This section seeks to assess the future demand for police deployment as part of multilateral operations or missions in crisis situations. This demand is firstly determined by the security situation in the world. Since the international security strategy of the Dutch government[13] focuses on the regions surrounding Europe, the section starts with mapping the security issues in the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe and discussing the border security issues in southern Europe. This study does not discuss the several crises and conflicts distributed over these regions in full detail, but a short explanation of their nature and possible spill-over effects to Europe is considered key to understanding how the demand for police deployment in multilateral operations will evolve in the near future.

Secondly, the demand for police deployment of the international organisations EU, UN, OSCE and NATO results from their approach to policing and police reform. In separate sections for each IO, after a short introduction to its role in crisis management and the characteristics of the several approaches to police deployment in crisis situations, the actual and future demand for police capabilities will be discussed. Where possible at the detailed level of the (policing) expertise and competencies that are needed.

This demand assessment of the EU, UN, OSCE and NATO is based on documents and publications discussing police deployment in missions and on interviews held at each organisation’s headquarters and with respondents from command structures of missions. In the case of the UN, since this organisation deploys police staff seconded by such a broad range of source countries, after giving a general picture of the organisation’s demand for police competencies, the organisation’s demand articulation has been specifically related to the Netherlands as a donor country. For other IOs this specification is applied where relevant.

1.1 Evolving security issues and crisis regions

Currently, the EU, UN, NATO and OSCE deploy staff in police functions in the missions and operations highlighted in the map below.[14]

Police deployment in EU, UN, OSCE and NATO operations active in November 2015

The map shows a strong emphasis on the African continent, Central Asia, the Balkans and Ukraine when it comes to police being deployed as part of multilateral missions. This reflects both the respective crisis management tasks of the international organisations, discussed further on in this chapter, and the current security situation in the world.

Europe faces new security threats and challenges, that have different regional manifestations and which derive from a diverse range of state and non-state actors. As the Clingendael Monitor[15] has already asserted, there is a more complex and ‘hybrid’ spectrum of conflict in the regions surrounding Europe. On the Eastern flank, there is a more assertive and aggressive Russia. At the same time, in the South, Europe has to deal with the effects of increasing unrest in the Middle East and North-Africa (MENA) region, which has resulted in large refugee flows to Europe and the spread of Jihadist extremism. This instability is not limited to merely the MENA region, but an also be seen further south as well.

Eastern environment

On the Eastern borders, the continuing efforts of Russia to assert its influence have led to instability in the region. The annexation of the Crimea, Russia’s support to separatists and the covert military presence of Russian military personnel in Ukraine are the main examples in this regard. Russia’s behaviour seems to be determined by its desire to change the post-Cold War order and to become a dominant regional player, which has led to deteriorating relationships with the West.

In the Russian military doctrine it is explicitly stated that modern warfare is based on the ‘integrated use of military force, political, economic, informational and other non-military measures’. Hybrid warfare, involving a wide range of both soft and hard power instruments, is by no means a Russian invention, it is as old as warfare itself, but has become the centre of attention since Russian actions in Ukraine. The conflict in Ukraine has resulted in the redistribution of weapons in the region, which could potentially be smuggled into the EU. Before the crisis, criminal elements in both Russia and Ukraine were already large players on the international drugs market (specifically heroin and precursors for synthetic drugs) and ran some major supply routes to the EU. Of special concern are the Ukrainian port of Odessa and the Crimean port of Sevastopol. These ports have been logistical hubs for organised crime activities since before the crisis. Because of the porous borders, a high degree of corruption and the weak state of the Ukrainian police forces, it is expected that these ports might be integrated more closely with Russian organised crime networks.

However, as much of the attention goes to the crisis in Ukraine and Russia’s involvement therein, attention is diverted away from other countries in the region. Russia’s revisionism will continue to shape the region and potentially destabilise it. It is taking an increasingly aggressive stance in the ‘frozen conflicts’ of the region, particularly in Transnistria, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but also in other regions, such as Armenia and Georgia. Russia will continue to put pressure on Moldova and Georgia to undermine their closer integration with the EU. In addition, tensions between the Baltic states and Russia have increased and it is feared that Russia will try to destabilise these countries as well.

Increased risk and unrest in the MENA region

The challenges and threats deriving from the MENA region are different in nature than those coming from the Eastern flank. The MENA region is a region in chaos; some states have collapsed as a result of political and religious sectarianism, while others are very fragile. The region is ravaged by several intra- and inter-state wars. What began as the “Arab Spring” in 2011, has unleashed civil wars in Syria, Libya and Yemen and has worsened the ongoing civil war in Iraq. The civil wars in Syria and Iraq have acquired a new dimension with the empowerment of the extremist Islamic State (IS), which has proclaimed a caliphate in both countries. In a very short time, it has developed in an extremely violent group. While it is broadly labelled as a terrorist group, it also shows state-like features as they control and defend territory and install state-like institutions. Yemen, too, is facing the threat of complete chaos, due to an insurgency led by a Shia rebel group and the strengthening of the terrorist group al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Recently, IS has also begun operations in this country.

The European migration crisis

What characterises these contemporary conflicts is their intractability and the increased risk of serious, unpredictable but persistent spill-over effects, that do not only destabilise the neighbouring countries, but which have direct effects for Europe as well. The current refugee and migrant crisis is a major example in this regard. For months the news has been dominated by stories of thousands of people who want to reach Europe, sometimes with catastrophic humanitarian results. At this moment, the world is facing the biggest refugee crisis since World War II. The largest refugee group consists of Syrians at the moment, with more than 4 million people who have fled the country. A majority of these refugees (2,9 million) are hosted in the region, primarily in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. An increasing amount of refugees are trying to reach the EU. The EU’s border agency Frontex recorded 1.2 million irregular crossings of migrants and asylum seekers to the EU by the end of February 2016, four times the 282,000 that Frontex registered for the whole of 2014.[16] Most migrants try to enter Europe via the Western Balkans or via the Eastern Mediterranean route, which puts enormous migratory pressure on the external borders of Greece, Italy, Hungary, Serbia and Macedonia. In some EU countries, the influx of migrants has affected domestic stability. Violent incidents have occurred and there are doubts about the EU’s ability to find solutions for the migration crisis. This endangers the coherence and functioning of the EU.

Spread of terrorism and transnational crime

The refugee crisis is not the only concern; there is also the threat of the spread of terrorism. This threat has grown remarkably in the last couple of years and, at the same time, the nature of this threat has changed considerably. Religious extremism is increasingly the driving force behind terrorist acts, and terrorist organisations have become more transnational. The threat that Jihadist terrorism poses to Europe and its citizens is threefold. Firstly, a growing number of individuals are travelling to unstable countries in the MENA region, and these ‘foreign fighters’ pose a tangible threat when they return to Europe. Some 25,000 foreign fighters from places all over the world, but mostly Europe, have already travelled to Iraq and Syria to join or fight with terrorist entities which are associated with al-Qaida, including IS. Secondly, those who stay at home but sympathise with these organisations can also potentially constitute a threat in the form of home-grown terrorism. Thirdly, since it is most likely that jihadist groups like IS gain a greater foothold in the MENA region due to state failure, the risk of terrorist attacks planned against Europe will become more acute.

Another, but related, security concern relates to transnational crime in the MENA region and the risk of spill-over to Europe. Due to state weakness, endemic corruption and porous borders, parts of the region have become strongholds for criminal activity such as drug trafficking and human smuggling. The revenues are sometimes used to finance terrorist organisations. Of special concern is Libya, where criminal networks have exploited the deteriorated security situation in the country. Due to the absence of a central government and given its favourable geographical location, it has emerged as a potential transport hub for cocaine and heroin trafficking. In addition, migration and criminal activity are becoming more and more interlinked, with smugglers using migrant boats to get the drugs into Europe. Other countries, such as Tunisia, Egypt and Algeria have all witnessed an increase in the smuggling of arms, drugs and other illicit goods.

The “Wider” MENA area: Further South

This same type of spill-over effects as in the MENA region are produced by porous borders and weak state control further south. Instability and conflicts prevail in the Sahel region, while also the Great Lakes region and the Horn of Africa remain regions of concern. Terrorist and extremist groups, including al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Boko Haram and al-Shabaab, make use of the ‘ungoverned spaces’ to plan and train terrorist activities, and to recruit new members. In the Sahel region, the continuing crisis in Mali puts pressure on the already vulnerable situation. Three years after the start of the crisis in 2012, with the rebellion of Tuaregs in the North, the country has not yet recovered, despite increasing international efforts to stabilise it. Renewed conflict in the North of Mali has led to increased fighting with ethnic undertones. This has resulted in a complex humanitarian emergency situation, with thousands of internally displaced people and refugees, and an acute food and nutrition crisis.

The situation in Mali is not unique. Despite the fact that some progress has been made in terms of socio-economic development and stability, there are several other countries in the region that face deteriorating security situations. In South Sudan for example, armed groups have started fighting again, notwithstanding the recent signing of a peace agreement. Meanwhile, Sudan is struggling with growing political instability that could potentially have violent consequences. The security situation in Nigeria also remains volatile and its ongoing battle with insurgent troops threatens the stability of the country. Albeit there are hopes of greater stability in Somalia, it nevertheless has to deal with ongoing violence and attacks by al-Shabaab. In the Central African Republic, a prolonged crisis has been exacerbated in the last two years with an outbreak of sectarian violence between rival armed groups, which has resulted in many victims and at least a quarter of the population being displaced. Finally, instability and violence continuously threaten the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A changing global environment

It can be concluded from the above that the security environment of Europe is volatile and is likely to remain that way. In the immediate Eastern neighbourhood, there will remain the major challenge of hybrid warfare tactics, which Russia will most likely continue to use in future conflicts. On the Southern flank of Europe, the (wider) MENA region will be characterised by instability and a complex pattern of intra- and interstate conflicts. These zones of instability will certainly produce spill-over effects, such as increasing migration, transnational crime and the spread of terrorism. Peacekeeping missions and particularly the enhancement of the security frameworks in these regions can help to create more stability in these regions and thereby reduce the negative effects on European, and therefore Dutch security. Border management as part of SSR in conflict areas will be more important. Next to the need to assist in conflict areas, border security is of growing importance in the EU, due to the enormous increase in migration flows from the MENA region. This has an impact on the need to deploy more police personnel to guard Europe’s borders and to regulate the flow of migrants on the EU’s territory.

1.2 EU

The European Union carries out police missions in the context of the civilian aspects of crisis management under the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).[17] However, police personnel are also deployed in the context of the EU’s internal security activities in operations of the border control agency Frontex. The CSDP is part of the EU’s external security portfolio, for which Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defence in the Foreign Affairs Council have prime responsibility. The Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs bear the prime responsibility for the EU’s internal security agendas in the Justice and Home Affairs Council. The sector is nowadays known as the Freedom, Security and Justice (FSJ) area. The CSDP is based on intergovernmental cooperation while the FSJ sector is part of the supranational cooperation within the EU. Obviously, this institutional and juridical split of deploying police personnel of member states under the EU flag creates problems for connecting external and internal security activities.[18] In this EU section both sorts of police deployments will be analysed: civilian CSDP missions in part A and Frontex operations, including the possible formation of a new European Border and Coast Guard, in part B. The growing connection between CSDP and internal security activities will be addressed in the final part of this study, chapter 4.

