Defence Business: View From Canberra - Rules of engagement | ADM Feb 2009

A Special Correspondent Canberra

At the most fundamental, a restrictive caveat is what a host nation says its troops can't do in a bid to minimise the risk of casualties and the ensuing political backlash from an unsupportive populace back home.

However obligations under NATO means these nations can't take the least risk option which is not to send any troops at all.

At the highest levels, the official view is that any troop contribution by any nation is appreciated, even if said troops are pretty much limited to garrison duties in areas of negligible Taliban presence, specifically Afghanistan's far north.

But plenty of people have voiced their strong objections, among them Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon who told a visiting NATO delegation that Australia expected them to commit a whole lot more troops and impose far fewer caveats on how they may be used.

Most recently, retired Major General Jim Molan, who played a very significant role as chief of operations in Iraq in 2004-05 observed in a recent article on Afghanistan: "There is a lack of unity of effort amongst the foreign security forces which is grossly under strength and limited in effectiveness by the operational restrictions placed on elements by their own governments."

Can we get too precious about all this?

After all Australia's contribution is a fairly modest 1,100 troops.

That makes us the largest non-NATO contributor and the 10th largest overall.

Our casualties are seven dead in six years - slight compared even with the 25 for Spain, whose 780 troops remain safe in Afghanistan's north where they are barred by national caveat from any offensive activity against the Taliban.

Of Spain's casualties, 17 died in a single helicopter crash, the type of tragedy which could just as easily quadruple Australia's Afghanistan casualty toll, a possibility which deeply concerns senior commanders, not least defence chief Angus Houston.

The reality of restrictive caveats is that some nations do most of the fighting.

As a member of regional command south - covering the dangerous provinces of Oruzgan, Helmand, Zabul and Kandahar - Australian troops share the gravest risks with the US, UK, Netherlands, Canada, Denmark, Romania and Estonia.

It's surprisingly difficult to pin down specific information about various nations and their restrictive caveats.

Although Joel Fitzgibbon is willing to broadly criticise, his office was wholly reluctant to spell out detailed objections. Same goes for the ADF.

In a word, diplomacy rules.

A Google search reveals articles by many learned commentators making broad brush criticisms of restrictive caveats but not much detail.

Germany is frequently singled out for keeping their 3,300 well trained, led and equipped troops to the safe northern region.

Their mandate bars any deployment into the dangerous south or east.

On one estimate there are up to 100 restrictive caveats in place.

It seems even NATO isn't completely sure.

With 41 nations deploying troops in Afghanistan (26 NATO, 10 European partners and five non-Europeans including Australia and new Zealand) it follows that some nations have multiple caveats.

These are wholly unilateral, imposed by the contributing nation's government with no consultation either with NATO or with the commanders in overall charge of the missions.

Australia imposes one caveat which bars troops from intruding into Pakistan.

At present, that's hardly a major restriction but it might be different as the war expands and the US seriously considers taking on the Taliban and al-Qaeda strongholds in the tribal territories.

Some reporting ahead of the 2006 NATO summit gives a flavour of the various prohibitions which some nations impose, although with no naming of the culprits.

The first are geographical caveats where nations say our troops will serve only in a particular area, particularly the mostly insurgent free north.

Many nations have troops based in and around Kabul but there have been complaints that some won't venture outside their assigned areas of operations.

Many nations will only allow their troops to perform certain tasks after consultations with their home governments.

In a fast-moving conflict, this significantly slows down the ability to react.

Operational restrictions imposed by many nations appear to be the most onerous of all the caveats.

Some less then fully equipped troops may decline to conduct operations above a certain altitude or at night.

Apparently some warmer climate southern European nations bar their troops operating in snow.

Many nations bar their troops from performing civil order tasks such as riot control.

Spain's socialist government, elected following the March 2004 Madrid train bombings, speedily withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq.

But it was stuck with Afghanistan.

In line with its pacifist ideals, the government imposed such strict rules of engagement which may mean Spanish soldiers cannot actually shoot at the Taliban.

There have been complaints from within NATO that some nations maintain an excessively tight control over their valuable helicopters of which there are never enough at crunch time.

According to one report, there have been complaints that one nation won't let foreign troops in its helicopters while other nations' helicopters, pledged to NATO subject to availability, are simply never available.

For commanders, this situation is hardly conducive to effective waging of a war of counter-insurgency.

A commander may not even be aware of a restriction until a request is met with a polite "sorry, we can't do that".

There are anecdotal retorts that soldier have even died because various national restrictions stopped them getting the support they needed.

The US appears to have given up an unequal struggle to get the recalcitrant Europeans to provide more troops and impose fewer caveats.

Instead, it will press them to put up serious hard cash to fund the training of Afghan soldiers and police.

The US is also likely to very significantly lift its own troop presence, meaning of course that the bulk of the fighting and the casualties will continue to be borne by a small number of nations, us included.