Table Of ContentWhat Should armieS do?
What is an army today? Who is a soldier today? What does an army do for its
nation? In this book Dr Jack Clarke asks as well as answers the critical question
of what military forces should do, and he further provides exceptional insights
to these important issues. His book is among the first to focus on the unique and
growing role of armed forces within the borders of nation-states.
Jeffrey d. mcCausland, uS army War College, uSa
As highly mobile and broadly capable elements, militaries are becoming the force
of choice to address an ever-expanding set of complex and nuanced domestic crises.
Dr Jack Clarke, who earned his spurs as a Special Forces officer, combines his
operational and academic perspectives into a most thoughtful and timely exploration
of the roles and missions of armed forces in support of national civil authorities. This
is an intricate and delicate topic, and Dr Clarke approaches it with plain language
and deep wisdom. This title is a must-read for anyone who is interested in how
militaries will, or should, behave in our post-Cold War, post-9/11 world.
admiral eric t. olson, u.S. Navy (retired); Former Commander, united States
Special operations Command
This is both a wise and an unsettling book. It posits that western armies will spend
much more of their energy contributing to homeland tasks and will have to develop
new skills to cope with the demands made of them. This is not a book for classical
strategists, who won’t like it. It is a book for military realists who will see in it a
clear-eyed vision of the future where armies will have to think and act differently.
It is a new way of looking at military power.
michael Clarke, royal united Services institute, uK
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What Should armies do?
armed Forces and Civil Security
JohN l. ClarKe
The George C. Marshall Center for
Transnational Security Studies, Germany
© John l. Clarke 2014
all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
John l. Clarke has asserted his right under the Copyright, designs and Patents act, 1988,
to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
ashgate Publishing limited ashgate Publishing Company
Wey Court east 110 Cherry Street
union road Suite 3-1
Farnham Burlington, Vt 05401-3818
Surrey, Gu9 7Pt uSa
england
www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
a catalogue record for this book is available from the British library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Clarke, John l. (John louie), 1952-
What should armies do? : armed forces and civil security / by John l. Clarke.
pages cm
includes bibliographical references and index.
iSBN 978-1-4724-4526-1 (hardback : alk. paper)—iSBN 978-1-4724-4528-5 (ebook)—
iSBN 978-4724-4527-8 (epub) 1. Civil defense—europe. 2. Civil defense—united
States. 3. europe—armed Forces—Civic action. 4. united States—armed Forces—Civic
action. 5. europe—defenses. 6. armies—organization. 7. Civil-military relations. 8.
National security. i. title.
ua926.C552 2014
363.34’6094—dc23
2014015518
iSBN 9781472445261 (hbk)
iSBN 9781472445278 (ebk-PdF)
iSBN 9781472445285 (ebk-ePuB)
V
Printed in the united Kingdom by henry ling limited,
at the dorset Press, dorchester, dt1 1hd
Contents
Foreword by Lieutenant General Keith W. Dayton vii
Preface ix
1 Introduction: What Should Armies Do? 1
2 Armed Forces in Civil Security: The Western Tradition 11
3 Contemporary Transatlantic Defense Challenges 25
4 Trends in Modern Military Organizations 43
5 Key Considerations for Armies in Civil Security 57
6 Supporting the Civil Authority 77
7 What’s Next? 99
8 What’s Best? Force Nominations for Contemporary
Security Challenges 107
9 A Specialized Force for Civil Security? 123
10 What Armies Should Do? 143
Index 149
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Foreword
Lieutenant General Keith W. Dayton, USA (Retired), Director,
The George C. Marshall Center for Transnational Security Studies
Dr. Jack Clarke’s book arrives at a crucial period in the life cycle of armed forces
worldwide. Armed forces are everywhere performing an ever-expanding range of
tasks. His examination of the changing requirements for armed forces, and how
those armed forces are responding to these changes, could hardly be more topical.
Every day brings fresh evidence of the need for a new, detailed and groundbreaking
look at what we want and need for our armed forces to do, particularly on the
home front. This book fills that role in a decidedly exemplary way.
