PDGS - Seminar Governance, Security and Military Institutions in Democracies - The Military Role in Internal Defense and Security: Some Problems

THE MILITARY ROLE IN INTERNAL DEFENSE AND SECURITY: SOME PROBLEMS

Occasional Paper #6

María José Moyano Rasmussen
CCMR

October 1999

Draft - Not for citation or attribution without the author's permission

The issue of whether to deploy military forces in domestic missions is hotly debated. Those who believe the military should be utilized in an increasing number of domestic missions make several powerful arguments. According to one view, nations make a significant investment in their armed forces over time, and the employment of the military domestically is a way to obtain a return on that investment (1). Others point out that in the post-Cold War world, issues like terrorism, illicit drugs or poverty represent as immediate a danger to national survival as foreign aggression, and therefore warrant troop deployments (2). There is also the more utilitarian argument that devoting troops to domestic missions will block further attempts at downsizing the military (3).

Those who believe the military should remain exclusively focused on external missions make equally compelling arguments. A quarter century ago, Alfred Stepan argued that when military professionals focus on a domestic role they become politicized and may be tempted to stage a coup d'etat. More recently this view was echoed by Charles Dunlap and Michael Desch. Describing a fictional coup in the United States in the year 2012, Dunlap contended that the decision to divert military resources away from warfighting missions and into domestic activities in the 1990s had politicized the officer corps and weakened the legitimacy of democratic institutions and civilian officials. Without positing the danger of a coup, Desch argues that civilian control is more effective when the military maintain an external orientation (4). Another point frequently made by civilians and soldiers alike is that domestic missions have long term implications for combat readiness and troop morale (5).

This paper does not attempt to settle this debate or to tackle the broad spectrum of domestic missions that the military are invited to undertake. Not all domestic missions are created equal. It is possible to classify the military's domestic missions according to two criteria: a) the duration of a mission; and b) the nature of the activity to be performed. Time considerations are important to arguments about the impact of these missions on readiness. In this case, there are important distinctions to be made between military involvement in earthquake relief, and military participation in youth or school programs that will require a lengthier commitment. But it is also important to consider the nature of the different activities that are being proposed. Broadly speaking, there are three types of domestic missions:

The first and third types of missions pose interesting challenges for civil-military cooperation. But they do not provoke the same controversy as the second type of mission - law enforcement. When soldiers are deployed in domestic law enforcement, they might be placed in the position of having to shoot their fellow citizens, or of having to collect intelligence. What are the legal implications of these actions? What, if any, is the impact on democratic practices? This paper will analyze some of the difficulties that emerge when the military is employed in domestic law enforcement. It discusses the American military's involvement in riot control in Los Angeles in 1992, the British military's thirty-year experience of counter-terrorism in Northern Ireland, and some lessons we derive from these two cases. The argument made here is that public officials deploy the military in law enforcement missions as an act of desperation, without giving much thought to the impact that these decisions might have on military organizations, on democratic practices, and on the orderly functioning of civilian law enforcement agencies. In this respect, one weakness of the democratization literature and discourse is that it emphasizes civilian empowerment vis a vis defense policy, but not public order policy.

The paper does not address the issue of military participation in drug control policy. "Drug control" is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of activities such as drug abuse prevention, drug rehabilitation, source country programs, money laundering, and interdiction. In consumer countries, there is disagreement among analysts as to which of these activities should be emphasized. In addition, the military are involved in some of these activities but not others. An analysis of military participation in drug control must take into account the wider debate about national drug control policies. This issue is too complex to be addressed adequately here (7).

Military Involvement in Riot Control: The Los Angeles Riots, 1992

The Los Angeles riots of 1992 are usually called the "Rodney King" riots. The catalyst for violence was the acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers, who were on trial for savagely beating King. A private citizen videotaped the incident, which took place on March 3, 1991. An edited version of the videotape was constantly broadcast on national television during the twelve months that elapsed between the beating and the beginning of the officers' trial. The televised version omitted footage that showed King resisting arrest and attacking one of the police officers. The jury at the officers' trial viewed the complete videotape and found it exculpatory (8). On the basis of the televised version, the citizens of Los Angeles, the American public and public officials including President George Bush, expected convictions.

The verdict in the "Rodney King trial" was announced on Wednesday, April 29, 1992, at 3.15 PM. One hour later, the rioting began. Even though the verdict precipitated the riots, there were two other factors that contributed to the violence: the killing of Latasha Harlins, and social conditions in South Central Los Angeles. Harlins, a black adolescent, was shot in the back of the head by Soon Ja Du, a Korean shop owner who thought Harlins wanted to steal a carton of orange juice. In October 1991, Du was convicted of voluntary manslaughter. Even though she faced a maximum of 11 years in prison and an additional five for using a gun, the judge freed her on a suspended sentence. The disposition of the Harlins case convinced many blacks in Los Angeles that they could not obtain justice through the legal system, and this view became reinforced by the verdict in the King trial. The hostility between blacks and Koreans, palpable during the Harlins trial, erupted in the riots: 1,867 of the 3,000 businesses destroyed or looted in the riots were Korean (9).