A. Civilian CSDP missions

When launching the European Security and Defence Policy in 1999 the European Union decided to develop the civilian aspects of crisis management – next to the military aspects. In June 2000 the Feira European Council identified four priority areas: the police, strengthening the rule of law, strengthening civilian administration and civil protection. With regard to the police the EU aimed to be able to carry out any mission, from advisory, assistance and training tasks to substituting local police forces. The first Civilian Headline Goal set a target of developing the capacity to provide 5,000 police officers by 2003, of whom up to 1,000 were to be on high-readiness (able to be deployed within 30 days).[19] Based on the experiences gained in the field, the Civilian Headline Goal 2008[20] paid increasing attention to improving training, staffing procedures and mission planning. Two new priorities were added to the four identified at Feira: monitoring missions and support to EU Special Representatives. The document also noted that the EU should be able to contribute to security sector reform and support disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration processes. The Civilian Headline Goal 2010[21] placed greater emphasis on improving quality, enhancing availability and developing additional instruments for mission planning and conduct, including a civilian lessons learned process. The 2010 Civilian Headline Goal also called for better civilian-military cooperation as well as for synergies with internal security actors such as Europol and Eurojust.

The first EU civilian mission was launched in 2003, the EU Police Mission (EUPM) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, succeeding the International Police Task Force of the United Nations. To date, the EU has conducted 23 civilian missions in total in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa: 11 have been completed; 12 are ongoing. The number of civilian missions is twice the total amount of EU military operations and the majority of civilian CSDP-missions is police-related. Some of the missions have worked closely with other international organisations, like the UN, OSCE or NATO. In appendix B of this study overviews can be found of current and completed EU civilian missions with an indication of their category, personnel strength and duration. Some of the main characteristics of these missions are discussed in the next section.

CSDP missions: characteristics

In terms of duration EU civilian missions show a wide variety and there seems to be no correlation between size and duration. Three of the ongoing missions exceed the 10-year mark, the relatively small missions to Congo (EUSEC RD Congo), EUBAM Moldova and Ukraine and the 4-person mission to the Palestinian territories (EUBAM Rafah). The overview in appendix B shows that there is a tendency towards smaller EU civilian missions. Only one mission exceeds 500 personnel: EULEX Kosovo with a maximum planned strength of 1,900 international staff (currently about 800). Since 2010, all missions launched have a maximum personnel strength of 100 or less. There seems to be more political will to engage in short-term missions with achievable and realistic formulated objectives. However, at the same time, it is realised in Brussels that constructive reform often demands a long-term commitment.

So far, the EU has carried out only one police substitution mission, albeit as part of the wider EULEX Kosovo mission. Other missions have been predominantly of an advisory nature: MMTA missions, focusing on reforming the criminal justice sector, dominate the list of EU civilian missions (see appendix A). Originally, the EU separated police missions from what in EU terms is called ‘rule of law missions’ – missions that solely focus on justice reform. Only one such RoL- mission has been launched, EU Themis to Georgia. Based on lessons learned from the early civilian CSDP missions – such as EUPM Bosnia – the EU started to bring together the reform of the police, the judiciary and the penitentiary sector in ‘integrated rule of law missions’, EUJUST LEX Iraq being the first mission which carried the label. EULEX Kosovo is another example of an integrated rule of law mission, although its emblem mentions ‘rule of law mission’. Although the label of SSR theoretically encompasses both civilian and military aspects, the SSR missions launched so far – like EU SSR Guinea-Bissau – have had a focus on the civilian security sector. The most recent EU civilian mission, EUAM Ukraine, even has the subtitle of ‘civilian security sector reform’.

In civilian missions, about 75% of the deployed personnel have a police background. But carrying the name of a ‘civilian’ mission does not always mean that the personnel composition is totally civilian as well. Leaving aside the participation of gendarmerie-type personnel, there are also military personnel serving in EU civilian missions. EUCAP Nestor focuses on developing the maritime security sector in Somalia – such as a well-functioning coastguard – and has a military (navy) component. Nevertheless, it is considered to be a civilian mission. EUSEC RD Congo is labelled as a civilian CSDP mission, but focuses solely on the reform of the military sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo. So far, only one EU mission – EU Support to the African Union Mission in Darfur (AMIS) – has officially been labelled as a ‘hybrid’ civilian-military mission. Despite its ambitions to establish a more robust CSDP, the EU still seems to prefer hybrid or civilian missions in crisis management situations. The EU does not only have more options in this regard, political will for these types of missions is also generated more easily, which partly has to do with the fact that civilian missions can draw from the common EU budget.

In recent years the title of ‘capacity building’ is increasingly being used, both for military operations and civilian missions. In essence, capacity building is a variant of MMTA missions. Training is part of most MMTA missions, but training can take place at various levels (ministries, police departments or agencies, operational level). The EU tends to focus on training the management and administrative levels rather than the operational level. In the future, according to the interviewees, it is expected that the trend in focusing on capacity-building missions will continue.[22] This has consequences for the type of police tasks in civilian missions, which will be concentrated on assistance and training.

Twelve years of EU civilian missions has resulted in a wide diversity of activities. Although most of the missions can be categorised as MMTA-type missions, the focus of the activities in the criminal justice sector varies. For example, fighting terrorism is included in the mandate of EUCAP Sahel Niger, but not in any other EU civilian mission. Another non-MMTA type of CSDP mission, that has been added in the Civilian Headline Goal 2008, concerns the monitoring of the implementation of agreements. The EUMM to Georgia is an example of such a mission. Further, there are border security, aviation and maritime security assistance missions to, for example, the Moldovan-Ukrainian border (EUBAM Moldova and Ukraine) and to the Horn of Africa (Eucap Nestor). All of these non-MMTA missions have been tailored to specific needs, showing a rather flexible civilian CSDP instrument.[23]

EU civilian missions have been spread over three continents: Europe, Africa and Asia. Based on the analysis of the future security environment and taking into account the growing pressure on the EU to take responsibility for security in its neighbourhood, it is most likely that the geographical focus of EU civilian missions will continue to be the wider MENA area plus the conflict zones within Europe.

EU civilian missions: results and challenges

The literature on EU civilian missions is rather limited compared to the vast volume of books, articles, reports and presentations on military CSDP operations. This applies in particular to the assessment of the results of EU civilian missions. A study, carried out by the Rand Corporation in 2010, concludes that the EU has made “valuable civilian contributions in conflict and post-conflict environments, especially when in Europe’s vicinity. (..) European contributions in mentoring and advising police in post-conflict situations have proven successful in some situations and may prove more successful in the future. European executive policing has also been beneficial, although mentoring and advising are the EU’s preferred mode of operation.”[24] The picture becomes more blurred when looking at individual missions. The same RAND study is rather negative on the results of the EUPOL Afghanistan mission, while it points to EULEX Kosovo as a success story.

A 2015 report by the European Court of Auditors describes the results of the EUPOL Afghanistan mission as “mixed”. There were notable successes in reforming the Ministry of the Interior and professionalising the national police, but rather limited results in connecting the national police to justice reform.[25] EUPOL Afghanistan has been largely successful in training, but less so in mentoring and advising.[26] One of the problems was that the Afghan police have always been quasi-military, falling under the command of the Afghan military. This hampered reform based on Western norms and standards. The high percentage of illiteracy among Afghan police personnel (70%) also had a negative impact.[27]

A Swiss analysis refers to the operational outcome of CSDP civilian crisis management in general as “mixed at best”. It argues that this often has to do with the unfavourable local conditions. The EUPOL RD Congo mission, for example, met resistance from the domestic authorities and the local population. A war-torn country like Afghanistan is not the ideal environment for police reform. EUPOL COPPS, the civilian mission in the Palestinian Territories, had to limit itself to the West Bank after Hamas took over control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. For the same reason EUBAM Rafah had to be suspended. The Swiss study concludes: “In many cases, objectives do not seem to be in line with the challenging situation in the field.”[28]

Other analysts also consider the mismatch between the concept of the mission and the reality on the ground as a particular problem of EU civilian missions.[29] Even in the benign environment of Bosnia and Herzegovina a structural reform of the police has proven challenging. EUPM has been successful in carrying out its mandates, but police reform missions cannot be seen in isolation from the overall political situation. The 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement that led to the split of the country in a Bosnian Serb Entity and in the Federation Entity (of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats) resulted in the situation where “(..) persistent ethnic/political divisions continue to be one of the stumbling blocks to state building in Bosnia, which in turn also reflects on the pace of the implementation of police reform to date.”[30]

Another factor which prolongs the international presence in (post-)conflict areas is mission dependency. Local actors tend to lean on support rather than taking over responsibilities and committing to the values and standards they have learned. This may also be related to culture and tradition: “Certain values are simply not conforming to external reform and show limitation even if mandates are subject to flexible implementation. Such arguments tend to dim the relative success of the reform process, rendering it unnecessary and wasteful at times.”[31]

A Swedish report highlights the failure of the Crisis Response Teams (CRTs), which were introduced in the Civilian Headline Goal 2008 based on a Swedish initiative. The CRT pool was supposed to consist of 100 staff from different member states. They should have undergone joint training, have been ready to deploy within five days and be sustainable for as much as three months. The CRT concept failed. Only twice has an individual (not a team) been deployed under the heading of the CRTs, both in 2008 (to Georgia and to the Palestine Territories). The author concludes that the failure of the concept was due to the Nordic domination in the set-up of CRTs within the EU. It was based on the model of Sweden, Finland and Germany (all three have a specific government agency dealing with all aspects of the recruitment process), which was lacking in other EU member states.[32]

Reviewing the results of EU missions is an issue in itself. Several analysts conclude that the EU’s own reviews and lessons learned exercises are rather poor. A fundamental problem that limits the capacity for institutional learning is the perception that lessons learned processes are a ‘blame and shame exercise’.[33] In addition, the intergovernmental character of CSDP leads to assessments that are “almost always done by ‘soft’ instruments such as evaluation, benchmarking, best practices and lessons learned.”[34] Instruments that are not necessarily soft as such, but the consensus-making process in the EU tends to make them soft in the end. According to the European Court of Auditors the reporting on EUPOL Afghanistan meets basic accountability requirements “but remains largely descriptive and without sufficient focus on results achieved and value added.”[35]

Factors related to the (post-)conflict situation itself determine to a large extent the potential for success of EU civilian missions. However, there are also EU-specific factors which hamper these missions. The following main problems have repeatedly occurred:

Required capabilities for police deployment

EU civilian missions make use of seconded personnel (experts) from EU member states and third states. They form the majority of the personnel strength of these missions. In particular for larger civilian missions local contractors are hired by the Head of Mission, mostly for supporting functions. The tendency towards smaller EU civilian missions is reflected in a decreasing number of member states’ seconded personnel deployed in EU civilian missions. In early 2010 this number was 1,930 (with an additional 211 from third states); by June 2014 the number had dropped to 1,221 (plus 46 from third states).[46] As there is a growing demand for specialised civilian assistance in conflict-affected countries on which the EU focuses, a growing demand for civilian capabilities to be deployed in EU operations is expected. Especially in larger missions, for example the missions EUPOL Afghanistan and EULEX Kosovo, the EU has had difficulties in (timely) employing the planned quantities of staff. Once in the theatre, a poor quality of personnel has been experienced in the past and another issue is the rotation of personnel, which can have a negative effect on in-mission effectivity.

