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1. General background
Experience
gained by Romanian military police forces as a result of the
numerous activities and missions performed in peace security
mission domain, in the framework of Balkan and Irak peace-keeping
and peace enforcing operations, as part of Multinational
Specialized Unint (MSU), under Italian Carabinieri command, has
substantially contributed to prepare and fulfil with success the
integration and interoperability tasks settled through the program
of Romanian integration in NATO alliance. As a Partnership for
Peace member, Romania has increasingly taken part in peace keeping
and peace security operations in Europe and in other places in the
world, but in the field of Public Security Operations, Romania has
been present with specialised troops since March 1998 with a
Military Police platoon as part of Multinational Specialized Unit
in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and continued the
participation recently, with a company in Iraq, for phase IV -
reconstruction and stability. The objective of a public order
operation is to solve a civil unrest situation through decisive
intervention. This intervention must be made using the lowest
possible level of force.
Usually, the
police and gendarmery are those forces that enforce public order in
peace keeping missions. Although MSU is a police force but it acts
under military command, the Romanian soldiers integration in the
mission environment required a reduced accommodation period, their
previous experience at home in both military and public order
operations being an advantage.
2. General considerations regarding MSU. The concept of MSU
This unit is a
new concept used until now in SFOR and KFOR missions with good
results, and used now in a completely different environement in
IRAQ. It is a gendarmery type force, that has different objectives
from a military conventional force, and is aimed mainly on the
public security and public order operations. It is not considered
to be a repressive tool, the aim is to achieve its tasks through
preemptive police operations with the intent of preventing any
possible civil disturbances, oversee the situation and operate in
as a flexible and gradual manner as deemed necessary in order to
ensure public order, with capabilities to use nonlethal wepons. The
main way of performing its tasks is by monitoring public security,
collecting informations on areas of public order and crime concern,
conducting criminal intelligence and counter terrorism operations,
in order to prevent and defuse any eventual aggresive actions
against coalition forces and provide a secure environment.
Certainly, in the unstable situation in which it operate,
preemptive measures cannot entirely solve the problems and,
consquently, MSU is able to respond to civil disturbances by using
its capabilities of crowd control in close cooperation with police,
military forces and civil authorities.
3. Romanian experience in the Multinational Specialized Unit, SFOR
- Bosnia Herzegovina and Iraq
We consider
that, by being a component of a unit with a high standard of
profesionalism and efficiecy, it has been succeeded to organize a
nucleus of well trained servicemen, which will apply in their units
the experience gained, and if the situation will impose it, they
will be ready for another mission together with the carabinieri.
Taking in consideration that part of Romanian military police
servicemen served in other missions in cooperation with carabinieri
and learned italian language, the intercourse relations as an
important operational component, were facilitated, as well as human
relationships. As concerning the experience accumulated by working
in a multinational environment, it has been acertained that, from
the top level of regiment command, it wasn't made any difference
within nations, no nation has been accounted preffered attention,
on contrary a greater importance was given to good relations with
partner nations units than to their own subunits. The cooperation
with Italian Carabinieri under all aspects, command relationships
or human relationships, developed in excellent conditions and we
are proud to have the chance to add our humble contribution to
Multinational Specialized Unit.
4. Lessons learned
Distribution of
Romanian troops in Balkans and Iraq pointed out a series of
specific challenges such as mobility of troops, interoperability,
survivability of fighting equipments and logistics capabilities.
The majority of these problems could have been solved having the
support of Italian Carabinieri partner, which assumed the role of
the lead nation. A multitude of lessons learned have been
concentrated on adapting the right procedures to the specific
circumstances and types of operations. This chapter highlights all
the lessons learned that result from all areas: human resources,
intelligence, operations, logistics, communications (signal),
CIMIC, etc.
After analysis
they made up an important database in order to enhance the value of
gained experience to allow for: - a better training of follow-on
units taking part in peace-keeping missions; - appointing personnel
according to the mission requirements; - the use of better combat
technology weapons and equipment; - better solutions of depolyment
and redeployment; - accomplishing the specific missions.
5. Lessons, proposals and solutions adopted
Further on, I
would like to present a few of the lessons learned, proposals and
solutions adopted: G -2, INTELLIGENCE. The Romanian MP subunits
from SFOR and Iraq have received a specific task to fulfil, namely
- information gathering - task that had a major influence on
accomplishing the missions. It was ascertained that part of the
information gathered was not confirmed but also could have had the
role to mislead and misinform.