Latasha Harlins was killed in South Central, the Los Angeles district that became the epicenter of the riots. South Central was an area "awash in poverty, drugs, and violence" (10). The district presented the usual characteristics of inner cities: unemployment, family breakdown, exodus of the middle class, increase in violent crime. What distinguished South Central and other inner city districts of Los Angeles county was the presence of a large number of heavily armed gangs. The "hard policing" tactics of the LAPD, while somewhat effective against the criminal fraternity, had alienated the law-abiding population of South Central (11).

The city leadership and the LAPD leadership were totally unprepared for the riots. Mayor Tom Bradley and LAPD Chief Daryl Gates expected guilty verdicts (as did everyone else), so they saw no reason to do any contingency planning. Bradley and Gates were also engaged in a personal feud. By the time of the riots, they had not talked to each other in 13 months (12). When the verdicts were announced, Mayor Bradley left his post to attend a rally at a black church, intended to launch "Operation Cool Response." This was a well-intended initiative, the brainchild of the Reverend Cecil Murray, designed to appeal to blacks to channel their frustration through conventional political means (13). However, it came too late, since the rioters were already taking to the streets. "Cool Response" should have been launched three or four days earlier. The jury in the King trial had been deliberating since April 23, which in itself was a sign that guilty verdicts were not a certainty. Chief Gates' conduct was even more inexcusable. When the riots broke out, the Chief left his post to attend a political fund-raiser (14).

The LAPD was in no position to face the rioters. Most of the senior officers (captains) in the different divisions were away from their desks, on a three-day course outside Los Angeles (15). Shifts in many divisions changed at 3 PM, so when the verdicts were announced, the LAPD had a total of 838 officers on duty (16). These officers had no civil disturbance equipment, no reserve ammunition, and no riot control plan. The only LAPD unit that had undertaken minimal riot control training was the elite Metropolitan Division. However, "Metro had 233 officers, less than 3 percent of the LAPD's sworn personnel" (17). In addition, on the day the riots began, Metro officers were told to report to duty at 6 PM, by which time the riots were in full swing (18). The riots started as two separate incidents of vandalism. Individuals involved in both incidents converged on the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues, in South Central. Thirty police officers in 18 patrol cars responded to the disturbance. At Florence and Normandie, these 30 officers confronted a crowd of some 200 people throwing bricks, pieces of concrete and other improvised missiles. A decisive show of force might have stopped the riots at this juncture (19). Standard riot control doctrine, in the LAPD and elsewhere, calls for the cordoning off of the intersection with patrol cars. Properly equipped with riot gear, and in sufficient strength, police then lock arms and advance. However, at 5.45 PM the LAPD abandoned the intersection. While the riots spread and the local television stations showed live images shot from helicopters, LAPD officers assembled at an emergency command post that had no televisions, no computers, and few radios or telephones (20).

Given the LAPD's initial paralysis, standard procedure called for the implementation of the Mutual Aid system. "Mutual aid in California is a well-designed system of law enforcement officers helping neighboring law enforcement jurisdictions when situations escalate beyond local capabilities" (21). However, having failed to take any precautions against rioting, civilian officials panicked and overreacted. Mayor Bradley and the governor of California, Pete Wilson, circumvented the Mutual Aid system (which worked extremely well in the case of the Fire Department) and called in military forces. Two thousand California National Guard soldiers were mobilized that evening, and an additional 2,000 were mobilized on the second day of rioting, April 30 (22). Guardsmen were the soldiers best suited to this task, for a number of reasons. First, the initial 2,000 mobilized lived in the neighborhoods affected by the riots, and were familiar with the terrain. Second, many of these citizen soldiers held civilian jobs in law enforcement or related areas. Third, the California National Guard has vast institutional experience responding to emergencies, such as fires or floods. Finally, many of the old soldiers had been deployed during the Watts riots of 1965 (23). However, guardsmen were not given a chance to do their job. On the third day of rioting, May 1, President Bush authorized the deployment of regular army troops and marines, and federalized the National Guard. By May 2, 10,465 guardsmen, 2,023 Army soldiers and 1,508 marines were in Los Angeles, in addition to 1,717 other federal law enforcement officers (24).

This massive deployment of troops was unnecessary because the rioting was over after the first night. During the second day (Thursday, April 30) the rioting gave way to massive looting. There was only sporadic looting and violence during the third day (Friday, May 1) (25). By the time federal forces arrived in Los Angeles on Saturday, May 2, the problem was not the restoration of order but the maintenance of order. Thousands of troops stood by waiting to be assigned missions. This is not meant to suggest that the human and financial costs of the riots were not enormous, or that the police officers, firemen and soldiers did not face great dangers. The statistics in Table 1 are clear. Rather, the argument here is that troop commitment was excessive, particularly in view of the fact that the Mutual Aid system had hardly been invoked.

