The CMOC: One Stop Shopping for Humanitarian Assistance Coordination in Peace Operations.

Abstract : The world has experience many complex humanitarian emergencies since the end of the Cold War. These emergencies were primarily the result the impact of war but entailed a great degree of human suffering. The international community responded to these emergencies with military forces and with civilian humanitarian relief organizations (HROs). Both military and civilians deployed to relieve the suffering. The combination meant that some coordination between their efforts was necessary. Mechanisms were established and doctrine was written for the employment of those mechanisms. This monograph examines the Civil-Military Operations Center (CMOC) to determine whether it can perform the necessary functions of coordination and whether it is sufficient. The doctrinal basis for the CMOC is examined through Canadian Land Forces doctrine, U.S. Army doctrine and U.S. Joint doctrine. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees publications provide a civilian perspective on the employment of the CMOC. Three recent operations provide historical case studies in which coordination of humanitarian assistance is reviewed. Operation Provide Comfort was the U.S. led mission to assist Kurdish refugees in Northern Iraq in the wake of the Persian Gulf War. Operation Restore Hope was the U.S. led mission to provide relief to the victims of civil war in Somalia. Finally the operations of the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) and UNHCR in Bosnia in 1992-93 provide a perspective from outside the U.S. experience. Civilian led alternatives to the CMOC are identified through the case studies. The monograph concludes that the CMOC can perform the necessary functions but that coordination of humanitarian assistance is a task better allocated to a civilian led coordinating mechanism.