EUNPACK - EU

Five paradoxes of the EU’s crisis response

toby.vogel — Wed, 27 Feb 2019 11:22:33 +0000

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The EU seeks a more prominent role in peace and security worldwide. One means is smaller-scale peace operations – three of which are in Afghanistan, Iraq and Mali. Our research suggests that despite good intentions, results are mixed. These are five paradoxes that hinder greater impact on the ground.

The EU’s crisis response

Since 1992, the EU has launched more than 35 civilian and/or military missions abroad. The EU seeks, ideally, to prevent conflicts before they erupt. However, it has also been involved in ongoing, violent conflicts as well as post-conflict scenarios. Engaging in ongoing conflicts brings with it – naturally – a set of extraordinary challenges.

Bottom-up approach

Research conducted as part of the EUNPACK research project has combined an institutional perspective on the EU with a bottom-up approach. We have interviewed key people from local and international organizations and agencies, and we have surveyed people on the ground in areas where the EU operates.

From this research, we find that five paradoxes characterize the EU’s actions. In short, while it has good intentions, results are mixed.

Five paradoxes

(1) Local vs. national ownership

The EU strives to make its programs locally owned. However, building local ownership is challenging, as the examples of Afghanistan, Iraq and Mali show. Most often, this involves ensuring support from political elites. Widespread support among citizens has proved much more challenging. The result is interventions that may be in line with national priorities, but which are not always the same as the wants and needs of people on the ground.

(2) Conflict sensitivity vs. Brussels-based design

Another paradox is that while the EU aims for conflict sensitivity in its crisis response, interventions tend not to be based on an in-depth analysis of local dynamics and root causes of the conflict. Hence, responses are not tailor-made to the needs in question. Instead, the EU’s response is very much made in Brussels based on limited consultations with those whose rights it wishes to protect or promote.

(3) Demand vs. supply-driven crisis response

The EU seeks a demand-driven crisis response, where the needs of the population living in the conflict-zones are priority. Often, however, it is the interests of the EU that drives its response. The EU gets involved on its own promises – building state authority or halting migration – which are not always what local stakeholders need.

(4) State-building vs. militarization

The EU intends to do state-building, most notably in the building of state capacity to deal with various armed groups in Afghanistan, Iraq and Mali. However, the approach is becoming increasingly militarized, which instead of solving root causes in many cases enhances existing problems.

(5) Long vs. short-term solutions

The EU preaches long-term solutions and seeks to build sustainable peace. In practice, however, it often does short-term conflict management. This happens for example through the strengthening of the security apparatus, without deep-rooted changes in the management culture. Without these, the EU risks building the capacity of countries with limited legitimacy.

Concluding remarks

The above-mentioned paradoxes are key reasons for which the EU’s impact is limited. They were identified in the research on Afghanistan, Iraq and Mali, but we also find them in other contexts. It is also important to note that the EU is not alone; many other international engagements frequently suffer from these shortcomings.

Going forward, the EU should make efforts to address these paradoxes. Cooperating more constructively with local actors and designing operations increasingly based on local needs are important. So is it to think more long-term. While some actions may be favoured in the short-term, the EU must consider more carefully what consequences these may have later down the line.

Picture: EUTM Mali

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crisis response

10 Racing Tips on NATO-EU Cooperation inside Iraq

toby.vogel — Tue, 19 Feb 2019 15:27:35 +0000

Author:

Paul A. Smith

Picture: Head of EU Advisory Mission Dr. Markus Ritter meets Deputy Governor of Anbar, Chief of Police, and other key officials in Anbar Province. Source: EEAS

In 2017, NATO and the EU deployed teams to Baghdad to engage the Iraqi Security Forces. In NATO’s case to train and build defence capacity (including Security Sector Reform) and in the EU’s to advise senior officials at the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and the Ministry of Interior (MoI) on their coherent implementation of the civilian aspects of SSR.Although their mandates were slightly different, the potential for duplication, mutual irritation or competition caused, perhaps, consternation in respective institutions in Brussels and nations’ capitals.As the EU steps ever closer into Defence issues, consternation may again be rising in some quarters. The following ‘racing tips’ from the field in Iraq, may be pertinent to ease worried brows, back a winner and advance NATO-EU cooperation.