Table 1 - The Toll of the Los Angeles Riots, 1992

Date	Deaths	Injuries	Fire Responses
Wednesday April 29	10	n/a	601
Thursday April 30	21	1,000 (cumulative Apr.29-30)	3,244
Friday May 1	12	257	1,172
Saturday May 2	4	859	517
Sunday May 3	4	267	5,579
Monday May 4	3	n/a	n/a

Source: James D. Delk, Fires and Furies. The L.A. Riots (Palm Springs, CA: ETC Publications, 1995), pp.46, 95, 138, 180, 222.

In addition, all of the missions assigned to military troops were strictly law enforcement missions - i.e., tasks normally performed by police officers. Guardsmen, soldiers and marines patrolled neighborhoods not yet affected by the violence, to prevent the spread of the riots, and protected shopping malls under threat of arson or looting. They stopped looting in progress at some stores, and provided protection against further looting. They protected the post office when postal workers handed out welfare checks, and escorted firefighters who went out on missions. Guardsmen also directed traffic and accompanied police detectives as they recovered some of the loot (26). Military troops performed all these missions with enormous restraint, and earned the recognition of the citizens and public officials of Los Angeles (27). However, these were not missions for which the military were adequately trained or equipped. This was the assessment of Major General Marvin L. Covault, commander of all military forces in Los Angeles, who sought to extricate his troops from the city almost from the moment he got there (28).

Unlike the LAPD or the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, soldiers, marines and guardsmen from Northern California were unfamiliar with Los Angeles neighborhoods and were not even equipped with adequate city maps (29). Their military radios were not suited to a city environment (30). Their intelligence estimates were flawed because police intelligence, which relies heavily on informers and community contacts, was alien to them (31). More important, the troops did not know "how to recognize 'the enemy'" (32). They were uncomfortable in the role of mediators between Korean shop owners, armed to the teeth and threatening to shoot anyone who approached their businesses, and the crowds. The troops had little knowledge of gangs and found it difficult to distinguish between gang members and simple adolescents with an attitude (33).

Above all, the troops were unfamiliar with the inner city environment and its crime problem. On average, there are four murders per day in Los Angeles county, "where death by gunfire per 100,000 inhabitants is more than triple the national average" (34). On numerous occasions while they were on patrol between May 2 and May 7, troops suffering verbal abuse by gang members or hearing shots in the distance thought they were in imminent danger, only to be told by police officers that crime and violence levels were much lower than normal (35). On another occasion, marines accompanied police officers responding to a domestic dispute. On receiving a request to "cover me," the marines fired over 200 bullets into a house where there were children (36). This points to the most important difference between military troops and police officers. Police officers are trained to respond to crime and violence with the minimum force necessary to accomplish the task. This principle of minimum force is alien to a soldier. Moreover, while every guardsman, soldier and marine deployed in Los Angeles had to sign a copy of very restrictive Rules of Engagement, in practice, the only weapons available to the troops were deadly weapons. The Rules of Engagement stated that:

The use of deadly force is authorized only where all three of the following circumstances are present:

To indicate that deadly force can be used after "all other means have been exhausted" implies that non-lethal weapons were available to military troops, but this was not the case. Some, but not all troops were equipped with riot batons and face shields. No other standard riot and crowd control means (water cannon, tear gas, rubber bullets or dogs) were available (38). Nor had military troops (with the exception of some Guard units) trained in the use of these non-lethal weapons. Table 2 shows the Arming Orders.

Table 2 - Arming Orders during the Los Angeles Riots

Arming Order	Rifle	Bayonet	Pistol	Baton	Magazine/ Chamber	Control
AO-1	Sling	Scabbard	Holstered	Belt	In pouch/ Empty	OIC/NCO
AO-2	Port	Scabbard	Holstered	Belt	In pouch/ Empty	OIC/NCO
AO-3	Sling	Fixed	Holstered	Hand	In pouch/ Empty	OIC/NCO
AO-4	Port	Fixed	Holstered	Hand	In pouch/ Empty	OIC/NCO
AO-5	Port	Fixed	Holstered	Hand	In weapon/ Empty	OIC/NCO
AO-6	Port	Fixed	In Hand	Belt	In weapon/ Locked	OIC

OIC= Officer in charge
NCO= Noncommissioned officer in charge

Source: James D. Delk, Fires and Furies. The L.A. Riots (Palm Springs, CA: ETC Publications, 1995), p.343.