Not only does Dr. Clarke examine in detail the kinds of roles and tasks that
armies should do, but he also identifies those that they should not carry out in
democracies. Of great interest and importance to scholars and policy makers alike
is his focus on the mission and functions that soldiers carry out inside the borders
of their own countries. These defense support roles to civil authority are, as he
notes, areas of extraordinary growth in what we ask of soldiers. He performs a
great service in providing a clear taxonomy of these roles and tasks that will aid
policy makers and military leaders in making hard decisions about what they want
armies to do in a resource-constrained environment.
His work is among the first to take a hard look at how military forces are engaging
in many non-kinetic military tasks, particularly with regard to transnational threats
and challenges that affect the domestic law, order and stability of nearly all states.
Increasingly, soldiers are being asked to carry out missions once reserved for law
enforcement, emergency response and other agencies. Dr. Clarke looks at the
financial, legal and organizational aspects of these new tasks, as well as examining
how these roles affect the very nature of armed forces and their members. He
perceptively asks, and answers, the questions of, given these new roles, who is a
soldier and what is an army—and how this is likely to evolve as policy makers
place more demands on them.
In addition to providing policy makers, scholars and military leaders with a new
paradigm for thinking about what we want our militaries to be and do, Dr. Clarke also
looks at and evaluates a number of solutions to these new requirements, including
the development of specialized military formations for many civil security tasks. He
takes a close look at a number of these kinds of units and provides an evaluation of
their utility with regard to these emerging security missions.
Dr. Clarke’s book is an essential guidebook to the challenges we face from
an ever-evolving range of security and defense threats. His work will inform and
shape the debate as to what we want, and need, our soldiers and other military
viii What Should Armies Do?
personnel to do, not only abroad but at home as well. His book sets the standard
for clear thinking about where our armed forces are going and what they will be
doing as the times we live in demand ever more of them.
Preface
Armies, and the soldiers who serve in them, are more likely to be involved in non-
military activities than in combat. This is the essential reality which has motivated
me to write this book—to explore, and learn from, the kinds of roles, missions,
functions and tasks that decision-makers increasingly ask military forces to carry
out, particularly within a domestic context.
I have been interested in operations on the “home” front since I helped the U.S.
Army develop its doctrine for both domestic operations and peace support operations
some two decades ago. But my experience in domestic contingencies goes back
some 40 years. As a professional soldier, I well recall the first time I was issued
live ammunition for an operation—but it wasn’t for a combat operation against an
enemy. In the summer of 1974 I had just reported in to the 82d Airborne Division
as a very green second lieutenant; that was the summer of the Boston busing riots,
which resulted in widespread violence and for a time seemed to threaten to spread
out of control. My parachute unit was placed on alert for deployment and issued that
live ammunition—for potential use against my fellow citizens.
The idea that I might have to use deadly force against civilians etched a stark
frame of reference in my mind that has stayed with me since. The questions posed
by that potential deployment are the same today: What kinds of operations should
armed forces engage in at home? What are the appropriate roles and missions for
soldiers acting in support of civil authorities? My work on writing Army doctrine
started the process of putting these thoughts into writings, which took on a new
importance, as so many things related to security did, in the aftermath of the
attacks of September 11, 2001. That event also brought home a phrase in the oath
of office of a U.S. military officer: that we swear to defend our nation “against all
enemies, foreign and domestic,” a distinction I had not really considered before.
Those attacks, and the actions which followed them, such as the deployment
of soldiers armed with assault weapons in airports, triggered, if that is the word,
my interest in looking at the historical context of these operations in a transatlantic
context. My work at the George C. Marshall Center for Transnational Security
in Garmisch, Germany, where I serve as Professor and Director of the Program
on Civil Security, furthered this interest, which resulted in my first book on this
subject, Armies in Homeland Security: American and European Perspectives,
published in 2006.
That book was descriptive in nature, an attempt to capture what a dozen different
countries across the Atlantic, both within and without NATO, were doing with the
armed forces at home. It sought to describe not only the kinds of operations but
also the political and legal context for them. But I realized that description was
not enough; in an era in which political leaders ask, and military leaders agree,
