Page 178 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo II

818 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

“Inadequate joint force command structure, poor communications, service parochial-
ism, and a lack of joint exercises – hence joint planning – leading up to the Falklands
conflict caused the unsuccessful offloading of the Welsh Guard at Fitzroy. These prob-
lems, exacerbated by the lack of A[nti]E[lectronic]W[arfare], led directly to the loss of
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56 British lives […]” . Finally the British military intervention on the Falklands paved
the ground for new political activities and establishing a clear political future framework
for the Falklands. Colateral damages on the Falklands were restructured by Great Britain
within short time.
As Great Britain was defending an own territory – far away from the homeland – an-
other example could be used to focus on two different forms of “classical” or “tradi-
tional” war: The involvement of another country into a conflict between neighbours by
supporting one party or the engagement of another country in their attempts to liberate
themselves after being invaded. Due to the geography a joint operation for the third
party is mandatory, which leads directly to a combined operation.
As example out of the nearer past the operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm
could be taken. After the invasion of Kuwait, the US took decision to liberate Kuwait.
USCENTCOM took charge of operational command. Gen. Schwarzkopf (USCINC-
CENT) designated component commanders for Air, Land, Naval and Marine Forces as
well as Special Operations. However all operations and forces assigned to the theatre
remained under the command authority of USCENTCOM. This streamlining of com-
mand and the fact that the deployment at the beginning of Desert Storm was exercised in
a coordinated way, which enabled the rapid deployment of more than 500.000 soldiers,
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120 warships and 1.600 combat aircraft. The Air Force was used to the quick strategic
airlift, and later on for theatre airlift, which enabled a rapid build-up of force and com-
mand structures on the Arabian peninsula. The Naval forces arrived six days after the
launch of the mission and, from that day, kept on providing the further extensive logisti-
cal support concerning supply, personnel and vehicles.
The US military paved the ground for a renewal of diplomacy in order to ensure
peace and freedom for Kuwait. It should be added that the collateral damages of this
military interventions had been solved rapidly by Kuwait who were able to do so due to
their wealth.
These classical, these traditional wars went more and more out of scope of main mili-
tary advanced and prudent planning during the last years. Nowadays we are expecting
the unexpected and planning for scenarios we could not have even thought of a couple
of years ago. The fight against terrorism or the fight against asymmetric threats have
changed our military thinking and combines again both homeland security and external
military activities. Do we have those capabilities needed to address these threats, do the
well known large organisations have the power to respond to these threats – what are the
capabilities needed? Are we intending to engage a cyber-attack with machine guns in the
future? Most probable an answer cannot be found in military means, most probable the
military have an even more limited role in managing these kind of conflicts. But does the

3 Bolia, p. 72.
4 Joint Military Operations Historical Collection (=JMOHC), p. V-3.