Between Thursday (April 30) and Saturday (May 2), the California National Guard patrolled the streets fully armed, at Arming Order 5. This changed with the arrival of federal forces, when General Covault ordered all troops to change to Arming Order 1. This decision has been heavily criticized, on the grounds that it put soldiers at risk and impacted morale (39). However, General Covault made a wise and courageous decision. His decision was courageous because it put his troops at risk, and wise because it likely averted bloodshed. His soldiers confronted heavily armed gang members. But they also confronted crowds armed only with bottles or rocks; adolescents and children; looters who lived below the poverty line and who were committing a crime out of desperation; and irresponsible citizens out for thrills who wanted to photograph the action. What is the adequate response? How does one chose between the prevention of crime, the preservation of order and the preservation of life? Police officers are trained to make these choices on a daily basis, and are also trained to react to street conditions in ways that soldiers are not. This was recognized by National Guard commander General James Delk, who told his troops to "listen to your [police] counterpart, they know the territory and the threat" (40). The military intervention in the Los Angeles riots could have resulted in a bloodbath. Deploying soldiers in the streets armed with rifles and bayonets does not allow for a gradual escalation of the state's response. What is a soldier to do but shoot after he has issued his warning to looters? That the military intervention in Los Angeles did not result in the death of many civilians is due to Covault's decision to expose his soldiers, as well as to the restraint shown by those men.

Civilian officials in California called in the military because they perceived the LAPD was incapable of providing a response. To some extent, this was a problem of leadership. But the LAPD's shortcomings were also the result of long-term trends for which officials and citizens of California bear responsibility. In 1978, California voters approved Proposition 13, a measure that froze property taxes and drastically reduced funds available for public services. Over the next fifteen years, the LAPD appealed to city officials and to the voters, but though everyone wanted improved police services, nobody was willing to pay for them. As a consequence, by the time of the riots the LAPD had less than two officers per 1,000 inhabitants, which is under half the ratio in other large cities. LAPD training facilities were in disrepair, training standards had collapsed, and the force suffered equipment shortages and malfunctions (41). It should also be said that the LAPD, devoid of any meaningful civilian control, had lost all legitimacy among the population of South Central (42). Resorting to the military in order to quell disorders has one added disadvantage. The military can become a crutch that absolves civilian officials from the responsibility of providing for and overseeing the work of the police and its relations with the community it is expected to serve and protect.

Military Involvement in Counter-terrorism: The British Army in Northern Ireland, 1969-1999

The Irish have been fighting British domination for 300 years. In 1921, this led to the partition of the island and eventually to the creation of an independent Republic of Ireland in the south. The six counties of Northern Ireland (also known as Ulster) remain part of the United Kingdom to this day. For fifty years following partition, Ulster voters elected representatives to a local parliament known as Stormont, as well as to the British parliament in London. Catholics, who constituted one third of the population of Northern Ireland in the 1960s, labored under severe discrimination. "Demands for reform centred particularly on local government where gerrymandering had ensured Unionist control even in boroughs like the city of Derry with a Catholic majority. Catholics were sharply discriminated against in the allocation of local authority jobs and housing, and even the local franchise ... gave businessmen (who were usually Protestant) additional votes according to the value of their property" (43).

In 1967, Catholics formed the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) in order to campaign against discrimination. Encouraged by lengthy coverage in the international media, NICRA thrived. Protestants, who dominated the Stormont parliament, tenaciously clung to their privileges, and interpreted the mildest demand for reform as an assault on the constitutional order. Street violence escalated rapidly in 1968-1969. Demonstrations, counter-demonstrations, petrol bombs, and barricades became a daily occurrence. It was felt that the local police, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), could not cope with the disorders. After one night of rioting (August 14-15, 1969) left 10 civilians dead and another 145 wounded (44), the British government decided to send in the army: "The General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland [the GOC] has been instructed to take all necessary steps, acting impartially between citizen and citizen, to restore law and order. Troops will be withdrawn as soon as this is accomplished" (45).

Thirty years later, the troops are still there, though their duties changed dramatically - from public order to counter-terrorism - after the first two years. In August 1969 the British army took to the streets of Belfast and Derry to separate the two warring tribes, and to protect the Catholics from the ferocity of the Protestants. The army also engaged in a number of community activities. It organized sporting events for young people, ran discos, even helped the elderly with household chores (46). Through patient negotiation with community leaders, the army managed to "talk down" the barricades that Catholics and Protestants had erected to protect their neighborhoods from the opposing side. But as soon as a barricade went down, another one came up. The barricades "created areas of virtual self-government" (47). The existence of these barricades allowed the terrorist organizations, which had stagnated for years, to reorganize and rearm. The barricades came finally down in 1972 as a result of Operation Motorman, the largest British military operation since the Korean War. By this time, an effective program of reform had appeased NICRA. Riots have occasionally erupted over the years, but they have never again been the daily occurrence they were in 1969-1972. Therefore, by 1972 the army's main concern was no longer public order but terrorism, primarily by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and to a lesser extent by the loyalist Ulster Defense Association (UDA) and smaller groups (48).

