Activities of Operations Other than War

I. Non-combat activities

A. Domestic assistance to civil authorities

1. humanitarian assistance (disaster relief)

2. security assistance (riot control)

B. Nation assistance

1.

a. disaster relief

b. military civic action

c. refugee control

d. civil affairs*

e. foreign internal defense*

f. unconventional warfare*

g. non-combatant evacuation operations or personnel recovery*

2. Security assistance*

a. (support to) counter-drug operations*

b. combatting terrorism (counter-terrorism* and anti-terrorism*)

c. support for insurgency or unconventional warfare*

d. counter-insurgency or foreign internal defense*

e. special reconnaissance*

f. psychological operations*

g. arms control

h. show of force

C. Peace operations (international assistance)**

1. preventive diplomacy**

2. peacemaking**

3. peacekeeping**

4. peacebuilding**

II. Combat activities

A. Attacks and raids

B. Direct action*

C. Peace enforcement**

Note: Some activities other than war are also considered special operations or peace operations. Those activities listed only in FM 100-5, Operations, are not marked; those activities listed in JCS PUB 3-05, Doctrine for Joint Special Operations, are marked with an asterisk(*); those activities listed in FM 100-23, Peace Operations, are marked with two asterisks (**). Military civic action and refugee control have been added as operations other than war.

peace.¹¹ CA is important to military legitimacy whenever the military comes into contact with civilians, especially when public support is important to political objectives.

All four CA mission areas emphasize OPLAW compliance as a doctrinal imperative.¹² The first CA mission area supports combat operations by minimizing civilian interference with them and mobilizing human and material resources for combat support.

assist commanders, in co-ordination with the servicing staff judge advocate, in fulfilling lawful and humanitarian obligations to civil/indigenous population, and ensuring operations are consistent with... US law.¹³

The second CA mission area, support for special operations, includes support for insurgency (unconventional warfare or UW) and counter-insurgency (foreign internal defense or FID). Together UW and FID represent opposite sides of political warfare, euphemistically known as low-intensity conflict, or LIC. But even when bullets and not ballots are the means to gain or retain political power, ultimately that political power must be legitimized by public support:

The struggle between the insurgent and the incumbent is over political legitimacy - who should govern and how they should govern. [Accordingly] one of the principal elements in this struggle is the effort to mobilize public support. Whoever succeeds at this will ultimately prevail.¹⁴

The third CA mission area is support for civil administration, the core component of nation assistance. Here CA personnel become directly involved with the political legitimacy of a host nation, usually providing specialized advice or assistance to foreign government officials based on expertise in one of the 20 CA functional areas which correspond to essential public services.¹⁵

Civil administration can help restore order out of chaos, or promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law in transitional democracies. CA functional specialists, such as legal and public administration specialists, can establish and oversee essential government functions; but more often they provide only advice and assistance to host-nation government officials. In wartime, civil administration in occupied countries is referred to as military government.

The fourth CA mission area is support for the domestic civil sector (military assistance to domestic civil authorities). This CA mission area involves providing civil administration (for example, public safety and public health) during domestic emergencies such as natural disasters and civil disturbances.¹⁶ Civil-military confrontation under stressful circumstances is a constant threat in civil disturbances.

The four mission areas make CA the core of civil-military operations in peace and war. They illustrate the central role of CA in promoting the civil-military relations essential to military legitimacy. That was underscored by John O. Marsh, Jr., a former Chairman of the Reserve Forces Policy Board and Secretary of the Army, when he recalled a senior Russian military attache asking him how the US developed civilian control of the military. Marsh noted that CA 'would be Exhibit A of how we have done that'. He likened CA to 'a capillary action, a leavening action between combat, the transition to peace, and the reconstitution of government under the rule of law'.¹⁷

Secretary Marsh translated doctrinal dogma into a concise summary of the CA mission in nation assistance:

The CA mission is to capture the roots of American Society - what this country is really all about - and to build other governments that reflect the best of the American experience.¹⁸

With humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions on the increase, CA is an indispensable part of the Total Force. It has been described as 'the only part of the military force structure prepared by doctrine, training, experience, and personnel recruitment to deal with [the civilian organizations and agencies involved]'.¹⁹ Domestic assistance to civil authorities

Civil authorities seek emergency military assistance when either natural or man-made disasters create humanitarian or security needs that exceed their capabilities. In recent years civil authorities have requested military assistance to contain everything from chemical spills and prison riots to dangerous religious cults.

