Experiences May Vary: NATO and Cultural Interoperability in Afghanistan

Abstract

This article examines the coherence of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) coordinated military strategy during the war in Afghanistan. We argue that much of this coherence can be lost when decision makers adopt multinational strategic guidance that is then interpreted by different national contingents operationally. Different strategic and military cultures across troop-contributing countries may account for observed variation in operational outcomes, but better theoretical tools are needed to examine this phenomenon. Our aim is to further scholars’ understanding of how cultural variables can affect mission outcomes. This assumed effect of strategic and military cultures is explored empirically with reference to the Canadian and German Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan, which formed part of the NATO-led ISAF operation.

Keywords

military culture military effectiveness NATO civil–military relations civil wars

During the initial phase of the war in Afghanistan, the United States decided against the participation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies to avoid coordination challenges (Stein & Lang, 2007). While the need for improved coordination has been addressed in the literature, this article examines why NATO allies struggle to implement alliance guidelines coherently, resulting in unforeseen mission outcomes. To investigate the gap between NATO’s strategic directives and how these are then carried out on the ground, a challenging exercise from a theoretical standpoint, we contend that multinational operations are heavily influenced by cultural factors located at the national level (NATO, 2008). Comparing Canadian-led and the German-led provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs), we explore how different strategic and military cultures across troop-contributing nations may account for the observed variation in operational outcomes, rendering alliance coordination more complex and unpredictable. Indeed, NATO’s instructions about PRTs were interpreted according to each ally’s political and military specificities, leading to two versions of the PRT: a military-centric PRT for Canada and a more balanced PRT for Germany, interesting findings from the point of view of theory development. The article proceeds as follows: The first section reviews the literature on strategic culture and military culture that relates to allied cooperation.¹ In the second section, we draw some theoretical links between cultural factors and allied actions in wartime; the third section summarizes the case study analysis and is followed by the conclusion.

Culture and Multinational Operations

Cultural approaches have not been central to theory-building in security studies and even less so in alliance theory.² Scholars have acknowledged both the value and challenges inherent to such approaches, noting that “culture as a descriptive and analytical term, is both nebulous and part of the realist world, at once frustratingly malleable and actually quite useful” (Black, 2011, p. 43). While previous studies on the cultural dimension of multinational operations focus on differences in language, religion, and ideology between states that are often on opposite sides of the fight, this article examines culture by studying a relatively homogenous group of states: NATO allies. Our main objective is to generate hypotheses on the variation in operational outcomes witnessed across nationally run PRTs in Afghanistan by focusing on two explanatory variables: strategic culture and military culture. While strategic culture furthers our understanding of how NATO’s common objectives are interpreted by political decision makers in allied capitals, military culture informs how political directives are executed by military commanders and their troops.

Strategic Culture and Political Objectives

Strategic culture informs political choices on the use of force through the lens of a society’s historical experience. The concept was popularized in the 1970s when Snyder (1977), studying the differences between Soviet and U.S. nuclear strategies, defined it as “the sum of ideas, conditioned emotional responses, and patterns of habitual behavior that members of a national strategic community have acquired” (p. 8). The introduction of a cultural perspective was meant to challenge assumptions about rational behavior and utility maximization. The concept of strategic culture was refined in three waves. For the first generation, culture was simply the context in which national policy choices were formed. Gray (1999) argued that “everything a security community does, if not a manifestation of strategic culture, is at least an example of behavior effected by culturally shaped, or encultured, people, organizations, procedures and weapons” (p. 52). A second generation of scholars studied the differences between declared national policy and the underlying motives and aims pursued by the policy elite (Klein, 1988). The third generation promoted a positivist agenda, with Johnston (1995) arguing that strategic culture was a “limited, ranked set of grand strategic preferences over actions that are consistent across the objects of analysis and persistent across time” (p. 38). In this article, we view culture as context rather than a set of deterministic preferences. We acknowledge that there are culturally defined expectations regarding the use of force and argue that strategic culture interacts with military culture in the process of interpreting alliance directives, which may account for variations in operational outcomes.

Military Culture and the Battlefield

The culture of the military is based on different assumptions and values than those of civilians working in other government departments (Kier, 1995). Military culture has practical implications because it “sets the framework of what military doctrine is allowed to exist, and how the existing doctrine is to be interpreted and implemented” (Zapfe, 2016, p. 252). Decisions to use force bear the imprint of military culture, as commanders are tasked to implement political objectives, often with little civilian oversight on the ground (Farrell, 1998). Inevitably, strategic culture interacts with military culture in the process of translating strategic goals into military operations. However, and as Legro (1996) notes, organizational military culture “may or may not relate to wider societal culture or to the beliefs held within a different military organization” (p. 123).