What also changed dramatically in those first two years was the army's relationship with the Catholics. "When the British Army arrived on the streets of Northern Ireland in 1969 in response to pleas from Catholic politicians, in traditional Republican areas soldiers were welcomed much like the troops who arrived to liberate Paris in 1944" (49). Photographs and television news coverage of British soldiers on patrol in Belfast and Derry in 1969 depict an endless stream of Catholic housewives bringing them tea and muffins. This relationship was soured in July 1970, when the army decided to impose a three-day curfew in the Catholic enclave of Falls Road in Belfast, in response to a tip-off that there were arms hidden there. The whole area was cordoned off. Citizens were confined to their homes without access to basic staples such as bread and milk while the army looked for weapons. The house searches uncovered a not insignificant number of guns and explosives, but in street clashes with demonstrators, the army killed four civilians and injured 68. Whether the operation could be considered a military success, in terms of the number of weapons seized, is open to question. In political terms, it was a disaster, as well as a turning point in the army's relationship with the Catholics. As one soldier remembers, "[t]he week before the curfew, I'd actually marched my troops unarmed into the Falls to a Catholic church to go to church to show that we had confidence in them. We were unarmed and we marched down the road and into the church. A week later, it was a reverse situation. I don't believe the Army would have marched down since that day, unarmed down the road" (50).

A second event that damaged the army's relationship with the Catholic population was the introduction of internment without trial in August 1971. The decision to introduce internment was made by the Stormont and British governments, but it was the army that executed it poorly. Internment was a failure for several reasons. Intelligence gathering by the RUC was deficient. Rumors about internment had been floating around Belfast for months. Lieutenant General Harry Tuzo, GOC Northern Ireland, had even discussed the pros and cons of internment in an interview with the Belfast Telegraph. Therefore, when internment came, the real gunmen were in hiding. Internment was also seen as biased, since there was no Protestant among the 346 persons lifted initially. Soon there were rumors of the army's ill-treatment of internees during interrogation (51). The army made its third serious mistake on January 30, 1972, when soldiers of the Parachute Regiment killed 14 unarmed civilians during a demonstration against internment in Derry, an incident which became known as "Bloody Sunday" and which has never been properly investigated or explained (52).

The combined effect of the Falls curfew, internment and "Bloody Sunday" was to drive Catholic moderates into the arms of the IRA. The army lost the battle for hearts and minds at the start of its counter-terrorist campaign. It should also be pointed out that the army was sent into Northern Ireland without much direction. The British government had only one goal: to avoid having to govern the province directly. London simply continued to pour more troops into the province (see Table 3) to bolster the Stormont government, in the hope that the soldiers would find a solution and that order would be finally and somewhat miraculously restored. The violence that accompanied the introduction of internment (see Table 4) and the debacle of "Bloody Sunday" forced the British government to abolish Stormont and assume direct control, which it maintains to this day (53).

The ad hoc nature of political and military responses was influenced by the fact that all the participants thought that the conflict would end soon. The IRA, boosted by its recruitment after the Falls curfew, believed victory was at hand. Britain had recently abandoned Aden as a consequence of a terrorist campaign that resulted in the deaths of 36 soldiers. The IRA believed that if it killed the same number of soldiers, the British government would pull out (54). The British government and sectors of the army thought that the soldiers could win a military victory over the IRA (55). By the end of the 1970s, the participants had a clearer understanding of the situation. The IRA settled into a "long war" strategy in 1977, and the following year a classified army intelligence document (which the IRA obtained and published) stated that the IRA's "campaign of violence is likely to continue while the British remain in Northern Ireland.... We see little prospect of political development of a kind which would seriously undermine the [IRA's] position" (56).

The IRA has been a formidable adversary. The organization moved from car bombs to letter bombs to sophisticated devices. In the early 1970s, while it still kept Ulster as the focus of its activity, the IRA began to stage operations on the British mainland. Pubs, department stores, parks, and the financial district of London are periodically targeted, as well as British army barracks on the European continent. The IRA routinely attacks members of the security forces in Northern Ireland, and occasionally kills a high profile target, such as the queen's uncle, Earl Mountbatten. The group almost succeeded in killing Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at the Conservative Party annual conference in 1984, and during the Gulf war, it carried out a mortar attack against 10 Downing Street while Prime Minister John Major presided over a cabinet meeting. As far as the British government and the security forces are concerned, it is the IRA that drives security policy. Loyalist terrorists are not perceived as constituting the same type of threat, for a variety of reasons. Loyalist violence is reactive. It responds to IRA violence. Loyalist have killed and bombed less frequently than the IRA (see Table 4). More important, Loyalist terrorists confine themselves to killing Catholics, and refrain from attacking the security forces (57).

The ad hoc nature of political and military responses to violence extended to the legal and practical definitions of the soldiers' role. In 1969, the army marched into Northern Ireland as "military aid to the civil power" - in other words, as support to the police. In practice, the military took over the responsibility for public order and counter-terrorism, and the police became subordinate to the army. The RUC resented and resisted its de facto subordinate role. As a consequence, army-police relations were strained during most of the 1970s, and the counter-terrorist effort suffered. During this period, the police were relegated to fighting what the Irish humorously term "ordinary decent criminals" in Protestant areas (58). In Catholic areas, the army was the law. The army was also in control of every aspect of counter-terrorism. It operated a system of saturation patrolling, manned rural and urban observation posts and vehicle checkpoints, monitored public gatherings, carried out house searches, ran a network of informers, and reorganized intelligence gathering (59).