The causes of
this were assesed to be the improper training of MP soldiers and
the lack of sufficient interpreters able to speak the local
language. Adopted solution: - info-gathering training has been
introduced into the MP training program; - key personnel was
instructed to filter all information through at least two
authorised sources: local administration, NGO's, etc.; - in the
first phase, employing local interpreters necessary to carry on the
daily missions. Another major problem was, especially in Iraq, to
estimate the vulnerability of the guard sYstem used. MSU bases are
situated in cities, urban crowd (agglomeration) being a perilous
element for their security. There is an imperative need of
reviewing databases on principles, methods used and organization of
terrorist groups, political parties, ethnic/religious armed
groups.
Proposal: -
strict force protection measures that must be followed by all
personnel. G-3, OPERATIONS: - in order to accomplish the mission,
the MSU troops had to be moved by helicopter for crowd control
interventions. Romanian troops were not trained in the helicopter
movement conditions. Adopted solution: - simulated helicopter load
training was performed. Reccomendation: - to organize live
helicopter load training exercises prior to deploying in theatre.
Psychologic training of the troops designated to execute missions
in the theater of operations was insufficient, existing the
possibility that the soldiers could knuckle under the pressure. To
successfully perform the missions and stave off the negative
factors, during the precursory training, besides the normal
training usually done, images, documentary films and impressions of
the soldiers who return from the previous missions have to be
presented. Of great importance we consider the next example: lack
of interoperability in staff work procedures between different
national contingents whithin MSU.
A proposed
solution for this problem could be common staff exercises, exchange
of drill instructors, exchange of staff officers to work in
cooperation at different staff levels. S-4, LOGISTICS: - in MSU
SFOR the MP platoon was accomodated in CORIMEC containers.
Reccomendation: - to analyse the possibility of supplying all
contingents with a type of containers that enhance the mobility,
are easy to install, provide optimal living conditions and are
retrieavable when mission ends. Today, when our efforts are divided
in many directions (restructuring process, interoperability,
NATO/PfP missions and exercises), a multitude of aspects can be
considered as lessons learned and turned into account for future
training. Our task should be to monitor the collection of lessons
learned, analyse them, synthesize the important conclusions and
show what to do and how to do it.
By sharing
these conclusions with other military or police structures as
experience gained, we will be able to maximize our potential in
carrying out future missions. On the other hand, according to the
problems presented, the conclusions resulted should be forwarded to
superior structures as to take the appropriate legal, operational
and administrative measures. Only in this way we can prove that
lessons are learned and experience accumulated. In Romania most of
the aspects mentioned in the present document are in the qualified
echelons' attention, some of them being already solved.
Notwithstanding this, we presented them as valuable information, so
we can avoid making the same mistakes again. We wish to express the
hope and trust in our future cooperation, there is no doubt about
it, we firmly believe that only together we can take steps forward
on this road.
6. Conclusions
The active
Romanian participation in the UN and NATO Public Security
Operations and Partnership for Peace missions and exercises, the
consistent Romanian position during the Balkan crisis emphasized
the Romanian effort in the "concert" of the world nations and the
ability to join and support democracy. Among our major concerns,
when taking part in these missions, and when showing our
availability for more future missions and operations of this type,
is to give a real image of the possibilities of the Romanian army
and our determination to implement NATO procedures in our units and
subunits. These relevant actions of public security during Peace
Support Operations, represent a great opportunity for Romania to
ensure a growing visibility at NATO level, in the perspective of a
future Romanian contribution to peace keeping missions like UNMIK,
KFOR, SFOR, Iraq. The peace-keeping and humanitarian missions to
which the Romanian soldiers took part, including Public Security
Operations missions, pointed out: - confirmation of the fact that
Romania is an active participant in maintaining a peace and
security environment process at local and regional level; -
increasing the consideration of our potential to take part in this
type of mission; - the capability of Romanian military personnel to
integrate and work with NATO standard procedures and the
professionalism proven by working in multinational headquarters; -
the units and personnel's capability to conduct military operations
in a multinational framework, political and terrain conditions
different from the national characteristics; - the participants'
capacity to adjust to local rules and traditions, specific to
missions and areas; - the increasing capabilities of soldiers and
responsibility while acting independently and in hostile conditions
of stress; - proving the solidity and durability of the Romanian
military technology and equipment in different work conditions.
Finally, regarding the cooperation between the Carabinieri and the
Romanian military police, we are considering this as a special
relationship, first of all because it has a special impact on
organizing, training and accomplishing the specific tasks of the
military police units, and also for the fact that as Romania is the
only Latin country in Eastern Europe, Italy is the nearest to the
Romanian people's heart and soul.
(*) - Major of the Romanian
Armed Forces. |