Drawing from this preliminary theoretical discussion, we can identify measures of both strategic and military cultures to guide the empirical analysis. For strategic culture, each case will assess the significance of political attitudes and values toward the military and toward the use of force, prevailing societal norms about foreign and defense policy based on historical experiences and public opinion. For military culture, it will be important to examine the organizational culture, doctrine, and standard operating procedures, what the armed forces view as their strength in an allied context, and whether or not there are influential military leaders who are pushing for change.

Cultural Differences and PRT Operations

NATO started taking over responsibility for the PRTs when its mandate was expanded beyond Kabul in August 2003. PRTs were meant to extend government authority outside Kabul, as well as the influence of NGOs and international organizations, while also supporting reconstruction efforts and information sharing (U.S. Institute for Peace, 2003). NATO intended the PRTs to contribute to development and stability goals while also providing security.

Despite common NATO directives, we argue that the PRT experience varied considerably from one ally to the next and that this poses an interesting theory-building challenge. As a first step, governments embark on commitments in the context of collective decision-making at the alliance level. These decisions are the product of political and military advice and are then further refined at the national level, as bureaucracies (both civilian and military) determine how these commitments will be implemented. If national strategic culture influences how decision makers define their country’s operational engagement, then we should focus on evidence linked to the civil–military balance in command arrangements, preferences on the use of force, as defined in the rules of engagement, and the justification for engagement. The second step entails implementing this plan of action in the context of realities on the ground, the management of available capabilities, and coordination among actors who contribute to mission tasks, including soldiers, diplomats, and development officers. If national military culture influences the conduct of military operations, then we should find that the observed behavior on operations is shaped by past operational experiences and that the leadership style of commanders, whether politicized or characterized by mission command, will be consistent with the cultural expectations of the organization. As these two steps are set in motion, the directives that were set at the alliance level are presumably transformed, leading to variation in how participating nation-states are carrying out their mission.

While our focus is on cultural variables, we also consider material explanations for PRT outcomes. The primary consideration in this context is the threat environment of the PRT’s area of operations. While the threat picture would not be complete before deployment, NATO countries would be able to make a judgment on whether or not their PRTs are going into a high-risk environment or into a part of Afghanistan that is considered to be more secure. It is therefore reasonable to expect that threat intensity in a given area of operations will influence operational posture and the conduct of operations. The observable implication is that threat level should affect the kind of military operations conducted (kinetic or nonkinetic) and the troops’ ability to facilitate nonmilitary lines of operations by civilian personnel. Financial and military resources are a second material factor that matters for missions. We contend that the availability of resources and of military and civilian personnel should influence the composition of the deployed contingent. This can be easily assessed by comparing the size of the military and civilian contingent. Since soldiers can provide their own logistical support, the expectation is that it will be easier to mobilize military resources than civilian resources in high-risk environments, making it more likely that PRTs follow a military-centric approach. While these material factors may contribute to the outcomes we observe, they cannot account for changes in PRT structure observed over time or the variation between countries. Our approach, on the other hand, can generate new hypotheses that identify the distinct influences of strategic and military cultures as they relate to disparate operational outcomes in allied settings. Throughout the war in Afghanistan, the nature of the threat fluctuates for individual nations but cannot explain the differences in how allies translate directives into orders for their troops. This is where cultural explanations come in handy because they affect how states view the threat and how commanders react (more risk averse or risk acceptant). Material capabilities are also culturally determined because the past historical experiences of individual allies have shaped the type of material capabilities that they value as well as how they are deployed (e.g., more emphasis on force protection assets).

We selected Canada and Germany because we wanted a geographical spread within the alliance to preempt the view that coordination challenges are primarily a “European” problem. Both countries were criticized by their NATO allies despite making sizable and long-term commitments; Germany was criticized for its caveats and Canada for threatening withdrawal. These are critical cases that elude existing explanations, which fail to account for different outcomes despite a common multinational strategy.

The Canadian and German PRTs in Afghanistan

Canada ran a PRT in Kandahar from 2005 to 2011 in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Regional Command (RC) South, whereas Germany was in charge of PRTs in Kunduz (2003–2013) and Feyzabad (2004–2012) in RC North. While the security situation in southern and northern Afghanistan evolved over time, on balance, RC South represented a more hostile environment than RC North, which could account for some of the variance observed between PRTs. Our analysis highlights, however, that each nation’s strategic and military cultures structured how they responded to security conditions on the ground and how they interpreted strategic direction from NATO.

Strategic Culture

To establish if and how strategic culture is likely to influence each country’s operational engagement, this section examines the character of civil–military relations as it relates to command arrangements, national preferences regarding the use of force and how this shapes the rationale for military action. The analysis therefore draws on the overall political direction of the mission and corresponding public discourses. Special attention is also paid to the composition of the chain of command to see whether it is balanced in favor of civilians.