Domestic humanitarian assistance, or disaster relief, is a CA mission that emphasizes inter-agency and civil-military relations. The US Federal Emergency Planning Agency (FEMA) has the primary authority for disaster relief at the federal level, while individual governors have authority at the state level. Governors have immediate access to their Army National Guard (ARNG), composed primarily of combat forces. The specialized support and service support forces needed for disaster relief - CA, military police, medical, and engineers - are in the US Army Reserve (USAR), where federal law and regulations make it almost impossible for governors to use them on an emergency basis.²⁰

Domestic security assistance is most often in the form of riot control; its first priority is to assist law enforcement authorities restore law and order during civil disturbances. The civil-military confrontations that characterize riot control require an emphasis on the principles of unity of effort and restraint. Nation assistance

Outside the US, a wider range of humanitarian and security assistance activities are conducted to help friendly governments, as an extension of US foreign policy. Military nation assistance activities are only one element of foreign policy, for which the Department of State has primary responsibility. The inter-agency nature of nation assistance requires an emphasis on political objectives and unity of effort. And complex legal restrictions on military humanitarian and security assistance reflect subordination of military control to the State Department in this domain of the diplomat.

Political legitimacy is the goal of nation assistance:

The goals of nation assistance are to promote long-term stability, to develop sound and responsive democratic institutions, to develop supportive infrastructures, to promote strong free-market economies, and to provide an environment that allows for orderly political change and economic progress.²¹

Nation assistance requires more than co-operation between military and civilian agencies; it requires their activities be a joint venture.

Humanitarian and civil assistance (HCA) is more narrowly defined by law than the generic term humanitarian assistance. HCA refers to specific civil-military projects which are normally a part of military civic action activities conducted in underdeveloped nations. These activities are especially sensitive since they are a form of foreign aid, and represent an encroachment of the Department of Defense into the domain of the Department of State.

One of the statutory restrictions on HCA grew out of its use by the Reagan administration to support the Contra insurgency in Nicaragua. Congress responded with a military prohibition that forbade the provision of HCA (directly or indirectly) '... to any individual or group or organization engaged in military or paramilitary activity'.²³

The military prohibition is just one of many restrictions that can create issues of military legitimacy in HCA. The real impetus for the 1986 HCA Act was not controversial assistance to the Contras but a mundane combined training exercise conducted in Honduras. A 1984 Comptroller General opinion criticized the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) for using military operational funds (organization and maintenance, or O & M funds, under Title 10) to construct permanent improvements that benefitted the local population as unauthorized foreign aid with no legitimate military purpose.²⁴

The legislation that followed was a congressional compromise in a bureaucratic turf battle. It allowed the military limited authority to provide HCA when in conjunction with authorized military operations, but was limited to four narrow categories:

· medical, dental and veterinary care in rural areas;

· construction of rudimentary surface transportation systems;

· well-drilling and construction of basic sanitation facilities; and

· rudimentary construction and repair of public facilities.²⁵

Military civic action is the predominant form of HCA.

Disaster relief is emergency humanitarian assistance, and like other such activities emphasizes civil-military relations. While domestic disaster relief is provided through FEMA, overseas it is the responsibility of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). The HCA law cited above does not restrict foreign disaster relief (such as the famine relief provided in Somalia during Restore Hope) even though it is a form of humanitarian assistance.²⁷

The CA capability to plan and implement disaster rebel has proven itself overseas, while at home it is hampered by a cumbersome FEMA bureaucracy compounded by unnecessary legal restrictions on the use of federal military forces. For overseas disaster relief the Foreign Assistance Act designates the US International Development Cooperation Agency (USAID) authority to provide or co-ordinate US assistance; OFDA is the office within USAID that actually provides assistance. Under the Act, the USAID administrator may, in consultation with the Secretary of State, call upon the armed forces to assist OFDA with disaster relief.

When the US military provides overseas disaster relief under this authority, it must be reimbursed for its costs under the Economy Act. Unlike the limited military HCA authority, there is no authority for the military independently to provide overseas disaster relief. The result is that military disaster relief must be part of an overall State Department mission, much like HCA and security assistance.²⁸

Refugee control is a form of humanitarian assistance that has become increasingly important in recent years: US civil-military operations have assisted and sometimes restricted Kurds in Northern Iraq, Haitians in the Caribbean, Moslems fleeing violence in Bosnia and the endless flow of refugees across Africa from famine and civil war. Issues of military legitimacy, especially those affecting human rights, have been at the forefront of these refugee control operations.

Often refugees are not welcome and their rights disregarded. In Germany the flood of refugees from Central Europe has ignited a backlash of violent xenophobia reminiscent of the Nazis. In the US there has been much debate over Haitian refugees and continuing illegal Latin American immigration. The President and US federal courts have not always agreed on the limits of refugee control and the rights of refugees; but when refugees come into the custody of the military, human rights become a mission priority.

