#41 Operational “Caveat Cancer” in Afghanistan: The Development of the Caveat Crisis in the NATO-led ISAF Mission, OPLAN Phases I-II

The following two blogs #41 and #42 will now together further elaborate on the ISAF’s Caveat Crisis in Afghanistan, by providing a description of the way in which the mission’s caveat problem developed over the course of the Security Assistance mission, increasing in both scope and severity as the operation progressed through the four fundamental phases of NATO’s Operational Plan (OPLAN) for the mission. Indeed, limitation and ban rules in the Rules of Engagement (ROE) of ISAF national contingents were actively and obstructively present during all five of the OPLAN’s phases, from the very genesis of the ISAF operation in December 2001 until its complete termination in December 2014. These included the phases of: I) Assessment and Preparation; II) Geographic Expansion; III) Stabilisation; IV) Transition; and lastly V) Redeployment. These blogs will provide a concise overview of the diverse difficulties posed by these national caveat restrictions on the ISAF Force during each of these operational phases, in order to illustrate how the issue of heavy caveat imposition spread like a cancer, first politically in the Coalition of the Willing, and then operationally and tangibly across the mission in terms of both geography and time, with the caveat issue growing larger and generating more and more alarm in military and political quarters with the progression of each successive NATO-led phase until the final termination of the mission.

WAR ON TERROR: ISAF APPENDIX 10(b) – List of National Caveats Imposed on Armed Forces by the 8 NATO “Lead Nations” of ISAF Regional Commands in Afghanistan, 2002-2012

WAR ON TERROR: ISAF APPENDIX 10(b)   PDF List of National Caveats Imposed on Armed Forces by the 8 NATO “Lead Nations” of ISAF Regional Commands  in Afghanistan, 2002-2012   Dr Regeena Kingsley PDF – ISAF APPENDIX 10(b) List of National Caveats Imposed on Armed Forces by 8 NATO Lead Nations of ISAF Regional Commands in Afghanistan, 2002-2012 (41 pages)

WAR ON TERROR: ‘Triumphs after Trials’ Progress Report, 2001-2021

WAR ON TERROR: (THE DELIBERATE, PLANNED &/OR EXECUTED MASS-MURDER OF INNOCENT UNARMED CIVILIANS FOR ISLAMIST POLITICAL OR RELIGIOUS PURPOSES)   ‘Triumphs after Trials’ Progress Report 2001-2021    

WAR ON TERROR: ISAF APPENDIX 10(a) – Table Displaying Caveat-Free or Caveat-Fettered Forces of the 8 NATO/ISAF Lead Nations during 6 Crucial COIN Years, 2007-2012

WAR ON TERROR: ISAF APPENDIX 10(a)   PDF: Table Displaying Caveat-Free or Caveat-Fettered Forces of the 8 NATO/ISAF Lead Nations during 6 Crucial COIN Years, 2007-2012   Dr Regeena Kingsley PDF – ISAF APPENDIX 10(a) Table Displaying Caveat-Free or Caveat-Fettered Forces of the 8 ISAF Lead Nations during 6 Crucial COIN Years from 2007-2012 (4 pages)

#40 In Videos: An International, Multilateral, Political & Strategic Failure – The Fall of Kabul & the Lamentable Loss of the Anti-Terror & Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, 2001-2021

In Videos: The calamitous political and military decisions taken by short-sighted governments in multiple Capitals, to rapidly end the Afghan theatre of war in the overall and ongoing Global War on Terror, and the resulting and hugely consequential developments and events that followed on the ground for the country and the people of Afghanistan, that has shocked, changed, and threatened the entire world. Important videos.

#36 The Art of Government: Military Servants, Political Masters, ‘The People’ & the Purpose of the Military

What is the main purpose of the military? To deter, fight and win war both at home and abroad. As I have already outlined in the previous two blogs, Rules of Engagement (ROE) are the critical lynchpin, or key interconnecting devices, between the two separate and different political and security spheres of a nation during any armed conflict. ROE are binding political-military-legal orders given to national military forces by civilian national government officials, which clearly limit or restrict what the military can do on behalf of the nation, and in the name of the government, while actively deployed in a theatre of armed conflict. In most countries of the world, national armed forces are the military servants of the civilian masters in government. As such, and because of the changing nature and short-term tenure of governments of various and often rival political parties and ideologies, especially in liberal democratic countries, national armed forces are strictly apolitical and non-partisan. This blog will examine both the primary and secondary purposes of the military in every State, and the three kinds of wars national militaries usually engage in historically and today.

WAR ON TERROR: ISAF APPENDIX 8(b) – List of Known National Caveats Imposed on ISAF Major Force Units by TCNs in Afghanistan, 2001-2012

This list of ISAF Major Force Units constrained with national caveats by Lead and Supporting ISAF coalition TCNs was created based on the caveat information I gathered and compiled during the course of my doctoral research on the ISAF security assistance mission between 2008-2014, especially the data relating to the specific and various constraints imposed by caveat-imposing Troop Contributing Nations (TCNs) within the ISAF coalition on their deployed national armed forces, over the period of more than a decade of warfare in Afghanistan between December 2001 – December 2012.

#39 Farewell Fallen Friend: Democratic Afghan Republic, 2001-2021

The tricolour flag, leaders, military personnel, and civilian citizens of a dead democratic country, the Democratic Afghan Republic, abandoned to die by the American President Joe Biden, and assisted in this political, strategic and national tragedy, with profoundly dire security consequences in the global struggle against Islamist terrorism, by collectively complicit and complacent allies and leading intergovernmental organisations around the world, in their mutually shared if short-sighted preoccupation and desire for a fast and final end to the long but vital Afghan War against terror forces in Central-South Asia.

WAR ON TERROR: ISAF APPENDIX 7(b) – List of Known National Caveats by Category Imposed by ISAF TCNs on National Forces, December 2001- December 2012

This list of ISAF national caveats by category was created based on the caveat information I gathered and compiled during the course of my doctoral research on the ISAF security assistance mission between 2008-2014, especially the data relating to the specific and various constraints imposed by caveat-imposing Troop Contributing Nations (TCNs) within the ISAF coalition on their deployed national armed forces, over the period of more than a decade of warfare in Afghanistan between December 2001 – December 2012.

WAR ON TERROR: ISAF APPENDIX 7(a) – Table Displaying Known Caveat Categories Imposed by ISAF TCNs on National Forces, 2001-2012

This table displaying ISAF national caveats by category was created based on the caveat information I gathered and compiled during the course of my doctoral research on the ISAF security assistance mission between 2008-2014, especially the data relating to the specific and various constraints imposed by caveat-imposing Troop Contributing Nations (TCNs) within the ISAF coalition on their deployed national armed forces, over the period of more than a decade of warfare in Afghanistan between December 2001 – December 2012.