Canada

Canada’s rationale for deploying troops to Afghanistan was, first and foremost, about collective self-defense, in response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, but it also emphasized the importance of achieving United Nations (UN)-mandated peace and security objectives. Throughout its engagement, the government of Canada stressed ISAF’s UN mandate of combatting terrorism, stabilizing and rebuilding Afghanistan, and engagement with regional partners. The UN mandate and the humanitarian rationale were constantly emphasized in the way the mission was portrayed as it was seen to play well with public opinion. The Canadian mission also adopted a human security narrative, articulated as the “responsibility to protect,” the UN doctrine based on the idea that populations whose governments fail to protect them can count on the international community to do so. When the disconnect between the rhetoric and the practice became apparent, meaning that body bags were coming home while the government was emphasizing developmental project, public opinion grew less supportive of the mission.

If we scrutinize the mission closely, it is clear that the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) grew increasingly involved in combat operations in Afghanistan, creating a misalignment with the political rationale. The Canadian public was slow to adjust to this more robust role for its expeditionary forces: “Not since the Korean War [had] Canada been directly involved in combat so the public had been accustomed to seeing Canadian forces as peacekeepers rather than combat forces.” Bloomfield and Nossal (2007) have even argued that the Martin government went as far as to deceive Canadians on the real nature of the CAF’s involvement, “…dressing it up as a traditional peacekeeping mission despite the fact that it was known that Canadian troops were being sent on a combat mission” (p. 300). Despite the combat-oriented Canadian mission in Afghanistan, public opinion remained attached to the image of their soldiers acting as peacekeepers (Don, 2005). In reality, CAF personnel were conducting a high volume of patrols and sometimes being called upon to provide backup to other units. Therefore, troops assigned to the PRT could take part in combat, even if it was not their primary responsibility to do so.

The Canadian approach to the PRT, as far as the civil–military balance is concerned, aimed to integrate Diplomacy, Development, and Defense. This so-called 3-D approach emerged in official Canadian government lexicon in the 2005 International Policy Statement under the Martin government and also became known as the whole-of-government approach, highlighting the interagency cooperation of the Canadian PRT in Kandahar (K-PRT). If civilian departments already faced coordination challenges, building a comprehensive civil–military effort would prove to be even more difficult.

In terms of national preferences regarding the use of military force, a notable feature of the Canadian PRT is the process of decision-making during the mission in Afghanistan. Canada’s involvement in Kandahar coincided with a noticeable shift in strategic culture, namely the practice of calling a House of Commons vote to extend the mission (Lagassé, 2016). This occurred in May 2006, when the deployment was extended to February 2009, with the approval of the House and again in 2009, when the mission was extended to 2011. The significance of this shift is important for civil–military relations since there is no military rationale for the deadlines that were set by parliament. These political deadlines translated into an additional constraint placed on the CAF: accomplishing a mission with an artificial deadline (Ettinger & Rice, 2016). Moreover, the Harper government started to produce quarterly reports to parliament to account for how money was spent to support the mission’s priorities and to provide timelines for the “signature” projects funded by Canada. This additional scrutiny changed how the K-PRT was run, emphasizing development outcomes as the main indicators of mission success, even if the military was the lead actor for most tasks (Breede, 2015). This reactive shift on the part of government was directly linked to perceived problems with the military-centric PRT. Government officials took notice that the PRT was run with little civilian oversight and sought to change this to achieve a more balanced model.

In 2007, an independent panel was tasked with reviewing Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan. The report that followed, dubbed the Manley Report in honor of the panel’s chair, recommended extending the mission beyond the original date of 2009, with specific recommendations for the CAF (Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan [Manley Report], 2008). These recommendations highlight some of the tensions between political direction and leadership, on the one hand, and military involvement on the other. The Manley Report (2008) identified the following shortcomings:

…a top heavy command structure at ISAF headquarters in Kabul; an absence of a comprehensive strategy directing all ISAF forces in collaboration with the Afghan government; limitations placed by some NATO governments on the operations of their units, which effectively keep those forces out of the conflict; and inadequate coordination between military and civilian programs for security, stabilization, reconstruction and development. (p. 13)

In practice, there was greater control by the military and limited influence by the civilian agencies on the ground, even in areas outside of their jurisdiction (Leprince, 2013). According to Tamas (2009), the military and civilian components of the mission were out of synch. Since the civilian representatives had little experience or understanding of the military, the military leaders took over, leaving no room for civilians to perform their own tasks.

