– NATO...Are Its Final Days Just Ahead

NATO's Peacekeeping Problem
By Philip Shishkin

The white walls of a small chapel here where six Serbian monks used to pray are blackened by soot, dark rectangles still marking the spots where icons were consumed by fire. Last year, an angry Albanian mob attacked the medieval monastery. German troops guarding it had orders not to shoot and weren't trained in riot control, so they evacuated the monks and let the crowd run wild.

Perhaps a bullet in the leg would have scared away the mob, speculates Father Benedikt, a 28-year-old monk, as he walks through the tall grass next to the destroyed church. "You have the power," he says of his German protectors. "So why don't you use it?"

Peacekeeping operations led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, such as the ones in Kosovo and Afghanistan, often have been hobbled by a problem unique to international forces: Troops from different countries don't all follow the same rules of engagement. Many face national restrictions on the kinds of operations they can undertake. Until recently, for instance, troops from many nations in Kosovo weren't allowed to engage in riot control.

At a time when NATO aspires to evolve into a global peacekeeping team from its narrower Cold War mandate of containing the Soviet threat, its military planners have focused on national restrictions as one of the most limiting factors in allied operations.

The restrictions, which came to light in Kosovo last year, also are presenting problems in Afghanistan, where NATO is reinforcing its 8,000-strong multinational force ahead of potentially volatile parliamentary elections scheduled for September.

In Kosovo, military officials say they have fixed the most damaging problems, but some issues remain. Some nations require a 12-hour notice before deploying forces outside their designated geographical area. Others can't use tear gas or water cannons during riot-control operations. The rules on the use of weapons still vary from country to country.

"It's kind of like having a basketball team, and they practice and practice and practice for six months," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said this year at a NATO summit in France. "When it comes to game time, one or two say, 'We are not going to play.' "

When Kosovo, an autonomous Serbian province under United Nations administration, erupted in March 2004 in the worst sectarian violence in years, NATO's force of 18,000 troops drawn from nearly 40 countries couldn't put up a solid defense. Buildings burned, Albanians clashed with Serbs, and crowds rampaged through the countryside.

Large-scale violence hasn't recurred since, but the security situation is once again getting tense as the province braces for international talks on possible independence from Serbia, expected to start later this year. In early July, three bombs went off in Pristina, Kosovo's capital, including one next to the U.N. headquarters.

One of the problems that surfaced during the March riots was a set of rules confining national contingents to their assigned geographical areas, to avoid confusion among commands. That meant reinforcements couldn't be rushed to a trouble spot from elsewhere, and an outnumbered contingent couldn't count on speedy help from other peacekeepers.

In the divided town of Mitrovica -- where tensions between Albanians and Serbs have always been high -- an Albanian mob razed and burned a Serb village next to a French-run military base. The French troops evacuated the villagers but didn't protect their homes. "They told us they didn't have enough soldiers," says Milorad Radivoevic, head of the village council, whose house was destroyed. "The people are very angry at KFOR," the acronym for NATO's Kosovo Force.

In response to such incidents, military planners have been trying to dismantle the geographical restrictions, and routinely send battalions across area boundaries to practice backup missions. They also have designated certain sensitive areas, effectively authorizing the soldiers guarding them to use all necessary force to repel attackers.

These and other changes -- including riot-control training and more-uniform guidelines on use of force -- could be instructive for the West as it increasingly relies on multinational coalitions to police global hot spots.

"What we are doing here in Kosovo could be used as a model to look at when doing coalition operations," says U.S. Army Brig. Gen. William Wade, who commands one of the four multinational brigades in Kosovo.

In a move typical of the changes adopted by other contingents, the German forces in Kosovo have ripped up their old military doctrines. Until recently, German national regulations prevented the military from engaging in riot control -- a prohibition stemming from a post-World War II drive to limit the military's powers. In response to Kosovo, Germany changed these rules and lifted restrictions on the use of chemical agents, such as pepper spray, against crowds.

German Brig. Gen. Norbert Stier, who took charge of the multinational brigade in Prizren after last year's violence, explains that before the changes, German troops "had nothing they could do between blocking people with their bodies and using lethal force," so they retreated.

A few miles away, Father Benedikt and his fellow monks have returned to their ruined monastery, surrounded by coils of barbed wire and German watchtowers. He has received repeated assurances the monastery will be defended should there be another attack. But the trust in international peacekeepers has diminished so much across Kosovo that the monk isn't completely at peace. "I have a little confidence, but not too much," he says.