In 1977, the government decided to inaugurate the era of "police primacy" (which the army resisted forcefully), yet for almost a decade the change was merely cosmetic. It was only in the mid-1980s that the police took over duties such as manning vehicle checkpoints, house searches, or the policing of demonstrations, marches and political funerals (60). The army continues to have responsibility for the policing of rural areas, and of republican enclaves in cities. The army will also intervene, at the request of the RUC, in the policing of major public gatherings (61). On these occasions, the army retains operational independence. More important, since the mid-1980s, the army has been increasingly devoted to undercover operations in plainclothes, and to surveillance. It is easy to conclude that the term "police primacy" is a little ambiguous, and that "the criteria for military intervention remain open to fairly arbitrary change with little opportunity for proper parliamentary scrutiny, and the legal relationships between soldiers, police and other civil authorities are far from clear" (62).

Has the army been effective? What are the lessons that can be derived from the army's 30-year experience in counter-terrorism? There are two ways to answer these questions. The first is to look at some statistics. Tables 3 - 5 provide figures on force structure and on incidents of violence in Northern Ireland.

Table 3 - Security Forces Personnel in Northern Ireland, 1969-1999

Year	British Military	UDR/RIR	RUC	RUCR	Total RUC	Total
1969	3,000 (a)	------	3,000 (c)	-----	3,000	6,000
1970	11,243 (a)	4,008 (b)
1971	7,742 (a)	6,786 (b)
1972	14,218 January (a) 21,688 July (a)	9,074 (b)	4,200 (d)	2,500 (d)	6,700	29,992 Jan. 37,462 July
1973	16,854 (a)	7,982 (b)	4,500 (c)	2,500 (c)	7,000	31,836
1974	15,702 January (a) 17,000 May (a) 14,217 November (a)	7,795 (b)
1975	13,913 (b)	7,861 (b)
1976	13,672 (b)	7,769 (b)
1977	13,632 (b)	7,843 (b)
1978	13,600 (b)	7,900 (b)
1979	12,986 (c)
1980	12,141 (c)	8,000 (c)	7,000 (c)	4,500 (c)	11,500	31,641
1981	11,098 (c)	7,500 (f)	7,300 (f)	4,800 (f)	12,100	30,698
1982	10,538 (c)	7,500 (e)	8,000 (e)	2,500 (e)	10,500	28,538
1983	9,882 (c)	7,000 (e)
1984	9,090 (c)		8,000 (e)	4,405 (e)	12,405
1985		6,700 (e)	8,259 (h)	4,508 (h)	12,767
1986	10,086 (c)	6,530 (c)	8,234 (h)	4,414 (h)	12,648	29,264
1987		6,531 (h)	8,236 (h)	4,650 (h)	12,886
1988		6,393 (h)	8,231 (h)	4,649 (h)	12,880
1989	10,500 (i)	6,230 (h)	8,259 (h)	4,623 (h)	12,882	29,612
1990	10,500 (m)	6,043 (h)	8,231 (h)	4,544 (h)	12,775	29,318
1991		6,276 (h)	8,217 (h)	4,560 (h)	12,777
1992	11,000 (k)	5,417 (h)	8,478 (h)	4,593 (h)	13,071	29,488
1993		5,412 (h)	8,464 (h)	4,572 (h)	13,036
1994	13,500 (h)	5,241 (h)	8,493 (h)	4,690 (h)	13,183	31,924
1995	12,000 (h)
1996
1997		5,000 (j)
1998	12,000 (g)	5,000 (g)
1999		5,500 (h)	8,489 (l)	4,967 (l)	13,456

Note: The Ulster Defence Regiment and the Royal Irish Rangers merged in 1992, and became the Royal Irish Regiment. Technically the RIR is part of the Regular Army, but only serves in Northern Ireland.

