NATO Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) in Kosovo
The security and stability of the Western Balkans is still not fully settled. Undoubtedly, the focal point of this instability is Kosovo. Although it is no longer configured as a multi-ethnic state fractured by apartheid and humanitarian crisis, as in 1999, Kosovo still needs NATO’s presence: twenty-one years after the launch of the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) operation, the latter continues to ensure a safe environment for all Kosovar communities. Nevertheless, it can be said that even after the close of the decade of Balkan wars, the Kosovar conflict has significantly contributed to the evolution of the Alliance. One of the most relevant lessons learned within this framework is the importance of “winning hearts and minds” in order to achieve the mission mandate. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to present the developments in Kosovo and its journey towards peace-building, focusing on the crucial role of NATO Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC). Properly analysed, the case of NATO CIMIC in Kosovo can constitute a success story, and it can be used as a model for similar cases.
By Immacolata Ciotta
As Thomas Weiss notes, military involvement in humanitarian aid is not an oxymoron. Many post-Cold War conflicts have generated Complex Humanitarian Emergencies (CHEs) that require the cooperation of military and civilian agencies in order to be resolved. CIMIC (Civil-Military Cooperation) has become the abbreviation for this cooperation; the introduction of the latter can be considered an attempt to develop a flexible policy tool to support the concept of human security. CIMIC is configured as “a military label used to describe those occasions where elements of the armed forces involve and collaborate with civilian entities (such as local authorities or other government agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). This collaboration usually takes place during certain forms of crisis situations, whether following a natural disaster, war, or in particular during complex peace support operations”. [i] The nature of interventions in the 1990s stimulated international organizations to institutionalize civil-military relations in various ways in doctrines, resource allocations and through the concept of CIMIC. Within NATO, CIMIC is one of the seven joint functions (Command and Control, Manoeuvre, Intelligence, Protection, Fires, Sustainment, Information Activities and, indeed, CIMIC) that supports the achievement of the mission objectives and aims to facilitate the interaction of NATO Commands with non-military actors. In fact, military operations, and in particular those conducted by international and inter-force coalitions, require that there be a limited number of principles clearly understood and accepted as a common conceptual background. NATO, during the institutional renewal process of the 1990s, has been able to take on board these changes at an operational level, redesigning itself in the role of global crisis manager and at the same time referring to the concepts of security and stability, as is clear from the three Strategic Concepts of 1991, 1999, and 2010.
The Kosovo conflict was the most important turning point in defining the concept of NATO CIMIC. In fact, upon entering Kosovo, the overarching aims of CIMIC were only vaguely defined in NATO doctrine, which was still being drafted. By late 2000, NATO had defined CIMIC somewhat more properly as: “ The coordination and cooperation, in support of the mission, between the NATO commander and civil populations and local authorities, as well as international, national and non-governmental organizations and agencies.”[ii] NATO deployment in Kosovo provided a unique opportunity to study the effectiveness of CIMIC.
The aim of this article is to present the developments in Kosovo and its journey towards peace-building, focusing on the crucial role of NATO CIMIC. In order to understand the essential reasons that led to the NATO intervention, the first section is dedicated to the reconstruction of the historical context. The second section focuses on best practices related to the application of the CIMIC function, as well as critical issues.
Context: Kosovo, a complex history
In order to understand the reasons why Kosovo was the theatre of ethnic conflicts, it is necessary to analyse its complex history. Both Serbs and Albanians claim the province as the cradle of their heritage. Despite the small number of Serbian inhabitants on Kosovar territory, they refer to the Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389 to claim the province. In the same way, looking at the Prizren League established in 1878, which temporarily united the entire Albanian population of the Central Balkans, the Albanians claim to be the original inhabitants. Although Kosovo remained part of Serbia throughout the secessionist Yugoslav conflicts, it played a leading role in the break-up of the federation.
