MARO: Mass Atrocity Response Operations: a Military Planning
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MARO MASS ATROCITY RESPONSE OPERATIONS: A MILITARY PLANNING HANDBOOK A Collaborative Effort Between the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School and the US Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute w “ An important addition to the very limited and fragmented body of work related to the subject of atrocities in our time. Well done.” GENERAL (Retired) GORDON R. SULLIVAN, US Army, Former Chief of Staff of the US Army MARO “ Sarah Sewall and her team have produced an impressive contribution that shifts the debate on intervention from ‘whether’ to ‘how.’ With this critical recognition that mass atrocities present unique operational challenges, ‘MARO’ is a step closer to incorporation into military doctrine. MASS ATROCITY RESPONSE OPERATIONS: National governments and the international community badly need the MARO framework as an A MILITARY PLANNING HANDBOOK effective template for ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ power responses before, during, and after preventable mass atrocities are committed.” SENATOR (Retired Lieutenant General) ROMÉO A. DaLLAIRE, Canadian Forces, Former Force Commander United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda “ The MARO Project provides a solid framework for Geographic Combatant Commander develop- ment of contingency plans for mass atrocity situations. Tailored ‘on the shelf’ plans would be invaluable in increasing speed of framing the problem and developing appropriate response.” MAJOR GENERAL (Retired) GEOFFREY C. LAMBERT, US Army, Former Commander, US Army Special Forces Command Copyright © 2010 By The President and Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved. MARO MASS ATROCITY RESPONSE OPERATIONS: A MILITARY PLANNING HANDBOOK Copyright © 2010 By The President and Fellows of Harvard College. All Rights Reserved. MARO MASS ATROCITY RESPONSE OPERATIONS: A MILITARY PLANNING HANDBOOK Primary Authors: Sarah Sewall, Dwight Raymond, Sally Chin Foreword by Sarah Sewall and John Kardos 5 Executive Summary 17 PART I THE MARO CONCEPT 23 A MARO’s Relation to Other Operations 23 B Distinctions of a MARO Situation 25 C Operational and Political Implications 29 PART II MARO PLANNING CONSIDERATIONS 41 A Introduction 41 B Mission Analysis 42 C Courses of Action 65 D Plan Design and Implementation 87 PART III FUTURE RESEARCH AREAS AND WAYS FORWARD 101 ANNEXES A Definitions of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Crimes 103 B Draft Strategic Guidance 106 C Sample Critical Factors Analyses 108 D Assumptions 115 E Task List 116 F Intelligence Considerations 118 G Flexible Deterrent Options 120 H Selected Bibliography 128 I History of the MARO Project 132 J Contacts and Resources 137 K Acknowledgments 139 L Acronyms 141 M Biographies 144 FOREWORD The Mass Atrocity Response Operations (MARO) Project seeks to enable the United States and the international community to stop genocide and mass atrocity as part of a broader integrated strategy by explaining key relevant military concepts and planning considerations. The MARO Project is based on the insight that the failure to act in the face of mass killings of civilians is not simply a function of political will or legal authority; the failure also reflects a lack of thinking about how military forces might respond. States and regional and international organizations must better understand and prepare for the unique operational and moral challenges that military forces would face in a MARO. Such an effort offers several benefits, including the creation of a wider range of potentially effective military responses. Advance planning with possible partners would greatly facilitate coalition operations. Developing more effective intervention options may help strengthen deterrence of would-be perpetrators. Furthermore, by highlighting the complexities of responding militarily after violence against civilians has already become widespread, MARO planning should increase policymakers’ appreciation of the value and economy of preventive efforts. Since prevention will not succeed every time, some states may nonethe- less find themselves conducting a MARO. They may initiate intervention or they may adjust the mission of forces that had deployed for other purposes, where mass violence against civilians becomes a primary challenge. In such cases, conceptual and operational MARO preparedness will facilitate success at the lowest possible cost in lives and treasure. Accordingly, the Project addresses the concrete and practical challeng- es of using military forces to halt ongoing mass atrocities through a MARO. The Project has developed operational concepts, a tailored planning guide, tabletop exercises, and other tools for military institutions and political FOREWORD 5 actors. While military force will not always be required to halt mass atrocity, the