Things changed when higher level leadership and oversight were introduced, both in Canada, with a special Cabinet Committee to facilitate interagency cooperation, and with a UN special representative to oversee multinational operations across civilian and military spheres. Nevertheless, a 2007 Department of National Defence audit assessment of the K-PRT experience indicated that, even at its outset, there were no clear mission objectives to implement ISAF guidelines. As the report notes,

the KPRT was initially shaped to a large extent by the vision, objectives and concept of operations of successive Commanding Officers (CO) and supplemented by the Government of Canada Campaign Plan, the Joint Task Force Afghanistan (JTF-A) Base Plan, and other strategic and operational-level directives. (Department of National Defence Chief Review Services [DND CRS], 2007)

The actions of the K-PRT were expected to contribute to internationally-set goals, as specified in documents such as the Afghanistan Compact and the Afghanistan National Development Strategy, key reference documents for the NATO mission. Yet the international guidelines were Canadianized as personnel on the ground were given significant discretion as to the means of implementation. The civilian representatives were decidedly more risk averse than the CAF in exploiting this opportunity. Consequently, the PRT outcome for Canada was military-centric, given the lopsided nature of command arrangements and the heavy restrictions placed on civilian members of the PRT.

Germany

Germany’s strategic culture is often labeled as defensive, which refers to a preference for civilian means of conflict resolution and strong political control of the German armed forces. Whereas most countries draw on past exploits and achievements, German foreign policy pre-1945 “lacked a vital and attractive vision with a universal standard” to emulate (Hacke, 1998, p. 9). Hence, the strategic culture of the Federal Republic is not based on the past but on a rejection of the past and German militaristic excesses. This translates into an emphasis on force protection, reflecting the casualty aversion of Germany’s electorate (Junk & Daase, 2013).

Perhaps the single most distinguishing factor of the two German PRTs was a dual leadership structure, sporting both a civilian and a military PRT leader, with the former sent by the Foreign Ministry and the latter being a German officer at the colonel rank. In addition, the ministry responsible for development, as well as the interior ministry, which was in charge of policing functions, dispatched senior representatives to oversee their ministries’ respective work streams. What Germany came to praise as a novel approach to networked security also served to institutionalize interagency rivalry and competition in the field, creating different work streams (Jane’s Intelligence Review, 2008; Verband Entwicklungspolitik deutscher Nichtregierungsorganisationen e.V. [VENRO], 2009). The most visible sign of the disconnect was the decision to locate the civilian and military offices of the PRT in two distinct locations (Alff, 2008; Piiparinen, 2007). Joint civil–military planning for operations never occurred. Only in 2007 did the Germans create so-called Provincial Development Funds, which were allocated based on decisions involving representatives of the various German agencies and local Afghan authorities. On paper and in terms of organizational structure, Germany pursued a balanced PRT model, consistent with a strategic culture that places a strong emphasis on civilian control of the military, even though that balance proved hard to maintain in practice.

The German government, which required parliamentary approval for the PRT deployments, argued in 2003 that the decision to deploy to Kunduz was based on an assessment of the security environment (i.e., it was comparatively permissive), the willingness of local actors to cooperate, the chances that reconstruction could be successful, and the overall importance of Kunduz for Afghanistan. Peter Struck, the German defense minister at the time, stated that he was pleased that German personnel would deploy to an area where attacks on the Bundeswehr would not be a daily occurrence (Deutscher Bundestag, 2003). A year later, when the Feyzabad deployment was being prepared, the government argued that the PRT in Kunduz had become “an important catalyst for civilian support services of the international community,” and it was time to expand and consolidate these achievements (Deutscher Bundestag, 2004).

The political narrative was clearly one of reconstruction and stabilization. When the security situation deteriorated in Germany’s area of operations, requests for offensive weapons from the deployed troops were repeatedly rejected by senior military leaders back in Berlin, who avoided disturbing the carefully crafted narrative. Public opinion research shows that the electorate in Germany did not consider counterterrorism to be an appropriate task for the armed forces, and this perception was reflected in the low level of public support in Germany for ISAF combat operations (Biehl, Giegerich, & Jonas, 2013). Afghanistan being about reconstruction and stabilization aligned with German strategic culture and followed the mediation and peacebuilding logic of the Balkans but that narrative was in conflict with the reality of high-intensity counterinsurgency operations (Sangar, 2015; Zapfe, 2016). It took until 2010 for Germany to adjust its rules of engagement in Afghanistan to the new reality on the ground, sending heavy equipment to provide commanders with more military options.

Multinationality is another staple of German strategic culture, and participation in Afghanistan was an expression of the desire to present Germany as reliable partner. Senior politicians argued in parliament that Germany was threatened directly by international terrorism and that German engagement in Afghanistan would prevent the country from becoming a safe haven for terrorists. Furthermore, having hosted the negotiations that led to the 2001 Bonn Agreement, Germany was politically committed and had to follow through militarily to remain credible. From the beginning, however, German political leaders emphasized that German participation was a humanitarian action based on international law within a multilateral coalition. The terminology was most intensely contested when parliamentary approval was sought, usually in 12-month intervals. This parliamentary proviso is a consequence of a deep societal preference, namely to constrain the use of armed force through strong civilian control.