During his rise to power, the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic began to invoke the myth of Kosovo Polje. In 1989, although the Albanian Kosovars made up 90 percent of the population, the government of Belgrade placed Kosovo under its direct control and deprived it of its former autonomy.[iii] Thereby, a decade of systematic oppression of the Albanian majority began. Aware that they could not support an armed struggle, the Albanians conducted a non-violent opposition campaign led by Ibrahim Rugova. Nevertheless, this relatively stable situation collapsed in 1997, when the armed guerrilla movement the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)[iv] emerged. It provoked the reprisal of the Serbian army that affected the Albanian population ad interim, focusing international opinion on the Kosovar cause.
Both the United States and NATO made their position clear by ordering Milosevic to stop the ethnic cleansing. However, Milosevic remained convinced that the Alliance’s strategy was a “threat strategy” that would not soon translate into practice. To underscore the point, NATO Secretary-General Solana noted that a Serb diplomat had even joked, “A village a day keeps NATO away.”[v]
The Clinton administration decided to send Richard Holbrooke to Belgrade—demonstrating once again the willingness to proceed with diplomatic negotiations—at the same time, the NATO Council authorised Activation Orders for air strikes. This move was designed to support diplomatic efforts to make the Milosevic regime withdraw forces from Kosovo, cooperate in bringing an end to the violence, and facilitate the return of refugees to their homes.[vi] On 13 October, Holbrooke stated that he had reached an agreement with Milosevic that, once implemented, would put an end to the emergency that had brought NATO to close to the use of force. The Holbrooke-Milosevic agreement declared an immediate ceasefire (already provided for in UNSC Resolution 1199), the deployment of Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitors, and NATO’s establishment of an aerial surveillance mission. The immediate effect of this agreement was to temporarily alleviate the humanitarian emergency.
However, the worst was yet to come. On 15 January, a group of Serbian paramilitaries massacred 45 people in the village of Racak (southern Kosovo). Ambassador William Walker, head of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM), labelled this atrocity as a “crime against humanity”. This event forced the U.S. and NATO to bring Serbs and Albanians back to the negotiating table at the Château de Rambouillet. The failure of the negotiations between the representatives of the two factions marked the start of NATO’s military intervention. Allied involvement began on 24 March 1999 with a 78-day bombing campaign known as Operation Allied Force. On 10 June, the raids ended in order to respect the Kumanovo Agreement that was signed in Macedonia, present-day North Macedonia, and the UN Security Council Resolution 1244. Milosevic agreed to withdraw his troops from Kosovo, where 37,000 NATO soldiers entered. NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR)—still present today with approximately 3,500 soldiers—arrived from 36 countries. KFOR is a multinational force consisting of contingents from both member states and “Partnership for Peace (PfP)” countries. The KFOR mission plan divided Kosovo into five multinational brigade areas, each under the command of the five lead nations: France, the United States, Germany, Italy, and Great Britain.[vii]
NATO CIMIC in Kosovo: “Winning Hearts and Minds”
The concept of CIMIC developed by NATO is based on out-of-area operations, in particular on the experiences of the mission in Kosovo and in general on the full spectrum of missions in the Western Balkans. These operations proved that CIMIC could also be an important force multiplier for a commander in Peace Support Operations. The lessons learned in Kosovo have demonstrated that military units will be both safer and more effective with the local population as an ally. The CIMIC measures are based on “winning hearts and minds”. When the Armed Forces were deployed to Kosovo, it became clear that there was not a state-of-the-art set of CIMIC guidelines nor any specific unit capable of conducting CIMIC activities.