As the EU will continue to focus on capacity building missions (although it could be debated whether it also needs capability to carry out substitution missions), there will be a growing demand for police officers who are able to advise, primarily on the higher strategic and organisational level, not so much on the operational level. This includes, for example, providing expertise and advice in specific areas as HR management systems, logistical chains, command and control, etc. The increasing emphasis on training and mentoring in EU missions requires police officers who can combine expertise with strong pedagogical skills. Important competencies are also being capable of self-reflection and flexibility to adapt to mission realities. The fact that police officers are increasingly deployed on an individual basis, rather than in units or teams (which are often of one nationality), requires police officers who are able to work flexibly and independently in an international context. Interviewees assessed that Dutch officers in missions have a less-directive style compared to other nationalities, which is seen as beneficial for the monitoring and training process.[47] Another factor influencing the future demand for police capabilities is related to the changing security situation on the ground. Especially in Africa, security conditions for EU missions are deteriorating. The increased use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and the growing threat of terrorist attacks increase the need for adequately trained police officers and requires a higher level of armament for self-defence in missions.[48]

Examples of ‘critical shortfalls’ in the availability of police capacities include the lack of French-speaking candidates and the difficulties in finding specialised police officers for EULEX Kosovo. Another critical issue remains the question whether or not a rapidly deployable civilian capacity is needed. Although the ambition to have 1,000 police officers able to deploy within 30 days was already set in the first Civilian Headline Goal, this goal was never met in reality. The European Gendarmerie Force (Eurogendfor) could potentially fill this gap, as they are able to deploy at high-readiness and are well suited to intervene in direct (post-)conflict environments.[49] However, work is still ongoing to determine the precise relationship between the CSDP and Eurogendfor. In 2014, a “General Arrangement between the Eurogendfor and the European External Action Service on the cooperation under the Common Security and Defence Policy” was signed, and further arrangements have been made for the Eurogendfor’s participation in CSDP missions.[50] Despite these developments, tensions remain concerning the Eurogendfor-CSDP relationship. In the first place, there is the obvious tension between those member states which possess gendarmerie forces (and promote the use thereof) and those who do not. Related to this, there are different views among member states as to whether gendarmerie forces are the most appropriate forces to be deployed in civilian crisis management missions. Some member states prefer ‘pure’ civilian missions and argue that the use of gendarmerie will complicate civilian security tasks.[51]

Connection between demand-supply

The mismatch between the demand for specialised civilian capacities and the capacities delivered by member states is of both a quantitative and qualitative nature. Respondents have identified several causes for the demand-supply gap in the EU’s police deployment that concern the donor countries. A major problem with the recruitment of civilian personnel is that normal duties in the countries of origin are prioritised. Deployment in a mission is often perceived to ‘disrupt’ a police career and in most EU countries international deployment is of a voluntary nature.[52] Military (gendarmerie-type) police are here the exception to the rule. Different national constitutional structures can also hamper recruitment. For example, in federal states like Germany the majority of the police operate at the level of the States (Länder), which have little or no interest in international missions. Since UN and OSCE respondents have identified similar pitfalls, they will be further discussed in the conclusion to this chapter.

In 2012, member states agreed to meet the growing demand for civilian capabilities by implementing a multi-annual ‘Civilian Capability Development Plan (CCDP)’, building upon the work conducted under the two Civilian Headline Goals.[53] The European Council has reaffirmed its commitment to this CCDP in its May 2015 Conclusions on CSDP.[54] The backbone of this plan is a list of generic civilian CSDP tasks, which aim to contribute to a common picture among member states on what type of tasks can occur in civilian CSDP missions throughout the whole mission cycle. Subsequently, it aims to help identify capability gaps.[55] In the context of the CCDP the CMPD sent a questionnaire on the availability of national police officers for CSDP missions.[56] The response to the questionnaire was rather disappointing, as only 17 member states provided information on different levels of detail.[57] Although this inventory – incomplete as it was - gave a useful snapshot of the possible range of civilian capabilities and identified scope for the further development of expert teams and certain niche capabilities, it turned out to be difficult for member states to give appropriate follow-up.

The EU continuously makes an effort to communicate the capability needs to member states. Improvements can be made in this regard; some of the interviewees highlighted problems in civilian planning capacity at the EU level. While the establishment of the CPCC was an important improvement in civilian planning, it lacks sufficient staff to conduct a mature HR-policy.[58] An attempt to speed up the force generation process at the Brussels level has been the creation of the ‘Goalkeeper’ web-based information hub, offering, inter alia, a catalogue of standardised job descriptions and a database of relevant training opportunities.[59]

However, the EU is in essence dependent on what member states offer. This is the core of the problem and the solution subsequently lies at the national level. Improvements have been made on the supply side: several member states have created ‘pools’ of deployable police personnel, sometimes including mechanisms for pooling retired police personnel willing to be deployed abroad. In particular for jobs requiring specific skills and knowledge – scarce in terms of availability such as forensic experts or police investigators – this might help to fill critical vacancies. Also the establishment of the European Gendarmerie Force can be seen as a way to structurally improve gendarmerie-type capabilities (see chapter 3). However, the progress made in the supply of civilian capability is constantly outpaced by the increase in demand for high quality staff, with more specialised and complex missions being deployed.

While the EU depends on what member states make available, the EU has considerable influence in the further selection of personnel for missions. In the Force Generation Process, the CPCC invites member states to put forward qualified candidates via a so-called ‘Call for Contribution’ (CfC). The CfC usually provides a detailed description of the essential (and recommended) requirements that candidates should meet. The candidates considered to be most suitable are then short-listed by CPCC, and interviewed either in Brussels or at the mission Headquarters. Viewed from the Dutch perspective, as assessed by some of the interviewees, the Netherlands could improve its performance in the selection process. In general candidates are not sufficiently prepared for the competitive and demanding selection process. Moreover, interviews revealed that in Brussels one sometimes has the impression that the Dutch do not have a coherent strategy on where, how and at what level to deploy their civilian personnel.[60]

B. Frontex / European Border and Coast Guard

In reaction to the ongoing migration crisis in December 2015 the European Commission presented a plan for the formation of an new European Border and Coast Guard. This new agency is planned to replace Frontex and will be tasked with the permanent control of the borders of the Schengen Area. According to the plan, the Commission will have final authority on whether to deploy border guards at Schengen’s external borders, when national border policing action fails.[61] The main task of Frontex has been to augment and to add value to the border control activities of the member states. Frontex became operational in 2005 and is mandated to assist the member states “in raising and harmonising border management standards with the aim of combating cross-border crime while making legitimate passage across the external border of the EU faster and easier.”[62].

With a permanent staff of 316 personnel in 2015 (272 in 2012) and a budget of € 150 million (€ 94m in 2013, € 19m in 2006), Frontex has been a rapidly growing agency. The larger part (72% in 2015) of the budget is spent on the agency’s operational activities, joint operations being the most important and most visible.[63] However, these activities, budget and mandates of Frontex have been insufficient for playing an effective border guarding role in the EU’s current migration crisis. The European Border and Coast Guard is planned to have a budget of € 342 m by 2020 and a permanent staff of 1,000 personnel.[64]

In the current situation, Frontex has to rely completely on member states to release their equipment and personnel (for which the member states are reimbursed from the agency’s budget); it does not own any surveillance vessels, aircraft or patrol vehicles. Frontex launches, on a yearly basis, a CfC to member states in July, inviting them to provide assets in the year following. This rather short-term planning and dependency on member states to deliver assets makes the agency vulnerable. While official reports state that 100% of the operational needs have been fulfilled, and enough officers are potentially deployable, there are worrying sounds. In 2015, despite the fact that Frontex has been given a 54% budget increase, and notwithstanding the current migrant and refugee crisis, the agency might need to return some of its extra budget to Brussels as the member states did not provide sufficient resources.[65]

In order to be able to assist member states in situations of immediate need, Frontex has a pool of European Border Guard Teams (EBGT) and a database of available equipment, together forming a rapid response capability. These teams are kept at full readiness in case of a crisis situation at the external border. They are intended to provide short-term assistance. Member states contribute border guards to the pool based on specific expert profiles developed by Frontex. They can be seconded to Frontex for a period of up to six months as Seconded Guest Officers (SGOs).[66] Instead of these voluntary contributions of staff to Frontex, the December 2015 EU Commission proposal for a European Border and Coast Guard provides for mandatory pooling of human resources: a reserve of 1,500 border guards, provided by member states, should be kept ready for deployment within three days.[67]

Non-EU countries bordering the Mediterranean are already high on the priority list of Forntex’ operational and technical cooperation with third countries “especially given the humanitarian aspect of irregular migration by sea.”[68] The plan for the new Agency increases the EU’s role in cooperation with third countries by coordinating operational cooperation between Member States and third countries in border management.[69]

At the time of writing the proposal for the European Border and Coast Guard is still subject to approval by the European Council and the European Parliament.

Frontex operations

There are three domains in which Frontex coordinates its joint operations: at sea, air and land borders. Not surprisingly, given the sharp increase in migrants that try to reach Europe by sea, joint operations at European sea borders form a large part of the joint operations coordinated by Frontex. While the majority of these operations aim to detect migrants at sea, other types of illegal activities are detected as well, such as drug trafficking or smuggling. The number of joint sea operations has increased (1,829 operational days in 2014, compared to 1,689 in 2013), and patrolling activities have been intensified.[70] In May 2015 the European Commission decided to increase the EU contribution to the joint operations Triton and Poseidon Sea by € 27 million, which was a tripling of budgets.

Frontex’ land operations cover border control at the EU’s external land borders. In 2014, seven joint operations were carried out at the EU’s external land borders, with a total of 1,117 operational days.[71] The operations differ in length, but the intensity of activities has remained approximately the same for a couple of years. Frontex’ largest land border operation (Joint Operation Poseidon Land) took place in northern Greece to monitor shifting migratory routes. The last category, joint air-operations, take place at international airports. In 2014, six joint operations were carried out, of which one is a permanent operation.

Before launching an operation, together with the host country, Frontex makes an assessment of the required number of officers with specific expertise and the quantity and type of equipment required. An operational plan is drafted and border guards and equipment are deployed to the field. There is no Frontex command and control: deployed officers (‘guest officers’) work under the command and control of the authorities of the host country. The plan for the new European Border and Coast Guard still speaks of joint operations, but does permit the new Agency to take the lead in missions in case of urgent need.[72]

From the start of its operational activities in 2005, Frontex has been criticised, in particular by human rights groups. The agency has often been accused of ‘push-back’ operations, in which migrant boats are intercepted and escorted back to their ports of origin.[73] Frontex would create a ‘Fortress Europe’ by actively preventing refugees entering the European Union. In fact, accusing Frontex is misdirected, as the agency is carrying out the mandate defined by the participating member states.

