РУАЭСТ (RUAEST)
Complex Military Operations in the 21st Century: Challenges for Field Combat Personnel
Complex military operations, are those military campaigns including, but not limited to, those military operations by conventional defence and security forces in alliance with paramilitaries and civil groups against non-conventional armed groups (insurgents and terrorists who do not recognise and observe legally-institutionalised municipal and international laws), have taken centre stage in current strategic discourse. This is because insurgency and terrorism pose the greatest challenge to most sovereign state entities who, in most cases, respond without properly appreciating and addressing the numerous challenges, potential and real, which face national armed forces combat personnel in their physical theatres of anti-insurgency/anti-terrorism operations or battle space as the case maybe. This paper posits that it is not possible to adequately contain the nefarious activities of insurgents and terrorists without adequately identifying and addressing the unique challenges which face combat personnel in those theatres or spaces of operation. It goes on to conclude that unless this prevailing situation is reversed, prospects for effective counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism initiatives will likely remain bleak.