The complexity of the conflicts in the Balkans has demanded the interaction between NATO’s military forces and civilian organizations, in particular the UN and the OSCE. In the context of Kosovo, a growing strategic interest is to apply comparative advantages in mission roles, a goal that implies the coordination of joint operational and tactical action to achieve shared objectives in the field. Coordination of joint action, in turn, requires a qualitative shift in Civil-Military Interaction (CMI) toward integrated planning and shared operations, with all the compromises implicit in loss of autonomy on both sides.[viii]
The most important international civil authority present in the territory has been the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), deployed at the same time as the KFOR mission. However, as in Bosnia, there was no command structure linking military and civil components at the political-strategic level. The relationship between KFOR and UNMIK was therefore arranged through an elaborate, yet largely improvised, liaison system. It is worth noting that the CIMIC joint function was officially institutionalized in April 1999 into the NATO Strategic Concept document. Accordingly, this testifies to the key role played by the KFOR mission within CIMIC.
The deployment of CIMIC units followed the decentralised structure of KFOR. In fact, Kosovo was divided into five multinational brigades (MNBs) responsible for distinct areas (operation areas): MNB North (French coordination), MNB Centre (British coordination), MNB East (American coordination), MNB South (German coordination), and MNB West (Italian coordination). Each brigade was equipped with a CIMIC unit. The MNB South had the biggest CIMIC unit, with more than 100 officers, while the MNB Centre had only twelve CIMIC Officers. This division hampered the creation of a unified approach to the entire province but ensured that each country applied its own way of conducting Civil-Military Operations (CMO).
At the time of the intervention in Kosovo, the concept of CIMIC was often directly associated with ‘mission creep’, and therefore, much emphasis was put on its role in support of the military objective. To understand this point, it should be noted that coordination of the CIMIC effort in the initial months of KFOR was limited to weekly meetings of CIMIC staff from all five brigades. In these occasions, the officers gave a short briefing on their activities and intentions within their areas of responsibility. Although the CIMIC activities were generous in terms of local population support, it was still unclear what should be the priorities in terms of the liaison function.[ix]
NATO forces have been at the forefront of the humanitarian effort to relieve the suffering of the many thousands of refugees forced to flee Kosovo by the Serbian ethnic cleansing campaign. Since the beginning of the conflict, Kosovo has produced refugee outflows into neighbouring countries. At the height of the air strikes, hundreds of thousands of Kosovars were forced to run for their lives. At the time, international organizations estimated that approximately 800,000 Kosovars fled into neighbouring Albania and modern day North Macedonia, then known under the name of “the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” (FYROM), whereas an estimated 590,000 were internally displaced. In FYROM, the government in Skopje, UNHCR, and other humanitarian organizations were overwhelmed by the influx of refugees. At the request of UNHCR, NATO forces in Macedonia engaged in the construction of refugee camps. In order to cope with the even bigger refugee crisis in Albania, NATO initiated Operation Allied Harbour to support the civilian organizations and the Albanian government to manage the crisis. According to a NATO database, in September 2000, there were over 650 humanitarian organizations present in Kosovo, varying from extensive international organizations to small local NGOs. Due to the high number of NGOs, a part of Prizren was called “NGOs Hill”.[x] One of the most important functions of the CIMIC unit on the field concerned the logistics and management of refugee camps. Additionally, CIMIC activities were related to the field of building reconstruction. For example, projects in the Drenica region represented some of the most effective CIMIC that has been done in Kosovo. The brigade enjoys good relations with many different NGOs, and its CIMIC teams cooperate with them on many projects. In one village, the French Red Cross built a school, and the brigade then added a playground. Brigade engineers piped running water for another village. They also repaired roads and built bridges.[xi]