Required capabilities & the connection between demand and supply

Frontex primarily needs officers at the operational level: border guards, screening experts, document experts etc. To respond to the refugee and migrant crisis in Europe, in February 2016 Frontex demanded an additional 775 border guards, especially screeners, debriefers and interpreters, to assist in Italy and Greece in the registration of migrants.[74] In order to bridge the gap between demand and the supply of equipment, before the launching of the plan for the new border guarding Agency, the Frontex’ mandate has been amended, so that now it may acquire or lease technical equipment for its operational activities. The new Agency is proposed to be able to acquire equipment itself and to draw on a pool of technical equipment provided by the Member States.[75]

With regard to the contribution of assets to Frontex, the member states that have large joint operations on their territory, Italy, Greece and Spain, currently provide the majority of what is needed for these operations, but the Netherlands is pulling its weight. As the KMar, and to a lesser extent the Seaport Police, that is part of the NP, perform the border control tasks in the Netherlands, it is this type of Dutch personnel that is needed for Frontex or its follow-up organisation. In 2014 the Netherlands deployed 95 officers, of which the majority came from the KMar.[76] With that, the Netherlands is in the top five main contributors of personnel. An extra benefit with regard to Dutch deployment at Frontex, is the fact that the KMar and Seaport Police personnel are not only trained as border police, but can also carry out criminal investigation tasks. Apart from its staff deployment, the Netherlands has contributed with coastguard surveillance aircraft, patrol vessels, other equipment and dog teams.

1.3 UN

The UN’s role in crisis management

In quantitative terms, the UN is the most prominent organisation in the field of peace operations. In 1948 it was the first to deploy a peace operation, in 1960 it was the first to deploy police personnel and it was the first to embrace the integrated mission concept – also known as the comprehensive approach. The UN has gained a broad range of experiences, and has seen successes - such as in Cambodia, Mozambique, Timor-Leste and Sierra Leone - as well as a number of dramatic failures – of which Rwanda, Somalia and Srebrenica are the prime examples.

Currently, according to SIPRI, the UN deploys 22 out of a total of 62 multilateral peace operations and its 110,228 personnel members deployed in the field represent more than two-thirds of all personnel deployed in multilateral peace operations. These data include both UN peacekeeping operations – deployed by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and the Special Political Missions (SPMs), managed by the Department of Political Affairs (DPA).[77] These UN peace operations are mandated with a wide variety of tasks and have to operate in diverse operational environments. SPMs are often directed at coordinating the international community, good offices, and conflict prevention, peacebuilding and sometimes rule of law tasks, while peacekeeping operations generally have large military and police components at their disposal.

UN peace operations are part of a much bigger web of UN programmes, funds and specialised agencies. These are involved in host nations before the deployment of a peace operation, remain during its presence and stay behind long after its closure. UN peace operations aspire to be embedded in the much broader and longer-term approach of the UN Country Team (UNCT).

UN Police deployment

The UN police policy states that UN police (UNPOL) have the broad and ambitious objective “to enhance international peace and security by supporting Member States in conflict, post-conflict and other crisis situations in their quest to realize the ideal of an effective, efficient, representative, responsive and accountable police service of the highest professional standard possible.”[78] This ambition is reflected in the fact that over the past 20 years police components have become an increasingly prominent part of UN peace operations, both in UN peacekeeping operations as in UN SPMs. Only outnumbered by the military element, UNPOL personnel are the second largest segment in current multidimensional operations, with nearly 15,000 personnel in the field in 2012.[79] The role of UNPOL has evolved in these two decades from observation and reporting to mentoring, training, reforming police and other law enforcement forces, and actual law enforcement and executing police tasks in areas where the local police are not yet in a position to do so.

The main current trend related to UN police deployment is the increasing challenges resulting from the unstable environments in which new operations are being deployed. Since 2007 UN peacekeeping operations that have been established are: UNAMID (Darfur, Sudan), MINURCAT (CAR and Chad), MONUSCO (DRC), UNISFA (Abyei, the Sudans), UNMISS (South Sudan), UNSMIS (Syria), MINUSMA (Mali), MINUSCA (CAR). Obviously, any of these missions takes place in difficult operating environments. This has implications for mandates, and especially for the use of force in missions.

The main principle of the use of force by UNPOL is to only use force in self-defence. Although in a number of missions UNPOL is allowed to use force for the purpose of public order management and the protection of civilians under imminent physical threat, there are limits to its robustness. When threats become military in nature, depending on a predetermined disengagement concept that is part of the mission-specific guidelines, UNPOL has to hand over responsibility to the military component.[80]

Mandates and tasks

Over time, police mandates have become increasingly comprehensive and complex, and new instruments have been developed, the biggest step towards more complex mandates being taken in the UN operation UNMIBH in Bosnia Herzegovina in 1997-98.[81] After a drastic increase in complexity and ambitions following UNMIBH, since the mid-2000s the number and kind of tasks assigned to police components have stabilised.

UNPOL missions have roughly three kinds of mandates:

The traditional peacekeeping mandate more and more belongs to the past; only some long-running missions are limited to observing tasks. Generally, the UNPOL approach in multidimensional peace operations is to start with establishing the basic building blocks for public safety. Basic safety is improved where needed by interim executive policing and law enforcement, while extending state authority. This initial phase is followed by monitoring the conduct of, and gathering information on, the existing local police force. Old elements are vetted and certified, and subsequently basic policing procedures are (re)introduced. The next stage is capacity-building, which should already start at the earliest opportunity.[83]

In addition to these standard mandates, police components can also be asked to contribute to related mandate areas, such as protecting and promoting human rights, stimulating the rule of law, strengthening good governance, transparency and accountability, and the protection of civilians.[84] In an analysis of the tasks performed in 16 UNPOL missions launched between 1995 and 2013, William Durch observes that the capacity-building of host state police, judicial and corrections is the main focus of UNPOL missions. A wide spectrum of tasks are brought under this umbrella term of capacity building, varying from, for example, general organisation development to enhancing border security and building up institutions or programmes countering organised crime and terrorism.[85]

A great deal of the work on police, justice and rule of law reform and capacity building takes place outside UN peace operations, elsewhere in the UN system. The UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNOHCHR) and UN Women are just a number of UN bodies and entities involved in the broader field of policing, justice, rule of law and corrections. To ensure coherence between the different efforts, DPKO, UNDP and other partners work together in the Global Focal Point for Police, Justice and Correction Areas in the Rule of Law in Post-Conflict and other Crisis Situations (GFP). This initiative is intended to strengthen the UN’s ability to ‘deliver as one’ and to overcome the fragmentation within the UN system by bundling their efforts and resources.[86]

Together, the shift to more complex environments and the trend in tasks have directed the UN towards improving police contributors’ abilities to operate more effectively in UN operations through training and guidance, and by bringing the UN’s efforts under a single Strategic Guidance Framework (SGF, see below).[87]

Police deployment organisation models

Police components in UN peace operations comprise four different kinds of personnel:

The above four kinds of personnel in UN police components are directed by the Head of Police Component (HOPC), usually a police commissioner in peacekeeping operations and a Senior Police Adviser in SPMs.[92] Capitals of the police contributing countries (PCCs) have no operational control over the police they deploy, as this lies with the police commissioner.[93]

In 2006, responding to the long start-up time for police components of generally 6 to 12 months the UN General Assembly decided to establish the UN Standing Police Capacity (SPC). This Brindisi-based unit consists of mission leadership and specialized expertise such as police restructuring, training, investigations, planning, budget and fund management, and human resources. Since 2010 the SPC has 41 personnel members at its disposal. Although this is still insufficient to establish a police component, as that would require twice the amount, the SPC has contributed to starting a number of new missions.[94] In spite of its positive contributions when deployed, with a field rate of 33.5 percent instead of the anticipated 65 percent, it is far less utilized than originally expected, and primarily by SPMs and not peacekeeping operations. Some consider the SPC to be an expensive and inflexible capacity. The UN Office of Internal Oversight Services and some interviewees conclude that if the SPC is not better utilised, downsizing should be considered.[95]

The UN reimburses member states for their FPU personnel and contingent-owned equipment from its assessed contributions. The mission allowance for IPOs is much higher and is paid directly to the IPOs. PCCs do not receive reimbursements for IPOs, as their time is expected to be donated by them. Consequently, there are somewhat perverse incentives for PCCs to contribute FPUs, while equally perverse from the UN’s perspective, as FPU force generation is cheaper than individual officers. This has contributed to the increase in deployed FPUs over the past few years.[96] There is currently not yet a modus operandi regarding the deployment of SPTs. Recently, in March 2015, when Eurogendfor wanted to continue to deploy in the context of MINUSCA in CAR, the arrangement to deploy personnel as IPOs and the team’s materiel as contingent-owned equipment was looked into, but eventually no agreeable solution was found in time.[97]

The financing of many police-related programmes, such as the ones that focus on the judiciary sector and SSR, is not covered by the assessed contributions for a peacekeeping operation, but relies on voluntary contributions from member states. The Global Focal Point for Police, Justice and Corrections, described above, can play a role in overcoming the fragmentation of budget lines within the UN system.

Recruitment and selection

Although planning, recruitment and training have greatly improved over the past one and a half decades, the UN’s capacity of currently 103 personnel at HQ working on police-related matters is still limited.[98] In 2012 with nearly 15,000 personnel in the field, the field-HQ ratio was less than 0.8 percent.[99] Between the assessment of the need for police deployment in a mission and the actual deployment lies a time-consuming process. Since 2012 the selection process has been streamlined to the extent that individual officers may arrive in a mission area within six months after the posting of the vacancy. The Police Division reserves the right to disapprove of the deployment of the nationally selected police officers.[100] The SPC may assist in the establishment of the police component and, if needed, to provide leadership.[101]

In 2013 in response to the continuing gaps, DPKO launched a Stand-by FPU Capacity initiative. This initiative is aimed at speeding up the deployment of FPUs. It requires PCCs to have FPUs available for rapid deployment, while in return bilateral donors supported by the UN strengthen these units. It is hoped that this initiative will broaden the current pool of PCCs providing FPUs.[102]

Training and strategic guidance

Each PCC is responsible for the pre-deployment training of the IPOs and the pre-deployment training and equipment of the FPUs and SPTs they deploy. The UN only provides some additional in-mission training. As a consequence, the UN faces challenges to guarantee the level of training of its contingents as well as the uniformity of the standards and training enjoyed. Many countries have their own peacekeeping training centres. The UN has increasingly been able to give guidance to PCCs, setting operational standards for training courses and certifying the quality of courses. However, in spite of the call for PCCs to align their training courses with the materials and guidelines provided by the UN Secretariat, they are not required to adopt the UN standards. The aim of the UN is to use its Integrated Training Service (ITS) to build an ‘effective global training network’ that draws on experienced personnel, bilateral and multilateral programmes, and networks of regional training centres.[103] The HIPPO report supports the idea of the ITS establishing a small certification and partnerships capacity and stipulates that gender issues and human rights should be integrated into all relevant training modules, including those for senior managers, and should be incorporated into the certification system.[104]

In order to produce common standards and guarantee the necessary skills required for police peacekeepers, the Police Division in DPKO is currently developing a Strategic Guidance Framework (SGF) that is meant to guide police personnel in their operations, but also to form the basis of training in the future. The aim of this endeavour is to ensure that all police personnel in police operations, not only in UN operations but also those of the AU, the EU and the OSCE, follow and are trained in the same general doctrine and consequently operate more cohesively, consistently and effectively. This should also address one of the bigger challenges faced by policing and SSR in missions, that every country follows its own guidance and consequently police forces and the broader security sector in host nations receive incongruent training, and inconsistent and sometimes even incompatible capacity-building (the training of the Afghan security sector is but one of such examples).[105]

The development of the SGF is currently lagging behind schedule. The first stage: the police policy has been developed. The second phase: guidelines for capacity-building and development, operations, command, and administration are in the process of being finalised. The third level of the concrete manuals still requires much attention. Parts can be filled with existing international policing manuals and in the coming two years the Police Division will develop manuals on 18 priority areas. The SGF as a whole is however never finished, as new manuals will have to be written when new tasks are taken on and old policies, guidelines and manuals need to be updated to the experiences and lessons from the field.[106] The HIPPO report emphasizes the need for the UN to complete the strategic guidance framework, acknowledging that it is aware of the fact that a new approach may lead to new requirements and the need to review the organisational structure, human resources and capacity of the Police Division of the Secretariat as a next step.[107]

Lessons learned from past and current police deployment in missions.

