A lack of precision characterises the UN's ambitions for southern Lebanon which do not constitute a clear concept of operations for military planners, writes Tom Clonan
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, designed to bring about a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hizbullah, is quite vague about the precise role that a beefed-up multinational force might play in south Lebanon in the coming weeks and months.
It is this ambiguity as to the rules of engagement governing any international military intervention in south Lebanon that has led to foot-dragging on the part of high-profile potential troop contributors such as France.
Teams of military experts gathered at the UN's Headquarters in New York yesterday to try and translate the highly ambiguous and aspirational Resolution 1701 from the fuzzy logic of obscure diplomatic language into a clear and concise military mission statement.
The main difficulty with the wording of Resolution 1701 revolves around the issue of the disarmament of Hizbullah.
Paragraph 3 of the resolution exhorts the Lebanese government to "exercise its full sovereignty" south of the Litani river, "so that there will be no weapons without the consent of the government of Lebanon and no authority other than the government of Lebanon".
Paragraph 8 of the resolution goes on to call for "the establishment between the Blue Line [the Israeli-Lebanese border] and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and of Unifil".
The repeated use of passive stock phrases within the resolution, such as "so that there will be no weapons" and "an area free of any armed personnel", implies that Hizbullah will - somehow - no longer have an armed presence south of the Litani river in the coming weeks.
At no point in the text of Resolution 1701 is there any explicit mention of exactly by whom, or by what means, might Hizbullah be disarmed - even though the UN document exhorts at paragraph 8 the "full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords and of UN Resolutions 1559 and 1680 that require the disarmament of all groups in the Lebanon".
Even at its most clearly stated terms of reference, Resolution 1701 merely implies that the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) ought to disarm Hizbullah and hints that they ought to be assisted in this enterprise - in unspecified ways - by a large multinational force.
In the opening declarations of the resolution, its authors welcome "the assistance of additional forces from Unifil as needed to facilitate the entry of the Lebanese Armed Forces into the region and to restate its intention to strengthen the LAF with material as needed to enable it to perform its duties".
This vague promise of an unknown quantity of "additional forces as needed", along with the equally enigmatic promise of unspecified "material" for the LAF, does not constitute a clear concept of operations for military planners.
At paragraph 11 of Resolution 1701, the UN finally gives some specific instructions as to the role - in terms of disarmament - that might be played by the 15,000 or so multinational troops to be deployed to Lebanon in the coming weeks. At subsection B of paragraph 11, it states that these forces will "accompany and support the LAF as they deploy throughout the south".
At subsection E, the resolution states that these forces will "assist the Lebanese forces in taking steps towards the establishment of the area as referred to in paragraph 8". These imprecise phrases are highly subjective and open to interpretation.
With the Israelis on the one hand having very high expectations of the UN in terms of its configuration as a robust combat force - ready, willing and able to disarm Hizbullah - and the Lebanese government on the other hand seeking to appease a resurgent Hizbullah, the weak wording of the resolution in regard to disarmament speaks loudly of compromise and fudge.
The resolution therefore - no matter how carefully scrutinised by military planners - does not form the basis for a clear set of "rules of engagement" for any proposed UN force that is likely to be accepted by all sides to the dispute.
Paragraph 12 of the resolution - from the point of view of military planners - is highly problematic. It states that the proposed UN force will be authorised "to take all necessary action in areas of deployment of its forces to ensure that its areas of operations are not utilised for hostile activities, and without prejudice to the responsibility of the government of Lebanon to protect civilians under imminent threat of violence".
This catch-all paragraph tacked on at the end of the resolution appears to give the force the status of a UN "Chapter 7" peace enforcement mission, with carte blanche to engage in combat with either Hizbullah or the Israeli Defence Forces in the event of a renewal of hostilities and the consequent threat to civilian life - on either side of the Blue Line.
For even the simplest of operations, military commanders plan under the key headings of situation, mission and concept of operations. In terms of situation, the ceasefire in Lebanon is fragile and the security environment remains highly fluid.
The Lebanese army, despite its deployment south in large numbers is not a force to be reckoned with. It is simply unable and probably unwilling - as almost half of its personnel are Shia troops highly sympathetic to Hizbullah - to extend the sovereignty of the Lebanese government south of the Litani except as a token force.
In terms of mission then, this situation implies that the UN forces reinforcing the LAF will be expected to disarm Hizbullah - though this is not explicitly stated anywhere in the UN resolution. In terms of concept of operations, it is very unclear as to precisely how the multinational force will be expected to interact with Hizbullah on the ground in Lebanon. The unrealistic and over-ambitious terms of paragraph 12 of the resolution appear to indicate rules of engagement that are liberal to the point of foolhardy - implying as they do the right of the proposed multinational force to engage either side to the dispute in full combat operations.
With no clarity in relation to the key military indicators of mission, concept of operations or rules of engagement, the UN risks deploying a force to Lebanon that is doomed to failure.
In this light, Italy - having been reassured by UN Headquarters yesterday that the mission will not involve the disarmament of Hizbullah - has demanded even further clarity in relation to the rules of engagement prior to announcing a substantial troop contribution to Lebanon.
The Government will also be seeking such clarity in order to evolve an informed risk analysis for a possible deployment of Irish Defence Forces personnel to Lebanon.
This risk analysis will also, no doubt, be informed by contradictory comments such as those made yesterday by the deputy general secretary to the UN, Mark Malloch Brown - in relation to Hizbullah - "if they don't voluntarily disarm when confronted by our troops, then we will employ force to disarm them".
Dr Tom Clonan is The Irish Times Security Analyst. He lectures in the School of Media, DIT.