Nevertheless, it is important to highlight critical points in order to give a comprehensive overview of the CIMIC lessons learned in Kosovo. The humanitarian community has criticized the CIMIC officers because of their lack of language skills (NGO and UN agency members also complained that Italian officers lacked fluency in English). Furthermore, a lack of information sharing negatively affected the operation both from the military point of view in the case of classified information and from the civil point of view with particular reference to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
In the last twenty years, NATO was not only able to recognize best practices but also able to fill both doctrinal and practical gaps. The key document explaining the NATO CIMIC doctrine is Allied Joint Publication, which outlines the three core functions of CIMIC: Support to the Force, Civil-Military Liaison, and Support to the Civil Environment. In order to implement and develop the CIMIC joint function at the operational and tactical level, the Alliance established two important poles: the CIMIC Group North in the Netherlands and the CIMIC Group South in Italy. In a meeting of the NATO Defence Ministers in 1999, the Finnish Minister in Defence, Jan-Erik Enestam, claimed, “Only by training, exercising and equipping our troops to common standards, can we improve our cooperation in view of possible future emergencies.”[xii]
Conclusion
The security and stability of the Western Balkans is still not fully settled. Undoubtedly, the focal point of this instability remains Kosovo. The question of the final status of Kosovo, which is still unresolved, is closely linked to the solution of the problem of the return of displaced people and has repercussions not only on the political climate but also on the social and economic conditions of the province itself and its inhabitants. In addition to the still precarious safety conditions, there is ambiguity in the treatment of exiles. Their recognition under the law is in direct proportion to the final definition of Kosovo. For these reasons, it is clear that NATO’s presence in the Western Balkans is still needed. KFOR’s mission contributes to maintaining a safe and secure environment and freedom of movement for all communities in Kosovo. Nevertheless, the Kosovar conflict has significantly contributed to the evolution of the Alliance, as testament in the three Strategic Concepts of 1991, 1999, and 2010. Military involvement in humanitarian aid is not an oxymoron; however, civil-military cooperation is not easy. As shown above, CIMIC units have engaged in humanitarian work, blurring the lines between military and humanitarian activities. As concluded by Ankersen, “While perhaps neither side of the debate will allow itself to be persuaded to adopt the principles of the “adversary”, each must understand and respect the notion of complementary and distinction.”[xiii]
About the Author
Immacolata Ciotta is a young graduate of the University of Naples “L’Orientale” in the Faculty of Political Sciences and International Relations. She has been Deputy Regional Coordinator at YATA Italy since October 2019. Her academic interests focus on international security.
Notes
[i] Allied Joint Publication-3.19 (AJP-3.19), “Allied Joint Doctrine for Civil-Military Cooperation,” 2018.
[ii] NATO, “The Alliance’s Strategic Concept approved by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council,” Washington, D.C., 23/24 April 1999, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_27433.htm.
[iii] Multinational CIMIC Group, “Kosovo-Factbook,” November 2019.
[iv] Ushtria Çlirimtare e Kosovës (UÇK or UCK) is the Albanian name of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The KLA, having reached 40,000 troops, operated in Kosovo and the nearby Presevo valley, in the southern part of Central Serbia, before the outbreak and during the Kosovo war.
[v] Ivo H. Daalder, Winning Ugly: NATO's War to Save Kosovo (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2001).
[vi] NATO, “NATO’s role in relation to the conflict in Kosovo,” 15 July 1999, https://www.nato.int/kosovo/history.htm.
[vii] Thomas R. Mockaitis, “Reluctant Partners: Civil–Military Cooperation in Kosovo,” Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2004.
[viii] John G. Cockell, “Civil-Military Responses to Security Challenges in Peace Operations: Ten Lessons from Kosovo,” Global Governance 8, no. 4 (2002): 483–502.
[ix] Thijs W. Brocades Zaalberg, Soldiers and Civil Power (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006).
[x] Michael Pugh, “Civil-Military Relations in Kosovo,” Security Dialogue, 2000.
[xi] Thomas R. Mockaitis, “Reluctant Partners: Civil–Military Cooperation in Kosovo,” Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2004.
[xii] NATO, Speech by Mr. Jan-Erik Enestam Minister of Defence of Finland, EAPC Meeting in Defense Ministers Session, 3 Dec. 1999, https://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1999/s991210d.htm.
[xiii] Christopher Ankersen, Civil-Military Cooperation in Post-Conflict Operations (London/New York: Routledge, 2008).