Comparison of the British and Canadian CIMIC and the U.S. CMO Doctrines to the NATO CIMIC Doctrine

This thesis is intended to contribute to the Turkish armed forces’ development of a national doctrine for civilmilitary cooperation (CIMIC). CIMIC doctrine is an increasingly significant component of peacekeeping, peaceenforcement, and even combat operations. Since the end of the cold war era, the number of conflicts rose steadily, and internal conflicts became more salient to international peace and security. In addition, winning in the Clausewitzian sense—simply obtaining territory and/or political, economic, and social concessions—is now of less interest than winning “hearts and minds.” Thus, during a multilateral peacekeeping operation, whether UN or NATO, the lack of an overarching strategy of civil-military cooperation (CIMIC) will undermine the overall effectiveness of the mission. Turkey is in a geo-political position to make a significant contribution to the stabilization of conflicts in its region, and recently developed a series of initiatives aimed at increasing its effectiveness in peacekeeping operations. And in May 2005 the Turkish armed forces began to develop a civil-military cooperation doctrine. This thesis is intended to make a contribution to that doctrine. The thesis compares NATO doctrine with British, Canadian, and U.S. doctrines, and particularly in relation to their implementation in the cases of Bosnia and Kosovo. The thesis argues that there are variations among the NATO-member doctrines that may negatively affect “compatibility, interchangeability, and commonality” issues in NATO operations. Turkey, must take those potential drawbacks into account during the doctrine development.