To date, MAPSOP activities has been based on the theoretical, with participants in workshops and round tables responding to and planning for a stabilisation mission based on a fictional scenario created by the MAPSOP team.

Exercise VARO is designed to test the integrated, whole-of-government strategy developed by participants in previous MAPSOP activities.  It also intends to expose participants to a multiagency conflict management environment and validate the measures of effectiveness developed alongside the multiagency strategy.

The exercise will be facilitated by the MAPSOP team, with expert guidance and assistance from Mr Tony Hulton, a highly respected international practitioner who has recent experience in developing and executing real-time strategic plans for peace and stabilisation operations for the UK Government and associated agencies.

The exercise will provide participants with the opportunity to examine the inherent complexities of implementing a coherent, multiagency approach to peace and stabilisation operations in a real time situation.

Participants will also validate the concept of a strategic whole-of-government plan and gain a better understanding of processes and mechanisms that could enhance comprehensive and integrated multiagency planning and implementation for peace and stabilisation efforts.

It is expected participating departments and agencies will also benefit from a greater appreciation of the importance of coordination and communication between the strategic and operational levels in conflict management, and discussion of mechanisms to help bridge the strategic/operational divide.

For more information about Exercise VARO and the MAPSOP project, please contact Ms Gwen Cherne, MAPSOP Development and Research Manager at gwen.cherne@acmc.gov.au.

The Australian Civil-Military Centre delivered a one-day seminar in late January attended by 31 visiting Permanent Representatives and Ambassadors to the United Nations. Entitled “Security and Development: Peace and Stabilisation Operations – Challenges and Lessons Learned”, attendees canvassed a number of sensitive issues faced by the United Nations, member states and host nations in dealing with peace and stabilisation operations.

In order to address these challenges, a group of Australian experts was assembled from across government and academia, including senior officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), Defence and the Australian Federal Police, who were able to elaborate upon Australia’s role in international peace and stabilisation.

Professors Ramesh Thakur from the Australian National University and Andy Hughes from the University of Wollongong, along with Major-Generals (retd) Michael G Smith and Tim Ford, provided a non-government view of how Australia might shape its future position and capabilities and ensure the lessons learned from recent operations including in Solomon Islands, East Timor and Bougainville can result in improved integrated missions and outcomes.

Among the Permanent Representatives who attended were delegates from Africa, Central America, Europe, the Pacific, Asia and the Middle East. Their experience and expertise in many challenging conflict situations contributed greatly to the seminar.

They acknowledged that while Australia had made a significant contribution to peacekeeping and stabilisation operations, there is still much all nations need to learn about how to overcome the multiple challenges of contemporary and future missions and to deliver sustainable security for people living in conflict.

The seminar was the second in a series, which aims to facilitate an exchange of views on UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding challenges and to benefit from the collective experience and views of UN Permanent Representatives visiting Australia.

Lily Mulholland is the Chief of Staff at the Australian Civil-Military Centre

Dr Elizabeth Ferris

In the first of a series, the Australian Civil-Military Centre presents a short interview recorded with Dr Elizabeth Ferris from the Brookings Institution on ‘Future directions in civil-military responses to natural disasters’.

Dr Ferris speaks about the increase in sudden natural and manmade disasters around the world and the need for both military and civilian agencies to work more closely together to respond quickly and effectively.

She goes on to say that the lessons learned from so called ‘mega disasters’ in Haiti and Pakistan, shows that there is still work to be done to improve the international community’s response to these events, particularly the need for better planning and greater coordination of finite resources in the field.

Dr Ferris is Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Co-Director of the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement.

Dr. Ferris has spent 20 years working in international humanitarian response, most recently in Geneva at the World Council of Churches. Her book, The Politics of Protection: The Limits of Humanitarian Action, was published in 2011 (Brookings Institution Press).

The interview was recorded at the Civil-Military Interaction Seminar, held in Sydney, Australia, from 7-10 November 2011 and is available for viewing on the Centre’s YouTube channel.

The Asia-Pacific region has, in recent years, been more prone to natural disasters than any other part of the world. Key factors driving the increase in frequency and scale of natural disasters include: rapid growth in population, urbanisation, globalisation and climate change.  International armed forces have been increasingly used in response to these disasters.

In 2010 the Centre funded an Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) research initiative to produce a report examining the roles played by Australian, Japanese and U.S. Defence Forces across the disaster risk management spectrum. The final report, written by Athol Yates and Anthony Bergin,  was published in December 2011 and entitled ‘More than good deeds: Disaster risk management and Australian, Japanese and U.S. Defence Forces’.