Military Culture

In contrast to the comparative account on strategic culture, military factors delve into leadership and organizational culture, which are shaped by historical operational experiences and routinized processes, captured through doctrine and standard operating procedures.

Canada

The Canadian decision to send troops to Kandahar in 2005 represented a departure from previous missions and recent operational experiences. While Canada had sometimes been accused of being a free rider by its allies in the 1990s, the deployment to Kandahar was seen as a “robust” but also risky commitment (DND CRS, 2013). What observers noted is that the Canadian involvement in Kandahar marked a shift from the military’s traditional peacekeeping focus, as counterinsurgency in this highly volatile province became the dominant strategy (Holland, 2010). When looking at military leadership, this change was very much encouraged by the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Hillier, who helped convince Prime Minister Paul Martin that Kandahar was the right mission for the CAF, a move that can be qualified as highly politicized. The three lead government agencies for Canada’s engagement in Afghanistan, namely the Department of National Defence, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the Canadian International Development Agency, supported this course of action, agreeing that this was where Canada could have the greatest impact. By March 2006, Canada also became the lead nation for RC South.

The Canadian PRT has been described as being very similar to the American model: “…be as responsive to local needs as possible, with the least possible delay and red tape,” which makes sense given that the CAF inherited the K-PRT from the Americans and then transferred it back to them in 2011 (Holland, 2010, p. 283). The military took on a dominant role and leaders were able to respond quickly to challenges encountered because “…the CF is really the only arm of the Canadian government that can quickly and continually generate the requisite numbers of people with the training and will to work in an austere and, at times, unstable environment” (Capstick, 2006, p. 6). The military’s training and standard operating procedures prepared the CAF for quick implementation of complex plans in high-risk environments. Even though the Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force had been set up in 2005 with the purpose of facilitating interagency coordination in the context of postconflict operations, the model was too new and untested to overcome traditional interagency clashes.

The most important feature of Canadian military culture for the mission in Afghanistan is how mission command was prioritized when compared to previous operations in the 1990s. Senior military leaders who had been to the Balkans, including the influential and outspoken Chief of the Defence Staff, Rick Hillier (as cited in Holland, 2010, p. 277), made it clear that Canadian soldiers would have different rules of engagement and would never again be in a position where they are powerless to act (read “not allowed to shoot when they needed to”): “We’re not the public service of Canada…our job is to be able to kill people.”³ This was the new “can do” attitude that the military displayed in Afghanistan under General Hillier. By contrast, during operations in Bosnia, the CAF battalions had been dubbed the “Can’t Bats” because of the heavy caveats that limited the scope of their activities (Cimbala, 2012, p. 42).

Master Corporal Christopher Harding (as cited in Mantle, Pellerin, Douglas, Wright, & Denis, 2013) noted that “We were definitely kinetic and doing actual World War Two-style advances through Panjwai…trying to stir the bad guys up and get them out in the open so we could take them down” (p. 110). The operational mandate favored an offensive posture and, for the PRT, this permeated their core security tasks such as patrolling. When patrolling local communities, there was less emphasis on force protection than in the German case, for example. As Major William Hilton Fletcher (as cited in Mantle et al., 2013, p. 65) recalls, “We’d go into an area and, to become less threatening when talking to people, I would always take off my tactical vest and my helmet and lay my weapon down.” As these accounts demonstrate, the CAF enjoyed a fair amount of autonomy to make decisions on the ground without having to call for approval in Ottawa (Auerswald & Saideman, 2014). This situation contrasted sharply with the heavy restrictions placed on civilians working in the K-PRT. This military-centric outcome was influenced by the CAF’s newfound latitude in operational behavior, even if the PRT’s tasks were intended to focus on patrolling and establishing basic security in order to facilitate the completion of developmental objectives.

In terms of doctrine and training, certain aspects of the PRT strategy, namely its whole-of-government mechanism, were absent in the initial phase of the deployment to Kandahar. The ability of military personnel to interact professionally with staff from other government or nongovernmental units operating in and around the K-PRT was not routinized and proved challenging. Sometimes, civilians on camp would show up in flip-flops and shorts to go out on patrol and had to be instructed to “gear up” by their military handlers (CAF officer, personal communication, January 15, 2017). As the Canadian engagement matured, predeployment training and professional development was adapted in order to reconcile the doctrine, tactics, and training needed for counterinsurgency operations with the “3-D” approach (DND CRS, 2007). Moreover, training across the civilian and military elements of the K-PRT varied widely, with civilians going to the Peace Support Training Center for a period of a week to 10 days, while the military trained for 8 months before deployments. Later on, joint training was implemented, modeled on exercise Maple Guardian, but these were not viewed favorably by civil servants because training did not incorporate core PRT tasks that mattered most to civilian officials. In sum, the PRT experience was decidedly military-led, empowered by the leadership or what we could call the “Hillier factor,” but also more organizationally predisposed to dominate in the sphere of implementation due to prior training and deployment experiences. On the other hand, civilians did not have the capacity to push back because they depended heavily on the military to get their job done.

