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Stovepiping Within Multinational Military Operations: The Case of Mali

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Information Sharing in Military Operations

Abstract

Information sharing within multinational military operations presents challenges for the intelligence process. This chapter draws on intelligence, military, and organizational studies to analyze information sharing in the intelligence process of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali. This mission consisted of 41 different African, Asian, and European countries. Three clusters of issues—technological, organizational, and politics and policy—emerged to render information sharing between militaries suboptimal, though the main problem was stovepiping: information that should have been shared remained compartmentalized. Mutual distrust and turf wars resulting from unfamiliarity, different practices, and a suboptimal level of interoperability made sharing information a liability rather than a means of improving the quality of the intelligence assessments. Several remedies for these information sharing challenges are proposed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Homer (2015) tells of a reconnaissance mission in which a Trojan spy is turned and his information used against the Trojans (Iliad, Book X, lines 195–553). In Joshua 2:1–24, the Bible tells how the prostitute Rahab protected two Hebrew spies inside Jericho, while Numbers 13:1–33 recounts a joint spying mission by twelve chosen men representing each of the Hebrew tribes.

  2. 2.

    TREVI originated in 1975 and consisted of the heads of a number of European intelligence services. The acronym stood for terrorisme, radicalisme et violence internationale. Until the advent of the Common Security and Foreign Policy of the EU, its member services exchanged intelligence on a case-by-case, quid pro quo basis. For a brief description see Fägersten (2014), Walsh (2006), and Block (2011).

  3. 3.

    For a critique, see Hulnick (2006). For a discussion of the cycle, see Dorn (2010), 278–282.

  4. 4.

    See the breakdown of the mission at http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/minusma/facts.shtml.

  5. 5.

    Presentation by representative of UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Carlisle, United States, January 28, 2015.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Netherlands Defence Academy, Floris Versterstraat 11G, 1058 JL, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Sebastiaan Rietjens

  2. Faculty of Military Sciences, Netherlands Defence Academy, PO Box 90002, 4800 PA, Breda, The Netherlands

    Floribert Baudet

Authors
  1. Sebastiaan Rietjens
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  2. Floribert Baudet
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Correspondence to Sebastiaan Rietjens .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Director General Military Personnel Research and Analysis, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Irina Goldenberg

  2. Military Administrative Studies, Netherlands Defence Academy, Breda, The Netherlands

    Joseph Soeters

  3. Director General Military Personnel Research and Analysis, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Waylon H. Dean

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Rietjens, S., Baudet, F. (2017). Stovepiping Within Multinational Military Operations: The Case of Mali. In: Goldenberg, I., Soeters, J., Dean, W. (eds) Information Sharing in Military Operations. Advanced Sciences and Technologies for Security Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42819-2_13

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