To maintain legitimacy, peacetime standards for refugees must meet or exceed the wartime standards of the Geneva Convention regarding civilians.²⁹ Political issues are as important as legal issues in refugee camps. Requests for political asylum and temporary refuge can be expected and must be handled in accordance with the law and US policy to avoid embarrassing incidents.³⁰ Security assistance

Security assistance is a military-to-military advisory mission often linked with humanitarian assitance as ongoing nation assistance activities. Like humanitarian assistance, it is in the domain of the State Department; its purpose is to contribute to the political legitimacy of friendly regimes by strengthening their armed forces. But, unlike humanitarian assistance, it involves military weaponry which can be misused by recipient militaries to violate human rights. Federal laws regulating security assistance focus on protecting human rights from abuse by military forces.

The primary legislation governing security assistance is the roreign Assistance Act, which prohibits security or economic assistance to countries that 'engage in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights'. This language incorporates those rights of the Universal and American Declarations of Human Rights which have been adopted as US policy.³¹

Service regulations require US military personnel to report human rights violations through military channels. These regulations use standards from Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to define a 'level of conduct that the US expects each foreign country to observe', with the following prohibited acts:

1. Violence to life and person - in particular, murder, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

2. Taking of hostages;

3. Outrages upon personal dignity - in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;

4. Passing of sentences and carrying out of executions without previous judgment by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees that are recognized as indispensable by civilized people.³²

Regulations further require US military personnel who observe any violations to disengage immediately and leave the area if possible, and report the incident to US authorities. They must not discuss such matters with non-US government authorities or journalists.

While security assistance is considered a military-to-military mission, its emphasis on human rights makes civil-military relations a priority concern. Security assistance is a continuing mission of the US ambassador's country team, with the security assistance officer (or group) a member of the team. For a larger force, the Security Assistance Force (SAF), provides the same integrated operational concept.³³

Support to counter-drug operations is security assistance in the broader sense of the term, but is not subject to the Foreign Assistance Act. Counter-drug operations are more a law enforcement than a military function, and the Posse Comitatus Act prohibits federal military personnel from being used in a law enforcement capacity in the US, subject to certain limited exceptions.³⁴ Members of the ARNG are not subject to the restrictions of the Posse Comitatus Act while in a state status, so that they can support domestic drug interdiction without violating the law.

Overseas, US forces work in close co-operation with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to assist host nations with their counter-drug activities. These activities involve sensitive civil-military relations which emphasize political (law enforcement) objectives. But when drug lords challenge the legitimacy of a government, as in Colombia and Peru, counter-drug operations become more like counter-insurgency operations than law enforcement. Success against drug lords with private armies and public support requires a full range of military, political and economic measures to deny them legitimacy.

Like insurgents, drug lords and their terrorist squads must have a friendly sea in which to swim, to paraphrase Mao Tse-tung. Their legitimacy and ultimate survival depend upon a measure of public support or, at minimum, public apathy. Too often drug lords are afforded undeserved legitimacy and safe havens in fiefdoms where drug production is the only source of income for poor peasants. In these areas, a full range of nation assistance activities is required to isolate drug lords form their base of support - a prerequisite for their capture.

Most US countuer-drug activities overseas have been advisory missions in support of local military forces, such as those in Bolivia, Colombia and Peru; but the 1989 Panama intervention (Just Cause) and arrest of President/General Noriega illustrated how far the US is prepared to go when a drug lord directly threatens its security interests.

Combatting terrorism provides security to a threatened population through both anti-terrorism (continuing defensive measures) and counter-terrorism (offensive operations). The effectiveness of both is measured by the level of public confidence in government to provide security from the threat of terrorism.³⁵

Combatting terrorism is similar to counter-drug operations in that both are more law enforcement than military functions, unless the criminal activity threatens vital US security interests. In the US combatting terrorism is the responsibility of the FBI and overseas the responsibility of the State Department.

State-sponsored terrorism has a strategic dimension that takes it beyond law enforcement. As the hostile act of a sovereign state it justifies a US military response when it threatens American citizens or security interests. In counter-terrorism the doctrine of self-defense has sometimes been liberally interpreted to include anticipatory self-defense - essentially offensive measures - to protect the security of the US and its citizens from state-sponsored terrorist acts.