Source:
a. Michael Dewar, The British Army in Northern Ireland (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1997), p.105.
b. David Butler, British political facts, 1900-1979 (London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press, 1980), p.435.
c. Tom F. Baldy, Battle for Ulster. A Study of Internal Security (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1987), pp.11, 106.
d. Christopher Hewitt, The Effectiveness of Anti-Terrorist Policies (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), p.79.
e. Desmond Hamill, Pig in the Middle. The Army in Northern Ireland 1969-1985 (London: Methuen, 1986), pp.265, 267, 271, 273, 299.
f. Northern Ireland: Problems and Perspectives (London: Institute for the Study of Conflict, Conflict Studies # 135, 1982), pp.20, 21.
g. Ministry of Defence, "The British Army in Northern Ireland - The Armed Forces in Northern Ireland." Available at http://www.army.mod.uk/army/world/nireland/n_armf.htm (August 13, 1999).
h. CAIN Web Service, "Background Information on Northern Ireland Society - Security." Available at http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/ni/security.htm (July 30, 1999).
i. Glenn Frankel, "An Anniversary That's No Cause for Celebration," Washington Post National Weekly Edition, August 21-27, 1989, p.15.
j. Ministry of Defence, "The British Army in Northern Ireland - The Royal Irish Regiment." Available at http://www.army.mod.uk/army/world/nireland/n_roir.htm (July 30, 1999).
k. John Strawson, "The Thirty Years Peace," in David Chandler and Ian Beckett (eds.), The Oxford History of the British Army (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p.357.
l. CAIN Web Service, "Background Information on Northern Ireland Society - Law and Order." Available at http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/ni/order.htm (August 5, 1999).
m. Ronald Weitzer, Policing under Fire. Ethnic Conflict and Police-Community Relations in Northern Ireland (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995), p.74.

Table 4 - Deaths in the Northern Ireland Conflict, 1969-1993

Year	Killed by Republican Terrorists	Killed by Loyalist Terrorists	Killed by the Security Forces	Other Killings	Total
1969	3	3	10	0	16
1970	15	2	5	2	24
1971	96	20	45	9	170
1972	261	111	83	17	472
1973	131	86	32	3	252
1974	144	125	19	6	294
1975	120	121	7	9	257
1976	155	114	16	10	295
1977	75	25	8	2	110
1978	56	10	10	1	77
1979	101	17	2	0	120
1980	51	14	9	6	80
1981	68	12	17	13	110
1982	83	14	12	1	110
1983	61	10	12	2	85
1984	47	7	12	3	69
1985	47	4	5	0	56
1986	39	15	5	1	60
1987	70	15	9	3	97
1988	70	23	10	1	104
1989	54	18	3	0	75
1990	52	19	10	0	81
1991	49	40	6	0	95
1992	40	38	10	1	89
1993	38	48	0	1	87
Total	1,926 (58.63%)	911 (27.73%)	357 (10.87%)	91 (2.77%)	3,285 (100%)

Source: Malcolm Sutton, Bear in mind these dead ... An Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland 1969-1993 (Belfast: Beyond the Pale Publications, 1994), p.206.

Table 5 - Security Incidents in Northern Ireland, 1969-1994

Year	Shootings	Explosions	Devices Neutralized	Firearms Found	Explosives Found (kg)
1969	73	9	1	14	102
1970	213	153	17	324	305
1971	1,756	1,022	493	716	1,246
1972	10,631	1,382	471	1,259	18,819
1973	5,019	978	542	1,313	17,426
1974	3,208	685	428	1,236	11,848
1975	1,803	399	236	820	4,996
1976	1,908	766	426	736	9,849
1977	1,081	366	169	563	1,728
1978	755	455	178	393	956
1979	728	422	142	300	905
1980	642	280	120	203	821
1981	1,142	398	131	357	3,419
1982	547	219	113	288	2,298
1983	424	266	101	166	1,706
1984	334	193	55	187	3,871
1985	238	148	67	173	3,344
1985	392	172	82	174	2,443
1987	674	236	148	206	5,885
1988	538	253	205	489	4,728
1989	566	224	196	246	1,377
1990	557	166	120	179	1,969
1991	499	231	137	164	4,167
1992	506	222	149	194	2,197
1993	476	206	83	196	3,944
1994	348	123	99	178	1,285

Source: CAIN Web Service, "Background Information on Northern Ireland Society - Security." Available at http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/ni/security.htm (August 18, 1999), p.3.

As Table 3 shows, over the years the conflict has involved a significant troop commitment. There seems to have been no conscious decision, on the part of the British government, to adjust force structure to the level of actual violence. There is little variation in troop levels between 1972, when there were 472 deaths, and 1993, when there were 87. For the British government, more is always better, irrespective of the irritant factor that the troops' presence represents. Advocates of the use of the military in domestic counter-terrorism should pay close attention to the figures in Tables 4-5, which put the military's effectiveness into question. Clearly, the highest levels of violence coincide with the period of military primacy in counter-terrorism, and violence decreased significantly in the era of police primacy. More important, the figures above demonstrate that there can be no military solution to a problem that is essentially political.

The British army, considered by many to be the world's most expert counter-terrorist force, cannot do more than contain the problem. This is not necessarily what the soldiers believe. According to one sergeant, "[w]e've all basically got the same idea of how we could end this, but world opinion wouldn't stand for it." A senior officer believes that "[a] majority of officers are now strongly backing a shoot-to-kill policy as the principal method of defeating the IRA. Otherwise we shall be marching toward an eternity of duty in Northern Ireland" (63). These statements run counter to key findings of terrorism research. The literature on the life histories of terrorists and on the internal dynamics of terrorist organizations argues that repression will only strengthen the individual terrorist's resolve, increase the group's cohesiveness, and even encourage the terrorist organization to stage further acts of violence (64). In an authoritarian regime, the government can launch a "dirty war" to physically exterminate a terrorist organization. In a democratic regime, this is not an option. Therefore, unless it results in annihilation, repression will be counterproductive.

