderful high point on which to end our afternoon discussion. Before we thank our panel, I have a brief announcement to make about tonight's dinner reception. It has been moved from Salons I through J to Salon 3, which is right next door to this room. This is where you had lunch, apparently. It's a larger space and more conveniently located. And then after the reception you will come back to this room for dinner.

Having said that, thank you very much for your attention, and I think it remains for us to thank our panel members for their excellent comments. (Applause)