Germany

It is notable that German military culture did not have many active reference points beyond deterrence in a NATO context and peacekeeping in the Balkans. In the context of fighting missions, German military culture was entirely geared to high-intensity combined arms warfare: “Bundeswehr planners relied on experience from World War II, which was perceived as having the greatest utility for the teaching of core military skills that were required for the Bundeswehr’s core mission…” (Sangar, 2015, p. 426). Given that Afghanistan had been framed politically as not being high-intensity warfare, a disconnect ensued. Counterinsurgency tactics did not feature in the Cold War Bundeswehr planning and neither did stabilization operations. The German armed forces did of course gain experience during the 1990s Balkans operations, including Bosnia and Kosovo, but Balkans peacekeeping quickly settled into a noncoercive pattern that featured strong elements of mediation. Germany’s military conduct in the Balkan operations “was shaped towards deterrent military presence to end atrocities, separate fighting factions and facilitate political and humanitarian solutions” (Noetzel, 2010, p. 486). In those operations, actually using military force “was seen as potentially harmful to the priority of conflict mediation” (Sangar, 2015, p. 433). It was this approach to crisis management operations that the Bundeswehr brought to Afghanistan in 2002/2003, and it was challenged over time with the Northern insurgency escalating violence in the Bundeswehr’s area of responsibility from 2007/2008 onward.

On a generic level, the military tasks of the German PRT soldiers can be summed up as demonstrating presence through patrolling, observing disarmament and demobilization activities, mediating disputes, implementing quick impact projects, and engaging in information operations. In all activities, force protection featured highly in the military work of the German PRTs. This posture had immediate military implications, particularly as it limited mobility: “The German interpretation of the PRT concept concentrated forces and resources around bases, thus providing for force presence around bases in concentric circles” (Noetzel, 2010, p. 491). Larsdotter describes a typical German patrol before the Northern insurgency escalated as consisting of 10 soldiers for force protection, a Civil-Military Cooperation element, a liaison and mentoring team, a psychological operations team, a medical element, a reconnaissance team, and civilian advisors. Depending on the precise circumstances, this would make for a patrol of some 20–30 personnel in 7–10 vehicles. While most patrols only lasted between 1 hr and 1 day, some of them were extended up to 5 days. Outside of the camp, the German patrols moved in armored vehicles. If the patrol reached a village, the soldiers dismounted and broke into small teams, always wearing body armor and carrying their personal weapons at “ready” status. Given the comparatively large and heavy nature of the patrols, Larsdotter (2008) concludes that “the Germans used…a show of force approach” (p. 363) consistent with the logic of its military culture.

When the security environment in Northern Afghanistan gradually deteriorated, forcing German troops to adapt to a counterinsurgency operational posture, German officers turned back to what they knew. They interpreted counterinsurgency “as the need for more kinetic capabilities and more offensive military operations” (Sangar, 2015, p. 436). German rules of engagement evolved to become more permissive, in parts, than those defined on the multinational ISAF level, with paratrooper companies deployed to fight irregular forces in the North. What was still missing at this stage was an understanding of the nonkinetic aspects of the military operation. German doctrine “has neglected the development of nonkinetic capabilities for counterinsurgency as well as kinetic capabilities for nonconventional, irregular operations” (Noetzel, 2010, p. 498). At a later stage, German troops were more formally tasked with identifying development projects, but this also represented a break with military culture. Stengel and Weller (2010) conclude that “for the Bundeswehr development policy still is seen as mainly a tool to increase acceptance among the local populace of the military presence” (p. 100). Drawing on his own experience during deployments in Kunduz, then Lieutenant Colonel Lars Werner (2014, p. 15) wrote that, to a significant degree, PRT Kunduz was unsuccessful if judged against its overall goals: “The PRT was not able to synchronize military action with reconstruction and intelligence. It was not able to focus on the work that most needed doing.” There is evidence to suggest that force protection was driving infrastructure projects implemented by the German PRTs: “In Kunduz province, much of the effort went to supporting important lines of communication for the GE PRT, such as the main connection between Kunduz and Feyzabad,” rather than projects that favored local security concerns (Rietjens & Bollen, 2007, p. 81). Quick impact projects were implemented on the basis of their military utility above all. In part, this reflects the desire of military commanders to focus their troops on military tasks rather than development and the tendency to focus on issues that make the tour of a particular contingent a little easier. To some degree, force protection got in the way of the PRT’s core mission from a reconstruction and development point of view because avoiding casualties was a central consideration. Mounting casualties would have undermined the political narrative of Germany’s engagement in Afghanistan. Once the Afghan insurgency intensified in the North, patrolling activities of German troops went down and the force protection logic was reinforced.

