WAR ON TERROR: OEF APPENDIX – List of Known National Caveats Imposed by OEF TCNs on National Armed Forces Deployed to Afghanistan, 2001-2012

This list displays the ‘national caveat’ limitation and prohibition rules known to have been imposed on national security forces, contributed and deployed to Afghanistan to operate as part of the U.S.-led Operational Enduring Freedom (OEF) mission, by the governments of OEF Troop Contributing Nations (TCNs) Germany, Canada, Spain and Turkey.

This PhD research in the academic domain of Defence & Strategic Studies, and undertaken over a period of 7 years from 2008-2014, was the first, in-depth, academic examination of the issue of ‘national caveats’ and their effects within multinational security operations. The research focused on the multinational NATO-led ISAF campaign in Afghanistan, and examined and analysed the extent and tangible impact of ISAF national caveats on ‘unity of effort’ and ‘operational effectiveness’ within the ISAF COIN mission, over the period of ten years from 2002-2012.

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

A chronological table displaying the Free Democracies’ failures, successes and stalemates in the global campaign against Islamic Extremist terrorism (the ungodly and cowardly mass-murder and terrorisation of innocent civilians for politico-religious aims), otherwise known as the Global War on Terror(ists) (GWOT), ever since the world-changing, Afghanistan-based, Al-Qaeda terror attack on the American homeland and its native and foreign-born citizens, more than two decades ago, on 11 September 2001.

#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 (GWOT), 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.

#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, a young country abandoned to die by the American President Joe Biden. This was a needless abandonment and death, and a political, strategic and national tragedy, with profoundly dire security consequences in the global struggle against Islamic Extremist terrorism (the ungodly and cowardly mass-murder and terrorisation of innocent civilians for politico-religious aims). The Democrat Biden-Harris Administration was assisted in this singularly unwise withdrawal from Democratic Afghanistan by collectively complicit and complacent European allies and leading intergovernmental organisations around the world including NATO and the UN, 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.

ISAF – COIN APPENDIX 1 – Insurgency: History, Definitions, Characteristics, Psychological Nature, Warfare & Life Cycle

In a previous blog ‘#31 BACKGROUND – COIN Warfare & the ISAF’s COIN Strategy: Battle for the Majority Population’, I briefly outlined the central theoretical doctrine and most important principles of Counter-Insurgency (COIN) warfare. This appendix consists of a more in-depth examination of insurgencies and is offered in the hope of supplying important additional information to political and military practitioners, with regard to insurgent armed rebellions and the politico-military counter-insurgency warfare required by governing authorities and their civilian and military forces to quell them. In particular, this appendix will address: (1) insurgency as a common form of warfare in human history; (2) several definitions of insurgency; (3) the central characteristics of insurgencies; (4) the psychological nature of insurgency warfare, and the 4 psychological effects insurgents seek to inflict on established governing authorities; (5) the 3 main forms of warfare used by insurgents, namely terrorism, guerrilla tactics and conventional war; (6) the life cycle of an insurgency, from beginning to end; and lastly (7) the inherent uniqueness of each particular insurgency.

#24 Laws of War Brief (Part 1): What is the Law of Armed Conflict & Customary International Law?

#24 Laws of War Brief (Part 1): What is the Law of Armed Conflict & Customary International Law?   – Dr Regeena Kingsley   ‘How the malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous.’[1] – Winston S. Churchill   In previous blogs I have presented case-studies of Multinational Operations (MNOs) in Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo, in which participating national forces – bound by government-imposed national caveat constraints – failed to use lethal force at the critical and necessary moments in order to fully uphold or pursue the primary security objectives of their security mission mandates. In

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