Understanding European Crisis Response Operations

Abstract

Undertaking military operations is a complicated business. Military power can only be a rational instrument of policy as long as it can deliver the intended results according to a pre-specified plan. Harnessing the use of force to serve the ends of policy constitutes the essence of military strategy. Having said that, it is equally well known that any strategy can be thwarted by a multitude of factors. ‘No plan of operations’, Helmuth von Moltke the Elder famously noted, ‘extends with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main strength’ (q.i. Hughes 1993: 45). Yet it is not only the confrontation with an independently thinking adversary that complicates the making of strategy. In war, Carl von Clausewitz (1832/1976: 119) argued, ubiquitous friction causes even the simplest thing to become difficult. Increasingly, the armed forces of European states have experienced that the infamous ‘fog of war’ applies not only to the realm of military history but also to the contemporary operating environment. While policy objectives can range from the conquest of territory to the keeping of the peace, all military operations ultimately concern the exercise of power — with all struggles and unpredictability this entails.