The issue of the effectiveness of a military response to terrorism can be approached from a different angle, by looking at the effects on military organizations and on democratic practices. Colonel Michael Dewar, a veteran of several Northern Ireland tours, refers to it as "a distraction" from the British army's main purpose, the defense of Europe through NATO (65). The Ulster campaign has involved an enormous expenditure in specialized equipment and requires a complex system of relief that disrupts army life. The army brass initially assumed that Northern Ireland would provide useful training in infantry tactics. However, "[n]ot only was the infantry involved; armoured, artillery, engineer regiments, and the other corps all took their share.... We should not underestimate the profound influence of Ulster on soldiers' lives. This seemingly endless commitment calls much of the tune. It conditions deployment, training, movement and logistics; it affects morale; it shapes the soldier's life" (66).

The commitment of troops to Ulster has also affected British law and British democracy. Over the years, the British government has felt it necessary to cloud in secrecy different aspects of the security situation in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Office (London's executive arm in the province) has refused to make available basic data, such as the number of deaths attributable to the security forces and to the terrorists. The Director of Public Prosecutions has refused to make public a list of killings by the security forces that have resulted in criminal proceedings (67). The army's doctrine for internal security is "unavailable for public scrutiny" (68). Even the "Yellow Card," the one-page instruction which tells the soldier when to use lethal force, is classified (69). The government routinely turns down requests for this type of information on the grounds that it would not be in the public interest to make this information available, while in reality the very opposite is true. This desire for secrecy has merely stimulated investigative journalists and scholars to obtain data and documents by other means. In turn investigative journalists have been threatened with onerous libel laws and with prosecution under section five of the Official Secrets Act (70).

The government has also felt it necessary to introduce a number of legal reforms in order to protect soldiers from criminal prosecution. Between 1969 and 1993 the security forces killed 348 civilians and 9 soldiers engaged in undercover work. Of those civilians killed, 154 were members of terrorist organizations and 194 were totally unconnected with terrorist activities. These 194 individuals died because they were mistaken for terrorists, or they were in the vicinity of a gun battle, or they were shot during street disturbances. The RUC killed 51 civilians. The other 297 (85%) were killed by the military (71). A very high proportion of these killings have occurred in disputed circumstances, "but criminal prosecutions of those responsible have been brought in only 28 cases, only two of which have to date resulted in a conviction" (72).

In 1969, the army hierarchy wanted a guarantee that no soldier posted to Northern Ireland would face criminal charges. This the government could not promise. Instead, what has evolved is an implicit agreement between the government, the army brass and the soldiers, that the government will try to prevent those prosecutions. It is in this context that a number of legal reforms were introduced. Unlike the police, after an incident that results in deaths the soldiers abandon the scene. They only submit written statements about the incident, after extensive consultation with the Army Legal Service. Mark Urban examined a variety of statements issued after incidents between the late 1970s and the late 1980s, and concluded that since the statements were all so similar, they were probably not entirely truthful. Soldiers who have killed civilians while on duty are also exempted from testifying at inquests. Coroners' inquests in Northern Ireland are not empowered to issue verdicts as to cause of death, or make any recommendations as to legal action, and the juries are selected by the police. It is easy to conclude, as many have done in Ulster, that the law affords soldiers protections not available to ordinary citizens (73).

Conclusion

"No army, however well it conducts itself, is suitable for police work" (74). This is a conclusion that Colonel Michael Dewar draws from his tours of duty in Northern Ireland. It is also one of the threads that runs through this monograph. Public order is a job for well-trained policemen, for a variety of reasons. First, policemen know the terrain - not only the geography of their area of responsibility, but also the street conditions, and the public's attitudes and reactions. Policemen acquire this knowledge through countless encounters with the community they serve. This was recognized by General Delk in Los Angeles, when he told his guardsmen to follow the LAPD's lead. Second, policemen are, or should be, equipped and trained in the use of non-lethal means of crowd control. Soldiers hardly ever are. In Los Angeles, the only option open to soldiers if persuasion failed was to use lethal force. In Northern Ireland the army has had to devote considerable time and money to train soldiers in the use of non-lethal weapons and street patrol tactics. Third, policemen are trained to operate in ways that will maximize the transparency of their acts and help the process of criminal investigation. Soldiers receive no such training. The fourth and most important distinction between the two professions involves the use of force. Policemen routinely employ minimum force, while soldiers are trained to employ maximum force against an identified enemy. It is not customary in war to ask for explanations of individual deaths or woundings. In constabulary work, it is. And while in military terms the impact of one bullet may be negligible, the political impact of one bullet is immense.

At a minimum, there are three questions that civilian officials should consider before deploying troops in law enforcement missions:

PDGS - Seminar Governance, Security and Military Institutions in Democracies