Horses for Courses

1. NATO and the EU both have complementary and respective strengths in the defence and security domains, such as NATO’s training capacities and the EU’s border and civil-police expertise. These complementary strengths are applicable to nations who split their security and defence institutions. So although Iraq’s huge Ministry of Interior (MoI) could deploy combat hardened battalions, armoured and artillery units, the bulk of Iraq’s internal security apparatus naturally leaned towards the skills and competence that the EU could bring, but NATO would struggle with. The reverse was true with the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Up front tacit inter-institutional agreement to respect the EU’s pre-eminence with the MoI and NATO’s with the MoD, gave clarity of task to all stakeholders.

Watching the Form

2. NATO and EU teams watched each other’s form and gained from invitations to observe the other’s engagements with the Iraqi ministries. The EU appreciated the value of NATO’s deployment of a small team that spent over a year training, building, learning and defining requirements, prior to agreeing to launch a large scale NATO Training Mission. NATO appreciated the value of the EU’s decision to build its headquarters inside the MoI’s main compound and so work closer with the MoI, demonstrate true partnership and accept equally the threat from Da’esh. Appreciation, certainly on NATO’s side, which has been reflected in Lessons Learned reporting.

Walking the Course (together)

3. NATO and EU teams walked in the same Iraqi political, defence and security environment. Both observed, though due to their engagement, experience and perspective, spotted things the other did not and actively, deliberately, routinely and frequently shared them through regular planned and irregular contact meetings. For example, the EU’s political access to some Iraqi politicians who were challenging the security situation, helped NATO tailor its approach and reduce the threat NATO faced. NATO’s better understanding of the Global Coalition Against Da’esh’s intentions once Da’esh collapsed, helped EU staffs appreciate potential downstream impacts upon the EU mission.

4. NATO and the EU, each have a plethora of bodies or affiliates, which can bring to bear a multitude of skills and competencies to assist the complexities of Iraqi Security Forces’ challenges. Through discussing these challenges together, the EU or NATO staffs in Baghdad could find solutions within their own sub-structures, which could benefit the other partner organisation, even when the challenge was not sitting in the grey zone between MoD and MoI functions. Teams from NATO’s Centre of Excellence and some training schools ran a series of week-long workshops involving over 17 Iraqi ministries and their representatives from Deputy Minister to General Manager level, to discuss some of the security challenges they collectively faced. The EU team participated in these workshops and gained a broader understanding of challenges beyond those faced by the MoI but impacting the MoI (and hence the EU’s engagement with them).

Overcoming Hurdles and Ditches

5. NATO and EU teams’ activities are regularly reported and reviewed in Brussels, allowing activities in the field to be changed over time and hurdles or ditches to be avoided for an optimum outcome. This opportunity allows NATO and EU to gradually align areas where mutual benefit, ’customer’ benefit, economies of scale, appropriate redefinition / re-allocation of task, alignment of objectives/delivery/engagements or a joint outcome, can be achieved to optimise the impact delivered by both institutions.

Facing the Steward’s Inquiry (together)

6. Detailed Reports from the field are communicated up through respective hierarchies and eventually reach the ‘Stewards’ of good governance. These reports are precise as they pass up through various staff levels. However, if a critical piece of information is removed, this could give the stewards a wrong impression and cause to launch a Stewards Inquiry. This was the case soon after the EUAM arrived in Iraq, because nations of NATO and the EU received the impression that NATO and the EU were duplicating efforts. When the NATO and EU leadership in Baghdad became aware of the misunderstandings taking place in Brussels and other capitals, they came together to ensure the correct situation was communicated. Subsequently, they worked together, sharing information and draft documents, to ensure the contents of respective reports not only spelt out the facts on the ground, but emphasised where duplication should not be inferred and where closer NATO-EU cooperation could be advanced.

7. Senior Leaderships from NATO, the EU and member nations, rightly wanted to see for themselves what was happening on the ground. Both institutions’ teams ensured visit schedules included meeting key staffs from the other institution’s team, so senior leaders could appreciate the other institution’s activities and the level of NATO-EU cooperation (and its benefits) in the field.

Racing the Race (together)

8. The in-place NATO team held six meetings with the EU’s CSDP reconnaissance team in the few weeks it was in Iraq, establishing a positive working relationship and impression of the EU proposed mission. The NATO team was one of the first groups EUAM met when they deployed. From the outset in Iraq, the NATO and EU teams’ leadership not only chose to be transparent with each other while respecting each other’s constraints; they also chose to be jointly constructive and mutually supportive in the face of the Iraqis and other International Partners. The NATO-EU Partnership in Iraq was visibly the strongest between any of the International Partners and enabled NATO and the EU to cooperate in ways others could or would not.

