Incorporate legal responsibility for command decisions

Today, legal responsibility, often blamed on the judicialization of military engagements, engages the military leader from the tactical level. This phenomenon concerns all tactical commanders, even if they are mixed up in the process.This phenomenon concerns all tactical commanders, even if they are vested with regulatory authority, in an operation of established national or international legality, with corresponding rules of engagement in theatre.

Act No. 2005-270 of 24 March 2005 on the general status of military personnel establishes the scope of the leader's responsibilities in combat. In particular, it stipulates that the military commander cannot be legally questioned about the consequences of his decisions once the normal due diligence of his responsibilities or those of his staff has been properly carried out. Within this framework, and to assist him, any commander in an operation exercising command responsibility at levels 1 to 3 is assigned a legal adviser (or LEGAD in NATO jargon).

In his or her actions, the leader must comply with the spirit and the letter of the Law of Armed Conflict, the Defence Code and the rules of engagement prescribed for him or her.

In the summer of 1995 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, when circumstances had begun to distort the normal play of command and the exercise of responsibilities within UNPROFOR, it was reproached that generators of the UNPROFOR forces were not acting in accordance with the law of armed conflict.French generators were accused of failing to plan military counter-measures when there were strong indications of a Serb offensive on the town of Srebrenica, and then of failing to order or conduct them after the Serb action had been launched. Thus, when a mass grave was discovered there, following the Serbian withdrawal, these general officers were explicitly threatened with an appearance before the I.P.T. in The Hague. It took all the resistance of the French Executive Branch to prevent them from being brought before it, even as mere witnesses.

Communicating in the course of an action, at one's level of competence or responsibility

If current information technologies contribute to speeding up the time of dissemination of knowledge, they create an avid need for information where the present moment disputes the sensational. The weight of the media, faced with the dictates of urgency and "ratings", has a direct influence on the understanding of crises and their treatment: for example, a situation where emotion and immediate compassion take precedence over reason, contributes to exposing or even overexposing military force and its leader.

While total control of information is a decoy, mastery of operational communication techniques is an absolute necessity. The legitimacy and effectiveness of the force's action is no longer sufficient, to which must be added the perception not only of the local, national and international populations, but also of the force involved. In a context in which feelings risk supplanting reality, the military commander must constantly have the intuition of "when, where, by whom, on what basis and through what media or relays" he must communicate. Sometimes it is necessary to communicate at the lowest levels of command and, conversely, the leader must be able to communicate himself when necessary. The overriding rule here is that everyone, when authorized to do so, should communicate about his or her level and mission, with the exception of any other higher-level considerations, such as strategic or political.

It is in this spirit that any leader, even at the lowest level, must be aware of the basic rules of communication and, if necessary, provoke the dissemination of elements of language by the higher level. Furthermore, as soon as the leader reaches a complex level of command, from the IATF level upwards, he or she generally has a "senior" officer at his or her disposal. officer to assist in designing the leader's communication, and to implement it according to the instructions given by the leader beforehand. However, the chief must strike a balance between direct personal communication, which is sometimes necessary, and the use of a communications specialist, who is more appropriate as a relay for the long-term relationship with the media.

It is therefore important for the manager to lucidly estimate his real room for manoeuvre in order to integrate these constraints, but without being inhibited by them.