Photo: Mike Bowers, Sydney Morning Herald

Australia, Japan and the U.S. are very active in promoting disaster risk management as a key component of their Asia-Pacific relations, regional military engagement strategies and their own nation’s overall foreign disaster relief framework.  The primary justification for dispatching defence forces to come to the aid of another country experiencing a disaster is often humanitarian. Consequently the ASPI report found that limited attention has been given to the operational and strategic arguments for improving military contributions to foreign disaster relief-efforts.

Government guidance and international frameworks such as the OSLO Guidelines and the Asia-Pacific Conferences on Military Assistance to Disaster Relief Operations (APC-MADRO) suggest that Defence forces should only be deployed as a ‘last resort’ in the event that civilian capabilities have been overwhelmed and with an expectation that a military commitment can provide unique and necessary capabilities.  

While the militaries don’t lead relief efforts, they provide major assets and capabilities vital to the work of the government (and at times non-government) actors.  According to this report Asia-Pacific states should improve their efforts to mitigate the economic and human cost of large-scale disasters and should implement the five core policy recommendations shown in the box below. 

The full report is available here.

A video of Anthony Bergin discussing this paper is available on ASPI’s youtube channel.

The Asia Pacific Civil-Military Centre of Excellence has been officially renamed the Australian Civil-Military Centre.

The new name, announced today by Parliamentary Secretary for Defence, the Hon Dr Mike Kelly AM, MP was chosen to reflect more accurately Australia’s focus on civil-military issues that impact upon responses to conflict and disaster management in countries both in the Asia-Pacific region and more globally.

“Australia has a long history of responding to calls for assistance in response to disasters throughout the Asia-Pacific region and in making contributions to peacekeeping missions around the world,” Dr Kelly said.

“While the Asia-Pacific region continues to be a strong focus for Australia, the Australian Government also commits significant resources to areas of need outside our region and it is fitting that the Centre’s name reflects this global focus.”

“I am confident the Australian Civil-Military Centre will continue to contribute purposefully to the development of effective civil-military engagement in conflict and disaster management throughout the region and beyond,” he said.

The Australian Civil-Military Centre, based in Queanbeyan NSW is a whole-of-government initiative designed to help improve Australia’s effectiveness in civil-military collaboration for conflict and disaster management overseas. In the three years since its inception, the Centre has grown both in size and in reputation, contributing to the growing body of knowledge of civil-military issues and establishing important links with regional bodies, the United Nations, the African Union and other key international organisations around the globe.

The Australian Civil-Military Centre operates with a multiagency approach and includes staff drawn from a number of Australian Government departments and agencies (Defence, Foreign Affairs and Trade, Attorney-Generals, AusAID, and the Australian Federal Police), the New Zealand Government, and the NGO sector through the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID).

The Centre also works closely with other Australian Government departments and agencies to develop and promote best practice on issues of civil-military-police engagement both within the region and beyond.

Held at the Australian Emergency Management Institute (AEMI), Mount Macedon outside Melbourne, the purpose of the five-day residential workshop is to develop working relationships and an understanding of the cultures and practices of the military, police, UN and NGOs as they apply to disaster management, humanitarian, policing, stabilisation and peacekeeping operations.

The aims of the course include:

• Acquire a critical understanding of emerging civil-military issues in the areas of conflict prevention and  the protection of civilians,  gender, governance and the rule of law, disaster management and humanitarian assistance, and peace and stabilisation operations.
• Identify, assess and evaluate inter-agency opportunities for civil-military-police interaction.
• Analyse the civil-military factors relevant to the conduct of civil-military strategies or actions.
• Apply lessons learnt to the development of outline plans or models for civil-military-police strategies and actions.
• Develop approaches for partnering, cooperation and collaboration.
• Build relationships with other cross-sector/within-sector practitioners from other agencies, organizations, institutions, and countries.

The workshop also provides an opportunity for Australian Civilian and Military Personnel to engage with their civilian and military counterparts from the Asia Pacific, Middle East and African regions for the benefit of future civil-military operations. In 2011, 50 participants came from:

• Africa
• the Middle East
• ASEAN Counties
• USA
• The South Pacific
• The Indian Subcontinent
• AusAID
• Australian Federal Police
• Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
• Attorney General’s Department
• International Committee of the Red Cross
• RedR
• Australian Army
• Royal Australian Air Force
• Department Of Defence

Similar representation is expected in 2012.

Further information is available from Lieutenant Commander Steven Pringle RANR via email courses@civmilcoe.gov.au or by calling +61 2 61602200 or +61 419401320.

