Should Nato RoEs be changed ?

On another site , an idiot posted a link supposed to show some of the French shortcomings during the Libyan campaign .
The article is in fact a good paper work and while it is true that France still come a bit short in some areas , the article also show how effective the French Ops were .
I will give the link in the end of this post .

Something called my attention :

Two additional aspects of operations as they moved forward were highlighted from the French point of view. First, the limitations placed on the operation curtailed the ability to succeed and enhanced the ability of Ghadafi to survive. And second, after the initial air operations, dynamic targeting was a central objective, and various problems in executing such targeting became evident.

The limitations were three fold.

First, rules of engagement were being proposed by the partners of France in NATO that were “ridiculous” to quote one French officer. “We received from NATO sources the directive that there were to be NO civilian casualties from our air strikes. My view was “why not just not do airstrikes.” We pushed back and insisted on something sane: “No excessive civilian casualties from NATO air strikes.”

And the second limitation was allowing Gadaffi to operate in a sanctuary in Libya. As one officer put it: “We wanted to destroy an airfield being used by Gadaffi to bring in mercenaries. We should have destroyed this airfield.” Third, the American contribution was much more limited than it needed to be. Another officer added “We had 4-5 areas to cover for the air operation; the Americans provided only two UAVs – Predators—which operated for only part of the day. We need to augment our own capabilities to be sure, but……”

And finally the operation underscored the challenge of “dynamic targeting.” The shift from destroying identifiable military equipment being used by the Libyan forces supporting Gadaffi to engaging forces on the ground countering the rebels required “dynamic targeting.” And this can only be done by situational awareness which allows aircraft to target elements blended with the population and this requires aircraft flying low, with close proximity weapons, with forces on the ground able to identify targets in a fluid situation. As a French officer put it: “We had difficulty getting authorization to fly low, we had limited close proximity weapons and we had severe limitations of forces on the ground able to identify accurate targets.”

I was NOT surprised a bit to read such statements by the French .
Why not ?
Because NATO ‘s RoE are dictated by the USA which are themselves (the rules) used by the USA . The way THEY fight (the USA) must be the way how the others must fight . 😮
Well , I am happy to see that some French Officials want to throw the US toys out of the pram , if I may say . Since the War in Bosnia (Kosovo and Co) , we have repeated to the USA times and times again that their RoE are not compatible with how we fight .
To put it simply , they are a bunch a cowboys who are setting up rules to avoid to be too much “cowboys” . They simply forget that they are the only cowboys around , shooting at everything who moves with all guns blazing .
The others are not behaving like that and should not obey to stupid rules designed to avoid being … cowboys .

Every time I had to deal with US military personal , I found it very difficult to write down or prepare a joint planning . If you somehow disagree with them , they will stand back , leaving you more or less alone and they will start to do things their way with very little regards of what you do .
I have been working closely with military personals from Denmark , Germany , Sweden and we all agree on one thing : they are a pain in the a** to work with because they want to lead absolutly everything from A to Z .

It is the size of the fight in the dog who is important , not the size of the dog . Because they are the biggest bunch , all the others should obey to THEIR rules . Pathetic if you ask me …
I am not anti-american , it is just that they should understand that they are not the best around when it comes to fighting and decision making .
But they don ‘t want to …:mad:

(the link) :
http://www.sldinfo.com/the-libyan-operation-comparing-the-french-and-usmc-experiences/

Cheers .