German military culture also created particular leadership challenges. One of the core ideas deeply embedded in the officer corps of the postwar Federal Republic is the so-called Innere Führung.⁴ The concept implies that a soldier has a responsibility to develop and apply individual judgment when receiving and implementing orders and reject them if they violate the values and legal framework of the German constitution. This concept is widely believed to strengthen and maintain a close soldier–society connection (Abenheim & Biehl, 2011). Operations like those in Afghanistan challenge this construct because they widen the gap between the experiences of the deployed soldiers and society back home. The former Commander RC North, later promoted to the post of Chief of the German Army, Lieutenant General Jörg Vollmer suggested that the German soldiers had developed confidence in their capabilities because of their involvement in intense firefights in Afghanistan (Interview with Vollmer by Simone Meyer in Die Welt, April 3, 2013, p. 5). This impression was confirmed in surveys of the deployed forces conducted by the then Bundeswehr Institute of Social Sciences, which suggests that a generational gap has emerged between what is referred to as “Generation Operation,” whose members have been on several international deployments, and those who rose through the ranks in the context of the Cold War (Seiffert, 2013). The younger generation has begun to question the utility of Innere Führung, arguing it generates politicized soldiers when modern operations require professionals who are experts in all aspects of warfare.⁵

The Threat Environment and National Resources

Beyond cultural factors, the threat environment is likey to influence operational posture, as is the availability of resources, since these can determine the composition of the deployed contingent. This section therefore compares the cases as it relates to the availability of personnel and changing threat levels during the period under study.

Canada

The Canadian K-PRT’s size ranged from 120 to 380 people, but civilians deployed consistently represented a small minority. However, this had less to do with availability as it did with security. Restrictions on the movement of civilian personnel peaked following the death of a diplomat, Glyn Berry, in January 2006. For a period of a few months after this incident, all Canadian civilian workers were ordered to move back home. But even for the whole period of 2005–2008, there was little division of labor and the execution of core tasks was carried out by the military, despite the government’s heavy emphasis on humanitarian and developmental goals. Civilian PRT members were in a relationship of dependence vis-à-vis the military because they could not go “beyond the wire” without assistance from the dedicated force protection company attached to the PRT. The force protection units often had to turn down requests from civilian partners who had “an endless appetite for going outside of the wire but were beholden to the military to get out of the camp” (CAF officer, personal communication, January 15, 2017). The civilian representatives could not get their work done without the military, and this dependent relationship contributed to a decidedly military-centric PRT.

Overall, the civilian-to-military ratio was about 2–100 in Afghanistan, which partly explains why it was difficult for the developmental and diplomatic objectives to be implemented by civilian personnel. For the most intensive period of its involvement in Afghanistan, 2002–2011, Canada disbursed Can$1.2 billion in aid but met few benchmarks due to the worsening security conditions. The strategy of “clear, hold, and develop,” was stuck in the “hold” phase until the American surge. By late 2008, implementation of the Manley Report’s recommendations transformed the civil–military balance of the PRT. The number of civilians on the ground increased, and more integrated whole-of-government training was introduced. There was also greater civilian oversight through the Afghanistan Task Force, which was run from the Privy Council Office, a special Cabinet Committee on Afghanistan, and the creation of the position of Representative of Canada in Kandahar. This increased the symmetry of the civil–military leadership structure, bringing it closer to the German PRT model, even in a high-risk security environment.

Germany

While figures of course varied over time, during their more robust period, German PRTs consisted of some 400–500 soldiers joined by some 10–20 civilian staff. From the beginning, Germany attempted to involve partner nations, so that a multinational dimension became another trademark of its PRT approach. The civilian-to-military ratio was thus even more unbalanced than in Canada’s case, even though the dual civilian–military leadership structure of the German PRTs provided those civilians with influence, independent of their military colleagues. While military personnel was in general readily available, the armed forces struggled to fill some specialist roles such as cultural advisors. The Bundeswehr eventually turned to the civilian labor market to fill some of these positions. While civilian personnel was certainly not abundant, it is interesting to note that after the PRTs were closed, Germany’s development presence expanded, including to other areas of Afghanistan, indicating its ability to provide more resources. Overall, Germany established itself as the third largest troop contributor and also one of the largest donors, so that resource limitations are an unlikely explanation for the German PRT setup and activities.