Since the first deployment of police personnel in UN peace operations in the 1960s, many lessons have been noted. Yet, as the recent review of the High Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) indicates, it proves to be difficult to apply all the lessons and to make all the necessary changes. In the following text, a number of the main challenges and lessons learned mentioned in the literature, the 17 June 2015 HIPPO Report and in interviews that have been held for this study at the UN Secretariat and with representatives of missions are elaborated upon. Unstable operating environments

As was the case with EU civilian crisis management missions, the most prominent challenge of UN policing relates to the operational context. As Bill Durch states “reforming, restructuring and rebuilding police services is hard enough in stable environments in which the police – and the judicial and political systems – more or less see the need for restructuring and reform and therefore support it. Contemporary complex operations almost never enjoy the luxury of such a stable operating environment.”[108] Consequently, especially where worsened security or political conditions undermine or impede implementation, peace operations are faced with increasingly difficult, if not unachievable tasks. The ability to adapt to changing situations should therefore be increased by the stronger engagement of contingent commanders, by increased engagement of the permanent missions by the Secretariat[109] and by strengthening the trilateral talks between the Secretariat, the PCCs and the Security Council.[110] Also, training for challenging situations should be enhanced, including police and military interoperability training, and joint exercises for formed police units and military contingents.[111]

Complexity of the tasks and mandates, template mandates and the need for national-owned priorities

A further general challenge that keeps coming back in various analyses of the police in UN peace operations relates to the complexity and the ambition of mandates. According to the HIPPO, realism about what can be achieved with the support of a peace operation, and within its lifespan, is required, but will also put pressure on those supporting police reform and development.[112] Earlier in this section, the extensive number and wide variety of police tasks that are considered key in relation to UN missions have been discussed. Mandates have become lengthier and more specific, and at times less realistic, manageable and achievable.[113] Part of the problem, according to the HIPPO, is the so called “Christmas tree mandate” dilemma, where template language for many tasks routinely appears in mission mandates. These mandates frustrate efforts at prioritisation and sequencing during implementation.[114] Concepts, new or old, need to be based on the local context, and not as Bayley and Perito state: “…in mission after mission…training programs have been put in place like canned food that is assumed to be universally nourishing. In complex environments, however, one size doesn’t fit all”.[115]

According to the HIPPO, the comparative advantage of UN peace operations and others and realistic prospects of success should weigh heavier when prioritising proposals for mission functions. The local context and conditions such as corruption and pressures from political interests by powerful groups, which can undermine assistance attempts, are often ignored or underestimated.[116] Missions such as INTERFET and the UN’s Transitional Administration for East Timor (UNTAET) suggest that an inadequate understanding of the context led to early withdrawal and a relapse into conflict, and the need for the UN to return with a new mission (UNMIT). The international community miscalculated the cohesion of Timorese police and security forces.[117] In order to increase understanding of the local context the UN should further invest in analysis, planning, monitoring and evaluation. The host Government’s choice of police systems and approaches should be respected and reforms must be designed with regard to realistic scenarios for (fiscal) revenue generation.[118]

Enthusiastic reformers may not understand that some of their own efforts may work against processes of reconciliation and trust. International assistance programmes can generate tensions within and among communities. When it comes to support to State institutions, local people often have deep misgivings about the prospect of their expansion, particularly if the State is perceived as tainted by corruption or exclusionary politics. Supporting programmes and public institutions that have legitimacy in the eyes of communities is critical for sustaining peace.[119]

A too technical approach

Member states generally expect impacts in a short period. Also, interviewees mentioned that the leadership in DPKO does not give policing sufficient attention. It is often seen as a technical issue, while in fact it is very political and therefore requires attention from the top, particularly at the start of operations when there is still momentum in host nations.[120] A too technical approach and the need to make success ‘visible’ can, for lack of better suggestions, lead to the presentation of impact in quantitative terms. Reducing time for basic training, and crunching out numbers of police personnel trained could then easily become the main target.

Respondents interviewed stressed the importance of political skills among personnel operating on police issues. Although technical skills remain important, the need to change culture, expectations and the ethos of policing with elites and institutions, requires a different mind-set and approach. It also requires staff to understand and acknowledge what is possible in a given context.[121]

The challenge is bigger than the police

The HIPPO finds that in order for police reform to become effective, the focus has to be on the whole criminal justice chain. Police reform requires the development of the key police institutions as well as that of relevant ministries. Also the political leadership has to be involved as they will have to provide political support and direction to reform. In more practical terms, managerial oversight and budget and legal frameworks need to be developed.[122] According to Durch this means that having a police component in UN peace operations is crucial, but not sufficient. Civilian expertise is needed to compensate for a lack of familiarity with enhancing or creating public security in a mission’s area of operation. It is only very recently that UN DPKO has begun paying for the needed staff specialists in a number of missions – even though requests along these lines date back to UNMIBH.[123]

The UN peace operations are only one of the many organisations operating in the field of reforming the criminal justice chain. Within DPKO’s Office of Rule of Law and Security Institutions (OROLSI) the Police Division, the SSR Unit, the DDR Section and the Criminal Law and Judicial Advisory Service (CLJAS) have their own focuses in the broader ‘chain of justice’. Outside DPKO, organisations such as UNDP, UNOHCHR, UNODC and non-UN actors such as Interpol, private security companies and consultants are also involved. The HIPPO report warns that United Nations and other international support to conflict-affected countries remains short term, largely uncoordinated and piecemeal, linked to multiple funding frameworks.[124]

Coordinating mechanisms such as the Global Focal Point on Police Justice and Corrections only represent a number of the above-mentioned agencies and Units, but not all and therefore should be expanded.[125] Partnerships with other actors should be established or strengthened and the coordination role of the host nation enhanced. As discussed above, many processes of restructuring policing and the security sector require programmes that are not funded under peace operations. If cooperation with other organisations that have access to programmatic funding does not work, ways for peace operations to have access to such funding should be considered.[126]

Required capabilities for police deployment

This section starts with discussing some pitfalls regarding police deployment in UN missions as a way of introducing the capabilities the UN does or should require in the future. There is a fair degree of criticism of the United Nations with regard to the way in which its missions fail to perform against reasonable expectations in the field. Measures to enhance performance in the field have been inadequate. Yet, according to the HIPPO, the performance of military and police personnel is a collective responsibility of Member States and the Secretariat. Those who commit personnel should do so with a clear understanding of what is expected.[127]

According to Durch, the key to better performance in mission contexts is improving the quality of deployed police personnel. Given the UN’s heavy emphasis on respect for human rights, on not tolerating corruption and on fighting impunity, it is at least a challenge for the UN to improve in these domains in view of the fact that many (and increasingly more) of the deployed staff come from countries that are considered ‘partly free’ or ‘not free’ according to the Freedom House standards.[128]

The deployment of police personnel to UN peace operations builds on that for the military in terms of recruitment, deployment and reimbursement (see above). Analysts argue that this system seems to be under pressure as there is greater demand for more seasoned units with mission-appropriate backgrounds in terms of language and proper training.[129] According to analysts and a number of interviewees, the UN has been relying too much on paramilitary-style police units, which may send the wrong signal to host governments and populations. Although the style and approach differ per PCC, a common feature of FPUs is that these operate in contingents of 120-140 personnel. In relation to the newer concepts of SSR and the need to link up with the ‘chain of justice approach’ within the wider Rule of Law context, missions will need to be planned and manned with staff that have a good understanding of the capacities necessary for these wider approaches. This requires the UN to move away from quantity to quality. FPUs have been used to fill the gaps in the maintenance of law and order and, as such, have displaced local capacities, but are less suitable for capacity building. Therefore, several interviewees responded by suggesting that the UN would benefit from moving more in the direction of high quality capacity builders and away from the big numbers of law and order providers.[130]

The current recruitment model is based on big numbers, hoping that the required staff and competencies can be found within those big numbers. Apart from this being an ineffective way of recruiting staff, the downside is that if and when a Member State sends an IPO, the person can be given different tasks within the mission, not necessarily the tasks the IPO is most experienced in. This has negative effects in terms of the willingness of IPOs to be deployed, as well as on the willingness of MS to deploy experts. Selection procedures need to better identify candidates with the requisite skills and expertise. The Police Commissioner should be more aware of these challenges and deal with them accordingly, taking into consideration the option of recruiting civilian experts for specific tasks, offering a firmer grip on selecting candidates and the option of longer deployment periods, and of making use of specialised teams.[131] In-mission use of competence-based interviews should also be considered for Member States’ deployed police.

In order to improve the performance of staff, the mission leadership must, according to the HIPPO, set clear expectations and, when required, the head of mission must work with Headquarters to raise performance issues with the permanent missions of troop- and police-contributing countries. Consistent underperformers must be warned officially and repatriated if they fail to improve. A commitment to dealing with performance issues should be reflected in the individual performance records of all managers and commanders in the field and at Headquarters.[132]

To improve practice on the level of contingents, the HIPPO suggests that the UN also has to address the use of caveats and national controls. “It is essential that the Secretariat weigh the specific caveats when a contingent is offered against the value of its deployment, and it must be willing to decline an offer if the caveats will impede performance. In the field, any further caveats beyond those national constraints accepted at the outset cannot be condoned.”[133]

The UN would benefit from more clarity as regards available capacity in donor countries. For the moment it is not clear to the UN how many police personnel are out there that could be deployed in terms of availability. Also stronger partnership arrangements between potential contributors and donor countries are needed, as well as agreements to mobilise the available “public order” capacities of formed police units. There is a need for improvements in pre-deployment preparation and oversight in mission operational readiness to ensure that formed police units meet all statement of unit requirements and training required for their tasks and in compliance with the necessary policy standards.[134]

The HIPPO and interviewees further stress that in order to increase the effectiveness and impact of capacity support, police-contributing countries should be encouraged to extend rotation cycles to 12 months and maybe even longer for certain other positions.[135]

Given the list of challenges related to working in post-conflict settings, it is clear that apart from realism about what can be achieved with the support of a peace operation and within its lifespan, more is needed. Interviewees indicated that the UN expects the number of UN police personnel to increase again to some 15,000 in the coming years with potentially new missions in e.g. Syria, Yemen, Libya and Zimbabwe. An increase of roughly 10 percent, compared to the current 13.500 deployed police personnel. Below, some of the key requirements for those aiming to support police reform and development are listed. Some of them follow from or resume the pitfalls discussed earlier in this section, others are new. After this list of key capabilities which the UN needs from any donor country, a specification is made of (military) police capacities which the UN wants the Netherlands to contribute.

