“I have far less admiration for Napoleon since I’ve been in command of a coalition”: Field Marshal Foch, commander in chief of the allied victorious armies in 1918. A thorough student of Napoleon’ tactics, Field Marshal Foch highlighted the difficulty there is in organizing and commanding an operational force, composed of various cultures, be they national or military.
In today’s world, coalitions have become the norm, and it remains just as challenging, if not more, due to increased complexity, both human and technical, in modern forces. With cooperation comes additional potential, but also hidden dangers.
The average military operation, today, occurs in one of three scenarios: permanent alliances such as NATO, mission-centred coalitions such as the latest Iraq invasion force, or with the UN as mission coordinator.
According to the setting of the operation, it becomes obvious that in-depth standardization efforts must be carried out at every possible level, so that the armed forces of the contributing nations do not simply crowd each other – or worse, get in each other’s way.
These problems are not new, and cases go back to World War I, when poor coordination between allied countries caused major setbacks for troops, or even opportunities for the enemy. Lack of communication or compatibility consistently still today, leads to major setbacks on the battlefield. Recently, The National Defense Magazine “highlighted the poor coordination between U.S. and Polish troops during a joint exercise, resulting from American fuel nozzles not fitting Polish fuel tanks”.
NATO, which assembles most of the Western military and composes the largest fighting force in history, defines interoperability as “the ability for Allies to act together coherently, effectively and efficiently to achieve tactical, operational and strategic objectives. Specifically, it enables forces, units and/or systems to operate together and allows them to share common doctrine and procedures, each other’s infrastructure and bases, and to be able to communicate.”
Interoperability is formidably complex and detail-oriented, as it impacts every fighting force in the alliance, in all of their dimensions. These dimensions are so many they need their own unpronounceable acronym to summarize them: DOTMLPF. Pronounced Dot-Mil-P-F, it encompasses Doctrine, Organization, Training, Material, Leadership, Education, Personnel and Facilities.
To catch a glimpse of the complexity of the task at hand, NATO comprises 30 member States, each with thousands of types of equipment, and tens of military unit types, multiplied by three levels: strategic, operative and tactical.
As stated above, failure to implement thorough interoperability will result in drastic loss of efficiency or, worse, friendly fire. But success in the field of interoperability will exponentially increase military potential: by adding capacities, numbers of available boots and resources, not to mention geographically available land area.
In the 1991 invasion of Iraq, “Australia decided against sending some of its F-111C aircraft after issues of provision of jam-resistant radios, electronic countermeasure pods, and Identification-Friend-or-Foe (IFF) equipment were deemed too expensive or difficult to overcome. All of these pieces of equipment are key interoperability items”.
This simple lack of technical interoperability proved a major setback for the entire coalition, throughout military active phases. 12 years later, in 2003, lack of standardized procedures again led to blue-on-blue fire, with the US destruction of a UK fighter jet: “IFF problems were highlighted last year by the national audit office, which criticized the Ministry of Defense for not addressing them quickly enough. It said the system was still not fully compatible with the equipment used by other NATO countries, including the US.”
Interoperability must be implemented at all levels of the chessboard. Allies must be included in the design of military campaigns only once a mutual understanding of each partner’s doctrine has been achieved.
A strategic partnership between the US and Germany, aiming at deployment, would be stillborn, as the US doctrine relies on rapid and distant deployment, whereas German troops are notoriously homebound.
Likewise, deployed troops on a battlefield must understand thoroughly how each one interacts, in terms of who supports whom, and must regularly touch base with each other throughout the phases of the operation.
Finally, at the tactical and technical level, communications and equipment must be compatible, if any type of meaningful and mutual support is to be achieved.
However, even if interoperability is achieved and yields its treasures, it contains one last danger: soft power. If one norm is to be adopted within the alliance, the unspoken question will inevitably be: whose norm?
Here again, NATO gives a telling example of how the leading country of an alliance can utilize norms for its own benefit, at the expense of other, smaller, members.
As far back as 1961, President Eisenhower warned of the power imbalance which was at stake: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
One of the best examples of this “slow peril” is the 1950s ANZUS agreement, which stipulated no duty on the part of Australia to align with US norms, although it effectively did.
Analyst Gary Brown writes: “ANZUS, Australia has privileged access to US military equipment, logistics and technology, as well as the opportunity to train and exercise with the US military and its other allies in the region. Australia is also part of a quadripartite arrangement known as ABCA (America, Britain, Canada and Australia) which aims to ‘achieve agreed levels of standardization necessary for two or more ABCA armies to cooperate effectively together within a coalition”.
In 2021, Australia failed to achieve true sovereignty, as conceived by the French and embodied in their submarines and fell back into American serfhood. The last-minute US contract effectively placed Australia at the beck and call of Washington for the next few decades.
Any country which joins an alliance must pay attention to the balance within the group. Yes, the unification of forces may sometimes be militarily advantageous, or even outright necessary. However, if proper attention is not brought, the economic and geostrategic costs may well exceed the benefits, and place the imprudent country in a vise.
The “norming” country, or standardization leader may exert economic domination upon its partner, by withholding technology – thus forcing the partner to resort to the expensive services of the supplying country for maintenance and upgrades. This will force the “client” country to slowly turn away from its own military industrial fabric and let it die out. Once this has happened, the client country will effectively be entirely dependent on the leader of the alliance, and have lost its sovereignty. Indeed, it will only survive as long as the leading member of the alliance allows it to.
Numerous European countries have purchased the hideously expensive F-35 fighter jet, turning away from the otherwise very competent European industry – and locking themselves permanently into an American dominion.
The European industry has already greatly suffered from these strategic choices and will continue to do so for years to come. As American norms become more central every year, European defence firms risk becoming less relevant. UK supplier Meggitt will, in all likelihood, be absorbed by US competitor Parker Hannifin, as soon as the deal is validated by the government, as the US fields increasing numbers of military vehicles (such as the F-35), in Europe.
India is also coming to terms with its modern reality and realizes that it will only be able to defend its interests adequately, as part of a larger alliance. It is therefore on the brink of a path towards interoperability with whosoever its allies will be, and its leaders must approach this with great strategic height, aware of the risks and opportunities which interoperability can contain.
Other potentially large military forces in the Asian region could also attempt to develop their interoperability with neighbouring nations – either to secure their territorial integrity or to implement reinforcement of diplomatic ties. Whoever does engage on this strategic road will not necessarily be wrong to do so, but must heed the silent creeping shift which will occur underneath the cooperation: each nation within the alliance will be tempted to become the central norming power.
– The writer is a defence and security industry consultant having varied experience working with medium and large companies majorly in European market. The views expressed are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
