1st Honorable Winner United Navies

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Multinational naval forces offer unique capabilities to United Nations operations and often provide the only lifeline to forces ashore.

Rear Admiral Vijaya Kumar stood in the operations center of his flagship, the USS Jamestown, sur­rounded by his military staff and civilian advisors. The situation was deteriorating and demanded quick and resolute decisions—the consequences of which would be rninutely examined, by not only his own masters in New ^°rk but also the world’s hungry press.

T° sit out there 12 miles from the coast ^a°d do nothing was not an option; to 5|eam in, guns blazing and battle ensigns "ying, was equally out of the question— although his military mind found much avor with the latter. The situation required ^a firm but gentle hand, a combination of Trfiitary competence and diplomacy— ^a°t easy bedfellows, but these were the ^ecfiock of the strategic and tactical deci- ^Sl°ns he was called upon to make as the ^c°mmander of the United Nations Mar- 'fime Task Force.

The staff officers were well prepared

°^r his questions: Would the new mission

^rtleet with any resistance? Were the lat­i               ^J

¹ rules of engagement adequate to en- _t^Sare the safety of his ships? What did , ^e latest intelligence reports indicate?

leigh Burke (DDG-51)-class destroyer, modern, fast, and equipped with state-of-the-art technology, weapon sys­tems, and sensors. The Jamestown also had a communi­cations suite that enabled the admiral to speak on secure satellite circuits to stations worldwide. Opposite the flag­ship was a Nigerian Erin’mi-class corvette, the Abuja. Though operationally efficient and well-handled by her young captain, the Abuja was limited to line-of-sight com­munications on unsecure circuits. The other three war­ships of the group fell somewhere in between: a Royal Navy Type-42 destroyer, Chichester, a French A-69-class frigate, Commandant Poirot', and a Brazilian lnhauma- class frigate, Santo Andre.'

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^a jlity of the five ships in his task group? hat casualties or maintenance problems ere they suffering? How much fuel did they have left? hat was their maximum speed? What medical teams I ^ere on board? Were there any equipment incompatibil- _e'^es between individual units that would hamper the op- ^a,1°n? What media coverage could be expected?

^ A hundred admirals before him had asked their staffs ^{e s}ame questions, but this occasion held several com- ^Cations which few before had faced. The composition

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The mission for his small task force was most unusual. The operation for which the admiral’s ships were deployed was neither an exercise that had taken months to plan nor a carefully laid down sequence of events designed to test specific aspects of maritime operations. They were not on station to fight a war for which the majority of their mil­itary training had been directed. On the contrary. Admi­ral Kumar’s mission was to act as an agent for a distant organization that represented the wishes of the world s governments, a task which placed him with not a single

ber>1 ^r0ceedings / September 1993

47

master but 183.² Of course, only 15 of them had directly sanctioned the resolution which he was now implement­ing, and only five of these had special powers to autho­rize or prohibit the master plan, but in the eyes of this ex­perienced, professional seaman, even five bosses were four too many.

Logistic support for the group was more complex than with usual naval operations. Initially, his ships enjoyed the port facilities of JoJo for fuel and supplies.³ The in­creased tension ashore in the last week, however, made the port an unsafe maintenance and resupply base, and having lost this lifeline, the group came to rely on sup­port ships diverted into their area for “one off” replen­ishments. Even this was becoming precarious as nations were showing great reluctance to divert any additional units of their diminishing fleets to the operation. The ad­miral was only too aware that the lack of a dedicated re­fueling source jeopardized the continuing presence of his force. Fortunately, at the eleventh hour, South Africa of­fered the use of a tanker, which was due to arrive with the group by the end of the week.⁴

This operation differed from the many other missions the admiral had conducted. The most important difference was in command and control; this operation was under the day-to-day control of a Norwegian general ashore. The admiral and general had met and taken an instant liking to each other, but both expected the weeks and months ahead to be highly challenging. The general’s line of au­thority went directly to the U.N. Secretary-General in New York, a link not made any easier by the seven-hour time difference. All were aware that the U.N. headquarters in New York and the maritime and land commanders in the­ater needed to be fully conversant with one another’s thought processes to ensure the success of the operation. In order to maintain the chain of command, both mili­tary leaders relied on the round-the-clock watchkeeping organization in the New York headquarters; each hoped the newly established situation room would help resolve many of their coordination problems.