The Asia Pacific Civil-Military Centre of Excellence last month said farewell to a man with enormous energy and vision, its founding Executive Director Michael (Mike) Smith AO, who has officially retired from the Centre.

Retiring Centre ED Michael G Smith

Mike has had a long and distinguished career in both the military and the government and non-government sectors. Mike served as an Officer in the Australian Army for 34 years, rising to the rank of Major General.

After retiring from the military in 2002, he was CEO of Austcare, an independent non-government aid and development agency that focuses on human security, and in 2008, became the inaugural Executive Director of the Centre.

Mike’s tenacity and drive was instrumental in the success of the Centre in its formative years and his leadership and guidance will be missed by all.

New Centre ED Dr Alan Ryan

Dr Alan Ryan has been announced as the New Executive Director of the Centre. His most recent appointment was as the Principal of the Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies at the Australian Defence College.

Dr Ryan has a long and distinguished history in academia and strategic policy. He was previously the Senior Adviser to the Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon. Robert Hill. In that role, he was responsible for advising the Minister on intelligence, operations, strategic and international issues.

He has also worked as a consultant, providing consultancy services on strategy, security and crisis management to clients that included Australian government departments, the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations in the United Nations.

From 1999 to 2003, he was the Senior Research Fellow in the Army’s principal conceptual research institution, the Land Warfare Studies Centre. Prior to that Dr Ryan was a senior lecturer at the University of Notre Dame Australia, where he was also Assistant Dean in the Colleges of Arts and Sciences and the College of Law.  He was director of the university’s Politics and Law programme. He previously worked as a contract manager in intellectual property commercialisation for The University of Melbourne and the University of New England.

Dr Ryan has a Ph.D from the Centre for International Studies at Cambridge University and a BA (Hons.)/LL.B from the University of Melbourne. He served with the Australian Army Reserve between 1981 and 1994 and on attachment with the British Territorial Army from 1987 to 1991.

He has an extensive record of publication on history, defence and strategic issues. He is an adjunct Professor in the Graduate School of Management at Latrobe University.

Dr Ryan will start with the Centre on February 1, 2012.

NATO’s Operation in Libya Officially Ends

United Nations Security Council, Resolution 2016 (2011), 27 October 2011

The United Nations Security Council has officially ended NATO’s protection of civilians mandate in Libya, following the death of Muammar Gaddafi, through a unanimous adoption of Resolution 2016. The Council urged Libyan authorities to ‘promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms’ for the entire population, including African migrants and foreign nationals, as well as former officials and detainees.

It welcomed the ‘positive’ developments in Libya and looked forward to the establishment of an ‘inclusive, representative transitional government’ that was supported by democratic principles. These actions followed a briefing during which the representative of Libya expressed the desire for an end to the provisions of resolution 1973.

Tunisia in Transition

Source: The University of Texas Libraries

International Crisis Group, Popular Protests in North Africa and the Middle East (IV): Tunisia’s Way, Middle East/North Africa Report No 106, 28 April 2011

Tunisia still faces a number of competing concerns in its transition to democracy and will have to balance political change against the need for stability, and continue to reform its security services, according to a recent report from the International Crisis Group.

Popular Protests in North Africa and the Middle East (IV): Tunisia’s Way examines the origins of political change in the North African country and the situation following the departure of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali; and concludes that despite the political upheaval, Tunisia has had an encouraging start.

However, the report warns that the new leadership must address some competing concerns.  These include encouraging dialogue between Islamist parties and secular forces, and implementing social justice reform – of which international assistance will play an important part.

Source: The Huffington Post

In addition, reform of security services is a key recommendation by the group.  It calls for the centralising of security services, reorganising security forces’ and police’s organisational structures, and establishing a program to train security forces with international help.

While the protests in Tunisia sparked a political victory, they also affected the country in other areas.  Tourism was devastated and foreign investment harmed.  Regionally, oil prices increased and conflict in Libya provoked a refugee crisis on Tunisia’s borders.

However, the report finds more cause for celebration than alarm.  Robert Malley, Crisis Group’s Middle East and North Africa Program Director, points out that, ‘Tunisia is where it all began’ and ‘it is also where the promise of a successful democratic transition is greatest.  For the region and the rest of the world, that should provide ample reason to pay attention and help Tunisians pursue their path.’

 Closing the Gap in Post-Conflict Justice and Islamic Law

Scott Worden, Shani Ross, Whitney Parker, Sahar Azar, Analyzing Post-Conflict Justice and Islamic Law, United States Institute of Peace, PeaceBrief 87, March 23, 2011-10-27

Post-conflict justice often eludes victims of atrocities in Muslim-majority countries because of poor governance, weak rule of law and human development deficits – features common among conflict-prone societies rather than being specific to Islamic societies or jurisprudence, according to this report from the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).