MARO Project helps make credible, effective options more likely and it better prepares intervening forces in the event that they are directed to act. In this respect, the Project can help shift the policy debate from “whether” to “how” to intervene to stop widespread violence against civilians. MASS ATROCITY AND GENOCIDE: REALITY OF OUR TIME Mass atrocity and genocide remain a modern reality, and they can assume different forms and engender varied responses. The genocide in Rwanda was an extremely rapid and widespread example of violence against civilians. In April 1994, a peace agreement ending a four-year civil war in Rwanda between the ethnically Hutu government and the ethnically Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front fell apart, the plane carrying the Rwandan and Burundian presidents was shot down, and killing of civilians started throughout the country. Lightly armed militias of government-supported Hutu extremists targeted the minority Tutsi population and moderate Hutus. Perpetrators broadcasted inflammatory radio messages, set up roadblocks, uprooted villages, and massacred citizens with machetes. Within one hundred days, between 500,000 and 800,000 people had been massacred.1 Mass violence against civilians accompanied the Former Republic of Yugoslavia’s dissolution in the 1990s. Serbian nationalists in Bosnia declared a separate state within the Republic of Bosnia, which comprised geograph- ically-mixed Muslim, Orthodox Serb, and Roman Catholic Croat populations. Bosnian Serb and Serb-dominated Yugoslav forces began targeting and attacking Muslim and Croat citizens in Bosnia. Complex, multiparty fight- ing among numerous armed factions backed by Serbia, Bosnia, and other neighboring countries persisted throughout the next three years.2 While the majority of civilian murders were committed by Serbs, atrocities were committed by all sides.3 Over the course of the conflict, 40,000 civilians were killed, of whom 82 percent were Muslim.4 A few years later, some 3,000 ethnic Albanian civilians were killed by the Serbian government in the province of Kosovo. 5 1 Taylor B. Seybolt, Humanitarian Military Intervention: The Conditions for Success and Failure (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 70. 2 Samantha Power, “A Problem from Hell:” America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2002), pp. 247–251. 3 Roger Cohen, “C.I.A. Report on Bosnia Blames Serbs for 90% of War Crimes,” New York Times, March 9, 1995. 4 Alan Kuperman, “Humanitarian Intervention,” in Human Rights: Politics and Practice, ed. Michael Goodhart (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 345. 5 Power, “A Problem from Hell,” p. 445. 6 Mass atrocities against civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan assumed a different dynamic. In 2003, fighting broke out between government forces and the rebel groups Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and Sudan Liberation Army (SLA). Janjaweed militia connected to the government conducted raids on Darfur villages, massacring civilians of predominantly non-Arab tribes. An initial wave of killings was followed by more sporadic attacks. Over the course of the next seven years, an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 civilians died—slaughtered or killed by war-related famine and disease.6 Each of these cases is different—presenting dynamics of varying size, trajectory, and form.7 The international responses in the face of these cases of widespread killing and genocide have also been varied, ranging from withdrawal of UN peacekeepers in Rwanda in the face of widespread kill- ing, to NATO airstrikes in Bosnia and Kosovo (designed to prompt politi- cal settlement and providing little direct protection to civilians), to a joint UN/African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission in Darfur with limited powers and effectiveness. As the MARO Handbook explains, while every situation of mass killing is unique and requires a tailored response, there are some common themes and distinctions that have important implications for operational and po- litical planning for intervention. Having a shared understanding of these distinctions and implications, thinking systematically through the risks and trade-offs, and dedicating resources to advance planning and training are all extremely important for providing realistic options for future actions. Origins of the Project The US military has long focused on preparation for major conventional operations, rather than preparing for other types of military operations. As it struggled with counterinsurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States military realized that preparation for conventional warfare was inad- equate for some other military challenges. MAROs also generate such unique requirements. 6 Siobhán Wills, Protecting Civilians: The Obligations of Peacekeepers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009),