Potential added value from countries like the Netherlands

UN officials and representatives of member states interviewed for this study suggested that for countries like the Netherlands, the following could be considered as forms of contribution (process and policy, financial or personnel) for improving the effectiveness of policing in peace operations:

Process and policy

Financial

Personnel

In terms of contributing to UN or international policing, the Netherlands could consider following the Swedish example of dedicating a larger percentage of its police capacity to international policing. Sweden, for example, has pledged 1%.

In terms of more concrete and direct options, it could be considered to support the UN in addressing its difficulties in defining the needs for a mission. The Netherlands could help to focus on strategic police planning and analysis for and within missions. Other areas that were mentioned were: border management, airport management, immigration, narcotics, organised crime, training, crowd control, criminal investigations. The Netherlands could also focus on institution-building tasks, planning, strategy, developing budgets, and working with programme managers. Dutch involvement could and perhaps should go further than simple training, and also include how to set up/structure a police academy in a host nation. Lastly, the Dutch experience with reforming its police organisation is also welcomed in peace operations. The Dutch experience with intelligence in ASIFU would also be welcomed in the field of policing if it were to be expanded to information analysis and criminal intelligence in the field of international crime.

Overall, the interviewees differentiated between the contribution of IPOs, SPTs, FPUs, and civilian experts.

a) IPO

b) SPTs

c) FPUs

d) Civilian Experts

1.4 OSCE

Although the current confrontation between Russia and the West challenges some of the key founding norms of the organisation as formulated in the Helsinki Final Act[140] in 1975, this new Eastern European crisis has reinvigorated the relevance of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) as an actor in crisis prevention and conflict settlement. After more than a decade of decreasing budgets and activities[141], in 2014 the OSCE has moved to centre stage in Ukraine, being the only acceptable international actor for the parties engaged in the conflict. The OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine, and more importantly the new reality of conflict between Russia and the West that the Ukrainian crisis is a reflection of, has led the OSCE to reconsider its security agenda, its instruments and the position of the organisation amidst other international organisations and coalitions. Also, it has led to the first deployment of police staff by the Netherlands to a OSCE field activity in years.

In 1999 the OSCE recognised the importance of police missions, as the UN had done previously, in the European Security Charter[142] that was signed in Istanbul by 54 Heads of State. Among the objectives of the Charter were improving and developing the OSCE’s instruments, decision-making capacity and ability to take action in critical security situations. In his most recent annual report on police-related activities, Secretary General Zannier qualifies these activities as a ‘key element in addressing threats to security and stability in the OSCE region and an integral part of the Organization’s efforts in conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation.’[143]

The OSCE currently employs about 2,000 internationally and locally recruited personnel in its field operations in South-Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia. These field operations, discussed in more detail below, are established at the invitation of the host countries, after which their mandates are agreed upon by consensus by the participating States. The OSCE field operations deploy police staff in dedicated police missions, in police or law enforcement components that form part of more comprehensive operations, but also in functions that are not directly related to police tasks or police organisations, where a police background is considered beneficial. An example of the latter is the SMM to Ukraine, where about one third of the deployed staff have a police or military background.

Not only the field operations are involved in the OSCE’s police-related activities. Activities are sometimes organised by the SPMU and CPC as well and, to a lesser extent, by executive structures such as the Institutions of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), as well as several thematic units within the OSCE’s Secretariat. For example, in 2014 the Office of the Co-ordinator of Economic and Environmental Activities (OCEEA) assisted in carrying out national risk assessments on money laundering and counter-terrorism in Croatia, Montenegro and FYROM. The Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings implemented projects and training courses for law enforcement agencies in several countries and as part of the FRONTEX and EUPST training programmes.[144]

OSCE’s police-related activities

Since the first police deployments by the OSCE in Croatia (1998) and Kosovo (from 1999), there have been discussions on which police tasks the OSCE would have to undertake. The Istanbul Charter recommended examining the option of carrying out law enforcement measures, as had been the case in UNMIK. However, to date, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)[145] differs from the other international organisations discussed in this report in that it does not perform executive police tasks. A stable majority of participating states prefer a concentration on tasks such as training, development and monitoring of local police units. Even then, some Eastern European Participating States have been sceptical about police mandates to monitor human rights and are hesitant in supporting conflict prevention measures of OSCE police forces in intra-state conflicts, while explicitly being in favour of combating international terrorism and drug trafficking.[146]

In 2012 the Permanent Council (PC) of the OSCE formulated a Strategic Framework for the OSCE’s Police-Related Activities in order to define priority areas. This Strategic Framework focusses on: ‘needs assessment, capacity-building, institution-building, training and evaluation,’ through which the OSCE aims to ‘assist the law enforcement agencies of participating States in addressing threats posed by criminal activity, while upholding the rule of law and ensuring respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.’[147]

Apart from these ‘lines of action’, the Strategic Framework sets six thematic priorities:

As said, not all police deployment by the OSCE is organised under the flag of its police-related activities. The SMM in Ukraine currently deploys a substantial number of police officers, but is not labelled as being police-related. Created under huge pressure, the SMM operates with an expanding mandate, including tasks like the monitoring of cease-fires and the withdrawal of weapons.

OSCE police deployment in field operations: mandates and tasks

The first time that the OSCE deployed police staff, in 1998 in Croatia, started with a modest contribution of police officers acting as legal advisors. However, later that year the OSCE announced that it would replace 180 UN police officers in Eastern Slavonia with 120 OSCE police personnel, tasked with monitoring and training the Croatian police, the Police Monitoring Group (PMG). This relatively successful mission was followed a year later by the OSCE Police Training Mission in Kosovo. Within the framework of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), the OSCE was tasked to create and train an entire criminal justice and police system.[149] At its peak in 2002 the OSCE deployed no less than 267 police officers in this OSCE Mission in Kosovo (OMiK).[150] Since Croatia and Kosovo, the first extensive, but much smaller OSCE police mission has been the recently launched, and still running, Community Security Initiative (CSI) in Kirghizstan, deploying 28 international police officers, launched as an answer to violent ethnic clashes and human rights violations by security services in 2010. The CSI project entails community policing, placed both in North and South Kirgizstan. Its mandate includes:

Since the CSI mandate and performance has been evaluated positively at the OSCE Secretariat, it may well be the standing model for future OSCE community policing and confidence-building projects.[152]

After the ambitious and extensive Law Enforcement Departments in operations in the Balkans in the 1990s, and apart from the CSI, the OSCE more typically deploys small numbers of police staff as part of less extensive field operations[153]. Under the umbrella term of field operations, the OSCE speaks of, inter alia, missions, presences, centres and project co-ordinators. These designations correspond with different mandates and, according to the OSCE Network of Think Tanks and Academic Institutions, ‘reflect the varying attitudes of host states towards the OSCE and its norms.’[154] The CSI, for example, although deploying 28 international police officers, for political reasons does not have the status of a field operation, but of a ‘project’ falling under the OSCE ‘Centre’ in Bishkek.

Although having individual mandates, most of the operations deploying police personnel have in common that they run for a longer period. A presence of more than ten years is not incidental. All of the operations are located either in South-Eastern Europe (6) or in successor states of the former Soviet Union (10). The missions in South-Eastern Europe - OMiK being currently the largest, amounting to a total of 133 international staff members in 2014- have sharply decreased in scale (staff, budget, mandate) since their establishment in the 1990s. The law enforcement departments or officers that form part of most operations mainly focus on assisting and advising on matters of police reform, or performing activities related to specific security issues, such as trafficking in human beings and domestic violence.[155]

Since the OSCE lacks an official legal status and is dependent on decision-making based on consensus, the basis for operations is insecure. The Southern Caucasian activities of the organisation show some worst-case scenarios. In Georgia, the OSCE Mission, started in 1992, was ended after the Georgian-Russian war, when no consensus could be found on extending the Mission’s mandate.[156] The Memorandum of Understanding that formed the basis of a second OSCE activity in the Southern Caucasus, the ‘Project Co-ordinator in Baku’, was suddenly terminated by the government of Azerbaijan in June 2015.

Results and challenges of the OSCE’s field operations

The new political reality urges the OSCE to revise its existing decision-making structures and to evaluate its instruments. The same political reality, however, also provides constraints for any serious reform of the organisation, where decisions are taken by consensus among all participating states and where the overall agenda is coordinated by a yearly rotating Chairmanship. In order to address these challenges, the OSCE’s 2015 Troika – consisting of the 2015 Serbian chairmanship and the preceding Swiss and future German chairmanships – tasked the diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger to form the advisory Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security as a Common Project. The Panel is mandated to provide advice on the OSCE’s role, tasks and instruments in reconsolidating European security. In June 2015 it produced an Interim Report with lessons learned from the OSCE deployment in Ukraine.[157] By the end of 2015 a Final Report will be published on what Ischinger’s mandate formulates are ‘the broader issues of security in Europe and the OSCE area at large’.[158] Under the German chairmanship in 2016, this report is expected to fuel the redefinition of the OSCE’s role as a security provider in Europe.

In its Interim Report with lessons learned from Ukraine, the Panel of Eminent Persons points out that the direct link between the top political level and the operational activities of the SMM has contributed to its effectiveness not only in creating an adequate mandate. The SMM has also resulted in knowledge, capacity, and the ability to deal with - in this case - a disputed separatist regime. Assets that can potentially contribute to finding ways of de-escalation and reconciliation on the political level.[159]

A major pitfall identified by the Panel is the fact that the OSCE lacks a clear international legal status and this results, particularly during crisis situations, in challenges for the personnel it deploys. During the first weeks of the Mission to Ukraine, the OSCE’s Special Monitors had no official status, immunities or security guarantees. Moreover, the Mission could not open bank accounts or obtain customs clearance for equipment. After 12 weeks of deployment, in which eight staff members were abducted by armed groups, the OSCE and the Ukrainian government signed a Memorandum of Understanding providing an operational framework for the OSCE’s activities.[160]

Other important impediments emerged from the fact that the SMM includes the involvement of a substantial amount of Russian monitors.[161] Both sides of the conflict have criticised it for being an instrument used for hostile purposes by ‘the other’. Also, continuous problems occurred with the hampered accessibility of crucial areas for the OSCE monitors. The involvement of the conflict parties in the operation is at the same time the reason that in conflict-torn Ukraine, the OSCE has more room to manoeuvre than other IOs.

The pressing issues confronting the OSCE with the Ukraine conflict and its root causes directed Ischinger’s Panel to formulate the following recommendations to be taken into consideration for future field deployment by the OSCE:

As the Panel observes, the number of staff in the Conflict Prevention Centre (CPC) in Vienna, responsible for operational planning and preparation, has proven to be too small for organising complex operations such as the SMM. The Panel emphasizes the value of military skills in the OSCE Operations and Headquarters and recommends to drop the exclusion of the possibility of recruiting serving military personnel, discussed later on in this section.[163] The capacity gap for operational planning and preparation has also been identified in a discussion paper on the ‘future of OSCE field operations’, published in 2015 by the OSCE Network of Think Tanks and Academic Institutions.[164]

In an assessment of the Organisation’s field activities, the OSCE Network highlights that, in the case of Ukraine, the OSCE has shown itself to be able to:

The OSCE Network of Think Tanks argues that, other than in Ukraine, the conflict situation in Kyrgyzstan in 2010 was of a domestic nature, and was perceived to be ‘difficult to influence from the perspective of major Western States’.[166] In relation to the Kyrgyz conflict, far-reaching steps or mandates could not find the needed consensus among the OSCE Member States, but in the words of the Network paper, at the working level the OSCE proved to be able to ‘employ useful, if limited, steps, based on the room to manoeuvre of its institutions.’[167]

Apart from the multi-institutional character of the OSCE’s field operations, the OSCE approach towards security is rather comprehensive: efforts are directed towards ‘enforcing the letter of the law, but also to economic issues such as tackling corruption and money laundering, and to ensuring respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.’[168] The OSCE’s extended and mostly long-term field presence in South-Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus (currently to a lesser extent) and Central Asia can be considered an asset in itself. The OSCE activities in these regions rely on good networks of relevant governmental and non-governmental stakeholders.