USIP recently sponsored a workshop to address whether there are fundamental incompatibilities between the Shari’a and related texts and established international law concepts of post conflict justice, documenting their findings in a brief report entitled, Analyzing Post-Conflict Justice and Islamic Law.

Participants largely agreed that the principles of Islamic law broadly align with international legal norms of truth, accountability and compensation for victims of mass crimes and human rights abuse; however, there was debate over questions of what constitutes the Shari’a and why many Muslim governments fail to implement these norms.

However, despite social and criminal justice being a fundamental principle of Islamic law, the issue has attracted little scholarly attention – a significant gap, especially In light of recent popular uprisings against authoritarian regimes in North Africa and the Middle East.

Participants stressed the need for further study and discussion to identify and resolve potential discrepancies between classical Islamic jurisprudence and contemporary issues with the goal to establish an authoritative set of basic Islamic legal principles that support institutional approaches to post-conflict justice issues.  

Human Insecurity in the Arab World

Arab Human Development Report 2009: Challenges to human security in the Arab countries, United Nations Development Programme, Regional Bureau for Arab States.

Seven years after the publication of the first Arab Human Development Report in 2002 by the United Nations Development Programme, the latest study has found that obstacles to human development are still pervasive in the Arab region.  Of particular note is the region’s long history of occupation and military intervention has stood in the way of political reform.

The 2009 report suggests the reason for this lies in the fragile nature of the region’s political, social, economic and environmental structures, in its inadequate development policies, and its vulnerabilities to outside interventions.

Environmental stresses, volatile economies, food insecurity, health security challenges, threats to personal security, the performance of governments, and occupation and military intervention, make up what the report terms, ‘seven dimensions of threat’ to the general stability and development of the region.

In seeking a solution, the report works within the concept of human security – the ‘rearguard of human development’.  This is because, according to the report’s authors, development is more likely to be successful where all citizens are empowered, governments are accountable, and security threats are eliminated.

The report makes seven key areas of recommendation to address the seven threat dimensions: preserving the environment; guaranteeing essential rights, freedoms and opportunities without discrimination; a recognition by the state and society of abuses and injustices; addressing the weaknesses of the Arab oil economy; ending hunger and poverty in all sub-regions; promoting health for all as a human right; recognising that continuing occupation and military intervention is self-defeating and unacceptable.

UN Resolution 1973 Sparks New Debate on Protection

Alex J. Bellamy and Paul D. Williams, ‘The new politics of protection? Cote d’Ivoire, Libya and the responsibility to protect’, in International Affairs, 87:4 (2011), 825-850

A ‘new’ politics of protection is guiding international responses to security crises, led by an increasing willingness by the UN Security Council to authorise the use of military force for civilian protection as reflected in international responses to the crises in Cote d’Ivoire and Lybia, according to academics Alex Bellamy and Paul Williams. These new policies have four principal characteristics.

First, human protection has been the framework used by the Security Council for these crises.  Second, with the adoption of Resolution 1973 in Libya, the Security Council, for the first time, authorised the use of force without the consent from a host state.  Third, regional organisations have become important actors for the Security Council. Finally, international society now works through the Security Council to respond to human protection crises.

In the Libyan situation, the Security Council approved the use of force due to consensus at the regional level, general opposition to the Gaddafi regime, the necessity to act immediately, and the lack of dispute over the nature of the threat.  Other circumstances have proven less clear with political differences dividing opinion on how to respond, as was the case in Cote d’Ivoire.  Concerns about the UN’s role against the Gbagbo regime, the use of force by UN peacekeepers and French troops in Cote d’Ivoire, and the UN’s decision to override the Constitutional Council raised questions about the interpretation of Resolution 1975, and the impartiality of UN peacekeeping.

Thus, the cases of Libya and the Cote d’Ivoire have raised unresolved challenges that could stand in the way of action on future crises.  These challenges are the problems of interpreting Security Council mandates, the complicated relationship between human protection and other goals such as regime change, the role of regional organisations, and bringing external actors into local crises.  What is clear is that it is easier to agree to protect civilians in principle than it is to find agreement on what to do in specific circumstance.

Nevertheless, a ‘new’ politics of protection, Bellamy and Williams argue, has steadily evolved over the past ten years.  They stress that the international community is now firmly focused on the protection of civilians, of which the UN Secretariat has played an important role in establishing; and the UN Security Council now shows willingness to authorise the use of military force for the sake of human protection.