The threat environment in the area of operations of the German PRTs deteriorated over time, which had a clear impact on the German presence in Afghanistan. However, the resulting adaptation in force posture was delayed, revealing fault lines between the political discourse and operational experience on the ground. In other words, adapting to a changing security environment was mediated by strategic and military cultures, as described in earlier sections. Table 1 summarizes the operationalization of our variables based on our comparative case study with the goal of generating hypotheses for future research. The table shows how a combination of cultural factors can contribute to one of three PRT outcomes: a military-centric PRT, a civilian-centric PRT, or a balanced PRT.

Table 1.

Canadian and German PRTs.

	Canada		Germany
	Variable	Outcome	Variable	Outcome
Strategic culture	Humanitarian objectives at the fore, emphasis on comprehensive approach (3-D)	Disconnect between rhetoric (humanitarian) and reality (combat), command arrangements dominated by military	Strong civilian control, preference for civilian means, and multilateralism	Civilian–military command arrangement, restricted rules of engagement and mandate of humanitarian reconstruction and stabilization
Military culture	“Hillier factor,” rigid attitude toward interagency cooperation	Emphasis on mission command, offensive posture, controlled movement of civilians	High-intensity warfare and politicized	Emphasis on force protection, difficulty to adjust to changing threat environment
Threat and resources	Challenging security environment, asymmetry in numbers	Risk aversion on civilian side and dependence on military for achievement of government objectives	Sufficient resources available, threat environment deteriorating	Adjustment of rules of engagement, deployed equipment, and operational activity
PRT types	Military-centric		Balanced

Note. PRT = provincial reconstruction team.

The analysis reveals that Canada opted for a military-centric model, whereas Germany’s PRT can be described as balanced. This leads us to propose that the civil–military balance within a command structure, a feature of strategic and military cultures, can help explain the types of tasks that are prioritized in the context of missions, accounting for differences from one contributing country to the next. Another working hypothesis generated from our analysis is that strategic culture will shape the contours of the mission, which delineates the range of civilian and military tasks that each contributing country can engage in. We should therefore expect resistance from politicians and public opinion when the military acts in ways that signal a departure with previous practice, for example, when the quintessential peacekeeping country (Canada) engages in warfighting. Despite working under common NATO directives, these two case studies show that there is merit in further investigating how strategic and military cultures interact during missions, producing different operational patterns on the ground. Indeed, we propose further theory development to refine the pathways through which cultural factors can account for the balance of power between the civilian and military components of missions and how forces on the ground can reconcile the broad range of tasks they are asked to perform, from warfighting to nonkinetic tasks conducted in tandem with civilian partners.

Conclusion

In this article, we theorized about why NATO guidelines sometimes lead to different operational outcomes across PRTs in Afghanistan. We identified those outcomes as PRTs that are either military-centric, civilian-centric, or balanced depending on the interaction of strategic and military factors. Material factors, such as troop numbers and the level of threat, are indeed important for the management of a PRT, but our contention is that cultural variables shaped how PRTs were designed and implemented by Canada and Germany. Indeed, countries do not adapt to security challenges in similar or predictable ways. To examine the role of strategic culture, we focused on factors such as civil–military dynamics and national preferences with regard to intervention rationales and the use of force. As for military culture, we studied the role of military leaders and organizational preferences as embodied in doctrine, routinized practices, and standard operating procedures.

Our main theoretical contribution is to propose working hypotheses that capture both civilian and military sources of cultural bias. Politicians, bureaucrats, commanders, and soldiers all influence the mission in distinct ways. In the first instance, strategic culture defines the contours of an ally’s political objectives. These are defined in reference to, but distinct from, the alliance’s own guidelines during a given intervention. In the second instance, these strategically defined objectives are achieved through military forces in theater. Therefore, understanding how strategic guidelines become operational tasks also demands an appreciation of military culture.

Through the comparative case study, we showed that Germany had a defensive strategic orientation, which influenced its operational preference for force protection. In contrast, Canada experienced a strategic turn after its peacekeeping disillusionment in the Balkans, with the operational implication being a strong emphasis on mission command. Applying a cultural analysis to these cases yielded new empirical observations about each country’s approach to its PRT structure, the relative influence of civilian vis-à-vis military actors, as well as specific details about how force was used to accomplish PRT objectives. These observations then served as the basis for initiating a theory development exercise that can contribute to refining explanations of how culture impacts operational outcomes in multinational settings. The implication of our argument is that alliance guidelines are not reliable predictors of state behavior in multinational engagements and that the cultural predispositions of civilian and military actors are important to consider in analyses of contemporary military cooperation.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Stéfanie von Hlatky

Notes

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