Counter-terrorism operations include hostage rescue, such as that conducted by Israeli military forces at Entebbe airport in Uganda in 1976; attacks on terrorist camps and terrorists, such as the US bombing raid on Libya in 1986 which followed a Libyan-supported terrorist attack on US servicemen in Germany; and abduction-the forcible unconsenting removal of a person by agents of one state from the territory of another state.³⁶ The capture of Manuel Noriega during Operation Just Cause for trial in the US could be considered such an abduction. Peace operations

These include three types of activities: diplomacy (including preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, and peace-building)-, observing and supervising the terms of an existing peace, truce or cease-fire (peacekeeping); and the application of limited [offensive] military force (peace enforcement). Mission success in these activities is as dependent upon military legitimacy and civil-military relations as are the other activities listed above.³⁷

Preventive diplomacy occurs in the earliest stages of a conflict and is in support of diplomatic efforts to mitigate the causes of violence. It can be supported by a full range of nation assistance activities or a show of force.³⁸

Peacemaking occurs later in the stages of a nascent conflict; it is a step beyond preventive diplomacy but short of peacekeeping. Like other peace operations it supports diplomatic efforts to resolve the underlying conflict, and may include nation assistance activities and shows of force.³⁹

Peacekeeping activities are conducted after a truce by a neutral force with the consent of all belligerents to the conflict. Their political objective is to support diplomatic efforts to reach a more permanent political settlement. Peacekeeping has been the mainstay of the UN, but in recent years questions have been raised about the extent of its peacekeeping role.

Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD 25), announced in May 1994, reflects the Clinton administration's view that the UN cannot make and keep world peace when hostilities exist. The directive includes seven preconditions for US military support of UN peace operations:

· the advancement of American interests;

· the availability of personnel and funds;

· the need for US participation for mission success;

· the support of Congress;

· clear objectives;

· a clear end state;

· acceptable command and control arrangements.

In addition to the above conditions for US military operations, PDD 25 provides preconditions for any US support of any UN peace operations, including economic assistance:

· a threat to international security or an urgent need for relief aid;

· a sudden interruption of democracy or a gross violation of human rights;

· clear objectives;

· consent of the parties before any forces are deployed;

· availability of sufficient money and troops;

· a mandate appropriate for the mission;

· a realistic exit strategy.

Ambassador Madeleine K. Albright, the US representative to the UN, explained the goal of PDD 25:

The UN has not yet demonstrated the ability to respond effectively when the risk of combat is high and the level of local co-operation is low. The goal of the US policy directive is to ensure that we refrain from asking the UN to undertake missions it is not equipped to do and to help the UN succeed in missions we would like it to do.⁴⁰

Peacekeeping is a non-combat mission conducted by combat forces. To maintain legitimacy they must emphasize restraint and resist the temptation to take the offensive, even when confronted with a hostile force. The purpose of peacekeepers is to monitor and facilitate the implementation of a truce agreement so as to achieve the political objective of a lasting peace. If peacekeepers take the offensive they lose their neutrality and compromise their legitimacy as peacekeepers.⁴¹

Peace enforcement involves the making rather than the keeping of peace; it is the combat complement to non-combat peacekeeping. Doctrine draws a clear distinction between peacekeeping and peace enforcement, but in practise the distinction is often fuzzy. A fragile peace can quickly deteriorate into violence, requiring a transition from defensive peacekeeping to offensive peace enforcement in order to restore the status quo ante.

Peace enforcement operations include the restoration of order and stability, the protection of humanitarian assistance, the guarantee and denial of movement, the enforcement of sanctions, establishment and supervision of protected zones, and the forcible separation of belligerents.⁴²

Peace-building represents the transition from hostilities to peace through nation assistance activities, and includes all the activities of nation assistance.⁴³ Attacks and raids

Attacks and raids are offensive combat operations. Together with peace enforcement activities, they are the only combat activities of operations other than war. Combat operations have significantly greater risks for both military and political legitimacy than non-combat operations. When combat forces are committed to offensive operations, so is US prestige; there can be no substitute for military victory. The Weinberger Doctrine remains a relevant strategic standard for the commitment of US combat forces:

· The US should not commit forces to combat overseas unless the particular engagement or occasion is deemed vital to our national interest, or that of our allies.

· If we decide it is necessary to put combat troops into a given situation, we should do so wholeheartedly, and with the clear intention of winning.

· If we do decide to commit forces to combat overseas, we should have clearly-defined political and military objectives.

· The relationship between our objectives and the forces we have committed - their size, composition and disposition - must be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary.

· Before the US commits forces abroad, there must be some reasonable assurance that we will have the support of the American people and their elected representatives in Congress.

· Finally, the commitment of US forces to combat should be the last resort.⁴⁴

The Weinberger Doctrine should be read as the combat supplement to PDD 25. Together they represent US policy on strategic restraint, which will be discussed further in Chapters 3 and 6.