Chapter 17
Working with participating countries
17.1
Many benefits derive from countries forming a coalition to undertake
regional peacekeeping operations. These include being able to amass the
considerable resources needed to mount an operation. The mission as a whole is
also able to draw on a wider range of experience, specialist skills and
capabilities; share costs and equipment including technology; and enhance its
credibility by having a broader support base. A coalition, however, also presents
challenges. Two Defence personnel described coalition building as 'a demanding
task'. They suggested that conducting coalition operations requires 'patience,
negotiation, trust and confidence together with guaranteed sources of finance
and specialised military response'.[1]
17.2
In this chapter, the committee considers the importance of the
relationship between the partners in a peacekeeping coalition. Its focus is on
the factors that contribute to a good working relationship between participating
members and the means of integrating different peacekeeping capabilities into
an effective coalition. The committee is concerned predominately with regional
missions where Australia takes a leading role. It considers some of the key
challenges in forming a coalition including:
- promoting common understandings of the objective of a mission and
how it is to be achieved; and
- overcoming the cultural and professional differences between the
various national components in a peacekeeping contingent, resolving command or
management difficulties and managing different standards of training and levels
of competency.
Common understandings
17.3
At the operational level, personal relationships and familiarisation
with the way each of the components of a peacekeeping mission operates have a
major influence on the overall effectiveness of a mission. Referring to RAMSI, DFAT
stated that 'Cultural differences exist not only between contributing countries
and the Solomon Islanders but also among the various contributors to RAMSI'.[2]
Lt Gen Gillespie made a similar observation. He noted in his 2007 speech at
the Australian War Memorial:
We must remain vigilant, and our training and force preparation
must continue to ensure that our peacekeepers are fully aware of the differing
cultures they may encounter during operations. In preparing our troops, we now
understand it is not just the culture of the host country we must be cognisant
of, but those of other nations' peacekeepers, the institutional cultures of the
UN agencies and increasingly Non Government Organisations, even how our own
cultural behaviours may impact on others.[3]
17.4
Although forces from contributing countries to a peacekeeping operation serve
under the same mandate, they come from diverse backgrounds. As the committee noted
earlier, an integrated mission requires a shared vision among the participating
members as to the strategic objectives of the mission and a common
understanding of the operating environment. They should also have reached
agreement on how to maximise the effectiveness, efficiency, and impact of the
operation's mandate. In Chapter 7, the committee noted, however, the findings
of international studies showing that mission mandates are regularly
interpreted in different ways at strategic, operational, and tactical levels.[4]
One study concluded that 'a lack of common understanding of the purpose and ROE
of a mission is, unfortunately, familiar territory'.[5]
17.5
This potential for varying interpretations extends beyond key mission
documents and permeates through all levels of a peacekeeping operation where
personnel from different cultural backgrounds work together. It is particularly
acute in crisis situations where, for personal and collective safety, those
involved in restoring peace and order need to have a common understanding of
operating procedures.
17.6
The previous chapter showed that working with the local people to build
peace and develop local capacity requires on the part of peacekeepers a sound
understanding and respect for cultural differences and appreciation of
different norms and customs. This requirement for understanding and respecting
each other's cultural differences also applies to participants in peacekeeping
operations who, drawn from different countries, come together in partnership to
help achieve the operation's objectives.
Cultural and professional differences
17.7
General Peter Cosgrove was of the view that without the spirit of
cooperation and goodwill among the contributing countries to INTERFET, the
operation 'would not have delivered the successful outcomes'. He noted that the
operation was helped by participants 'knowing each other, and having gained
respect for each other through past regional military engagement'. He
explained:
The first return on this investment came with the appointment of
the Deputy Force Commander, General Songkitti from Thailand. He and I knew each
other from the British Army Staff College in the late 1980s. I had met the
national commander of the American forces assigned to INTERFET, Brigadier John
Castellaw, several times. I knew a number of the other national commanders and
in some cases, their superiors back in their home countries. In addition, all
of the regional contributors to INTERFET were accompanied by Australian
officers who spoke their languages, who knew their cultures and had formed
relationships with key officers in their armed forces. A number had trained
with Australians in their home countries or had visited Australia for training.
Consequently, these regional military leaders could rely on the ADF because
they knew us and had worked with us.[6]
17.8
The same approach paid dividends at other levels of engagement. Again General
Cosgrove noted that many Australian officers serving with INTERFET were able
to establish cooperative relations with their Indonesian counterparts in East
Timor because they had trained in Indonesia, or learned Bahasa or hosted
Indonesian personnel who had trained in Australia. He spelt out three key
operating principles learnt from the INTERFET experience—'know your coalition
partners, cultivate a wide network and foster a cohesive team'.[7]
17.9
Lieutenant Colonel John Hutcheson drew on his experiences in Solomon
Islands between March and August 2004 to note the differences between the
various contingents in terms of 'perceptions about the character of the
mission, levels of acceptable risk, and attitudes towards the local
population'. In his opinion, the operations by the Pacific island military
contingents were:
...often hampered by differing types of doctrine, by a lack of
operational experience and by diverse standards of training.[8]
17.10
He wrote that in-theatre training packages designed to build a
collective capability helped to address the problems. Looking specifically at Australia's
engagement in peacekeeping operations in the region, he also recognised the
need for 'standardisation of training'. He went further to talk of a regional
initiative to build capacity which is discussed in the following chapter.[9]
Peacekeeping partnerships
![Image of a Malaysian policeman and an Australian Timor-Leste Battle Group soldier](/~/media/wopapub/senate/committee/fadt_ctte/completed_inquiries/2008_10/peacekeeping/report/c17_1_jpg.ashx)
A
Malaysian policeman and an Australian Timor-Leste Battle Group soldier in the
mountain area south of Dili in the district of Dare (image courtesy Department
of Defence)
Committee view
17.11
The committee recommended earlier in the report that before deploying
Australian personnel to a peacekeeping operation, the government ensure that
all instruments covering the use of force are unambiguous, clearly understood,
appropriate to the mission and provide adequate protection. Clearly, over and
above this measure, the government and relevant agencies need to consider how
to build rapport between Australian peacekeepers and their partners from
different countries in order to minimise the risk of misinterpretations or clashes
of expectations or doctrine. They also need to take account of the fact that
Australian peacekeepers will be working with others who have different
standards of training and levels of competence.
Conclusion
17.12
The previous chapter identified the major challenges to forging a
constructive partnership between the host state and the countries contributing
to a peacekeeping operation. Many of the same difficulties arise when
endeavouring to bring together the forces of the contributing countries into an
effective integrated mission. These difficulties arise mainly from a lack of
familiarity with how each other operates. Cultural sensitivities and language
barriers, tensions within the control and command or management structures,
capability gaps or mismatched and different priorities, expectations and
interpretations about the objectives of the mission may also create problems.
In some cases these difficulties are magnified. In this, and the previous
chapter, two critical issues became apparent:
1) to form
effective partnerships with the host state and other participating countries in
a peacekeeping operation, Australian peacekeepers must understand, be sensitive
to, and accommodate cultural differences; and
2) to produce
effective peacekeepers, Australia must prepare its personnel to be not only
part of an Australian force but also a partner of the host country and a member
of a coalition of participating countries. This means that Australian
peacekeepers must be equipped to meet the challenges of working alongside
people from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds, who may speak a
different language, and have varying experiences of, and attitudes toward,
peacekeeping operations.
17.13
The following chapter looks at the steps the Australian Government and
its agencies take to develop language skills, cultural awareness and what
Lieutenant Colonel Hutcheson termed 'collective capability' (see paragraph 17.10
).
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