There were initial difficulties with communications and intelligence which seemed to be without any immediate solution. Nevertheless, the loan of portable satellite trans­mitters and receivers from the German government went a long way in keeping essential information flowing be­tween participants.⁵ The admiral and the general also would have liked a collective intelligence architecture, but the lack of compatible computer equipment and release sen­sitivities resulted in the establishment of a second rate, ad hoc infrastructure.

One month after the warships made their first ren­dezvous off the coast of Nardia, the task force had learned a great deal. The admiral instigated a punishing routine of training designed to work the ships as a group, and— to everyone’s surprise—initial rivalries and prejudices were cast aside. The common knowledge that any one ship’s survival might depend one day upon the efficiency of an­other fueled a fervent desire to find out how each ship op­erated. Every aspect of interoperability was exercised, and surprisingly few unresolvable conflicts remained. Standard operating procedures were established to meet a number

of contingencies, broadly based on well-established NA tactics with which many were already conversant exercises—such as cross-deck operations between the tj helicopters in the force, boat transfers, and light jackst₍ exercises—served the dual purposes of giving each shi[ command team an opportunity to visit others to disci concepts and to see one another’s strengths and weakness at first hand.⁶

The directive that brought the multinational group ships together tasked them to monitor the flow of trai into and out of the port of JoJo.⁷ Part of that included shj ments of material in support of the U.N. operation asho and the task of ensuring its safe passage on the last leg' its journey fell to the task group.⁸ Additionally, the phas< array radar of the Jamestown was ideally suited to tr: the many air movements in the vicinity, and a useful woj ing relationship was established with local air-traffjl control authorities.^{9                1}

A stalemate ashore and irrefutable evidence from telligence sources that both agressors were contini to receive munitions by land and by sea prompted U.N. Security Council to pass a new resolution, gi’ the naval task group the right to stop and search ves bound for Narnia.¹⁰ The embarked helicopters pro themselves a godsend for the subsequent boarding o ations, supplementing their valuable surveillance ro Their flexibility was also amply demonstrated just a v before when a civilian aircraft, chartered by the U.h transport equipment into the country, crash-landec miles from the capital, and both helicopters were the rescue units on the scene, delivering immediate med aid to the injured and pinpointing the crashed aircr; position for the rescue teams on the ground.¹²

Up to this point, 30 boardings had been conducted,¹ no illegal cargo discovered. The admiral hoped that was evidence of a deterrent effect on would-be smuggl' rather than the inherent inefficiency in necessarily sh) and superficial searches of merchant vessels by untrai sailors. In either case, reports from the beach sugges¹ that the embargo was beginning to take effect. The si] ation ashore was becoming more and more unstable, pi because of a stemming of the flow of arms and pa¹ because the rival factions had become increasingly sk tical of the U.N.’s ability to broker a peaceful settlefl¹] to their dispute. Frustration had been vented from b¹ sides on the middlemen—the observers and troops ing blue helmets. One soldier was killed, and several servers narrowly escaped with their lives when a moi round landed in their outpost. Each party leader blai the other, but both admitted they could no longer vo¹ for the peacekeepers’ safety.

The Secretary-General made the decision to pull out force; however, the safety of flights into and out of only serviceable airport could not be guaranteed, and land border was more than 300 miles away through tentially hostile territory. The only remaining cours' action was the one now capturing the attention of the miral’s staff: a seaborne evacuation.¹³

Fiction? Yes, but each event in this scenario is b on actual maritime operations conducted under the

48

Proceedings / SeptembC

This fictional scenario has a real-life antecedent—here, Canadian and Cambodian observers, in a Soviet-made ship, patrol the Gulf of Siam for the United Nations.

of the receiving nation. Once a transport aircraft has landed its passengers, it can provide them with no further sup­port. Naval vessels, however, can remain on station for long periods and can offer a wide range of additional ca­pabilities in very short order. Should the need arise to withdraw forces from an area in a situation of rising ten­sion, airlift from a hostile environment might not be pos­sible, leaving the only way out by land or sea.

In full acceptance of the argument that the final suc­cess or failure of an operation hinges on the conduct of business beyond the high-water mark, the historically based scenario clearly illustrates that naval forces enjoy unique capabilities and have an important role to play in the in­creasingly complex operations demanded in the execution of a U.N. resolution.