Resuming, the most recent OSCE crisis involvements show that, on the one hand, top political involvement in urgent situations can lead to new span-widths of mandates and to a rejuvenation of the OSCE as a centre-stage player in European conflicts. On the other hand, the OSCE, with its extended network of field presences, has shown itself to be able to adapt to conflict situations on a working level, even without international consensus. The OSCE Network of Think Tanks recommends that the latter is an asset which should be further strengthened by giving the OSCE institutions more freedom of action in crisis situations[169]. However, more operational flexibility is needed: both the Panel and the Network of Think Tanks advise strengthening the OSCE’s leadership structure and expanding the Organisation’s planning and operation capacity.

Reforms of the OSCE’s decision-making structures and a strengthening of the role of the Secretary General could be on the table of a OSCE summit. The last OSCE summit took place in Kazakhstan in 2010, resulting in little more than a reaffirmation of the participating states’ adherence to the OSCE principles. Perhaps, under the German leadership, a new summit can be held in the second half of 2016. However, under the current political circumstances, a loosening of the consensus mechanism controlling the OSCE’s field mandates seems far away.

Results and challenges of police-related activities

In 2009 the OSCE’s Strategic Police Matters Unit (SPMU) - serving as the Secretariat’s main focal point in co-ordinating police-related activities - prepared a report taking stock of (the results of) the OSCE’s police-related activities, concluding that:

Regarding its police-related activities, the main challenge the OSCE faces is its shortage of financial and human resources. A considerable share of police–related vacancies, both in field activities and at the OSCE Secretariat, remain unfulfilled. It is acknowledged that ‘governments have great difficulties in freeing police officers from their regular duties and making them available to international organisations’.[171] Also, the financial reward for OSCE field staff is relatively poor, compared to remuneration packages offered by the EU or UN. Several OSCE and other publications have warned that increasing amounts of tasks and mandates have not been met by increasing financial resources.[172] On top of the problems with recruiting the required numbers of staff for the planned activities, both SPMU and CPC note the difficulties in recruiting seconded staff with sufficient competence, see the next section.

On a more fundamental level are obstacles that the OSCE encounters in its missions in efforts to change police culture and the public’s perception of the police. In an effectiveness analysis the OSCE briefly touches upon the difficulties in changing police culture at the top level and even more at the mid-level of police management and the ‘public’s deeply rooted negative images of the police.’[173] Other, more operational difficulties mentioned in the 2009 evaluation of police-related activities are:

Required capabilities for police deployment

In 2014, apart from the Special Monitoring Mission and the Observer Mission to Ukraine, in all OSCE field operations locally hired staff outnumbered the internationals. Most operations had a ratio of international seconded staff and locally hired personnel of about 1:3. Locally hired staff function mostly in support roles, but in its field activities the OSCE also creates functions for national professionals. Therefore, internationals deployed in OSCE activities have access to an extended local network of professionals.

Interviews held at the SPMU and CPC department of the OSCE Secretariat have made clear that at this moment in time the shortages in financial and human resources are the main challenges which the OSCE faces in relation to its police-related activities.[178] In human resources this is a problem of both a quantitative and qualitative nature. Since the early stage of missions in the Balkans, the required police competencies and profiles have changed from a general police profile to more specialised staff. It has been particularly difficult to find suitable staff at the mid and senior managerial levels who can add strategic planning competencies to the OSCE’s field work. Also, there are difficulties in finding specialists with specific police-related expertise, most importantly in the field of transnational organised crime. This latter category of staff is not only lacking in field missions. There have been police-related vacancies at the Secretariat that have remained unfulfilled for a long time, such as a trafficking in human beings specialist position at the SPMU.

Generic police officers that can be deployed on the operational level are still needed, but finding enough ‘practitioners’ for field work is currently less of a problem. The mission in Kosovo, for example, has enough capacity when it comes to experts in community policing. But it is difficult to fill the expert vacancies requiring experience in countering organised crime. For high-risk settings, like the current SMM in Ukraine, staff with police or military background that have experience in working in conflict zones are of great value, but have also proven to be difficult to recruit.

The gender balance in OSCE field operations has been notoriously unequal, while the OSCE has experienced that having female officers in leading roles in projects like the CSI to Kyrgyzstan is extremely useful. Apart from a good gender balance, in composing teams for field operations, a mixture of nationalities has demonstrated to be an asset. An ethnically diverse composition of teams contributes to its acceptance by the local authorities and the public. The competency of having intercultural skills is, as a matter of course, an asset in this respect. Language skills are not always the most important, since, in a mission like the CSI, interpreters are available.

In deploying experts for the OSCE’s police-related activities, or in activities like monitoring, where a police background is considered an asset, the OSCE has not experienced much difference in deploying either civil police of gendarmerie-staff. As respondents at the CPC state ‘the job profile is the same, and the uniform and tasks are the same’. However, when it comes to the practical possibilities for the OSCE to deploy staff from the Dutch Royal Marechaussee, there might be an obstacle in the fact that the OSCE excludes the possibility of employing police or military officers who are on active service elsewhere. In several interviews, respondents at the OSCE Department of Human Resources have stated that military or police staff should be temporarily put on administrative leave by their employer in order to work for the OSCE.[179] This is expressed in Regulation 2.01 for OSCE staff:

The Netherlands Police sends staff on special leave for the duration of a mission deployment. The KMar does not allow for this option. Therefore, if both KMar staff and the OSCE strictly apply their own regulations, Kmar deployment in an OSCE mission would not be possible. However, OSCE regulations might change in this regard, as the Panel of Eminent Persons recently recommended to abandon the exclusion of employing serving military personnel.[181]

Although the need for seconded personnel is high and the supply is short, in particular at mid and senior levels, there is hardly any direct contact between the Secretariat in Vienna and the potential providers of seconded officers. There seems to be no active lobbying by the OSCE towards permanent representatives of OSCE member states at embassies. In case of the SMM, direct contact between the Chief of Mission and Dutch officials in Kiev was the stage for assessing the mission’s needs, after which the Dutch input was tailored accordingly.

1.5 NATO

After the fall of the Berlin Wall NATO added crisis management operations, indicated as ‘non-Article 5 Crisis Response Operations’,[182] to its tasks.[183] This led to a large number of NATO operations in the Balkans, the Mediterranean and the MENA area – with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan as the largest Allied operation ever mounted (approx. 130,000 troops at its peak). The Alliance has formulated its core tasks, principles and values, and its strategic objectives in the evolving security environment in its Strategic Concept 2010 and its keystone doctrine document AJP 1.0(D).[184] This document defines NATO’s core tasks as: collective defence, cooperative security, and crisis management. Despite the Alliance’s so-called ‘return to collective defence’ in response to the security challenges posed by Russia after the annexation of the Crimea and the war in Eastern Ukraine, all three core tasks continue to form the basis of NATO’s activities. With regard to crisis management, the following is NATO’s position:

NATO operations and police deployment

In principle NATO does not undertake police missions, or even military missions with a specific dedicated ‘police’ line of operation. As will be explained below, this is due to its political-military profile and the lack of consensus among its members on how broad ‘security force assistance’ should be interpreted. Nevertheless, the Alliance has in practice employed several missions that contained activities that lie in the larger conceptual field of SSR. Out of these missions, the KFOR, NTM-I, ISAF and Resolute Support missions actually executed police duties and/or trained local police forces.[186] In Bosnia (IFOR and SFOR) and Kosovo (KFOR) the ‘security gap’ between the regular police and the NATO military forces was filled by the deployment of gendarmerie-carabinieri forces, in particular for crowd and riot control. In Iraq and in Afghanistan NATO is or has been running training programmes for security forces, including the local police.

At the strategic political-military level it has been difficult to find common ground between the different views of NATO’s member states on policing in missions. Some see ‘the military’ as a total set of assets to be employed including Military Police and gendarmerie forces. However, most nations do not have gendarmerie-type forces, and may very well find it difficult to place such forces within the overall capability spectrum. And then there are those members who uphold the opinion - in some cases openly, in some cases less so - that NATO is a political-military alliance, and therefore it should not become involved in other (civilian) tasks and roles including policing tasks.

On the whole, though, the NATO members thoroughly understand that a NATO mission will have to be, more than ever, part of a wider comprehensive response from the international community and cannot be considered in isolation.[187] After all, the complexity of the operational environment is ever growing and requires effective coordination and cooperation among national governmental departments and agencies, NGOs, IOs and the private sector throughout all the phases of crises.

The primary division in possible NATO missions is the difference between Article 5 operations and non-article 5 Crisis Response Operations.[188] The first type is based on Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, that covers the collective self-defence principle for NATO and its members.[189] The second type encompasses all other operations. Notwithstanding the very different foundation for both types, as a common NATO distinguishes four so-called campaign themes for its missions: Combat, Security, Peace Support, and Peacetime Military Engagement.[190] The choice for a campaign theme is a political-strategic one, and forms a delineation for the military efforts in a crisis. However, the activities performed within that delineation depend on, and vary with, the dynamics of the conflict, that will present a mosaic of encountered levels of intensity, friction, progress and violence.[191] The operational plan for a campaign will use a defined end-state as the desired ‘end’ or goal for the mission. Such an ‘end’ is projected to be achieved along several lines of operation or ‘ways’, each working through estimated decisive points. In a crisis response operation, one of these lines of operations may well be (support to) Security Sector Reform (SSR).

In theory, the active role of NATO in SSR operations is limited to Security Forces Assistance (SFA): assistance to military forces and the institutions that have a direct link to the military. Reforming the law enforcement and judiciary sector would be addressed by the civilian governmental and non-governmental organisations, and Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration (DDR) would be a combined effort between attending civilian and military organisations. In reality, however, not all of the needed civilian organisations are always present in crisis areas. Either because the security situation does not allow for their presence, or because the crisis developed so quickly or abruptly that they have not managed to project their assets into the area. In such cases, NATO can direct its military force to take on the (most urgent) tasks of those civilian capabilities. This will always be deemed a temporary solution, and NATO will strive to hand over non-military responsibilities to the proper organisations as soon as possible.[192]

Policing and police development

Policing and police development are clear examples of non-military task areas that would possibly need immediate attention in case the local police force in a crisis area does not perform its tasks and there are no civil organisations present to react to that situation. In such cases the NATO force present could step in to (co-)perform executive police duties. Obviously a military force is less suitable for regular police duties, even if the situation as described would occur in a less permissive mission environment. NATO acknowledges this and is currently seeking to address this security gap by developing new doctrine, directing NATO efforts in such circumstances.[193]

NATO uses the term Stability Policing, which translates as (community) policing in crisis areas, including less-permissive operational environments. The two main employment options within the concept of Stability Policing are: supporting the local police in a crisis area with their executive police duties, and replacing the local police in a crisis area in their executive police duties. The intended type of force to perform Stability Policing are the MP and/or Gendarmerie forces of the member states with a tendency to favour specifically the Gendarmerie forces, since their tasks in their home nations are similar or comparable to those within Stability Policing. Added to that, Gendarmerie forces have the military status and are military trained, the total making them highly equipped for employment in more violent or unruly crisis areas.

