READY FOR TODAY – EVOLVING FOR TOMORROW
BRIDGING THE SECURITY GAP:
STABILITY POLICING IN A
NON-ARTICLE 5 ENVIRONMENT
Captain Patrick Crossland, British Army
The need for NATO to be equipped with a military capability of civil policing became
apparent during the 1997 Stabilisation Force (SFOR) operation in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. Allied Command Europe saw the space in the field of public order and
security. Known as the security gap, it was the grey area between the SFOR military
capabilities and the UN International Police Force mission, with no executive powers, as
well as the capabilities of the local police forces, who often either lacked the capability or
were unwilling to enforce the law.
conflict process, concentrates on the
requirements of the civil populace.
Stability Policing, a concept described
throughout the NATO AJP 3 doctrinal
series, is defined as a set of police
related activities for the restoration and/
or upholding of the public order, security
and rule of law as well as the protection
of human rights through supporting and,
when necessary, temporarily replacing,
the indigenous police forces, when the
latter are either unable or unwilling to
perform the function themselves.
In this grey area, no party either
could or wanted to take responsibility.
Subsequently the gap was bridged by a
military unit capable of performing some
of the typical tasks of a civil police force
and this was to be known as the NATO
Multinational Specialised Unit (MSU).
The MSU was made up of gendarmerie
forces, which are military forces with a full
police capability. Since then, this concept
has been put into practise several times
and the deployed MSUs have received
the contribution of military police forces
and infantry forces trained for the specific
mission.
A key example of this is the Kosovo
Force MSU; KFOR MSU is based
in Pristina and is composed entirely
of Italian Carabinieri. It provides the
KFOR commander with a capability for
security operations including criminal
intelligence, crowd and riot control
as well as information gathering and
assessment. The MSU can also provide
advice, training and support to local
police forces on a wide range of policing
issues if required. These include law
enforcement, combating organised crime
and terrorism, war crime investigation,
crime prevention and public security.
The MSU is commanded by an Italian
Carabinieri officer who advises the
KFOR commander on all civilian police
matters. The idea itself of military forces
performing police duties to cover the
‘security gap’ has evolved up to the
current concept of Stability Policing (SP).
What is Stability Policing and
how it is conducted?
The concept of SP, targeted within the
stabilisation and reconstruction post-
Security Policing falls within the Security
Sector Reform covered in the AJP-1 and
AJP-3 doctrinal series, which entails
reforming security organisations so
that they can deliver an effective role in
providing internal and external security
with accountability, as well as the military
assistance to civil authorities function
envisaged in AJP-3.4, that may require
involvement in civil security tasks. This
includes operations to maintain local law
and order until appropriate civil authorities
can resume control of the task. Despite
this, SP can’t be compressed within
the confines of civil policing since it can
embrace such a wide spectrum of activity
that relates to other agencies or services
that are most likely to occur. Stability
Policing is conducted in unstable areas
where NATO in engaged, throughout the
spectrum of conflict ranging from peace
to high intensity conflict.
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