British PM Tony Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush meet in November 2004. One of America's most recent attempts at coalition warfare, Operation Iraqi Freedom, included the British as one of Bush's biggest allies. Mismanagement of that conflict nearly cost Blair his job, as his party suffered from negative public views of both the Bush administration and the effort in the Middle East. The costs of coalition warfare have been even higher in the United States.
for larger versions)
It has become a truism of American foreign policy that the United States should undertake military action in coalition with other nations. Under the administrations of both Bushes and Bill Clinton, American diplomats worked hard to broker military cooperation from other nations around the world. The benefits of such coalitions would seem obvious, but in this month's essay political scientist Patricia Weitsman explores the costs of fighting in coalition, and comes to some startling conclusions.
Readers interested of this article may also want to see the December 2007 Origins article "Conflict Termination: How to End--and Not to End--Insurgencies".
With a Little Help from Our Friends?: The Costs of Coalition Warfare
During the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, 14 Australian Hornet pilots defied the orders of their American commanding officers. These pilots independently aborted 40 bombing missions at the last minute because they believed that the objects of attack were not valid military targets or that dropping their bombs would result in an alarming number of civilian casualties. Australian authorities reprimanded none of the pilots—they were following Australian rules of engagement. Had they been American they might well have been court-martialed.
Later that same month, just north of Basra, two American A-10 fighter pilots mistook a four vehicle British reconnaissance patrol for the enemy, even though the vehicles were decorated with bright orange panels to signal that they were coalition forces. Diving from 10,000 to 4,000 feet, the pilots bombarded the convoy with more than 500 rounds/second of armor piercing shells. The British tried in vain to raise the pilots on the radio, screaming for them to stop, but got no response—the Americans were on a different frequency. The planes turned and headed unwaveringly back towards the convoy, strafing their coalition partners a second time. The American pilots never saw—or understood—the red smoke released by the British, another coalition identification device. The “blue on blue” incident killed one British soldier and wounded another.
These two incidents are cautionary tales. They remind us that coalition warfare may both be far more costly in terms of human lives and material outlays than fighting alone.
On the surface, coalition warfare would seem to be far preferable to unilateral strategies. States share the burdens of fighting, increase the likelihood of prevailing by having more troops and resources available to prosecute the war, while simultaneously enhancing the legitimacy of the operation. Yet these benefits may not actually be real: coalition warfare may increase the burden of fighting to the United States and decrease the likelihood of winning, while not enhancing the legitimacy of the operation at all.
Ironically, at the very time the United States faces substantial criticism at home and abroad for being overly unilateralist, more resources than ever have been committed to coordinating operations, strategy, and weaponry with U.S. coalition partners and allies.
In the 2006 National Security Strategy, George Bush stated that confronting the “challenges of our time” through multinational efforts with other democracies is one of the paramount pillars of U.S. security policy. These were not empty words: the coalitions in Afghanistan and Iraq were, at their respective peaks, among the largest ever forged to fight alongside the American military.
“Coalitions” and “wartime alliances” are two types of what we call “multinational operations,” which may also include other forms of multilateral cooperation, such as peacekeeping missions. By “coalition warfare” we mean wars fought by ad-hoc multinational forces that are forged to undertake a specific mission and then dissolved once that mission is complete. Coalitions operate in similar ways to “wartime alliances,” although the latter may have a greater degree of institutionalization and may pre-exist a specific wartime operation. In some cases, coalition partners are largely symbolic—such as the Moldovans in Iraq who have 12 troops on the ground. Sometimes the contribution is more significant, like the NATO partners in Afghanistan where there is more parity with U.S. troop deployments (see the accompanying chart from NATO).
indicates an external link 