NATO has a concept for the development of security forces, called unified Security Forces Assistance (uSFA).[194] As said, this concept is explicitly meant for SFA to military forces and institutions that have a direct link to the military. At the direction of NATO’s International Military Staff (IMS),[195] a draft version of the concept allowing for ‘blue’ SFA, meaning MMT&A assistance to police forces and institutions, was redrafted to narrow down to ‘green’ SFA. Even though the draft concept was strongly based on the actual ongoing ISAF mission that included SFA to the whole of the Afghan National Security Forces and Afghan Security Institutions[196], there was no political consensus to include ‘blue’ SFA as a standard possibility in the concept. The final draft of the concept did however include an escape clause, and was ratified. The clause amounts to a version of the earlier mentioned fact that NATO does allow for the possibility that not all of the needed civilian organisations will be present in the area, and therefore on a case by case basis will decide on other than military tasks.[197]

If there are no civilian organisations (governmental or non-governmental) present in the crisis area, the most probable reason for this is that the situation in the operational environment is too dangerous. If those circumstances are not likely to change significantly over the medium term (SFA not being an effort of immediate necessity), NATO could decide to start police development activities. After all, the longer the international community waits in (re)invigorating the proper police, the longer it will be expected to fill in for such national security forces in the crisis area. The most suitable capability NATO has to perform ‘blue’ SFA under such circumstances are – as with executive policing – the Gendarmerie forces of its member states. These combine the proper policing background with the necessary military one for the security situation.

Development demand for police capabilities

As touched upon at the beginning of this NATO section, in response to the security challenges posed by Russia after the annexation of Crimea and the war in Eastern Ukraine, NATO is currently rebalancing its focal areas. After approximately 1990 ‘non-article 5 missions’ became the dominating reality for NATO, employing maritime, air, ground, and joint missions, resulting in a steady erosion of attention for Article 5-related issues. With the new manifestations of Russia in the international security environment, it has become clear that the original backbone of the Alliance, the Article 5 ‘an attack upon one will be considered as an attack upon all’ concept, has regained importance. This may be interpreted to lead to a diminishing of the readiness and willingness to perform non-article 5 operations, missions that create a possible demand for police capabilities.

However, in parallel with the developments on the eastern flanks, the southern members are dealing with the effects of prolonged and complex crises in the Middle East, North and sub-Saharan Africa, and Southwest Asia. Since instability in the international security environment is expected to be a remaining factor, non-article 5 operations may be expected to remain an important focus for NATO. Not above (deterrence and defence) Article 5 scenarios, but next to those, both being of the utmost importance for the long-term interests and goals of NATO. Several decades of non-article 5 crisis response operations have taught NATO that such crises cannot be solved by solely addressing the effects that create (perceived) direct or even indirect threats to NATO members. In order to achieve durable and sustainable stability in such crises, root causes must be determined and addressed in close cooperation with local stakeholders and international partners in a Joint Interagency Multinational Public (JIMP) setting. More often than not, this approach will necessarily include some form of Security Sector Reform, quite possibly also involving activities in the field of the ‘police’.

Required police capabilities for missions

For NATO, both Stability Policing and (temporary) blue SFA should preferably be performed by Gendarmerie-type forces, a relatively scarce commodity within the overall set of capabilities. Taking into account the security situation surrounding the European part of NATO territory and the (forthcoming) fact that NATO will continue its (involvement in) non-article 5 crisis response operations and cooperative security activities, it is highly feasible that NATO in the near and middle future will continue to approach the Netherlands with specific requests for the deployment of its Royal Marechaussee capabilities.

The actual capabilities that NATO requires depend on the international cross-border security situation in the first place. As has been argued in the first part of this chapter, the European security environment is changing and will continue to do so. Current inter and intrastate conflicts prove to be persistent, resulting in regional instability and evolving spill-over effects to NATO territory, thus creating a growing need for:

NATO has moved to capability thinking instead of unit thinking, meaning that along the ‘End – Ways – Means’ approach, the Alliance arrives at the needed contributions from the member states. After establishing to what End a mission will be employed or a specific operation will be conducted, the Ways to achieve that goal can be developed. Once the Ways have been developed, the Means needed to conduct that approach can be determined. Instead of using organic units, that by default will be less optimally suited for the specifically developed Ways to achieve the mission’s End, NATO hopes to receive tailor-made assets that exactly fit the tasks at hand. Naturally, somewhere in the Force Generation process for a mission, capability still must be quantified for more detailed planning purposes across the board.

So how does one approach the issue of the required police capabilities? As indicated before, NATO distinguishes between 5 police capabilities that MP/Gendarmerie Forces should harbour:

The regular Military Police certainly harbour the first four capabilities, whereas Gendarmerie Forces harbour them all. Given the fact that the latter form a scarce commodity (due to their regular essential national security tasks), NATO tends to lean towards a functional division, employing MP for the traditional capabilities 1-4, but reserving Gendarmerie Forces for capabilities 4 and 5. Interviews with senior experts at high NATO echelon learn that this functional division has not yet been implemented, but seems to be the way ahead.[198] In case of the Netherlands Gendarmerie Force, as will be discussed in section 3.1, bidding for Stability Policing and Guarding & Securing on the one hand enables the KMar to employ its specific strengths while on the other hand helping NATO in a relative niche that is rather difficult to fill. The same goes for ‘blue’ SFA, should that come into view for a specific mission.

NATO is not involved in the procedures to select staff. As seen above, NATO formulates the needs it has for a specific mission along the Ends –Ways –Means approach. Means in this case can also be read as ‘a headquarters staff to be filled’. Mostly NATO will use a framework nation or unit (like the HQ of 1 German Netherlands Corps) for such headquarters, filling the larger part of the organisation table. This body can then be augmented with individuals or small staff elements from other countries, thus filling the staff. For all functions in the staff job descriptions will be drafted. Troop-contributing nations bid for functions on the basis of such job descriptions.

When NATO is contemplating whether to deploy forces for a mission, this is obviously no surprise for the member states since they are all involved in that process in the North Atlantic Council and the permanent representations. What usually happens is that countries will be sounded out as to their willingness to actually participate in the mission and even in what order of shape and size. Although politically completely logical, this sounding out can also hamper proper reasoning along the Ends –Ways – Means approach, since at this point nations can hardly know what will be the exact ‘tailor-made’ need. The purpose is largely political, seeing who is serious enough to embark on the mission and who will provide ‘political support’ but no Means. At least it gives NATO a feeling for the ball park figure of probable troops and materiel. All of this is mostly done through the standing political line between capitals and NATO HQ through the national ambassadors (assisted by the permanent military representations) at the NATO HQ.

Once the decision is taken to launch a mission, the force generation process starts in earnest. The standing military line will now be used more strongly. From Strategic Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium,[199] NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR)[200] leads the command of missions, issuing strategic military direction to his sub-ordinate commanders. SHAPE HQ leads the process of force generation and communicates through the National Military Representatives in the HQ, who in turn communicate with their respective Ministries of Defence. SHAPE is the highest level where subject-matter expertise on (military) policing is present, the Provost Marshall at SHAPE, a position that is currently held by the Netherlands, is also the special staff officer ‘police’ for SACEUR.

1.6 Sub-conclusion

This chapter outlined the future demand for police capabilities from the EU, UN, OSCE and NATO, given the international security situation. The EU, UN and the OSCE have an increasing demand for police deployment. NATO, although policing is not one of its core tasks, is prepared to provide police capabilities in situations when no other actors are present in a crisis area. The number of UN peacekeeping operations that have police components has increased and so has the size of these police components. The EU tends to deploy police staff in smaller numbers and in smaller sized operations than was the case in the 1990s, but, just as is the case with the UN and OSCE, there is a serious gap between the demand and supply of police capabilities. This is true for capabilities needed for the EU’s CSDP missions, but for EU’s border management agency Frontex, human resources shortages have become increasingly serious. In the case of EU, UN and OSCE, there is not only a human resources mismatch in numbers, but also concerning competencies, expertise and the quality of available police capabilities.

The increasing demand for policing capabilities reflects a changing European security environment, with ongoing instability and conflicts on both the southern and eastern flanks of Europe. Many capacity building and SSR efforts by the international community focus on these regions and further south in Africa. On top of that, the current European migration crisis has created an urgent need for expertise in guarding borders and public order management in South and South Eastern Europe. Policing and police reform have gained weight in EU and UN crisis management operations and in these organisations’ efforts in enhancing the rule of law in conflict regions. The increasing complexity of police mandates in missions and the multi-dimensional approach to security sector reform and other forms of crisis management ask for the deployment of high quality experts and senior staff. Operational capacity for the maintenance of law and order is less suitable for capacity-building missions and is also less scarce, with the exception of policing units that can rapidly be deployed by the UN, EU and NATO.

When it comes to more specific capabilities that are needed, in the case of the UN there has been a shift to operating in more volatile operating conditions, implicating the need for adequately trained staff. Next to technical competencies, pedagogical and cultural adaptation skills, and political and conflict sensitivity are of importance for staff to be deployed. There has been a scarcity of French speaking capacity to be deployed in EU and UN missions in Francophone Africa and the desire to deploy more female police staff is expressed in relation to both the UN and OSCE. Border control and organised crime expertise have, among other fields of expertise, been mentioned as both being very relevant and scarce. NATO tends to favour its gendarmerie-type police forces above its regular Military Police, both for its executive policing activities and for the (exceptional) cases of NATO performing ‘blue’ SFA. The OSCE currently does not permit the deployment of military staff that are on active service, and therefore focuses more on civil police as a source of supply.

The different IOs identify similar causes for the mismatch between demand and supply for police capabilities. Recruitment problems are inherent in the police having to fulfil normal duties within national borders. Especially federal or decentralised police structures in donor countries, where decisions to deliver police capacity are made at regional levels, can hamper recruitment. Also a secondment to an international mission is not (yet) part of a national career path for (higher-ranked) police officers, and is sometimes even considered to be a disruption to one’s career. This is different for gendarmerie personnel. In many cases deployment in missions is based on voluntary decisions. Military (gendarmerie-type) police is again the exception to the rule here. Another issue is the rotation of personnel, which can have a negative effect on in-mission effectiveness. For the optimal effectiveness of mentoring and reforming activities in EU, UN or OSCE operations, rotation cycles of police deployment should be at least 12 months.

Several ways of bridging the gap between demand and supply have been suggested. More direct contacts between mission leadership and Dutch management of police staff deployment can help in identifying the most urgent needs and also in promoting what the Netherlands can offer. Also, the representation of Netherlands Police or KMar at the IOs’ headquarters or secretariats, be it as part of a Permanent Representation or as police advisors within the IOs’ administrations, can be effective in shortening communication lines and getting a better grip on (the results of and the possibilities for) police deployment.