9. Perhaps due to the common culture and heritage of staff within the EU and NATO teams, personal friendships developed easily and were led by the example of the two teams’ leadership. When the leadership showed they trusted, respected and supported each other, their example flourished at other levels across the teams and in both working and social environments. It is an age old tip, but applicable today as it has always been no matter the race.

The Post Race Weigh-in

10. At the end of every race, the jockey’s and their saddles are weighed. The weighing room offers the runners a chance to reflect and discuss the race. In Iraq, as NATO and the EU engage their respective ministries in their respective tasks, the question will arise over who is best placed to engage and support with the outlier structures of each ministry, such as the heavily militarised MoI Emergency Response Division or the MoD’s loosely controlled plethora of community raised militias - Popular Mobilisation Forces. Closer NATO-EU cooperation may be required to tackle these ministries’ outlier structures, not only drawing on the skills and competencies of the other, but strategising and planning together a coordinated, possibly joint approach. Who knows, Iraq may be the birthplace of the first Joint NATO-EU mission.

Paul Smith is the former NATO Senior Civilian in Iraq.

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Iraq

NATO

cooperation

Syria: Diplomacy in Disarray

toby.vogel — Fri, 05 May 2017 14:57:41 +0000

Author:

Toby Vogel

The situation in Syria is desperate, while the diplomacy surrounding it is getting more tangled by the day. Is there a role for the European Union in the quest for a settlement to the Syrian war, in line with its commitment to crisis management?

Ahead of a donors’ conference held in Brussels on 4-5 April, the European Commission and Federica Mogherini, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, published a joint communication under the title “Elements for an EU Strategy for Syria”.

The Council adopted the strategy with its own complementary conclusions, and the EU’s aim was to seek endorsement for it at the conference, thereby defining internationally how the EU could play a bigger role in the existing UN-agreed framework for peace, help build stability and support post-conflict reconstruction once a credible political transition is underway. But before the conference had even begun, a chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun threw the EU’s new strategy into disarray.

In a recent CEPS Commentary, Steven Blockmans (CEPS senior research fellow who works on the EUNPACK project) and Astrid Viaud write: “The military and political fall-out of the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun has delivered an immediate blow to the EU’s strategic aims, which were to be served by the donor conference in strengthening international support for the UN-led political process. The failure of the EU to attain this political objective works to the obvious benefit of Bashar al-Assad and his overlords in Moscow and Tehran, who are engaged in the Astana talks with Turkey and its Syrian proxies to determine the conditions for a ceasefire to the conflict.”

This diagnosis seemed to be confirmed by subsequent events. On May 4th, Russia, Iran and Turkey signed a deal in Astana to create so-called "de-escalation zones" in Syria, prompting some rebels to denounce the deal which sidelined both the EU and the UN’s own process in Geneva. The idea of de-escalation zones smacks of the infamous ‘safe areas’ established under UN auspices during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which turned out to be all but safe. However, while the UN was ultimately unable to protect the Bosnian safe areas, Syria’s de-escalation zones lack even the most basic monitoring – let alone enforcement – mechanism since Syria has rejected any role for outsiders such as the UN.

In light of these developments, the EU’s leadership role in mobilising humanitarian funding (representatives of more than 70 countries and international organisations at the donors’ conference pledged €5.6 billion for this year and an additional €3.47 billion until 2020) is stuck in a strategic vacuum, with no complementary political process to speak of except the Astana talks, dominated by the regional powers directly involved in the Syrian war.

Blockmans and Viaud argue that in light of this diplomatic reality, the EU should focus on supporting accountability for war crimes. The EU Council concluded that those responsible for violations of human rights and international humanitarian law “must be held accountable”, and the co-chairs of the donor conference called for the implementation of UN General Assembly Resolution 71/248 establishing an International Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM), an initiative by Liechtenstein and Qatar. “Given that alternative paths towards international criminal accountability are currently blocked, the creation of the IIIM is a valuable step towards transitional justice for Syria and deserves support,” the authors write. Yet the EU, a conference co-chair calling for support for the IIIM, has not yet provided any financial support. By remedying this failure, the EU could take a step towards a better future for Syria even as its other crisis response mechanisms remain blocked.

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Syria